Thank goodness for online grocery shopping. It means we can stay in the warm, and we will let the delivery person know how grateful we are not to have to venture out into this weather at age 79.
'Young said despite his hopes, even over the past year, not much had changed.
"Unfortunately, there's no evidence of a real improvement.
"There's no evidence of going backwards either.
"We know there's been increasing recognition of the concerns with fresh water systems over the last 10 years or so, and there is a lot of action going on.
"But there's no evidence of an improvement yet, so that suggests more effort and more time required to make those benefits show up."
He said it could take some years if not decades before improvements would be seen.'
Just shows…dont let the nats back…even any fake blue/green ones. Jacquie Dean….
Anyway let their own words speak :
“They’re gone by lunchtime,” the party’s agriculture spokesman David Bennett said in a Facebook Live last night, talking about the water policy.
His leader, Judith Collins, was critical of what she saw as bureaucrats in Wellington making all the rules when it comes to farmers, particularly in Southland.
She was sick of these people “bossing everyone else around”.
The history shows that the primary sector simply keeps taking until there is nothing left. It has only ever been intervention that has stopped the plunder. Every. Single. Time.
This is the evidence and the history.
The primary sector (and their reps the National Party) cannot be trusted.
And Labour does seem to get it…(I could have said finally).
Anyway, I couldnt imagine anyone in the nats saying this?
'Mr Parker told the meeting he had a fondness for Central Otago and the Manuherikia catchment was vitally important to the region’s people.
"This is about everyone coming together to stop the degradation and undo the damage of the past.
"The Manuherikia rises in the Hawkdun ranges and flows through some of New Zealand’s most stunning landscapes that inspired the paintings of Grahame Sydney and the poems of Brian Turner."
The river was under pressure, with water quality declining and over-allocation of water reducing the minimum flow needed for ecological processes, such as providing habitat for wildlife, and for recreational use, he said.'
The Cost of Resistance
by CHRIS HEDGES, Sept. 22, 2020
Two of the rebels I admire most, Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks publisher, and Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, are in jail in Britain. That should not be surprising. You can measure the effectiveness of resistance by the fury of the response. Julian courageously exposed the lies, deceit, war crimes and corruption of the ruling imperial elites. Roger has helped organized the largest acts of mass civil disobedience in British history, shutting down parts of London for weeks, in a bid to wrest power from a ruling class that has done nothing, and will do nothing, to halt the climate emergency and our death march to mass extinction.
The governing elites, when truly threatened, turn the rule of law into farce. Dissent becomes treason. They use the state mechanisms of control – intelligence agencies, police, courts, black propaganda and a compliant press that acts as their echo chamber, along with the jails and prisons, not only to marginalize and isolate rebels, but to
psychologically and physically destroy them. The list of rebels silenced or killed by ruling elites runs in a direct line from Socrates to the Haitian resistance leader Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led the only successful slave revolt in human history and died in a
frigid French prison cell of malnutrition and exhaustion, to the imprisonment of the socialist Eugene V. Debs, whose health was also broken in a federal prison. Rebel leaders from the 1960s, including Mumia Abu Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Kojo Bomani Sababu, Mutulu Shakur and Leonard Peltier, remain, decades later, in U.S. prisons. Muslim activists, including those who led the charity The Holy Land Foundation and Syed Fahad Hashmi, were arrested, often at the request of Israel, after the hysteria following 9/11, and given tawdry show trials. They also remain incarcerated.
Resistance, genuine resistance, exacts a very, very high price. Those in power drop even the pretense of justice when they face an existential threat. …
It's quite remarkable how the world's corporate media is ignoring the Assange case, and Matt Kennard in this short 10 minute interview outlines some of the measures being taken by the state and the conflicts of interest.
If you get to the end, the result sounds depressingly familiar to many of the social welfare policies and stupendously huge budget allocations of this government including benefit levels, child poverty, Oranga Tamariki, and mental health:
Domestic violence budget line got $320 million in the 2019 budget, and
$250 million in the COVID19 response.
That's over half a billion dollars, with no result.
The biggest attack line Nation should be using against this government is simply this:
Not quite. Hard to tell exactly what has happened there until the documents are released, but lots of conflict between the people wanting transformational, the people resisting that, Logie being given the responsibility but not the authority to act and so on. I'll wait until the documents are released and analysed before forming an opinion on whether the plan was unworkable in reality, or was too radical, or a combination of both. Am really curious to see if the plan doesn't work for Pākehā or how it works was missed.
Reading between the lines, my guess is that Labour will take over the project, water it down and implement something that makes some improvements but fails the agreement of transformation.
It's pretty hard to see a Green MP keeping it that's for sure. Logie was clear that she just didn't have the seniority to effectively push it – a curious admission.
If the Greens get in and want a serious portfolio outside of plants, they could always propose someone for Minister of Social Welfare, and Minister for Children. Clearly the big program changes and big budget moves need more heft at Cabinet beyond budget allocations.
Question is, should they be in the position to ask: if it's beyond Jan Logie, who in the Green caucus would want it?
"Logie was clear that she just didn't have the seniority to effectively push it – a curious admission."
How so? Wouldn't it have been Ardern who decided that she should be an under secretary and thus have limited authority? And hence the oversight from the Labour and NZF Ministers.
"Question is, should they be in the position to ask: if it's beyond Jan Logie, who in the Green caucus would want it?"
I'm not clear yet that it was beyond Logie, as opposed to being a poor set up with substantial conflicts, and then covid.
That's over half a billion dollars, with no result.
The biggest attack line Nation should be using against this government is simply this:
Failure to execute.
Bugger the attack line. That’s for headline writers in MSM, for the Party spin-doctors, for the National Party’s Meme Working Groups on Facebook, and for lazy commenters on SM who want to score easy points. They don’t do anything to help solve problems. Where’s National’s viable and realistic alternative that has been costed (but not by Paora)? Which party has a compelling policy platform to deliver and do anything better?
Has that half a billion dollar been all spent? Has it absolutely nothing to show for it? Where has it gone? Should we expect quick and easy solutions?
The Stuff article is in-depth and nuanced and it goes into much background context. It would be great if the author could follow up with an analysis of National Party policy to tackle family violence in Aotearoa-New Zealand. As far as I can tell, National is framing it as a Law & Order issue and treats it like it treats crime instead of approaching it as a social-cultural issue. They are bloody dinosaurs when it comes to complex social inequalities and inequities. In fact, their outmoded thinking has no place in Government.
Nope. This is where the government is held to account.
If I wanted to do the National Party social welfare policy, I would. As would Stuff.
It always amazes me how the tiniest piece of criticism of the Greens requires a wall of self-righteous defence, no matter how irrational.
It's an election: that time where you evaluate performance, to help figure out if parties are worth another go or not.
Whereas Labour and NZF Ministers take it on the chin. They reform, or they get fired, or they get their funding taken. Even Shane Jones figured that out.
Seriously if the Greens can't figure out how to get critiqued and improve, and on as easy a topic as domestic violence, rather than ranting with rhetorical questions and doing another turn of Whataboutthemism, then maybe politics just isn't for them.
Referring to the “biggest attack line Nation [sic] should be using against this government” is engaging in attack and negative antagonistic opposition, not holding the Government to account. Personally, I think this is mind-numbingly stupid 🙁
In an election campaign, Parties present their policies and engage in a contest of ideas. If you want to suggest an attack line to and for National to attack this Coalition Government with then you should at least mention the other side of the coin too.
It's an election: that time where you evaluate performance, to help figure out if parties are worth another go or not.
There you go. If they (as in Labour, NZF, and the Greens) are not worth another go then we need to look at and know Plan B, don’t we? This is not holding the Government to account but really about making choices (i.e. electing) for the next one.
If you insist on framing this as a criticism of the Greens per se then knock yourself out with that. I did not take it as such from the Stuff article nor from your comment @ 6 and to me it comes across as unnecessary needling of Green Party supporters on this site but hey, whatever floats your boat 🙂 However, if you think my comment @ 6.3 was intended as a defence of the Greens, in general or against you, then you need to take remedial reading lessons ASAP.
I rather liked the National leader's attack on Jacinda about looking out for the poorest. Though she should have out-skirted her. Anyone who thinks on the social democratic side despise this govt for talking but not doing for the neediest.
Domestic/family violence, ACC settlement compensation for sexual assaults, settlement compensation of abuse (sexual, physical and psychological) in state or religious faith based care, this is all a priority. The cost is enormous and a timely response is required so as to not re abuse the claimant.
Housing to go to and be safe is imited, so is no cost counselling and addiction services and legal services may also be required. Clients accessing a service or several services, advocates who know what they are doing are required.
Children who are exposed to poverty and any form of abuse and violence also require the appropriate intervention, care or service.
Those already in the system, the system is failing many.
I have had to do this link in long hand. It is an example of how sick ACC legislation is for an historical childhood sexual assault case. I was aware of this.
Out dated unfit for purpose legislation which disadvantages children who were sexually assaulted prior to their 18th birthday because they did not make a complaint or did not seek treatment for their injury.
National had been trying to push a more gentle side to Collins. They know they can't out-kindness Labour's Jacinda Ardern, but they thought a few soft Labour voters could be tempted back to supporting National if Collins could only smooth off some of those sharp corners.
I think Collins scrapped that strategy about 7.36pm on Tuesday evening. Throughout the debate, she steadily brought back the snark. She had the Muldoon grin going and was peacocking in the post-debate interviews.
He captured the left/right banality thing nicely in a couple of sentences:
There was no blue sky thinking. The debate perfectly exposed Labour and National's total lack of courageous policy when it comes to addressing some of our biggest issues.
So 44% definitely would, plus 32% likely makes three-quarters of the nation willing to sacrifice themselves as guinea pigs in the cause of science & public health.
Definitely not comes in at 10%, but with another 11% unlikely, we have one person in five willing to gamble on nature alone.
Nature? Everything with humans is perception – the prejudiced's 'idea' of nature is what they pay attention to plus their idea of them being exceptional and anyone who disagrees is part of a giant conspiracy against the 'sensitives' or'more informed'.
Personally have no problem taking a vaccination for it, but would quietly prefer if it was a year or two after released for other people, given how fast it will hopefully come through compared to other medicinal.
Just so I can see if people taking it start growing an extra arm, having fits, or their bits fall off etc (joke, but would prefer a larger testing sample)
sacrifice themselves as guinea pigs in the cause of science & public health.
Nope. The people who do that are the ones who participate in the clinical trials. Getting a vaccine post-trial is lower-risk than waiting to catch the disease.
That is an excellent article. Collins claiming to speak on behalf of 'farmers' is just not true. Federated Farmers are a lobby group but Fonterra and all those other companies are the business leaders in rural NZ, and they are looking forward not back.
Yip if your the ag minister forget about the fed farmers, talk to the CEOs of Fonterra ,Silver fern farms and alliance,they have the power to drive change., probably wasting your time with the talley owned affco though.
Well spotted Robert. Thanks. If only some of the non-laggard could get a platform to explain their forward momentum. As for the destructive Collins and Federated Farmers, expose the blighters!
As with farming and water standards, it shows the difference between working with business who want to move forward and pandering to backward-looking, loud lobby groups, whether fringe farmers or bad landlords.
If you read the article, it is very clear that changes implemented now can have a huge lag in their impact, i.e. improving water quality. Similarly, much crap, literally, is working its way through the ecosystem, which means we could see things actually getting worse, because of past polluting behaviours, despite our (best?) efforts at present. This is a problem with setting policy and selling it to stakeholders and the general public in order to get it initiated and actioned but then to keep following up and persevering over a prolonged period of time. The further out the ‘reward’ the less one can rely on the ‘instant gratification’ mechanism of people to comply. If this is not acknowledged and communicated clearly and properly from the outset then these policies will lack the required resilience to be sustainable in the long-term and they end up being ineffective. A further consequence is that they could end up being counter-productive because they could (be used to) turn public and political ‘sentiment’ against future efforts to make meaningful changes. It is the proverbial one-step-forward-two-steps-backward scenario.
If this is not acknowledged and communicated clearly and properly from the outset then these policies will lack the required resilience to be sustainable in the long-term and they end up being ineffective.
Quite specifically, we'd have National get in power, point to reports like this, say that its not working and drop them all. And thing's would just get worse.
Quite specifically, we’d have National get in power, point to reports like this, say that its not working and drop them all. And thing’s would just get worse. [my italics]
We watched these rivers being degraded in our lifetimes, and it is reasonable to expect that they be restored within the same period, however inconvenient that might be for politicians who prefer not to act meaningfully, if they must act at all. If we wait, and let these lazy troughers get away with doing nothing, nothing is all we will have to show for it. One would expect that significant risks to ecosystem health would stimulate prudent and timely responses. Experience teaches us otherwise.
It's often only a matter of a bit of planting and some aeration to speed up breakdown of organics and prevent rivers going anaerobic.
We are headed for a collision with the consequences of our environmental delinquency – and to avoid collisions you take early and substantial action. Does “hard and early” ring a bell?
We don't have time to 'fluff' about, the kinds of change that made Oz's fire season are still rolling along. Likely we'll need to make substantial changes to farming, fishing, and water supply, with a sporting chance of needing to accommodate or support Pacific climate refugees in place.
This is not the time to go demonstrating the fungibility of neolib 'policy' in hopes of a few donations.
Early & substantial action is from navigation – but the parallel holds. If an intervention is warranted, it is more effective to intervene earlier rather than later. Same holds with ecology – the best time to plant trees was ten years ago – now is only second best.
Frittering away our time with bullshit gameplaying is a luxury more suited to the halcyon days before the anthropocene got the bit between its teeth. When Parker set a nitrate level eight times higher than China's, he should have accompanied it with his resignation – since he had decided not to do his job.
Except if there's a delayed response between input and measurement, you end up "chasing the gauges" (a flight control term), overcorrecting each time, and pile into the ground.
Not to mention the fact that no policy should be considered in isolation. That's why the government had a good covid response, but didn't follow every single MoH recommendation to the letter.
I mean, we could just shoot hundreds of thousands of cows to help solve the problem, but that would have unexpected [figurative] downstream effects on society in the regions.
Well there's certainly no danger of an overshoot at the levels Parker set. Cancer, and infant deaths maybe, but no overreaction.
We are so privileged to live under a government so backward it promises generational change so slow it cannot even be measured. At which point there is no reason to assume that there is any change contemplated at all – which would be par for the course from these career neolibs.
I don’t think anyone was calling for mass culling of cattle – though moving some to other catchments might be appropriate if they blow nitrate levels out – bit of a straw man really.
Perhaps we can worry about over correction somewhat after there is evidence that there has been any correction at all.
You know what? We are privileged/lucky to have this government. Look around the world. Yes, things need improving, in so many areas. But by and large this government is doing pretty bloody well. I'm not going to gnash my teeth and demand resignations just because I think I could run things better.
They are not doing well on freshwater – or Mike Joy & Dr Death wouldn't be condemning their actions.
They have done well on Covid, but there are a lot of other issues. This is one that they have handled particularly badly, and polling has consistently shown rivers to be the public's leading environmental concern.
They need to be reminded of this by ordinary members of the public, because the current opposition is not fit for the purpose.
demand resignations just because I think I could run things better
Setting nitrate levels eight times higher than the WHO recommendations doesn't seem prudent to me. And I suspect Parker is not sufficiently expert to rebut them on any objective grounds.
I think that nobody really knew what ‘hard and early’ meant in reality but people dropping like flies in Lombardy and Wuhan was a good incentive to doing something. That sense of immediacy is missing from water quality or anything environmental for that matter with the possible exception of the measures to prevent the spreading of Kauri disease.
It's a general principle for some kinds of response, but of course the unique circumstances of each required intervention are very different. I imagine historians of futurity, if we have one, will have a task explaining to students quite how difficult it was to make such a decision over Covid, with political consequences on one side, and public health on the other, even with the relatively abundant examples (compared to those other countries had when they were forced to choose) at our disposal.
There have been a number of expositions of NZ's level process, and the clarity it generated for the public, when health services were, behind the scenes, in a state of flux as they conformed to meet a threat for which they had few treatment options. The verdict has been very positive, with minor errors like the stance on masking, and some frankly odd attitudes among testing authorities noted, but not diluting the overall positive perception and the compliance it generated contributing to the strong result.
A hard and early response to water quality would mean different things in different catchments, with restrictions likely in oversubscribed and rapidly nitrifying areas like south Canterbury. But it need not be introduced in a draconian fashion, it can be phased in over a reasonable period as it is expected is happening with emissions, allowing farmers time to weigh mitigation options, or possibly limit some types of intensification on a regional or catchment basis.
What it should not have done was to allow lobbying to get across the objective part of regulations – the nitrate levels, because these are set on a physiological basis, and, like any other physical constants, they do not make allowances for the human capacity for self or habitat destruction.
As has been noted elsewhere, the standard broadly adopted internationally, 1mg/l, will become a customer expectation, and willing or not, NZ farmers will be obliged to meet it, or suffer a price and a reputational loss in the market.
Better then to lay that out clearly at the beginning, and put efforts into supporting the transition, than to prop up a poor standard that will ultimately need to be revised, but will still incur the price and reputational and ecological and public health cost.
I agree with all that. My point is that for many (but not all!) people there’s no greater motivator than death knocking on your door at any moment. People are also scared shitless of stuff they don’t understand such as a killer virus, just think of the many Hollywood movies featuring runaway viruses and diseases decimating the human population and turning survivors into monstrous zombies. Turds floating in rivers or streams just don’t have the same impact on people’s minds and behaviours.
The idea of Covid testing before getting on a flight has often been suggested as a means of improving border control. Dubai in the UAE already requires it. One of our latest cases detected in managed isolation had transited through Dubai, so would have required a clean test before being allowed on that flight.
Which illustrates the point: pre-flight screening would do nothing to change what needs to be done on the ground here, and just adds another layer of complexity and expense to the whole border control situation.
One person arrived on a flight from Germany on 21 September via the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.
All passengers travelling to Dubai from any destination, including passengers connecting in Dubai, must have a printed negative COVID-19 PCR test certificate to be accepted on the flight.
The test must be taken a maximum of 96 hours before departure.
The certificate must be for a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Other test certificates including antibody tests and home testing kits are not accepted in Dubai.
Bring an official, printed certificate to check-in – SMS and digital certificates are not accepted. Without a printed negative test certificate, you will not be accepted on the flight.
Yes, but extra the testing probably isn't there to protect the people but as another form of profit making. Because you can be sure that it will be private enterprise that's doing it and, if National get in and puts in place legislation requiring such testing before coming to NZ then you can be sure that they will require testing on the way out and they will have private enterprise doing it.
Its the same for many uneconomic actions that exist in society. They produce more profit and more jobs and so getting rid of them then becomes impracticable, as far as the capitalists and government are concerned, to remove them.
Probably already exists. After all, even laser printers are cheap these days and its not as if such a business would need a commercial grade printer capable of printing hundreds of thousands a day.
As I say above, such requirements are there just for the profit opportunities that it generates.
Family member travelling back from UK soon. She is required to take a test 3 days prior to departure she’s flying Etihad. She quite worried about being able to get the test done and completed on time as UK cases surge. Adding a lot of stress for her as she tried to get home in March and flight canceled. She is unwell so not at all easy.
I understand the rationale for the pre flight tests and it may help passengers like who stay safe, but as we all know it’s no guarantee passengers are covid free.
good to see the likes of the conservative party and regress NZ party showing up in polls. want to see them get another 2 or 3 % of votes yet. that way when combined with TOP and NZF it will guarantee a Labour lead govt even if the greens don't make it in. I wonder if conservative voters realise that as things stand every 1 out of 2 conservative votes will go to Labour
apparentley not all is well in the conspiracy party (advance,nzpp). many of their members and candidates are walking away in disgust. splitters! hah!so the judean peoples front and the peoples front of judeah cant agree. , many of the tin hit brigade are yet again, wandering in the wilderness, looking for another conspiracy.
Will Billy's nose-pokey-outey refusal to mask-up properly on board Flight 666 to Nowhere endear him to his flock of flockers, or will they see through his charade and shift their voting preference to the Eminently More Sensible "New Conservatives"???
think some will follow brian,sorry, billy all the way down the rabid hole, some will drift off to new cons, some to maori party, most will probably not vote cause its just a government plot to harvest and store their dna!
Hate speech. Labors new law they'd propose to govern hate speech. Where can i find info on exactly what it will be that the labor government might propose?. This proposal is a bit worrying, i feel. Will freedom of speech be soon to be deemed to be hate speech. Will it?. How will labor intend to decide?. Will it be soon to become hate speech for Dennis Gates to be saying what he does in this following article https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/09/top-lawyer-compares-gloriavale-s-leadership-to-islamic-state.html
I'm certainly interested to see some sort of rock solid detail before i make my decision up on who i'd vote for.
Yeah i agree that certain limits should apply. But how would we decide what limits would allow. And who would decide. And how can we make sure that these limits wouldn't suppress discussion what should need to take place, even if somebody might interpret this discussion as being hateful. The way like what i suspect that some gloriavale citizen might interpret Dennis Gates opinion to be. I hope that labor government might enter into discussion about this subject more before final date of election. Citizen should have a right to know. Hopefully the other parties might begin to push labor into discussing this matter more
And how can we make sure that these limits wouldn't suppress discussion what should need to take place, even if somebody might interpret this discussion as being hateful.
Ask a linguist or three?
The way like what i suspect that some gloriavale citizen might interpret Dennis Gates opinion to be.
I figure that he's pointing out similarities and if they don't like that then their only option is to become better.
But the most important point is that he's not actually stirring up hatred against them.
Yeah. Hate speech. We should be free to spout hate, whenever, wherever. I too am concerned that Big Government is anti-hate! Give hate a chance, I say! #sarc
Sarc can have its place. But hey, its a reasonable question to think about. At what point should freedom of speech be deemed to be hate speech. How would you decide. And who should be the one who'd get to decide. Can you actually provide an answer to those question?. Or is sarc about all you'd be able to come up with. I'd love to see you answer
That's interesting Incognito. I'm fairly certain i saw Jacinda promising that she would intend to strengthen hate speech law if Labor government is re-elected . I'm not exactly sure what she had meant by this. Perhaps it might just be to strengthen law against inciting hate speech what could lead to acts of violence. Which i feel would be fair enough. But exactly what her intention would be, i really don't know
Is there deliberate creation of confusion and misinformation employed when using terms like 'hate speech' to create an assumption that freedom of speech under the Bill of Rights is being taken away?
It's election time and a newer 'falsehood' is thrown out there fuelled by Seymour.
There is NO current new law Labour is passing. Since 2019 a review has been underway, scheduled since 2018. There is an outdated set of laws needing inspection and people's rights to be safe need strengthening.
The Justice Ministry has looked at relevant aspects of laws that already exist – the Human Rights Act, the Harmful Digital Communications Act, and sections of the Crimes Act to see what laws may need to be changed or added. A REVIEW by the Human Rights has been underway, including Section61 constructed some years back to see if it is fit for purpose; particularly needed with the fast paced development of social media and the current section61 not protecting all people.
Seymour last Friday, took words from Jacinda's mouth, invented a sinister twist omitting any fuller information on the day. Jacinda was unveiling the plaque at the mosque on Friday. It wasn't coincidental timing, there is no " hate speech" NEW law per say. Seymour was playing to ignorance of the existing laws and unfounded fears.
" By law in the Bill of Rights Act, everyone in New Zealand has the right to freedom of expression, including the "freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form".
IMO Seymour is rallying to a hard core of haters having choosen that day specifically as JA spent time with Muslim victims. The timing of Seymour's rant was despicable as he drew the media and public attention away from NZers and the Muslim community commemorating victims of a massacre.
What the public are now led to assume in advance of an election from Seymour's release is that your freedoms are being denied. The exact fear effect ACT was hoping to instil has been uptaken. MSM happily disseminated this also in a shallow, click bait way.
" Existing law makes no explicit reference to hate speech, but under Section 61 of the Human Rights Act, it’s unlawful to broadcast, publish or distribute material that is “threatening, abusive or insulting” and “likely to excite hostility against, or bring into contempt, any group of persons in New Zealand on the ground of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins”. The Christchurch shooter under this law could arguably say what he liked about "Islam" or gays, or any disabled person he likes in any manner.
Under current law, unjustly so, there are vulnerable groups NOT protected. What was being reviewed as mentioned by Jacinda was that the current law does NOT give protection from hate that incites 'hostility' towards people in categories of genderidentity, sexualorientation, religion or disability.
The Human Rights Commission review was, as mentioned, not only to look at lack of all vulnerable person's protections but to see if that older law needed changes to encompass modern developments.
The HR review tribunal consultations etc. were put on hold with Covid19 's emergence; Andrew Little believes those findings when completed should be dealt with post election as an issue for the new parliament. Rightly so.
Facebook's stance had rules updated in 2018, New Zealand has not updated with the times.
" Facebook, which recently adopted stricter controls on what users can post online, uses more specific criteria. Its policy targets direct attacks on people’s “protected characteristics” such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, serious disability or disease."
Janet Anderson-Bidois, the HR commission’s chief legal adviser has talked of the confusion of people around issues , confusing hate speech with hate crime and freedom of expression just as Seymour has done with his deliberate misinformation mash up.
"Anderson-Bidois insists that the commission isn’t bent on rewriting the laws governing hate speech. All it’s doing, she says, is suggesting they should be reviewed to ensure they’re still “fit for purpose" …
"New Zealand has become culturally far more diverse since the Human Rights Act was passed and the internet was then still in its infancy. Anomalieshavearisen, she says."
"Of course freedom of speech comes into it, “but with rights come responsibilities. Peoplealsohavea right to be safe. "
A person's right to exercising free speech, even if extremely offensive, is still upheld by NZ law. An example of this was the Human Rights Commission not ruling in favour of Louisa Wall's case she brought over racist cartoons published by Fairfax. In other words the cartoonist's right to freedom of expression were upheld not Wall's feelings of taking offence.
Unlike Seymour's supposition on his FB page, ideas can still be freely attacked and even offensive opinion expressed.
The HRC review will also hopefully bring clarity in helping " to distinguish attacks on people from attacks on ideas and beliefs?"
In 2018 Labour’s Duncan Webb, who was a lawyer and legal academic before entering Parliament, "
says he’s acutely aware of the tension between freedom of expression and hate speech, but he doesn’t think the free-speech defence can be applied in cases where speech is calculated to injure or terrorise people."…
" But there’s a real danger of confusing honestly held opinion with attacks on people, and by lumping it all into this category of hate speech they conflate targeted speech, aimed at destroying or bullying people, with honest expression of opinion.”
There is a scenario to help illustrate when a line is crossed, the difference between hate speech and free speech in the Listener at the time of Lauren Southern's and Stefan Molyneux's NZ visit.
" Wellington business consultant Dave Moskovitz brought a touch of levity to the proceedings, describing himself as a “walking bullseye” for purveyors of hate speech: “middle aged, Pākehā, cis, hetero, male, geek, property owner, investor, company director, immigrant, American, religious, Jew, and – wait for it – Zionist”.
But the tone turned serious when Moskovitz told of a New Zealand white nationalist blogger who published an online guide to “Zionists in your neighbourhood” and included a photo of Moskovitz’s house. The blogger went on to say that Jews were a slap in the face to the human race and were not welcome in this country.
Moskovitz said the same man later said in a newspaper interview that Jews should have been exterminated – “and that’s where the line was crossed. Saying you do not like a group of people, while repugnant, is exercising free speech. Implying that they should all have been killed is quite another thing. That borders on incitement.”
Currently the hate speech laws in New Zealand make it illegal to "excite hostility against or bring into contempt any group of persons … on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins".
But that protection doesn't extend to gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or disability.
"I think everyone would agree no one should be discriminated against for their religion," Ardern said.
Ooooh, give him a few favourable polls and Rimmer starts getting all coq-y. He better be careful. If he gets too mouthy, that cuppa tea in Remmers might not happen next time he needs it.
Im really looking forward to the new parliament. with act's very chequered history of having m.p.s resign in disgrace, not resigning but staying in disgrace, commiting fraud, going to jail etc, as well as having general sc*mbags as m.p.s. seymour will be busy holding hands, putting ot fires, etc. wonder who the first act m.p. will be that carries on this proud tradition.
"Alongside National, the poll's other casualty is New Zealand First. It's on 1.9 percent down 0.1 points. Despite leader Winston Peters' best attention grabs, NZ First is goneburger."
Always revealing to see the difference between hype and reality.
"Advance", the anti-lockdown mob. No support whatsoever. Maybe their rants shouldn't be headline news, given they represent fewer people than the NZ underwater hockey community.
.@SecPompeo: Normal states do not violently suppress legitimate protests, jail their own citizens or those of other countries on specious charges, engage in torture, and impose severe restrictions on fundamental freedoms. https://t.co/cnddqmYwB3
"Immigration New Zealand says three German yachties treated New Zealand's Covid 19 laws with contempt and have to face the consequences of their actions."
I don't get it with these claims that the cyclone season is such a hazard to be feared. It appears that even during an El Nino season, Tahiti and northwest from there are very low risk, possibly lower risk than New Zealand.
For the coming summer, it appears most likely that it will be La Nina or slightly less likely neutral, with only a very low probability of El Nino conditions.
Allegedly they were last at Taiohae, which is well to the northeast of Tahiti and even further out of the way of likely cyclone tracks, as far as I can tell.
Dead right. There are normally plenty of E.U. yachts that spend the summer cyclone season in French Polynesia on the way west and many that are based there for years. In a La Nina, French Poly is probably safer than NZ as cyclones are more common further west and with climate change more are spinning off down NZs way. I think the yachtie outrage thing is overblown MSM nonsense and most yachties originally intending to keep going will just spend a lovely time floating around in the tropics instead. The MoH has made the right decision to exclude non NZ yachts. If they can be allowed to get in, what about the rest of the Pacific islands? Living in a home built vale is not much fun with a cyclone bearing down!
CEO Shaun Maloney says Seequent’s software solutions are being used on hundreds of projects around the world to enable a clear view of groundwater and contaminants. “Users such as the Water Replenishment District, the largest groundwater agency in the state of California, can readily communicate to end clients, regulators, and the general public with 3D models of groundwater systems and contaminated sites in a fully auditable data-driven approach across the entire lifecycle of site management."
Sure hope NZTE is finding ways to support these guys.
The National Part’s agricultural policy will pacify the angriest of Federated Farmers’ members who believe townies and the Labour-led government are trying to drive them out of business. Or to”oblivion,” as Judith Collins, party leader, said as she launched the policy on the campaign trail on Thursday.
But the policy will dismay any farmer, processor or marketer who knows what’s going on out in the real world where our food is sold. Out there, the best of our competitors are working hard and fast to make farming and food deeply sustainable. They are intently focused on revolutionising their businesses to meet the demands of consumers and the environment.
But all National knows is how to cut regulations. So if a National-led government simply fiddled with farming, our competitors would delight in telling their customers, from individuals to huge supermarket chains, how superior their practices and products were to ours.
Plamondon expected laws drafted in anticipation of recreational cannabis being legal would eventually change to allow cheaper, imported products.
He said New Zealand was his company’s first export target market…
A Nelson-based medical cannabis firm, Medical Kiwi has already sold its first two years of production to Hektares, a global player in the medical cannabis industry, equating to $30 million for 2021, and $60 million in 2022.
It recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $2 million to get production underway in Christchurch and help fund its Nelson development and technology purchases.
Co-founder and chair, Aldo Miccio, said Plamondon’s statement was interesting, especially around Thai product being potentially a tenth of the cost of New Zealand cannabis.
“There are reasonably good margins involved – which is why a lot of people are investing, but we aim with our pricing to be way cheaper than products imported at the moment.”
Miccio said cannabis grown outdoors, such as that at grown at tropical altitudes in Thailand was certainly cheaper to produce, but only indoor-grown product would pass the scrutiny of pharmaceutical standards.
A Thorn In Their Side: As Chair of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee made sure Auckland’s municipal resources remained in Aucklanders’ hands. Not surprisingly the neoliberal powers-that-be (in both their centre-left and centre-right incarnations) hated this last truly effective standard-bearer for democratic-socialist values and policies.MIKE LEE is the closest ...
Previously (9 February) I wrote about how business consultants Ernst & Young were used to do a hatchet job on the former senior management team at Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB). While this hatchet job was planned in 2019 its gestation was much longer. Its underlying causes involved differences in ...
Flying beneath the radar of guilt Fight or Flight: How Advertising for Air Travel Triggers Moral Disengagement(open access) by Stubenvoll & Neureiter not only takes an interesting approach to decomposing the effects of airline travel advertisements but also helps us to understand the general psychological landscape of our often conflicted ...
Lis Ku, De Montfort University Since the onset of the pandemic, everyone from newspaper columnists to Twitter users has advanced the now idea that extroverts and introverts are handling the crisis differently. Many claim that introverts adapt to social distancing and isolation better than extroverts, with some even suggesting that ...
A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this blog post by New Zealand’s “Plan B” group. While initially this group opposed the government’s use of lockdowns to manage covid19 outbreaks in this country, they seem to have since moved on to opposing the rollout of vaccines against ...
Twenty years after it invaded, the US is finally leaving Afghanistan. What's surprising is that it took them so long - its been clear for over a decade that their presence there was pointless and just pissing people off. But imperial pride leads to exactly this sort of stupidity. Their ...
The government has announced that it will ban the export of livestock by sea. Huzzah! A vile, cruel and unconscionable trade will be ended! But there's a catch: the ban won't kick in until 2023, giving farmers two ful years to continue to profit from extreme animal cruelty. But why ...
Today is unexpectedly a Member's Day - the Business Committee granted it early in the year, to make up for time list to government business. First up is a two-hour debate on the budget policy statement, with questions to Ministers, replacing the general debate. Then its the second reading of ...
. . Two stories which appeared almost side-by-side on RNZ’s website. Parent, Miranda Cross, was quoted as saying; “I think the expectations are that we can at least send our kids to school where they will receive an education.” An American parent would probably demand; “I think the expectations are ...
Time for reviewing something a bit different. Move over Tolkien adaptations, hello Japanese splatter movie. Specifically, a certain 2009 movie called Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl. I watched this one a few days ago with some acquaintances, never having seen it before, and not being familiar with the manga ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD An above-average Atlantic hurricane season is likely in 2021, the Colorado State University (CSU) hurricane forecasting team says in its latest seasonal forecast issued April 8. Led by Dr. Phil Klotzbach, with coauthors Dr. Michael Bell and Jhordanne Jones, the CSU ...
How seriously does the Māori Party take issues of corruption and the untoward influence of big money in politics? Not very, based on how it’s handling a political finance scandal in which three large donations were kept hidden from the public. The party is currently making excuses, and largely failing ...
The annual inventory report [PDF] of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing a significant increase in emissions: (Note that this is UNFCCC accounting, not the weird fudged figures the Climate Change Commission is using). Emissions increased by almost 2 million tons in 2019, from 80.6 MT ...
The melody from the classic movie Wizard of Oz echoes as Jacinta Ruru explains what inspired her to attend university, and her ambition to help create a more just society in Aotearoa. Jacinta, who affiliates to Raukawa and Ngāti Ranginui, specialises in the research areas of indigenous peoples and the law. ...
Stuff reports that National is refusing to back the Climate Change Commission's recommendations, which is apparently a Bad Thing: The National Party says it can’t support the Climate Change Commission’s draft plan to cut New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions unless changes are made. If National maintains this position when ...
Driven, accountable, unafraid to test limits and connected to the communities she serves are traits that come to mind when thinking about Dr Anne-Marie Jackson. (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu o Whangaroa, Ngāti Wai) She specialises in Māori physical education and health research disciplines while incorporating tikanga Māori and Te ...
This is my first post for a while. I have been a bit overwhelmed by other work in the last several weeks, with teaching and other commitments, and the blog has sadly suffered. But I’m still here. This morning, while sitting in a car in the permanent traffic jam through ...
Predatory Morality: Is geopolitical consultant, Paul Buchanan, right? Does the rest of the world truly monitor New Zealand’s miniscule contribution to the international arms trade so closely? Are foreign chancelleries truly so insensitive to their own governments’ complicity in the world’s horrors that they expect all other sovereign states to ...
Anna Källén, Stockholm University and Daniel Strand, Uppsala University A middle-aged white man raises his sword to the skies and roars to the gods. The results of his genetic ancestry test have just arrived in his suburban mailbox. His eyes fill with tears as he learns that he is “0.012% ...
March 2021 The housing crisis right now in New Zealand is one of our biggest contributors to income and wealth inequality. “With the explosive increase in sales and prices, those with houses have their income and/or wealth rapidly increasing, and those who are not on the property ladder are falling ...
Samoans went to the polls on Friday, and delivered a stinging blow to Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi one-party state. Pre-election Malielegaoi's Human Rights Protection Party had controlled 44 of 49 seats in Parliament, while using restrictive standing orders to prevent there from even being a recognised opposition in ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael BakerIn this blog we briefly consider a new Report from a European think tank that aims to identify an optimal COVID-19 response strategy. It considers mortality data, GDP impacts, and mobility data and suggests that COVID-19 elimination appears to be superior ...
Something I missed on Friday: the Māori Party has been referred to police over failure to disclose donations over $30,000. Looking at the updated return of large donations, this is about $320,000 donated to them by three donors - John Tamihere, the National Urban Māori Authority, and Aotearoa Te Kahu ...
Stormy Seas: Will Jacinda Ardern's Labour Government stand behind the revolutionary proposals contained in He Puapua – the 20-year plan devised by a government appointed working group to realise the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Aotearoa/New Zealand?“GETTING AHEAD of the story” is one of the most ...
We have not been fans of the Climate Change Commission’s draft report. New Zealand has an Emissions Trading Scheme with a binding cap, and a declining path for net emissions in the covered sector. Measures taken within the covered sector cannot reduce net emissions. NZU not purchased by one sector get ...
For several decades under Labour and National-led governments New Zealand has claimed to have an independent (and sometimes autonomous) foreign policy. This foreign policy independence is said to be gained by having a “principled but pragmatic” approach to international relations: principled when possible, pragmatic when necessary. More recently NZ foreign ...
This video produced in Seattle looks at the gender identity curriculum used in schools in the US. A thin veneer of pseudoscience is being used to indoctrinate children with an ideology based on scientific and medical inaccuracies. ...
For once, I have written my submission on a bill with enough time to spare to both enocurage any of you who wants to make a submission to do so as well, and to give you time to spot the typos in mine.Louisa Wall's Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate ...
A friend found a concerning FB post (see below – this is a public post & so I have not redacted the name) & – as you do – immediately queried it with Southern Cross Life & Health Insurance as well as sending the screenshot to me¹. We both read ...
Judith Collins’ National Party leadership is under more scrutiny, with increased talk in the media of her being replaced by brand new MP Christopher Luxon. For many commentators it’s just a question of “when” rather than “if” Collins is replaced. While others ponder whether Luxon really has what it takes ...
‘Tis the season for unearthing the rarest gems in Tolkien adaptation – which, considering that the fandom has been dominated by Peter Jackson for nigh on two decades, is a positively heart-warming development. It is why I have devoted so much blog space to the obscure and weirdly wonderful ...
Whatever the damage, especially to the British economy, Brexit has done us a service by illustrating the complexity of trade.Brexit is the only example we have of two closely integrated sophisticated economies severing trading ties. The European Union and Britain still do not have tariffs or import quotas between them ...
The Palmerston North City Council has voted for Māori wards: Palmerston North Māori will be guaranteed one or two seats on the city council from 2022, and this time, there is nothing opponents can do about it. The council decided by an 11-5 vote at its monthly meeting this ...
Kids are striking for the climate today, demanding a decent, liveable future. Meanwhile, the National Party, the reliable servant of the farm lobby and other polluting businesses, is calling for action to be delayed: National has written to Climate Change Minister James Shaw calling for him to extend the ...
Today tens of thousands of schoolkids have walked out of school to strike for a future free from climate change. And tens of thousands of older New Zealanders have joined them. Their demands are clear: eliminate fossil fuels, implement 100% renewable energy with a just transition, and support our Pacific ...
The Gods That Failed.We studied the dialecticRead the whole of ‘Capital’So we could follow youSo we could follow youHow we shoutedHow we scrawledPainted slogans on city wallsOn prison wallsProof we had followed youBut, we still didn’t find what we’re looking forAnd we still haven’t found what we’re looking forWhen they ...
Conventional Wisdom? The Republican Right is convinced that to “go woke” is to “go broke”. It simply does not believe sufficient Americans feel strongly enough about social justice to make any kind of boycott remotely effective. Clearly, the Boards of Directors of more and more American corporations disagree. RECENT MOVES by ...
On November 25, 2020 Skeptical Science Inc. became a registered nonprofit organization and on March 17, 2021 our application to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for 501(c)(3) status was approved. In this blog post, we’ll explain why we went down this path and what will come next. Since its ...
Blowing Hot And Cold: Mike Hosking’s bosses should, perhaps, ask themselves what message Newstalk-ZB (and NZME) is sending to the people of New Zealand if Mike Hosking, their self-appointed “People’s Prosecutor”, is accorded bragging rights for “cancelling” the democratically-elected Prime Minister of New Zealand. Especially when said Prime Minister’s only ...
Ali Boyle, University of CambridgeIf you ask people to list the most intelligent animals, they’ll name a few usual suspects. Chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants are often mentioned, as are crows, dogs and occasionally pigs. Horses don’t usually get a look in. So it might come as a surprise that ...
Selwyn Manning and I dedicated this week’s video podcast to the potential emergence of rival blocs within the transitional process involved in the move from a unipolar to a multipolar international system currently underway. However one characterises the phenomenon–autocracies versus democracies, East versus West, colonial versus post-colonial–the global order is ...
With the rediscovery of the lost Soviet Lord of the Rings, the time has come for the important things in life. Specifically, compiling the Tom Bombadil scenes from the three known screen adaptations that feature him: This is a collection of scenes from:– Sagan om Ringen (1971: ...
Back in February the Climate Change Commission recommended a ban on new coal-fired boilers, and a phase out of existing ones by 2037. And today, the government has said they will implement that policy, and backed it up with funding to help transition some of our large pollution sources: ...
A ballot for three members bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Income Tax (Adjustment of Taxable Income Ranges) Amendment Bill (Simon Bridges) Regulatory Standards Bill (David Seymour) Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill (Ricardo Menéndez March) The first two ...
Back in 2014, the police raided and searched journalist Nicky Hager's home over his book Dirty Politics, seizing his journalistic work in an effort to identify his sources to please their political masters in the National party. The raid - and much of the police's related investigative work - was ...
By Professor Tony Blakely, Dr Tim Wilson, Luke Thorburn and Professor Nathan Grills, University of MelbourneA new web tool, COVID-19 Pandemic Trade-offs, allows people to weigh the costs and benefits of different policy responses as Australia rolls out vaccines and considers opening borders.See here for an associated explanatory ...
This evening I was engaging in polite conversation (well, I was polite, anyway) on an RNZ Facebook post about – you guessed it! – the covid19 vaccination program. One of those present offered up a link to a blog post by Joseph Mercola to support a claim he was making ...
by Jordan Levi (Contributed) I don’t remember when I first came across the concept of gender identity, but it was definitely before Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner) came out as transgender because I’m sure that would’ve confused me way more if it was my first acquaintance with the phenomenon. The ...
The fact that the much vaunted “most advanced, richest Nation on the planet, ever”, that being America, ran into a brick wall in its responses to the problems across the world of late is because, at its heart, of the economic system that we’ve all been largely forced to ...
The EPA has commenced the 2021 “denewing” of new organisms. Their New Organisms team explain what this means, and ask you to put forward your proposals. The places we inhabit are shared with thousands of different kinds of organisms. They’re in the trees, flying in the sky, in our yoghurt, ...
As we roll out the COVID-19 vaccine across NZ there will inevitably be people who experience adverse events after getting their jab. Here are some super important things to keep in mind about adverse events following immunisation. Terminology – words matter Any event that is undesirable and follows administration of ...
Nature Climate Change celebrates 10 years of obfuscation The Nature Publishing Group is distinguished not only by what we're told (most of us must take somebody's word for it) are exceptionally high quality research publications but also by what some might term an outlier, extremist policy on locked-down content. In many ...
How can we stop the Ministry of Health censoring and sanitising vital mental health statistics to make themselves (and Ministers) look good? Legislate for annual reporting: Green Party mental health spokeswoman Chlöe Swarbrick says the Ministry of Health should be legally required to produce a wide range of mental ...
Here’s a few short interesting developments or discussions I’ve seen recently. Loosely bundled together in a theme of “values.” Irregular labour Is the private sector the best provider and facilitator of “gig work”? That’s challenged in a New Yorker profile of Wingham Rowan, an English social entrepreneur. For many years ...
In 1997 the Law Commission reviewed the OIA. In the process, they identified a problem: decisions to transfer a request could not be investigated by the Ombudsman under the Act. They also identified a workaround: transfer decisions by agencies subject to the Ombudsmen Act could be investigated under that Act, ...
Today is a Member's Day, though with no particularly controversial bills up, it is likely to be a pretty boring one. First up is Maureen Pugh's Adverse Weather-affected Timber Recovery on Conservation Lands Bill, an attempt to sidestep the Forests (West Coast Accord) Act 2000 and allow the effective mining ...
The area of mental health has been a key strength for Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Government over the last few years. They campaigned strongly in 2017 on fixing up the dysfunctional system, and initially they made some vital strides forward in reforming the sector. An in-depth inquiry was instigated ...
By Jamie Stewart, Federated Mountain ClubsFederated Mountain Clubs (FMC), founded in 1931, represents 96 clubs, 22,000 members and 300,000 people that regularly recreate in the New Zealand backcountry. This article first appeared in the June 2020 issue of Backcountry magazine and is reproduced with permission. (Read the original article). ...
Stuff had an appalling story on Sunday about the Ministry of Health's attempts to hide unflattering mental health statistics and sanitise a regular report. The report came out last week, and showed a massive increase in the use of "seclusion", a practice which has been condemned by the UN Committee ...
Another unpleasant surprise at Tiwai Point: in addition to the declared stockpiles of toxic waste, they may have tens of thousands of tons secretly buried in the early 1990's to avoid the RMA: Investigators are looking into claims highly toxic waste has been buried in unmapped sites at Tiwai ...
This morning the government is deciding on the start-date for a trans-Tasman travel bubble. Note the way that that's phrased: the existence of such a bubble is taken as a given, and the only question is how to implement it. Obviously, we're going to have to re-open the borders eventually, ...
Qualified To Give - And Take - Advice: Most Labour MPs are self-conscious members of the meritocracy, meaning they have succeeded where the vast majority of their fellow citizens have failed. The primary political obligation, understood by all members of the First Labour Government, was to listen to the people. ...
The Green Party is putting a Member’s Bill into the ballot today which will be a significant step towards overhauling the Social Security Act by embedding a tikanga Māori framework into the welfare system. ...
The Green Party have reaffirmed their strong commitment to the union movement in Aotearoa New Zealand by renewing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with E Tū. ...
Soon, more kids in Aotearoa will have access to the in-school mental health support that has boosted the resilience of tamariki and whānau in Canterbury. ...
The Green Party supports the open letter released today by a cross-sector coalition calling for the Government to treat all drug use as a health issue, to repeal and replace the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. ...
Small businesses are not only the heart of our economy – they’re also the heart of our communities. They provide important goods and services, as well as great employment opportunities. They know and love their locals. And after a tough year, they need our support! ...
Green Party spokesperson for Pacific Peoples Teanau Tuiono MP, supports the demand from Pasifika communities fighting for climate action as their homelands are more at risk in the Pacific region. ...
The Green Party supports the six demands for climate action put forward by School Strike for Climate NZ, who are striking across the country today. ...
The Ministry of Justice Māori victimisation report, released today, reinforces what we already know about the impact of systemic racism in Aotearoa and that urgent action is needed. ...
Ricardo Menéndez March’s Members Bill to ensure that disabled New Zealanders do not face discrimination for having a disability assist dog was today pulled from the biscuit tin to be debated in Parliament. ...
More than one million people will be better off from today, thanks to our Government’s changes to the minimum wage, main benefits and superannuation. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to do more for New Zealanders who continue to miss out, as main benefits are set to rise by less than $8 a week tomorrow, Thursday 1 April (at the start of the financial year). ...
Sunday 28th March 70 Rongomaiwahine descendants welcomed members of the Green Party’s Māori Caucus, Te Mātāwaka, Dr Elizabeth Kerekere and Teanau Tuiono, to discuss concerns about RocketLab’s operations on the Mahia Peninsula. ...
Pacific people in New Zealand will be better supported with new mental health and addiction services rolling out across the Auckland and Wellington regions, says Aupito William Sio. “One size does not fit all when it comes to supporting the mental wellbeing of our Pacific peoples. We need a by ...
New measures are being proposed to accelerate progress towards becoming a smokefree nation by 2025, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced. “Smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke kills around 12 people a day in New Zealand. Recent data tells us New Zealand’s smoking rates continue to decrease, but ...
More children will be able to access mental wellbeing support with the Government expansion of Mana Ake services to five new District Health Board areas, Health Minister Andrew Little says. The Health Minister made the announcement while visiting Homai School in Counties Manukau alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate ...
The Government’s COVID-19 response has meant a record number of people moved off a Benefit and into employment in the March Quarter, with 32,880 moving into work in the first three months of 2021. “More people moved into work last quarter than any time since the Ministry of Social Development ...
A stocktake undertaken by France and New Zealand shows significant global progress under the Christchurch Call towards its goal to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. The findings of the report released today reinforce the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach, with countries, companies and civil society working together to ...
Racing Minister Grant Robertson has announced he is appointing Elizabeth Dawson (Liz) as the Chair of the interim TAB NZ Board. Liz Dawson is an existing Board Director of the interim TAB NZ Board and Chair of the TAB NZ Board Selection Panel and will continue in her role as ...
The Government has announced that the export of livestock by sea will cease following a transition period of up to two years, said Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. “At the heart of our decision is upholding New Zealand’s reputation for high standards of animal welfare. We must stay ahead of the ...
WORKSHOP ON LETHAL AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS SYSTEMS Wednesday 14 April 2021 MINISTER FOR DISARMAMENT AND ARMS CONTROL OPENING REMARKS Good morning, I am so pleased to be able to join you for part of this workshop, which I’m confident will help us along the path to developing New Zealand’s national policy on ...
For the first time, all 18 prisons in New Zealand will be invited to participate in an inter-prison kapa haka competition, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. The 2021 Hōkai Rangi Whakataetae Kapa Haka will see groups prepare and perform kapa haka for experienced judges who visit each prison and ...
The Government has introduced the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill, designed to boost New Zealand's ability to respond to a wider range of terrorist activities. The Bill strengthens New Zealand’s counter-terrorism legislation and ensures that the right legislative tools are available to intervene early and prevent harm. “This is the Government’s first ...
Coal boiler replacements at a further ten schools, saving an estimated 7,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next ten years Fossil fuel boiler replacements at Southern Institute of Technology and Taranaki DHB, saving nearly 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next ten years Projects to achieve a total ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of Cassie Nicholson as Chief Parliamentary Counsel for a term of five years. The Chief Parliamentary Counsel is the principal advisor and Chief Executive of the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO). She is responsible for ensuring PCO, which drafts most of New Zealand’s legislation, provides ...
Every part of Government will need to take urgent action to bring down emissions, the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw said today in response to the recent rise in New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions. The latest annual inventory of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions shows that both gross and net ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark says Aotearoa New Zealand has become the first country in the world to introduce a law that requires the financial sector to disclose the impacts of climate change on their business and explain how they will manage climate-related risks and opportunities. The Financial ...
Exceptional employment practices in the primary industries have been celebrated at the Good Employer Awards, held this evening at Parliament. “Tonight’s awards provided the opportunity to celebrate and thank those employers in the food and fibres sector who have gone beyond business-as-usual in creating productive, safe, supportive, and healthy work ...
Applications are now invited from all councils for a slice of government funding aimed at improving tourism infrastructure, especially in areas under pressure given the size of their rating bases. Tourism Minister Stuart Nash has already signalled that five South Island regions will be given priority to reflect that jobs ...
The Construction Skills Action Plan has delivered early on its overall target of supporting an additional 4,000 people into construction-related education and employment, says Minister for Building and Construction Poto Williams. Since the Plan was launched in 2018, more than 9,300 people have taken up education or employment opportunities in ...
An innovative new Youth Justice residence designed in partnership with Māori will provide prevention, healing, and rehabilitation services for both young people and their whānau, Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Whakatakapokai is located in South Auckland and will provide care and support for up to 15 rangatahi remanded or ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today expressed New Zealand’s sorrow at the death of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. “Our thoughts are with Her Majesty The Queen at this profoundly sad time. On behalf of the New Zealand people and the Government, I would like to express ...
We, the Home Affairs, Interior, Security and Immigration Ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America (the ‘Five Countries’) met via video conference on 7/8 April 2021, just over a year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Guided by our shared ...
Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni has today announced the opening of the first round of Ngā Puninga Toi ā-Ahurea me ngā Kaupapa Cultural Installations and Events. “Creating jobs and helping the arts sector rebuild and recover continues to be a key part of the Government’s COVID-19 response,” Carmel ...
Interim legislation that is already proving to keep people safer from drugs will be made permanent, Health Minister Andrew Little says. Research by Victoria University, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, shows that the Government’s decision in December to make it legal for drug-checking services to operate at festivals ...
Public consultation launched on ways to improve behaviour and reduce damage Tighter rules proposed for either camping vehicles or camping locations Increased penalties proposed, such as $1,000 fines or vehicle confiscation Rental companies may be required to collect fines from campers who hire vehicles Public feedback is sought on proposals ...
The Government is continuing to support Air New Zealand while aviation markets stabilise and the world moves towards more normal border operations. The Crown loan facility made available to Air New Zealand in March 2020 has been extended to a debt facility of up to $1.5 billion (an additional $600 ...
Christchurch’s Richmond suburb will soon have a new community hub, following the gifting of a red-zoned property by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) to the Richmond Community Gardens Trust. The Minister for Land Information, Damien O’Connor said that LINZ, on behalf of the Crown, will gift a Vogel Street house ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the reopening of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’ (MPP) Languages Funding in 2021 will make sure there is a future for Pacific languages. “Language is the key to the wellbeing for Pacific people. It affirms our identity as Pasifika and ...
It is a pleasure to be here tonight. Thank you Cameron for the introduction and thank you for ERANZ for also hosting this event. Last week in fact, we had one of the largest gatherings in our sector, Downstream 2021. I have heard from my officials that the discussion on ...
Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods has today announced the 16 projects that will together get $3.9 million through the 2021 round of Te Pūnaha Hihiko: Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund, further strengthening the Government’s commitment to Māori knowledge in science and innovation. “We received 78 proposals - the highest ...
The Government is delivering on a key election commitment to tackle climate change, by banning new low and medium temperature coal-fired boilers and partnering with the private sector to help it transition away from fossil fuels. This is the first major announcement to follow the release of the Climate Commission’s ...
Six projects, collectively valued at over $70 million are delivering new schools, classrooms and refurbished buildings across Central Otago and are helping to ease the pressure of growing rolls in the area, says Education Minister Chris Hipkins. The National Education Growth Plan is making sure that sufficient capacity in the ...
Two more schools are now complete as part of the Christchurch Schools Rebuild Programme, with work about to get under way on another, says Education Minister Chris Hipkins. Te Ara Koropiko – West Spreydon School will welcome students to their new buildings for the start of Term 2. The newly ...
The Government is acting to ensure decisions on responding to the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic are informed by the best available scientific evidence and strategic public health advice. “New Zealand has worked towards an elimination strategy which has been successful in keeping our people safe and our economy ...
Six Māori scholars have been awarded Ngārimu VC and the 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial scholarships for 2021, Associate Education Minister and Ngārimu Board Chair, Kelvin Davis announced today. The prestigious Manakura Award was also presented for the first time since 2018. “These awards are a tribute to the heroes of the 28th ...
New Zealand’s aerospace industry is getting a boost through the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), to grow the capability of the sector and potentially lead to joint space missions, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods has announced. 12 New Zealand organisations have been chosen to work with world-leading experts at ...
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New Zealand’s successful management of COVID means quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia will start on Monday 19 April, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed the conditions for starting to open up quarantine free travel with Australia have ...
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little welcomed ngā uri o Ngāti Hinerangi to Parliament today to witness the third reading of their Treaty settlement legislation, the Ngāti Hinerangi Claims Settlement Bill. “I want to acknowledge ngā uri o Ngāti Hinerangi and the Crown negotiations teams for working tirelessly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Barratt, Lecturer, Centre for Work + Wellbeing, Edith Cowan University Menulog, Australia’s second-largest food ordering and delivery platform, has declared it will break with the standard “gig platform” business model and engage some of its couriers as employees, not independent contractors. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nareen Young, Industry Professor, Jumbunna Institute of Education and Research, University of Technology Sydney The spotlight is once again on bullying and unfair treatment at work. Former Australia Post CEO, Christine Holgate, this week said she had been “bullied out of my ...
The Government’s discussion document on ‘Proposals For A Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan’ alarmingly reveals there’s little intention to elevate vaping as a much safer and cheaper alternative to smoking, says a leading tobacco harm reduction ...
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Te Aka Matua o te Ture | Law Commission is proposing changes to succession law, which addresses who inherits a person’s property when they die. In an issues paper and a consultation website released today, the Commission has identified some ...
From Flatmates to Popstars to Celebrity Treasure Island, New Zealand reality television was at its best when nobody really knew what they were doing. José Barbosa looks back wistfully and wonders: can we ever get that magic back?I don’t know about you, but I remember the late 90s and early ...
Our beginner’s guides are quick and simple explainers on everyday money topics hitting headlines right now. This week, we take a look at the new $20 minimum wage.What is the minimum wage and where did it come from?The minimum wage is the lowest amount of money employers can legally pay ...
Internet safety company Safe Surfer has commended Kiwibank for being the first bank to introduce a feature that lets customers block payments to gambling sites. Safe Surfer CEO and co-founder Rory Birkbeck says Kiwibank’s move to let ...
The 2021 Our Land report has raised serious warnings about our most productive food-growing land being turned over to housing. Alex Braae explains.What’s all this then?The environment ministry and Stats NZ have produced a new report called Our Land, which outlines exactly what New Zealand’s land is being used for, ...
The Ministry for the Environment’s latest environmental report presents a damning indictment of the way food is produced in New Zealand. “The Ministry for the Environment has told the country in plain terms the way we farm is eroding the foundations of ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. Click here to subscribe to Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup and New Zealand Politics Daily. Today’s contentLive animal export ban Stuff: Editorial – The tide goes out on animal exports Luke Malpass ...
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Yesterday Jacinda Ardern angrily declared that an MIQ worker had lied. That should not be a sufficiently sophisticated technique to get around our border defences, argues Duncan Greive.It emerged yesterday that “case B” in the small yet still concerning cluster of Covid-19 cases related to the Grand Millennium Hotel in ...
The Spinoff, in conjunction with Daylight Creative and Copyright Licensing New Zealand, is proud to announce a new monthly slot for great one-off comics by a rotating cast of New Zealand comic creators. Below, Toby Morris introduces the series and our first artist, Indira Neville.I’m a huge believer in comics. ...
The absolute last thing the National Party should be considering right now is another change in leadership – its third in less than a year were it to happen in the next few months. National has far more pressing tasks at hand. To have any prospect of ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Whittaker, Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of deceased people. Five Aboriginal people have died in custody in the last month in Australia. It’s been 30 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Archa Fox, Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, University of Western Australia The world’s first mRNA vaccines — the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — have made it in record time from the laboratory, through successful clinical trials, regulatory approval and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will Steffen, Emeritus Professor, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University In May 2011, almost precisely a decade ago, the government-appointed Climate Commission released its inaugural report. Titled The Critical Decade, the report’s final section warned that to keep global ...
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Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Calls made for return of Epidemic Response Committee, Māori wards coming in around the country, and police admit to illegal intelligence gathering tactics.Serious flaws in the government’s Covid response have been exposed on a day of sustained pressure at parliament. Hundreds ...
The Labour and Green government had a chance to introduce harsher penalties for people who assault our first responders, but voted it down and have shown once again just how out of touch and soft on crime they really are, says Darroch Ball co-leader ...
ACT Leader David Seymour has welcomed the Government’s decision to trial Datamine’s ëlarm with border workers. “ We’ve been urging the Government to adopt ëlarm for 314 days now ,” says Mr Seymour. “It shouldn’t have taken ten months for ...
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Business & Investing: With the Official Cash Rate left at 0.25 percent, market watchers look to the RBNZ's May update, Plus: 2 Degrees goes with Ericsson over Huawei for 5G ...
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Things went from bad to worse for a survivor of domestic violence who tried to get a court-ordered sharing of marital assets. She lost, was then charged with the crime of perjury, sentenced to home detention, and later bankrupted. Bonnie Sumner and Melanie Reid report. A woman alleging abuse by her ...
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New Zealand is set to become the first country in the world to introduce a comprehensive ban on live animal exports by sea. There are good reasons behind the decision, writes Mirjam Guesgen.It’s hot and sticky. Temperatures reach those of summer highs and humidity levels hang in the 80s. Animals ...
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Labour's signature policies are atrophying as the Government focuses on the Covid-19 pandemic and recovery. Peter Dunne asks if managing the virus will be enough to get Labour re-elected in two years ...
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The National Party is six months into its rebuild following a disastrous election result and once again leaking and leadership rumours are making headlines. ...
The Government has come under fire for being slow to reform hate crime legislation, even after it was recommended by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the March 15 terror attack. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison has defended his intemperate language in parliament against Christine Holgate last year, saying he had to protect taxpayers’ money and Labor was calling for her resignation. Pressed to respond to the former Australia ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Lecturer, Archaeology, Flinders University An almost 3,400-year-old industrial, royal metropolis, “the Dazzling Aten”, has been found on the west bank of the Nile near the modern day city of Luxor. Announced last week by the famed Egyptian archaeologist Dr ...
It might have the same name, but Popstars is nothing like the original show. And that’s a problem, writes Sam Brooks.The first episode of Popstars, way back in 1999, got through the auditions stage in one segment, literally 10 minutes of television. The rebooted version of Popstars, which aims to ...
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Amnesty International is calling on the New Zealand Government to oppose the Government of Japan’s decision to release more than one million tonnes of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. We join a ...
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the border security guard who had not been tested since last November lied to his employer First Security about the tests he was supposed to have had. ...
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Local Government Minister Nanaia’s intentions were plainly proclaimed soon after the Ardern Government began its second term. She was determined to remove legislative machinery that enabled public polls to be conducted when councils attempted to create Māori wards. The headline on an RNZ report summed up her commitment: Mahuta vows to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Stewart, Professor at Sydney Law School, University of Sydney Last week, the federal government changed its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccines. The Pfizer vaccine is now the “preferred” jab for adults under 50. Amid the political fallout and worries about what it ...
Thank goodness for online grocery shopping. It means we can stay in the warm, and we will let the delivery person know how grateful we are not to have to venture out into this weather at age 79.
Even after 10 Years…
'Young said despite his hopes, even over the past year, not much had changed.
"Unfortunately, there's no evidence of a real improvement.
"There's no evidence of going backwards either.
"We know there's been increasing recognition of the concerns with fresh water systems over the last 10 years or so, and there is a lot of action going on.
"But there's no evidence of an improvement yet, so that suggests more effort and more time required to make those benefits show up."
He said it could take some years if not decades before improvements would be seen.'
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427008/water-quality-of-rivers-and-streams-not-improving-study-shows
Just shows…dont let the nats back…even any fake blue/green ones. Jacquie Dean….
Anyway let their own words speak :
“They’re gone by lunchtime,” the party’s agriculture spokesman David Bennett said in a Facebook Live last night, talking about the water policy.
His leader, Judith Collins, was critical of what she saw as bureaucrats in Wellington making all the rules when it comes to farmers, particularly in Southland.
She was sick of these people “bossing everyone else around”.
“We should just boss out those regulations.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12359810
(And yes I do note Urban Streams too…: (
National's attitude to clean water is simply disgusting.
https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/l/f/i/z/s/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.1240×700.1lfi0o.png/1504501119377.jpg
Hmmm…that definitely needed an Advisory heads up : )
Look at the evidence.
The history shows that the primary sector simply keeps taking until there is nothing left. It has only ever been intervention that has stopped the plunder. Every. Single. Time.
This is the evidence and the history.
The primary sector (and their reps the National Party) cannot be trusted.
And Labour does seem to get it…(I could have said finally).
Anyway, I couldnt imagine anyone in the nats saying this?
'Mr Parker told the meeting he had a fondness for Central Otago and the Manuherikia catchment was vitally important to the region’s people.
"This is about everyone coming together to stop the degradation and undo the damage of the past.
"The Manuherikia rises in the Hawkdun ranges and flows through some of New Zealand’s most stunning landscapes that inspired the paintings of Grahame Sydney and the poems of Brian Turner."
The river was under pressure, with water quality declining and over-allocation of water reducing the minimum flow needed for ecological processes, such as providing habitat for wildlife, and for recreational use, he said.'
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/central-otago/funding-boost-manuherikia-river-work
I still think Labour needs the Greens…to remind
The Cost of Resistance
by CHRIS HEDGES, Sept. 22, 2020
Two of the rebels I admire most, Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks publisher, and Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, are in jail in Britain. That should not be surprising. You can measure the effectiveness of resistance by the fury of the response. Julian courageously exposed the lies, deceit, war crimes and corruption of the ruling imperial elites. Roger has helped organized the largest acts of mass civil disobedience in British history, shutting down parts of London for weeks, in a bid to wrest power from a ruling class that has done nothing, and will do nothing, to halt the climate emergency and our death march to mass extinction.
The governing elites, when truly threatened, turn the rule of law into farce. Dissent becomes treason. They use the state mechanisms of control – intelligence agencies, police, courts, black propaganda and a compliant press that acts as their echo chamber, along with the jails and prisons, not only to marginalize and isolate rebels, but to
psychologically and physically destroy them. The list of rebels silenced or killed by ruling elites runs in a direct line from Socrates to the Haitian resistance leader Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led the only successful slave revolt in human history and died in a
frigid French prison cell of malnutrition and exhaustion, to the imprisonment of the socialist Eugene V. Debs, whose health was also broken in a federal prison. Rebel leaders from the 1960s, including Mumia Abu Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Kojo Bomani Sababu, Mutulu Shakur and Leonard Peltier, remain, decades later, in U.S. prisons. Muslim activists, including those who led the charity The Holy Land Foundation and Syed Fahad Hashmi, were arrested, often at the request of Israel, after the hysteria following 9/11, and given tawdry show trials. They also remain incarcerated.
Resistance, genuine resistance, exacts a very, very high price. Those in power drop even the pretense of justice when they face an existential threat. …
Read more…
https://scheerpost.com/2020/09/22/chris-hedges-the-cost-of-resistance/
Thank you Morrissey.
A really interesting article.
It's quite remarkable how the world's corporate media is ignoring the Assange case, and Matt Kennard in this short 10 minute interview outlines some of the measures being taken by the state and the conflicts of interest.
A very articulate man
thanks AJ
He expresses the whole bizarre nightmarish scenario so well
It is entirely predictable how the world's corporate media is ignoring the Assange case.
You just have to look at who owns them.
https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/
"In fact, the milquetoast offerings of National are a window into their soul – and it is disappointing viewing."
Milquetoast indeed but said with aggression and steely eyes beneath lowered eyebrows sound so credible.
Link please, Robert!
https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/4/y/n/z/f/8/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.1240×700.215ynv.png/1601125780112.jpg?format=pjpg&optimize=medium
haha
Really interesting self-acknowledged failure from Green MP jan Logie here on her delegated field of domestic violence:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300116850/strategy-to-transform-family-violence-written-off-as-too-mori
If you get to the end, the result sounds depressingly familiar to many of the social welfare policies and stupendously huge budget allocations of this government including benefit levels, child poverty, Oranga Tamariki, and mental health:
Domestic violence budget line got $320 million in the 2019 budget, and
$250 million in the COVID19 response.
That's over half a billion dollars, with no result.
The biggest attack line Nation should be using against this government is simply this:
Failure to execute.
Not quite. Hard to tell exactly what has happened there until the documents are released, but lots of conflict between the people wanting transformational, the people resisting that, Logie being given the responsibility but not the authority to act and so on. I'll wait until the documents are released and analysed before forming an opinion on whether the plan was unworkable in reality, or was too radical, or a combination of both. Am really curious to see if the plan doesn't work for Pākehā or how it works was missed.
Reading between the lines, my guess is that Labour will take over the project, water it down and implement something that makes some improvements but fails the agreement of transformation.
It's pretty hard to see a Green MP keeping it that's for sure. Logie was clear that she just didn't have the seniority to effectively push it – a curious admission.
If the Greens get in and want a serious portfolio outside of plants, they could always propose someone for Minister of Social Welfare, and Minister for Children. Clearly the big program changes and big budget moves need more heft at Cabinet beyond budget allocations.
Question is, should they be in the position to ask: if it's beyond Jan Logie, who in the Green caucus would want it?
"Logie was clear that she just didn't have the seniority to effectively push it – a curious admission."
How so? Wouldn't it have been Ardern who decided that she should be an under secretary and thus have limited authority? And hence the oversight from the Labour and NZF Ministers.
"Question is, should they be in the position to ask: if it's beyond Jan Logie, who in the Green caucus would want it?"
I'm not clear yet that it was beyond Logie, as opposed to being a poor set up with substantial conflicts, and then covid.
The admission was in the article provided.
why is it curious?
Winston vetoed any cabinet positions for Greens.
Hard to tell if Ad is blaming Logie for that 😉
Somehow I can sense Winston's sticky little fjngers in this mess
Because that's easier than holding your own party responsible for their own work.
Bugger the attack line. That’s for headline writers in MSM, for the Party spin-doctors, for the National Party’s Meme Working Groups on Facebook, and for lazy commenters on SM who want to score easy points. They don’t do anything to help solve problems. Where’s National’s viable and realistic alternative that has been costed (but not by Paora)? Which party has a compelling policy platform to deliver and do anything better?
Has that half a billion dollar been all spent? Has it absolutely nothing to show for it? Where has it gone? Should we expect quick and easy solutions?
The Stuff article is in-depth and nuanced and it goes into much background context. It would be great if the author could follow up with an analysis of National Party policy to tackle family violence in Aotearoa-New Zealand. As far as I can tell, National is framing it as a Law & Order issue and treats it like it treats crime instead of approaching it as a social-cultural issue. They are bloody dinosaurs when it comes to complex social inequalities and inequities. In fact, their outmoded thinking has no place in Government.
Nope. This is where the government is held to account.
If I wanted to do the National Party social welfare policy, I would. As would Stuff.
It always amazes me how the tiniest piece of criticism of the Greens requires a wall of self-righteous defence, no matter how irrational.
It's an election: that time where you evaluate performance, to help figure out if parties are worth another go or not.
Whereas Labour and NZF Ministers take it on the chin. They reform, or they get fired, or they get their funding taken. Even Shane Jones figured that out.
Seriously if the Greens can't figure out how to get critiqued and improve, and on as easy a topic as domestic violence, rather than ranting with rhetorical questions and doing another turn of Whataboutthemism, then maybe politics just isn't for them.
Bollocks!
Referring to the “biggest attack line Nation [sic] should be using against this government” is engaging in attack and negative antagonistic opposition, not holding the Government to account. Personally, I think this is mind-numbingly stupid 🙁
In an election campaign, Parties present their policies and engage in a contest of ideas. If you want to suggest an attack line to and for National to attack this Coalition Government with then you should at least mention the other side of the coin too.
There you go. If they (as in Labour, NZF, and the Greens) are not worth another go then we need to look at and know Plan B, don’t we? This is not holding the Government to account but really about making choices (i.e. electing) for the next one.
If you insist on framing this as a criticism of the Greens per se then knock yourself out with that. I did not take it as such from the Stuff article nor from your comment @ 6 and to me it comes across as unnecessary needling of Green Party supporters on this site but hey, whatever floats your boat 🙂 However, if you think my comment @ 6.3 was intended as a defence of the Greens, in general or against you, then you need to take remedial reading lessons ASAP.
I hope you’re enjoying watching the MMA.
I rather liked the National leader's attack on Jacinda about looking out for the poorest. Though she should have out-skirted her. Anyone who thinks on the social democratic side despise this govt for talking but not doing for the neediest.
Domestic/family violence, ACC settlement compensation for sexual assaults, settlement compensation of abuse (sexual, physical and psychological) in state or religious faith based care, this is all a priority. The cost is enormous and a timely response is required so as to not re abuse the claimant.
Housing to go to and be safe is imited, so is no cost counselling and addiction services and legal services may also be required. Clients accessing a service or several services, advocates who know what they are doing are required.
Children who are exposed to poverty and any form of abuse and violence also require the appropriate intervention, care or service.
Those already in the system, the system is failing many.
I have had to do this link in long hand. It is an example of how sick ACC legislation is for an historical childhood sexual assault case. I was aware of this.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/dreadful-acc-loophole-preventing-child-sexual-abuse-victims-qualifying-weekly-compensation
Out dated unfit for purpose legislation which disadvantages children who were sexually assaulted prior to their 18th birthday because they did not make a complaint or did not seek treatment for their injury.
Watched the Q&A this morning. What a pity Jack didn't get to be the one to ask his quality questions in the Leaders Debate.
Focussed questions versus Woolley questions.
He seems to have developed an aversion to bland: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12368210
He captured the left/right banality thing nicely in a couple of sentences:
The Centre doesn't have courageous policy either. There is some courageous policy on the left though.
Had a skype with an old female friend this morning, sharing views on other old friends who succumbed to new-age mystique in the '90s and are now hooked on conspiracy theories. We both declared that we'd do a covid vaccine, which puts us in the largest population category – but still a minority: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/most-kiwis-would-likely-get-covid-19-vaccine-if-one-becomes-available-1-news-poll
So 44% definitely would, plus 32% likely makes three-quarters of the nation willing to sacrifice themselves as guinea pigs in the cause of science & public health.
Definitely not comes in at 10%, but with another 11% unlikely, we have one person in five willing to gamble on nature alone.
Nature? Everything with humans is perception – the prejudiced's 'idea' of nature is what they pay attention to plus their idea of them being exceptional and anyone who disagrees is part of a giant conspiracy against the 'sensitives' or'more informed'.
Personally have no problem taking a vaccination for it, but would quietly prefer if it was a year or two after released for other people, given how fast it will hopefully come through compared to other medicinal.
Just so I can see if people taking it start growing an extra arm, having fits, or their bits fall off etc (joke, but would prefer a larger testing sample)
Nope. The people who do that are the ones who participate in the clinical trials. Getting a vaccine post-trial is lower-risk than waiting to catch the disease.
"Because National listens to laggards not leaders, it is setting itself up for a mighty fall."
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/rod-oram-why-national-is-no-longer-the-party-of-business
That is an excellent article. Collins claiming to speak on behalf of 'farmers' is just not true. Federated Farmers are a lobby group but Fonterra and all those other companies are the business leaders in rural NZ, and they are looking forward not back.
Yip if your the ag minister forget about the fed farmers, talk to the CEOs of Fonterra ,Silver fern farms and alliance,they have the power to drive change., probably wasting your time with the talley owned affco though.
Well spotted Robert. Thanks. If only some of the non-laggard could get a platform to explain their forward momentum. As for the destructive Collins and Federated Farmers, expose the blighters!
This article shows a similar approach – even Barfoot & Thompson realise healthy homes are a good thing:
Group letter on healthy homes
As with farming and water standards, it shows the difference between working with business who want to move forward and pandering to backward-looking, loud lobby groups, whether fringe farmers or bad landlords.
The problem with expecting instant results AKA impatience.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427008/water-quality-of-rivers-and-streams-not-improving-study-shows
how so?
If you read the article, it is very clear that changes implemented now can have a huge lag in their impact, i.e. improving water quality. Similarly, much crap, literally, is working its way through the ecosystem, which means we could see things actually getting worse, because of past polluting behaviours, despite our (best?) efforts at present. This is a problem with setting policy and selling it to stakeholders and the general public in order to get it initiated and actioned but then to keep following up and persevering over a prolonged period of time. The further out the ‘reward’ the less one can rely on the ‘instant gratification’ mechanism of people to comply. If this is not acknowledged and communicated clearly and properly from the outset then these policies will lack the required resilience to be sustainable in the long-term and they end up being ineffective. A further consequence is that they could end up being counter-productive because they could (be used to) turn public and political ‘sentiment’ against future efforts to make meaningful changes. It is the proverbial one-step-forward-two-steps-backward scenario.
Quite specifically, we'd have National get in power, point to reports like this, say that its not working and drop them all. And thing's would just get worse.
Exactly!
We watched these rivers being degraded in our lifetimes, and it is reasonable to expect that they be restored within the same period, however inconvenient that might be for politicians who prefer not to act meaningfully, if they must act at all. If we wait, and let these lazy troughers get away with doing nothing, nothing is all we will have to show for it. One would expect that significant risks to ecosystem health would stimulate prudent and timely responses. Experience teaches us otherwise.
Stuart M +100
Entropy. It's easier to destroy things than rebuild them.
It's often only a matter of a bit of planting and some aeration to speed up breakdown of organics and prevent rivers going anaerobic.
We are headed for a collision with the consequences of our environmental delinquency – and to avoid collisions you take early and substantial action. Does “hard and early” ring a bell?
We don't have time to 'fluff' about, the kinds of change that made Oz's fire season are still rolling along. Likely we'll need to make substantial changes to farming, fishing, and water supply, with a sporting chance of needing to accommodate or support Pacific climate refugees in place.
This is not the time to go demonstrating the fungibility of neolib 'policy' in hopes of a few donations.
I'm no expert in water ecology, but I'm not sure an ideal pandemic response would be an ideal response to every dire situation we face.
Early & substantial action is from navigation – but the parallel holds. If an intervention is warranted, it is more effective to intervene earlier rather than later. Same holds with ecology – the best time to plant trees was ten years ago – now is only second best.
Frittering away our time with bullshit gameplaying is a luxury more suited to the halcyon days before the anthropocene got the bit between its teeth. When Parker set a nitrate level eight times higher than China's, he should have accompanied it with his resignation – since he had decided not to do his job.
Except if there's a delayed response between input and measurement, you end up "chasing the gauges" (a flight control term), overcorrecting each time, and pile into the ground.
Not to mention the fact that no policy should be considered in isolation. That's why the government had a good covid response, but didn't follow every single MoH recommendation to the letter.
I mean, we could just shoot hundreds of thousands of cows to help solve the problem, but that would have unexpected [figurative] downstream effects on society in the regions.
Well there's certainly no danger of an overshoot at the levels Parker set. Cancer, and infant deaths maybe, but no overreaction.
We are so privileged to live under a government so backward it promises generational change so slow it cannot even be measured. At which point there is no reason to assume that there is any change contemplated at all – which would be par for the course from these career neolibs.
I don’t think anyone was calling for mass culling of cattle – though moving some to other catchments might be appropriate if they blow nitrate levels out – bit of a straw man really.
Perhaps we can worry about over correction somewhat after there is evidence that there has been any correction at all.
So go hard, but not that hard, huh?
You know what? We are privileged/lucky to have this government. Look around the world. Yes, things need improving, in so many areas. But by and large this government is doing pretty bloody well. I'm not going to gnash my teeth and demand resignations just because I think I could run things better.
They are not doing well on freshwater – or Mike Joy & Dr Death wouldn't be condemning their actions.
They have done well on Covid, but there are a lot of other issues. This is one that they have handled particularly badly, and polling has consistently shown rivers to be the public's leading environmental concern.
They need to be reminded of this by ordinary members of the public, because the current opposition is not fit for the purpose.
demand resignations just because I think I could run things better
Setting nitrate levels eight times higher than the WHO recommendations doesn't seem prudent to me. And I suspect Parker is not sufficiently expert to rebut them on any objective grounds.
"Ordinary members of the public" do not look up WHO nitrate recommendations.
I think that nobody really knew what ‘hard and early’ meant in reality but people dropping like flies in Lombardy and Wuhan was a good incentive to doing something. That sense of immediacy is missing from water quality or anything environmental for that matter with the possible exception of the measures to prevent the spreading of Kauri disease.
It's a general principle for some kinds of response, but of course the unique circumstances of each required intervention are very different. I imagine historians of futurity, if we have one, will have a task explaining to students quite how difficult it was to make such a decision over Covid, with political consequences on one side, and public health on the other, even with the relatively abundant examples (compared to those other countries had when they were forced to choose) at our disposal.
There have been a number of expositions of NZ's level process, and the clarity it generated for the public, when health services were, behind the scenes, in a state of flux as they conformed to meet a threat for which they had few treatment options. The verdict has been very positive, with minor errors like the stance on masking, and some frankly odd attitudes among testing authorities noted, but not diluting the overall positive perception and the compliance it generated contributing to the strong result.
A hard and early response to water quality would mean different things in different catchments, with restrictions likely in oversubscribed and rapidly nitrifying areas like south Canterbury. But it need not be introduced in a draconian fashion, it can be phased in over a reasonable period as it is expected is happening with emissions, allowing farmers time to weigh mitigation options, or possibly limit some types of intensification on a regional or catchment basis.
What it should not have done was to allow lobbying to get across the objective part of regulations – the nitrate levels, because these are set on a physiological basis, and, like any other physical constants, they do not make allowances for the human capacity for self or habitat destruction.
Think of nitrogen in a river like it's alcohol in our bloodstream. Setting a nitrogen limit at the toxicity level is like setting the drink-driving limit at the toxicity level. You're not dealing with all the bad things that happen before you've been poisoned.
As has been noted elsewhere, the standard broadly adopted internationally, 1mg/l, will become a customer expectation, and willing or not, NZ farmers will be obliged to meet it, or suffer a price and a reputational loss in the market.
Better then to lay that out clearly at the beginning, and put efforts into supporting the transition, than to prop up a poor standard that will ultimately need to be revised, but will still incur the price and reputational and ecological and public health cost.
I agree with all that. My point is that for many (but not all!) people there’s no greater motivator than death knocking on your door at any moment. People are also scared shitless of stuff they don’t understand such as a killer virus, just think of the many Hollywood movies featuring runaway viruses and diseases decimating the human population and turning survivors into monstrous zombies. Turds floating in rivers or streams just don’t have the same impact on people’s minds and behaviours.
A man's flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe. Fremen custom.
Variety is the spice of life.
The idea of Covid testing before getting on a flight has often been suggested as a means of improving border control. Dubai in the UAE already requires it. One of our latest cases detected in managed isolation had transited through Dubai, so would have required a clean test before being allowed on that flight.
Which illustrates the point: pre-flight screening would do nothing to change what needs to be done on the ground here, and just adds another layer of complexity and expense to the whole border control situation.
Test requirements for Dubai:
Yes, but extra the testing probably isn't there to protect the people but as another form of profit making. Because you can be sure that it will be private enterprise that's doing it and, if National get in and puts in place legislation requiring such testing before coming to NZ then you can be sure that they will require testing on the way out and they will have private enterprise doing it.
Its the same for many uneconomic actions that exist in society. They produce more profit and more jobs and so getting rid of them then becomes impracticable, as far as the capitalists and government are concerned, to remove them.
I question Malaysia as having good controls generally. Anyone know enough to rate them?
Their measures seem not too different to our own, albeit complicated by their geography and mix of cultures. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7293423/
They had it under control by June/July, but a second wave has them on about 1000 active cases at present. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/malaysia/
That seems reasonably professional.
And how long before a negative certificate printing industry springs up to cater for the businessperson in a hurry.
Probably already exists. After all, even laser printers are cheap these days and its not as if such a business would need a commercial grade printer capable of printing hundreds of thousands a day.
As I say above, such requirements are there just for the profit opportunities that it generates.
good to see the likes of the conservative party and regress NZ party showing up in polls. want to see them get another 2 or 3 % of votes yet. that way when combined with TOP and NZF it will guarantee a Labour lead govt even if the greens don't make it in. I wonder if conservative voters realise that as things stand every 1 out of 2 conservative votes will go to Labour
All those split+redistributed votes give me a warm feeling all over.
apparentley not all is well in the conspiracy party (advance,nzpp). many of their members and candidates are walking away in disgust. splitters! hah!so the judean peoples front and the peoples front of judeah cant agree. , many of the tin hit brigade are yet again, wandering in the wilderness, looking for another conspiracy.
Will Billy's nose-pokey-outey refusal to mask-up properly on board Flight 666 to Nowhere endear him to his flock of flockers, or will they see through his charade and shift their voting preference to the Eminently More Sensible "New Conservatives"???
think some will follow brian,sorry, billy all the way down the rabid hole, some will drift off to new cons, some to maori party, most will probably not vote cause its just a government plot to harvest and store their dna!
Hate speech. Labors new law they'd propose to govern hate speech. Where can i find info on exactly what it will be that the labor government might propose?. This proposal is a bit worrying, i feel. Will freedom of speech be soon to be deemed to be hate speech. Will it?. How will labor intend to decide?. Will it be soon to become hate speech for Dennis Gates to be saying what he does in this following article https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/09/top-lawyer-compares-gloriavale-s-leadership-to-islamic-state.html
I'm certainly interested to see some sort of rock solid detail before i make my decision up on who i'd vote for.
Freedom of speech should not be carte blanche to say anything you please. There are limits.
Probably not.
Yeah i agree that certain limits should apply. But how would we decide what limits would allow. And who would decide. And how can we make sure that these limits wouldn't suppress discussion what should need to take place, even if somebody might interpret this discussion as being hateful. The way like what i suspect that some gloriavale citizen might interpret Dennis Gates opinion to be. I hope that labor government might enter into discussion about this subject more before final date of election. Citizen should have a right to know. Hopefully the other parties might begin to push labor into discussing this matter more
Ask a linguist or three?
I figure that he's pointing out similarities and if they don't like that then their only option is to become better.
But the most important point is that he's not actually stirring up hatred against them.
Yeah. Hate speech. We should be free to spout hate, whenever, wherever. I too am concerned that Big Government is anti-hate! Give hate a chance, I say! #sarc
Sarc can have its place. But hey, its a reasonable question to think about. At what point should freedom of speech be deemed to be hate speech. How would you decide. And who should be the one who'd get to decide. Can you actually provide an answer to those question?. Or is sarc about all you'd be able to come up with. I'd love to see you answer
Labour Party: No policies found
https://policy.nz/topic/community-and-inclusion#Free%20expression%20and%20hate%20speech
That's interesting Incognito. I'm fairly certain i saw Jacinda promising that she would intend to strengthen hate speech law if Labor government is re-elected . I'm not exactly sure what she had meant by this. Perhaps it might just be to strengthen law against inciting hate speech what could lead to acts of violence. Which i feel would be fair enough. But exactly what her intention would be, i really don't know
Is there deliberate creation of confusion and misinformation employed when using terms like 'hate speech' to create an assumption that freedom of speech under the Bill of Rights is being taken away?
It's election time and a newer 'falsehood' is thrown out there fuelled by Seymour.
There is NO current new law Labour is passing. Since 2019 a review has been underway, scheduled since 2018. There is an outdated set of laws needing inspection and people's rights to be safe need strengthening.
The Justice Ministry has looked at relevant aspects of laws that already exist – the Human Rights Act, the Harmful Digital Communications Act, and sections of the Crimes Act to see what laws may need to be changed or added. A REVIEW by the Human Rights has been underway, including Section61 constructed some years back to see if it is fit for purpose; particularly needed with the fast paced development of social media and the current section61 not protecting all people.
Seymour last Friday, took words from Jacinda's mouth, invented a sinister twist omitting any fuller information on the day. Jacinda was unveiling the plaque at the mosque on Friday. It wasn't coincidental timing, there is no " hate speech" NEW law per say. Seymour was playing to ignorance of the existing laws and unfounded fears.
" By law in the Bill of Rights Act, everyone in New Zealand has the right to freedom of expression, including the "freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form".
IMO Seymour is rallying to a hard core of haters having choosen that day specifically as JA spent time with Muslim victims. The timing of Seymour's rant was despicable as he drew the media and public attention away from NZers and the Muslim community commemorating victims of a massacre.
What the public are now led to assume in advance of an election from Seymour's release is that your freedoms are being denied. The exact fear effect ACT was hoping to instil has been uptaken. MSM happily disseminated this also in a shallow, click bait way.
" Existing law makes no explicit reference to hate speech, but under Section 61 of the Human Rights Act, it’s unlawful to broadcast, publish or distribute material that is “threatening, abusive or insulting” and “likely to excite hostility against, or bring into contempt, any group of persons in New Zealand on the ground of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins”. The Christchurch shooter under this law could arguably say what he liked about "Islam" or gays, or any disabled person he likes in any manner.
Under current law, unjustly so, there are vulnerable groups NOT protected. What was being reviewed as mentioned by Jacinda was that the current law does NOT give protection from hate that incites 'hostility' towards people in categories of gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or disability.
The Human Rights Commission review was, as mentioned, not only to look at lack of all vulnerable person's protections but to see if that older law needed changes to encompass modern developments.
The HR review tribunal consultations etc. were put on hold with Covid19 's emergence; Andrew Little believes those findings when completed should be dealt with post election as an issue for the new parliament. Rightly so.
Facebook's stance had rules updated in 2018, New Zealand has not updated with the times.
" Facebook, which recently adopted stricter controls on what users can post online, uses more specific criteria. Its policy targets direct attacks on people’s “protected characteristics” such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, serious disability or disease."
Janet Anderson-Bidois, the HR commission’s chief legal adviser has talked of the confusion of people around issues , confusing hate speech with hate crime and freedom of expression just as Seymour has done with his deliberate misinformation mash up.
"Anderson-Bidois insists that the commission isn’t bent on rewriting the laws governing hate speech. All it’s doing, she says, is suggesting they should be reviewed to ensure they’re still “fit for purpose" …
"New Zealand has become culturally far more diverse since the Human Rights Act was passed and the internet was then still in its infancy. Anomalies have arisen, she says."
"Of course freedom of speech comes into it, “but with rights come responsibilities. People also have a right to be safe. "
A person's right to exercising free speech, even if extremely offensive, is still upheld by NZ law. An example of this was the Human Rights Commission not ruling in favour of Louisa Wall's case she brought over racist cartoons published by Fairfax. In other words the cartoonist's right to freedom of expression were upheld not Wall's feelings of taking offence.
Unlike Seymour's supposition on his FB page, ideas can still be freely attacked and even offensive opinion expressed.
The HRC review will also hopefully bring clarity in helping " to distinguish attacks on people from attacks on ideas and beliefs?"
In 2018 Labour’s Duncan Webb, who was a lawyer and legal academic before entering Parliament, "
says he’s acutely aware of the tension between freedom of expression and hate speech, but he doesn’t think the free-speech defence can be applied in cases where speech is calculated to injure or terrorise people."…
" But there’s a real danger of confusing honestly held opinion with attacks on people, and by lumping it all into this category of hate speech they conflate targeted speech, aimed at destroying or bullying people, with honest expression of opinion.”
There is a scenario to help illustrate when a line is crossed, the difference between hate speech and free speech in the Listener at the time of Lauren Southern's and Stefan Molyneux's NZ visit.
" Wellington business consultant Dave Moskovitz brought a touch of levity to the proceedings, describing himself as a “walking bullseye” for purveyors of hate speech: “middle aged, Pākehā, cis, hetero, male, geek, property owner, investor, company director, immigrant, American, religious, Jew, and – wait for it – Zionist”.
But the tone turned serious when Moskovitz told of a New Zealand white nationalist blogger who published an online guide to “Zionists in your neighbourhood” and included a photo of Moskovitz’s house. The blogger went on to say that Jews were a slap in the face to the human race and were not welcome in this country.
Moskovitz said the same man later said in a newspaper interview that Jews should have been exterminated – “and that’s where the line was crossed. Saying you do not like a group of people, while repugnant, is exercising free speech. Implying that they should all have been killed is quite another thing. That borders on incitement.”
https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-social-issues/free-speech-hate-speech-where-should-we-draw-line
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12367481
Currently the hate speech laws in New Zealand make it illegal to "excite hostility against or bring into contempt any group of persons … on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins".
But that protection doesn't extend to gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or disability.
"I think everyone would agree no one should be discriminated against for their religion," Ardern said.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121922974/hate-speech-law-stalled-until-after-election–no-support-yet-from-nz-first
Thanks PaddyOT . Very helpful . Great information. Cheers
House shook @ 4.50pm – quakes in New Plymouth are rare. Wonder how soon it'll show up here: https://earthquaketrack.com/p/new-zealand/recent
According to Geonet, it was a 5.2 roughly halfway between Mt Taranaki and Mt Ruapehu.
I barely felt it here in Titirangi. I wonder what's going on with the drama queen somewhere in Mt Albert that reported it as "extreme" shaking.
Thanks, somewhat less power rating here: https://earthquaketrack.com/quakes/2020-09-27-03-47-26-utc-4-7-35
Reaction from the 'Naki to the loss of a lump of wood?
Barrett-less Taranaki. Playmakers win games. Lack of depth. Analogy to Labour comes to mind, eh? Yeah, okay, analogy to National even more evident.
best anology would be taranaki lost because they couldnt decide what game plan to use. too centrist, non commital .
Ooooh, give him a few favourable polls and Rimmer starts getting all coq-y. He better be careful. If he gets too mouthy, that cuppa tea in Remmers might not happen next time he needs it.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300117874/election-2020-david-seymour-tells-voters-to-skip-the-knockoff-cover-band-and-choose-act-over-national
Wonder if we should inform him that ACT was originally Labour.
Im really looking forward to the new parliament. with act's very chequered history of having m.p.s resign in disgrace, not resigning but staying in disgrace, commiting fraud, going to jail etc, as well as having general sc*mbags as m.p.s. seymour will be busy holding hands, putting ot fires, etc. wonder who the first act m.p. will be that carries on this proud tradition.
No evident difference to CB! Neocons edging above NZF. Greens looking safe for now.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/nz-election-2020-newshub-reid-research-poll-shows-labour-governing-alone-as-national-languishes-in-the-20s.html
"Alongside National, the poll's other casualty is New Zealand First. It's on 1.9 percent down 0.1 points. Despite leader Winston Peters' best attention grabs, NZ First is goneburger."
Tempting fate?
Always revealing to see the difference between hype and reality.
"Advance", the anti-lockdown mob. No support whatsoever. Maybe their rants shouldn't be headline news, given they represent fewer people than the NZ underwater hockey community.
Nope, not a parody account.
"Immigration New Zealand says three German yachties treated New Zealand's Covid 19 laws with contempt and have to face the consequences of their actions."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427031/german-yachties-had-blatant-disregard-for-new-zealand-law-immigration-nz
Certainly
I don't get it with these claims that the cyclone season is such a hazard to be feared. It appears that even during an El Nino season, Tahiti and northwest from there are very low risk, possibly lower risk than New Zealand.
https://www.bwsailing.com/cyclones-in-french-polynesia/
For the coming summer, it appears most likely that it will be La Nina or slightly less likely neutral, with only a very low probability of El Nino conditions.
https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/climate/el-ni%C3%B1ola-ni%C3%B1a-update
were they sailing from Tahiti?
Allegedly they were last at Taiohae, which is well to the northeast of Tahiti and even further out of the way of likely cyclone tracks, as far as I can tell.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12368207
Dead right. There are normally plenty of E.U. yachts that spend the summer cyclone season in French Polynesia on the way west and many that are based there for years. In a La Nina, French Poly is probably safer than NZ as cyclones are more common further west and with climate change more are spinning off down NZs way. I think the yachtie outrage thing is overblown MSM nonsense and most yachties originally intending to keep going will just spend a lovely time floating around in the tropics instead. The MoH has made the right decision to exclude non NZ yachts. If they can be allowed to get in, what about the rest of the Pacific islands? Living in a home built vale is not much fun with a cyclone bearing down!
🥶
OK this is the kind of thing I just love discovering.
A New Zealand company, based in Christchurch, is now one of four global partners to Microsoft about water quality and conservation.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2009/S00473/seequent-and-microsoft-partner-in-global-water-sustainability-commitments.htm
CEO Shaun Maloney says Seequent’s software solutions are being used on hundreds of projects around the world to enable a clear view of groundwater and contaminants. “Users such as the Water Replenishment District, the largest groundwater agency in the state of California, can readily communicate to end clients, regulators, and the general public with 3D models of groundwater systems and contaminated sites in a fully auditable data-driven approach across the entire lifecycle of site management."
Sure hope NZTE is finding ways to support these guys.
Nice little news piece linked on MSN
“Why National is no longer the party of business”
by Rod Oram
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/why-national-is-no-longer-the-party-of-business/ar-BB19scRQ?li=BBqdg4K
This story is a good read and I love the quote of “National listens to laggards not leaders” in the story.
Surely not. Undercut by foreign imports on this?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427029/thai-cannabis-company-says-projected-economic-benefits-won-t-materialise
Plamondon expected laws drafted in anticipation of recreational cannabis being legal would eventually change to allow cheaper, imported products.
He said New Zealand was his company’s first export target market…
A Nelson-based medical cannabis firm, Medical Kiwi has already sold its first two years of production to Hektares, a global player in the medical cannabis industry, equating to $30 million for 2021, and $60 million in 2022.
It recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $2 million to get production underway in Christchurch and help fund its Nelson development and technology purchases.
Co-founder and chair, Aldo Miccio, said Plamondon’s statement was interesting, especially around Thai product being potentially a tenth of the cost of New Zealand cannabis.
“There are reasonably good margins involved – which is why a lot of people are investing, but we aim with our pricing to be way cheaper than products imported at the moment.”
Miccio said cannabis grown outdoors, such as that at grown at tropical altitudes in Thailand was certainly cheaper to produce, but only indoor-grown product would pass the scrutiny of pharmaceutical standards.