There’s some weird shit weather going on down south too. I’m not complaining too much because rain grows food and provides longer term protection re AGW, but it’s still a strange summer thus far.
Yes even though an El Nino usually brings dry weather to the eastern side of the country – apart from December when we had just 11 mm of rain at Paeroa (closest met recording site for us on the Coromandel) and were looking at an extreme drought over the plains – this month has already exceeded the long term average for rainfall and we are looking at more!
It seems that with the increase in average temperatures and the shift south of the Halley Climate Zone that our climate – particularly in the north of the country is moving rapidly to a phase in our climate patterns. Humid as hell here today! 20 something feels like 30 something.
WE will need to wait a few years to see if this is going to be the new normal for el nino. Interesting times.
The Herald and Audrey Young pimps for Key.
Accepts this statement without challenging it.
“This is a free-trade deal that gives us access to 800 million middle-income consumers. Its economic benefits are about two-and-a-half times the size of the China FTA.”
“This is a free-trade deal that gives us access to 800 million middle-income consumers. Its economic benefits are about two-and-a-half times the size of the China FTA.”..
Yeah. I heard that and thought..Mmm Interesting..then realized it was from Mr Key’s mouth.and consumed a grain of NaCl
Listened to RNZ at 7.00 – 7.20am this morning, up until that time not a dicky bird on the meeting at the AK Town Hall last night over the TPPA . I watched Bomber’s live feed last night and it was excellent. So it wasn’t important enough for RNZ to even bring up the crowd and the very interesting speeches made and inform NZ listeners. NZ First, The Greens and the Maori Party were all completely against the TPPA, Labour’s speech was anti losing our sovereignity but didn’t actually come out and say there were anti the TPPA itself – quite vague I thought. Be interesting if any of the MSM bring it up during the day.
The ‘content’ of last nights meeting has been debated endlessly here and elsewhere including the MSM. I’m not interested in going through it all again. (As was pointed out last night, i agree it is likely the U.S. Congress will torpedo it anyway).
My point is that after all that debate, the small attendance in response to the call to ‘fill the Town Hall’ indicates only a very small % of citizens are buying into the ‘Corporate-National Party Conspiracy / loss of Sovereignty’ content that most of the speakers were pushing.
There is a lesson there for you Paul. Once you pass the point where you invoke a conspiracy as part of a discussion, you will also have lost your connection to the views of the great majority of citizens.
You seem to have missed the fact that the meeting was also live streamed through The Daily Blog, which in itself would have attracted a large number of viewers, for those of us who were unable to attend the meeting itself.
There was well over 800. I know, I was there. The ground floor was full, and that is is far more than half the seating capacity. The upper floors were about 1/3 full. That would make around 1200 at least if the seating capacity is as you say 1600.
I suppose if they were to have said that there were 1600 people then you would have said – “pppppft only that many! ”
The talk was also live streamed and there were over 10,000 on that site so way more interest than you make out.
No wonder you are a lost sheep! What sort of an idiot argument is that?
Had the Town Hall been full to overflowing – you would have argued – well that’s only 0.15% of Aucklands population etc etc….
The facts of just what this nonsense agreement is about are only just emerging – and they are proving to be as bad if not worse than was feared.
So we have a compliant media who only reiterate the lies and propaganda of the Government and make no real analysis of what they are told. What can you expect of the population who are treated by a govt as mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed bullshit? It is surprising that as many did turn up.
I drove up to the event from the Coromandel. It took almost 3/4 of an hour to “drive” from tip top corner to the Civic Car Park. The traffic going south at that time was even worse. No need to remind me why I no longer live in Auckland. I would strongly suspect that if one didn’t have to go out on an evening in Auckland these days one wouldn’t. The congestion on the motorway being a very strong disincentive.
“So we have a compliant media who only reiterate the lies and propaganda of the Government and make no real analysis of what they are told. What can you expect of the population who are treated by a govt as mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed bullshit? It is surprising that as many did turn up.”
That’s nonsense.
Anyone googling TPPA will immediately have access to all the various view out there on the TPPA.
In fact the first link that comes up is http://itsourfuture.org.nz/what-is-the-tppa/, and 5 of the first 10 results are anti-TPPA sites.
Are you seriously suggesting citizens are prevented from accessing information freely available on the internet?
ETC ETC ETC. I’ve been following the TPP story through the MS and FREE media here in NZ, and IT IS UTTER BOLLOCKS to allege there is lack of freely available/unbalanced information.
The ‘mushroom’ meme is complete bullshit. (For any issue, not just the TPP)
The people are well informed and have information freely available to them from any source that wants to put information out there.
The reason so few of them supported the meeting last night is that after absorbing all the information, there simply aren’t that many people who are deeply concerned about the TPPA.
All what you say is true, however the most consistent message, and the one all the articles leave the reader with, is the advice that the TPPA is the propaganda spread by the Govt that the really good for NZ, not to worry about all the expert analysis they don’t know what they are talking about.
The people are well informed and have information freely available to them from any source that wants to put information out there.
That is complete and utter bollocks as any independent survey of the electorate would show. The full text was only released by the govt yesterday!
You may have been following the discussion – but you are not everyone.
Just as an aside, what you get as a result of a google search and what your friend or neighbour gets as a result for the same google search, you might be surprised to know, are highly likely to be completely different, based on each individuals web browsing habits.
All what you say is true, however the most consistent message, and the one all the articles leave the reader with, is the advice that the TPPA is the propaganda spread by the Govt that the really good for NZ, not to worry about all the expert analysis they don’t know what they are talking about.”
I didn’t see that as being the most consistent message, and I’m not sure if I saw the media putting it that way anywhere?
There has a been a wide range of opinions expressed and if I anything I would say the bulk of the MSM coverage centered around the objections to the TPP.
But having been given the info., (such as the widely reported fact that the negotiations were secret), and hearing the various opinions, ‘the people’ are then perfectly free to go and follow their own sources and make their own minds up about what they think and how motivated they are to do something about it. Or not.
That is simply democracy, and most people see it as such.
But when the weight of democratic opinion goes against either the Far Right or Far Left they always tend to see it as the result of bias or the idiocy of ‘the people’.
Much easier to swallow than the idea that the majority of people are reasonable and simply don’t agree with you.
Actually the weight of opinion in NZ is against the TPPA – or haven’t you read that fact.
So I wouldn’t hold a great deal of candle to your opinion that they are all for it or don’t care.
You seem very unwilling to debate the actual content of what Lori Wallach and Jane Kelsey said to a disputed number of people at the town hall.
It did seems to highlight the misinformation your master Key has been telling us.
The centrepiece of Auckland Town Hall is the Great Hall, seating up to 1,529 people on three levels.
So that is your first lie – I guess you like emulating the idiot liar John Key?
Second is that I think that the bottom floor was full from the video – that is more like 1200. The upper floors had people (overflow) up there. I suspect the ‘800’ was just wrong. It was a midweek evening event. I was still working at 7pm, I watched on video.
Thirdly, compared to what? Just think of the right and its events where you are lucky to get 50 fools out unless the government or the National party cough up free grog. Even then it is less than this.
The centrepiece of Auckland Town Hall is the Great Hall, seating up to 1,529 people on three levels.
So that is your first lie – I guess you like emulating the idiot liar John Key?
Second is that I think that the bottom floor was full from the video – that is more like 1200. The upper floors had people (overflow) up there. I suspect the ‘800’ was just wrong. It was a midweek evening event. I was still working at 7pm, I watched on video.
Achully (JK impression), the 0.09 figure I quoted was based on the generous assumption that there were 50% more people there than the report stated.
1200 in fact.
If it was only 800 the figure would have been 0.06.
Bald Fact is, seeking a show of support in a city of 1.3m they could not fill a 1500 seat hall.
Thirdly, compared to what?
50,000 at the 1981 Springbok Tour or Kiwis Care protests. 8000 Farmers who protested Rogernomics, or the 1000 that came to the Town Hall for the GCSB Bill. Or the 35,000 that made the effort to attend the ‘Big Boys Toys’ event, or the 5000 that made the effort to get to Piha during the weekend.
Compared to what is 1200 people an indication of a high level of public support?
Basically you are a complete idiot.
And you owning the site doesn’t make that any less of a bullshit and pointless ad hominem cheap shot.
“But one audience member, Ian, said he was furious with the deal.
“I’ve got to the stage now where I think petitions and protests are part of a social contract where people who are outraged think ‘Oh I’ve done something, I’ve done something’ and the Government just goes ahead and ignores them anyway.
“I think what we need is not protests and petitions but riots. We need to change this Government’s opinion and we need to change everyone else’s opinion and make them wonder why are people behaving the way they are. I think we need mass civil disobedience.” ” http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/295019/critics-say-tpp-not-a-done-deal
I find it incredibly ironic that the route to protecting New Zealand’s best interests lies in a bunch of completely-out-of-their-mind Republicans motivated entirely by partisan malice towards Obama going even further out of their minds and taking a few more of their slightly-less-irrational colleagues with them.
Don’t mix up the decision making and attitudes of the oligarchic elite with the views and anxieties of ordinary Americans struggling to get ahead or stay ahead.
Yep! We may or may not be saved by the greedies who want more extortionate clauses in the Agreement not less!
Just a small handful have to change their mind one way or the other. It’s no done deal yet.
But the scary thing is this: If our idiotic govt ratify this deal – before the thing is signed off by congress – and they (congress) then only agree to new extortionate clauses that further lengthen the time frame for IP etc (as the republicans want) then we are further shafted!
That was what I thought too – until listening to Lori last night – it seemed that that was a possibility. Maybe I got her wrong – but she was stressing that many in the GOP were against TTPA because the time limits on generic drugs etc was not long enough for big pharmac to collect even more money. It seemed that the issue was that they would only agree if the got their way.
Theoretically they can’t tinker with it, but they could repeal the legislation if they really wanted to. It wouldn’t surprise me either way, to be honest.
Despite the rest of the household disconnecting from our stretched broadband so we could watch the live stream…we kept losing the feed. Very annoying…does anyone know if it was recorded? And available?
The Sound just had something about some Farmers (Fonterra or Farm Fed) were in support of it. Followed by intelectual heavy weight Leah Panapa saying she agrees with Winston Peters that the Maori Party are “brownmailing” John Key & the other presenters all agreed & one guy mentioned “& you & Winston are maori followed by a joke about Winston being half scottish half Maori so he tanned easily but was cheap.” No wonder Key likes to go on those stations.
“Fitch Ratings has affirmed its AA credit rating for New Zealand, but says the outlook for our agricultural exports means future growth won’t be quite as strong.”
“The report from Fitch said GDP growth for New Zealand was still expected to pick up to 2.4 per cent and 2.6 per cent in 2016 and 2017 respectively – a slower pace than it forecast in its review in July last year.”
‘Ratings agency Fitch has highlighted weaker prices for New Zealand’s agriculture exports – including dairy – for its revised outlook on growth.
It has left the country’s sovereign rating unchanged at AA, but had revised-down its assessment of New Zealand’s near-term growth prospects because it said the outlook for prices of the country’s agricultural exports had deteriorated.’
Why? Its his opinion nothing more nothing less, it doesn’t change the outlook that NZs GDP is growing and whats more important GDP growth or Rod Orams opinion?
I can’t actually argue against it specifically as my work won’t allow me (well everyone really) certain functions on the internet so I can’t listen to it
However my points do stand, which opinion is considered more relevant Rod Oram or Helen Clark
You’re spending your working day arguing with strangers on the internet? Is that your job? Or are you misusing the time your employer is paying you for?
Same as most of the people on here I guess. I care about this country, I believe National under John Key is the best current option for NZ (ok not this so much) and I like to see what other other peoples opinions are
I realise that you’re making the suggestion I get paid for doing this (I wish) but no its simply certain apps and web pages aren’t allowed to be accessed
‘From heatwave to violent storms: New Zealand’s mad weather’
Amazing that the Herald still can write an article about the weather without any reference to climate change or El Nino.
Interesting article. Obama met with Democratic leaders about the legislative agenda and the TPPA was not really discussed. Many Democrats oppose the TPPA, as do all three Democrats running for President.
“Business commentator Rod Oram on the recently available New Zealand research papers on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and New Zealand’s role in the TPPA.”
Thanks Chooky
“Business commentator Rod Oram on the recently available New Zealand research papers on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and New Zealand’s role in the TPPA.”
Oram gives a pragmatic analysis far more balanced and reasonable than the usual TPPApologists.
Now I know I shouldn’t laugh ~snort~ but this from the beige badgers site –
Cameron Slater said on Facebook today that the police won’t be appealing the High Court ruling in the Hager case. He doesn’t sound like a happy chap.
Then the Police ring me and tell me that they aren’t going to appeal the High Court ruling in the Hager case. So the lefty cunts who stole my data, and tried to steal an election all get away with their criminality.
They say they are pursuing other avenues, but yet again Nicky Hager has laundered stolen goods, made plenty of money and tried to influence an election…with zero consequences.
It is days like this that you really question whether or not karma exists…or why you even bother doing what you do. Still there is much to be thankful for.
Despite everything I still think I am very blessed and lucky to live in this country…though I’m not sure how long can bothered living here anymore. I might just go back to my place of birth (Fiji) or live somewhere totally different…like Israel….because New Zealand really doesn’t feel like home sometimes.
He’s always such a cry baby, wanting attention and sympathy because he didn’t get his way. Fine if he wants to move to another country, he doesn’t contribute anything to this one. He should do us all a favour and just get on with it, leave, and quit bleating.
Israel would suit him. He can go join the IDF. He was there a while ago, as their guest, sociopathic sicko that he is.
If he leaves NZ for good to go back and live in Fiji I bet we could have a whip round and pay for his plane ticket, on the agreement that it’s one way with no return. Ever.
Cams comment
I might just go back to my place of birth (Fiji) or live somewhere totally different…like Israel….because New Zealand really doesn’t feel like home sometimes.
I came on this quote while browsing. The woman, Fran Peavey, makes a good point that is very relevant in these difficult times.
(Make a comparison with Whaleoil musing as in Joe90 comment – Fran is trying to do good things for life to thrive on earth, Whaleoil isn’t even useful to spray on pest insects.)
“Now, of course, the biggest criticism of heart politics is that it’s ‘so naive’. And it’s true, there is a lot of evil and despair in the world which makes it difficult to know if we will he able to make the changes necessary for life to thrive on earth.
“We don’t know, but we have to do our bit because I know, one day, I’ll be lying on my bed and the Grim Reaper will come and I’ll want to be able to tell myself I did the best I could.
At last something useful.
It probably shouldn’t be in Treasury though. It would be better as an independent agency of Parliament. That would keep any disgruntled party from attacking Treasury if they don’t like the figures that are produced.
The thing that would have to be settled is what they look at of course. It would be an overwhelming job if they had to cost every little bit of waffle from a back bench MP.
Someone who says, say, that the schools in his/her electorate should be repainted more frequently because they are close to the sea and look scruffy earlier.
On the other hand their press release only says it would “be available” to political parties. It should be required. It should also require that any proposed policy of a party, at least in election years, must be supplied to the unit with sufficient time for it to be costed before it is announced.
Getting policies out of Winston’s lot might be a problem. They seldom contain enough detail to be evaluated.
also – as an independant body it would create a system where the actual policy (not the PR sound byte) has to be submitted to be costed – then it all becomes OIA-able (one would hope)
so lack of detail/rushed/poorly thought out policy would become exposed as well as the costings, allowing us to see behind the media and PR rhetoric
(yes im thinking of a certain bullet point policy platform 🙂 )
There would be some inbuilt confidentiality clauses. Not sure what that means (maybe that Treasury can’t discuss it with other parties until the party releases it?).
if its public upon release, that in itself creates its own checks and balances.
So i think that wouldnt be too big an issue
a party that releases policy to late risks the media missing it and the public thinking theres something being hidden in the details
The mere fact that both costings and policy details are in the hands of people outside the party, and can be released to the public together, would create a certain amount of pressure to be a bit more upfront (we can only dream of course 🙂 )
One place for potential abuse (looking at you National Party office) is where the costings are done and not released (including in other than election years). It’d be useful to see more of the Green Party’s thinking on how the whole thing would work.
thats why i think a fully independant body would be better – just some sort of way that MPs cant get their hands on the released data before anyone else
I can’t see why MPs shouldn’t see the numbers first. Indeed it is better they do because they might come to their senses and scrap a crazy proposal. The numbers should be released immediately after a policy is publicly announced.
For the same reason I’m not that keen on the system being subject to the OIA act if it means that people can request costings done for a party where the policy was not then put to the public.
After all a party might consider a policy proposal. It gets costed and then they realise it really isn’t sensible and drop it. I don’t think it would be fair that the fact that they looked at something should be sufficient to have details released via an OIA request at a later date.
Something like a party considering reinstating the railway line from Napier to Gisborne. The cost might turn out to be, picking a number from the air, $500,000 per train. Very sensibly they scrap the idea. Someone then OIAs the calculation and attacks them for economic illiteracy.
Someone then OIAs the calculation and attacks them for economic illiteracy.
But they do have a very legitimate and simple defence in saying that they didn’t go through with it/removed it from their platform. Of course, if they then went through with it they’d be rightly decried by all and sundry.
BTW, that’s a really bad way to determine if a railway line is worthwhile or not.
There might need to be back and forth communication between the unit and the party while the costings are done. After the costings are done the party might need time and other processes to happen before the info is released. Maybe a time delay until it is made public?
nothing wrong with being able to step back and change tack if a plan isnt working, and nothing with an outside pair of eyes being the one to show you your errors
im more talking from the point a party decides to go public with a given policy
I realise you are unlikely to be a great fan of the Tax-Payers Union but they put quite a lot of time and skilled effort into a costing exercise before the last election.
They came up with a final result set as follows http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/final_results_published
“The Bribe-O-Meter now reflects the costs of all policies announced. It shows that of the main parties:
•the Greens have promised to spend the most, $6.54 billion, or $3,857.77 per household during the next Parliamentary term;
•the Labour Party have committed to a policy programme worth $5.81 billion, or $3,423.16 per household; while
•National have committed to $1.4 billion, or $823.62 per household of new spending.”
They were unable to get any information out of New Zealand First.
They had independent experts look at, and re-calculate the cost of the main policy planks of each party. You are entitled to your views on the National Party compared to other parties but I consider I am entitled to take the view that you don’t know what you are talking about and your statements are “all simply make believe”.
Well, that would be the thing wouldn’t it? ALL policies would have to made available for costing before being put into place so that we can judge them on them.
In other words you can’t think of anything that National has done in the last 15 months that wasn’t announced prior to the election.
You claim that ” the policies that they implemented quick smart (i.e, had them ready to go”
Then you can’t think of ANYTHING they did that they implemented without having told us about it.
Pretty desperate aren’t you?
You really are desperate aren’t you?
National Social Housing Policy.
The very first policy highlight they listed was
“Reformed social housing sector to ensure it is fit-for-purpose including passing legislation to facilitate a shift from state housing to a range of new social housing providers.”
As for changes to the beer laws. How much did you think that cost, and why did you really think it merited a policy statement?
Personally I think it would, given the duty on alcohol, probably have meant more rather than less money for the state.
Give up. You are just talking more and more drivel the longer you go on.
And Key has already nay sayed the idea, quelle surprise. FFS he rejected it within hours of the proposal being made public. Joyce is open to the idea though, lol. As is common with Green Party ideas and policy, the business community response is positive.
Prime Minister John Key said it was “not a terribly good idea”. He said it would require a funding boost for the Treasury and would not achieve the Green Party’s goal of greater transparency because the results would be manipulated for political gain.
“They would just ignore it if they didn’t like the numbers,” he said.
What’s the political term for this, when you accuse other people of bad behaviour that is in fact a classic example of one’s own bad behaviour?
I took your advice and tried to contact my local MP. He did his best imitation of Sergeant Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes and came out with
“I see nothing, I was not here. I did not even get up this morning”
It sounded roughly like that anyway although with the Wellington Central MP one can never be sure.
“What’s the political term for this, when you accuse other people of bad behaviour that is in fact a classic example of one’s own bad behaviour”
The phrase Green Party Press Statement comes to mind.
You link to a Green Party Press statement where we can see what Meteria says.
However you put in quotes from John Key
“Prime Minister John Key said it was “not a terribly good idea”. He said it would require a funding boost for the Treasury and would not achieve the Green Party’s goal of greater transparency because the results would be manipulated for political gain.”
Where does this come from? I would like to see his full statement. before I join PR on the barricades.
weka’s posted Key quote “Prime Minister John Key said it was “not a terribly good idea”. He said it would require a funding boost for the Treasury and would not achieve the Green Party’s goal of greater transparency because the results would be manipulated for political gain.”
Isn’t John Key admitting there tht Treasury work is manipulated for political purposes?
quelle surprise again….
corruption within Key’s regime, admitted to by regime leader himself
Hmmm . . . interesting. Hamish Rutherford, Wellington business bureau chief for Fairfax has tweeted that New Zealand has dropped to fourth place on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). I can’t confirm this because the information is embargoed until later today (5am Berlin time) but its not something I would be entirely surprised by. New Zealand led the rankings until John Key and his National Ltd™ neoliberal thugs turned up. We dropped one place in, I think, 2011 and now it would appear we’re gaining downward momentum.
That’s 5pm today isn’t it?
Are you going to post then if it is out?
Shame really. We were 1 in 95 and 96 and then dropped to 4 while Winston was Treasurer. Probably not coincidental.
We then wandered around in the 2= to 3= range until 2005.
Straight 1 or 1= from 2006 to 2013.
Even 4th is hardly a disaster though is it? 4th of about 200 countries. Probably back to the early years of the decade in fact.
“Based on expert opinion, the Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide.”
It appears they use surveys of national TI chapters:
“The NIS assessments offer a comprehensive evaluation of the integrity system in a given country. They are conducted by local in-country organisations, generally TI national chapters”
However, it does usually cost to be a member, and you have a very interesting membership (price on request) for above $1,000,000 business turnover.
“Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Copper
For more information and to apply for Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Copper membership, please contact us by email at admin@transparencynz.org.nz. “
I would say that it would be simplicity itself to game this system.
After all “perceived corruption” is not the same as actual corruption – it all depends on the perspective and knowledge of the perceiver.
Let’s all sign up for that free membership and wait for next year’s survey…
. . . To arrive at New Zealand’s reduced score of 88 out of 100, Transparency International has aggregated seven separate annual assessments by independent agencies such as the World Bank and the World Justice Project. All seven assessments provide a score out of 100 on governance issues (which are 92, 93, 81, 83, 98, 88, 83). In comparison to New Zealand’s score of 88, three Nordic countries have registered higher scores (Denmark 91, Finland 90, and Sweden 89). This is why New Zealand is now behind them all, in fourth place . . . Of course the Transparency International index is one of perception. It is impossible to actually measure real corruption – by its very nature corruption is somewhat hidden and intangible – and therefore other metrics are necessary as proxies
. . . which seems to indicate a certain robustness about the indexing but an unfortunate lack of clarity about exactly how the scores were calculated. Not too sure what to make of it all except that it serves to confirm corruption, or at least the perception of corruption, is a feature of the National Ltd™ government.
Oh Trollwyn stop it ! I note that to make it all seem just peachy you’re reduced to looking down. Not up where the Higher Standards are meant to be. Higher Standards was always just a cyncical bullshit mantra. Which even you now acknowledge. Eyes downcast.
The US Senate has just voted 50-49 in what is a stunning denial of reality . . .
The Senate rejected the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change, days after NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2014 the hottest year ever recorded on Earth . . . The chairman of the environment committee, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., is an enthusiastic denier of climate change, saying it is the “biggest hoax” perpetrated against mankind.
“The hoax is there are some people so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change the climate,” Inhofe said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “Man can’t change the climate” . . .
. . . and this is the nation which holds the trump cards in any ISDS suits against the government resulting from legislation New Zealand might like to pass in order to meet its commitment to helping ameliorate climate change.
“Two-thousand-and-sixteen is going to be a most fascinating and explosive year in New Zealand politics,” he said. “We don’t believe that the government can hold up to the next election. The reason for that is the seeds of their own destruction are there now.”
In further news the Wellington City Council sets out to blow $8 million dollars on a scheme to have a flight from Wellington to Canberra 4 times a week. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/76161963/new-singapore-airlines-flights-to-cost-wellington-ratepayers-millions
I guess that they have to find some way to try and fulfil the Mayor’s dreams of a connection to Asia.
There is no further news on the Councils responsibility to provide an emergency source of water to Wellington Hospital in the event of an earthquake.
Not as sexy as councillors jetting of to exotic climes on their “sister city” jaunts I guess.
I must admit, old chap, I don’t feel quite so bad that we were 4th with a pretty good score of 88.
I am glad I don’t live in the leftist paradises like Cuba, score 47, Greece at 46, or the favourite of the hard left idiots, Venezuela with the wonderful result of 17.
Tell me dopey. Would you prefer to live here, number 4, or the hero of the left Venezuela at position 158 out of 167?
Actually I wouldn’t be too surprised if our drop was due to the very dodgy dealings of Wellington’s left led council that I commented on just above your drivel.
Do you approve of their activities?
Funny thing is that corruption is merely another set of bureaucracy and rules that get factored into business. No problem. Once the bureaucracy and rules are known then all is good and everyone carries on. Just check business in Australia. Remember also Bjeikle-Petersen and Hinz who was Minister of Police and Minister of Racing at the same time in Queensland…. ha ha ha… what a larf
Corruption ..;.. pffftt …. innocent naïve kiwis living in la-la land….
though makes for good media and presentation as something else to beat certain countries over the head with eh….
… we could start on Dick Cheney and co and business interests in war too
ha ha
corruption
why was lord Ashcroft here having secret talk with our PM? ha ha.
corruption
“Left led council” flogging that dead horse again? Always blame someone else isn’t it God forbid the leader of the country has anything to do with the leading of the country, oh no, its the lefties the lefties!
Do you approve of what the Wellington Council is up to?
Dishing out ratepayers money an dodgy schemes while refusing to provide for the continued operation of an essential service like the Wellington Hospital if we had an earthquake.
Seriously, do you see that as a proper activity?
And yes, the Mayor is definitely on the left and she is on the small group of councillors who are involved in these secretive activities.
Again Trollwyn…..looking down. You’re excellent as a troll…..until you get busted in it. As you always do.
Piece of advice to VTO above – your comment just shits on Trollwyn, but given that he/she/it is concerned only to fellate The Gauche Man…… nothing you can say, however rational……
It’s about the corrupt, murderous right wing gangster country Indonesia…. where murderers and paramilitarys with the aid of the u.s.a and the west took over …. and still run the country.
“alwyn supports”
Really? And just how did you come to this conclusion?
Psychic are you? Or are you just delusional?
I suppose I could recommend that you watch the film “The Killing Fields” and remember the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.
They were your favourite Government weren’t they? They were the people you most admired and Pol Pot was histories greatest humanitarian to you I suppose.
I have at least as much reason to attribute those beliefs to you as you have to accuse me as you have done.
Don’t make up lies about things, like my views on past world Governments, when you are completely and utterly ignorant on the subject.
I recommend learning about the murderous Khmer Rouge ……..And how the u.s.a govt helped bring them to power….. and once there voting for them and recognizing them in the UN. http://johnpilger.com/videos/cambodia-year-ten
It was of course the Vietnamese army who rescued Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge … The u.s.a govt killed well over 1 million Vietnamese but that’s another story
In ” The war on Democracy”: ” the film shows how serial US intervention, overt and covert, has toppled a series of legitimate governments in the Latin American region since the 1950s.” http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy
In interviews with Chavez and other footage we learn of the C.I.A involvement in military overthrow of his Govt…… which the people repelled.
Venezuela has been under sustained economic attack from the u.s.a govt ever since which also labels it’s legitimate government criminal , terrorist etc etc…….. descriptions more fitting of Indonesia. http://www.actofkilling.com/
To sum up I’m sure Alwyn supports the u.s.a govt ………….. which has helped create Pol Pot , Isis and supported more countries run by regimes with death squads ( wiki death squads ) than I have fingers on my hands ……………..
” I’m sure Alwyn supports the u.s.a govt”
Well that is a change of your opinion I suppose.
You still have no reason at all for the statement however.
I guess I will just have to comment
I am sure that Reason’s beliefs have little to do with the real world and some, including the one above, are based on things about which he knows nothing.
Poor workmanship also bugs Milton Sands, a director at big Auckland pipe merchant Aquatherm.
But he also estimated half of all plumbing products being used here had not been certified to the New Zealand standard, though many would still be good products.
What it showed up, though, was the lack of controls.
“Until we have some certifying body in New Zealand checking products, the end user is always at risk. It’s got to be [central] government; local government hasn’t got the resources.”
It’s manifestly unclear just how many of the thousands of taps, cisterns and pipes for sale are a failure waiting to happen.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has the power to warn about or ban building products – but it hasn’t ever done so.
It said the “presence of this regulatory tool provides a threat that modifies behaviour and incentivises voluntary product withdrawal or change”.
Sounds like some lines out of the neo lib textbook where the next page says that people will always prefer the cheaper price and the faster time for installation. (Which would lead to shonky jobs.) Is the textbook right?
So the business might say, ‘What you going to do about it huh? Eh? Just what?’
by Philip Ferguson This weekend just past marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the most famous of the great 1960s music festivals. It was held over the weekend (Friday-Monday) of August 15-18, 1969. Woodstock was a highpoint of the US ‘counter-culture’, and also the beginning of its end. When exploring the ...
It looks like the government has won over the public on its vehicle feebate scheme:A feebate scheme that would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from buyers of higher-emission cars into the pockets of people buying EVs and other more fuel-efficient vehicles has been winning favour with submitters, the Government ...
When people suggest lowering the voting age, others argue that the young are too uneducated or silly to exercise the duties of citizenship. Australian John Quiggin has just blown that argument out of the water:Looking at the array of ignorant and vindictive old men attacking Greta Thunberg and other young ...
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...
Back in May, Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki launched another political party. Despite consisting entirely of followers of their religion, they grandly called it "Coalition New Zealand", in a vain effort to suggest it was something broader. But when they applied for registration, submitters opposed the name, as ...
The following article is excerpted and translated from two articles in recent issues of Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the revolutionary workers group active in France. We don’t necessarily agree with everything in it – for instance, the 1956-62 war for independence involved rather more revolutionary forces than ...
The Pacific is on the front line of climate change, and if we don't cut emissions quickly, some countries are literally going to be underwater. Because of this, small Pacific states had tried to use this week's Pacific Islands Forum meeting to get Pacific countries to agree to ending coal ...
To Limit Another's Rights Is To Limit One's Own: Is it too much to expect senior members of our Government to be capable of explaining that we protect the rights of human-beings precisely because not even the most depraved act can cancel-out the fact that its perpetrator is also a ...
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...
This section builds on Part 1 of this series to provide a theoretical basis for the final instalment (part 3 – to come). Self-determination: law or resurgence — or both? International law promotes the principal of equal treatment and self-determination, which includes peoples’ rights to freely pursue their social, cultural and ...
Everyone was outraged yesterday to learn that the Christchurch shooting accused had been able to send mail from prison to his Nazi fans, apparently pushing more hate. "How could this possibly happen", people asked. Simple: because New Zealand is a civilised country, and so we let prisoners send and receive ...
If we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, we need to rapidly decarbonise our transport fleet. The good news: its starting to happen:The number of electric vehicles on New Zealand's roads have nearly tripled in the past two years. There are currently 15,453 registered electric vehicles (EVs), up ...
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Last week, the ongoing democracy protests in Hong Kong saw a pro-Hong Kong student assaulted at the University of Auckland. The Chinese consulate in Auckland followed this up with a press release "express[ing] its appreciation to the students for their spontaneous patriotism" - effectively condoning the assault and inciting further ...
Only those who close their eyes and minds to the evidence can still be in any doubt that we are facing a climate change crisis. The evidence is conclusive that the world is not only getting inexorably hotter, but also that the rising temperatures are creating a number of other ...
Rural communities are wailing about forestry conversions "taking land out of production" and putting it into locking up carbon. Its driven purely by economics: there's more money and lower costs in carbon than in sheep or beef, and if carbon prices rise, there'll be more net money than dairy even. ...
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Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...
Last night the police dramatically incresed their numbers at Ihumātao, shoving over protestors and threatening them with arrest. Despite police talk about the need to maintain "public order" and prevent a "breach of the peace", there appeared to be absolutely no justification for this: the protest camp is, was, and ...
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...
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The Greens used their party conference over the weekend to push for a rent-to-own scheme, where people would be able to work towards home ownership by renting from the government. Its a sensible policy, and one which could make a real difference to home ownership rates. But its also basicly ...
by Daphna Whitmore Over the past fortnight, thousands of people have come to the Ihumātao land protest in South Auckland. On 23 July police prepared to evict a few dozen people who had maintained the encampment at Ihumātao for the past three years. As hundreds of supporters arrived the ...
The following article is translated from an article in Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of the French revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle). The United States’ blacklisting of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which took shape in Google’s ban on Huawei using its systems on its phones, marks a ...
There is a military phrase: “Full spectrum dominance”. It refers to the all-encompassing policy to dominate across all spheres of war. Lately, that has come to include the internet – in other words, cyberwarfare initiatives. That is in addition to land, sea, air and the like. Now, if ...
The IMF issued a Report on the state of the Economy as it is at present. Some of it points out significant issues that certainly warrant attention, but that we know already exist. Some of it is very much tied to the very obvious context of global concerns, that everyone ...
I'm glad to see the Lib Dems won.I had a moment of terror yesterday thinking that the Conservatives might cling on, due to a combination of Johnson's elevation to the premiership, the apparent uselessness of the Lib Dem candidate (who had failed to be elected in other constituencies) and the ...
. . Current Leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges gave the usual rah-rah speech to the Loyal & Faithful in Christchurch today (27 July). With National’s party polling and his own personal popularity sliding steadily in the polls, Mr Bridges has not much left to reverse his fortunes. ...
Those concerned for Langridge’s wellbeing say they hope he’ll change his mind when he sees the ocean coming. The protester who has vowed to stand outside Parliament every day until the Government announces a climate emergency says he accepts that his quest will most likely end in drowning. Ollie Langridge, ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the report of the Small Business Council will help maintain the momentum for innovation and improvements in the sector. Mr Nash has thanked the members of the Small Business Council (SBC) who this week handed over their report, Empowering small businesses to aspire, succeed ...
Extra Police officers are being deployed from Northland to Southland with the graduation of a new wing of recruits from the Royal New Zealand Police College. “The graduation of 78 constables today means that 1524 new constables have been deployed since the government took office,” says Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Ongoing drug-test sanctions contradicts Government’s rhetoric on drugs Reports that two-thirds of beneficiaries who fail drug tests are still having their benefit sanctioned contradicts the Government’s so-called health approach to drugs. Auckland ...
An Auckland Homelessness Collective is optimistic extra government support for sustaining tenancies signals a commitment to a multi-pronged approach to tackling homelessness. ...
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In last week’s episode of Politics in Full Sentences, David, Brooke and Ruwan discussed why Jacinda Ardern has been lecturing our friends overseas, why Andrew Little called ACT's three strikes law “fascism”, whether he will give prisoners the right to ...
“Community safety must be the paramount consideration when releasing an offender, and the only way for that to be achieved is for the offender to acknowledge their crimes.” ...
“District Health Boards are failing to foster a culture of distributed clinical leadership, despite its demonstrated benefits to the sector,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
Ratepayers around Auckland were spitting out their morning coffees listening to Phil Goff’s incredible claims on breakfast radio today that this election is about ‘honesty’ and that Aucklanders can trust him on his promises. Auckland Ratepayers’ ...
The Hōkai Rangi plan for reducing Māori reoffending announced today fails to fulfil the Waitangi Tribunal’s recommendations, says justice organisation People Against Prisons Aotearoa. Minister Kelvin Davis announced the plan this morning, which aims ...
Waatea News at the invitation of the North Island Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency will exclusively broadcast the next Māori-led Inquiry into Oranga Tamariki starting today at 1pm. ...
Staff at the Ministry of Social Development say they are enthusiastic about the government’s $54 million investment in housing the homeless, with many describing it as a welcome change. ...
Today posters have gone up outside ANZ branches across New Zealand to expose ANZ’s sponsorship of an exclusive oil industry group, ‘The Petroleum Club’. The satirical posters play on ANZ’s recent ad campaigns, replacing the banks’ tagline ‘healthy ...
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Sunday, 18 August, 2019 - Environmental groups and well known New Zealanders are preparing to deliver a 55,000 strong petition to the steps of Parliament tomorrow, calling on the Government to protect the world’s smallest dolphin. ...
The Government’s proposed rescue plan must be strengthened because it is the last chance to save Māui dolphins from extinction and secure the future for Hector’s dolphins, Forest & Bird says. ...
Simon Shepherd: Roads, schools, hospitals, prisons, the building blocks that keep society functioning. And we don't have enough. It's called the infrastructure deficit and will be the focus of a major conference this coming week. The man charged with ...
New Zealand has been issued a stark challenge from Pacific leaders to dramatically upscale its action to address climate breakdown, Oxfam says, after a clear rallying cry from nations at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum. ...
Support for Recreational Dope Going ‘Up in Smoke’ Family First NZ is welcoming yet another poll showing plummeting support for legalising cannabis in New Zealand. The Horizon Research poll shows support for legalising has plummeted from 60% last ...
The prospect of ending wider cannabis prohibition looks increasingly unlikely. Over the last nine months, the percentage of New Zealanders who would vote for legalising the personal use of cannabis has declined at a near linear rate of around 10% per ...
“It’s disappointing that news out of the United States of hospitalisations linked to illegal street drugs is somehow seen as relevant to the New Zealand vaping scene,” says Ben Pryor, Director of Alt New Zealand – the largest Kiwi-owned vaping company. ...
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) welcomes the successful passing of Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill through parliament, by the New Zealand Government. ...
Today’s news from the Electoral Commission has provided the party with the clarity it was seeking around use of the word “Coalition” being used as the brand name of the party. ...
A recently released Otago University study has provided further evidence that low-quality housing is a significant problem in Aotearoa. This has prompted the Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ) Paul Evans to question “why ...
With the BNZ-Business NZ PMI signaling manufacturing is contracting , the Government needs to seriously consider tax relief, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called for an overhaul of the Public Services executive ranks as the Corrections debacle shows mis-management and incompetence at the highest level. Matthew Tukaki, Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council has said ...
Findings from the 2018 New Zealand Consumer Survey have been released and the results are in; 48 per cent of respondents consider their purchases based on how ethically employees are treated. ...
The responsibility for the fact that Westland Milk Products is now in the hands of an overseas conglomerate 25% owned by the Chinese government can be laid fair and square at our government's doorstep. ...
As Fonterra is projecting multi million dollar losses for the second year in a row, it is clear the writing is on the wall for dairy as more and more Kiwis turn to plant milks. 22nd August is International Plant Milk Day and there is now a different plant ...
The $65,000 granted to Interislander so it can install electric vehicle chargers on its ferries is the most absurd waste of money yet to be delivered by the “Low Emissions” vehicle fund, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
Wellingtonians will have the chance to hear international child rights experts from Ireland, Scotland and Samoa speak at the Making Child Rights Real in Aotearoa New Zealand seminar to be held in the city on Wednesday 21 August. ...
Paul Evans, Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ), is advocating a balanced approach to the development of productive land. ...
CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) says that new research from the University of Otago provides a solid foundation for why the Government must not delay instating a comprehensive Warrant of Fitness for tenanted homes in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that an officer drove carelessly during a pursuit and that this was the primary cause of a collision with a motorcycle that injured the rider. ...
Responding to the Prime Minister’s commitment of $150 million in funding for climate change response in the Pacific, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “It is no secret that many Pacific nations lack serious oversight when it ...
AUT research not only shows an increase in political affiliation, but that candidates affiliated to a central political party are more likely to win seats in Auckland local government. ...
On the 23rd of August School Strike NZ will join Ollie Langridge in his 100th day of sitting outside of New Zealand Parliament calling for the government to declare a climate emergency. School Strike 4 Climate NZ also demand that Parliament acknowledge ...
You have stood up for what is fair, and I am sure you will speak for over 7 million people who have been muted and rendered voiceless in Indian occupied Kashmir for more than a 10 days now. I am writing to bring to your notice the plight of Kashmiri ...
In the last 10 months alone, 11 petitions have been delivered to Parliament calling for medicines to be funded by Pharmac. Today, another nine petitions have been launched by Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) members asking that life changing, saving and extending ...
When we were first working to get Miscanthus approved for import into New Zealand, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) waived the fee for their work because they thought that having Miscanthus in New Zealand was so very much in the ...
PHARMAC’s recent decision to fund two additional drugs from December this year has been widely welcomed by patients and the general public alike. The drugs, Kadcyla and Ibrance, are used in the treatment of advanced lung and breast cancers and will ...
Animal rights organisation SAFE is urging the Government to include experts and advocates from outside the agriculture industry on its newly announced winter crop grazing taskforce. ...
The Government’s plans to prohibit housing on ‘productive’ farmland will serve as yet another regulatory tax on housing, and is a shameful breach of Jacinda Ardern’s promise to fix housing supply, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The latest round of the Ethnic Communities Development Fund opens today, supporting projects that grow the leadership and capability of ethnic groups, improve cultural understanding, and ensure our ethnic communities are a vibrant and celebrated part ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is warning of the dangers of hiking excise tax, in response to calls from a former Prime Minister for stronger action on alcohol harm. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It seems inevitable ...
By Ben Bilua in Suva Multimedia skills and innovation are key to adapting to the changing media landscape, said US academic Professor Debora Wenger as newsmakers around the world continue to grapple with challenges arising from the transformation of technology and social media. Speaking to journalists at a regional ...
The new RBNZ seems to crave the limelight and be known for advocacy of new causes, and that has not impressed macroeconomics professor Robert MacCulloch. ...
The new joint from the team behind one of Wellington’s favourite craft beer bars is dedicated to minimal-intervention, organic wine – and more exciting things are coming to the heritage building it’s housed in.Before the Cadbury factory opened in Dunedin in 1930, New Zealanders ate Cadbury chocolate made in England. ...
Alex Casey chats to Bree Tomasel about hosting Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, farting in the ZM studio and going viral on the regular. The most important thing you need to know about Bree Tomasel is not the fact that she peed her pants during Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, but the glee ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsAnalysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – The election race is on. The nominations process for local government positions has now closed, and the political campaign is officially underway. But does the public care? Will many of us even vote for any of the various mayoral or council ...
At Eden Park on Saturday night, the Wallabies were on the receiving end of a ruthless players’ revenge, writes Scotty StevensonThe rain came. It always seems to at Eden Park, just as the Wallabies warm up on the pitch, dreaming of ending a drought. It came from the west, the ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Local government Michael Fallow (Stuff): Your council – what’s its job description? Dileepa Fonseka and ...
Protesters occupying land at Ihumātao will begin a four-hour hikoi to Mt Albert on Thursday to present a petition calling on the Prime Minister to visit the land. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Walvisch, Lecturer, Monash University This morning an Extinction Rebellion protester was arrested after hanging from a rope over the William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane, blocking all lanes to peak hour traffic. And earlier this month in Brisbane, more than 70 climate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Jobson, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Monash University Many of us enjoy writing in a diary, reading autobiographies or nostalgically reflecting with others about past times. Why is remembering our past so important? Are there downsides? And what can we do ...
Roll Red Roll is a brutal, painfully illuminating documentary on the Steubenville High School rape case, a shocking crime that made headlines worldwide. Emily Writes reviews. This review discusses rape and sexual violenceAugust 11, 2012: two teenage boys rape an unconscious teenage girl as two of their peers watch and ...
By RNZ Pacific Tuvalu’s Prime Minister has condemned the Australian Prime Minister’s conduct at last week’s Pacific Islands Forum, calling Scott Morrison’s attitude “unfortunate” and “neo-colonial,” and questioning Australia’s future in the 18-member body. In an interview with RNZ on Sunday, Enele Sopoaga also threatened to pull Tuvaluan labour from ...
The second hui of the Māori-led inquiry into Oranga Tamariki takes place in Hamilton today. Newsroom, in partnership with Radio Waatea, are broadcasting it live from 1pm. ...
Prolific, award-winning Palmerston North poet Paula Harris somehow manages to be stroppy and properly vulnerable all at once. Here, she writes about her first slam competition – and why she cried all the way home. I am old enough to have given birth to most of the people here.Sure, there’s a ...
High speed rail links between cities could play a massive role in revitalising regional New Zealand, says a visiting transport infrastructure expert. Professor Andrew McNaughton spoke to Alex Braae. Imagine commuting from Hamilton to Auckland, and it only taking an hour to get there. It’s a vision of how the right ...
On the good days, riding a bike is the best. But in Auckland there aren’t nearly enough of those days, and unless decision makers take urgent action, that’s not going to change.This piece originally appeared on Bike AucklandMy first bike crash in central Auckland happened on Symonds Street. I was ...
It's not since 1989 that a mayoralty campaign in the southern city has been so unpredictable - a record 14 candidates have put their names forward. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Mills, Hon Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney On the morning of the last Monday in April, 2019, federal election officials opened the doors of more than 500 pre-poll voting centres around Australia, and waited for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Veronica Alfano, Research Fellow, Australian Catholic University Memorising poetry was once common in classrooms. But it has, for the most part, gone out of style. There are good reasons for this. Memorisation can clash with creativity and analytical thought. Rote learning can ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Paul Fisher, Head of Directing, Department of Film, Screen and Creative Media, Bond University What do J.J. Abrams, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Shonda Rhimes, David Lynch, Aaron Sorkin, Donald Glover, Jenji Kohan, Jordan Peele, Tina Fey, and Joss Whedon have in common? They ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Mayors launch bids to return in Auckland and Wellington, Hamilton’s skyline could change significantly, and support for cannabis legalisation plummets in poll.Two incumbent mayors have launched their re-election campaigns over the weekend, with a bigger fight on their hands than ...
MediaWorks has been lobbying the Government to turn TVNZ 1 into a non-commercial channel to help stem its own financial bleeding. Frustrated, and getting nowhere, it’s decided to change tack. ...
Customs has cracked down on a GST rort, leaving Trade Me to pay back thousands of dollars to customers who had new cameras and smartphones seized at the border. ...
The 37-8 result meant the Black Ferns finished with a handy 5-1 record for the year, suggesting they are tracking well enough towards a successful defence of the 2021 World Cup. ...
New Zealand has long been the world’s imagined lifeboat – and increasingly for something more than just escape, writes Elle Hunt.One Friday morning in January 1847, Charles Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster that he was “disposed to go to New Zealand and start a magazine”. The quote was ...
New Zealand is one of only two developed countries, along with the US, that permits direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines, and it needs to stop, writes Dr David Menkes. It’s been a long time coming: a new Consumer report makes it clear that most New Zealanders want to see a ban ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison has a sharp lecture for bureaucrats about their KPIs, in a comprehensive speech laying down how he expects the Australian Public Service to operate under his government. Morrison stresses the service must be ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has issued a timetable for the government’s dealing with the recommendations from the royal commission into banking, superannuation and financial services, which aims to have all measures needing legislation introduced by the ...
By Ghinan Salman in Surabaya As many as 43 Papuan students were taken to the district police headquarters after Indonesian police fired teargas and forced their way into a student dormitory in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya at the weekend. The Papuan students were forcibly removed from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute Each new generation of Australians since Federation has enjoyed a better standard of living than the one that came before it. Until now. Today’s young Australians are in danger of falling behind. A new Grattan Institute ...
Jamie Wall reviews Jonah, the two-part Three telefeature that follows the life of our most famous All Black, and finds it an effective but mixed retelling of the legend.Honestly, it’s a wee bit disappointing that the only notable on-screen dramatisation of the All Blacks in recent years was centred on replacement ...
We love it battered and served with chips, but tarakihi stocks aren’t doing well and another big cut to commercial catch limits is in the works. Ah yes, terrakee, that’s a fish, right?Well, first things first, let’s say it correctly. Pronounce every syllable, remember the Māori vowel sounds (A-E-I-O-U), roll the ...
Open mike 27/01/2016 
Open mike is your post.
by Philip Ferguson This weekend just past marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the most famous of the great 1960s music festivals. It was held over the weekend (Friday-Monday) of August 15-18, 1969. Woodstock was a highpoint of the US ‘counter-culture’, and also the beginning of its end. When exploring the ...7 hours ago
Last week, Australia sabotaged the Pacific Forum by opposing action on climate change. Their Deputy Prime Minister followed that up by saying that Pacific Peoples could always pick Australian fruit - just as they had done in the era of blackbirding. And now, that arrogant, tone-deaf approach has drawn a ...7 hours ago
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...1 day ago
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...1 day ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...3 days ago
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Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...3 days ago
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The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...5 days ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...5 days ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...5 days ago
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...5 days ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...5 days ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 6 days ago
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...7 days ago
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...1 week ago
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...1 week ago
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...1 week ago
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...2 weeks ago
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...2 weeks ago
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...2 weeks ago
There is a military phrase: “Full spectrum dominance”. It refers to the all-encompassing policy to dominate across all spheres of war. Lately, that has come to include the internet – in other words, cyberwarfare initiatives. That is in addition to land, sea, air and the like. Now, if ...2 weeks ago
The IMF issued a Report on the state of the Economy as it is at present. Some of it points out significant issues that certainly warrant attention, but that we know already exist. Some of it is very much tied to the very obvious context of global concerns, that everyone ...2 weeks ago
I'm glad to see the Lib Dems won.I had a moment of terror yesterday thinking that the Conservatives might cling on, due to a combination of Johnson's elevation to the premiership, the apparent uselessness of the Lib Dem candidate (who had failed to be elected in other constituencies) and the ...2 weeks ago
. . Current Leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges gave the usual rah-rah speech to the Loyal & Faithful in Christchurch today (27 July). With National’s party polling and his own personal popularity sliding steadily in the polls, Mr Bridges has not much left to reverse his fortunes. ...2 weeks ago
Those concerned for Langridge’s wellbeing say they hope he’ll change his mind when he sees the ocean coming. The protester who has vowed to stand outside Parliament every day until the Government announces a climate emergency says he accepts that his quest will most likely end in drowning. Ollie Langridge, ...2 weeks ago
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...2 weeks ago
Ongoing drug-test sanctions contradicts Government’s rhetoric on drugs Reports that two-thirds of beneficiaries who fail drug tests are still having their benefit sanctioned contradicts the Government’s so-called health approach to drugs. Auckland ...2 hours ago
By Ben Bilua in Suva Multimedia skills and innovation are key to adapting to the changing media landscape, said US academic Professor Debora Wenger as newsmakers around the world continue to grapple with challenges arising from the transformation of technology and social media. Speaking to journalists at a regional ...17 mins ago
The new RBNZ seems to crave the limelight and be known for advocacy of new causes, and that has not impressed macroeconomics professor Robert MacCulloch. ...41 mins ago
Pharmac’s model and budget is under intense scrutiny, as the Government prepares to announce its interim cancer action plan. ...1 hour ago
After alleged Christchurch terrorist wrote to a supporter, Jacinda Ardern says our laws may need an update for the digital age. ...3 hours ago
The Commerce Commission's first market study will wade into the complex fuel market - here's what you need to know. ...5 hours ago
The new joint from the team behind one of Wellington’s favourite craft beer bars is dedicated to minimal-intervention, organic wine – and more exciting things are coming to the heritage building it’s housed in.Before the Cadbury factory opened in Dunedin in 1930, New Zealanders ate Cadbury chocolate made in England. ...5 hours ago
A new five-year strategy comes with a new prison population reduction target from the minister. ...5 hours ago
Alex Casey chats to Bree Tomasel about hosting Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, farting in the ZM studio and going viral on the regular. The most important thing you need to know about Bree Tomasel is not the fact that she peed her pants during Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, but the glee ...6 hours ago
The way things are going, Germany may soon be 'the sick man of Europe' again. ...7 hours ago
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At Eden Park on Saturday night, the Wallabies were on the receiving end of a ruthless players’ revenge, writes Scotty StevensonThe rain came. It always seems to at Eden Park, just as the Wallabies warm up on the pitch, dreaming of ending a drought. It came from the west, the ...7 hours ago
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.
Protesters occupying land at Ihumātao will begin a four-hour hikoi to Mt Albert on Thursday to present a petition calling on the Prime Minister to visit the land. ...7 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Walvisch, Lecturer, Monash University This morning an Extinction Rebellion protester was arrested after hanging from a rope over the William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane, blocking all lanes to peak hour traffic. And earlier this month in Brisbane, more than 70 climate ...8 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Jobson, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Monash University Many of us enjoy writing in a diary, reading autobiographies or nostalgically reflecting with others about past times. Why is remembering our past so important? Are there downsides? And what can we do ...8 hours ago
Roll Red Roll is a brutal, painfully illuminating documentary on the Steubenville High School rape case, a shocking crime that made headlines worldwide. Emily Writes reviews. This review discusses rape and sexual violenceAugust 11, 2012: two teenage boys rape an unconscious teenage girl as two of their peers watch and ...8 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific Tuvalu’s Prime Minister has condemned the Australian Prime Minister’s conduct at last week’s Pacific Islands Forum, calling Scott Morrison’s attitude “unfortunate” and “neo-colonial,” and questioning Australia’s future in the 18-member body. In an interview with RNZ on Sunday, Enele Sopoaga also threatened to pull Tuvaluan labour from ...8 hours ago
New Zealand's economy is not headed for recession, ASB chief economist Nick Tuffley says. ...10 hours ago
The second hui of the Māori-led inquiry into Oranga Tamariki takes place in Hamilton today. Newsroom, in partnership with Radio Waatea, are broadcasting it live from 1pm. ...10 hours ago
We continue our series on bookstores around New Zealand as Wilma van den Bosch explains how she opened Petronella's in Lake Tekapo. ...10 hours ago
Prolific, award-winning Palmerston North poet Paula Harris somehow manages to be stroppy and properly vulnerable all at once. Here, she writes about her first slam competition – and why she cried all the way home. I am old enough to have given birth to most of the people here.Sure, there’s a ...10 hours ago
The country's wood processors say the international log price war and protected overseas economies are crippling the New Zealand trade. ...11 hours ago
On the good days, riding a bike is the best. But in Auckland there aren’t nearly enough of those days, and unless decision makers take urgent action, that’s not going to change.This piece originally appeared on Bike AucklandMy first bike crash in central Auckland happened on Symonds Street. I was ...12 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Mills, Hon Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney On the morning of the last Monday in April, 2019, federal election officials opened the doors of more than 500 pre-poll voting centres around Australia, and waited for ...14 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Hart, Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Last week, federal health minister Greg Hunt announced that more than 60,000 Australians will be asked about their mental health and well-being as part of the Intergenerational Health and Mental Health Study. The mental ...14 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Veronica Alfano, Research Fellow, Australian Catholic University Memorising poetry was once common in classrooms. But it has, for the most part, gone out of style. There are good reasons for this. Memorisation can clash with creativity and analytical thought. Rote learning can ...14 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Paul Fisher, Head of Directing, Department of Film, Screen and Creative Media, Bond University What do J.J. Abrams, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Shonda Rhimes, David Lynch, Aaron Sorkin, Donald Glover, Jenji Kohan, Jordan Peele, Tina Fey, and Joss Whedon have in common? They ...14 hours ago
The inverted yield curve is to economists what Voldemort was to Harry Potter - the dark lord whose name should never be mentioned. ...15 hours ago
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Mayors launch bids to return in Auckland and Wellington, Hamilton’s skyline could change significantly, and support for cannabis legalisation plummets in poll.Two incumbent mayors have launched their re-election campaigns over the weekend, with a bigger fight on their hands than ...16 hours ago
MediaWorks has been lobbying the Government to turn TVNZ 1 into a non-commercial channel to help stem its own financial bleeding. Frustrated, and getting nowhere, it’s decided to change tack. ...17 hours ago
The Wallabies arrived in Auckland with one hand on the Bledisloe Cup and flew home with it amputated. ...17 hours ago
Customs has cracked down on a GST rort, leaving Trade Me to pay back thousands of dollars to customers who had new cameras and smartphones seized at the border. ...17 hours ago
The 37-8 result meant the Black Ferns finished with a handy 5-1 record for the year, suggesting they are tracking well enough towards a successful defence of the 2021 World Cup. ...17 hours ago
Nikki Mandow tells us why social procurement is more exciting than it sounds - and how it might change the world. ...17 hours ago
New Zealand is one of only two developed countries, along with the US, that permits direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines, and it needs to stop, writes Dr David Menkes. It’s been a long time coming: a new Consumer report makes it clear that most New Zealanders want to see a ban ...18 hours ago
A look at how our banks behave when the rules aren't tough enough. ...18 hours ago
By Ghinan Salman in Surabaya As many as 43 Papuan students were taken to the district police headquarters after Indonesian police fired teargas and forced their way into a student dormitory in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya at the weekend. The Papuan students were forcibly removed from ...22 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute Each new generation of Australians since Federation has enjoyed a better standard of living than the one that came before it. Until now. Today’s young Australians are in danger of falling behind. A new Grattan Institute ...23 hours ago
Jamie Wall reviews Jonah, the two-part Three telefeature that follows the life of our most famous All Black, and finds it an effective but mixed retelling of the legend.Honestly, it’s a wee bit disappointing that the only notable on-screen dramatisation of the All Blacks in recent years was centred on replacement ...1 day ago
We love it battered and served with chips, but tarakihi stocks aren’t doing well and another big cut to commercial catch limits is in the works. Ah yes, terrakee, that’s a fish, right?Well, first things first, let’s say it correctly. Pronounce every syllable, remember the Māori vowel sounds (A-E-I-O-U), roll the ...1 day ago
Even though every January in Auckland is now subtropiCal, good gravy this is the worst.
You’re living at the wrong end of the country.
There’s some weird shit weather going on down south too. I’m not complaining too much because rain grows food and provides longer term protection re AGW, but it’s still a strange summer thus far.
El Nino + Climate Change = a strange summer thus far
Indeed.
For now.
Yes even though an El Nino usually brings dry weather to the eastern side of the country – apart from December when we had just 11 mm of rain at Paeroa (closest met recording site for us on the Coromandel) and were looking at an extreme drought over the plains – this month has already exceeded the long term average for rainfall and we are looking at more!
It seems that with the increase in average temperatures and the shift south of the Halley Climate Zone that our climate – particularly in the north of the country is moving rapidly to a phase in our climate patterns. Humid as hell here today! 20 something feels like 30 something.
WE will need to wait a few years to see if this is going to be the new normal for el nino. Interesting times.
Gills needed.
The Herald and Audrey Young pimps for Key.
Accepts this statement without challenging it.
“This is a free-trade deal that gives us access to 800 million middle-income consumers. Its economic benefits are about two-and-a-half times the size of the China FTA.”
Corporate rag.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11580027
News on TV1 was similar.
Their piece on the government assessment of the TPPA, related the annual costs of the TPPA, and displayed the cumulative benefits.
Don’t usually watch the news, and don’t think I’ll be doing it again very soon.
They don’t tell the national news any more.
They tell the National Party’s news.
“This is a free-trade deal that gives us access to 800 million middle-income consumers. Its economic benefits are about two-and-a-half times the size of the China FTA.”..
Yeah. I heard that and thought..Mmm Interesting..then realized it was from Mr Key’s mouth.and consumed a grain of NaCl
Listened to RNZ at 7.00 – 7.20am this morning, up until that time not a dicky bird on the meeting at the AK Town Hall last night over the TPPA . I watched Bomber’s live feed last night and it was excellent. So it wasn’t important enough for RNZ to even bring up the crowd and the very interesting speeches made and inform NZ listeners. NZ First, The Greens and the Maori Party were all completely against the TPPA, Labour’s speech was anti losing our sovereignity but didn’t actually come out and say there were anti the TPPA itself – quite vague I thought. Be interesting if any of the MSM bring it up during the day.
RNZ’s report on the TPP.
Thoughts?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201786931/tpp-critics-meet-the-deal-is-not-done-yet
A crowd of only 800?
Gee, I would have thought the Unions alone could have provided a stronger show of support than that.
Any comment on the actual content of the meeting?
Yup.
The small public attendance indicates that not many citizens were motivated to go along and listen to it.
The content of the speeches…not the people attending.
The ‘content’ of last nights meeting has been debated endlessly here and elsewhere including the MSM. I’m not interested in going through it all again. (As was pointed out last night, i agree it is likely the U.S. Congress will torpedo it anyway).
My point is that after all that debate, the small attendance in response to the call to ‘fill the Town Hall’ indicates only a very small % of citizens are buying into the ‘Corporate-National Party Conspiracy / loss of Sovereignty’ content that most of the speakers were pushing.
There is a lesson there for you Paul. Once you pass the point where you invoke a conspiracy as part of a discussion, you will also have lost your connection to the views of the great majority of citizens.
@ The lost sheep (3.1.1.1.1)
You seem to have missed the fact that the meeting was also live streamed through The Daily Blog, which in itself would have attracted a large number of viewers, for those of us who were unable to attend the meeting itself.
Have a think about that.
3.1.1.2.1. below mary.
The Town Hall was packed full…in the report I heard
Ground floor full and a few upstairs. That’s half full in a venue that holds over 1600….anyway you look at it, it’s a very low response……
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/295019/critics-say-tpp-not-a-done-deal
Like many others I watched on the live feed and sent a donation to
https://givealittle.co.nz/org/itsourfuture.
It was an excellent and informative meeting.
There was well over 800. I know, I was there. The ground floor was full, and that is is far more than half the seating capacity. The upper floors were about 1/3 full. That would make around 1200 at least if the seating capacity is as you say 1600.
I suppose if they were to have said that there were 1600 people then you would have said – “pppppft only that many! ”
The talk was also live streamed and there were over 10,000 on that site so way more interest than you make out.
0.09% of Aucklands population turns up to the meeting, and (a claimed) 0.2% of the total population stream the broadcast…
Now if i was claiming those kind of figures as evidence of public support for the TPPA, you would be saying what?
Well those are interesting %- about the % increase in GDP from the tppa!!!!
No wonder you are a lost sheep! What sort of an idiot argument is that?
Had the Town Hall been full to overflowing – you would have argued – well that’s only 0.15% of Aucklands population etc etc….
The facts of just what this nonsense agreement is about are only just emerging – and they are proving to be as bad if not worse than was feared.
So we have a compliant media who only reiterate the lies and propaganda of the Government and make no real analysis of what they are told. What can you expect of the population who are treated by a govt as mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed bullshit? It is surprising that as many did turn up.
I drove up to the event from the Coromandel. It took almost 3/4 of an hour to “drive” from tip top corner to the Civic Car Park. The traffic going south at that time was even worse. No need to remind me why I no longer live in Auckland. I would strongly suspect that if one didn’t have to go out on an evening in Auckland these days one wouldn’t. The congestion on the motorway being a very strong disincentive.
“So we have a compliant media who only reiterate the lies and propaganda of the Government and make no real analysis of what they are told. What can you expect of the population who are treated by a govt as mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed bullshit? It is surprising that as many did turn up.”
That’s nonsense.
Anyone googling TPPA will immediately have access to all the various view out there on the TPPA.
In fact the first link that comes up is http://itsourfuture.org.nz/what-is-the-tppa/, and 5 of the first 10 results are anti-TPPA sites.
Are you seriously suggesting citizens are prevented from accessing information freely available on the internet?
And The MSM has comprehensively covered all the views on the TPP.
In that first page of results the first MSM page that comes up is this..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/76141808/the-transpacific-partnership-tppa-explained-in-five-minutes
Please note the article carefully covers the objections to TPPA, including direct comment from Kelsey.
The second article from MSM that comes up is this
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/76250812/tppa-nonsigning-risks-marginalisation-and-decline-for-nz-economy
Once again please note the main point of the article is to express the views of critics of the TPPA.
If we go to the Herald, the first thing we find is this report of last nights meetings.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11580056
Surprise surprise, it comprehensively reports the critical views of the TPPA.
Second on The Herald list is this, published in The Northen Advocate..
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11578273
ETC ETC ETC. I’ve been following the TPP story through the MS and FREE media here in NZ, and IT IS UTTER BOLLOCKS to allege there is lack of freely available/unbalanced information.
The ‘mushroom’ meme is complete bullshit. (For any issue, not just the TPP)
The people are well informed and have information freely available to them from any source that wants to put information out there.
The reason so few of them supported the meeting last night is that after absorbing all the information, there simply aren’t that many people who are deeply concerned about the TPPA.
All what you say is true, however the most consistent message, and the one all the articles leave the reader with, is the advice that the TPPA is the propaganda spread by the Govt that the really good for NZ, not to worry about all the expert analysis they don’t know what they are talking about.
That is complete and utter bollocks as any independent survey of the electorate would show. The full text was only released by the govt yesterday!
You may have been following the discussion – but you are not everyone.
Just as an aside, what you get as a result of a google search and what your friend or neighbour gets as a result for the same google search, you might be surprised to know, are highly likely to be completely different, based on each individuals web browsing habits.
All what you say is true, however the most consistent message, and the one all the articles leave the reader with, is the advice that the TPPA is the propaganda spread by the Govt that the really good for NZ, not to worry about all the expert analysis they don’t know what they are talking about.”
I didn’t see that as being the most consistent message, and I’m not sure if I saw the media putting it that way anywhere?
There has a been a wide range of opinions expressed and if I anything I would say the bulk of the MSM coverage centered around the objections to the TPP.
But having been given the info., (such as the widely reported fact that the negotiations were secret), and hearing the various opinions, ‘the people’ are then perfectly free to go and follow their own sources and make their own minds up about what they think and how motivated they are to do something about it. Or not.
That is simply democracy, and most people see it as such.
But when the weight of democratic opinion goes against either the Far Right or Far Left they always tend to see it as the result of bias or the idiocy of ‘the people’.
Much easier to swallow than the idea that the majority of people are reasonable and simply don’t agree with you.
Actually the weight of opinion in NZ is against the TPPA – or haven’t you read that fact.
So I wouldn’t hold a great deal of candle to your opinion that they are all for it or don’t care.
You seem very unwilling to debate the actual content of what Lori Wallach and Jane Kelsey said to a disputed number of people at the town hall.
It did seems to highlight the misinformation your master Key has been telling us.
*sigh* another idiot sheepie who is too lazy to look it up and probably can’t read anyway.
http://www.aucklandlive.co.nz/Our-Venues/Auckland-Town-Hall/Great-Hall.aspx
So that is your first lie – I guess you like emulating the idiot liar John Key?
Second is that I think that the bottom floor was full from the video – that is more like 1200. The upper floors had people (overflow) up there. I suspect the ‘800’ was just wrong. It was a midweek evening event. I was still working at 7pm, I watched on video.
Thirdly, compared to what? Just think of the right and its events where you are lucky to get 50 fools out unless the government or the National party cough up free grog. Even then it is less than this.
Basically you are a complete idiot.
The centrepiece of Auckland Town Hall is the Great Hall, seating up to 1,529 people on three levels.
So that is your first lie – I guess you like emulating the idiot liar John Key?
Second is that I think that the bottom floor was full from the video – that is more like 1200. The upper floors had people (overflow) up there. I suspect the ‘800’ was just wrong. It was a midweek evening event. I was still working at 7pm, I watched on video.
Achully (JK impression), the 0.09 figure I quoted was based on the generous assumption that there were 50% more people there than the report stated.
1200 in fact.
If it was only 800 the figure would have been 0.06.
Bald Fact is, seeking a show of support in a city of 1.3m they could not fill a 1500 seat hall.
Thirdly, compared to what?
50,000 at the 1981 Springbok Tour or Kiwis Care protests. 8000 Farmers who protested Rogernomics, or the 1000 that came to the Town Hall for the GCSB Bill. Or the 35,000 that made the effort to attend the ‘Big Boys Toys’ event, or the 5000 that made the effort to get to Piha during the weekend.
Compared to what is 1200 people an indication of a high level of public support?
Basically you are a complete idiot.
And you owning the site doesn’t make that any less of a bullshit and pointless ad hominem cheap shot.
+100 Iprent…have to agree with you
I liked this bit:
“But one audience member, Ian, said he was furious with the deal.
“I’ve got to the stage now where I think petitions and protests are part of a social contract where people who are outraged think ‘Oh I’ve done something, I’ve done something’ and the Government just goes ahead and ignores them anyway.
“I think what we need is not protests and petitions but riots. We need to change this Government’s opinion and we need to change everyone else’s opinion and make them wonder why are people behaving the way they are. I think we need mass civil disobedience.” ”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/295019/critics-say-tpp-not-a-done-deal
I find it incredibly ironic that the route to protecting New Zealand’s best interests lies in a bunch of completely-out-of-their-mind Republicans motivated entirely by partisan malice towards Obama going even further out of their minds and taking a few more of their slightly-less-irrational colleagues with them.
Don’t mix up the decision making and attitudes of the oligarchic elite with the views and anxieties of ordinary Americans struggling to get ahead or stay ahead.
I was referring to members of congress, both House and Senate.
Yep! We may or may not be saved by the greedies who want more extortionate clauses in the Agreement not less!
Just a small handful have to change their mind one way or the other. It’s no done deal yet.
But the scary thing is this:
If our idiotic govt ratify this deal – before the thing is signed off by congress – and they (congress) then only agree to new extortionate clauses that further lengthen the time frame for IP etc (as the republicans want) then we are further shafted!
I thought the TPA legislation that has already been passed means Congress has to put it to a straight yes/no vote, they can’t try to tinker with it.
That was what I thought too – until listening to Lori last night – it seemed that that was a possibility. Maybe I got her wrong – but she was stressing that many in the GOP were against TTPA because the time limits on generic drugs etc was not long enough for big pharmac to collect even more money. It seemed that the issue was that they would only agree if the got their way.
Theoretically they can’t tinker with it, but they could repeal the legislation if they really wanted to. It wouldn’t surprise me either way, to be honest.
Who is it that rush in where angels fear to tread? The Gnats. Of course.
Despite the rest of the household disconnecting from our stretched broadband so we could watch the live stream…we kept losing the feed. Very annoying…does anyone know if it was recorded? And available?
“The video of last nights discussion will be posted here shortly.” – See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/01/27/last-nights-tppa-meeting/#sthash.7hMozLX3.dpuf
The Sound just had something about some Farmers (Fonterra or Farm Fed) were in support of it. Followed by intelectual heavy weight Leah Panapa saying she agrees with Winston Peters that the Maori Party are “brownmailing” John Key & the other presenters all agreed & one guy mentioned “& you & Winston are maori followed by a joke about Winston being half scottish half Maori so he tanned easily but was cheap.” No wonder Key likes to go on those stations.
I wrote this post two days ago this post two days ago suggesting that New Zealand is highly vulnerable to the oncoming economic tsunami.
Seems like one of the word’s major rating agency agrees with me.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201786930/fitch-revises-down-nz's-economic-outlook
You mean this:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11580203
“Fitch Ratings has affirmed its AA credit rating for New Zealand, but says the outlook for our agricultural exports means future growth won’t be quite as strong.”
“The report from Fitch said GDP growth for New Zealand was still expected to pick up to 2.4 per cent and 2.6 per cent in 2016 and 2017 respectively – a slower pace than it forecast in its review in July last year.”
Yes, this bit..
‘Ratings agency Fitch has highlighted weaker prices for New Zealand’s agriculture exports – including dairy – for its revised outlook on growth.
It has left the country’s sovereign rating unchanged at AA, but had revised-down its assessment of New Zealand’s near-term growth prospects because it said the outlook for prices of the country’s agricultural exports had deteriorated.’
Care to comment on Rod Oram’s outlook, pr?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201786811/business-commentator-rod-oram
As the link you referenced states we have growth, lower then expected growth yes but growth that’s better than most
Care to comment on Rod Oram’s outlook about the TPP , pr?
Why? Its his opinion nothing more nothing less, it doesn’t change the outlook that NZs GDP is growing and whats more important GDP growth or Rod Orams opinion?
It has as much relevance as this opinion
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/72604363/Former-PM-Clark-backs-controversial-TPPA-trade-deal
Well actually you’d say it has more relevance all things considered
So you don’t care to comment.
I was interested to see how you argued against his clear concerns about the TPP.
I can’t actually argue against it specifically as my work won’t allow me (well everyone really) certain functions on the internet so I can’t listen to it
However my points do stand, which opinion is considered more relevant Rod Oram or Helen Clark
You’re spending your working day arguing with strangers on the internet? Is that your job? Or are you misusing the time your employer is paying you for?
You can judge how busy am I and what times I’m busy by how many comments I post and when I post them
But if you’re not paid what possible motivation do you have for coming on this site day after day looking for an argument?
Same as most of the people on here I guess. I care about this country, I believe National under John Key is the best current option for NZ (ok not this so much) and I like to see what other other peoples opinions are
I was simply interested in your opinion about Oram’s critique of the TPP.
‘I can’t actually argue against it specifically as my work won’t allow me’
2 questions.
Are you only allowed to troll in certain areas?
Haven’t your masters given your lines to make this argument?
I realise that you’re making the suggestion I get paid for doing this (I wish) but no its simply certain apps and web pages aren’t allowed to be accessed
Theres some security measures at play I guess
All growth is not good growth. See cancer.
‘From heatwave to violent storms: New Zealand’s mad weather’
Amazing that the Herald still can write an article about the weather without any reference to climate change or El Nino.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11580068
The dumbing down of NZ continues apace.
Won’t be long till we’ve reached this level of ignorance…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/267065-trade-notably-absent-from-white-house-recap-of-pelosi-reid-meeting
Interesting article. Obama met with Democratic leaders about the legislative agenda and the TPPA was not really discussed. Many Democrats oppose the TPPA, as do all three Democrats running for President.
Big risks for New Zealand with the signing of the TPPA…Rod Oram spells it out
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201786811/business-commentator-rod-oram
“Business commentator Rod Oram on the recently available New Zealand research papers on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and New Zealand’s role in the TPPA.”
Thanks Chooky
“Business commentator Rod Oram on the recently available New Zealand research papers on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and New Zealand’s role in the TPPA.”
Oram gives a pragmatic analysis far more balanced and reasonable than the usual TPPApologists.
Now I know I shouldn’t laugh ~snort~ but this from the beige badgers site –
Cameron Slater said on Facebook today that the police won’t be appealing the High Court ruling in the Hager case. He doesn’t sound like a happy chap.
Talk about projection!
That’s what I thought. Tried to influence an election, lol.
Although I think we are all on the same page with Cam in wondering why he even bothers.
He’s always such a cry baby, wanting attention and sympathy because he didn’t get his way. Fine if he wants to move to another country, he doesn’t contribute anything to this one. He should do us all a favour and just get on with it, leave, and quit bleating.
Israel would suit him. He can go join the IDF. He was there a while ago, as their guest, sociopathic sicko that he is.
Well worth a little indulgent snort joe90
+1
I’d donate a bit towards transporting the rancid whale to Israel!
Should we start a givalittle
If he leaves NZ for good to go back and live in Fiji I bet we could have a whip round and pay for his plane ticket, on the agreement that it’s one way with no return. Ever.
Joe 90
Cams comment
I might just go back to my place of birth (Fiji) or live somewhere totally different…like Israel….because New Zealand really doesn’t feel like home sometimes.
Good riddents to ya, the sooner the better!!
Bugger off to Israel then Slater, you mad bastard ! There you can bash over some Palestinian kids and get applauded for it !
Doubt that NatziYahoo’ll have you in his phone list though. That’ll be tough won’t it slug ?
I came on this quote while browsing. The woman, Fran Peavey, makes a good point that is very relevant in these difficult times.
(Make a comparison with Whaleoil musing as in Joe90 comment – Fran is trying to do good things for life to thrive on earth, Whaleoil isn’t even useful to spray on pest insects.)
http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/hpx/fran98.htm
edited
https://www.greens.org.nz/news/press-release/greens-cut-through-spin-independent-policy-costing-unit
Now heres something I can fully support and get behind, if the left want to protest to force change then this would be a very good start
Its only a couple of million a year so I think its a very good idea by the Greens
At last something useful.
It probably shouldn’t be in Treasury though. It would be better as an independent agency of Parliament. That would keep any disgruntled party from attacking Treasury if they don’t like the figures that are produced.
The thing that would have to be settled is what they look at of course. It would be an overwhelming job if they had to cost every little bit of waffle from a back bench MP.
Someone who says, say, that the schools in his/her electorate should be repainted more frequently because they are close to the sea and look scruffy earlier.
On the other hand their press release only says it would “be available” to political parties. It should be required. It should also require that any proposed policy of a party, at least in election years, must be supplied to the unit with sufficient time for it to be costed before it is announced.
Getting policies out of Winston’s lot might be a problem. They seldom contain enough detail to be evaluated.
I think it would be a useful tool for the public to see what lunacy each party is suggesting
Might make politicians pull their heads in a little
also – as an independant body it would create a system where the actual policy (not the PR sound byte) has to be submitted to be costed – then it all becomes OIA-able (one would hope)
so lack of detail/rushed/poorly thought out policy would become exposed as well as the costings, allowing us to see behind the media and PR rhetoric
(yes im thinking of a certain bullet point policy platform 🙂 )
See, the left and right can agree on things 🙂
well, i like to think that, when it comes down to it, most people have more in common than not
even you and me PR 🙂
Careful, Puckish might show you a really disturbing video clip.
im very “low brow” so it would have to be quite disturbing
http://www.quotesfrenzy.com/113096/life-love-quotes-okay-everyone-group-hug/life-love-quotes-okay-everyone-group-hug-2
There would be some inbuilt confidentiality clauses. Not sure what that means (maybe that Treasury can’t discuss it with other parties until the party releases it?).
if its public upon release, that in itself creates its own checks and balances.
So i think that wouldnt be too big an issue
a party that releases policy to late risks the media missing it and the public thinking theres something being hidden in the details
The mere fact that both costings and policy details are in the hands of people outside the party, and can be released to the public together, would create a certain amount of pressure to be a bit more upfront (we can only dream of course 🙂 )
One place for potential abuse (looking at you National Party office) is where the costings are done and not released (including in other than election years). It’d be useful to see more of the Green Party’s thinking on how the whole thing would work.
thats why i think a fully independant body would be better – just some sort of way that MPs cant get their hands on the released data before anyone else
I can’t see why MPs shouldn’t see the numbers first. Indeed it is better they do because they might come to their senses and scrap a crazy proposal. The numbers should be released immediately after a policy is publicly announced.
For the same reason I’m not that keen on the system being subject to the OIA act if it means that people can request costings done for a party where the policy was not then put to the public.
After all a party might consider a policy proposal. It gets costed and then they realise it really isn’t sensible and drop it. I don’t think it would be fair that the fact that they looked at something should be sufficient to have details released via an OIA request at a later date.
Something like a party considering reinstating the railway line from Napier to Gisborne. The cost might turn out to be, picking a number from the air, $500,000 per train. Very sensibly they scrap the idea. Someone then OIAs the calculation and attacks them for economic illiteracy.
These are good points
Well yes that is the way the MSM performs these days. They make attacks that are unjustified because the idea is as you put it IS “sensibly scrapped”
But they do have a very legitimate and simple defence in saying that they didn’t go through with it/removed it from their platform. Of course, if they then went through with it they’d be rightly decried by all and sundry.
BTW, that’s a really bad way to determine if a railway line is worthwhile or not.
There might need to be back and forth communication between the unit and the party while the costings are done. After the costings are done the party might need time and other processes to happen before the info is released. Maybe a time delay until it is made public?
yep – good points weka and alwyn
nothing wrong with being able to step back and change tack if a plan isnt working, and nothing with an outside pair of eyes being the one to show you your errors
im more talking from the point a party decides to go public with a given policy
and just like that a policy is improved that has both cross party appeal and will appeal to the voter in the street
a good days work I feel
I thought your points pertinent too framu. We don’t know enough about the proposal yet.
I was thinking that it would be National that would have difficulty having their policies costed as they’re all simply make believe.
I realise you are unlikely to be a great fan of the Tax-Payers Union but they put quite a lot of time and skilled effort into a costing exercise before the last election.
They came up with a final result set as follows
http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/final_results_published
“The Bribe-O-Meter now reflects the costs of all policies announced. It shows that of the main parties:
•the Greens have promised to spend the most, $6.54 billion, or $3,857.77 per household during the next Parliamentary term;
•the Labour Party have committed to a policy programme worth $5.81 billion, or $3,423.16 per household; while
•National have committed to $1.4 billion, or $823.62 per household of new spending.”
They were unable to get any information out of New Zealand First.
They had independent experts look at, and re-calculate the cost of the main policy planks of each party. You are entitled to your views on the National Party compared to other parties but I consider I am entitled to take the view that you don’t know what you are talking about and your statements are “all simply make believe”.
And what was the cost of the policies that they implemented quick smart (i.e, had them ready to go) but hadn’t told us about?
Pray tell.
What were they? No doubt you can tell us the details.
Well, that would be the thing wouldn’t it? ALL policies would have to made available for costing before being put into place so that we can judge them on them.
In other words you can’t think of anything that National has done in the last 15 months that wasn’t announced prior to the election.
You claim that ” the policies that they implemented quick smart (i.e, had them ready to go”
Then you can’t think of ANYTHING they did that they implemented without having told us about it.
Pretty desperate aren’t you?
Nope.
State housing sell off comes to mind. After promising not to sell state assets.
Changes to beer laws.
There’s probably more but I can’t recall them ATM.
All policies should be costed first before they’re even put to first reading.
You really are desperate aren’t you?
National Social Housing Policy.
The very first policy highlight they listed was
“Reformed social housing sector to ensure it is fit-for-purpose including passing legislation to facilitate a shift from state housing to a range of new social housing providers.”
Look at it
https://www.national.org.nz/docs/default-source/PDF/2014/policy/social-housing.pdf
Now what word there don’t you understand?
As for changes to the beer laws. How much did you think that cost, and why did you really think it merited a policy statement?
Personally I think it would, given the duty on alcohol, probably have meant more rather than less money for the state.
Give up. You are just talking more and more drivel the longer you go on.
And Key has already nay sayed the idea, quelle surprise. FFS he rejected it within hours of the proposal being made public. Joyce is open to the idea though, lol. As is common with Green Party ideas and policy, the business community response is positive.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1601/S00113/nationals-obstruction-of-ind-costings-unit-not-surprising.htm
Prime Minister John Key said it was “not a terribly good idea”. He said it would require a funding boost for the Treasury and would not achieve the Green Party’s goal of greater transparency because the results would be manipulated for political gain.
“They would just ignore it if they didn’t like the numbers,” he said.
What’s the political term for this, when you accuse other people of bad behaviour that is in fact a classic example of one’s own bad behaviour?
This is one time I’d fully support a protest
Feel free to phone your local MP or email Key and Joyce 🙂
They still haven’t replied to my latest invoice so I might just let rest for a bit
that’s actually quite funny PR.
I took your advice and tried to contact my local MP. He did his best imitation of Sergeant Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes and came out with
“I see nothing, I was not here. I did not even get up this morning”
It sounded roughly like that anyway although with the Wellington Central MP one can never be sure.
“What’s the political term for this, when you accuse other people of bad behaviour that is in fact a classic example of one’s own bad behaviour”
The phrase Green Party Press Statement comes to mind.
The actual term would be projection and you’re soaking in it.
You link to a Green Party Press statement where we can see what Meteria says.
However you put in quotes from John Key
“Prime Minister John Key said it was “not a terribly good idea”. He said it would require a funding boost for the Treasury and would not achieve the Green Party’s goal of greater transparency because the results would be manipulated for political gain.”
Where does this come from? I would like to see his full statement. before I join PR on the barricades.
If you did I’d imagine it’d be something like this:
http://blog.e-shot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/father-ted-careful-now.jpg
Wrong link, here’s the right one http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11580030
Thank you.
I looked (well glanced) at The Herald and Stuff but didn’t see it.
weka’s posted Key quote “Prime Minister John Key said it was “not a terribly good idea”. He said it would require a funding boost for the Treasury and would not achieve the Green Party’s goal of greater transparency because the results would be manipulated for political gain.”
Isn’t John Key admitting there tht Treasury work is manipulated for political purposes?
quelle surprise again….
corruption within Key’s regime, admitted to by regime leader himself
‘
Hmmm . . . interesting. Hamish Rutherford, Wellington business bureau chief for Fairfax has tweeted that New Zealand has dropped to fourth place on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). I can’t confirm this because the information is embargoed until later today (5am Berlin time) but its not something I would be entirely surprised by. New Zealand led the rankings until John Key and his National Ltd™ neoliberal thugs turned up. We dropped one place in, I think, 2011 and now it would appear we’re gaining downward momentum.
That’s 5pm today isn’t it?
Are you going to post then if it is out?
Shame really. We were 1 in 95 and 96 and then dropped to 4 while Winston was Treasurer. Probably not coincidental.
We then wandered around in the 2= to 3= range until 2005.
Straight 1 or 1= from 2006 to 2013.
Even 4th is hardly a disaster though is it? 4th of about 200 countries. Probably back to the early years of the decade in fact.
‘
Confirmed – New Zealand has dropped to fourth place! .
Is this the corruption index that uses surveys of business people to come up with data?
I’ve had a look at their site, but can’t find the definitive breakdown of their research.
They do have:
It appears they use surveys of national TI chapters:
Special offer is free membership for one year for the NZ TI Chapter.
However, it does usually cost to be a member, and you have a very interesting membership (price on request) for above $1,000,000 business turnover.
I would say that it would be simplicity itself to game this system.
After all “perceived corruption” is not the same as actual corruption – it all depends on the perspective and knowledge of the perceiver.
Let’s all sign up for that free membership and wait for next year’s survey…
‘
Dunno, sorry. Bryce Edwards has a good piece on the situation. He writes . . .
. . . which seems to indicate a certain robustness about the indexing but an unfortunate lack of clarity about exactly how the scores were calculated. Not too sure what to make of it all except that it serves to confirm corruption, or at least the perception of corruption, is a feature of the National Ltd™ government.
Oh Trollwyn stop it ! I note that to make it all seem just peachy you’re reduced to looking down. Not up where the Higher Standards are meant to be. Higher Standards was always just a cyncical bullshit mantra. Which even you now acknowledge. Eyes downcast.
‘
The US Senate has just voted 50-49 in what is a stunning denial of reality . . .
. . . and this is the nation which holds the trump cards in any ISDS suits against the government resulting from legislation New Zealand might like to pass in order to meet its commitment to helping ameliorate climate change.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11580306
“Two-thousand-and-sixteen is going to be a most fascinating and explosive year in New Zealand politics,” he said. “We don’t believe that the government can hold up to the next election. The reason for that is the seeds of their own destruction are there now.”
What the deuce is Winston on (about?)
Outside a prominent NZer going to trial, I haven’t a clue.
Why not find a proper link with the speech in it so we can discuss something real?
In further news the Wellington City Council sets out to blow $8 million dollars on a scheme to have a flight from Wellington to Canberra 4 times a week.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/76161963/new-singapore-airlines-flights-to-cost-wellington-ratepayers-millions
I guess that they have to find some way to try and fulfil the Mayor’s dreams of a connection to Asia.
There is no further news on the Councils responsibility to provide an emergency source of water to Wellington Hospital in the event of an earthquake.
Not as sexy as councillors jetting of to exotic climes on their “sister city” jaunts I guess.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11580542
Advanced corruption ? What of the vaunted Higher Standards ? Snort !
The fish rots from the head and The Gauche Man is significantly along the path to amoral.
I must admit, old chap, I don’t feel quite so bad that we were 4th with a pretty good score of 88.
I am glad I don’t live in the leftist paradises like Cuba, score 47, Greece at 46, or the favourite of the hard left idiots, Venezuela with the wonderful result of 17.
Tell me dopey. Would you prefer to live here, number 4, or the hero of the left Venezuela at position 158 out of 167?
Actually I wouldn’t be too surprised if our drop was due to the very dodgy dealings of Wellington’s left led council that I commented on just above your drivel.
Do you approve of their activities?
Funny thing is that corruption is merely another set of bureaucracy and rules that get factored into business. No problem. Once the bureaucracy and rules are known then all is good and everyone carries on. Just check business in Australia. Remember also Bjeikle-Petersen and Hinz who was Minister of Police and Minister of Racing at the same time in Queensland…. ha ha ha… what a larf
Corruption ..;.. pffftt …. innocent naïve kiwis living in la-la land….
though makes for good media and presentation as something else to beat certain countries over the head with eh….
… we could start on Dick Cheney and co and business interests in war too
ha ha
corruption
why was lord Ashcroft here having secret talk with our PM? ha ha.
corruption
” why was lord Ashcroft here having secret talk with our PM?”
You are getting pretty desperate aren’t you. Key had lunch with Ashcroft in a public restaurant and you think it was “secret”?
Even Stuff didn’t fall for that line.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5856348/No-secret-over-Keys-lunch-with-lord
Next try. That one was a dismal fail.
Not that secret talk you egg as that was not secret, as you recognise (well done)
That line quite lost me.
What on earth does “Not that secret talk you egg as that was not secret, as you recognise (well done)” mean?
“Left led council” flogging that dead horse again? Always blame someone else isn’t it God forbid the leader of the country has anything to do with the leading of the country, oh no, its the lefties the lefties!
Do you approve of what the Wellington Council is up to?
Dishing out ratepayers money an dodgy schemes while refusing to provide for the continued operation of an essential service like the Wellington Hospital if we had an earthquake.
Seriously, do you see that as a proper activity?
And yes, the Mayor is definitely on the left and she is on the small group of councillors who are involved in these secretive activities.
Again Trollwyn…..looking down. You’re excellent as a troll…..until you get busted in it. As you always do.
Piece of advice to VTO above – your comment just shits on Trollwyn, but given that he/she/it is concerned only to fellate The Gauche Man…… nothing you can say, however rational……
You are really sick aren’t you North.
Get treatment for it.
At least in Cuba you would have decent healthcare.
I recommend watching ‘The act of killing’ ….. you can watch the trailer here http://www.actofkilling.com/
It’s about the corrupt, murderous right wing gangster country Indonesia…. where murderers and paramilitarys with the aid of the u.s.a and the west took over …. and still run the country.
Or you can watch the genocide and take-over of east-Timor http://johnpilger.com/videos/death-of-a-nation-the-timor-conspiracy ….. which was a direct result and flow on from what happened in Indonesia ……
And if you’d like to know a bit more about Venezuela I recommend ‘ The war on democracy’, http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy …
Big trigger warnings on all three documentaries though ……….. There is Graphic violent content regarding murder, mutilation and rape…….
Committed by the sort of people and Governments alwyn supports …………….
“alwyn supports”
Really? And just how did you come to this conclusion?
Psychic are you? Or are you just delusional?
I suppose I could recommend that you watch the film “The Killing Fields” and remember the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.
They were your favourite Government weren’t they? They were the people you most admired and Pol Pot was histories greatest humanitarian to you I suppose.
I have at least as much reason to attribute those beliefs to you as you have to accuse me as you have done.
Don’t make up lies about things, like my views on past world Governments, when you are completely and utterly ignorant on the subject.
I recommend learning about the murderous Khmer Rouge ……..And how the u.s.a govt helped bring them to power….. and once there voting for them and recognizing them in the UN. http://johnpilger.com/videos/cambodia-year-ten
http://johnpilger.com/videos/cambodia-return-to-year-zero
http://johnpilger.com/videos/cambodia-the-betrayal
It was of course the Vietnamese army who rescued Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge … The u.s.a govt killed well over 1 million Vietnamese but that’s another story
In ” The war on Democracy”: ” the film shows how serial US intervention, overt and covert, has toppled a series of legitimate governments in the Latin American region since the 1950s.”
http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy
In interviews with Chavez and other footage we learn of the C.I.A involvement in military overthrow of his Govt…… which the people repelled.
Venezuela has been under sustained economic attack from the u.s.a govt ever since which also labels it’s legitimate government criminal , terrorist etc etc…….. descriptions more fitting of Indonesia. http://www.actofkilling.com/
To sum up I’m sure Alwyn supports the u.s.a govt ………….. which has helped create Pol Pot , Isis and supported more countries run by regimes with death squads ( wiki death squads ) than I have fingers on my hands ……………..
” I’m sure Alwyn supports the u.s.a govt”
Well that is a change of your opinion I suppose.
You still have no reason at all for the statement however.
I guess I will just have to comment
I am sure that Reason’s beliefs have little to do with the real world and some, including the one above, are based on things about which he knows nothing.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/295060/saudi-abattoir-deal-will-proceed-pm
With this sort of stuff going on ,its surprising we’re still at 4 tha.
Leaky buildings, leaky government, leaky plumbing.
Poor workmanship also bugs Milton Sands, a director at big Auckland pipe merchant Aquatherm.
But he also estimated half of all plumbing products being used here had not been certified to the New Zealand standard, though many would still be good products.
What it showed up, though, was the lack of controls.
“Until we have some certifying body in New Zealand checking products, the end user is always at risk. It’s got to be [central] government; local government hasn’t got the resources.”
It’s manifestly unclear just how many of the thousands of taps, cisterns and pipes for sale are a failure waiting to happen.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has the power to warn about or ban building products – but it hasn’t ever done so.
It said the “presence of this regulatory tool provides a threat that modifies behaviour and incentivises voluntary product withdrawal or change”.
Sounds like some lines out of the neo lib textbook where the next page says that people will always prefer the cheaper price and the faster time for installation. (Which would lead to shonky jobs.) Is the textbook right?
So the business might say, ‘What you going to do about it huh? Eh? Just what?’
Good on them. This is exactly what we need in our Aotearoa NZ – people who will stand up to Key and this govt.
“Trans-Pacific Partnership: Ngati Whatua won’t take part in powhiri”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11580689