You can’t make this stuff up!!! Apparently Disney employees are being encouraged to donate to a fund (tax deductible) to lobby politicians for TPP!
Just another chapter and extension in corporate welfare!! Not just taxpayers bail outs, not just not having to pay corporate tax, but now Disney employees are being asked to fund on behalf of it’s employeer Disney to lobby for TPP!
No doubt that those employees who don’t will be scrutinised. It reminds me of Enron when employees were encouraged (or coerced into funding the shares of Enron and driving the share price up).
“DISNEY OFFERS TO DEDUCT CONTRIBUTIONS TO ITS PAC FROM EMPLOYEES’ PAYCHECKS, TO LOBBY FOR TPP”
Kiwis were all shocked when it was found that oil companies deduct money from it’s minimum wage zero hours contractors (formerly called employees) when they get customer ‘drive offs’. But wait, more to come, it now appears that under TPP and with globalism, companys like Disney are passing a hat around to it’s minimum wage zero hours contractors to contribute to Disney’s own tax deductible lobbist activities!!
Disney is an ugly organisation where executives pay reflect how much they can blag rather than any ‘value’ they generate.
Iger the CEO was asking employees to chip in for copyrights also, he got over $40m last year alone.
Walt would be proud of his empire today being an ardent anti communist patriot, god bless America ain’t she great. Not too sure what he’d make of their over 18 activities in porn etc these days though.
“It might seem inconsequential, but Malcolm explained that this easy-to-miss edit actually has huge implications for criminal penalties. In the provision’s November form, it exempted countries from applying criminal penalties that it had listed, except in circumstances that actually damage the copyright holder.
After the legal scrub, however, the list of exemptions for countries is much smaller, forcing countries to pass criminal laws against copyright infringement even when the copyright holders aren’t harmed.”
My interpretation of that is, under TPPA copywrite is criminal and the police have to prosecute it at taxpayers expense even if no one is harmed, against the current system of it being a civil claim and the company spending money doing it!
Disney have been aggressively expanding their IP holdings with Pixar, lucasfilm, marvel etc so this is a logical extension for the big media companies to protect their assets by jailing offenders.
Disney and Hollywood productions are experts at appropriating other peoples serious works of literature , books and creative ideas and turning it into schmaltz and sensationalist comic effect appealing to the lowest common denominator …and totally lacking in the subtlety of the original….( I put Lord of the Rings in this category)
imo the world would be better off without Disney and Hollywood….so by cracking down hard and becoming illegitimately the intrusive intellectual copyright thought police….maybe they will consume themselves and be the author of their own greedy demise and people will ignore them and turn to other international productions of greater artistic and inspirational integrity ( hopefully)
If someone dubs in a translation of a foreign film he will become liable for a criminal conviction even though no harm was done to anyone. Might even advantage the producer.
This is a good example of the use of “harmonising” processes between countries as outlined in TPPA. Pretty drastic!
it may actually turn people away from Hollywood and give an impetus to other countries which have very creative film industries…and films which have been neglected…and which provide their own translations into English eg some Danish films are brilliant
That was pretty funny. Take-home message seems to be that the majority of Upper Hutt City Councillors are not very bright and have too little to do with their time.
The awareness that local councils don’t have the authority to opt out of international agreements entered into by central government isn’t a matter of ideology, it’s a matter of having more than a couple of brain cells to rub together.
Ok, so if there are any manufacturers in Upper Hutt who want to sell their products overseas under the terms of the TPPA, they will have to relocate to another city? That sounds logical.
The WTO advances warnings of the horrors coming under TPPA …
“The World Trade Organization is giving some environmentalists a reason to say “I told you so.”
On Wednesday, the WTO, the international body that enforces trade law, said that India’s solar power subsidy violated trade rules.
The program — which has helped India’s solar industry get off the ground and become one of the fastest growing in the world — required new projects be built with parts made in India.
Despite India’s argument that the local product requirement was crucial to India’s meeting its commitment under the Paris Climate Agreement, the WTO ruled that requirement unfairly discriminated against U.S. solar manufacturers.
This is exactly the kind of decision that has many environmentalists worried about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the sweeping and controversial trade agreement President Barack Obama signed in February. ”
It’s the WTO that’s made this ruling, and the TPPA is irrelevant to it. NZ has been a member of the WTO for decades, and obtained a similar ruling a few years back to stop Australia blocking export to Australia of NZ apples. So, it the TPPA really does bring us the kind of “horrors” that accompany belonging to the WTO, I’m going with “meh.”
Well this has been a week of “comfortable” 0.5yr/interim results from players in the NZ electricity industries e.g. Contact – Meridian – MRP – Vector.
These result are so inconsistent with the reality of flat – pending declining electrical energy demand – an over capacity of production – consequent closure and sale of plant and land – minimal productive investment. Also revelations of over-supply risk aka Manapouri.
Great levels of storage in the lakes.
All should result in significant end-user costs.
But no ! – because the model of fake competition and requisite investor dividends is wrong.
A previous NZ Government engineered the market thusly .
Can a subsequent NZ Government re-engineer the market to correct these evident anomalies ? – would they risk the litigation ?
That is – subsequent to TPPA bondage.
BTW – this is what the developers are really building in Auckland – not exactly affordable and not exactly to the taste of most Kiwis. But the Auckland council wants to add another level to it (3 level mansions) in the central Auckland suburbs, and is so surprised that neighbours are not that keen! This is the ‘affordable’ housing rout. It is a fiction!!! Click on link and scroll down to see what is really being built with the ‘relaxed zoning’ and ‘relaxed character’, soon this style of housing to be even higher and invade central Auckland suburbs further.
Rare Brand New 4 + 2 Bedrooms Luxury Home in Albany
What a wonderful location, it sits on a quiet street in the centre of hot suburb Oteha. This is a super-sized 6 bedroom luxury modern home with floor area exceeding 330m2. Everything has been finished to very high standard and detailed designs. Very generous on space in each part of the house. One large open plan lounge with easy flow to neatly finished outdoor area. Extra family room located on the top floor also connected to a large private outdoor deck, giving the best privacy for the family. A small beverage bar right beside the family room, so convenient! 4 double bedrooms upstairs with 1 ensuite. 2 more double bedrooms with self-contained living areas and shared bathroom. Ideal for extended family. Elevated and north facing, allows it to gain most of stunning views among the neighbours. Three heat pumps have been installed to give maximum comfort.
4 minutes walk to local Seville Shopping Centre
Reserve and playground just outside the driveway
5 minutes drive to Albany Shopping mall
6 mins drive to Browns Bay beach and township
2 mins drive to motorway on-ramp
Previously around Albany the houses were likely to be 1960’s 100m2 bungalows, value approx $400k that first home owners could have afforded. New ‘developed’ houses are now exceeding 330m2 – and the likely cost will be over $1million. So before anyone starts going on about affordable housing from the ‘relaxed’ standards and zoning – have a good look at what is actually being built in Auckland both on the green field and in the suburbs and SHA. What I would call McMansions. There is no increased public transport so that’s 60,000 new cars on the road per year from migration.
The idea that South Auckland residents will be moving into these new developments (which are larger and more expensive than existing housing stock) is laughable.
Those advocating it, are actually removing affordable houses to make way for someones idea of a mansion.
And high rises as social housing normally descend into slums real quick. The worst examples in the UK of slums are high rise social housing.
The best way to have an integrated society is to actually (like state homes) have social housing in expensive areas with other social economic groups in similar houses. But the government has sold these off, pocketed the money and now pulling the line that by removing character standards and allowing ghetto 3 story mansions of 330m2 built by private developers it will help housing.
It is not just baby boomers who are taking the properties from the poor but the left love to abuse them – wonder what would happen if Bomber called Asians Selfish – probably cause an outrage against the outrageous racism!!! But ageism against Kiwi baby boomers is fine.
Having a serious debate about migration in NZ is somehow now akin to asking the Jews to give Palestinians a go! It is the elephant in the room that politicians and councillors and media commentators refuse to acknowledge.
The fact that the Waatea Estate episode about housing did not mention migration as a factor in property prices, the boom and zoning, and transport speaks volumes.
+1 you make a lot of very valid observations, sadly I fear the conversation will never be considered…NZ in 2016 is not the egalitarian society we were in the mid 20th century…..much to our cost…(and before anyone points out things were not equal for Maori, that is a given)
+100…”The best way to have an integrated society is to actually (like state homes) have social housing in expensive areas with other social economic groups
this is the way egalitarian New Zealand used to be when Jonkey nactional was brought up in a state house
…”Having a serious debate about migration in NZ is somehow now akin to asking the Jews to give Palestinians a go!”
Palestine was taken over and renamed Israel…the Palestinians were run out of their own country
Chooky, your comment ” the best way to have an integrated society etc” is absolutely correct. The early state houses were built with exactly that intention, in desirable areas too, the premise being that Jack deserved good areas/views/sunny aspects as well as his master.
Poorer Kiwis are being displaced as we speak in Auckland and it is not the baby boomers displacing them….. If anything I am seeing baby boomers moving out of Auckland.
Affordable housing is also being displaced as we speak in Auckland – often replaced with large McMansions…
I don’t care if NZ has more migration, I just think NZ should be a bit more selective. For every new migrant there is a new job created that pays NZ taxes and a new house created for them surplus to requirements. Otherwise they are displacing a local job and a local home. There should be zero property investment allowed by new migrants for 10 years and entrepreneurs should be actually creating sustainable things like software and patents.
I also think it should be compulsory for new migrants to have some sort of integration of Kiwis values such as valuing the natural environment, how to be more sustainable and so forth. They should also be tested on treaty of Waitangi issues. (Every migrants I know believe Maori are bludgers and don’t understand why the government is giving them so much land and money). (They read the herald). There should be some moral and social criteria.
eg. A person I know who was a coloured South African was interviewed by secret police under Apartheid. They later saw the same secret policeman who interrogated him, in Whangarei – he had settled in NZ when Mandela took over! You are a white South African in the secret police under Apartheid – no problem have a job in our police force, NZ immigration can’t foresee see any problems!!
The more salient way to start the conversation about lack of housing supply into Auckland/Christchurch and the impact of migration is to talk about the imagined relocation of a small NZ town to those cities every year.
eg. Given the closure of Pike River for example, would it be reasonable to relocate the population of that community to Auckland? The answer would of course be no. Not until the current situation with housing was resolved. And this is purely in terms of practicalities – it has nothing to do with anti-immigration or racism.
There is actually NO ‘public transport’ in the Auckland region.
There are 10 private bus companies, 4 private ferries and a French multi-national operating and managing Auckland’s trains.
Auckland Transport (AT) will not reveal how much public money is being paid in subsidies to these private passenger transport providers. (I’ve asked ).
Why should the public subsidise that which we no longer own, operate or manage?
If the private sector are so ‘efficient’ why do they need public subsidies?
Where is the ‘cost-benefit’ analysis which proves that public subsidy of private passenger transport is a more ‘cost-effective’ spending of public money than Auckland Transport providing bus, ferry and rail services ‘in house’ through public ownership, operation and management ?
Quite possibly the stupidest comment you have made on here.
I find it surprising that someone whois running for mayor of Auckland does not understand how public transport subsidies work.
I suggest you hop on over to http://www.transportblog.co.nz and ask Patrick nicely how it works and save yourself the embarrassment of getting roasted on here.
Given Penny’s militant stance in favour of personally freeloading off the rates contributions of every other Aucklander, shouldn’t she be at the ACT conference doing a stand up comedy routine on how to avoid personal responsibility? They’d be rolling in the aisles. If they had aisles in the back of Seymour’s car, that is.
I’m defending my (and effectively YOUR) lawful rights to ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government.
Don’t YOU believe in transparency regarding rates spending?
Don’t YOU agree that that the following information regarding spending by Auckland Council and Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) should be available for public scrutiny?
* The unique contract number.
* The name of the consultant or contractor.
* The (brief) scope of the contract.
* The start and finish dates of the contract.
* The dollar value of every contract (including subcontractors).
* How the contract was awarded (direct appointment / public tender).
How can you ‘follow the dollar’ – if you don’t know exactly where the dollar is being spent?
How can ‘prudent stewardship’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’ be exercised – if ‘the books’ are not open, and this information is not publicly available for ‘line by line’ accounting?
“How can ‘prudent stewardship’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’ be exercised – if ‘the books’ are not open, and this information is not publicly available for ‘line by line’ accounting?”
Therer are these things called auditors. Sure you’ve heard of them. They read the line items so the rest of us don’t need to.
Penny Bright is for ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government, and for the ‘Rule of Law’ to equally apply to Auckland Council and Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).
Penny Bright is for ‘opening the books’ and ‘cutting out the contractors / consultants’ – unless a cost- benefit analysis proves that is a more cost-effective use of public money than in-house provision under the ‘public service’ model.
Penny Bright is opposed to the commercialisation and privatisation of public services, and has a proven track record going back to 1997 when the universally hated Metrowater was forced upon the citizens and ratepayers of Auckland City Council.
Penny Bright vigorously and consistently opposed the Auckland Supercity (for the 1%) from Day One – 5 September 2006 – the date of the ‘failed Mayoral coup’, when the four (then) City Council Mayors all ganged up against Mike Lee and the ARC, (on behalf of BIG business) to push for an Auckland ‘Supercity’.
Penny Bright helped to stop the Wellington proposed Supercity.
Penny Bright has vigorously opposed the TPPA since 2010.
Penny Bright opposes road tolls and user charges for public services.
Penny Bright opposes the sell off of Auckland Council assets.
Penny Bright is opposed to ‘democracy for developers’.
Penny Bright is campaigning against corrupt corporate control.
IT’S OUR AUCKLAND!
It’s time to take it back from BIG business, property developers, overseas investors, speculators, and money-launderers!
So, even though anyone can ride the buses and trains, Auckland doesn’t have public transport because all the buses and trains are privately owned/operated.
On the other hand, the Mayoral limo, which the public can’t ride in, is public transport because the city owns it.
Penny,
Presumably AT does provide an overall amount of the subsidy.
By the way there are some fundamental fallacies in your reasoning about the cost of public transport. Virtually nowhere in the world does the fare box cover the actual cost of the service. So there is always a subsidy from ratepayers or taxpayers to the actual users. This is the case whether the providers are owned by the Council or by the private sector.
I would have thought, you being a Mayoral candidate, that you would know this, or at least give an impression that you do. Because unless you do, it makes your request for financial accountability look foolish. And unlike the rest of us are on a rates strike because of it, though presumably you will ultimately pay rather than loose your house.
There’s more financial accountability in New Zealand local government than anywhere else in the world.
Anyone who wants to wade through all the full volumes of the LTP, RLTP, and Annual Plans, can do so.
No other business in New Zealand the size of Auckland Council has anywhere near the degree of scrutiny and reporting detail Auckland Council has as routine.
As an aside I think part of the problem is that it’s so damn hard to get. This sort of stuff should be easily available on the internet. Shouldn’t need to ask for it.
So there is always a subsidy from ratepayers or taxpayers to the actual users. This is the case whether the providers are owned by the Council or by the private sector.
True but the subsidy is greater when the service is provided by private providers. It’s greater by the amount of profit that the private providers take.
Language is effectively a democracy. If the illiterates who think lose is spelt loose become a majority, the literate have to suck it up and admit defeat. We aren’t far off that point if blog posts and comments are anything to go by.
It’s a tough one for people who were apparently taught to spell things phonetically if unsure. They struggle with words like lose because of words like hose and dose.
If everybody would just agree to spell it looz the problem would be solved.
Well, yeah – telling schoolkids to try and spell English phonetically was a dumb idea from day one. There wouldn’t be a language on the planet less suited to trying to spell words phonetically. Among native speakers, English spelling is tough for dyslexics and people who don’t read unless they have to – maybe Wayne’s dyslexic, but my money would be on the second one.
I believe Wayne is a born & bred Kiwi but not all TS commenters are. In any case, Wayne’s spell-checker is probably set to automatically change “lose” into “loose” as the former is much worse than the latter, for an ex-Nat 😉
In my view Sacha – there would be more public benefit if the public were not subsidising private passenger transport providers and the ownership, operation and management was brought back ‘in house’ under the public service model.
You have no idea about how public transport works, and it’s embarrassing.
How many years have you been in this game?
Do you need to be told what the cost of the annual opex alone for a private vehicle using the motorway system is? Try figuring out what an actual subsidy is on all modes before you open your ignorant gob.
I have learned Wayne – to presume nothing and check everything.
AT declined to answer my LGOIMA request regarding public subsidies of private passenger transport providers on the grounds that this information was ‘contractually confidential’.
Honeybees have been dying in record numbers, threatening the continued production of nutritious foods such as apples, nuts, blueberries, broccoli, and onions. Without bees to pollinate these crops, the environmental ecosystem–and our health–stands in the balance. Have we reached the tipping point, where the plant-pollinator system is due to collapse?
There was no way to calculate that–until now.
Using statistical physics, Northeastern network theorist Albert-László Barabási and his colleagues Jianxi Gao and Baruch Barzel have developed a tool to identify that tipping point–for everything from ecological systems such as bees and plants to technological systems such as power grids. It opens the door to planning and implementing preventive measures before it’s too late, as well as preparing for recovery after a disaster.
The tool, described in a new paper published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, fills a longstanding gap in scientists’ understanding of what determines “resilience”– that is, a system’s ability to adjust to disturbances, both internal and external, in order to remain functional.
Now that’s going to have some interesting consequences – especially once they turn it on the economy.
There was no way to calculate that–until now. Wow! A breakthrough…a eureka moment?
Our tool, for the first time, enables those predictions. Sounding like a eureka moment!
“Statistical physics has found that you can crunch down all of these millions of parameters and components into one number–the temperature,” said Barzel. “We take it for granted now, but that was a tremendous scientific achievement.
Oh. So all the millions of parameters people knew nothing about were cunningly ignored by the people who knew nothing about them as people concentrated on what they could observe and (eventually) measure…hmm.
As the water heats up, those parameters and components continually change. Measuring those multitudinous changes over time–a microscopic approach to assessing the water’s state–would be impossible. Uh-huh.
Statistical physics has found that you can crunch down all of these millions of parameters and components [from any complex system] into one number–the temperature,” But..but…the impossibility of tracking all those millions of components and parameters…or even probably agreeing on which ones are relevant…
“Once you identify the relevant parameter that controls the system’s resilience, you can begin to tackle how to manipulate that resilience–how to enhance resilience or restore resilience, Roight.
So if only we could know everything about something we could reduce that complex everything into a simple something. Hmm. Like a number. There’s a wee detail in there…can’t quite grasp it. But hey, great. Apart from never being able to know everything about something [that’s the detail!] and therefore being unable to reduce the unknown to a known….fantastic!
I’m picking the “temperature” always pans out to be 42 btw 😉
DARPA has been sponsoring X-prize type competitions for totally autonomous humanoid robots. This is only a small step beyond the best achieved in the competition last year. Since Google bought Boston Dynamics, I’m not sure they’re still bothering to enter the competitions anymore.
So good and so well worth a read as usual. JMG talking about politics over there
To my mind, it’s far from accidental that for the last few decades, every presidential election here in the US has been enlivened by bumper stickers calling on voters to support the presidential ambitions of Cthulhu, the tentacled primeval horror out of H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic dread. I’m sorry to say that the Elder God’s campaign faces a serious constitutional challenge, as he was spawned on the world of Vhoorl in the twenty-third nebula and currently resides in the drowned corpse-city of R’lyeh, and as far as I know neither of these are US territory. Still, his bid for the White House has gotten further than most other imaginary candidacies, and I’ve long thought that the secret behind that success is Cthulhu’s campaign slogan: “Why settle for the lesser evil?”
…What the insurgent candidacies of Trump and Sanders show conclusively, in turn, is that the lesser-evil rhetoric and its fixation on “realistic” politics have just passed their pull date…
…To a very real extent, Hillary Clinton’s faltering presidential campaign is a perfect microcosm of what Spengler was talking about in his cold analysis of democracy in extremis. Her entire platform presupposes that the only policies the United States can follow are those that have been welded in place since the turn of the millennium: more government largesse for corporations and the rich, more austerity for everyone else, more malign neglect for the national infrastructure and the environment, more wars in the Middle East, and more of the fantastically stupid policy of confrontation—there really is no gentler way to describe it—that has succeeded, against all odds, in uniting Russia, China, Iran, and an assortment of smaller nations against the United States, by convincing their leaders that they have nothing to gain from a US-centric world order and nothing to lose by challenging it…
Well, I did what I was told and read it. Must admit my brain started to ‘short out’ towards the end but it paints a sense of extreme dissonance which also applies elsewhere including NZ. There are the two opposing responses coming from “ordinary people” in the US. The more intelligent and rational have gravitated to Bernie Sanders and the less intelligent, ultra conservatives to Trump. In NZ we have the “missing million”.
Yes I wonder who will pull through the pack here – key hasn’t got it for sure – maybe we’ll slide through the middle but a trump win will invigorate the edgy political characters I think.
Yes I wonder who will pull through the pack here –
With Phil Goff having announced he will not be contesting the next election, there is an opening for Micheal Wood of the Labour Party. He is expected to get the Mt Roskill candidacy and anyone who has heard him speak will be aware of his talents and pulling power. Moreover he is highly intelligent and a solid performer. Definitely leadership material and someone to watch closely in the coming years.
Michael Wood is a steady performer but gets his shot at Goff’s seat due to being a loyal long term Labour establishment player, not having challenged the Labour caucus in any material way, and after having stood as a candidate many times for Labour in other seats over the years.
GREAT news John Palino is apparently standing as yet another Auckland Mayoral candidate!
SO many pro-business / pro-Supercity 2016 Auckland Mayoral candidates!
Keep splitting that vote ….
Looking forward to comparing the proven track records of all the other Auckland Mayoral candidates, when it comes to defending the LAWFUL rights of citizens to ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government in Auckland?
I’ve put my freehold house on the line to defend these LAWFUL rights.
What have any of the other Auckland Mayoral candidates done?
I note that fellow ‘Independent’ Auckland Mayoral candidate Phil Goff (currently the Labour MP for Mt Roskill), supports the TPPA, road tolling, and PPPs.
Is this now the position of City Vision?
(Who have endorsed Phil Goff as an Auckland Mayoral candidate?)
“While City Vision is yet to make a formal Mayoral endorsement decision, we believe that we could work collaboratively with Mr Goff to build a better Auckland”, says Waitematā Local Board Chair, Shale Chambers.”
For example, their pamphlets hit on things like the peril of too much Chinese investment, the pervasive threat of Zionism, Israel’s “holocaust” in Gaza, the perfidious influence of Cameron Slater and National Party pollster and commentator David Farrar in New Zealand politics, the sovereignty-destroying TPPA and, of course, the fact that John Key is a rootless money man whose allegiance is to international finance and not the people of New Zealand.
It has to be said that the overall themes and prose style of their literature shared much more with the anonymous commenters on the Left-wing blog, The Standard than the centre-Right, Kiwiblog. Of course, the more usual economic xenophobia was leavened throughout with heavy dollops of racism, which stands in stark contrast to your garden variety left-liberal – who usually considers racism to be the most grievous sin in the book.
TPP
So this is why Key is trying to rush the TPP through our Parliament.
USTR Lawyer Says TPP Designed To Accommodate U.S. Certification Requirement
The entry-into-force mechanism of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was specifically designed to protect the ability of the United States to carry out its domestic requirement that the president not allow a trade agreement to enter into force until he has certified that each trading partner has complied with its obligations that take effect immediately, according to the lead U.S. lawyer on TPP.
Could Congress change a final TPPA text, even if the President had Fast Track authority?
A majority of members of the US Congress could insist on changes to the TPPA, even with Fast Track. They did that, for example, with the Korea-US FTA, which President George W. Bush signed in 2007. When it became evident in 2011 that the deal as signed could not be passed by Congress, President Barack Obama demanded additional concessions from South Korea related to trade in auto and agriculture products. If Korea had not agreed, it could have faced renewed pressure to make those changes as a precondition for certification.
i have a vision.
it is of aotearoa being a food producer second to none.
this produce is organically grown.
the conversion time is 8-10 years.
this can be labour intensive.
all labour used starts at a living wage rate of $18 an hour.
this will occur until a ubi is established (4-5 years).
while we have a new minimum wage there will also be a maximum wage of 10 times the lowest wage in the organisation.
a financial transaction tax will be started which will replace gst and all income tax below $40,000.
trucks are gonna be taxed at an eye watering rate for the privilege of using the roads.
taxed so hard that they will cease to be viable and the majority of freight will be moved by rail.
these taxes go into rail investment and public transport
big investment in solar farms as well as providing incentives for citizens to install solar on their whare.
all new homes must have water tanks and solar installed.
ok, its all a bit rushed as i am about to celebrate a fiftieth.
the idea is to start to build a resilient aotearoa where people and their needs come first second and third.
welcome all nay-sayers, but coming at me from a balance sheet angle will fall on deaf ears.
hi ad, sorry about belated reply (needed a full day and a half to repair from 50th).
i had made a comment on a thread here on the standard about being sick of posts bagging the opposition rather than painting a picture of a bright future.
therefore the money i was referring to was metaphorical.
perhaps put up or shut up would have been more appropriate.
in answer to psycho milt below:
if you are happy with billions of our dollars going overseas to the foreign banks,
happy with charter schools being paid bonuses regardless of performances, overnight bailouts of sth canterbury finance,
the slashing of mental health budgets,
below par, frozen food moved from tauranga to dunedin to feed the elderly and infirm..
then i think we will talk past each other all day.
the point is that with a financial transaction tax, we are able to use some of the massive profits from banking to help the people.
Land of the free and their highest impartial moral authority .. ha ha ha ha ha!
Dow Chemicals Would Rather Pay Out $835 Million Than Face the Supreme Court Without Scalia
Dow Chemicals this week settled a billion-dollar lawsuit after determining, essentially, that it had no chance in front of a Supreme Court without Antonin Scalia.
Dow was challenging a 2013 order that required it to pay $1.06 billion as part of an antitrust suit concerning the sale of urethanes. (The company was accused of price fixing with four other companies but refused to admit liability; the other companies settled for a collective $135 million.)
But Dow, which was set to argue before the Supreme Court once the Court had decided a similar case, dropped its appeal today and settled with the plaintiffs in the case for $835 million. What inspired this change of heart? According to Bloomberg, it was the death of Scalia.
Scalia, of course, was not exactly a fan of class actions. Which is great news for the plaintiffs and terrible news for Dow, which was hoping the Court should reduce the award as part of a referendum on class action suits.
Are the comments Donald Trump made about Princess Diana nearly 20 years ago, (and other comments he has made about women), going to come back him and bite him on his political posterior – as it were?
Donald Trump Said A Lot Of Gross Things About Women On “Howard Stern”
In the hours of audio reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Trump ranks, rates, and degrades women.
posted on Feb. 25, 2016, at 12:11 p.m.
Donald Trump’s rise toward the Republican nomination has been fueled, in part, by his candid and often crude style — more Howard Stern, say, than Mitt Romney.
And the roots of Donald Trump’s rhetoric come, in fact, in part from The Howard Stern Show. Trump appeared upwards of two dozen times from the late ’90s through the 2000s with the shock jock, and BuzzFeed News has listened to hours of those conversations, which are not publically available.
The most popular topic of conversation during these appearances, as is typical of Stern’s program, was sex.
In particular, Trump frequently discussed women he had sex with, wanted to have sex with, or wouldn’t have sex with if given the opportunity. He also rated women on a 10-point scale.
“A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10,” he told Stern in one typical exchange.
Women make up a majority of the American electorate, and any of dozens of Trump’s remarks would be considered a severe blow to most candidates for public office.
Trump has, in the Republican primary, proven largely immune to the backlash that the laws of gravity in politics would predict, but there are also suggestions that he has a deep problem with some women voters: 68% of women voters held an unfavorable view of Trump in a Quinnipiac poll released in December.
In a Gallup poll also released in December, Trump had the lowest net favorable rating out of all the candidates among college-educated Republican women.
And should he win the nomination, his comments are sure to become ammunition for Democrats against what they have long cast as a Republican “war on women.”
Trump has a history of making crude remarks toward women. He reportedly said of his ex-wife Marla Maples, “Nice tits, no brains,” and more recently, he has called Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly a “bimbo” and a “lightweight” and said she had “blood coming out of her wherever” during the first GOP debate.
The focus of Trump’s attentions when interviewed by Stern was commonly female celebrities — movie and television stars, recording artists, models, and media personalities.
Trump, in more than one instance, expressed his admiration for and attraction to Diana, Princess of Wales.
Months after Diana was killed in an automobile accident in 1997, Trump told Stern he thinks he could have slept with her, saying she had “supermodel beauty.”
In a different interview in 2000, Trump said he would have slept with her “without hesitation” and that “she had the height, she had the beauty, she had the skin.” He added, “She was crazy, but (these are minor details)?”
…….
______________________________
(In brackets because of incomplete cut & pasted quote – not sure if that’s the exact wording ..)
An interesting read. But what a sacrifice when at the end is the list of Key failures yet which do not deter Hooton. Power at any cost eh Matthew?
And what a misunderstanding about Education.
Will read again tomorrow and find the speech of the Act leader to compare it with.
“…. And this is seriously the sort of economic assumption that Labour and the Greens have been using to say the TPP would be bad for New Zealand. So keeping those lunatics away from office is absolutely paramount.”
he continues
‘Well, we have a prime minister who is applying the median voter model more rigorously than any other I can think of anywhere in the world. And, as Labour heads ever more to the extreme left, John Key will follow them, because that’s what the median voter says to do. It’s not his fault that Labour’s not playing the same game. The median voter model says Labour should head to the centre but they’re not. But, given that, the median voter model says John Key should allow them all the way to the extreme left and that is what he will do left unchecked, because that’s what the model says he should do. So Act’s role is to have enough gravitational pull on the right to try to at least slow John Key’s inevitable and logical drift to the left, eventually maybe even stop it and keep him in a steady state or – here’s hoping – one day even pull him slightly back towards sound policy. Of course we all know this, and we’ve talked about it for years.”
and as to resource access?…
“And you have a leader who can identify a long-term, important contemporary issue. Because how New Zealand its natural resources like water comes down to three options: 1) You can just make it a free for all and the resource will be polluted and depleted, but Act has never been an anarchist party. 2) You can ration them by queuing like the Soviet Union did with bread and advantage existing users over newer innovative ones, but I guess it is fair in its own way. 3). Or you can ration them through pricing, so that those who have the best idea to maximise the value of the natural resources are the ones who get them. And of course, when it comes to natural resources, not a single other party in parliament is going to opt for the only non-Soviet option, which is the third one. So let’s see how your new focus on the environment goes.”
but despite his well known promotion of the polls M.Hooton is concerned…
“It is easy – and I’m enjoying it – to mock Andrew Little’s motely crew. They really are hopeless. But if they get 25% of the vote, which seems about right, and Winston and the Greens get up to 12.5% each which is possible … well, that’s a government, perhaps with some strange arrangement around the prime ministership like Winston Peters has sought before. And John Key knows this.
And John Key knows also that bizarre things happen in our increasingly bizarre election campaigns, and there will be some surprise that will threaten his hold on power. He probably also has the personal awareness to realise he’s not the cool new kid on the block anymore. If anything, now, our high quality media has decided that’s Max. But, remember, when John Key became prime minister, Max was a kid at King’s Prep up the road. Now, he’s DJ Max who gets to date models. And John Key himself looks older. The TV news, which used to always have a still shot of him smiling and waving, now uses a still shot of him scowling. And if you’re voting for the 1st 2nd or 3rd time next year, he’s not cool.”
so in summary…corporate paymasters worried, time to rally the troops, the risk of defeat is increasing and must be avoided at all cost…..and to hell with whats in the country’s best interests as long as “Im all right Jack”
Pining for the past, ideological purism, “an enemy of welfarism and sloth”, struggling for political relevancy, desperate for more influence (power) = potentially dangerous territory.
I thought the speech was borderline incoherent, poorly structured, lacked vision and imagination, and it more sounded like a pep talk for zombies than a morale-boosting strategy proposal for politically-astute people of more than average intelligence.
TBH, I quite like David Seymour, possibly because he’s indeed ideologically pure; I respect that.
Those making submissions on the TPP might like to skim read the Hansard of the Australian Joint inquiry: Treaty tabled on 9 February: Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement 22 Feb 2016 #Hansard transcript
Some hard questions were asked in Australia. I seriously wonder if the NZ Road Show will allow the same sort of questioning, and not just be a Government Circus Act.
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
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Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
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On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
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The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
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Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
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span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
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The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
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Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
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Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
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The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
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Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
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Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
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The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
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Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
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You can’t make this stuff up!!! Apparently Disney employees are being encouraged to donate to a fund (tax deductible) to lobby politicians for TPP!
Just another chapter and extension in corporate welfare!! Not just taxpayers bail outs, not just not having to pay corporate tax, but now Disney employees are being asked to fund on behalf of it’s employeer Disney to lobby for TPP!
No doubt that those employees who don’t will be scrutinised. It reminds me of Enron when employees were encouraged (or coerced into funding the shares of Enron and driving the share price up).
“DISNEY OFFERS TO DEDUCT CONTRIBUTIONS TO ITS PAC FROM EMPLOYEES’ PAYCHECKS, TO LOBBY FOR TPP”
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Disney_offers_to_deduct_contributions_to_its_PAC_from_employees%27_paychecks%2C_to_lobby_for_TPP/49313/0/38/38/Y/M.html
Kiwis were all shocked when it was found that oil companies deduct money from it’s minimum wage zero hours contractors (formerly called employees) when they get customer ‘drive offs’. But wait, more to come, it now appears that under TPP and with globalism, companys like Disney are passing a hat around to it’s minimum wage zero hours contractors to contribute to Disney’s own tax deductible lobbist activities!!
(More ideas for Peter Jackson, maybe!!)
Disney is an ugly organisation where executives pay reflect how much they can blag rather than any ‘value’ they generate.
Iger the CEO was asking employees to chip in for copyrights also, he got over $40m last year alone.
Walt would be proud of his empire today being an ardent anti communist patriot, god bless America ain’t she great. Not too sure what he’d make of their over 18 activities in porn etc these days though.
+1 TC
TPP undergoes stealthy changes that expand penalties for copyright infringement
https://www.rt.com/usa/332926-tpp-stealthy-copyright-changes/#.Vs6eLqLmfuw.facebook
“It might seem inconsequential, but Malcolm explained that this easy-to-miss edit actually has huge implications for criminal penalties. In the provision’s November form, it exempted countries from applying criminal penalties that it had listed, except in circumstances that actually damage the copyright holder.
After the legal scrub, however, the list of exemptions for countries is much smaller, forcing countries to pass criminal laws against copyright infringement even when the copyright holders aren’t harmed.”
My interpretation of that is, under TPPA copywrite is criminal and the police have to prosecute it at taxpayers expense even if no one is harmed, against the current system of it being a civil claim and the company spending money doing it!
Disney have been aggressively expanding their IP holdings with Pixar, lucasfilm, marvel etc so this is a logical extension for the big media companies to protect their assets by jailing offenders.
Bankstas roam free though.
Disney and Hollywood productions are experts at appropriating other peoples serious works of literature , books and creative ideas and turning it into schmaltz and sensationalist comic effect appealing to the lowest common denominator …and totally lacking in the subtlety of the original….( I put Lord of the Rings in this category)
imo the world would be better off without Disney and Hollywood….so by cracking down hard and becoming illegitimately the intrusive intellectual copyright thought police….maybe they will consume themselves and be the author of their own greedy demise and people will ignore them and turn to other international productions of greater artistic and inspirational integrity ( hopefully)
If someone dubs in a translation of a foreign film he will become liable for a criminal conviction even though no harm was done to anyone. Might even advantage the producer.
This is a good example of the use of “harmonising” processes between countries as outlined in TPPA. Pretty drastic!
it may actually turn people away from Hollywood and give an impetus to other countries which have very creative film industries…and films which have been neglected…and which provide their own translations into English eg some Danish films are brilliant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholia_(2011_film)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/77221956/Upper-Hutt-City-Council-votes-to-make-the-city-New-Zealands-first-TPPA-free-zone
Upper Hutt City Council votes to make the city New Zealand’s first ‘TPPA free zone’
That was pretty funny. Take-home message seems to be that the majority of Upper Hutt City Councillors are not very bright and have too little to do with their time.
Take home message is that the no voters couldn’t let better judgement override their right wing ideology.
The awareness that local councils don’t have the authority to opt out of international agreements entered into by central government isn’t a matter of ideology, it’s a matter of having more than a couple of brain cells to rub together.
Ok, so if there are any manufacturers in Upper Hutt who want to sell their products overseas under the terms of the TPPA, they will have to relocate to another city? That sounds logical.
The WTO advances warnings of the horrors coming under TPPA …
“The World Trade Organization is giving some environmentalists a reason to say “I told you so.”
On Wednesday, the WTO, the international body that enforces trade law, said that India’s solar power subsidy violated trade rules.
The program — which has helped India’s solar industry get off the ground and become one of the fastest growing in the world — required new projects be built with parts made in India.
Despite India’s argument that the local product requirement was crucial to India’s meeting its commitment under the Paris Climate Agreement, the WTO ruled that requirement unfairly discriminated against U.S. solar manufacturers.
This is exactly the kind of decision that has many environmentalists worried about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the sweeping and controversial trade agreement President Barack Obama signed in February. ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wto-tpp-environment-solar_us_56d09505e4b0871f60eb3e50
It’s comforting to know John Key has assured us that this sort of thing will never happen in New Zealand. I feel all warm and comfy now.
Well thank goodness with all this bad news about the TPP coming out Labour is definitely going to pull NZ out of the agreement. Right?
+1 rawshark-yeshe
Drastic but a good example of the ulterior motive of TPPA. Wonder if they will deal with such things on the Roadshow?
If this was Facebook I would tag Wayne on this…
It’s the WTO that’s made this ruling, and the TPPA is irrelevant to it. NZ has been a member of the WTO for decades, and obtained a similar ruling a few years back to stop Australia blocking export to Australia of NZ apples. So, it the TPPA really does bring us the kind of “horrors” that accompany belonging to the WTO, I’m going with “meh.”
rawshark-yeshe. I borrowed your WTO piece to back up on Pundit. Dear old Wayne is at it again.
happy to help with that !! 🙂
Well this has been a week of “comfortable” 0.5yr/interim results from players in the NZ electricity industries e.g. Contact – Meridian – MRP – Vector.
These result are so inconsistent with the reality of flat – pending declining electrical energy demand – an over capacity of production – consequent closure and sale of plant and land – minimal productive investment. Also revelations of over-supply risk aka Manapouri.
Great levels of storage in the lakes.
All should result in significant end-user costs.
But no ! – because the model of fake competition and requisite investor dividends is wrong.
A previous NZ Government engineered the market thusly .
Can a subsequent NZ Government re-engineer the market to correct these evident anomalies ? – would they risk the litigation ?
That is – subsequent to TPPA bondage.
BTW – this is what the developers are really building in Auckland – not exactly affordable and not exactly to the taste of most Kiwis. But the Auckland council wants to add another level to it (3 level mansions) in the central Auckland suburbs, and is so surprised that neighbours are not that keen! This is the ‘affordable’ housing rout. It is a fiction!!! Click on link and scroll down to see what is really being built with the ‘relaxed zoning’ and ‘relaxed character’, soon this style of housing to be even higher and invade central Auckland suburbs further.
https://www.facebook.com/lowndes.realestate/?
Rare Brand New 4 + 2 Bedrooms Luxury Home in Albany
What a wonderful location, it sits on a quiet street in the centre of hot suburb Oteha. This is a super-sized 6 bedroom luxury modern home with floor area exceeding 330m2. Everything has been finished to very high standard and detailed designs. Very generous on space in each part of the house. One large open plan lounge with easy flow to neatly finished outdoor area. Extra family room located on the top floor also connected to a large private outdoor deck, giving the best privacy for the family. A small beverage bar right beside the family room, so convenient! 4 double bedrooms upstairs with 1 ensuite. 2 more double bedrooms with self-contained living areas and shared bathroom. Ideal for extended family. Elevated and north facing, allows it to gain most of stunning views among the neighbours. Three heat pumps have been installed to give maximum comfort.
4 minutes walk to local Seville Shopping Centre
Reserve and playground just outside the driveway
5 minutes drive to Albany Shopping mall
6 mins drive to Browns Bay beach and township
2 mins drive to motorway on-ramp
“Not exactly in the taste of most Kiwis”.
Wrong.
Previously around Albany the houses were likely to be 1960’s 100m2 bungalows, value approx $400k that first home owners could have afforded. New ‘developed’ houses are now exceeding 330m2 – and the likely cost will be over $1million. So before anyone starts going on about affordable housing from the ‘relaxed’ standards and zoning – have a good look at what is actually being built in Auckland both on the green field and in the suburbs and SHA. What I would call McMansions. There is no increased public transport so that’s 60,000 new cars on the road per year from migration.
The idea that South Auckland residents will be moving into these new developments (which are larger and more expensive than existing housing stock) is laughable.
Those advocating it, are actually removing affordable houses to make way for someones idea of a mansion.
And high rises as social housing normally descend into slums real quick. The worst examples in the UK of slums are high rise social housing.
The best way to have an integrated society is to actually (like state homes) have social housing in expensive areas with other social economic groups in similar houses. But the government has sold these off, pocketed the money and now pulling the line that by removing character standards and allowing ghetto 3 story mansions of 330m2 built by private developers it will help housing.
It is not just baby boomers who are taking the properties from the poor but the left love to abuse them – wonder what would happen if Bomber called Asians Selfish – probably cause an outrage against the outrageous racism!!! But ageism against Kiwi baby boomers is fine.
Having a serious debate about migration in NZ is somehow now akin to asking the Jews to give Palestinians a go! It is the elephant in the room that politicians and councillors and media commentators refuse to acknowledge.
The fact that the Waatea Estate episode about housing did not mention migration as a factor in property prices, the boom and zoning, and transport speaks volumes.
+1 you make a lot of very valid observations, sadly I fear the conversation will never be considered…NZ in 2016 is not the egalitarian society we were in the mid 20th century…..much to our cost…(and before anyone points out things were not equal for Maori, that is a given)
+100…”The best way to have an integrated society is to actually (like state homes) have social housing in expensive areas with other social economic groups
this is the way egalitarian New Zealand used to be when Jonkey nactional was brought up in a state house
…”Having a serious debate about migration in NZ is somehow now akin to asking the Jews to give Palestinians a go!”
Palestine was taken over and renamed Israel…the Palestinians were run out of their own country
Chooky, your comment ” the best way to have an integrated society etc” is absolutely correct. The early state houses were built with exactly that intention, in desirable areas too, the premise being that Jack deserved good areas/views/sunny aspects as well as his master.
Poorer Kiwis are being displaced as we speak in Auckland and it is not the baby boomers displacing them….. If anything I am seeing baby boomers moving out of Auckland.
Affordable housing is also being displaced as we speak in Auckland – often replaced with large McMansions…
I don’t care if NZ has more migration, I just think NZ should be a bit more selective. For every new migrant there is a new job created that pays NZ taxes and a new house created for them surplus to requirements. Otherwise they are displacing a local job and a local home. There should be zero property investment allowed by new migrants for 10 years and entrepreneurs should be actually creating sustainable things like software and patents.
I also think it should be compulsory for new migrants to have some sort of integration of Kiwis values such as valuing the natural environment, how to be more sustainable and so forth. They should also be tested on treaty of Waitangi issues. (Every migrants I know believe Maori are bludgers and don’t understand why the government is giving them so much land and money). (They read the herald). There should be some moral and social criteria.
eg. A person I know who was a coloured South African was interviewed by secret police under Apartheid. They later saw the same secret policeman who interrogated him, in Whangarei – he had settled in NZ when Mandela took over! You are a white South African in the secret police under Apartheid – no problem have a job in our police force, NZ immigration can’t foresee see any problems!!
+100
The more salient way to start the conversation about lack of housing supply into Auckland/Christchurch and the impact of migration is to talk about the imagined relocation of a small NZ town to those cities every year.
eg. Given the closure of Pike River for example, would it be reasonable to relocate the population of that community to Auckland? The answer would of course be no. Not until the current situation with housing was resolved. And this is purely in terms of practicalities – it has nothing to do with anti-immigration or racism.
[deleted]
[lprent: (sigh) ]
?
It might be that strange person who came here a few months back. Always commented under female names. Best to ignore.
+ 1
Yep. Cleared their comments out
The photo on this link of John Key is priceless! A real sitter for a “Caption This.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11592608
The elephant in the room?
HA!
Key’s nose nearly fell off today as he attempted to prevent it from growing.
“Who farted?”
Is Angus Gillies a ghoulish profiteer, or are his critics denying the conflicts in their own community? http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/who-speaks-for-ruatoria.html
There is actually NO ‘public transport’ in the Auckland region.
There are 10 private bus companies, 4 private ferries and a French multi-national operating and managing Auckland’s trains.
Auckland Transport (AT) will not reveal how much public money is being paid in subsidies to these private passenger transport providers. (I’ve asked ).
Why should the public subsidise that which we no longer own, operate or manage?
If the private sector are so ‘efficient’ why do they need public subsidies?
Where is the ‘cost-benefit’ analysis which proves that public subsidy of private passenger transport is a more ‘cost-effective’ spending of public money than Auckland Transport providing bus, ferry and rail services ‘in house’ through public ownership, operation and management ?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Quite possibly the stupidest comment you have made on here.
I find it surprising that someone whois running for mayor of Auckland does not understand how public transport subsidies work.
I suggest you hop on over to http://www.transportblog.co.nz and ask Patrick nicely how it works and save yourself the embarrassment of getting roasted on here.
So, now Penny Bright is:
– against climate change action
– against the Unitary Plan
– against affordable housing, and
– against public transport
Winner
Given Penny’s militant stance in favour of personally freeloading off the rates contributions of every other Aucklander, shouldn’t she be at the ACT conference doing a stand up comedy routine on how to avoid personal responsibility? They’d be rolling in the aisles. If they had aisles in the back of Seymour’s car, that is.
I know what you mean.
Has a politics more like Rick from the Young Ones, except she’s on Series 40.
So – you don’t support transparency in the spending of citizens’ rates monies, when it comes the subsidising of private passenger transport providers?
In my view – it appears you support corporate welfare.
I don’t.
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
You’re the worst recipient of underserved welfare I’ve ever seen.
You drive on roads, use public services, and don’t pay a cent for them.
So in my view, you stand for nearly everything I stand against.
You will lose. Again. And again. And again.
You haven’t been elected so much as dog catcher in your life, and you never will.
I’m defending my (and effectively YOUR) lawful rights to ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government.
Don’t YOU believe in transparency regarding rates spending?
Don’t YOU agree that that the following information regarding spending by Auckland Council and Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) should be available for public scrutiny?
* The unique contract number.
* The name of the consultant or contractor.
* The (brief) scope of the contract.
* The start and finish dates of the contract.
* The dollar value of every contract (including subcontractors).
* How the contract was awarded (direct appointment / public tender).
How can you ‘follow the dollar’ – if you don’t know exactly where the dollar is being spent?
How can ‘prudent stewardship’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’ be exercised – if ‘the books’ are not open, and this information is not publicly available for ‘line by line’ accounting?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
“How can ‘prudent stewardship’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’ be exercised – if ‘the books’ are not open, and this information is not publicly available for ‘line by line’ accounting?”
Therer are these things called auditors. Sure you’ve heard of them. They read the line items so the rest of us don’t need to.
Penny Bright is for ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government, and for the ‘Rule of Law’ to equally apply to Auckland Council and Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).
Penny Bright is for ‘opening the books’ and ‘cutting out the contractors / consultants’ – unless a cost- benefit analysis proves that is a more cost-effective use of public money than in-house provision under the ‘public service’ model.
Penny Bright is opposed to the commercialisation and privatisation of public services, and has a proven track record going back to 1997 when the universally hated Metrowater was forced upon the citizens and ratepayers of Auckland City Council.
Penny Bright vigorously and consistently opposed the Auckland Supercity (for the 1%) from Day One – 5 September 2006 – the date of the ‘failed Mayoral coup’, when the four (then) City Council Mayors all ganged up against Mike Lee and the ARC, (on behalf of BIG business) to push for an Auckland ‘Supercity’.
Penny Bright helped to stop the Wellington proposed Supercity.
Penny Bright has vigorously opposed the TPPA since 2010.
Penny Bright opposes road tolls and user charges for public services.
Penny Bright opposes the sell off of Auckland Council assets.
Penny Bright is opposed to ‘democracy for developers’.
Penny Bright is campaigning against corrupt corporate control.
IT’S OUR AUCKLAND!
It’s time to take it back from BIG business, property developers, overseas investors, speculators, and money-launderers!
Penny Bright – WINNER.
Gosh that person loves the sound of their own name. They could get some help for that.
I can and will defend myself Sacha.
I respectfully suggest that you get used to it?
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Yeah I’d say ‘defend’ is yet another word whose meaning you fail to grasp. But I’m not expecting you to change your ways at this late stage of life.
Speaking of openness and transparency, care to tell us why you are a climate change denier?
So, even though anyone can ride the buses and trains, Auckland doesn’t have public transport because all the buses and trains are privately owned/operated.
On the other hand, the Mayoral limo, which the public can’t ride in, is public transport because the city owns it.
Great logic skills, eh. What everyone needs in a leader.
Penny,
Presumably AT does provide an overall amount of the subsidy.
By the way there are some fundamental fallacies in your reasoning about the cost of public transport. Virtually nowhere in the world does the fare box cover the actual cost of the service. So there is always a subsidy from ratepayers or taxpayers to the actual users. This is the case whether the providers are owned by the Council or by the private sector.
I would have thought, you being a Mayoral candidate, that you would know this, or at least give an impression that you do. Because unless you do, it makes your request for financial accountability look foolish. And unlike the rest of us are on a rates strike because of it, though presumably you will ultimately pay rather than loose your house.
There’s more financial accountability in New Zealand local government than anywhere else in the world.
Anyone who wants to wade through all the full volumes of the LTP, RLTP, and Annual Plans, can do so.
No other business in New Zealand the size of Auckland Council has anywhere near the degree of scrutiny and reporting detail Auckland Council has as routine.
Got some FACTS to back up your, in my opinion, fairy story Ad?
“There’s more financial accountability in New Zealand local government than anywhere else in the world.”
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Sure. Find me a city in the world that publishes its accounts with more detail than the LTP, RLTP, and Annual Plan.
Case closed.
So you can’t provide the facts to back up your, in my view, fantasy Ad?
Case closed.
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
You’re the one who made the claim now back it up.
As an aside I think part of the problem is that it’s so damn hard to get. This sort of stuff should be easily available on the internet. Shouldn’t need to ask for it.
True but the subsidy is greater when the service is provided by private providers. It’s greater by the amount of profit that the private providers take.
+1
Wayne, Lose not “loose”. Or, like brother John, are you seeking the common touch?
Yeah, it’s a Trump thing.
Language is effectively a democracy. If the illiterates who think lose is spelt loose become a majority, the literate have to suck it up and admit defeat. We aren’t far off that point if blog posts and comments are anything to go by.
It’s a tough one for people who were apparently taught to spell things phonetically if unsure. They struggle with words like lose because of words like hose and dose.
If everybody would just agree to spell it looz the problem would be solved.
Well, yeah – telling schoolkids to try and spell English phonetically was a dumb idea from day one. There wouldn’t be a language on the planet less suited to trying to spell words phonetically. Among native speakers, English spelling is tough for dyslexics and people who don’t read unless they have to – maybe Wayne’s dyslexic, but my money would be on the second one.
I believe Wayne is a born & bred Kiwi but not all TS commenters are. In any case, Wayne’s spell-checker is probably set to automatically change “lose” into “loose” as the former is much worse than the latter, for an ex-Nat 😉
So why Wayne – if the private sector is supposedly so ‘efficient’ – do private transport providers need public subsidies?
Why should the public subsidise that which we no longer own, operate or manage when it comes to passenger transport provision in Auckland?
Why is information about public subsidies of privately owned, operated and managed passenger transport not available for public scrutiny?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
There can be public benefit without public ownership.
In my view Sacha – there would be more public benefit if the public were not subsidising private passenger transport providers and the ownership, operation and management was brought back ‘in house’ under the public service model.
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
You have no idea about how public transport works, and it’s embarrassing.
How many years have you been in this game?
Do you need to be told what the cost of the annual opex alone for a private vehicle using the motorway system is? Try figuring out what an actual subsidy is on all modes before you open your ignorant gob.
What’s your definition of ‘public’ when it comes to ‘public transport’ Ad?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
I have learned Wayne – to presume nothing and check everything.
AT declined to answer my LGOIMA request regarding public subsidies of private passenger transport providers on the grounds that this information was ‘contractually confidential’.
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
US fires a warning to Russia.
The Herald is being disingenuous mentioning North Korea.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11596593
Want more information.
Use alternative media.
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/stephen-cohen-on-new-cold-war_23.html
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/did-russia-just-threaten-turkey-nuclear-weapons/ri12936
Meanwhile, China is using their “One Road One Belt” initiative to talk to countries about new trade, business and logistical/transport opportunities.
Researchers find the tipping point between resilience and collapse in complex systems
Now that’s going to have some interesting consequences – especially once they turn it on the economy.
Thanks, that looks bloody interesting.
There was no way to calculate that–until now. Wow! A breakthrough…a eureka moment?
Our tool, for the first time, enables those predictions. Sounding like a eureka moment!
“Statistical physics has found that you can crunch down all of these millions of parameters and components into one number–the temperature,” said Barzel. “We take it for granted now, but that was a tremendous scientific achievement.
Oh. So all the millions of parameters people knew nothing about were cunningly ignored by the people who knew nothing about them as people concentrated on what they could observe and (eventually) measure…hmm.
As the water heats up, those parameters and components continually change. Measuring those multitudinous changes over time–a microscopic approach to assessing the water’s state–would be impossible. Uh-huh.
Statistical physics has found that you can crunch down all of these millions of parameters and components [from any complex system] into one number–the temperature,” But..but…the impossibility of tracking all those millions of components and parameters…or even probably agreeing on which ones are relevant…
“Once you identify the relevant parameter that controls the system’s resilience, you can begin to tackle how to manipulate that resilience–how to enhance resilience or restore resilience, Roight.
So if only we could know everything about something we could reduce that complex everything into a simple something. Hmm. Like a number. There’s a wee detail in there…can’t quite grasp it. But hey, great. Apart from never being able to know everything about something [that’s the detail!] and therefore being unable to reduce the unknown to a known….fantastic!
I’m picking the “temperature” always pans out to be 42 btw 😉
Frak!!
That left me kinda disappointed the robot didn’t turn around and punch out the human.
Same. What a prick.
Gosh! Uneven ground and all. Only question is was it acting independently or under control off stage. If totally independent then double Wow!
DARPA has been sponsoring X-prize type competitions for totally autonomous humanoid robots. This is only a small step beyond the best achieved in the competition last year. Since Google bought Boston Dynamics, I’m not sure they’re still bothering to enter the competitions anymore.
I’m sure the Pentagon is only funding these initiatives in order to develop robotic disaster rescue teams and nuclear waste clean up crews /sarc
Tis the janitors’ dignity they’re thinking of.
So good and so well worth a read as usual. JMG talking about politics over there
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/the-decline-and-fall-of-hillary-clinton.html
anyway I’ll end up quoting the whole thing – go and read it – I insist!!!
Thanks for putting this up in OM too, MM.
Well, I did what I was told and read it. Must admit my brain started to ‘short out’ towards the end but it paints a sense of extreme dissonance which also applies elsewhere including NZ. There are the two opposing responses coming from “ordinary people” in the US. The more intelligent and rational have gravitated to Bernie Sanders and the less intelligent, ultra conservatives to Trump. In NZ we have the “missing million”.
Yes I wonder who will pull through the pack here – key hasn’t got it for sure – maybe we’ll slide through the middle but a trump win will invigorate the edgy political characters I think.
Yes I wonder who will pull through the pack here –
With Phil Goff having announced he will not be contesting the next election, there is an opening for Micheal Wood of the Labour Party. He is expected to get the Mt Roskill candidacy and anyone who has heard him speak will be aware of his talents and pulling power. Moreover he is highly intelligent and a solid performer. Definitely leadership material and someone to watch closely in the coming years.
https://www.facebook.com/mwoodnz/
Michael Wood is a steady performer but gets his shot at Goff’s seat due to being a loyal long term Labour establishment player, not having challenged the Labour caucus in any material way, and after having stood as a candidate many times for Labour in other seats over the years.
So, basically, he works well with others and doesn’t throw a tanty when something deviates from his narrow preferences.
Good to know.
R’lyeh is on the Challenger Plateau – not many orange roughy around it either.
GREAT news John Palino is apparently standing as yet another Auckland Mayoral candidate!
SO many pro-business / pro-Supercity 2016 Auckland Mayoral candidates!
Keep splitting that vote ….
Looking forward to comparing the proven track records of all the other Auckland Mayoral candidates, when it comes to defending the LAWFUL rights of citizens to ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government in Auckland?
I’ve put my freehold house on the line to defend these LAWFUL rights.
What have any of the other Auckland Mayoral candidates done?
I note that fellow ‘Independent’ Auckland Mayoral candidate Phil Goff (currently the Labour MP for Mt Roskill), supports the TPPA, road tolling, and PPPs.
Is this now the position of City Vision?
(Who have endorsed Phil Goff as an Auckland Mayoral candidate?)
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
“City Vision? (Who have endorsed Phil Goff as an Auckland Mayoral candidate?)”
they have?
link please, or retraction.
Found it for you. From their website:
http://cityvision.org.nz/news/media-release-city-vision-welcomes-phil-goffs-mayoral-announcement-and-prepares-for-2016-campaign/
“While City Vision is yet to make a formal Mayoral endorsement decision, we believe that we could work collaboratively with Mr Goff to build a better Auckland”, says Waitematā Local Board Chair, Shale Chambers.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/opinion/77118558/opinion-right-wing-resistance-agenda-reprehensible
For example, their pamphlets hit on things like the peril of too much Chinese investment, the pervasive threat of Zionism, Israel’s “holocaust” in Gaza, the perfidious influence of Cameron Slater and National Party pollster and commentator David Farrar in New Zealand politics, the sovereignty-destroying TPPA and, of course, the fact that John Key is a rootless money man whose allegiance is to international finance and not the people of New Zealand.
It has to be said that the overall themes and prose style of their literature shared much more with the anonymous commenters on the Left-wing blog, The Standard than the centre-Right, Kiwiblog. Of course, the more usual economic xenophobia was leavened throughout with heavy dollops of racism, which stands in stark contrast to your garden variety left-liberal – who usually considers racism to be the most grievous sin in the book.
A sad but amusing opinion piece
TPP
So this is why Key is trying to rush the TPP through our Parliament.
http://insidetrade.com/
http://tppnocertification.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Certification-memorandum.pdf
time to put my money where the mouth is.
i have a vision.
it is of aotearoa being a food producer second to none.
this produce is organically grown.
the conversion time is 8-10 years.
this can be labour intensive.
all labour used starts at a living wage rate of $18 an hour.
this will occur until a ubi is established (4-5 years).
while we have a new minimum wage there will also be a maximum wage of 10 times the lowest wage in the organisation.
a financial transaction tax will be started which will replace gst and all income tax below $40,000.
trucks are gonna be taxed at an eye watering rate for the privilege of using the roads.
taxed so hard that they will cease to be viable and the majority of freight will be moved by rail.
these taxes go into rail investment and public transport
big investment in solar farms as well as providing incentives for citizens to install solar on their whare.
all new homes must have water tanks and solar installed.
ok, its all a bit rushed as i am about to celebrate a fiftieth.
the idea is to start to build a resilient aotearoa where people and their needs come first second and third.
welcome all nay-sayers, but coming at me from a balance sheet angle will fall on deaf ears.
Kia kaha !!!
This resilience stuff is hot stuff, gsays.
Enjoy the celebrations!
Sounds great! Sooner we get there the better I reckon, and hopefully avoiding as much pain as possible.
How have you put your money anywhere?
I don’t quite understand you.
I think it was supposed to read “time to put the country’s money where my mouth is.”
hi ad, sorry about belated reply (needed a full day and a half to repair from 50th).
i had made a comment on a thread here on the standard about being sick of posts bagging the opposition rather than painting a picture of a bright future.
therefore the money i was referring to was metaphorical.
perhaps put up or shut up would have been more appropriate.
in answer to psycho milt below:
if you are happy with billions of our dollars going overseas to the foreign banks,
happy with charter schools being paid bonuses regardless of performances, overnight bailouts of sth canterbury finance,
the slashing of mental health budgets,
below par, frozen food moved from tauranga to dunedin to feed the elderly and infirm..
then i think we will talk past each other all day.
the point is that with a financial transaction tax, we are able to use some of the massive profits from banking to help the people.
Land of the free and their highest impartial moral authority .. ha ha ha ha ha!
Dow Chemicals Would Rather Pay Out $835 Million Than Face the Supreme Court Without Scalia
Dow Chemicals this week settled a billion-dollar lawsuit after determining, essentially, that it had no chance in front of a Supreme Court without Antonin Scalia.
Dow was challenging a 2013 order that required it to pay $1.06 billion as part of an antitrust suit concerning the sale of urethanes. (The company was accused of price fixing with four other companies but refused to admit liability; the other companies settled for a collective $135 million.)
But Dow, which was set to argue before the Supreme Court once the Court had decided a similar case, dropped its appeal today and settled with the plaintiffs in the case for $835 million. What inspired this change of heart? According to Bloomberg, it was the death of Scalia.
Scalia, of course, was not exactly a fan of class actions. Which is great news for the plaintiffs and terrible news for Dow, which was hoping the Court should reduce the award as part of a referendum on class action suits.
But alas, big plaintiff won this round.
http://gawker.com/dow-chemicals-would-rather-pay-out-835-mi…
Are the comments Donald Trump made about Princess Diana nearly 20 years ago, (and other comments he has made about women), going to come back him and bite him on his political posterior – as it were?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/donald-trump-said-a-lot-of-gross-things-about-women-on-howar#.dfbZ6DXQ4
Donald Trump Said A Lot Of Gross Things About Women On “Howard Stern”
In the hours of audio reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Trump ranks, rates, and degrades women.
posted on Feb. 25, 2016, at 12:11 p.m.
Donald Trump’s rise toward the Republican nomination has been fueled, in part, by his candid and often crude style — more Howard Stern, say, than Mitt Romney.
And the roots of Donald Trump’s rhetoric come, in fact, in part from The Howard Stern Show. Trump appeared upwards of two dozen times from the late ’90s through the 2000s with the shock jock, and BuzzFeed News has listened to hours of those conversations, which are not publically available.
The most popular topic of conversation during these appearances, as is typical of Stern’s program, was sex.
In particular, Trump frequently discussed women he had sex with, wanted to have sex with, or wouldn’t have sex with if given the opportunity. He also rated women on a 10-point scale.
“A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10,” he told Stern in one typical exchange.
Women make up a majority of the American electorate, and any of dozens of Trump’s remarks would be considered a severe blow to most candidates for public office.
Trump has, in the Republican primary, proven largely immune to the backlash that the laws of gravity in politics would predict, but there are also suggestions that he has a deep problem with some women voters: 68% of women voters held an unfavorable view of Trump in a Quinnipiac poll released in December.
In a Gallup poll also released in December, Trump had the lowest net favorable rating out of all the candidates among college-educated Republican women.
And should he win the nomination, his comments are sure to become ammunition for Democrats against what they have long cast as a Republican “war on women.”
Trump has a history of making crude remarks toward women. He reportedly said of his ex-wife Marla Maples, “Nice tits, no brains,” and more recently, he has called Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly a “bimbo” and a “lightweight” and said she had “blood coming out of her wherever” during the first GOP debate.
The focus of Trump’s attentions when interviewed by Stern was commonly female celebrities — movie and television stars, recording artists, models, and media personalities.
Trump, in more than one instance, expressed his admiration for and attraction to Diana, Princess of Wales.
Months after Diana was killed in an automobile accident in 1997, Trump told Stern he thinks he could have slept with her, saying she had “supermodel beauty.”
In a different interview in 2000, Trump said he would have slept with her “without hesitation” and that “she had the height, she had the beauty, she had the skin.” He added, “She was crazy, but (these are minor details)?”
…….
______________________________
(In brackets because of incomplete cut & pasted quote – not sure if that’s the exact wording ..)
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Hampshire school calls police after pupil looks at UKIP website
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-35671519
Everyone out to protect their backs.
It’s another example of how out of hand things are becoming.
Mr Hooton’s advice to Act’s conference today: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.hooton.77/posts/981186271958320?pnref=story
An interesting read. But what a sacrifice when at the end is the list of Key failures yet which do not deter Hooton. Power at any cost eh Matthew?
And what a misunderstanding about Education.
Will read again tomorrow and find the speech of the Act leader to compare it with.
Ta. I don’t have the stomach for that.
Keep an eye on the enemy.
“…. And this is seriously the sort of economic assumption that Labour and the Greens have been using to say the TPP would be bad for New Zealand. So keeping those lunatics away from office is absolutely paramount.”
he continues
‘Well, we have a prime minister who is applying the median voter model more rigorously than any other I can think of anywhere in the world. And, as Labour heads ever more to the extreme left, John Key will follow them, because that’s what the median voter says to do. It’s not his fault that Labour’s not playing the same game. The median voter model says Labour should head to the centre but they’re not. But, given that, the median voter model says John Key should allow them all the way to the extreme left and that is what he will do left unchecked, because that’s what the model says he should do. So Act’s role is to have enough gravitational pull on the right to try to at least slow John Key’s inevitable and logical drift to the left, eventually maybe even stop it and keep him in a steady state or – here’s hoping – one day even pull him slightly back towards sound policy. Of course we all know this, and we’ve talked about it for years.”
and as to resource access?…
“And you have a leader who can identify a long-term, important contemporary issue. Because how New Zealand its natural resources like water comes down to three options: 1) You can just make it a free for all and the resource will be polluted and depleted, but Act has never been an anarchist party. 2) You can ration them by queuing like the Soviet Union did with bread and advantage existing users over newer innovative ones, but I guess it is fair in its own way. 3). Or you can ration them through pricing, so that those who have the best idea to maximise the value of the natural resources are the ones who get them. And of course, when it comes to natural resources, not a single other party in parliament is going to opt for the only non-Soviet option, which is the third one. So let’s see how your new focus on the environment goes.”
but despite his well known promotion of the polls M.Hooton is concerned…
“It is easy – and I’m enjoying it – to mock Andrew Little’s motely crew. They really are hopeless. But if they get 25% of the vote, which seems about right, and Winston and the Greens get up to 12.5% each which is possible … well, that’s a government, perhaps with some strange arrangement around the prime ministership like Winston Peters has sought before. And John Key knows this.
And John Key knows also that bizarre things happen in our increasingly bizarre election campaigns, and there will be some surprise that will threaten his hold on power. He probably also has the personal awareness to realise he’s not the cool new kid on the block anymore. If anything, now, our high quality media has decided that’s Max. But, remember, when John Key became prime minister, Max was a kid at King’s Prep up the road. Now, he’s DJ Max who gets to date models. And John Key himself looks older. The TV news, which used to always have a still shot of him smiling and waving, now uses a still shot of him scowling. And if you’re voting for the 1st 2nd or 3rd time next year, he’s not cool.”
so in summary…corporate paymasters worried, time to rally the troops, the risk of defeat is increasing and must be avoided at all cost…..and to hell with whats in the country’s best interests as long as “Im all right Jack”
Pining for the past, ideological purism, “an enemy of welfarism and sloth”, struggling for political relevancy, desperate for more influence (power) = potentially dangerous territory.
I thought the speech was borderline incoherent, poorly structured, lacked vision and imagination, and it more sounded like a pep talk for zombies than a morale-boosting strategy proposal for politically-astute people of more than average intelligence.
TBH, I quite like David Seymour, possibly because he’s indeed ideologically pure; I respect that.
“a pep talk for zombies” – heh.
Batten down the hatches.
Severe thunderstorm warning as heavy rains hit North Island
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/77344110/wet-and-sticky-weather-in-auckland-and-western-north-island
Those making submissions on the TPP might like to skim read the Hansard of the Australian Joint inquiry: Treaty tabled on 9 February: Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement 22 Feb 2016 #Hansard transcript
Biologics, ISDS discussed
link
Some hard questions were asked in Australia. I seriously wonder if the NZ Road Show will allow the same sort of questioning, and not just be a Government Circus Act.
Further in know your enemy: https://twitter.com/JudithCollinsMP/status/703503194878423040 (warning: contains visual smugness)
Jesus H. Christ! Well, I guess you did warn us…