She'll only be attacking because that's her default mode. It's what her gang want and expect.
Some not in her gang will need to be persuaded she's lovely and cuddly. That puts doing something 'dramatic' in a perspective.
The poll? She won't be worried about that because she and Gerry know they are doing so, so much better. The big message from the poll is those who want National to have September voting matching this poll need to galvanise themselves, encourage others and get out and vote. And have no Labour MPs, candidates or members do anything dumb.
Looks like Gerry has been given the job of responding. Keeps the easily influenced from joining the dots. Expect to see Collins everywhere when the inevitably better numbers come from tvnz's poll on Thursday.
The numbers might be "rogue", but having grumpy Gerry all over the media in response will help to make them less rogue. Collins alienates people but can appeal to the base, but Brownlee just alienates.
Listening to Hosking is unusual for me but I tuned in at the beginning this morning to see if my predictions about what he'd say were right. I was partly wrong.
By and large he said the poll was a rogue one, the results were wrong and polls don't mean anything.
So having worked out it meant nothing, was irrelevant and was wrong he ignored it? Or made a one sentence comment? Hell no! Every sentence was the knife being turned and another bitter pill. And every further word and sentence he uttered made me feel good? Hell yes!
Never forget 84's real support is a disgusting 45 % and it will return as soon as a finger-click. Make hay while the sun shines for the greater good. Of course, Labour doesn't have 't'Cause' in their heart. Which is to say, anyone furious and with the words that follow that. Any soapbox socialist in the 30s. We need to persuade now again and all we have is orderly progressions to high office rather than righteous anger.
I wondered if that's what's happening too, that people have had a guts full. Covid changed a lot of things including NZ values I suspect. Maybe we're less inclined to tolerate the shady patriarch bullshit now that we've directly experienced what a compassionate govt will do when we are in trouble.
Peters has been pronounced politically dead so many times that I suspect his literal death will be followed by half the medical profession witholding judgement for two electoral terms, just to be sure.
Quizzed about Swarbrick's higher profile and name recognition, White told RNZ: "I'd ask them whether they're looking for a celebrity or someone to do this job very seriously." Today, Swarbrick returned fire with a pointed tweet. "Before I fought my way into @NZParliament with @NZGreens, I was dismissed as having no life experience," she wrote. "Now I've put my head down & done the work to huge results, & a candidate preferring themselves the front runner is using the same attacks against me that misogynists do our PM?"
Helen is just demonstrating how serious she is. Has she also demonstrated that she's serious about decriminalising cannabis? If not, time for her to pull finger. Serious lawyers can add value to parliament if they are credible…
It's White's lack of respect for Swarbrick that's the issue here. It's one thing to say that you believe you'd serve the electorate better than another candidate, but to say what White said, particularly about a candidate from a party that's kind of on your side, says more about the kind of person White is than anything else.
The Epsom sheep are so used to being mustered into the polling booth to vote for ACT that if the NP withdraws support for ACT, Goldsmith will have to fight really hard to get the seat back and return to parliament.
No I did not confuse the difference, I am very aware of how MMP works and don't need patronising. What I was implying was that the Epsom sheep would go into the polling booth on automatic and habitually put a tick by Act, and again automatically put a tick by party vote National.
I’m sorry to hear that you feel patronised. What I meant was that others may be confused when reading your comment, not that you don’t know the difference. You’d be surprised how many others still don’t seem to fully understand MMP. To be clear, Epsom voted for Seymour on the Candidate List and for National on the Party List.
The media are calling Nationals disater polls crushing ironically.
Collins released her massive infrastructure spend after saying we will be spending less than Labour but no costings other than a wild guess which was much higher than Labours spending.
Goldsmith contradicted Collins saying the are going to cut $8 billion in spending ,yet in Australia their liberal govt,Nationals equivalent Party is spending more than our Labour govt on Covid recovery.Goldsmith hasn't put a foot right yet.He is well out of his depth in how modern economics work.
Even Boris Johnsto has a better understanding if the polls are right it will do National a favour and he will be gone along with much other of the dead wood (house) of Dirty politics.
National need to get rid of the Farrers and Slaters Jordan William's etc and get some honest farmers and business people if they want to be taken seriously.Ditch the Carpet baggers associated with the tobacco alcohol and monopolists lobbyists.
Bridges said he didn't vote for Collins.
Then Falloon and Collins Dirty retaliation over a Moral lapse as opposed to Sexual Harrassment.
National have no one to blame except the pollsters.
JLR one of their ex MP's is going to release more damming info on National .
Crushed Collins sounds like it should be a cocktail. Something bloody with a sour after taste that leaves you wondering why this reminds you of an unpleasant experience you had decades ago: one you hoped never to have to experience again.
The structure of representative democracy forces participants into idiocy nowadays. Because of the binary oppositional political psychology it induces. Example:
government announced it was abolishing some of the country’s most nonsensical and restrictive planning rules. Phil Twyford and Julie Anne Genter’s new national policy statement on urban development stops councils imposing minimum parking requirements for new developments, and ensures they can’t restrict building heights to fewer than six storeys in town centres of major cities.
Clever of the coalition to defuse the Nat's primary weapon, eh? Bureaucratic throttling of kiwis is a long-standing problem, and National's declared intent to gut the RMA was likely to be a pseudo-solution.
But look at how binary framing makes their spokesperson come across as wacky instead of sensible. The system of representative democracy is inexorable in dumbing everyone down. We need psychologists in the media pointing this out, using examples such as the above.
Yeah and she soon changed her tune once she was overruled by her party’s Transport Spokesperson. Having an MP from one of the sprawling, thinly populated rural electorates in the South Island as your Urban Development Spokesperson kinda sums up how lost National is as far as the 21st century challenges facing us.
For ages now I have been wanting the team in red to do this kind of politicking, negate the opposition's barking points by doing a simpler, small example of what the Tories propose.
Jamie-Lee Ross coalesces with the Public Party and has to support their conspiracy theories. It sounds like the Red/Yellow Peril has raised its head again.
Funny how foreign enemies arise when things are not going well at home.
But, the real learning from this is the fact that Ross was National's chief whip and as such was very powerful in the party, and in sync with its MPs.
Now he allies with conspiracy theorists.
Where does National get these thirty something aged men with their loopy ideas and behaviour? National needs a time in the political wilderness to find and recover its soul, review its selection practices, rediscover decency and balance.
It looks like it will get it. Been saying this for a time, but National has further to travel down yet. When it hits bottom, then it might acknowledge its need for reform.
As working class boomer balancing on the poverty line, I've observed many elections, disappointed by most, but have had a reasonable personal record of predicting the outcomes. This time I have a shocker that will see the final death throes of the Nats, and not before time. Two main factors sway this for me.
1. The Covid 19 shock influence.
2. The Jacinda example.
Covid has impacted greatly on the politcal awareness for the young vote, the vote that has been predicted in the past, but had not transpired.
Young people have now awoken and they love to love, and they Love Jacinda, thus my shock prediction. Firstly not a big shock, but Auckland Central goes green. The big two shocks though, is Northland and Epsom go Labour along with marginal Country seats. Bye bye Act, NZFirst and National floundering in the doldrums. Ah Bliss.
Labour might come through the middle and take the party vote in the Epsom seat, but I don’t see the electorate vote for MP changing. That will probably stay with ACT.
Crushed Collins sounds like it should be a cocktail. Something bloody with a sour after taste that leaves you wondering why this reminds you of an unpleasant experience you had decades ago: one you hoped never to have to experience again.
They are remarkably similar, not just in consisting of pious waffle bereft of any new policy, but also in that the rhetoric is almost identical.
That's because marketing to mainstreamers only succeeds on the basis of the lowest common denominator of intelligence, and Labour & National compete by copying each other most of the time. Binary politics.
Bizarrely the fifth plank of Labour’s five-point plan is predicated on the assertion that it will be an export-led recovery, even though in the same speech Ardern acknowledged that the International Monetary Fund expects global output to fall by nearly 5% this year.
Yes, but Labour must cling to the neoliberal myth. Reality can be postponed for a while yet – until after the election. Why get real too soon? Myth-promotion is how elections get won. Even if the mana of the PM looks like winning this one, better safe than sorry.
The reality is, however, that the ebb tide already running on globalisation pre-Covid has only intensified. Trade Minister David Parker was scathing about the leaked initial offer from the European Union under that negotiation, while observers of US trade policy warn not to expect a return to the status quo
Will we see National campaigning on economic growth while faced with a global recession? Probably. Rethinking is just too hard.
Ah, yes, the government always goes back to mercantalism. That's what an 'export led recovery' is. Export more, import less and we'll have more money is the implication. They always imply such and then it never really materialises.
The poor keep getting poorer while the rich get richer.
What we really need is a development led recovery where we develop the capability to get by without imports. Then we'll likely see a decrease in poverty.
Korea had an interesting take on exporting – develop products in the local market to an international standard – that way locals don't get neglected the way NZ does. A customer base, any customer base, is a valuable tool for innovation, not just short term profit taking.
Concerning customer base, you are correct, especially your locals.
I learnt this as a publican in a small rural town. Look after the locals. They will see you through the winters and when the dairy pay-out hits the floor.
Perhaps a global solution of working towards "Commonism" the principle of pursuing the common good. ( No, not communism).
What if we stopped upholding the myth by continually tagging the political system as "neoliberalism " ; a concept long surpassed while we are distracted looking at a box hoping for Schrödinger’s cat to come out alive?
What if we opened the lid and saw the dirtier, greedier system that has mutated as the norm we truly let reign?
How do you pose correct solutions if we are fighting a misnomer? If we shift our gaze and name what really exists and that is an accepted creeping of neocapitalism ( eg. save AMI, South Canterbury Finance, Tiwai ?) and onto a global rise of necrocapitilism both overt and covert – dispossess then kill them off !
"Sometimes this manifests itself as a certain fixation of the gaze, even bedazzlement, and then there are attempts to restore the imaginary, untrue, and above all, impossible past, a style of politics and management… called retrotopia. Leaders, managers, and politicians act as if they wanted to turn back time, which is, in itself, an absurd strategy. The past they refer to is a sentimental, nostalgic image that has more to do with the world of fairy tales than real history: " https://biennalewarszawa.pl/en/zarzadzanie-w-swiecie-schrodingera/
Still, we have yet to see a tax policy from Labour, despite the need to service the rapidly mounting public debt it is piling up. Interest rates will not stay this low indefinitely, or it will be a very bad sign if they do.
Dammit, the government needs to stop borrowing and start simply creating the money that it needs.
Yes, put some rules around how much can be created in relation to the economy but a government should never, ever borrow as that just gives the rich a government guaranteed income.
Its cut-price recovery will be achieved by focusing on the quality of public spending, as if that had not occurred to any Government before.
National's cut price recovery will, of course, cost us a lot more but will make their funders a lot richer.
Those splinters are from the shells cracked to let the nuts out. Did COVID-19 crack the shells and accelerate the 'nutterisation' of the right? Smarter people than me will opine.
Ive been driving around lower middle NZ. one thing I have noticed, compared to three yrs ago, way less nat billboards out in the country. dont know whether its less volunteers to put them up and down, less money to spend(dont forget ,they would have spent $$$ on toddler billboards),or less cockies willing to look like tools.
Governments operate economic policy in accord with advice on prevalent influential economic theories. Sometimes the winds of intellectual fashion blow these theories away. Austerity theory, for instance.
In the middle of the last recession, the GFC, the Europeans were very worried about debt. Many took on a policy called austerity, which involved cutting spending. It caused economic growth to fall further, and the result was completely paradoxical in some cases.
They harmed their economic growth so much that it became harder to manage debt, rather than easier. Reducing government spending is like closing down factories. It costs jobs and hurts people.
The theory that austerity was the best policy was based on a lot of academic work, including a very famous academic paper by two Harvard economists called Reinhart and Rogoff. The paper came out in 2010 and it said debt was bad because it caused growth to be lower.
One person bothered to check their working, a young man in his 20s called Thomas Herndon. What he found is they made a mistake in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that totally undermined their conclusion. It took a while for people to pay attention to what young Mr Herndon was saying, but eventually they did. We can now move forward knowing that research is flawed: debt is not necessarily a problem.
The writer explains why the govt in Oz will steer through the pandemic-induced recession via cheap govt debt. Bernard Hickey was in the media here advising the same a couple of months back. The economics paradigm has shifted.
The fallacy is that constant economic growth is sustainable. It is not and hence we see the up and downs, the growth the recessions and worst still depression when too much money is printed with no value behind. Oh, is this not what the fed and other countries as well as NZ do?
At the moment we have National supporting charging for the quarantining of returning Kiwis, while the government is going through the process of examination of such a regime.
For mine, there should be no retrospective charging at all – thus any charging only occurs for those who leave New Zealand after it is introduced.
Perhaps those NZs should just regard it as part of the cost of exciting overseas travel. At least they can return to Paradise like the Prodigal Son (and Daughter). They have been able to get away and have some OE and should be helped when they get back. But like education these days, their trip overseas will cost; perhaps it should come under the heading of Overseas Education and it can be put down as a Student Loan. There is no reason why they shouldn't be expected to pay towards this extra cost that is caused by the pandemic.
Costs should be known before a decision is taken not afterwards.
Many have come back in already and faced no costs, why a change?
PS An option is having two streams – one for those not charged and another for those who are prepared to pay for the cost (we already require non Kiwis to pay charges for coming in – businesses meet the cost).
Uh, because us already here have already bitten the bullet and paid the price to achieve the COVID-eliminated status the new arrivals wish to benefit from, so it's only fair for them to contribute to the cost of maintaining that status?
The new arrivals do not have any choice whether to 'benefit' or not. The whole conversation is underpinned by long-cultivated neoliberal notions of 'user pays' but it seems to be more of an emotional rather than logical attachment.
It might not be a viewpoint that's appealing (and personally I'm somewhat closer to to the view that returning is a right that should be able to be freely exercised without incurring a huge cost), but it's neither illogical nor emotional. It's simply one of those things on a continuum where reasonable minds may differ.
Sacha
No, it is underpinned by the rights of taxpayers who are basically being blackmailed to fork out the money for expats to resettle and god only knows for how long. Once all is clear, most will bugger off again and kiwis living here have to pay their millions. Lets say, like the education loan that many never paid back?
Since when is the tax paid by those who have contributed their share to maintain NZ health, education and infrastructure a free meal ticket with no accountability? Really, seriously?
Taxpayers are the people who are working here in NZ, many on minimum wage. My point is that their rights to a fair return is far greater than expats wanting to go home, many to get a benefit that is not available to them in the country of their choosing. At what point is the payers benefit a user pay to those who have not contributed?
A lot of people I know are out of pocket a shitload more than $3000 from the lockdown, even after government assistance. As well as all the other less tangible costs. So I find it quite easy to see where people are coming from when they think arrivals should be expected to cover their costs. Even if I think the counterargument has more merit.
Many have paid with their job or reduced hours, part time instead of full time. And we only saw the beginning. Just wait until end of September. We will see double digit unemployment figures.
Yep. And imagine being charged $3,000 on top of that. There seems to be a perception that people overseas wanting to return home are well off and have jobs. I'd like to see some analysis of who is coming home and their situation.
Weka, I meant the Kiwis here in NZ.
Expats have been overseas for years and coming home because of job losses and not getting any benefit in the country they have earned and paid taxes. On the suspicion of sounding cruel, NZ is in debt by billions of dollars, many people who have been living here, paying their fair share into the Government coffers and are entitled to assistance are now being asked to pay for those who could not be bothered to contribute. Not only are we now being "asked" to pay 3 k for each returnee, no no no that is not the end of it, we now will have to pay a benefit too. Maybe that comes on top of the unpaid education loan from years back? Sorry, but it is fair to ask of those "coming home" to pay their isolation cost. You will be surprised how many people are actually quite aback with the audacity to "sue" the government because they don't cough up the money. I have my own thoughts on that…
overall, it's a pissy little cost to bother with, in my opinion. And even if it were substantial, I don't have a problem with the govt paying it for a couple of years until we have a clear picture of things like vaccines and effective treatments coming online.
It's the humane thing to do, and it's also a good way to keep the economy and hotels operating. A multi-thousand-dollar fee is a barrier to entry more than the isolation itself. And govt iso at least figures out pretty quickly when someone's done a bunk (and keeps the rate low).
I know. I was pointing out that Kiwis overseas who lost their job because of covid might have to pay $3,000 on top of that. Why them and not the Kiwis at home that lost their jobs? I don't get why they are being judged differently.
Or we could head down the aussie route. I'm sure I saw a story where the inwards numbers allowed were so small the airlines sold only business and first class seats. Maybe charges pro rata to the airfare?
Why did you use a dehumanising label, just one of those " Eco Maori " is he ? In recent rhetoric about Billy Te Kahika has also been other tags as one type of tactic to blank and cancel out a right in a democracy to have a voice. Rebel, radical, extreme… a joke guy that Billy T James would've mocked. Truly?
Yes, it is more than Te Tai Tokerau. It's millions globally asking for justice, self-determination and the return of their stolen assets.
Is Gutteres, Secretary-General UN one of those Eco radicals too when he points out that just 26 of the richest people in the world hold as much wealth as half the global population of 8 billion people?
Ouch! What is 'disunify'ing in calling out on tags that subversively nullify others, even if it's inadvertent? Applying a blanket name with a peg on your nose, to dismiss others such as those "____________" over there, is an underlying factor creating inequality.
Calling " jerk " ( same tactic ) doesn't make entrenched prejudices go away.
Calling for my demise to go underground is ironical in that the same maggots that will eat me once dead won't be discriminating and will feast on you too.
That depends on how you view being told how to avoid repeating an error, yet using it as outlined above, removes misunderstandings and subsequent retaliatory tit for tat posts.
I'm not the greatest with grammar and punctuation, and I welcome all thoughtful, well intended correction.
A little gentle jesting is something that regular commenters can add for spice to tease or joust, I think. It's all a matter of striking the right balance. And wouldn't it be good if we all mainly looked outwards at the wide issues and left the fine unpicking to those who want to pick oakum.*
I have been reading Anne Perry and the punishments and jobs for the unemployed they dished out in old Victorian times, which may be revived in some highly developed countries! Now that's a mighty leap – from the downward direction of contentious people's comments, to the downward gaze of a workhouse resident earning their daily meal.
* Oakum–picking was the teasing out of fibres from old ropes and was very hard on the fingers. The loose fibres were often sold to ship-builders for mixing with tar to seal the lining of wooden craft. They could also be used to make matting or bandaging.
I agree but some comments are so hard to parse that we either have to make assumptions or take them through the gobbledygook reverse-translator. None of this makes for good debate.
To be fair…I thought GreyWS was asking the question to a regular TS commentor called Eco Maori.
I tried to listen to an interview of Billy on talkback, but sean plunket was talking too much.
My take on it….. people who are against the system often don't vote, we've seen it before with the internet party. Part of the reason is a reluctance to share their personal details.
What a fascinating election it's turning into, jlr and Billy hooking up, what the actual? Talk about polar opposites, keep your eyes wide open Billy.
I'd probably have all sorts of problems with what Billy Te Kahika is saying if I looked more closely, but I know people that are into what he is talking about, and it's a big mistake for the left/progressives to ridicule them, call them nutters, and think they will just somehow disappear as a part of the culture rather than growing.
Is she going to ask the PM if he paid for his ‘managed isolation’ on Manus Island and if not, why not? I’m sure this is the burning question that’s on the mind of Kiwis and keeps them awake at night. What other reason could Mushy Collins have for asking patsypesky questions during QT in Parliament?
Been thinking about that Op leader going on about crushing Fairy/star dust.Instead of being a blow hard,she needs a vaccum because all she will manage is the spreading of good will to more of the people,truely short sighted an most deffinitely not PM material.
Best part of the article is media continuing to use the photo of Judith wearing her MAGA hat ( albeit a blue one) then her Trumpism comes out, "He seems to me to have come here on a very dodgy idea of some sort of author's visa or something. Well I'm an author too, and I can tell you I don't think anyone's going to give me a special visa."
A mind like lightning. One quick flash of light and then darkness.
“They all eat, they all love me, they all kiss my ass,” Trump reportedly told journalist Timothy O’Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. “And then they all leave and say, ‘Isn’t he horrible.’ But I’m the king.”
I'd like to see Collins write a book using a smuggled smart phone. She has such poor insight into why a person in detention on Manus Island for years would want to return there after writing a book about the harsh conditions.
Maybe some of the conditions in Collin's recent book were of her own making and her choice to write about her parliamentary life.
And hopefully the government will take the opportunity to remind us all that the government Collins was part of gave Peter Thiel full citizenship in about 12 days, no questions asked.
Hopefully there won't have to be further episodes – by now I'm hopefully that 'nice' guys' outwardly, aren't necessarily nice people – be they politicians, senior public servants or anyone else pushing their own agendas above all else.
Hypocrisy and double standards that have become the Normal Normal it seems. Things like moralising, judging and conflating the concepts of arranged marriages and forced marriages on the one hand whilst all the while getting ones rocks off over a conference call to the woifey and whanau with a bit on the side on the other.
Thankfully Labour have a few more 'decent blokes and blokessess' to hold it all together, and there's always the Greens to fall back on. Let's hope it doesn't take any more episodes because they'd be liable to get very seedy. It might be time for the senior ranks of the public service to have a bit of a hydroxycloroclean – even if it needs to trickle down
I found that article a bit under researched and some what over emotional.
It added together the student visa's which were just an income earning scam for dodgy private education providers and have only existed since National brought them in, the young under 30 visa's for international travel which have never really been seen as a residency pathway, the RSE visas which are seasonal (and there has been help & repatriation on offer here) plus the other visa's and only around 10,000 of these have been here for over 5 years usually on a motley collection of short term visa's.
Frankly the ire would be better directed at the employer sponsored visa's who used them for cheap labour or some level of scam then walked away from them, the national party who decided to use visa's to bid down employment wages and conditions for all or the businesses who can't be bothered to train and educate available youth.
Our Neets unemployment is huge, in part because visa workers mean that the labour force in the early entry years of employment is swollen by half as much (50,000 becomes 75000) .
Lastly if most of the central Auckland electorate is not native born that is colonisation rather than immigration and services are clearly not being provided to the wider community at any level.
"I found that article a bit under researched and some what over emotional."
Unfortunately if Mr Fonseka were to begin to describe his research, it'd require a book, and I'll excuse the emotion considering the damage some immigrants have suffered due to NZ's oh-so-suphusticated best practice policies. And it's not as if people haven't been warning the government of the complete bugger's muddle of things for over the lifetime of the current government.
Hopefully Faafoi is merely a placeholder as well, even if he is a damn site more ethical and less sleazy
I do realise that some individuals have suffered damage but conflating all the various visa types into one "wrong" doesn't help his story. The student who got stuck here while in holiday transit, could go home but now wants a work visa is a long way from the 10,000 who have been here a considerable time. But plenty of the non migrant population are suffering too.
And I do agree NZ has had dreadful settings (pretty much under all the right wing governments since 1990 who just wanted to bid down the employment market). Prior to covid, Labour was gradually deflating the visa market, putting an income limit in was one, plus moving up the course and study limits and providing training for Neets. Then there are the employer sponsored – who should sort out their own mess not dump it on others.
Labour didn't have the margin in the polls to move faster but now everything has hit at once and they are having to deal with a 20-30 year backlog of poor policy and decisions balancing fairness and local jobs and welfare payments plus employer (& scam) situations.
The only other comment I found odd was the one "doing us a favour". Err if it's for our benefit then umm why the desperation to stay.
And for the record I have seen several arranged marriages. Female autonomy in the decision was varied – from basically none to a lot- but I wonder if this point of view occurs to the males who benefit from the process.
This morning, Collins told Magic Talk she would not have sacked Iain Lees-Galloway for having an affair.
"That's between him and his spouse".
She added that when she passed on the information to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, she did not know herself he was accused of an affair – but she accused the PM of knowing prior to their conversation.
"I didn't know anything about it, I think she probably did."
But when asked this afternoon if she thought Ardern had lied, she said: "No I'm saying that I did not know. I simply said to her that I've had a message from someone, an email, saying that they had some information that is even worse than what has come out about our then-MP and I passed it to her and she asked me who it was about and I said, 'Ian Lees-Galloway'.
"I did not have the detail and I said I didn't want to receive the detail and I asked them to contact her office.
"And when I said 'It's Iain Lees-Galloway', she said 'Oh yes, right'."
When asked if the implication was that Ardern had "joined the dots because she already knew about the affair", Collins said: "I didn't know about the affair and I'm not interested in all the grubby details. It's not my business. She needs to front up with what she meant by 'an abuse of office' and frankly that's for her to answer. I'm not her minder and if I was, she would be much better at her job."
Pressed again, she said again: "She said to me 'Who is it?' And I said 'It's about Iain Lees-Galloway' and she said, 'Oh yes' and then she walked off. So we arranged for me to make sure that everything went to her.
This is truly baffling stuff from Judith and raises many questions about her version of events:
1) Why did she bail up the Prime Minister on the floor of parliament to tell her about a vague allegation against ILG of which she had no knowledge of the substance?
2) Who is this informant that she trusted enough to warrant telling the Prime Minister about such a vague allegation that ILG had done something "even worse" than what Falloon had done?
3) Does she accept her informant is a liar or at least has a very skewed moral compass given that she is now saying that she would not have fired ILG for doing something which the informant had said supposed to be "much worse" than what Falloon had done?
4) Is she not used to people replying "Oh yes, right" and walking away for the sake of ending the conversation and getting away from her? Not because they have the faintest idea of what she is talking about.
5) How did they arrange for the informant to go directly to the Prime Minister (as he must have if Judith did not know the content of the allegation until it was publicly released) if the full extent of the conversation was the Prime Minister saying "Oh yes, right" and walking off? Unless the reference to “we” is her office.
6) Is she really suggesting that the Prime Minister was dumb enough to go and fire ILG without bothering to wait for the informant to contact her with the details of the allegation, and then deny she knew about it until the informant contacted her? Or did the Prime Minister just go and tell ILG about her vague conversation with Judith and ILG, knowing that the game was up based on absolutely nothing, immediately spilled his guts about the affair and handed in his resignation?
Simple. Collins is trying to justify that she is not the CAUSE of ILG being drawn and quartered by her FILTHY politics.
The problem with the ILG resignation is that it was done to take responsibility for the high standard the PM sets for her ministers. ILG would not have resigned were there not an election in 8 weeks.
Rowling did not stand up to Muldoon over what was done to Moyle 5 November 1975.
Ardern needs to put ILG on the party list and tell Collins that Ardern is holding an inquiry into Collins emailer.
Collins is trying to prove she is so righteous when she needs to front up about what her true intention was, to improve her ratings by damaging a Labour minister.
Never mind the family of ILG. Being a teenager is not easy when your parent is a minister or a leader.
Haha. Yeah, Gerry has been pretty much off the rails today. I’d be amazed if he managed to claw back even one vote from Labour. And another day goes by where the Nats are really just talking about themselves (what ring road in Palmy?).
I think we're so used to saying "Why are they doing this? There must be a devious plan, what is it, what are they up to?". Especially after years of National discipline and message control.
But sometimes it's just a mess. This is one of those times. Like when it's your last day in a job, and you might as well get drunk and photocopy your butt.
The PM can’t win. One moment she has too much airtime, the next she’s a part-time PM.
I don’t mind giving Judith and Gerry more airtime but could they please keep their mouths shut when they’re on air or camera. It will be an improvement for them as well as for the public AKA a win-win. Thanks in advance.
Plastic are a problem that needs to be sorted start by charging the prouduce of plastic a fee and recycle and remanufacture the stuff ourselves creating jobs in Aotearoa.
Congratulations. Paris
Not just twins it's better to treat all your offspring equally.
‘It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.’ GoetheI was struck at a recent conference on equity for the elderly, how many presenters implicitly relied upon Statistics New Zealand. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveReporting on defence spending late last year, RNZ said the coalition government will have to make some tough calls this term to help the force address staff shortages and ageing infrastructure. “These are huge, huge amounts of government spending. It’s a significant proportion of the government’s ...
Peter Dunne writes – I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure. According to the legislation, the role of the Controller ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought NZ to the brink of economic and cultural chaos Chris Trotter writes – TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition ...
And why did the Crown not challenge the Tribunal’s jurisdiction? Gary Judd writes – Retired District Court Judge, David Harvey, has posted on his A Halflings View Substack an excellent summary of Justice Isacs’ judgment declining to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result?As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and ...
Macklemore isn’t someone I’d usually think about. Sure I liked his big hit from a few years back, everybody did it was catchy and cool with some memorable lines. But if I was going to think of artists who might speak out on political matters or world events, he wouldn’t ...
Another week goes by in the Luxon government’s efforts to roll back the past 70 years of social progress. The school lunches programme is to be downgraded by $107 million, and women need bother their heads no longer about pay equity, let alone expect ACC to provide adequate sexual violence ...
Brrr, the first cold snap of the year. Hope you’re rugged up nice and warm. Here are some stories that caught our eye this week… This Week on Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a post from a new contributor, Connor Sharp, who dug into the public feedback ...
Almost all of the Wellington City Council’s recommended zoning changes to allow many more apartments and townhouses in its inner-suburbs have been approved.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guest on geopolitics, ...
Open access notablesA Global Increase in Nearshore Tropical Cyclone Intensification, Balaguru et al., Earth's Future:Tropical Cyclones (TCs) inflict substantial coastal damages, making it pertinent to understand changing storm characteristics in the important nearshore region. Past work examined several aspects of TCs relevant for impacts in coastal regions. However, ...
Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result? As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and always answered “yes”, with very few ...
Thus far May has followed on from a quiet April in the blogging department, but in fairness, it has been another case of doing what I am supposed to be doing, namely writing original fiction. Plus reading. So don’t worry – I have been productive. But in order to reassure ...
Buzz from the Beehive A new government agency will open for business on July 1 – the Social Investment Agency. As a new standalone central agency effective from 1 July, it will lead the development of social investment across Government, helping ministers understand who they need to invest in, what ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The ...
Alwyn Poole writes – After being elected to Parliament in 2008 the maiden speech of Hipkins was substantially around education policy. He was Labour’s spokesperson for education 2011 – 2017. He was Minister for Education from 2017 until February 2023. This is approximately 88% of the time Labour ...
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
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. ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
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How will Judith respond to last night's poll? She can't just let it go, she will have to attack.
Bound to be dramatic…
She'll only be attacking because that's her default mode. It's what her gang want and expect.
Some not in her gang will need to be persuaded she's lovely and cuddly. That puts doing something 'dramatic' in a perspective.
The poll? She won't be worried about that because she and Gerry know they are doing so, so much better. The big message from the poll is those who want National to have September voting matching this poll need to galvanise themselves, encourage others and get out and vote. And have no Labour MPs, candidates or members do anything dumb.
Looks like Gerry has been given the job of responding. Keeps the easily influenced from joining the dots. Expect to see Collins everywhere when the inevitably better numbers come from tvnz's poll on Thursday.
The numbers might be "rogue", but having grumpy Gerry all over the media in response will help to make them less rogue. Collins alienates people but can appeal to the base, but Brownlee just alienates.
Wonder if they have anyone else they trust enough to wheel out instead?
They've still got one Todd left, 3rd time lucky?
'Rogue' maybe. "Rouge' definitely.
There's always one. Lets hope we've seen it happen already and there will no more.
As the ILG brouhaha showed, Labour MPs can't have done anything wrong in the short to medium distance past, let alone in the next few weeks.
Interesting how the MSM will behave. Do they allow her bluster or question her ability and judgement over the non bounce in polling.
They're claiming that their polls have a 10% swing from Labour to National, so around 50% to 35% instead of 60% to 25%.
Pretty dire if that's all they can claim
It's the only performance metric that counts for their caucus – how many of them have to find a new job after the election.
I wonder if Duncan Garner will be declaring his own network’s poll a rogue this morning on behalf of Judith?
Radio silence possibly from Dunky–our local Nat patsy question champ, “Happy Days” to Hosking too!
Listening to Hosking is unusual for me but I tuned in at the beginning this morning to see if my predictions about what he'd say were right. I was partly wrong.
By and large he said the poll was a rogue one, the results were wrong and polls don't mean anything.
So having worked out it meant nothing, was irrelevant and was wrong he ignored it? Or made a one sentence comment? Hell no! Every sentence was the knife being turned and another bitter pill. And every further word and sentence he uttered made me feel good? Hell yes!
Never forget 84's real support is a disgusting 45 % and it will return as soon as a finger-click. Make hay while the sun shines for the greater good. Of course, Labour doesn't have 't'Cause' in their heart. Which is to say, anyone furious and with the words that follow that. Any soapbox socialist in the 30s. We need to persuade now again and all we have is orderly progressions to high office rather than righteous anger.
Winston's grandstanding NZ has had a guts full and are not taking anymore of him. Shane Jones has turned supporters off every time he opens his mouth.
I wondered if that's what's happening too, that people have had a guts full. Covid changed a lot of things including NZ values I suspect. Maybe we're less inclined to tolerate the shady patriarch bullshit now that we've directly experienced what a compassionate govt will do when we are in trouble.
otoh, Peters is the master of the bounce back, so let's wait and see. Otooh, it's not the first time he's misjudged the electorate.
Peters has been pronounced politically dead so many times that I suspect his literal death will be followed by half the medical profession witholding judgement for two electoral terms, just to be sure.
😆
Helen the lawyer vs Chloe the celeb: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12351075
Helen is just demonstrating how serious she is. Has she also demonstrated that she's serious about decriminalising cannabis? If not, time for her to pull finger. Serious lawyers can add value to parliament if they are credible…
Why would a lawyer want to decriminalise anything?
because it's the right thing to do.
Fair enough, that's a hallmark of lawyers.
maybe that's a reflection of the lawyers you know?
Lawyers are fine – it's only the 99% that give the rest a bad name you need to watch out for.
[most lawyers I’ve mentioned this joke to think it’s hilarious for some reason!]
It's White's lack of respect for Swarbrick that's the issue here. It's one thing to say that you believe you'd serve the electorate better than another candidate, but to say what White said, particularly about a candidate from a party that's kind of on your side, says more about the kind of person White is than anything else.
The Epsom sheep are so used to being mustered into the polling booth to vote for ACT that if the NP withdraws support for ACT, Goldsmith will have to fight really hard to get the seat back and return to parliament.
Nope. The party vote in Epsom went to National and only 696 voted for ACT. You confuse it with the candidate vote.
https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/electorate-details-12.html
No I did not confuse the difference, I am very aware of how MMP works and don't need patronising. What I was implying was that the Epsom sheep would go into the polling booth on automatic and habitually put a tick by Act, and again automatically put a tick by party vote National.
I’m sorry to hear that you feel patronised. What I meant was that others may be confused when reading your comment, not that you don’t know the difference. You’d be surprised how many others still don’t seem to fully understand MMP. To be clear, Epsom voted for Seymour on the Candidate List and for National on the Party List.
HTH and have a nice day.
national naked
For all their Wealth, their grandeur, their extraordinary strange behaviours, national has entirely ruined it's persona and standing.
At what point do nicknames change?
Are we at the point when the Crusher becomes the Crushed?
The media are calling Nationals disater polls crushing ironically.
Collins released her massive infrastructure spend after saying we will be spending less than Labour but no costings other than a wild guess which was much higher than Labours spending.
Goldsmith contradicted Collins saying the are going to cut $8 billion in spending ,yet in Australia their liberal govt,Nationals equivalent Party is spending more than our Labour govt on Covid recovery.Goldsmith hasn't put a foot right yet.He is well out of his depth in how modern economics work.
Even Boris Johnsto has a better understanding if the polls are right it will do National a favour and he will be gone along with much other of the dead wood (house) of Dirty politics.
National need to get rid of the Farrers and Slaters Jordan William's etc and get some honest farmers and business people if they want to be taken seriously.Ditch the Carpet baggers associated with the tobacco alcohol and monopolists lobbyists.
Bridges said he didn't vote for Collins.
Then Falloon and Collins Dirty retaliation over a Moral lapse as opposed to Sexual Harrassment.
National have no one to blame except the pollsters.
JLR one of their ex MP's is going to release more damming info on National .
Crushed Collins sounds like it should be a cocktail. Something bloody with a sour after taste that leaves you wondering why this reminds you of an unpleasant experience you had decades ago: one you hoped never to have to experience again.
Sorry, but NZ's all out.
The structure of representative democracy forces participants into idiocy nowadays. Because of the binary oppositional political psychology it induces. Example:
Clever of the coalition to defuse the Nat's primary weapon, eh? Bureaucratic throttling of kiwis is a long-standing problem, and National's declared intent to gut the RMA was likely to be a pseudo-solution.
But look at how binary framing makes their spokesperson come across as wacky instead of sensible. The system of representative democracy is inexorable in dumbing everyone down. We need psychologists in the media pointing this out, using examples such as the above.
You seem to be building a rather large thing out of one provincial dunce out of her depth. Sometimes a fool is just a fool.
Yeah and she soon changed her tune once she was overruled by her party’s Transport Spokesperson. Having an MP from one of the sprawling, thinly populated rural electorates in the South Island as your Urban Development Spokesperson kinda sums up how lost National is as far as the 21st century challenges facing us.
I heard the cost of putting in a car park to a build was 50 k.
If it’s in an underground parking basement the cost can get up to 70k per car park.
They hate public transport, cycle lanes and car free urban spaces beloved by the modern cities of the world.
The love of cars, extending to car parks – is making this party the dinosaurs of the age.
Great example Dennis, thanks.
For ages now I have been wanting the team in red to do this kind of politicking, negate the opposition's barking points by doing a simpler, small example of what the Tories propose.
1. With the dissolution of parliament on 12 August does this mean that a caucus will no longer have their weekly meeting?
2. If so, then how does a political party mobilise and tweak their strategy and manifesto?
3. Do the MPs who are resigning work from their electorate office right up until the election?
I do realise there are election debates and press releases.
12 August will probably be a day of relief for some in the National Party.
Jamie-Lee Ross coalesces with the Public Party and has to support their conspiracy theories. It sounds like the Red/Yellow Peril has raised its head again.
Funny how foreign enemies arise when things are not going well at home.
But, the real learning from this is the fact that Ross was National's chief whip and as such was very powerful in the party, and in sync with its MPs.
Now he allies with conspiracy theorists.
Where does National get these thirty something aged men with their loopy ideas and behaviour? National needs a time in the political wilderness to find and recover its soul, review its selection practices, rediscover decency and balance.
It looks like it will get it. Been saying this for a time, but National has further to travel down yet. When it hits bottom, then it might acknowledge its need for reform.
As working class boomer balancing on the poverty line, I've observed many elections, disappointed by most, but have had a reasonable personal record of predicting the outcomes. This time I have a shocker that will see the final death throes of the Nats, and not before time. Two main factors sway this for me.
1. The Covid 19 shock influence.
2. The Jacinda example.
Covid has impacted greatly on the politcal awareness for the young vote, the vote that has been predicted in the past, but had not transpired.
Young people have now awoken and they love to love, and they Love Jacinda, thus my shock prediction. Firstly not a big shock, but Auckland Central goes green. The big two shocks though, is Northland and Epsom go Labour along with marginal Country seats. Bye bye Act, NZFirst and National floundering in the doldrums. Ah Bliss.
Labour might come through the middle and take the party vote in the Epsom seat, but I don’t see the electorate vote for MP changing. That will probably stay with ACT.
Nice one, good to see some thinking outside the box.
I've been wondering if National will drop below 20%. How far can the go?
18% my low for them.
32% my high for them.
Crushed Collins sounds like it should be a cocktail. Something bloody with a sour after taste that leaves you wondering why this reminds you of an unpleasant experience you had decades ago: one you hoped never to have to experience again.
A Tom Collins, hold the sweetening, add bitters.
Two weeks ago Brian Fallow (ex-economics editor, NZH) published this appraisal comparing the economic recovery plans of National & Labour: https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/106021/brian-fallow-examines-economic-priorities-outlined-so-far-leaders-two-main-political
That's because marketing to mainstreamers only succeeds on the basis of the lowest common denominator of intelligence, and Labour & National compete by copying each other most of the time. Binary politics.
Yes, but Labour must cling to the neoliberal myth. Reality can be postponed for a while yet – until after the election. Why get real too soon? Myth-promotion is how elections get won. Even if the mana of the PM looks like winning this one, better safe than sorry.
Will we see National campaigning on economic growth while faced with a global recession? Probably. Rethinking is just too hard.
Well if we're importing even less than we're exporting, that'll work in praxis, eh.
Ah, yes, the government always goes back to mercantalism. That's what an 'export led recovery' is. Export more, import less and we'll have more money is the implication. They always imply such and then it never really materialises.
The poor keep getting poorer while the rich get richer.
What we really need is a development led recovery where we develop the capability to get by without imports. Then we'll likely see a decrease in poverty.
Korea had an interesting take on exporting – develop products in the local market to an international standard – that way locals don't get neglected the way NZ does. A customer base, any customer base, is a valuable tool for innovation, not just short term profit taking.
Concerning customer base, you are correct, especially your locals.
I learnt this as a publican in a small rural town. Look after the locals. They will see you through the winters and when the dairy pay-out hits the floor.
Perhaps a global solution of working towards "Commonism" the principle of pursuing the common good. ( No, not communism).
What if we stopped upholding the myth by continually tagging the political system as "neoliberalism " ; a concept long surpassed while we are distracted looking at a box hoping for Schrödinger’s cat to come out alive?
What if we opened the lid and saw the dirtier, greedier system that has mutated as the norm we truly let reign?
How do you pose correct solutions if we are fighting a misnomer? If we shift our gaze and name what really exists and that is an accepted creeping of neocapitalism ( eg. save AMI, South Canterbury Finance, Tiwai ?) and onto a global rise of necrocapitilism both overt and covert – dispossess then kill them off !
From neoliberalism to necrocapitalism in 20 years
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/neoliberalism-necrocapitalism-20-years-200715082702159.html
"Sometimes this manifests itself as a certain fixation of the gaze, even bedazzlement, and then there are attempts to restore the imaginary, untrue, and above all, impossible past, a style of politics and management… called retrotopia. Leaders, managers, and politicians act as if they wanted to turn back time, which is, in itself, an absurd strategy. The past they refer to is a sentimental, nostalgic image that has more to do with the world of fairy tales than real history: "
https://biennalewarszawa.pl/en/zarzadzanie-w-swiecie-schrodingera/
Dammit, the government needs to stop borrowing and start simply creating the money that it needs.
Yes, put some rules around how much can be created in relation to the economy but a government should never, ever borrow as that just gives the rich a government guaranteed income.
National's cut price recovery will, of course, cost us a lot more but will make their funders a lot richer.
driving around in middle nuzillind
lots of hanna tamaki billboards – homes and jobs
lots of new conservatie billboards – free speech, right to guns, all lives matter (yes)
some maori party billboards – vote for me / trust me
some nz first party billboards – drove by to fast to see the message underneath
lots of national/candidate billboards – vote national
and a fair consistent labour /candidate billboards – keep moving
will be interesting to see how this will work out with all the new splinter groups on the right
"with all the new splinter groups on the right"
Those splinters are from the shells cracked to let the nuts out. Did COVID-19 crack the shells and accelerate the 'nutterisation' of the right? Smarter people than me will opine.
comment of the day.AB
Ive been driving around lower middle NZ. one thing I have noticed, compared to three yrs ago, way less nat billboards out in the country. dont know whether its less volunteers to put them up and down, less money to spend(dont forget ,they would have spent $$$ on toddler billboards),or less cockies willing to look like tools.
Governments operate economic policy in accord with advice on prevalent influential economic theories. Sometimes the winds of intellectual fashion blow these theories away. Austerity theory, for instance.
The writer explains why the govt in Oz will steer through the pandemic-induced recession via cheap govt debt. Bernard Hickey was in the media here advising the same a couple of months back. The economics paradigm has shifted.
The fallacy is that constant economic growth is sustainable. It is not and hence we see the up and downs, the growth the recessions and worst still depression when too much money is printed with no value behind. Oh, is this not what the fed and other countries as well as NZ do?
As expected, Duncan Garner's Newshub whinge is sour and sulky.
A vegan lifestyle change for a year will sort him out!
At the moment we have National supporting charging for the quarantining of returning Kiwis, while the government is going through the process of examination of such a regime.
For mine, there should be no retrospective charging at all – thus any charging only occurs for those who leave New Zealand after it is introduced.
Perhaps those NZs should just regard it as part of the cost of exciting overseas travel. At least they can return to Paradise like the Prodigal Son (and Daughter). They have been able to get away and have some OE and should be helped when they get back. But like education these days, their trip overseas will cost; perhaps it should come under the heading of Overseas Education and it can be put down as a Student Loan. There is no reason why they shouldn't be expected to pay towards this extra cost that is caused by the pandemic.
Costs should be known before a decision is taken not afterwards.
Many have come back in already and faced no costs, why a change?
PS An option is having two streams – one for those not charged and another for those who are prepared to pay for the cost (we already require non Kiwis to pay charges for coming in – businesses meet the cost).
Quarantine is for the benefit of us already here, not the traveller. How does it make sense to charge them for it?
Uh, because us already here have already bitten the bullet and paid the price to achieve the COVID-eliminated status the new arrivals wish to benefit from, so it's only fair for them to contribute to the cost of maintaining that status?
The new arrivals do not have any choice whether to 'benefit' or not. The whole conversation is underpinned by long-cultivated neoliberal notions of 'user pays' but it seems to be more of an emotional rather than logical attachment.
It might not be a viewpoint that's appealing (and personally I'm somewhat closer to to the view that returning is a right that should be able to be freely exercised without incurring a huge cost), but it's neither illogical nor emotional. It's simply one of those things on a continuum where reasonable minds may differ.
What's logical about mis-identifying the 'user' if promoting user-pays?
Not gonna be baited into your framing.
What, that asking returnees to pay quarantine costs is about user-pays? How is that controversial?
Sacha
No, it is underpinned by the rights of taxpayers who are basically being blackmailed to fork out the money for expats to resettle and god only knows for how long. Once all is clear, most will bugger off again and kiwis living here have to pay their millions. Lets say, like the education loan that many never paid back?
Since when is the tax paid by those who have contributed their share to maintain NZ health, education and infrastructure a free meal ticket with no accountability? Really, seriously?
Taxpayers' rights? I believe you are making my point.
Taxpayers are the people who are working here in NZ, many on minimum wage. My point is that their rights to a fair return is far greater than expats wanting to go home, many to get a benefit that is not available to them in the country of their choosing. At what point is the payers benefit a user pay to those who have not contributed?
We didn't have to pay $3,000 to go into lock down though, so the cost of that was spread amongst everyone.
A lot of people I know are out of pocket a shitload more than $3000 from the lockdown, even after government assistance. As well as all the other less tangible costs. So I find it quite easy to see where people are coming from when they think arrivals should be expected to cover their costs. Even if I think the counterargument has more merit.
I agree with you, just noting the larger resonance of any conversation in NZ about user pays.
And if they are coming home for a holiday,ie short term travellers.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2007/S00227/international-arrivals-in-may-lowest-in-61-years.htm
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/122184704/coronavirus-isolation-experience-at-hamilton-hotel-leaves-guest-impressed
Weka
Many have paid with their job or reduced hours, part time instead of full time. And we only saw the beginning. Just wait until end of September. We will see double digit unemployment figures.
Yep. And imagine being charged $3,000 on top of that. There seems to be a perception that people overseas wanting to return home are well off and have jobs. I'd like to see some analysis of who is coming home and their situation.
Weka, I meant the Kiwis here in NZ.
Expats have been overseas for years and coming home because of job losses and not getting any benefit in the country they have earned and paid taxes. On the suspicion of sounding cruel, NZ is in debt by billions of dollars, many people who have been living here, paying their fair share into the Government coffers and are entitled to assistance are now being asked to pay for those who could not be bothered to contribute. Not only are we now being "asked" to pay 3 k for each returnee, no no no that is not the end of it, we now will have to pay a benefit too. Maybe that comes on top of the unpaid education loan from years back? Sorry, but it is fair to ask of those "coming home" to pay their isolation cost. You will be surprised how many people are actually quite aback with the audacity to "sue" the government because they don't cough up the money. I have my own thoughts on that…
overall, it's a pissy little cost to bother with, in my opinion. And even if it were substantial, I don't have a problem with the govt paying it for a couple of years until we have a clear picture of things like vaccines and effective treatments coming online.
It's the humane thing to do, and it's also a good way to keep the economy and hotels operating. A multi-thousand-dollar fee is a barrier to entry more than the isolation itself. And govt iso at least figures out pretty quickly when someone's done a bunk (and keeps the rate low).
"Weka, I meant the Kiwis here in NZ."
I know. I was pointing out that Kiwis overseas who lost their job because of covid might have to pay $3,000 on top of that. Why them and not the Kiwis at home that lost their jobs? I don't get why they are being judged differently.
Or we could head down the aussie route. I'm sure I saw a story where the inwards numbers allowed were so small the airlines sold only business and first class seats. Maybe charges pro rata to the airfare?
What do you think of this Eco Maori? It is more than just Tai Tokerau isn't it?
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/07/27/billy-te-kahika-takes-democracy-fight-to-the-heart-of-government-advance-new-zealand/
Billy T James would build a new character, Uncle Te Kookiha more English than the Northland National Party …
Why did you use a dehumanising label, just one of those " Eco Maori " is he ? In recent rhetoric about Billy Te Kahika has also been other tags as one type of tactic to blank and cancel out a right in a democracy to have a voice. Rebel, radical, extreme… a joke guy that Billy T James would've mocked. Truly?
Yes, it is more than Te Tai Tokerau. It's millions globally asking for justice, self-determination and the return of their stolen assets.
Is Gutteres, Secretary-General UN one of those Eco radicals too when he points out that just 26 of the richest people in the world hold as much wealth as half the global population of 8 billion people?
Why don't you stick your head in the ground you jerk Paddy OT. Looking for something to moan about and create disunity.
Ouch! What is 'disunify'ing in calling out on tags that subversively nullify others, even if it's inadvertent? Applying a blanket name with a peg on your nose, to dismiss others such as those "____________" over there, is an underlying factor creating inequality.
Calling " jerk " ( same tactic ) doesn't make entrenched prejudices go away.
Calling for my demise to go underground is ironical in that the same maggots that will eat me once dead won't be discriminating and will feast on you too.
Eco maori is a contributor here,
https://thestandard.org.nz/search/eco+maori/?search_comments=true&search_posts=true&search_sortby=date
though it may have saved your pearls from a hard fist clutching, if the 'offending' sentence was written
What do you think of this, Eco Maori?
Great minds 🙂 and all that Allen 🙂
Pointing our proper punctuation is pedantic and patronising.
That depends on how you view being told how to avoid repeating an error, yet using it as outlined above, removes misunderstandings and subsequent retaliatory tit for tat posts.
I'm not the greatest with grammar and punctuation, and I welcome all thoughtful, well intended correction.
One comma made all the difference!
BTW, I should have included an emoticon to indicate that I was joking.
The smiley would have helped but I stand by both comm
asents. 😆I commend you on your comment.
How abour spelling?
F7
A little gentle jesting is something that regular commenters can add for spice to tease or joust, I think. It's all a matter of striking the right balance. And wouldn't it be good if we all mainly looked outwards at the wide issues and left the fine unpicking to those who want to pick oakum.*
I have been reading Anne Perry and the punishments and jobs for the unemployed they dished out in old Victorian times, which may be revived in some highly developed countries! Now that's a mighty leap – from the downward direction of contentious people's comments, to the downward gaze of a workhouse resident earning their daily meal.
* Oakum–picking was the teasing out of fibres from old ropes and was very hard on the fingers. The loose fibres were often sold to ship-builders for mixing with tar to seal the lining of wooden craft. They could also be used to make matting or bandaging.
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/tour/oakum.shtml
I agree but some comments are so hard to parse that we either have to make assumptions or take them through the gobbledygook reverse-translator. None of this makes for good debate.
My first questions to Uncle Billy would be
1. do you subscribe to the David Icke You Tube channel?
2. does the Chinese money bag man have a plan to reduce inequality, and if not, why partner up with him?
To be fair…I thought GreyWS was asking the question to a regular TS commentor called Eco Maori.
I tried to listen to an interview of Billy on talkback, but sean plunket was talking too much.
My take on it….. people who are against the system often don't vote, we've seen it before with the internet party. Part of the reason is a reluctance to share their personal details.
What a fascinating election it's turning into, jlr and Billy hooking up, what the actual? Talk about polar opposites, keep your eyes wide open Billy.
I'd probably have all sorts of problems with what Billy Te Kahika is saying if I looked more closely, but I know people that are into what he is talking about, and it's a big mistake for the left/progressives to ridicule them, call them nutters, and think they will just somehow disappear as a part of the culture rather than growing.
Collins gets ever more desperate:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/07/judith-collins-plans-to-grill-jacinda-ardern-on-behrouz-boochani-s-refugee-status.html
Presumably targeting the vast pool of voters from New Conservatives, Advance and NZ First.
“She plans to raise it when she goes up against the Prime Minister in Parliament. … “I’m sick to death of this stuff.”
She has only 4 more sittings to tackle Ardern, and this is how she wants to use them?
Is she going to ask the PM if he paid for his ‘managed isolation’ on Manus Island and if not, why not? I’m sure this is the burning question that’s on the mind of Kiwis and keeps them awake at night. What other reason could Mushy Collins have for asking
patsypesky questions during QT in Parliament?Been thinking about that Op leader going on about crushing Fairy/star dust.Instead of being a blow hard,she needs a vaccum because all she will manage is the spreading of good will to more of the people,truely short sighted an most deffinitely not PM material.
Edit,,spell check please.a wee note to weka.
Hey pile these awkward points on – she is 'sick to death' of them. So…..
Best part of the article is media continuing to use the photo of Judith wearing her MAGA hat ( albeit a blue one) then her Trumpism comes out, "He seems to me to have come here on a very dodgy idea of some sort of author's visa or something. Well I'm an author too, and I can tell you I don't think anyone's going to give me a special visa."
A mind like lightning. One quick flash of light and then darkness.
“They all eat, they all love me, they all kiss my ass,” Trump reportedly told journalist Timothy O’Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald. “And then they all leave and say, ‘Isn’t he horrible.’ But I’m the king.”
I'd like to see Collins write a book using a smuggled smart phone. She has such poor insight into why a person in detention on Manus Island for years would want to return there after writing a book about the harsh conditions.
Maybe some of the conditions in Collin's recent book were of her own making and her choice to write about her parliamentary life.
+1. Anyone who writes a 350 book on a phone gets automatic entry as far as I'm concerned.
And what's this rubbish the Nats were spouting the other day that we should have consulted Australia first. Australia can get f**ked.
Was he not seeking asylum from Strollya?
And hopefully the government will take the opportunity to remind us all that the government Collins was part of gave Peter Thiel full citizenship in about 12 days, no questions asked.
Exactly. Give me Boochani any day.
Frankly, with that long tousled hair and dreamboat eyes he can stay as long as he likes 🙂
What impact will the new party Heartland have on nats? Seen boards in Waikato.
Episode 5: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/a-useless-handbrake-is-released
Hopefully there won't have to be further episodes – by now I'm hopefully that 'nice' guys' outwardly, aren't necessarily nice people – be they politicians, senior public servants or anyone else pushing their own agendas above all else.
Hypocrisy and double standards that have become the Normal Normal it seems. Things like moralising, judging and conflating the concepts of arranged marriages and forced marriages on the one hand whilst all the while getting ones rocks off over a conference call to the woifey and whanau with a bit on the side on the other.
Thankfully Labour have a few more 'decent blokes and blokessess' to hold it all together, and there's always the Greens to fall back on. Let's hope it doesn't take any more episodes because they'd be liable to get very seedy. It might be time for the senior ranks of the public service to have a bit of a hydroxycloroclean – even if it needs to trickle down
Well at least there's a new visa coming that lets employees change jobs.
I found that article a bit under researched and some what over emotional.
It added together the student visa's which were just an income earning scam for dodgy private education providers and have only existed since National brought them in, the young under 30 visa's for international travel which have never really been seen as a residency pathway, the RSE visas which are seasonal (and there has been help & repatriation on offer here) plus the other visa's and only around 10,000 of these have been here for over 5 years usually on a motley collection of short term visa's.
Frankly the ire would be better directed at the employer sponsored visa's who used them for cheap labour or some level of scam then walked away from them, the national party who decided to use visa's to bid down employment wages and conditions for all or the businesses who can't be bothered to train and educate available youth.
Our Neets unemployment is huge, in part because visa workers mean that the labour force in the early entry years of employment is swollen by half as much (50,000 becomes 75000) .
Lastly if most of the central Auckland electorate is not native born that is colonisation rather than immigration and services are clearly not being provided to the wider community at any level.
"I found that article a bit under researched and some what over emotional."
Unfortunately if Mr Fonseka were to begin to describe his research, it'd require a book, and I'll excuse the emotion considering the damage some immigrants have suffered due to NZ's oh-so-suphusticated best practice policies. And it's not as if people haven't been warning the government of the complete bugger's muddle of things for over the lifetime of the current government.
Hopefully Faafoi is merely a placeholder as well, even if he is a damn site more ethical and less sleazy
.
I do realise that some individuals have suffered damage but conflating all the various visa types into one "wrong" doesn't help his story. The student who got stuck here while in holiday transit, could go home but now wants a work visa is a long way from the 10,000 who have been here a considerable time. But plenty of the non migrant population are suffering too.
And I do agree NZ has had dreadful settings (pretty much under all the right wing governments since 1990 who just wanted to bid down the employment market). Prior to covid, Labour was gradually deflating the visa market, putting an income limit in was one, plus moving up the course and study limits and providing training for Neets. Then there are the employer sponsored – who should sort out their own mess not dump it on others.
Labour didn't have the margin in the polls to move faster but now everything has hit at once and they are having to deal with a 20-30 year backlog of poor policy and decisions balancing fairness and local jobs and welfare payments plus employer (& scam) situations.
The only other comment I found odd was the one "doing us a favour". Err if it's for our benefit then umm why the desperation to stay.
And for the record I have seen several arranged marriages. Female autonomy in the decision was varied – from basically none to a lot- but I wonder if this point of view occurs to the males who benefit from the process.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12351277
This is truly baffling stuff from Judith and raises many questions about her version of events:
1) Why did she bail up the Prime Minister on the floor of parliament to tell her about a vague allegation against ILG of which she had no knowledge of the substance?
2) Who is this informant that she trusted enough to warrant telling the Prime Minister about such a vague allegation that ILG had done something "even worse" than what Falloon had done?
3) Does she accept her informant is a liar or at least has a very skewed moral compass given that she is now saying that she would not have fired ILG for doing something which the informant had said supposed to be "much worse" than what Falloon had done?
4) Is she not used to people replying "Oh yes, right" and walking away for the sake of ending the conversation and getting away from her? Not because they have the faintest idea of what she is talking about.
5) How did they arrange for the informant to go directly to the Prime Minister (as he must have if Judith did not know the content of the allegation until it was publicly released) if the full extent of the conversation was the Prime Minister saying "Oh yes, right" and walking off? Unless the reference to “we” is her office.
6) Is she really suggesting that the Prime Minister was dumb enough to go and fire ILG without bothering to wait for the informant to contact her with the details of the allegation, and then deny she knew about it until the informant contacted her? Or did the Prime Minister just go and tell ILG about her vague conversation with Judith and ILG, knowing that the game was up based on absolutely nothing, immediately spilled his guts about the affair and handed in his resignation?
She's seeding the media again. Feeding them their lines so she can lie about the PM.
Simple. Collins is trying to justify that she is not the CAUSE of ILG being drawn and quartered by her FILTHY politics.
The problem with the ILG resignation is that it was done to take responsibility for the high standard the PM sets for her ministers. ILG would not have resigned were there not an election in 8 weeks.
Rowling did not stand up to Muldoon over what was done to Moyle 5 November 1975.
Ardern needs to put ILG on the party list and tell Collins that Ardern is holding an inquiry into Collins emailer.
Correction
5 November 1976.
Is Mushy Collins trying to convince NZ that she feels sorry for what
shethe PM has done to ILG???Collins is trying to prove she is so righteous when she needs to front up about what her true intention was, to improve her ratings by damaging a Labour minister.
Never mind the family of ILG. Being a teenager is not easy when your parent is a minister or a leader.
If it's true that the last lot of absconders popped into a retirement village one has to question their judgment. To say the least.
In a single day, Collins and Brownlee have done more dopey than you'd expect in a month from any coherent political leadership.
The latest:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/07/newshub-poll-jacinda-ardern-getting-the-benefit-of-so-much-airtime-during-covid-19-gerry-brownlee.html
Ardern enjoying so much airtime? I can't recall National ever having as much wall-to-wall media coverage as they've had over the last few weeks.
Sure, it's been self-destructive airtime, but whose fault is that?
Haha. Yeah, Gerry has been pretty much off the rails today. I’d be amazed if he managed to claw back even one vote from Labour. And another day goes by where the Nats are really just talking about themselves (what ring road in Palmy?).
They are obsessed with Palmerston North, aren't they? Perhaps the plan is so get William Wood into parliament then straight on to the leadership.
I think we're so used to saying "Why are they doing this? There must be a devious plan, what is it, what are they up to?". Especially after years of National discipline and message control.
But sometimes it's just a mess. This is one of those times. Like when it's your last day in a job, and you might as well get drunk and photocopy your butt.
gerry's spent the day doing a trump.
The PM can’t win. One moment she has too much airtime, the next she’s a part-time PM.
I don’t mind giving Judith and Gerry more airtime but could they please keep their mouths shut when they’re on air or camera. It will be an improvement for them as well as for the public AKA a win-win. Thanks in advance.
Kia Ora
Newshub.
The weather has been warm and local environment is awesome at the minute Ingrid.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
That's the way Te Mokopuna are very important.
Its great to see local Iwi and council working together to provide whare for their Tangata.
That's good researching the effects rongo have on diabetes.
That's is what it's all about what the people want not just the few in power in Te Tairawhiti a Maori ward is needed.
I think lowering the voting age is a good topic.
Ka kite Ano.
🖕To you know who for using the landlord against me muppets.
Kia Ora
Newshub.
That's looks good it might help solve our housing short age.
I don't think it's bright too invest ones Kiwisaver into a business do you know how many fail in the first 5 years.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
It would be logical to help people who are living on there own whenua in sheds to build a whare.
That's is cool teaching tamariki about old Maori knowledge on their environment.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
The Am Show.
Plastic are a problem that needs to be sorted start by charging the prouduce of plastic a fee and recycle and remanufacture the stuff ourselves creating jobs in Aotearoa.
Congratulations. Paris
Not just twins it's better to treat all your offspring equally.
Ka kite Ano.