[People have become lax with linking. Please include direct links when quoting or making references and follow basic courtesy rules on this site. We will start moderating for this.]
In support of what Incognito has said. Also, if you are having trouble linking from any device, please ask for help. Lots of people here that can assist.
Maybe there is a way out of the Poto Williams & Tamati Kruger ethno-vandalisim. (Stuff article quotes)
A spokesperson for the group, kaumātua Paki Nikora, said: “We are here because of the desecration of all our huts that have all had a historical connection to Tūhoe, and also all the hunters and trampers that frequented Te Urewera over 50 years plus.
“You can’t tell me a hut that sheltered our people for that long doesn’t belong to Te Urewera.”
"He said TUT did not represent all Tūhoe."
And local actual outdoor working Tuhoe (as opposed to indoor Ngati Taone) highlight one of my key worries–“Are you, minister, prepared to accept all responsibility … when all huts are removed and there's no shelter in the likelihood of emergencies, search and rescue, extreme weather events?”
And the clincher! “We don’t feel colonised by those huts,” he said. “We’re practical people, we just want the huts to stay in while we go hunting.
[What Stuff article? Provide direct links to quoted text, thanks – Incognito]
TUT and the environmental disaster that is their management of the Ureweras is a classic systemic outcome that inevitably happens when you give people a bunch of money and hand over control of a complex system when those people have no skills, no experience and no desire in managing the asset. Set up to fail, with the best of intentions all round I am sure. Pity about the Kiwi and the Kokako, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, eh?
TUT can do what they like with the Ureweras. I’m not some poor bastard who spent forty years of my life at war with introduced predators and gloried at the re-introduction of the Kokako. TUT clearly want to use the "park" as an asset to maximise the comfort of a subsistance lifestyle. None of this saving native flora and fauna. TUT are keen on a great leap backwards to the purity of the lifestyle of Te Kooti. Paddocks to graze horses and half-wild livestock. Over-run with pigs for an easy food source. Possums for pelts. Quiet valleys empty of nosy parkers like DOC, the police, and fussy Pakeha trampers are ideal for illegal activity to provide a nice stream of cash.
But like I said, they've got the park now and they can do what they want with it, they can shit in the woods all over the place for all I care. Tuhoe didn't sign the treaty, etc etc.
However, it's going to become our problem when their communities health crashes and the TB infested fauna, predators and lawlessness starts to bleed out of the borders of the third work ethnostate that is being created.
What then? One thing for sure – Tuhoe are busily demolishing any support for further co-governance initiatives in the conservation estate basically forever.
It isn't "Maori blaming". It is a simple statement of class based fact. The thing that needs to be honestly discussed here (instead of being a dick and playing the race card) is what TUT actually want. Everyone sits around singing Kumbaya to a deified idea of tribal Maori as the noble savage in tune with his environment. But what if they are just a bunch of dirt poor hillbillies behaving like dirt poor hillbillies everywhere behave?
If a bunch of middle class New Yorkers spent fifty years in an Appalacian park clearing paths, replanting chestnuts, re-introducing bald eagles and bears and wolves and building and maintaining huts then had to give the park back to a bunch of dumb local hard scrabble hillbillies who don’t like dangerous wild animals and they wrecked the huts and dug up the roads because they just want to be left alone by the federal authorities to moonshine, shoot squirrels and generally live like poor rural people you'd get the same level of dismay, but who is to say they are necessarily wrong? That is how they want to live, leave them alone.
I think we should cut the Kumbaya bullshit and have a grown up discussion about the purpose of the park is as it pertains to a community in grinding poverty. It is Tuhoe’s asset now, but it still part of New Zealand after all. If we were a bit more honest about procedings then we might come to something a bit more workable than what seems to be happening at the moment, which is a bunch of locals lying through their teeth about their real intentions to guillable Pakeha who desperately want to believe.
What role does anyone outside of the legla owners have over land that does not belong to them. There is legislation that appies to all of us and special legislation covering Te Urewera.
Why does this Maori owned land get singled out for attention?
What role will people intent on looking back to what happened when the land was a NP have? Why do they think they have a role? Is there something in our constitutional arrangements that enables beady eyed pakeha to say
Have you read the aspiration and management plans?
Most of all I would like you to reflect on why you feel you have a right or that anyone has a right to blow a lot of reactionary hot air about.
Does it make a difference that Maori here have lived on this land since time immemorial? I think it does.
Pull your head in about using words like 'subsistence' in a pejorative way Not everyone is aspiring to follow the American Dream or a prosperity church where monetary riches mean everything.
More than anything 'will the sky fall in' if we let this group get on with their vision for the land?
I am not a dude and yes I did read it. At first I thought it was supportive of letting Tuhoe do as they want on land that is precious to them. However it was just wrapped up that way with the implied criticism being the stings all the way through like
subsistence life style
and this
However, it's going to become our problem when their communities health crashes and the TB infested fauna, predators and lawlessness starts to bleed out of the borders of the third work ethnostate that is being created.
What then? One thing for sure – Tuhoe are busily demolishing any support for further co-governance initiatives in the conservation estate basically forever.
The myth of naughty Tuhoe being responsible for other joint treaty based initiatives possibly failing. Is it co-governance when iwi hold the majority on the Board, when those appointed by the Minister are not DoC reps but people of vast experience in natural land use management etc?
The myth of this arrangement being co-governance,…it is governance as opposed to co-governance.
The trigger words such as 'ethno-state'
Are you saying that just because Tuhoe have got the land back that they are unable to have access to any of the Govt supports that other groups, land owners have. So TB, no access to any funding? so health no access to any funding, so lawlessness no police presence and access?
This article states "As a contrast to the successful Waikato River Authority, the Te Urewera co-governance agreement provides an indication of flaws the co-governance model can have and how it chafes against the reality that it does fail to give full effect to Treaty principles."
Where do you get the idea this is not a co-governance model?
Because it has a board made up of a majority of Maori and with appointments from Minister of Conservation. Two of these appointment that I know, I think, are not Maori but who knows anyone's whakapapa unless they care to share it. Minister of Conservation is not limited to appointing people from DoC or who are European. They are not there to push an party line or necessarily to espouse DoC's view.
Co-governance is being used as a loaded word to bash all hell out of ideas about Three Waters, Auckland Treaty settlement s etc. The concept is to bring about good governance or Mana Motuhake. The use of 'co' is best avoided unless giving a whistle out to nay sayers about Three Waters which you may be doing for all I know. .
I note your link to the Maori Law Review……I would make a small wager that if this was being written now as opposed to 2012 they would be unlikely to refer to it as 'co-governance' bearing in mind the rubbish being talked about 3 three waters etc.
You make no comment about what the actual paragraph says about Te Urewera and Tuhoe seizing only on references to bash me with your idea of the woes of co-governance.
This commentary is significant. In it Tuhoe are being consistent with their view of a step along the way……
'The issue with this fractured co-governance arrangement is a difficult one to grapple with when divorced from the historical context of the area. Co-governance of Te Urewera is not understood by Tūhoe as the end goal, but is a stepping stone towards a resumption of authority that Tūhoe never agreed to lose. (my underlining) Kruger commented that “we are committed to washing away dependency on the Crown, and raising maximum autonomy for Tūhoe people".[24] Prioritising the authority of the Crown due to their greater resources undermines the purpose of restoring authority to Tūhoe. In practice, it keeps the land subject to Crown control, and does not practically aid mana whenua in engaging with the land.'
What is that is concerning, from my angle it seems you do not wish to allow any group of Maori hold to their own land if it means exercising all the powers that they are entitled to.
Are you now going to get very concerned that there is not wholesale access to Ngamatea Station or Mt Linton Station. Both freehold land where the owners actively restrict access. …….I didn't think so……
Maori are not restricting access. They have a work programme of removing huts. Please do not conflate access with camping in a hut.
"Because it has a board made up of a majority of Maori and with appointments from Minister of Conservation. "
That doesn't make it not co-governance.
"Co-governance of Te Urewera is not understood by Tūhoe as the end goal, but is a stepping stone towards a resumption of authority that Tūhoe never agreed to lose."
So Tuhoe themselves accepted the arrangement was co-governance.
"What is that is concerning, from my angle it seems you do not wish to allow any group of Maori hold to their own land if it means exercising all the powers that they are entitled to."
Legally it is not their land. This is the point you don't seem to grasp. Te Urewera owns itself. Rightly or wrongly, that is what the treaty settlement determined.
You are fixated on co-governance. What is this all about?
Could you call it Mana Motuhake as that is what Tuhoe call it. Then we will know you are not using co-governance as some sort dog whistle to nay sayers about the concept. That is my great concern that people are holding up Tuhoe and saying we don't this so therefore as we don't like this we also don't want any other permutation. Which of course is rubbish if you don't understand the background.
Te Urewera is a 'The fee simple estate in the establishment land vests in Te Urewera and is held under, and in accordance with, this Act.
The management regime is by a board with majority Tuhoe appointments. The remining 3 are appointed by the minister of Conservation and are not DoC people.
Sections 3.4, 5 of the Act are important.
Te Urewera
Tūhoe and the Crown: shared views and intentions
(9)
Tūhoe and the Crown share the view that Te Urewera should have legal recognition in its own right, with the responsibilities for its care and conservation set out in the law of New Zealand. To this end, Tūhoe and the Crown have together taken a unique approach, as set out in this Act, to protecting Te Urewera in a way that reflects New Zealand’s culture and values.
(10)
The Crown and Tūhoe intend this Act to contribute to resolving the grief of Tūhoe and to strengthening and maintaining the connection between Tūhoe and Te Urewera.'
I think that vesting an entity away from NP, crown land etc and appointing a majority board is very close to saying it is administered/controlled by this board, …..as it should be.
The Board must consider and provide appropriately for the relationship of iwi and hapū and their culture and traditions with Te Urewera when making decisions, including—
Many areas of Maori owned land/Incorporations have management committees but no-one says that the owners sitting behind those chosen to be on a committee have lost all connection with the land
The board has members appointed by the trustees of Tūhoe Te Uru Taumatua
'Te Uru Taumatua represents the Tūhoe nation and the lands and wealth held in common for Tūhoe. The purpose of the Governing Board of Te Uru Taumatua is to lead and serve the cultural permanency and prosperity of Tūhoetana by unlocking the unity potential of Mana Motuhake. Advancing Tūhoe social and economic development in a way that is distinctively Tūhoe recognises that we will build the Tūhoe nation with our minds, our hearts and our hands.
Your Board is committed to getting the best and right skills, advice and expertise from within Tūhoe and outside. Tūhoe settlement assets and resources must be preserved and grown to support our development now and into the future. Tūhoe culture and heritage pathways must be directed and grown with this development.
This Board works for Tūhoe and on behalf of Tūhoe'.
You are splitting hairs when you say that the people of Tuhoe have no interest in the land…that they cannot call it 'their' land. Maori hold land interest very differently to the way land is held in the European system, Joint ownership is all, individualism is not.
Over the course of this discussion I have linked to the legislation the settlement, the management documents of Tuhoe. You have let all these drift over you preferring 'gotchas' from ignorant MSM or dated commentaries.
Why is this?
I am coming to the view that your interest is not in acquiring knowledge and therefore learning things about how different people in NZ structure their affairs.
It is an exercise in nit picking, splitting hairs, and mainly avoiding a 'fair, large and liberal' look at ways that land can be held and managed. It is also not about expecting the best of people, or of giving people a chance and neither is it respectful of the different ways that people can manage land.
It is not benign, it is not genuine.
Hopefully that you are not applying this once over lightly approach to the Maunga in Tamaki Makaurau.
If co-governance is to deliver on its very real potential, (and it can), there needs to be a recognition that the co-governance entity, and partners, are in place to deliver outcomes that are best for these special environments, and the people of New Zealand who are willing to respect and enjoy them.
I take that as meaning that many of the people who want Te Urewera returned to a more pristine condition, have secure lives and incomes elsewhere. And that this security is necessarily derived from places that are not, and cannot be, pristine.
So we cannot demand that someone else's land remains in its original condition without ensuring that their economic circumstances don't make it impossible, i.e. humans always and everywhere will do what is expedient to make their lives more comfortable.
I may have totally misinterpreted your meaning though.
to expect pristine when Te Urewera has always had a Maori presence……they have lived here forever.
to expect everything will remain unchanged just because we feel threatened by anything else.
not to give people a fair go on their land especially when they are working to maintain to a standard those areas they can in the span of their workcrews (they are not DoC) Why would a competent manager think it was sensible to maintain huts that are past their use by dates, are outside a span of competent land management?
not to recognise the aspirations of for Te Urewera involving creating biosphere reserve.
It was also mine until I read and digested the last paras, and noted the trigger words in the post. Neither were in quotes to signify that this was a view not supported but quoted from somewhere. I think Sanctuary believes that these words apply.
Unsurprisingly, you continue your preference for missing the points and choosing to misunderstand that your comment was the issue that I responded to; it was neither helpful nor constructive. In addition, you didn’t help your case with the inane response @ 2.2.1.2.1.1. I’d told you already that I read all comments but glossing over that is part of your MO here and you’re too fixated on your own navel.
So Tinderdry you know all about the background to this?
Where have you got your info from to speak on this?
Do you subscribe to the view that Maori are a homogenous race who all believe the same thing or are they like every other human being who when in a group may have differences of opinion and approach.
This homogenous group all thinking the same owes much to the concept of the 'noble savage'.
On every local authority in the land there are groups of councillors who do not think the same as each other or as some of their constituents. In those cases most of us think that having differing ideas is a good thing enabling all issues to come out and be discussed.
Why does this somehow morph into being a bad thing in Maori controlled organisation? You don't believe that differing viewpoints and discussion is of value to Maori groups or Tuhoe in particular.
Why is that?
Could it be because we have been led by the nose by MSM firstly into some false equivalence that 'access equals huts' and that it is newsworthy that a private group has people who disagree with them or as in the update from Tuhoe.
'Waimana taking misinformed pākeha for a ride on their issues and pākeha taking Waimana for a ride with their anxieties.'
Says it all really with a bit of humour lacking in MSM
"Where have you got your info from to speak on this?"
From, amongst other sources, the links I have provided.
"Do you subscribe to the view that Maori are a homogenous race who all believe the same thing or are they like every other human being who when in a group may have differences of opinion and approach."
No, I do not subscribe to the view that ‘all Maori are a homogenous race…’. Tamati Kruger has claimed to speak for all Tuhoe, as in this article, and it is clear that he doesn't.
"You don't believe that differing viewpoints and discussion is of value to Maori groups or Tuhoe in particular."
Differing viewpoints is healthy.
"Could it be because we have been led by the nose by MSM firstly into some false equivalence that 'access equals huts' and that it is newsworthy that a private group has people who disagree with them or as in the update from Tuhoe."
It is also relevant to consider how TUT got to this place. This article provides some background, including disputes between TUT and DoC over maintenance of the huts and bridges inside the park.
In the context of your comment about " false equivalence that 'access equals huts' ", of course access doesn’t equal huts, but you might want to reflect on Tamati Kruger's comment that "opening Te Urewera to the public was “way down the list of priorities” for Tūhoe, as it brought no benefit to the iwi."
‘Kruger told Stuff in November that the relationship with the Crown post-settlement had failed, and Tūhoe wanted a re-set, dealing directly with Crown-Māori Relations Minister Kelvin Davis instead of DOC.’
Your quote
This seems like a good idea. DoC seem to be doing a fair bit of micromanaging.
In the context of your comment about " false equivalence that 'access equals huts' ", of course access doesn’t equal huts, but you might want to reflect on Tamati Kruger's comment that "opening Te Urewera to the public was “way down the list of priorities” for Tūhoe, as it brought no benefit to the iwi."
I have no problem with Tamati Kruger's comment. It is the role of the landowner to set priorities. Their priority is not about opening up. Fair enough. Another priority if you look at the work plans is to manage what they can and not to spread themselves too thinly.
I as a land owner also have my priorities on my land. Public access is also not a priority but I am working with arborists on trees at the front and this will have a benefit for the public as leaves or little branches may be less likely to fall on the pavement or in the stormwater drains.
I cannot locate it now but in some thing that you have linked to is a criticism that Tuhoe closed access during Covid. Really what silly ideas people have, during Covid we were restricted from travelling, warned about going to places where we might need to be rescued, keep close, don’t mix willy nilly. So Tuhoe follows this and is criticised for it.
You can see Tuhoe cannot win with statements like this being trotted out as if they were justified.
"‘Kruger told Stuff in November that the relationship with the Crown post-settlement had failed, and Tūhoe wanted a re-set, dealing directly with Crown-Māori Relations Minister Kelvin Davis instead of DOC.’"
"I have no problem with Tamati Kruger's comment. "
The problem is that Kruger's comments cut across the treaty settlement. He's trying to renegotiate the settlement by media, and that is precisely what will get people antsy about co-governance.
Tamati Kruger is trying to explain things in words of one syllable, comic form might have been easier, to people who are desperately trying not to understand.
Treaty Settlements are often varied, amended etc. If it was found that the DoC input has not been helpful or Tuhoe focussed then it is the right of the Board to raise legislative amendments. Just because a settlement & legislation has been enacted it does not stop dialogue between Tuhoe and Ministers or other Treaty partners.
Kruger is attempting to remove DoC from the conversation, and replace them with the Crown-Māori Relations Minister. It is irrelevant whether you think this is a good idea, it is an attempt to amend the treaty settlement.
Kruger states that "opening Te Urewera to the public was “way down the list of priorities” for Tūhoe, as it brought no benefit to the iwi." Again, that is an attempt to change the treaty settlement. Kruger doesn't make that call. Public access is a right enshrined in the settlement. It is not exercised or prioritised at his whim.
“Treaty Settlements are often varied, amended etc.”
Are they? Can you provide some examples? The ones I’m aware of are financial adjustments that are built into the original arrangements.
“If it was found that the DoC input has not been helpful or Tuhoe focussed then it is the right of the Board to raise legislative amendments.”
To raise them, yes. Not to unilaterally declare them
So the hut protestors are not trying to negotiate by media…..only Kruger. That figures. Goose/gander comes to mind.
What does this mean?
To raise them, yes. Not to unilaterally declare them
What is 'unilaterally declare' them? What is the difference between raise them and declaring them? Tuhoe can only raise them, if it wants to raise them strongly is that some sort of a problem?
In the declaration that public access is "“way down the list of priorities” for Tūhoe, as it brought no benefit to the iwi."". Kruger has done amazing work for Tuhoe, but it is clear he is out of step with a significant number of his iwi, and it is not his call to place the benefit of the iwi over a key element of the treaty settlement.
"What is the difference between raise them and declaring them?"
The difference in this context is seen in this article. DoC have been trying to deal with the safety issues in the park for years, but Kruger's comments mirror the resistance of TUT to allow the work to be completed. This is not in the spirit or the letter of the treaty settlement, and seems designed to exclude the public, at least for a time.
This is a gross over reaction and classic Maori-blaming but whatever floats your boat.
Let's hope this comment earns you a tweet from Moana Maniapoto saying "We see you, Shanreagh, and you're very, very special… a great Totara … a Woman of Great Mana … a unique Go-Between uniting the two noble races". And you'll go all giggly, won't you … like a small child who's just met an All Black.
A great example of an affluent Professional-Managerial Class narcissist – a Luvvie, if you will – paternalistically "protecting" powerful Māori as if they're small children – eternally innocent, eternally virtuous – … no matter the context.
I have no doubt you'd have automatically defended the slave labour thriving under iwi-owned enterprises within the fishing industry. Ostentatious displays of virtue-signaling for in-group reputational enhancement. The pure narcissism, pure self-indulgence of the bourgeois middle to upper-middle class. Entirely at the expense of the good of the Country.
#LuxuryBeliefs
[This is nothing but a personal attack on another commenter. Please cut it out – Incognito]
What tiresome ad hominem rubbish you speak rather than debating the issues.
Have you got any views on the concepts I have been raising like Maor world view, beliefs, legislation, treaty settlements or are you happy with your contribution of
Luvvie?
narcissist, self indulgence
luxury beliefs
What is missing though is your belief that 'I am a pretty little communist' and I really miss that kind of in depth response
Way out with the All Blacks though. Since 1981 they have left me cold. I have not seen a game on TV or in person since being a bystander at the Molesworth st happening and then being barricaded in my house by a Police presence at the top of my street, so buses full of weeing fans could unload, while defending the mighty boks and All Blacks at Athletic park.
Why do you think I would protect the items you have quoted in your last para. I have been talking only about Tuhoe not fishing? I really don't see the connection unless you are talking about the bed of the lake which was not part of the settlement and noting that Fish & Game Council still has jurisdiction.
Your ad hominem and misogynistic comments say more about you than me. That you are afraid to debate the issues so you are only able to take personal pot shots. Most of your suppositions about me are incorrect.
My simple point is this:
On a weighing of righting wrongs or keeping tattered, battered, rat ridden huts I automatically choose the righting of wrongs. In fact I would place the righting of wrongs above almost anything especially when it is the righting of wrongs where the state/crown had inflicted the wrong.
Swordfish presumably your priority is to keep the huts over the bigger picture of righting a wrong. This surprises me.
I do recall some pretty horrendous stories about your parents that may have knocked your view of people and you have automatically applied what you have endured there on a race based view to situations that are not the same.
If that is offensive to you then what can I say?
I'm still laughing at the All Blacks reference…how wrong can you be? I believed then, as I do now, that there is no sporting issue that should guide our diplomatic stance. I can see parallels that those who supported the Springboks could also be the ones to support the huts over the righting of wrongs to Tuhoe.
I like Moana but my favourite NZ poets would be Hone Tuwhare and Api Taylor. I have never heard the term Luvvie and am not paternalistic…a contradiction in terms for me really
I have lots of favorites of Hone's and love Api's He Rau Aroha: A Hundred Years of Love (Penguin), was a runner-up in the Pegasus Book Awards. This is a collection of short stories.
Heavy footed people with no understanding and a swag of entitlement can wreak more damage than a possum.
There are pest management plans covering possum and other introduced pests if you cared to look on the sites run by Tuhoe.
As for pelts being taken instead of just left, this is such an old activity that really compounds the anti posters lack of knowledge about what has been going on here.
An uncle had traplines up here for years prior to and after the area was made into a NP. All legal and above board. there was always a market for good pelts and that was why in the old days when tramping and coming across a trapper hut or bivvy and the inevitable warm welcome you made sure about where you might sleep, that there might be a skin or two stretching out on the wirewove.
Even as late as the 1980s in hut on the big stations up close to the boundaries there were shepherds huts where the occupants were doing the same thing.
The skins had a market here in NZ but my Uncle, in an effort to maximise his returns, and because he did this as a living, used to send his pelts to the London fur & skin markets. These old time trappers did this not because they loved possums, far from it but because they loved the land, the bush and the isolation and could get a living from it. They saw themselves as being able to help in a small way with the recovery of the bush.
"Heavy footed people with no understanding and a swag of entitlement can wreak more damage than a possum. "
Perhaps you could provide a link to support your assertion.
Because there is lots (and lots) of evidence the other way. Possums are a very significant ecological pest – which are largely uncontrolled by any predator (hence the need for trapping and/or poisoning).
You think I am being literal about lots of trampers causing damage as against the damage caused by a possum? Sad. But if this was what I was talking about I am sure there would be evidence about human overuse/degradation of landscape that then leaves the land prone to further degradation by introduced pests. Eg over use of high country land by stock, degrades tussock cover, rabbits get in etc
No I am talking about the damage to reputation, to mana, to a correct and preceptive view of history and an openness to facing the future that is caused by closed minds. The 'heavy footed' people are those of us who want to criticise without knowledge, to indulge in criticism of Maori life styles without knowing what and whether they fit in with a Maori world view, as opposed to a Pakeha world view.
For other 'heavy footedness' just read some of the earlier comments, made over this issue over the weekend.
For a view that draws on the plans for the future pl read the websites for Tuhoe and this about the issue being discussed.
Gosh – I'm glad you're not in charge of conservation….
Being put in charge of NZ conservation/environment is a hospital pass.
Only Parker is still in parliament. Former Minister for the Environment Goff went on to become Mayor of Auckland. Apart from MPs in the 6th Labour Government, no former Minister of Conservation is still in Parliament, although Wollaston and Chadwick went on to do stints are regional city mayors (Nelson and Rotorua, respectively), and that well-know environmentalist Dr Nick Smith is now Mayor of Nelson.
Mike Joy wins battle over ‘dodgy’ water stats
[updated 5 Jan 2022]
“Funny how it is always a mistake in one direction that is downplaying the problem, never a mistake where it was claimed to be worse than what it is.” – Mike Joy
…
You can almost hear Joy shaking his head over the phone about the state of groundwater in the province: “The whole thing, it’s just a train-wreck – intensive farming in Canterbury is a train wreck.”
…
Former Environment Minister Nick Smith had promised in 2011 the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment would undertake five-yearly reporting, something scuppered by his replacement, Cantabrian Amy Adams.
Govt aims to get 90pct of rivers swimmable by 2040
[updated 23 Feb 2017]
Greens co-leader James Shaw told Newshub Nick Smith is "having a laugh" and he is "flabbergasted at the announcement".
…
"He must think we're stupid."
There's also Joe Walding (High Commissioner to the UK), Russell Marshall (High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Nigeria, and Ambassador to Ireland) and, more recently, Trevor Mallard (Ambassador to Ireland), who was Minister for the Environment towards the end of the 5th Labour Government.
Hopefully some of them had more than just an eye to their career pathways while they were doing their Ministerial duties, although you do have to wonder sometimes.
I'm certainly one who believes that all politicians should be mandatorialy (goodness, is that even a word) retired after a certain number of terms in office (combining local, national and official postings).
I don't think that political re-treads (from any party) do a good job representing our country overseas. Certainly not a better one than the people actually trained and educated to be ambassadors.
Well if you think that all the misinformation about Tuhoe that has been spouted today and over the weekend is theoretical ……
8000 people mislead by MSM 'shock horror' have signed some sort of petition in the belief that Tuhoe are doing something or not doing something on their land. So that is 8000 X 9 (the comms calc about complaints and how they spread to others) I would say that is far from theoretical.
I have not made a false equivalence. One possum destroys, we know that. Tuhoe knows that and has trapping etc programmes.
Just who will be working to ensure that the damage to the reputation of Tuhoe is mended after this onslaught. Will you be? Or do you still think the crown owned/ns the land, it is like a NP and Tuhoe have only a minor role.
You have shown that you are not able to understand my point and that is a pity. I agree that species are endangered, I said so in reply. I also feel that reputational damage is hard to overcome even if you are actually in the right, as Tuhoe is.
And, equally clearly, you have shown that you are …. unwilling … to consider the points that I and others have raised.
8,000 local people protesting – Tuhoe kaumatua among them – but hey, it's all bullshit from MSM (/sarc/). Your blinkers have narrowed your vision to the point that you're unable to see the cliff you're rushing towards.
Happy to consider them if you can get basic facts correct.
Sadly lacking so far and when I tried to broaden the idea that misinformed people can damage reputations you did not get the analogy and we had some fruitless debate. You still don't understand reputational damage do you?
You are now saying that 8000 misinformed people are worth more than the reputation of a group doing its best following the settling of a bad Treaty claim.
I have linked to this before. The ref to ‘Waimana’ are to those grumpy with the Tuhoe Board.
Te Kura Whare received disgruntled individuals and New Zealanders on the outer using a protest as a platform to air personal grievances. Placards displayed reveal the many layers of individual issues, that got 20 minutes of media fame.
Mentioned were DOC, Labour, TUT, Huts, even Trump, e ahu pēhea ana koutou? What is your plan?
Waimana taking misinformed pākeha for a ride on their issues and pākeha taking Waimana for a ride with their anxieties.
Protestors willing to listen, let their guard down saw moments of agreement and understanding. Their anxiety eased, assured of access and Tūhoe structures will go up. A lot of the protesters left a bit embarrassed after Tribals shared wider context. It wasn’t just about huts – as they held firmly to their sign, as the discussions continued, that grip ‘save the huts’ placard loosened considerably.
You are quoting from what looks like an email from the Tuhoe iwi entity. This entity has been at odds before with its Kaumatua council, and the email you quote from reads more like a propaganda piece.
I've already linked to this article that details DoC attempts to progress remediation work on the huts, and Tuhoe leadership being a handbrake on that work.
"He (Kruger) also claimed there had been a decade of under-investment by DOC prior to the settlement – “we haven't really inherited assets, we’ve inherited liabilities” – and the $2m DOC provided each year for Te Urewera’s upkeep was “overly miserly”. But the documents show that money was not the impediment to repairing the dilapidated structures – DOC was offering to pay for everything. Rather, the problem was getting Tūhoe to approve a maintenance plan."
Also:
"In another report, English explained that DOC had provided a maintenance funding agreement to the TUT chief executive (Luke), “with the expectation that she would review it, and we would then proceed to signature. There has been no response. DOC has subsequently sent a reminder about progressing the agreement, but had no response. “Our understanding is that TUB believe that discussion about annual funding is one that should take place with the Minister [of Conservation]. There is no legislative authority for such decision making by [the Minister].”
I don’t know who’s calling the shots here, but this entire arrangement seems to be headed off the rails.
Always good to have a link to the real oil. But don't let any source of reality or another point of view put you off your quoting storm from an unknown MSM source.
Hundreds of tractors were driven into cities across New Zealand. One of those Invercargill protesters, dairy farmer Daryl Swney, said the Government’s new farm emissions' proposal would cost him $150,000 a year. He did not know how farmers would survive the cost, alongside other regulations.
These same farmers will be asking for taxpayer assistance if flooding that is amplified by climate change devastates their properties. The obvious problem is that reducing emissions won't reduce the effects of climate change in the short-medium term, because so much change is already baked in by past emissions.
And that is essentially a fiscal problem: farmers will be paying to reduce emissions (or passing those costs to the public), while simultaneously taxpayers will be paying to mitigate or repair the effects of climate change. The ledger does not balance out here – there is only cost. Public finances will be overwhelmed and living standards will fall at the same time. Hard to avoid the conclusion that we are now on the leading edge of utter chaos.
An article on Stuff this morning listing 11 things that National will repeal/reverse/scrap if they win the election next year. But naturally nothing about what they will do instead to fix the institutional problems of our country.
But we can guess. It will probably start with tax cuts for the rich, new multi-billion roads and fly-overs for Ford Ranger owning rural townies, building new prisons and cuts to public services.
The difference between National and Labour is that Labour valiantly keeps trying to make a rotten system better, but can't do it because it is too far gone, our public service is too small and too protective of its own privilege to do it anyway, and Labour lacks the balls, the money and the people to clean it out completely and start again from scratch. On the other hand National just gives up trying straight away and tries to fool us into thinking that doing nothing is actually doing something.
[What Stuff article? Provide direct links to quoted text, thanks – Incognito]
Over the life of this country (at least since 1840), all the positive legislation that makes life better for ordinary kiwis has come from the left of the political spectrum.
Natz have largely just maintained the status quo.
But that approach will simply not work in the face of the existential crisis of climate change. Frankly, the market has no f*cking idea how to get us out of the environmental mess they have created.
We need interventionist governments prepared to do things: like three waters, fair pay agreements, rebuilding the health system, housing etc.
The rich don't use public hospitals or state school; all they need is roads to get to airports for their overseas holidays. Hence the Natz focus on roads.
This country can't afford another Natz/Act government.
Mike, what operating system are you using? What browser? Are they both up to date? Can you please post the exact text of the message, and if it’s from the browser or the os?
Any legislation to make day to day life a bit better for the "average" person does not and will not come from a National government. Paid parental leave they voted against and Labour has since its introduction steadily increased the payments. Sick leave, annual leave, KiwiSaver …… As long as the better off get a generous tax cut is first and foremost on their policy wish list.
My first reaction:
Blame the Hoskings and HdPAs.
Blame the tabloid media in general.
Blame the Nats and their constant barrage of false and misinformation.
Blame ACT and their constant barrage of false and misinformation.
Could be coincidental but did the culprit wait until Ardern was in Antarctica?
Edit: the article has now been edited. The original reported a man was seen approaching the office… he smashed a window and threw something inside. Fire trucks arrived to put out a fire. There was no staff there at the time.
The last "domestic terrorist" that smashed in the frontage of the Prime Minister's office in Mt Albert electorate did not do it when the PM was there either Helen Clark's office in Sandringham Rd had an axe put through the window one morning. It was very upsetting for the staff – I was upstairs doing some Labour Party work that morning so all we heard was the crash, but the office was closed for the day while the Police did the forensic stuff.
Yes, Visubversa, no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert.
Victims of the venomous Right. There have been quite a few of us over the years who were thus targeted. I was a nobody when it happened to me 30 years ago, so the police weren’t interested.
You know I did not say they only happen to Labour MP's and women PMs.
You know I was replying in the context of visibversa's comment @ 7.1
So why try to start a flame war?
I was similarly targeted by a woman who was planted in the Mt.Albert Labour Party 35 plus years ago. I know who put her there and why… but am not revealing the context or the identities here so don't bother to ask.
You said: "no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert."
When, actually, yes it is a coincidence.
I've provided one example of an attack on the office of a male PM – there are plenty of others.
Attacks on the electorate offices (and even MPs themselves – cf James Shaw) – are an occupational hazard in NZ (and in other countries as well).
I don't support it – or minimize it – but I acknowledge that it happens to many – right or left. Perhaps you could do the same.
Calling you on misinformation is not starting a flame war.
Oh yes it is starting a flame war when you know I was referring to a specific situation as was indeed Visubversa before me. Maybe I didn't choose my words ponderously enough for Madam but most people here don't mess around with silly semantics just to prove to the world they are always right and the target of the hour is wrong.
And to suggest I'm spouting misinformation on the subject only serves to further the suspicion by quite a few on this site that you are a person who thinks she has to be top dog in all things. 🙄
I'm not suggesting. You were spouting misinformation – as you have done in the past – and no doubt will do in the future.
Have you acknowledged, yet – I don't seem to see it in the responses – that actually attacks on electorate offices and individual politicans happen to members of all political parties – and males are affected as well as females.
Misinformation is not my game and never has been. You do yourself a disservice with your silly 'misinterpretations'.
I find your understanding on some technical matters pertaining to topics discussed here both useful and interesting. Then you go and spoil it.
"I've yet to acknowledge that attacks on electorate offices happen to all political parties?" (paraphrase)
We were talking about one specific office that was attacked yesterday. To suggest that I or anyone else is denying they happen to other political parties because we didn't mention them in dispatches is bordering on the idiotic.
I've been around the political traps on and off for 50 years and believe me I know a thing or two – as do others on this site. You might do well to ponder the fact our experiences are worthy of respect… even if you do imagine you know better.
I can't think of another MP who has physically attacked – rather than jostled in a crowd, etc. Although there have been some things thrown at right-wing pollies – which is pretty borderline, in my estimation.
If you want to argue that MPs are increasingly at risk from both physical and virtual attacks, I'll certainly agree with you. And there is research to back it up.
You’ve offered no good reason for me to revise my reply to your comment @7.2.1, simply because you've subsequently introduced physical assaults into the mix. If for some reason you bring yourself to acknowledge the objective truth of the misogynistic component in the venom directed at our PM then that’s disappointing, but tbh I’m not surprised.
"no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert."
Yes, it is a coincidence. There are plenty of other instances of non-Labour and non-female (if one is still allowed to use that divisive term) pollies offices being attacked (including PMs)
To claim this is "no coincidence" is to state (with no evidence) that this level of violence is only directed at Labour women PMs. Which is a lie.
Jacinda has a level of vitriol addressed to and about her. As did Key.
Popular politicians also have the converse of that popularity – it's only the mediocre ones who seem to attract little hatred (people go 'meh' rather than froth at the mouth.)
If it is misogynistic in relation to Ardern is is equally misandric (if that is the word) in relation to Key?
I will absolutely agree that online abuse of female politicians outweighs that directed at their male counterparts.
I don't see any evidence, however that physical assaults (on person or property) are greater for women than for men. In fact, the evidence I've linked to seems to show the reverse.
If you have evidence to show that I'm wrong, then I'm certainly open to changing my opinion.
And the initial comment was about the attack on Ardern's electorate office (not about any threats made to her). You are the one who initially widened the scope of the thread.
"Attacks on the electorate offices (and even MPs themselves – cf James Shaw) – are an occupational hazard in NZ (and in other countries as well).
I don't support it – or minimize it – but I acknowledge that it happens to many."
If that's not sufficient for you, then I unreservedly condemn the attack on the PM's electorate office. While acknowledging that it will almost certainly have been carried out by someone mentally unbalanced.
I read Anne's initial comments @7 and @7.2 about the recent attack on the PM's office, and the earlier attack on PM Clark's office that Visubversa wrote about @7.1.
In your first 'contribution', your reply (to Anne) @7.2.1, you wrote:
You then had the gall (@7.2.1.1.1 and @7:56 pm) to write that you were "calling" Anne "on [spouting] misinformation", when it was you, and only you, who had deliberately misrepresented what Anne had written. That's self-serving bad faith behaviour – plain as day.
You bad faith commenting continued when you offered this:
But to claim that only women are affected is simply not true.
– Belladonna @7.2.1.2.1
Once again, you, and only you, had made such a claim in this thread – it would be absurd to suggest otherwise. Readers can make up their own minds about why you would write such an absurdity – I know I have.
I stand by my reply to your comment @7.2.1 – that you subsequently introduced the spurious matter of the physical assault on Shaw into the mix is further evidence that you are not commenting in good faith – rather you are minimising and diverting.
It is open misogyny, visible on every platform and supported and promoted by upvotes on Reddit, laughing emojis on Facebook, comments about “that woman” on LinkedIn, and someone who looks like your Aunty referring to the PM as “Cindy” and calling her a “c…”.
It is targeted and increasingly violent misogynistic abuse and threats – illustrated by but not limited to the escalation in gendered hatred directed towards Ardern – being directed at public-facing women from central and local body politicians to journalists, public servants, academics and chief executives.
Imho our PM has shown considerable fortitude in the face of a veritable torrent of abuse and threats, including death threats – it can't be easy.
To our PM – hang in there – Kia kaha, and be kind
Belledonna's presence on this site appears – in part – to try and undermine this government. Its an age old trick to do it by way of attempting to score points off and ridiculing individuals who stand behind or support them.
It is the same ploy used by the right-wing dirty political brigade when they attempted to destroy Clarke Gayford's reputation by way of spreading false stories about him. Take for example the "nanny": meme. It's Jacinda Ardern they are aiming to hurt by despoiling the reputations of those around her. They did the same to Helen Clark.
"no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert."
Yes, it is a coincidence. Or, alternatively, your framing. There are plenty of other instances of non-Labour and non-female (if one is still allowed to use that divisive term) pollies offices being attacked (including PMs)
To claim this is "no coincidence" is to state (with no evidence) that this level of violence is only directed at Labour women PMs. Which is a lie.
"Staff evacuated after sword attack" in the headline and yet when you read the article "No injuries have been reported and the building was unoccupied at the time," police said.
So how do you evacuate an empty building.
Not good but the standard of reporting is terrible..
I think you will finds the police told them they couldn't occupy the office until they had finished their forensic examination. That could take several hours.
At the time the article was put together, the reporter wouldn't know the exact turn of events so just labelled it an evacuation.
Whatever, the psychological effect on the staff will be enormous because of a large sword left behind on the ground. I'm picking that was a deliberate act to threaten the staff and the PM.'
A typical example of the level of vitriol thrown at the Prime Minister. She is being criticised for taking her partner with her to Antarctica. A swag of former prime ministers have visited Anrtactica over the years and it looks like they all took their spouses/partners with them. Jesus.
" The original reported a man was seen approaching the office… he smashed a window and threw something inside". Why do we men always get the blame for this sort of madness?
Good to see that 2.75m given to the mob being put to good use by the Mongrel Mob. Did anyone actually believe the PR lady that they were no longer in to drugs? (she is awfully quiet now).
But at least all the gang members now vote Labour.
No I obviously don't personally have any evidence, but the police do as Mark Griffiths will be off to jail now. Actually if he gets the good judge probably home D.
I'm told the drugs were imported via printer cartridges. Well be needing to implement sanctions against the US administration and their cartel of printer suppliers now.
New Zealand's male violence towards women is further demonstrated by the deranged, cowardly attack on the PM's electorate office. There are too many men who cannot seem to accept and adapt to women's involvement in politics, government, local government, business, senior roles in any field. As soon as they rise to the top these pathetic men want to drag them down in one way or another. Anger, jealousy, "pretty communist" "Cindy", "girl in a skirt" that sort of nonsense never gets hurled at Chris Luxon. Time some people grew up.
Define woman. So unless there is a picture or a comment to precise that it was an adult human female – who may or may not identify as a 'woman' you actually have no idea who really committed the crime, i mean anyone who feels like a women can self identify as a woman, one can even change daily their gender expression and no alterations to bodies or faces need to be made in order to self identify as a woman. And i would like to point out that the person was not described as a 'cis' woman either. So really might just not 'sex' the criminal until more information is available.
In saying that, knife attacks, attacks on people with screwdrivers, ramraids, bashings etc is all up and i would assume this is do to mental health issues in many cases. And sometimes these mental health issues need more then just access to a 0800 number.
So give the criminal a few month of Home D, say 9 month? That seems to be a good punishment for crimes against 'human females" of all ages and their offices.
coincidentally Fond of Beetles has this thread up this morning.
It is a “ceiling” (near-perfect) skill. It is a quick skill – there is some debate about whether we register skin colour or sex more rapidly – and differential recognition lights up different parts of our brains.
However, it was widely reported to be a man immediately after the attack.
Most of those reports have since been updated and corrected, and unfortunately most NZ media do not bother to follow best practice overseas of notifying readers of corrections. The requirement for links on The Standard is entirely reasonable, but the linked content often changes, and only screenshots (or our own memories) can confirm original reporting.
There were plenty of women involved in despoiling the centre of Wellington in February.
The difference is that deranged men have an additional bone of contention – Jacinda being a woman means that she is "not one of us" and thus more contemptible.
BANGKOK (AP) — New Zealand said Thursday it will not deal with Myanmar under a major 15-nation trade agreement, the world’s largest that took effect this year, citing the deadly violence and democratic setbacks in the Southeast Asian country after the military seized power last year.
New Zealand has joined a boycott of an upcoming counter-terrorism meeting being co-chaired by the Russian and Myanmar militaries, in a move welcomed by activists.
Perhaps you could have a word with the junta's suppliers, China, Russia, Belarus, Iran and Serbia.
/
Meanwhile, the EU and US have banned the supply of arms and any dual use goods, restricted export of comms and monitoring systems that could be used for internal suppression and suspended all and training and cooperation. And sanctions on dozens of individuals and organisations include asset freezes and bans on listed people from entering or transiting through US and EU territory.
Originally published by The Hill After decades of failure to pass major federal climate legislation, Congress finally broke through last year with the Inflation Reduction Act and its close to $400 billion in clean energy investments. Energy modeling experts estimated that these provisions would help the U.S. cut its carbon pollution ...
Apology Accepted? “I dropped the ball on Friday, I was too slow to be seen …The communications weren’t fast enough – including mine. I’m sorry for that.”–Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.HOW OFTEN do politicians apologise? Sincerely apologise? Not offer voters the weasel words: “If my actions have offended anyone, then I ...
At first blush, Christopher Luxon’s comment at the parliamentary powhiri at Waitangi this year sounded tone deaf. The Leader of the Opposition in talking about the Treaty of Waitangi described New Zealand as “a little experiment”. It seemed to diminish the treaty and the very idea of our nation. Yet ...
THE (new) Prime Minister said nobody understands what co-governance means, later modified to that there were so many varying interpretations that there was no common understanding. BRIAN EASTON writes: Co-governance cannot be derived from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not use the word. It ...
A brief postscript to yesterday’s newsletter…Watching the predawn speeches just now, the reverence of those speaking and the respectful nature of those listening under umbrellas in the dark. I felt a great sadness at the words from Christopher Luxon last evening still in my head. The singing in the dark accompanied ...
by Don Franks While on holiday,I stayed a few days in Scotland with a friend who showed me one of the country’s great working-class achievements. It was a few miles out of central Edinburgh, a huge cantilever bridge across the river Forth. The Forth Bridge was the first major structure ...
Time To Call A Halt: Chris Hipkins knows that iwi leaders possess the means to make life very difficult for his government. Notwithstanding their objections, however, the Prime Minister’s direction of travel – already clearly signalled by his very public demotion of Nanaia Mahuta – must be confirmed by an emphatic and ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 29, 2023 thru Sat, Feb 4, 2023. Story of the Week Social change more important than physical tipping points1.5-degree Goal not plausible Photo: CLICCS / Universität Hamburg Limiting global ...
So Long - And Thanks For All The Fish: In the two-and-a-bit years since Jacinda Ardern’s electoral triumph of 2020, virtually every decision she made had gone politically awry. In the minds of many thousands of voters a chilling metamorphosis had taken place. The Faerie Queen had become the Wicked ...
Look at us here on our beautiful islands in the South Pacific at the start of 2023, we have come so far.Ten days ago we saw a Māori Governor General swearing in our new PM and our first Pasifika Deputy PM, ahead of this year’s parliament where they will be ...
The Herald’s headline writers are at it again! A sensible and balanced piece by Liam Dann on the battle against inflation carries a headline that suggests that NZ is doing worse than the rest of the world. Check it out and see for yourself if I am right. Is this ...
Photo by Anna Demianenko on UnsplashTLDR: Here’s my longer reads and listens for the weekend for sharing with The Kaka’s paying subscribers. I’ve opened this one up for all to give everyone a taste of the sorts of extras you get as a full paying subscriber.Subscribe nowDeeper reads and listens ...
Hello from the middle of a long weekend where I’m letting the last few days unspool, not ready, not yet, to give words to the hardest of what we heard.Instead, today, here are some good words from other people.Mother CourageWhen I wrote last year about Mum and Dad’s move to ...
Workers Now is a new slate of candidates contesting this year’s general election. James Robb and Don Franks are the people behind this initiative and they are hoping to put the spotlight on working people’s interests. Both are seasoned activists who have campaigned for workers’ rights over many decades. Here is ...
Buzz from the Beehive Politicians keen to curry favour with Māori tribal leaders have headed north for Waitangi weekend. More than a few million dollars of public funding are headed north, too. Not all of this money is being trumpeted on the Beehive website, the Government’s official website. ...
Insurers face claims of over $500 million for cars, homes and property damaged in the floods. They are already putting up premiums and pulling insurance from properties deemed at high risk of flooding. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: This week in the podcast of our weekly hoon webinar for paying subscribers, ...
Our Cranky Uncle Game can already be played in eight languages: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. About 15 more languages are in the works at various stages of completion or have been offered to be done. To kick off the new year, we checked with how ...
The (new) Prime Minister said nobody understands what co-governance means, later modified to that there were so many varying interpretations that there was no common understanding.Co-governance cannot be derived from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not use the word. It refers to ‘government’ on ...
It’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump on this link for our chat about the week’s news with special guests Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick and Auckland City Councillor Julie Fairey, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which ...
In March last year, in a panic over rising petrol prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the government made a poor decision, "temporarily" cutting fuel excise tax by 25 cents a litre. Of course, it turned out not to be temporary at all, having been extended in May, July, ...
This month’s open thread for climate related topics. Please be constructive, polite, and succinct. The post Unforced variations: Feb 2023 first appeared on RealClimate. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two fresh press releases had been posted when we checked the Beehive website at noon, both of them posted yesterday. In one statement, in the runup to Waitangi Day, Maori Crown Relations Minister Kelvin Davis drew attention to happenings on a Northland battle site in 1845. ...
It’s that time of the week again when I’m on the site for an hour for a chat in an Ask Me Anything with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump in for a chat on anything, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which are set to cost insurers and the Government well over ...
Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers (left) has published a 6,000 word manifesto called ‘Capitalism after the Crises’ arguing for ‘values-based capitalism’. Yet here in NZ we hear the same stale old rhetoric unchanged from the 1990s and early 2000s. Photo: Getty ImagesTLDR: The rest of the world is talking about inflation ...
A couple of weeks ago, after NCEA results came out, my son’s enrolment at Auckland Uni for this year was confirmed - he is doing a BSc majoring in Statistics. Well that is the plan now, who knows what will take his interest once he starts.I spent a bit of ...
Kia ora. What a week! We hope you’ve all come through last weekend’s extreme weather event relatively dry and safe. Header image: stormwater ponds at Hobsonville Point. Image via Twitter. The week in Greater Auckland There’s been a storm of information and debate since the worst of the flooding ...
Hi,At 4.43pm yesterday it arrived — a cease and desist letter from the guy I mentioned in my last newsletter. I’d written an article about “WEWE”, a global multi-level marketing scam making in-roads into New Zealand. MLMs are terrible for many of the same reasons megachurches are terrible, and I ...
Time To Call A Halt: Chris Hipkins knows that iwi leaders possess the means to make life very difficult for his government. Notwithstanding their objections, however, the Prime Minister’s direction of travel – already clearly signalled by his very public demotion of Nanaia Mahuta – must be confirmed by an emphatic ...
Open access notables Via PNAS, Ceylan, Anderson & Wood present a paper squarely in the center of the Skeptical Science wheelhouse: Sharing of misinformation is habitual, not just lazy or biased. The signficance statement is obvious catnip: Misinformation is a worldwide concern carrying socioeconomic and political consequences. What drives ...
Mark White from the Left free speech organisation Plebity looks at the disturbing trend of ‘book burning’ on US campuses In the abstract, people mostly agree that book banning is a bad thing. The Nazis did us the favor of being very clear about it and literally burning books, but ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has undergone a stern baptisim of fire in his first week in his new job, but it doesn’t get any easier. Next week, he has a vital meeting in Canberra with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, where he has to establish ...
As PM Chris Hipkins says, it’s a “no brainer” to extend the fuel tax cut, half price public subsidy and the cut to the road user levy until mid-year. A no braoner if the prime purpose is to ease the burden on people struggling to cope with the cost of ...
Buzz from the Beehive Cost-of-living pressures loomed large in Beehive announcements over the past 24 hours. The PM was obviously keen to announce further measures to keep those costs in check and demonstrate he means business when he talks of focusing his government on bread-and-butter issues. His statement was headed ...
Poor Mike Hosking. He has revealed himself in his most recent diatribe to be one of those public figures who is defined, not by who he is, but by who he isn’t, or at least not by what he is for, but by what he is against. Jacinda’s departure has ...
New Zealand is the second least corrupt country on earth according to the latest Corruption Perception Index published yesterday by Transparency International. But how much does this reflect reality? The problem with being continually feted for world-leading political integrity – which the Beehive and government departments love to boast about ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
Transport Minister and now also Minister for Auckland, Michael Wood has confirmed that the light rail project is part of the government’s policy refocus. Wood said the light rail project was under review as part of a ministerial refocus on key Government projects. “We are undertaking a stocktake about how ...
Sometime before the new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced that this year would be about “bread and butter issues”, National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis decided to move from Wellington Central and stand for Ohariu, which spreads across north Wellington from the central city to Johnsonville and Tawa. It’s an ...
They say a week is a long time in politics. For Mayor Wayne Brown, turns out 24 hours was long enough for many of us to see, quite obviously, “something isn’t right here…”. That in fact, a lot was going wrong. Very wrong indeed.Mainly because it turns ...
One of the most effective, and successful, graphics developed by Skeptical Science is the escalator. The escalator shows how global surface temperature anomalies vary with time, and illustrates how "contrarians" tend to cherry-pick short time intervals so as to argue that there has been no recent warming, while "realists" recognise ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Tomorrow we have a funeral, and thank you all of you for your very kind words and thoughts — flowers, even.Our friend Michèle messaged: we never get to feel one thing at a time, us grownups, and oh boy is that ever the truth. Tomorrow we have the funeral, and ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
A new Prime Minister, a revitalised Cabinet, and possibly revised priorities – but is the political and, importantly, economic landscape much different? Certainly some within the news media were excited by the changes which Chris Hipkins announced yesterday or – before the announcement – by the prospect of changes in ...
Currently the government's strategy for reducing transport emissions hinges on boosting vehicle fuel-efficiency, via the clean car standard and clean car discount, and some improvements to public transport. The former has been hugely successful, and has clearly set us on the right path, but its also not enough, and will ...
Buzz from the Beehive Before he announced his Cabinet yesterday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced he would be flying to Australia next week to meet that country’s Prime Minister. And before Kieran McAnulty had time to say “Three Waters” after his promotion to the Local Government portfolio, he was dishing ...
The quarterly labour market statistics were released this morning, showing that unemployment has risen slightly to 3.4%. There are now 99,000 people unemployed - 24,000 fewer than when Labour took office. So, I guess the Reserve Bank's plan to throw people out of work to stop wage rises "inflation", and ...
Another night of heavy rain, flooding, damage to homes, and people worried about where the hell all this water is going to go as we enter day twenty two of rain this year.Honestly if the government can’t sell Three Waters on the back of what has happened with storm water ...
* Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular reforms in water and DHB centralisation ...
Hi,It’s weird to me that in 2023 we still have people falling for multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs for short). There are Netflix documentaries about them, countless articles, and last year we did an Armchaired and Dangerous episode on them.Then you check a ticketing website like EventBrite and see this shit ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Shortly, the absolute state of Wayne Brown. But before that, something I wrote four years ago for the council’s own media machine. It was a day-in-the-life profile of their many and varied and quite possibly unnoticed vital services. We went all over Auckland in 48 hours for the story, the ...
Completed reads for January Lilith, by George MacDonald The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Christabel (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, by Anonymous The Lay of Kraka (poem), by Anonymous 1066 and All That, by W.C. Sellar and R.J. ...
Pity the poor Brits. They just can’t catch a break. After years of reporting of lying Boris Johnson, a change to a less colourful PM in Rishi Sunak has resulted in a smooth media pivot to an end-of-empire narrative. The New York Times, no less, amplifies suggestions that Blighty ...
On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth.Genesis 6:11-12THE TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS that dumped a record-breaking amount of rain on Auckland this anniversary weekend will reoccur with ever-increasing frequency. The planet’s atmosphere is ...
Buzz from the Beehive There has been plenty to keep the relevant Ministers busy in flood-stricken Auckland over the past day or two. But New Zealand, last time we looked, extends north of Auckland into Northland and south of the Bombay Hills all the way to the bottom of the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters When early settlers came to the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers before the California Gold Rush, Indigenous people warned them that the Sacramento Valley could become an inland sea when great winter rains came. The storytellers described water filling the ...
Wayne Brown managed a smile when meeting with Remuera residents, but he was grumpy about having to deal with “media drongos”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: In my pick of the news links found in my rounds since 4am for paying subscribers below the paywall:Wayne Brown moans about the media and ...
Wayne Brown managed a smile when meeting with Remuera residents, but he was grumpy about having to deal with “media drongos”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: In my pick of the news links found in my rounds since 4am for paying subscribers below the paywall:Wayne Brown moans about the media and ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Last night’s opinion polls answered the big question of whether a switch of prime minister would really be a gamechanger for election year. The 1News and Newshub polls released at 6pm gave the same response: the shift from Jacinda Ardern to Chris Hipkins ...
Hipkins’ aim this year will be to present a ‘low target’ for those seeking to attack Labour’s policies and spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Anyone dealing with Government departments and councils who wants some sort of big or long-term decision out of officials or politicians this year should brace for ...
Hipkins’ aim this year will be to present a ‘low target’ for those seeking to attack Labour’s policies and spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Anyone dealing with Government departments and councils who wants some sort of big or long-term decision out of officials or politicians this year should brace for ...
Last night’s opinion polls answered the big question of whether a switch of prime minister would really be a gamechanger for election year. The 1News and Newshub polls released at 6pm gave the same response: the shift from Jacinda Ardern to Chris Hipkins has changed everything, and Labour is back ...
Over the last few years, it’s seemed like city after city around the world has become subject to extreme flooding events that have been made worse by impacts from climate change. We’ve highlighted many of them in our Weekly Roundup series. Sadly, over the last few days it’s been Auckland’s ...
And so the first month of the year draws to a close. It rained in Auckland on 21 out of the 31 days in January. Feels like summer never really happened this year. It’s actually hard to believe there were 10 days that it didn’t rain. Was it any better where ...
Kia ora e te whānau. Today, we mark the anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi - and our commitment to working in partnership with Māori to deliver better outcomes and tackle the big issues, together. ...
We’ve just announced a massive infrastructure investment to kick-start new housing developments across New Zealand. Through our Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, we’re making sure that critical infrastructure - like pipes, roads and wastewater connections - is in place, so thousands more homes can be built. ...
The Green Party is joining more than 20 community organisations to call for an immediate rent freeze in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, after reports of landlords intending to hike rents after flooding. ...
When Chris Hipkins took on the job of Prime Minister, he said bread and butter issues like the cost of living would be the Government’s top priority – and this week, we’ve set out extra support for families and businesses. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to provide direct support to low-income households and to stop subsidising fossil fuels during a climate crisis. ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for India tomorrow as she continues to reconnect Aotearoa New Zealand to the world. The visit will begin in New Delhi where the Foreign Minister will meet with the Vice President Hon Jagdeep Dhankar and her Indian Government counterparts, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and ...
Over $10 million infrastructure funding to unlock housing in Whangārei The purchase of a 3.279 hectare site in Kerikeri to enable 56 new homes Northland becomes eligible for $100 million scheme for affordable rentals Multiple Northland communities will benefit from multiple Government housing investments, delivering thousands of new homes for ...
A memorial event at a key battle site in the New Zealand land wars is an important event to mark the progress in relations between Māori and the Crown as we head towards Waitangi Day, Minister for Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis said. The Battle of Ohaeawai in June 1845 saw ...
More Police officers are being deployed to the frontline with the graduation of 54 new constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. The graduation ceremony for Recruit Wing 362 at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua was the first official event for Stuart Nash since his reappointment as Police ...
The Government is unlocking an additional $700,000 in support for regions that have been badly hit by the recent flooding and storm damage in the upper North Island. “We’re supporting the response and recovery of Auckland, Waikato, Coromandel, Northland, and Bay of Plenty regions, through activating Enhanced Taskforce Green to ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has welcomed the announcement that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, will visit New Zealand this month. “Princess Anne is travelling to Aotearoa at the request of the NZ Army’s Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, of which she is Colonel in Chief, to ...
A new Government and industry strategy launched today has its sights on growing the value of New Zealand’s horticultural production to $12 billion by 2035, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said. “Our food and fibre exports are vital to New Zealand’s economic security. We’re focussed on long-term strategies that build on ...
25 cents per litre petrol excise duty cut extended to 30 June 2023 – reducing an average 60 litre tank of petrol by $17.25 Road User Charge discount will be re-introduced and continue through until 30 June Half price public transport fares extended to the end of June 2023 saving ...
The strong economy has attracted more people into the workforce, with a record number of New Zealanders in paid work and wages rising to help with cost of living pressures. “The Government’s economic plan is delivering on more better-paid jobs, growing wages and creating more opportunities for more New Zealanders,” ...
The Government is providing a further $1 million to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. “Cabinet today agreed that, given the severity of the event, a further $1 million contribution be made. Cabinet wishes to be proactive ...
The new Cabinet will be focused on core bread and butter issues like the cost of living, education, health, housing and keeping communities and businesses safe, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced. “We need a greater focus on what’s in front of New Zealanders right now. The new Cabinet line ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Canberra next week for an in person meeting with Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. “The trans-Tasman relationship is New Zealand’s closest and most important, and it was crucial to me that my first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to Australia,” Chris Hipkins ...
The Government is providing establishment funding of $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “We moved quickly to make available this funding to support Aucklanders while the full extent of the damage is being assessed,” Kieran McAnulty ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
By Hilaire Bule, RNZ Pacific Vanuatu correspondent in Port Vila Vanuatu’s prime minister has stressed any future employment within the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat must be from MSG member countries. Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau, who is also chair of the MSG Secretariat, made the statement following the recruitment of ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Yamin Kogoya On Friday 10 February 2023, it will be one month since the Papua Governor Lukas Enembe was “kidnapped” at a local restaurant during his lunch hour by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and security forces. The crisis began in September 2022, when Governor Enembe was ...
By Kālino Lātū, editor of Kaniva News Dr Sitiveni Halapua, former deputy leader of Tonga’s Democratic Movement, has died aged 74. Born on February 13, 1949, he was a respected academic, a pioneer of Tonga’s democratic reforms and pioneer of a conflict resolution system based on traditional practices. Halapua earned ...
COMMENTARY:By Richard Naidu in Suva Five weeks on from Christmas Eve, I think most of us are still a bit stunned at what has happened in Fiji. A new government came to power in dramatic circumstances. It took not one but two Sodelpa management board meetings to change it, ...
By Red Tsounga Another house done, and onto the next . . . Volunteers working in Mount Roskill community over the past few days helping those suffering from Auckland’s flash flood devastation have done us proud. Tremendous work by everybody. Here are some random photos of our volunteer teams on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Mick Tsikas/AAP Senator Lidia Thorpe announced on Monday that she would be leaving the Greens. Thorpe had split with the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis B. Desmond, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast The news of a so-called “Chinese spy balloon” being shot down over the US has reignited interest in how nation-states spy on one another. It’s not confirmed that the ...
Today, at a Waitangi ki Waititi concert hosted by Te Whānau o Waipareira at Hoani Waititi Marae, West Auckland; Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp was officially announced as Te Pāti Māori Candidate for Tāmaki Makaurau for the 2023 Election. Hailing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Daniel Pockett/AAP Victorian Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe has defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench, declaring she wants to fully represent the “Blak Sovereign Movement” in parliament. The announcement by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Daniel Pockett/AAP Victorian Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe has defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench, declaring she wants to fully represent the “Blak Sovereign Movement” in parliament. The announcement by ...
Sure, Scotty Morrison’s Māori At Work is a wonderful resource for Aotearoa’s collective te reo Māori journey. But is it judgemental enough for the modern office environment?First published September 12 2019 The growing strength of te reo is palpable across Aotearoa, with record numbers of people participating in Mahuru ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Mills, Professor and Dean La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University Shutterstock It can be tough to access front-line health care outside the cities and suburbs. For the seven million Australians living in rural communities there are significant ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University Chad Fish/AP Was the balloon that suddenly appeared over the US last week undertaking surveillance? Or was it engaging in research, as China has claimed? While the answers to these ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The generative AI industry will be worth about A$22 trillion by 2030, according to the CSIRO. These systems – of which ChatGPT is currently the best known – can write ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Doug Drury, Professor/Head of Aviation, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has described this morning's Waitangi dawn service as moving and says he welcomes the shift away from a focus on politics. ...
Screenwriter Dana Leaming’s debut comedy series Not Even is out now on Prime and Neon. This is the out the gate story of how it got there.Kia ora, Hi, What up? Up to? U up? …I’m Dana. I wrote and co-directed (with Ainsley Gardiner) the TV show Not Even ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Mick Tsikas/AAP A federal Newspoll, conducted February 1-4 from a sample of 1,512, gave Labor a 55-45 lead, unchanged on ...
The Human Rights Commission, Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, last week released two reports on racism and the impact of colonialism in Aotearoa. Among their many insights was the necessity of a wider understanding of how racism manifests itself. I was honoured to accept an invitation by Te Kāhui Tika Tangata ...
Vincent O’Malley reviews a history of the battle of Gate Pā.First published February 5, 2019 Head up Cameron Road, one of Tauranga’s main arterial routes, a few kilometres out of the city centre and you drive over one of New Zealand’s most important historical sites. The road, named after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Murray Goot, Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University Support for embedding an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the Constitution has fallen. The polls provide good evidence once you work out how to find it. However, the voters who have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Doug Drury, Professor/Head of Aviation, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Libby Rumpff, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne David Crosling/AAP The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 were cataclysmic: a landmark in Australia’s environmental history. They burnt more than 10 million hectares, mostly forests in southeast Australia. Many of our most ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Grové, Fulbright Scholar and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Monash University Anete Lusina/Pexels School attendance levels in Australia are a massive issue according to Education Minister Jason Clare. As he told reporters last week, he hopes to talk to state colleagues ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, Grattan Institute Revising the generous fuel tax credits given to businesses should be a priority for the Albanese government, because keeping them would conflict with two other pressing priorities: reducing carbon emissions and repairing the ...
For nine years he steered the ship he built, but last week Duncan Greive announced his surprise resignation as CEO of The Spinoff. He joins guest host, Jane Yee, to discuss how doing things differently took The Spinoff from an irreverent TV blog to a respected online magazine, and why ...
Three decades ago one of the giants of New Zealand thinking and writing, Ranginui Walker, published Ka Whawhai Tonu Mātou, Struggle Without End. The book, originally released in 1990 and revised in 2004, is a history of Aotearoa from a Māori perspective. It had a profound influence and today remains ...
A review for Waitangi weekend The bestselling novel Kāwai: For Such a Time as This by Monty Soutar feels like the story Matua Monty has been working toward telling his entire life. It aims for the loftiest mountain peak in a valiant attempt at the fabled Great New Zealand ...
Unfortunately the great flood of January 27 was not a one-off but a precursor to more emergencies likely to strike the city because of environmental effects of climate change. While the Auckland floods are proving devastating, costly and far-reaching, they have also had the strange effect of revealing Tamaki Makaurau's original landscape. ...
Health inequities between Pākehā and Māori are often framed as complex and difficult to change. But making access to GPs and dentists free will not only save money for whānau using these services, it will also save money for the health system and ensure Māori rights to good governance and equity ...
One of New Zealand's most promising fast bowlers, Molly Penfold, was surprised to get the call-up for the T20 World Cup, but she has a great support team around her, Merryn Anderson reports. She's only played one T20 for the White Ferns, and she's yet to take a wicket, but Molly ...
Labour and National’s leaders came to Waitangi agreed on which areas need more investment in election year. But as political editor Jo Moir writes, the country is going to see a big debate on how Māori should benefit from it Prime Minister Chris Hipkins used his speech at Sunday’s pōwhiri ...
Securing the right to housing will require us to challenge the very systems and ideologies that are doing such harm to our planet.Opinion: The images of rivers running down our streets, cars floating down the motorway, houses flooded and half-submerged buses ferrying people across the causeway, will stick with ...
Loading...(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. ...
It is hard to separate the politics from Waitangi, but the day party leaders were welcomed on to Te Whare Rūnanga was largely free of inflammatory rhetoric and political point scoring. ...
Rheive Grey pays tribute to one political party’s unapologetic commitment to markers of Māori identity, from hei tiki to waiata to tikitiki. I’m proud to be Māori. If you’re like me, it’s hard to read that sentence without singing it in your head. That’s either the power of good campaigning, ...
When I was a man my dick was only average size, but learning how to tuck it out of sight is a steep learning curve for a girl on a budget. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Illustrations: Sloane Hong The dick ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND Australia’s Reserve Bank is set to push up rates once again at its first meeting for the year on Tuesday, according to all but ...
By David Robie When Papuan journalist Victor Mambor visited New Zealand almost nine years ago, he impressed student journalists from the Pacific Media Centre and community activists with his refreshing candour and courage. As the founder of the Jubi news media group, he remained defiant that he would tell the ...
Today, Te Pāti Māori officially announced Mariameno Kapa-Kingi as their candidate for the Te Tai Tokerau electorate in this year’s General Election. The announcement was part of the pōwhiri for MPs at Te Whare Rūnanga o Waitangi. “Making the announcement ...
Paul Diamond’s book about the 1920s scandal that shocked Whanganui is on the longlist for the Ockhams (in the hotly contested General Non-Fiction category). Victor Rodger reviews. A closeted mayor with huge ambitions. A handsome, young, returned soldier with ambiguous motivations.A scandalous shooting that leads to a spectacular ...
An easy, low sugar jam that tastes even better than the sickly-sweet stuff. Often jam recipes call for much more sugar that I think is necessary, resulting in a cloyingly sweet jam whose flavour sadly becomes lost. Where some recipes will call for equal measures of fruit and sugar, this ...
Professor John Morgan offers a 'lesson plan' for Auckland children returning to school to help them understand what's going on in their city after the floods When Auckland schools go back, there’s a case to be made that geography teachers take over lessons for a day or two. Auckland’s ‘state of emergency’ ...
An acoustic 'harassment' device won’t be used to keep dolphins from high-speed boats, reports David Williams. Organisers of a super-fast boat race have scrapped plans to use an underwater noise device to scare dolphins in a marine mammal sanctuary. SailGP’s consultants, Enviser, lodged an application with the Department of Conservation (DoC) ...
Two reports on racism in New Zealand released by the Human Rights Commission land at a time when political rhetoric around racism is escalating again. Aaron Smale reports. The Human Rights Commission has released two reports that make a number of significant recommendations for confronting white supremacy and institutional racism. But ...
Flooding and land slides at her home in Titirangi have Zoe Hawkins sleeping in her running gear in case she has to flee. She shares her concern for others even more affected - and questions what the future brings. A week ago we lived on the edge of paradise. Our forever home ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Enshrining a constitutional Voice to parliament will bring better practical outcomes and give the best chance for Closing the Gap, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will say in a major address on the referendum on Sunday. ...
By Jamie Tahana, RNZ News Te Ao Māori journalist at Waitangi, and Russell Palmer, digital political journalist Iwi leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand have accused opposition parties National and ACT of “fanning the flames of racism”, urging the prime minister to be brave and not walk away from partnership on Three ...
By Phoebe Gwangilo in Port Moresby Higher Education Minister Don Polye has condemned a decision by the administration of the University of Papua New Guinea to treat a PNG-born and bred grade 12 school leaver as an “international” student. Roselyn Alog, 19, whose parents are Filipinos, was born and raised ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s former Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneem is under investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency for alleged abuse of office and has been stopped from fleeing the country. The Fijian Elections Office (FEO) said Saneem was alleged to have “on numerous occasions . . . unlawfully authorised payments of ...
Labour's position has alternated over the past few days: first Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would speak, then he wouldn't, and then he would again. ...
Te Pāti Māori Co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer are announcing a transformative defence and foreign affairs policy which asserts the Mana Māori Motuhake and Tino Rangatiratanga of tangata whenua in Aotearoa at their Party’s ...
The Prime Minister once again has a speaking slot at the pōwhiri in Waitangi after earlier on Saturday saying he would respect the wishes of the trust organisers by not doing so The Waitangi National Trust has given the green light for Chris Hipkins and other political leaders to speak ...
The Prime Minister will no longer speak at Waitangi commemorations after the organising trust moved the political leaders to a panel away from the main event The Waitangi National Trust wrote to political parties last month saying they didn’t want political leaders to speak at the pōwhiri held on the eve ...
It’s been exactly a decade since Seven Sharp first appeared on our screens. Remember the first episode? We’ve unearthed the tapes. On this day in 2013, a bombshell was thrown into the New Zealand television landscape. “Time for us to make way, because you’re here to see what everyone’s talking ...
MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris has fronted endless media requests and live crosses this week. Is he getting it right? Lewis Ferris is trying to find his weather map. “This week’s been so insane” he mutters as he closes multiple tabs on the three screens across his Wellington desk. He’s ...
After four years, executive director Max Tweedie has stepped down from Auckland Pride. He tells Sam Brooks about shepherding the festival through a tumultuous few years, and where he’s going from here.This year’s Auckland Pride Festival is set to be the biggest one yet. Over the course of more ...
A flailing mayor was only the public face of a multifaceted flooding communications failure. Duncan Greive examines the mess, and asks what can be done to improve it.It’s a chilling timeline. Stuff’s Kelly Dennett catalogued, beat-by-beat, the 12 hours in which Auckland was pummelled by a catastrophic deluge, interspersing ...
The Dunedin branch of the Green Party has selected Francisco Hernandez as its candidate for the Dunedin electorate in this year’s general election. Francisco Hernandez was the Otago University Students Association President in 2013. He has held a number ...
Waitangi organisers are trying to push political leaders to the side at Sunday's pōwhiri, but Labour's deputy leader says it's not for them to decide who speaks. Te Tai Tokerau MP and Labour’s deputy leader, Kelvin Davis, says the Prime Minister will speak at Sunday’s pōwhiri at Waitangi, in defiance of local ...
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. This week, we spoke to an aid worker who had made the trip to the war zone in Ukraine, looked at why Carmel Sepuloni was picked to be the new deputy prime minister, visited the flood-torn streets of Titirangi in West ...
Schools play an integral but often unrecognised and unacknowledged role in helping communities respond to and recover from disastersOpinion: Schools in Auckland and other flood-affected areas are about to re-open after a delayed start to the new school year. Students will return to school having experienced wide-ranging impacts. While some ...
A very short story for Waitangi weekend The pā is a lonely place nowadays. Gorse has marched on it like the British troops of old, consuming the hills and leaving the marae looking a bald patch on the head of the earth mother herself. Even the roads have worn thin, ...
This is The Detail's Long Read - one in-depth story read by us every weekend. This week, it's The School Away From School written by Bill Morris and published in NZ Geographic's January/February 2023 issue. You can find the entire article, with photos from Lottie Hedley, on the NZ Geographic website. One hundred years since its ...
COMMENTARY:By Kayt Davies in Perth I wasn’t good at French in my final year of high school. My classmates had five years of language studies behind them. I had three. As a result of my woeful grip on the language, I wrote a terribly bad essay in my final ...
RNZ Pacific Journalist Victor Mambor, who is the chief editor of the West Papuan newspaper and websiteJubi, has received the Oktovianus Pogau Award from the Indonesian-based Pantau Foundation for courage in journalism. The foundation’s Andreas Harsono said Mambor’s decision to return to his father’s homeland and defend the rights ...
RNZ News Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick is brushing off concerns a temporary rent freeze in flood-hit Auckland would just see landlords hike rents even more when the controls were lifted — arguing they should stay permanently. More than 20 organisations have signed a letter urging Minister for Auckland Michael ...
[People have become lax with linking. Please include direct links when quoting or making references and follow basic courtesy rules on this site. We will start moderating for this.]
👍
In support of what Incognito has said. Also, if you are having trouble linking from any device, please ask for help. Lots of people here that can assist.
Maybe there is a way out of the Poto Williams & Tamati Kruger ethno-vandalisim. (Stuff article quotes)
A spokesperson for the group, kaumātua Paki Nikora, said: “We are here because of the desecration of all our huts that have all had a historical connection to Tūhoe, and also all the hunters and trampers that frequented Te Urewera over 50 years plus.
“You can’t tell me a hut that sheltered our people for that long doesn’t belong to Te Urewera.”
"He said TUT did not represent all Tūhoe."
And local actual outdoor working Tuhoe (as opposed to indoor Ngati Taone) highlight one of my key worries–“Are you, minister, prepared to accept all responsibility … when all huts are removed and there's no shelter in the likelihood of emergencies, search and rescue, extreme weather events?”
And the clincher! “We don’t feel colonised by those huts,” he said. “We’re practical people, we just want the huts to stay in while we go hunting.
[What Stuff article? Provide direct links to quoted text, thanks – Incognito]
By taking sides in a long running inter-tribal squabble?
https://www.teaomaori.news/tuhoe-marae-remove-support-te-uru-taumatua
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/353946/tuhoe-s-post-treaty-settlement-woes-evident-in-wake-of-festival
TUT and the environmental disaster that is their management of the Ureweras is a classic systemic outcome that inevitably happens when you give people a bunch of money and hand over control of a complex system when those people have no skills, no experience and no desire in managing the asset. Set up to fail, with the best of intentions all round I am sure. Pity about the Kiwi and the Kokako, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, eh?
TUT can do what they like with the Ureweras. I’m not some poor bastard who spent forty years of my life at war with introduced predators and gloried at the re-introduction of the Kokako. TUT clearly want to use the "park" as an asset to maximise the comfort of a subsistance lifestyle. None of this saving native flora and fauna. TUT are keen on a great leap backwards to the purity of the lifestyle of Te Kooti. Paddocks to graze horses and half-wild livestock. Over-run with pigs for an easy food source. Possums for pelts. Quiet valleys empty of nosy parkers like DOC, the police, and fussy Pakeha trampers are ideal for illegal activity to provide a nice stream of cash.
But like I said, they've got the park now and they can do what they want with it, they can shit in the woods all over the place for all I care. Tuhoe didn't sign the treaty, etc etc.
However, it's going to become our problem when their communities health crashes and the TB infested fauna, predators and lawlessness starts to bleed out of the borders of the third work ethnostate that is being created.
What then? One thing for sure – Tuhoe are busily demolishing any support for further co-governance initiatives in the conservation estate basically forever.
This is a gross over reaction and classic Maori-blaming but whatever floats your boat.
It isn't "Maori blaming". It is a simple statement of class based fact. The thing that needs to be honestly discussed here (instead of being a dick and playing the race card) is what TUT actually want. Everyone sits around singing Kumbaya to a deified idea of tribal Maori as the noble savage in tune with his environment. But what if they are just a bunch of dirt poor hillbillies behaving like dirt poor hillbillies everywhere behave?
If a bunch of middle class New Yorkers spent fifty years in an Appalacian park clearing paths, replanting chestnuts, re-introducing bald eagles and bears and wolves and building and maintaining huts then had to give the park back to a bunch of dumb local hard scrabble hillbillies who don’t like dangerous wild animals and they wrecked the huts and dug up the roads because they just want to be left alone by the federal authorities to moonshine, shoot squirrels and generally live like poor rural people you'd get the same level of dismay, but who is to say they are necessarily wrong? That is how they want to live, leave them alone.
I think we should cut the Kumbaya bullshit and have a grown up discussion about the purpose of the park is as it pertains to a community in grinding poverty. It is Tuhoe’s asset now, but it still part of New Zealand after all. If we were a bit more honest about procedings then we might come to something a bit more workable than what seems to be happening at the moment, which is a bunch of locals lying through their teeth about their real intentions to guillable Pakeha who desperately want to believe.
What role does anyone outside of the legla owners have over land that does not belong to them. There is legislation that appies to all of us and special legislation covering Te Urewera.
Why does this Maori owned land get singled out for attention?
What role will people intent on looking back to what happened when the land was a NP have? Why do they think they have a role? Is there something in our constitutional arrangements that enables beady eyed pakeha to say
'hey we know what is best'?
and 'we especially know what is best for Maori.'
Sounds pretty paternalistic to me.
Are you on the mailing list for the Iwi?
https://mailchi.mp/ngaituhoe/te-manu-whititua-issue-n3-1515866?e=f96a1d00b6
Have you read the aspiration and management plans?
Most of all I would like you to reflect on why you feel you have a right or that anyone has a right to blow a lot of reactionary hot air about.
Does it make a difference that Maori here have lived on this land since time immemorial? I think it does.
Pull your head in about using words like 'subsistence' in a pejorative way Not everyone is aspiring to follow the American Dream or a prosperity church where monetary riches mean everything.
More than anything 'will the sky fall in' if we let this group get on with their vision for the land?
No it won't.
Toi tu te whenua
The land alone endures.
Dude did you read what I wrote, or are you a bot?
I am not a dude and yes I did read it. At first I thought it was supportive of letting Tuhoe do as they want on land that is precious to them. However it was just wrapped up that way with the implied criticism being the stings all the way through like
subsistence life style
and this
The myth of naughty Tuhoe being responsible for other joint treaty based initiatives possibly failing. Is it co-governance when iwi hold the majority on the Board, when those appointed by the Minister are not DoC reps but people of vast experience in natural land use management etc?
The myth of this arrangement being co-governance,…it is governance as opposed to co-governance.
The trigger words such as 'ethno-state'
Are you saying that just because Tuhoe have got the land back that they are unable to have access to any of the Govt supports that other groups, land owners have. So TB, no access to any funding? so health no access to any funding, so lawlessness no police presence and access?
"The myth of this arrangement being co-governance,…it is governance as opposed to co-governance."
The arrangement is described as co-governance by the Maori Law Review.
The Deed of Settlement states "Te Urewera will have its own legislation and exist as a separate legal identity. It will be governed by Tūhoe and Crown nominees to act in the best interests of Te Urewera."
This article states "As a contrast to the successful Waikato River Authority, the Te Urewera co-governance agreement provides an indication of flaws the co-governance model can have and how it chafes against the reality that it does fail to give full effect to Treaty principles."
Where do you get the idea this is not a co-governance model?
Because it has a board made up of a majority of Maori and with appointments from Minister of Conservation. Two of these appointment that I know, I think, are not Maori but who knows anyone's whakapapa unless they care to share it. Minister of Conservation is not limited to appointing people from DoC or who are European. They are not there to push an party line or necessarily to espouse DoC's view.
Co-governance is being used as a loaded word to bash all hell out of ideas about Three Waters, Auckland Treaty settlement s etc. The concept is to bring about good governance or Mana Motuhake. The use of 'co' is best avoided unless giving a whistle out to nay sayers about Three Waters which you may be doing for all I know. .
I note your link to the Maori Law Review……I would make a small wager that if this was being written now as opposed to 2012 they would be unlikely to refer to it as 'co-governance' bearing in mind the rubbish being talked about 3 three waters etc.
You make no comment about what the actual paragraph says about Te Urewera and Tuhoe seizing only on references to bash me with your idea of the woes of co-governance.
This commentary is significant. In it Tuhoe are being consistent with their view of a step along the way……
'The issue with this fractured co-governance arrangement is a difficult one to grapple with when divorced from the historical context of the area. Co-governance of Te Urewera is not understood by Tūhoe as the end goal, but is a stepping stone towards a resumption of authority that Tūhoe never agreed to lose. (my underlining) Kruger commented that “we are committed to washing away dependency on the Crown, and raising maximum autonomy for Tūhoe people".[24] Prioritising the authority of the Crown due to their greater resources undermines the purpose of restoring authority to Tūhoe. In practice, it keeps the land subject to Crown control, and does not practically aid mana whenua in engaging with the land.'
What is that is concerning, from my angle it seems you do not wish to allow any group of Maori hold to their own land if it means exercising all the powers that they are entitled to.
Are you now going to get very concerned that there is not wholesale access to Ngamatea Station or Mt Linton Station. Both freehold land where the owners actively restrict access. …….I didn't think so……
Maori are not restricting access. They have a work programme of removing huts. Please do not conflate access with camping in a hut.
"Because it has a board made up of a majority of Maori and with appointments from Minister of Conservation. "
That doesn't make it not co-governance.
"Co-governance of Te Urewera is not understood by Tūhoe as the end goal, but is a stepping stone towards a resumption of authority that Tūhoe never agreed to lose."
So Tuhoe themselves accepted the arrangement was co-governance.
"What is that is concerning, from my angle it seems you do not wish to allow any group of Maori hold to their own land if it means exercising all the powers that they are entitled to."
Legally it is not their land. This is the point you don't seem to grasp. Te Urewera owns itself. Rightly or wrongly, that is what the treaty settlement determined.
tinderdry6 @5.03pm
You are fixated on co-governance. What is this all about?
Could you call it Mana Motuhake as that is what Tuhoe call it. Then we will know you are not using co-governance as some sort dog whistle to nay sayers about the concept. That is my great concern that people are holding up Tuhoe and saying we don't this so therefore as we don't like this we also don't want any other permutation. Which of course is rubbish if you don't understand the background.
Te Urewera is a 'The fee simple estate in the establishment land vests in Te Urewera and is held under, and in accordance with, this Act.
The management regime is by a board with majority Tuhoe appointments. The remining 3 are appointed by the minister of Conservation and are not DoC people.
Sections 3.4, 5 of the Act are important.
Te Urewera
Tūhoe and the Crown: shared views and intentions
(9)
Tūhoe and the Crown share the view that Te Urewera should have legal recognition in its own right, with the responsibilities for its care and conservation set out in the law of New Zealand. To this end, Tūhoe and the Crown have together taken a unique approach, as set out in this Act, to protecting Te Urewera in a way that reflects New Zealand’s culture and values.
(10)
The Crown and Tūhoe intend this Act to contribute to resolving the grief of Tūhoe and to strengthening and maintaining the connection between Tūhoe and Te Urewera.'
I think that vesting an entity away from NP, crown land etc and appointing a majority board is very close to saying it is administered/controlled by this board, …..as it should be.
Many areas of Maori owned land/Incorporations have management committees but no-one says that the owners sitting behind those chosen to be on a committee have lost all connection with the land
The board has members appointed by the trustees of Tūhoe Te Uru Taumatua
'Te Uru Taumatua represents the Tūhoe nation and the lands and wealth held in common for Tūhoe. The purpose of the Governing Board of Te Uru Taumatua is to lead and serve the cultural permanency and prosperity of Tūhoetana by unlocking the unity potential of Mana Motuhake. Advancing Tūhoe social and economic development in a way that is distinctively Tūhoe recognises that we will build the Tūhoe nation with our minds, our hearts and our hands.
Your Board is committed to getting the best and right skills, advice and expertise from within Tūhoe and outside. Tūhoe settlement assets and resources must be preserved and grown to support our development now and into the future. Tūhoe culture and heritage pathways must be directed and grown with this development.
This Board works for Tūhoe and on behalf of Tūhoe'.
https://www.ngaituhoe.iwi.nz/tut
You are splitting hairs when you say that the people of Tuhoe have no interest in the land…that they cannot call it 'their' land. Maori hold land interest very differently to the way land is held in the European system, Joint ownership is all, individualism is not.
Over the course of this discussion I have linked to the legislation the settlement, the management documents of Tuhoe. You have let all these drift over you preferring 'gotchas' from ignorant MSM or dated commentaries.
Why is this?
I am coming to the view that your interest is not in acquiring knowledge and therefore learning things about how different people in NZ structure their affairs.
It is an exercise in nit picking, splitting hairs, and mainly avoiding a 'fair, large and liberal' look at ways that land can be held and managed. It is also not about expecting the best of people, or of giving people a chance and neither is it respectful of the different ways that people can manage land.
It is not benign, it is not genuine.
Hopefully that you are not applying this once over lightly approach to the Maunga in Tamaki Makaurau.
"What role does anyone outside of the legla owners have over land that does not belong to them. "
The legal owner of Te Urewera is Te Urewera.
"Why does this Maori owned land get singled out for attention?"
This claim that Te Urewera is 'Maori owned land' is a distortion of the treaty settlement. Te Urewera owns itself and is co-governed.
"On 11 September 2012, Te Kotahi ā Tūhoe, the Ngāi Tūhoe negotiations team, accepted the Crown offer to settle the historical claims of Tūhoe. The Crown offer includes financial, commercial and cultural redress valued at approximately $170 million; an historical account and Crown apology; the co-governance of Te Urewera lands, which will be vested in a new legal identity created by legislation; and mana motuhake in relation to the delivery of government and iwi services to Tūhoe communities." (emphasis mine).
If co-governance is to deliver on its very real potential, (and it can), there needs to be a recognition that the co-governance entity, and partners, are in place to deliver outcomes that are best for these special environments, and the people of New Zealand who are willing to respect and enjoy them.
I take that as meaning that many of the people who want Te Urewera returned to a more pristine condition, have secure lives and incomes elsewhere. And that this security is necessarily derived from places that are not, and cannot be, pristine.
So we cannot demand that someone else's land remains in its original condition without ensuring that their economic circumstances don't make it impossible, i.e. humans always and everywhere will do what is expedient to make their lives more comfortable.
I may have totally misinterpreted your meaning though.
I have no problem with your interpretation AB.
On the wider I think it is cynical though
It was also mine until I read and digested the last paras, and noted the trigger words in the post. Neither were in quotes to signify that this was a view not supported but quoted from somewhere. I think Sanctuary believes that these words apply.
subsistence
ethno-state
Here's the stuff article link.
TUT is being openly critcised by some Tuhoe Kaumatua. Are they also 'Maori blaming'?
Why are you asking leading questions? Do you have anything useful to add to this debate?
Perhaps you should have waited the 21 minutes between my comments.
Perhaps you could have acknowledged that I provided the link.
Perhaps you should have read the comment I was responding to.
Perhaps you should not ask leading questions in spurious comments.
Perhaps nobody should have to wait for you here for 21 min, or however long, on the off chance that something more/better might be coming from you.
Perhaps the link as such was not such a problem but the linking behaviour was.
Perhaps I do read all comments but your comment was a problem.
Perhaps you have problems with reading comprehension.
Perhaps you should pull your head in.
If you had read the comment I was responding to, you would have understood.
Unsurprisingly, you continue your preference for missing the points and choosing to misunderstand that your comment was the issue that I responded to; it was neither helpful nor constructive. In addition, you didn’t help your case with the inane response @ 2.2.1.2.1.1. I’d told you already that I read all comments but glossing over that is part of your MO here and you’re too fixated on your own navel.
So Tinderdry you know all about the background to this?
Where have you got your info from to speak on this?
Do you subscribe to the view that Maori are a homogenous race who all believe the same thing or are they like every other human being who when in a group may have differences of opinion and approach.
This homogenous group all thinking the same owes much to the concept of the 'noble savage'.
On every local authority in the land there are groups of councillors who do not think the same as each other or as some of their constituents. In those cases most of us think that having differing ideas is a good thing enabling all issues to come out and be discussed.
Why does this somehow morph into being a bad thing in Maori controlled organisation? You don't believe that differing viewpoints and discussion is of value to Maori groups or Tuhoe in particular.
Why is that?
Could it be because we have been led by the nose by MSM firstly into some false equivalence that 'access equals huts' and that it is newsworthy that a private group has people who disagree with them or as in the update from Tuhoe.
'Waimana taking misinformed pākeha for a ride on their issues and pākeha taking Waimana for a ride with their anxieties.'
Says it all really with a bit of humour lacking in MSM
https://mailchi.mp/ngaituhoe/te-manu-whititua-issue-n3-1515866?e=f96a1d00b6
"Where have you got your info from to speak on this?"
From, amongst other sources, the links I have provided.
"Do you subscribe to the view that Maori are a homogenous race who all believe the same thing or are they like every other human being who when in a group may have differences of opinion and approach."
No, I do not subscribe to the view that ‘all Maori are a homogenous race…’. Tamati Kruger has claimed to speak for all Tuhoe, as in this article, and it is clear that he doesn't.
"You don't believe that differing viewpoints and discussion is of value to Maori groups or Tuhoe in particular."
Differing viewpoints is healthy.
"Could it be because we have been led by the nose by MSM firstly into some false equivalence that 'access equals huts' and that it is newsworthy that a private group has people who disagree with them or as in the update from Tuhoe."
This 'private group' consists of Tuhoe Kaumatua. It includes 8,000 people who signed a petition to stop the hut removals. That suggests a fairly widespread dissatisfaction with what is happening within the community.
It is also relevant to consider how TUT got to this place. This article provides some background, including disputes between TUT and DoC over maintenance of the huts and bridges inside the park.
In the context of your comment about " false equivalence that 'access equals huts' ", of course access doesn’t equal huts, but you might want to reflect on Tamati Kruger's comment that "opening Te Urewera to the public was “way down the list of priorities” for Tūhoe, as it brought no benefit to the iwi."
‘Kruger told Stuff in November that the relationship with the Crown post-settlement had failed, and Tūhoe wanted a re-set, dealing directly with Crown-Māori Relations Minister Kelvin Davis instead of DOC.’
Your quote
This seems like a good idea. DoC seem to be doing a fair bit of micromanaging.
I have no problem with Tamati Kruger's comment. It is the role of the landowner to set priorities. Their priority is not about opening up. Fair enough. Another priority if you look at the work plans is to manage what they can and not to spread themselves too thinly.
I as a land owner also have my priorities on my land. Public access is also not a priority but I am working with arborists on trees at the front and this will have a benefit for the public as leaves or little branches may be less likely to fall on the pavement or in the stormwater drains.
I cannot locate it now but in some thing that you have linked to is a criticism that Tuhoe closed access during Covid. Really what silly ideas people have, during Covid we were restricted from travelling, warned about going to places where we might need to be rescued, keep close, don’t mix willy nilly. So Tuhoe follows this and is criticised for it.
You can see Tuhoe cannot win with statements like this being trotted out as if they were justified.
"‘Kruger told Stuff in November that the relationship with the Crown post-settlement had failed, and Tūhoe wanted a re-set, dealing directly with Crown-Māori Relations Minister Kelvin Davis instead of DOC.’"
"I have no problem with Tamati Kruger's comment. "
The problem is that Kruger's comments cut across the treaty settlement. He's trying to renegotiate the settlement by media, and that is precisely what will get people antsy about co-governance.
That is complete and utter rubbish.
Tamati Kruger is trying to explain things in words of one syllable, comic form might have been easier, to people who are desperately trying not to understand.
Treaty Settlements are often varied, amended etc. If it was found that the DoC input has not been helpful or Tuhoe focussed then it is the right of the Board to raise legislative amendments. Just because a settlement & legislation has been enacted it does not stop dialogue between Tuhoe and Ministers or other Treaty partners.
Kruger is attempting to remove DoC from the conversation, and replace them with the Crown-Māori Relations Minister. It is irrelevant whether you think this is a good idea, it is an attempt to amend the treaty settlement.
Kruger states that "opening Te Urewera to the public was “way down the list of priorities” for Tūhoe, as it brought no benefit to the iwi." Again, that is an attempt to change the treaty settlement. Kruger doesn't make that call. Public access is a right enshrined in the settlement. It is not exercised or prioritised at his whim.
“Treaty Settlements are often varied, amended etc.”
Are they? Can you provide some examples? The ones I’m aware of are financial adjustments that are built into the original arrangements.
“If it was found that the DoC input has not been helpful or Tuhoe focussed then it is the right of the Board to raise legislative amendments.”
To raise them, yes. Not to unilaterally declare them
So the hut protestors are not trying to negotiate by media…..only Kruger. That figures. Goose/gander comes to mind.
What does this mean?
What is 'unilaterally declare' them? What is the difference between raise them and declaring them? Tuhoe can only raise them, if it wants to raise them strongly is that some sort of a problem?
"What is 'unilaterally declare' them?"
In the declaration that public access is "“way down the list of priorities” for Tūhoe, as it brought no benefit to the iwi."". Kruger has done amazing work for Tuhoe, but it is clear he is out of step with a significant number of his iwi, and it is not his call to place the benefit of the iwi over a key element of the treaty settlement.
"What is the difference between raise them and declaring them?"
The difference in this context is seen in this article. DoC have been trying to deal with the safety issues in the park for years, but Kruger's comments mirror the resistance of TUT to allow the work to be completed. This is not in the spirit or the letter of the treaty settlement, and seems designed to exclude the public, at least for a time.
.
Shanreagh
Let's hope this comment earns you a tweet from Moana Maniapoto saying "We see you, Shanreagh, and you're very, very special… a great Totara … a Woman of Great Mana … a unique Go-Between uniting the two noble races". And you'll go all giggly, won't you … like a small child who's just met an All Black.
A great example of an affluent Professional-Managerial Class narcissist – a Luvvie, if you will – paternalistically "protecting" powerful Māori as if they're small children – eternally innocent, eternally virtuous – … no matter the context.
I have no doubt you'd have automatically defended the slave labour thriving under iwi-owned enterprises within the fishing industry. Ostentatious displays of virtue-signaling for in-group reputational enhancement. The pure narcissism, pure self-indulgence of the bourgeois middle to upper-middle class. Entirely at the expense of the good of the Country.
#LuxuryBeliefs
[This is nothing but a personal attack on another commenter. Please cut it out – Incognito]
What tiresome ad hominem rubbish you speak rather than debating the issues.
Have you got any views on the concepts I have been raising like Maor world view, beliefs, legislation, treaty settlements or are you happy with your contribution of
Luvvie?
narcissist, self indulgence
luxury beliefs
What is missing though is your belief that 'I am a pretty little communist' and I really miss that kind of in depth response
Way out with the All Blacks though. Since 1981 they have left me cold. I have not seen a game on TV or in person since being a bystander at the Molesworth st happening and then being barricaded in my house by a Police presence at the top of my street, so buses full of weeing fans could unload, while defending the mighty boks and All Blacks at Athletic park.
Why do you think I would protect the items you have quoted in your last para. I have been talking only about Tuhoe not fishing? I really don't see the connection unless you are talking about the bed of the lake which was not part of the settlement and noting that Fish & Game Council still has jurisdiction.
Your ad hominem and misogynistic comments say more about you than me. That you are afraid to debate the issues so you are only able to take personal pot shots. Most of your suppositions about me are incorrect.
My simple point is this:
On a weighing of righting wrongs or keeping tattered, battered, rat ridden huts I automatically choose the righting of wrongs. In fact I would place the righting of wrongs above almost anything especially when it is the righting of wrongs where the state/crown had inflicted the wrong.
Swordfish presumably your priority is to keep the huts over the bigger picture of righting a wrong. This surprises me.
I do recall some pretty horrendous stories about your parents that may have knocked your view of people and you have automatically applied what you have endured there on a race based view to situations that are not the same.
If that is offensive to you then what can I say?
I'm still laughing at the All Blacks reference…how wrong can you be? I believed then, as I do now, that there is no sporting issue that should guide our diplomatic stance. I can see parallels that those who supported the Springboks could also be the ones to support the huts over the righting of wrongs to Tuhoe.
I like Moana but my favourite NZ poets would be Hone Tuwhare and Api Taylor. I have never heard the term Luvvie and am not paternalistic…a contradiction in terms for me really
I have lots of favorites of Hone's and love Api's He Rau Aroha: A Hundred Years of Love (Penguin), was a runner-up in the Pegasus Book Awards. This is a collection of short stories.
Mod note
Heavy footed people with no understanding and a swag of entitlement can wreak more damage than a possum.
There are pest management plans covering possum and other introduced pests if you cared to look on the sites run by Tuhoe.
As for pelts being taken instead of just left, this is such an old activity that really compounds the anti posters lack of knowledge about what has been going on here.
An uncle had traplines up here for years prior to and after the area was made into a NP. All legal and above board. there was always a market for good pelts and that was why in the old days when tramping and coming across a trapper hut or bivvy and the inevitable warm welcome you made sure about where you might sleep, that there might be a skin or two stretching out on the wirewove.
Even as late as the 1980s in hut on the big stations up close to the boundaries there were shepherds huts where the occupants were doing the same thing.
The skins had a market here in NZ but my Uncle, in an effort to maximise his returns, and because he did this as a living, used to send his pelts to the London fur & skin markets. These old time trappers did this not because they loved possums, far from it but because they loved the land, the bush and the isolation and could get a living from it. They saw themselves as being able to help in a small way with the recovery of the bush.
"Heavy footed people with no understanding and a swag of entitlement can wreak more damage than a possum. "
Perhaps you could provide a link to support your assertion.
Because there is lots (and lots) of evidence the other way. Possums are a very significant ecological pest – which are largely uncontrolled by any predator (hence the need for trapping and/or poisoning).
https://www.pestdetective.org.nz/culprits/possum/
You think I am being literal about lots of trampers causing damage as against the damage caused by a possum? Sad. But if this was what I was talking about I am sure there would be evidence about human overuse/degradation of landscape that then leaves the land prone to further degradation by introduced pests. Eg over use of high country land by stock, degrades tussock cover, rabbits get in etc
No I am talking about the damage to reputation, to mana, to a correct and preceptive view of history and an openness to facing the future that is caused by closed minds. The 'heavy footed' people are those of us who want to criticise without knowledge, to indulge in criticism of Maori life styles without knowing what and whether they fit in with a Maori world view, as opposed to a Pakeha world view.
For other 'heavy footedness' just read some of the earlier comments, made over this issue over the weekend.
For a view that draws on the plans for the future pl read the websites for Tuhoe and this about the issue being discussed.
https://mailchi.mp/ngaituhoe/te-manu-whititua-issue-n3-1515866?e=f96a1d00b6
Gosh – I'm glad you're not in charge of conservation….
Because actual species being wiped out is just a tad more important than theoretical 'reputational damage'
Being put in charge of NZ conservation/environment is a hospital pass.
Only Parker is still in parliament. Former Minister for the Environment Goff went on to become Mayor of Auckland. Apart from MPs in the 6th Labour Government, no former Minister of Conservation is still in Parliament, although Wollaston and Chadwick went on to do stints are regional city mayors (Nelson and Rotorua, respectively), and that well-know environmentalist Dr Nick Smith is now Mayor of Nelson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Conservation_(New_Zealand)
Sounds like a pit-stop on an accelerated career pathway! Goff is now the High Commissioner in London.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/former-auckland-mayor-phil-goff-confirmed-as-top-diplomat-in-london/2AN3KI2COHOUCJS4LNYYUEZAVU/
Could be! Former Minister of Conservation Tim Groser skipped the perks and burdens of local Government and went straight to the post of New Zealand's ambassador to the United States of America.
There's also Joe Walding (High Commissioner to the UK), Russell Marshall (High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Nigeria, and Ambassador to Ireland) and, more recently, Trevor Mallard (Ambassador to Ireland), who was Minister for the Environment towards the end of the 5th Labour Government.
Hopefully some of them had more than just an eye to their career pathways while they were doing their Ministerial duties, although you do have to wonder sometimes.
I'm certainly one who believes that all politicians should be mandatorialy (goodness, is that even a word) retired after a certain number of terms in office (combining local, national and official postings).
I don't think that political re-treads (from any party) do a good job representing our country overseas. Certainly not a better one than the people actually trained and educated to be ambassadors.
Well if you think that all the misinformation about Tuhoe that has been spouted today and over the weekend is theoretical ……
8000 people mislead by MSM 'shock horror' have signed some sort of petition in the belief that Tuhoe are doing something or not doing something on their land. So that is 8000 X 9 (the comms calc about complaints and how they spread to others) I would say that is far from theoretical.
I have not made a false equivalence. One possum destroys, we know that. Tuhoe knows that and has trapping etc programmes.
Just who will be working to ensure that the damage to the reputation of Tuhoe is mended after this onslaught. Will you be? Or do you still think the crown owned/ns the land, it is like a NP and Tuhoe have only a minor role.
You have shown that you are not able to understand my point and that is a pity. I agree that species are endangered, I said so in reply. I also feel that reputational damage is hard to overcome even if you are actually in the right, as Tuhoe is.
And, equally clearly, you have shown that you are …. unwilling … to consider the points that I and others have raised.
8,000 local people protesting – Tuhoe kaumatua among them – but hey, it's all bullshit from MSM (/sarc/). Your blinkers have narrowed your vision to the point that you're unable to see the cliff you're rushing towards.
Happy to consider them if you can get basic facts correct.
Sadly lacking so far and when I tried to broaden the idea that misinformed people can damage reputations you did not get the analogy and we had some fruitless debate. You still don't understand reputational damage do you?
You are now saying that 8000 misinformed people are worth more than the reputation of a group doing its best following the settling of a bad Treaty claim.
I have linked to this before. The ref to ‘Waimana’ are to those grumpy with the Tuhoe Board.
Mentioned were DOC, Labour, TUT, Huts, even Trump, e ahu pēhea ana koutou? What is your plan?
Waimana taking misinformed pākeha for a ride on their issues and pākeha taking Waimana for a ride with their anxieties.
[image resized]
You are quoting from what looks like an email from the Tuhoe iwi entity. This entity has been at odds before with its Kaumatua council, and the email you quote from reads more like a propaganda piece.
I've already linked to this article that details DoC attempts to progress remediation work on the huts, and Tuhoe leadership being a handbrake on that work.
"He (Kruger) also claimed there had been a decade of under-investment by DOC prior to the settlement – “we haven't really inherited assets, we’ve inherited liabilities” – and the $2m DOC provided each year for Te Urewera’s upkeep was “overly miserly”. But the documents show that money was not the impediment to repairing the dilapidated structures – DOC was offering to pay for everything. Rather, the problem was getting Tūhoe to approve a maintenance plan."
Also:
"In another report, English explained that DOC had provided a maintenance funding agreement to the TUT chief executive (Luke), “with the expectation that she would review it, and we would then proceed to signature. There has been no response. DOC has subsequently sent a reminder about progressing the agreement, but had no response. “Our understanding is that TUB believe that discussion about annual funding is one that should take place with the Minister [of Conservation]. There is no legislative authority for such decision making by [the Minister].”
I don’t know who’s calling the shots here, but this entire arrangement seems to be headed off the rails.
Mod note
Always good to have a link to the real oil. But don't let any source of reality or another point of view put you off your quoting storm from an unknown MSM source.
https://mailchi.mp/ngaituhoe/te-manu-whititua-issue-n3-1515866?e=f96a1d00b6
Michievous people have conflated huts with access. Hopefully you were not one of them.
Farmers are revolting!
"“They can’t prosecute us all.”
She asked the hundreds of people at the meeting to stand with her in boycotting the consents and almost all did."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/130286957/fed-farmers-call-for-alternative-farming-emissions-proposal
So he a $150,000 Emitter ! He must be one of the high falutin', pollutin', AND revoltin'
Urrgh
Or as Stuart Gray said a member of the pollutocrat tribe of the Nats.
These same farmers will be asking for taxpayer assistance if flooding that is amplified by climate change devastates their properties. The obvious problem is that reducing emissions won't reduce the effects of climate change in the short-medium term, because so much change is already baked in by past emissions.
And that is essentially a fiscal problem: farmers will be paying to reduce emissions (or passing those costs to the public), while simultaneously taxpayers will be paying to mitigate or repair the effects of climate change. The ledger does not balance out here – there is only cost. Public finances will be overwhelmed and living standards will fall at the same time. Hard to avoid the conclusion that we are now on the leading edge of utter chaos.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/130273077/12-things-the-national-party-says-it-will-repeal-reverse-and-scrap
Geez, Natz policy.
Be nice to see some positive policies.
Not going to happen from a party that couldn't produce them whilst in power. It's now a vehicle for dissent, negativity, dirty politics and privilege.
All feed and watered by our owned media with these faux culture wars.
An article on Stuff this morning listing 11 things that National will repeal/reverse/scrap if they win the election next year. But naturally nothing about what they will do instead to fix the institutional problems of our country.
But we can guess. It will probably start with tax cuts for the rich, new multi-billion roads and fly-overs for Ford Ranger owning rural townies, building new prisons and cuts to public services.
The difference between National and Labour is that Labour valiantly keeps trying to make a rotten system better, but can't do it because it is too far gone, our public service is too small and too protective of its own privilege to do it anyway, and Labour lacks the balls, the money and the people to clean it out completely and start again from scratch. On the other hand National just gives up trying straight away and tries to fool us into thinking that doing nothing is actually doing something.
[What Stuff article? Provide direct links to quoted text, thanks – Incognito]
Mod note
Absolutely right, Mike.
Over the life of this country (at least since 1840), all the positive legislation that makes life better for ordinary kiwis has come from the left of the political spectrum.
Natz have largely just maintained the status quo.
But that approach will simply not work in the face of the existential crisis of climate change. Frankly, the market has no f*cking idea how to get us out of the environmental mess they have created.
We need interventionist governments prepared to do things: like three waters, fair pay agreements, rebuilding the health system, housing etc.
The rich don't use public hospitals or state school; all they need is roads to get to airports for their overseas holidays. Hence the Natz focus on roads.
This country can't afford another Natz/Act government.
Sorry I can't seem to post links. I will try to find out how.
Noted and let us know if you need help with that.
Everytime I try to post a link I get a message saying it isn't supported. It is an IMAC and contrary to Apple's claims they don't make things easier.
Thanks. I’ve left a note in the back-end and hopefully someone will be able to help you with this.
Mike, what operating system are you using? What browser? Are they both up to date? Can you please post the exact text of the message, and if it’s from the browser or the os?
Any legislation to make day to day life a bit better for the "average" person does not and will not come from a National government. Paid parental leave they voted against and Labour has since its introduction steadily increased the payments. Sick leave, annual leave, KiwiSaver …… As long as the better off get a generous tax cut is first and foremost on their policy wish list.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pms-office-attack-staff-evacuated-after-sword-used-to-damage-jacinda-arderns-auckland-office/ZUJBADSS3Y7IQ4DLA5DCM552IE/
Just in.
My first reaction:
Blame the Hoskings and HdPAs.
Blame the tabloid media in general.
Blame the Nats and their constant barrage of false and misinformation.
Blame ACT and their constant barrage of false and misinformation.
Could be coincidental but did the culprit wait until Ardern was in Antarctica?
Edit: the article has now been edited. The original reported a man was seen approaching the office… he smashed a window and threw something inside. Fire trucks arrived to put out a fire. There was no staff there at the time.
The last "domestic terrorist" that smashed in the frontage of the Prime Minister's office in Mt Albert electorate did not do it when the PM was there either Helen Clark's office in Sandringham Rd had an axe put through the window one morning. It was very upsetting for the staff – I was upstairs doing some Labour Party work that morning so all we heard was the crash, but the office was closed for the day while the Police did the forensic stuff.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/man-admits-to-putting-axe-through-prime-ministers-window/27HOEJFHOWJYNMQH6IEOKKVBJY/
An up to date version from Stuff:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300721972/samurai-sword-at-scene-of-prime-minister-jacinda-arderns-smashed-auckland-electoral-office
Yes, Visubversa, no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert.
Victims of the venomous Right. There have been quite a few of us over the years who were thus targeted. I was a nobody when it happened to me 30 years ago, so the police weren’t interested.
Oh, come on, Anne!
It certainly hasn't only happened to Labour PMs or to women PMs
John Key's electorate office was firebombed
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/politics/key-has-no-idea-why-office-was-attacked
Was he a victim of the venomous Left?
You know I did not say they only happen to Labour MP's and women PMs.
You know I was replying in the context of visibversa's comment @ 7.1
So why try to start a flame war?
I was similarly targeted by a woman who was planted in the Mt.Albert Labour Party 35 plus years ago. I know who put her there and why… but am not revealing the context or the identities here so don't bother to ask.
You said: "no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert."
When, actually, yes it is a coincidence.
I've provided one example of an attack on the office of a male PM – there are plenty of others.
Attacks on the electorate offices (and even MPs themselves – cf James Shaw) – are an occupational hazard in NZ (and in other countries as well).
I don't support it – or minimize it – but I acknowledge that it happens to many – right or left. Perhaps you could do the same.
Calling you on misinformation is not starting a flame war.
Oh yes it is starting a flame war when you know I was referring to a specific situation as was indeed Visubversa before me. Maybe I didn't choose my words ponderously enough for Madam but most people here don't mess around with silly semantics just to prove to the world they are always right and the target of the hour is wrong.
And to suggest I'm spouting misinformation on the subject only serves to further the suspicion by quite a few on this site that you are a person who thinks she has to be top dog in all things. 🙄
I'm not suggesting. You were spouting misinformation – as you have done in the past – and no doubt will do in the future.
Have you acknowledged, yet – I don't seem to see it in the responses – that actually attacks on electorate offices and individual politicans happen to members of all political parties – and males are affected as well as females.
Misinformation is not my game and never has been. You do yourself a disservice with your silly 'misinterpretations'.
I find your understanding on some technical matters pertaining to topics discussed here both useful and interesting. Then you go and spoil it.
"I've yet to acknowledge that attacks on electorate offices happen to all political parties?" (paraphrase)
We were talking about one specific office that was attacked yesterday. To suggest that I or anyone else is denying they happen to other political parties because we didn't mention them in dispatches is bordering on the idiotic.
I've been around the political traps on and off for 50 years and believe me I know a thing or two – as do others on this site. You might do well to ponder the fact our experiences are worthy of respect… even if you do imagine you know better.
Can you detect the strong whiff of misogyny in the venom directed against our PM? If not then please see your GP.
Haven't 'times' changed – 'funny' that.
Some people eh? Wonder what might still be going through their 'minds'.
Meanwhile, the MP who has actually been personally physically attacked – is James Shaw. A bloke.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/03/james-shaw-attacked.html
I can't think of another MP who has physically attacked – rather than jostled in a crowd, etc. Although there have been some things thrown at right-wing pollies – which is pretty borderline, in my estimation.
[Edit – I’ve just found this link to a series of physical attacks on politicians over the years – all were blokes – (in my defence, many are from well before I had any active interest in politics)]
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/beaten-bloodied-and-bruised-the-mps-attacked-over-the-years/5KA355JWECKJZJRI7UDYD66I5Y/
If you want to argue that MPs are increasingly at risk from both physical and virtual attacks, I'll certainly agree with you. And there is research to back it up.
https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago104620.pdf
But to claim that only women are affected is simply not true.
Another extraordinary claim – tell me who made it and I will ‘have words’.
Oh, come on, Belladonna!
You’ve offered no good reason for me to revise my reply to your comment @7.2.1, simply because you've subsequently introduced physical assaults into the mix. If for some reason you bring yourself to acknowledge the objective truth of the misogynistic component in the venom directed at our PM then that’s disappointing, but tbh I’m not surprised.
Try reading Anne's initial comment
"no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert."
Yes, it is a coincidence. There are plenty of other instances of non-Labour and non-female (if one is still allowed to use that divisive term) pollies offices being attacked (including PMs)
To claim this is "no coincidence" is to state (with no evidence) that this level of violence is only directed at Labour women PMs. Which is a lie.
Jacinda has a level of vitriol addressed to and about her. As did Key.
Popular politicians also have the converse of that popularity – it's only the mediocre ones who seem to attract little hatred (people go 'meh' rather than froth at the mouth.)
If it is misogynistic in relation to Ardern is is equally misandric (if that is the word) in relation to Key?
I will absolutely agree that online abuse of female politicians outweighs that directed at their male counterparts.
I don't see any evidence, however that physical assaults (on person or property) are greater for women than for men. In fact, the evidence I've linked to seems to show the reverse.
If you have evidence to show that I'm wrong, then I'm certainly open to changing my opinion.
And the initial comment was about the attack on Ardern's electorate office (not about any threats made to her). You are the one who initially widened the scope of the thread.
It's kind of frightening you have so far failed to condemn the samurai sword attack on the PM's electorate office.
Apologies if you have, but I don't want to wade through all your comments today. Far too draining and depressing.
You (and others from the right) seem to me to be spending a lot of time minimising this incident…
Quote from up the thread
If that's not sufficient for you, then I unreservedly condemn the attack on the PM's electorate office. While acknowledging that it will almost certainly have been carried out by someone mentally unbalanced.
I read Anne's initial comments @7 and @7.2 about the recent attack on the PM's office, and the earlier attack on PM Clark's office that Visubversa wrote about @7.1.
In your first 'contribution', your reply (to Anne) @7.2.1, you wrote:
Which is an indisputable statement, but also a tad odd – given that no one had suggested otherwise. Anne (@7.2.1.1) made this crystal clear for you:
You then had the gall (@7.2.1.1.1 and @7:56 pm) to write that you were "calling" Anne "on [spouting] misinformation", when it was you, and only you, who had deliberately misrepresented what Anne had written. That's self-serving bad faith behaviour – plain as day.
You bad faith commenting continued when you offered this:
Once again, you, and only you, had made such a claim in this thread – it would be absurd to suggest otherwise. Readers can make up their own minds about why you would write such an absurdity – I know I have.
I stand by my reply to your comment @7.2.1 – that you subsequently introduced the spurious matter of the physical assault on Shaw into the mix is further evidence that you are not commenting in good faith – rather you are minimising and diverting.
Imho our PM has shown considerable fortitude in the face of a veritable torrent of abuse and threats, including death threats – it can't be easy.
To our PM – hang in there – Kia kaha, and be kind
Thanks Drowsy M Kram.
Belledonna's presence on this site appears – in part – to try and undermine this government. Its an age old trick to do it by way of attempting to score points off and ridiculing individuals who stand behind or support them.
It is the same ploy used by the right-wing dirty political brigade when they attempted to destroy Clarke Gayford's reputation by way of spreading false stories about him. Take for example the "nanny": meme. It's Jacinda Ardern they are aiming to hurt by despoiling the reputations of those around her. They did the same to Helen Clark.
Helen rose above them and so will Jacinda.
No worries Anne – when reading a 'Belladonna' comment, I often think 'With respectful centrists like that, who needs NAct supporters.'
Sorry, that should read:
"But to claim that only women are affected is simply not true."
Bullshit. No-one is claiming only women parliamentarians get attacked.
You are the one indulging in cute misinformation.
Sigh. Try reading your own comment:
"no coincidence they were women Prime Ministers representing the Labour held seat of Mt. Albert."
Yes, it is a coincidence. Or, alternatively, your framing. There are plenty of other instances of non-Labour and non-female (if one is still allowed to use that divisive term) pollies offices being attacked (including PMs)
To claim this is "no coincidence" is to state (with no evidence) that this level of violence is only directed at Labour women PMs. Which is a lie.
"Staff evacuated after sword attack" in the headline and yet when you read the article "No injuries have been reported and the building was unoccupied at the time," police said.
So how do you evacuate an empty building.
Not good but the standard of reporting is terrible..
From the Stuff report at 7.2 above:
Deb Fong, who owns a yoga studio next-door to the electoral office, said she could smell smoke in her studio.
An office is not the same as a building.
The report quotes the police statement.
I think you will finds the police told them they couldn't occupy the office until they had finished their forensic examination. That could take several hours.
At the time the article was put together, the reporter wouldn't know the exact turn of events so just labelled it an evacuation.
Whatever, the psychological effect on the staff will be enormous because of a large sword left behind on the ground. I'm picking that was a deliberate act to threaten the staff and the PM.'
In the Helen Clark case it was an axe.
A typical example of the level of vitriol thrown at the Prime Minister. She is being criticised for taking her partner with her to Antarctica. A swag of former prime ministers have visited Anrtactica over the years and it looks like they all took their spouses/partners with them. Jesus.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pm-jacinda-ardern-on-antarctica-climate-change-research-and-why-she-brought-partner-clarke-gayford/EHKU7F2Y75E2DO74VWHPOSOGAA/
" The original reported a man was seen approaching the office… he smashed a window and threw something inside". Why do we men always get the blame for this sort of madness?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300721972/woman-arrested-after-prime-minister-jacinda-arderns-auckland-electoral-office-damaged
"We" don't.
The reports said it was a man, including eye-witness comments. Later the reports changed.
Good to see that 2.75m given to the mob being put to good use by the Mongrel Mob. Did anyone actually believe the PR lady that they were no longer in to drugs? (she is awfully quiet now).
But at least all the gang members now vote Labour.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/130267411/antidrug-mongrel-mobs-man-was-meth-kingpin
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/446739/ardern-backs-2-point-75m-support-for-mongrel-mob-meth-addiction-programme
The recipients were a group called Hard2Reach, fronted by Harry Tam and anthropologist and public health researcher Angie Wilkinson.
Do you have evidence that either is involved in the drug trade?
No I obviously don't personally have any evidence, but the police do as Mark Griffiths will be off to jail now. Actually if he gets the good judge probably home D.
So why the inference that Harry Tam and anthropologist and public health researcher Angie Wilkinson are connected to Griffiths' offending?
/equally bad take
I'm told the drugs were imported via printer cartridges. Well be needing to implement sanctions against the US administration and their cartel of printer suppliers now.
/equally bad take finished
New Zealand's male violence towards women is further demonstrated by the deranged, cowardly attack on the PM's electorate office. There are too many men who cannot seem to accept and adapt to women's involvement in politics, government, local government, business, senior roles in any field. As soon as they rise to the top these pathetic men want to drag them down in one way or another. Anger, jealousy, "pretty communist" "Cindy", "girl in a skirt" that sort of nonsense never gets hurled at Chris Luxon. Time some people grew up.
police have arrested a 57 year old Woman .
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300721972/woman-arrested-after-prime-minister-jacinda-arderns-auckland-electoral-office-damaged
Define woman. So unless there is a picture or a comment to precise that it was an adult human female – who may or may not identify as a 'woman' you actually have no idea who really committed the crime, i mean anyone who feels like a women can self identify as a woman, one can even change daily their gender expression and no alterations to bodies or faces need to be made in order to self identify as a woman. And i would like to point out that the person was not described as a 'cis' woman either. So really might just not 'sex' the criminal until more information is available.
In saying that, knife attacks, attacks on people with screwdrivers, ramraids, bashings etc is all up and i would assume this is do to mental health issues in many cases. And sometimes these mental health issues need more then just access to a 0800 number.
So give the criminal a few month of Home D, say 9 month? That seems to be a good punishment for crimes against 'human females" of all ages and their offices.
The change in sex reported is noted.
It'll be worth seeing why that happened.
coincidentally Fond of Beetles has this thread up this morning.
Correct, a woman has been arrested.
However, it was widely reported to be a man immediately after the attack.
Most of those reports have since been updated and corrected, and unfortunately most NZ media do not bother to follow best practice overseas of notifying readers of corrections. The requirement for links on The Standard is entirely reasonable, but the linked content often changes, and only screenshots (or our own memories) can confirm original reporting.
"New Zealand's male violence towards women is further demonstrated by the deranged, cowardly attack on the PM's electorate office"
What made you jump to the conclusion that it would be a man attacking the PM's office?
They have arrested a woman. When Jacinda was abused up north a while ago that was a woman too.
For the 3rd time – it was reported in the media as being a man. The story at 10 am was not the story at 1l am or 1 pm.
Perhaps you could read the comments before "jumping to a conclusion".
Derangement is not peculiar to men.
There were plenty of women involved in despoiling the centre of Wellington in February.
The difference is that deranged men have an additional bone of contention – Jacinda being a woman means that she is "not one of us" and thus more contemptible.
More war crimes. So the question that has to be asked, is our government not acting because they are not white?
What would you like our government to do?
Rescind the free trade agreement for starters.
Provide humanitarian aid to the civilians families being killed.
Cut off the military from arms and weapons – with us pulling out of all free trade agreements with those who supply them.
This is not enough – more than we would of got from the nat's, sure. But not enough.
//
BANGKOK (AP) — New Zealand said Thursday it will not deal with Myanmar under a major 15-nation trade agreement, the world’s largest that took effect this year, citing the deadly violence and democratic setbacks in the Southeast Asian country after the military seized power last year.
https://apnews.com/article/business-asia-new-zealand-myanmar-global-trade-b54b9f97ddeb4287762ea2797e44de8d
New Zealand has joined a boycott of an upcoming counter-terrorism meeting being co-chaired by the Russian and Myanmar militaries, in a move welcomed by activists.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nz-to-boycott-counter-terrorism-meeting-over-russia-myanmar-roles
Your links are months old, and they did not work.
As my main link shows, they have not worked for months.
Shut the door to this militarism
Cut off the arms.
How TF would you know?
How. Regime change?
/
Perhaps you could have a word with the junta's suppliers, China, Russia, Belarus, Iran and Serbia.
/
Meanwhile, the EU and US have banned the supply of arms and any dual use goods, restricted export of comms and monitoring systems that could be used for internal suppression and suspended all and training and cooperation. And sanctions on dozens of individuals and organisations include asset freezes and bans on listed people from entering or transiting through US and EU territory.
I sure hope the Fonterra sales team is flogging our milk powder outside China.