“We see a real opportunity to cut carbon pollution,” said one of the White House officials. “And I think one of the most important and relevant points is that today we already set limits for arsenic, mercury and lead, but we let power plants release as much carbon pollution as they want.”
Scientific American
Political leaders from around the world give their reaction.
From the European Union:
After a number of important speeches from President Obama and Secretary Kerry, Europe has been eagerly waiting for the US to set out concrete steps. So this plan is a most welcomed step forward and, if implemented, it can put the US on a path towards a low carbon future.
Connie Hedegaard EU Climate Action Commissioner
“I very much welcome President Obama’s renewed push to tackle global climate change,”…..
“The plans set out are positive steps that will create further momentum for international climate action.”…..
(this will) “help give the world confidence that it’s possible to win this fight, if we fight it together”.
José Manuel Barroso President of the European commission
From the United Nations:
It remains vital that the United States as the world’s largest developed economy is seen to be leading serious action to deal with climate change, both at home and abroad….
…..”This US climate action plan must also be leveraged into fresh, high-level political consensus among countries that will smooth the way for faster progress in the international climate change negotiations under the United Nations.”
Christiana Figueres UNFCCC Executive Secretary
From Britain:
“President Obama is right when he says tackling climate change is a moral obligation and also right when he says cutting carbon pollution will help spark business innovation and create jobs. I welcome his Climate Action Plan. It’s a decisive step by the world’s second largest emitter and demonstrates the growing global momentum toward tackling the threat of dangerous climate change. The UK will work closely with the US on energy efficiency and low carbon technologies, and on securing ambitious global action on climate finance and emission reduction. We will also keep up the pressure elsewhere, including in Europe. The EU should adopt a 50% emissions reduction target by 2030 in order to help secure a global deal in 2015.”
Edward Davey UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
From the Pacific Islands:
“US President Obama’s announcement represents a positive step on climate change and we hope it translates into even more constructive engagement at the international climate negotiations, particularly when it comes to dramatically reducing greenhouse gases in the next few years, which is essential to keep the seas from washing over some of the world’s lowest lying island nations.
“However, we are painfully aware that coastal erosion, ocean acidification, degraded reefs and fisheries, droughts, floods, and relentless storms represent the new normal for many vulnerable communities. Therefore, any adequate response to climate change must also address permanent losses and damages stemming from the crisis.” Ambassador Marlene Moses Permanent Representative to the United Nations for Nauru and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States
From the New Zealand Green Party:
“We need to be supporting international action on climate change not obstructing it.
“New Zealand is not doing its fair share.
“The National Government is stuck in the past examining the scientific consensus, to quote President Obama, ‘we don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society’.
“While Obama is stepping up action, National is stepping up pollution….
Under National, New Zealand’s net emissions have hit a record high and are continuing to grow.
“Last weekend’s storm, and this summer’s drought are a preview of the legacy we will leave for our children if we do not act now.
“We can make a difference, we can prepare, we can work internationally for binding targets, we can reduce emissions at home; but we need to start now,”
To date their has been no response to Obama’s speech from either Labour or National. And I think neither can we expect one.
Time for David Cunliffe to fill the gap perhaps? If Labour keep up its silence… Might we see ia press statement from Cunliffe to make up for the missing leadership sadly lacking in his own party?
I also notice that so far there has been no post on Obama’s speech from anyone at The Standard
Why is this?
Does nobody have any opinion on Obama’s speech?
Or could it be, that The Standard authors (consciously, or unconsciously), don’t want to acknowledge or bring attention to the uncomfortable fact that National and Labour’s policies are generally in alignment on further increasing CO2 emissions through more and riskier oil drilling and coal mining etc?
[lprent:
Firstly – What speech? I heard a brief mention on it on the car radio on my late return home last night. Looking at the timestamp on the news story and allowing for date lines, it would have been when? late in the day yesterday? We aren’t a news service, nor are we journalists and we tend to work hard on things other than this blog.
Secondly – Authors write on what they wish to and when they want to – as is stated clearly in the about and the policy.
Thirdly – I see that there was a post scheduled for this morning at the time you wrote that comment. I’d guess that it was written late last night. It gives Anthony’s opinion (which is what we are here to express) on the speech. Changes in policy direction usually take time to digest because the detail is important – not the headline.
Fourthly – You are banned for a week for again trying to tell us what we should be writing – read the policy. ]
“The National Government is stuck in the past examining the scientific consensus, to quote President Obama, ‘we don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society’.
Kennedy Graham Green Party Spokesperson for Climate Change
What Graham has said for the Nacts, could, painfully, be just as easily be said of Labour.
I can’t even bear to listen to the man at the moment. He has no credibility left at all, imo. How can you trust that what he says in a speech is what he really means after Guantanamo not being ended, drones in Pakistan, NSA spying, Bradley Manning incarceration conditions etc, etc? Not to mention people living in tent cities and the nation having to subsidise Walmart pay with food stamps.
All I’d expect from this speech is that he’s trying to change the topic, not that he might mean what he says. So no, I don’t have an opinion on the speech, but I have a very negative opinion about why he might be making in right now, and I can’t believe he means a word of it.
Thats right Mozza, Jenny et al have not done their homework into the General Electric (GE) backing of Obama, and what this means to that company’s NUCLEAR power plant production revenue streams, and control of the *energy market*!
Its why we are in this mess, because people like Jenny, have NFI, what they are contributing to!
I wonder if the Obama’s ephinany on US emissions has anything todo with the discovery of massive quantities of shale gas via large scale fracking. Is converting their coal burning to gas burning much better?
That too – I forgot about the fracking in the credibility stakes.
Biggest shale gas boom since whenever, isn’t it? Apparently it’s better than oil for climate change emissions, even more important is the shift from coal to gas. Although apparently the U.S. is displacing, rather than reducing, it’s emissions through coal exports.
Obama, like many of the names who have quoted above, Jenny, Barosso et al, is a criminal, who does exactly what he is told, by those who put him in power!
kia ora jenny, 2 things strike me about the whole obama thing;
firstly i think your enthusiasm for it is more about the position he holds talking about what he is talking about.
secondly and more importantly you seem to be desiring equal leadership, concerning climate change, to be shown in this country.
GINETTE McDONALD: He came up to me and said, “Ginette McDonald, do you know who I am? My name is Paul Scott Holmes and I am a great broadcaster!”
JIM MORA: Ha ha ha ha! Did he say that, Paul Holmes? ….[Long pause to indicate mourning]…. Peter Sinclair was cerebral. He wrote some very insightful columns.
GINETTE McDONALD: How smart he was and how vulnerable! What a sacrifice it is to be a public figure!
MORA: We could riff on THAT for the next ten minutes!
….Several minutes later….
MORA: Mahhh-vellous! I’ll never forget your interview with Sir Elton John! He ADORED you!
….Later….
GINETTE McDONALD: I think the young are completely mahhhh-vellous!
—-Eight Months to Mars, Afternoons with Jim Mora, Radio NZ National, Monday 11 February 2013
Yes indeed. I have tried listening to this stuff for as long as I can bear, in the hope that something useful might be discussed. But always I have to end by either switching off or changing to another channel, before my brain dissolves.
This poll is a concern and the flatness of the past polls is a concern. Between now and the spring the Caucus need to reform itself dramatically. It is possible.
As Toby Manhire suggested in the Herald last week “..the promotion of an MP who had served his time would project strength, evidence of the leader’s vaunted experience in conciliation..”
I’d add to that the early retirement of Goff, King and Mallard coupled with the appointment of new managers in Shearer’s office who are NOT selected by Grant Robertson. Shearer has to stop what he is currently doing. It is not working. He needs to create a new team.
Cunliffe seems to be more focused than ever on his portfolio. He continues to show that he can engage with business people and issues as well as with the workers, consumers and the disenfranchised. His recent contributions to debates in Parliament show he is more centered than ever. Cunliffe looks like a guy who has learned from whatever was done to him last year. He has demonstrated that he can swallow a rat, and get on with folk in the beltway as well a burbs.
Shearer has the choice: to continue as is or to make a change.
Go on Shearer, make the necessary changes, now, refresh and position yourself to get our score out of the low 30s and into the 40s.
Your last chance.
Don’t confuse Obama with Gandhi: Norman Finkelstein
At UBC on January 21, 2009, the day after Obama’s inauguration, Norman Finkelstein gave a short speech about his research into the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi. He claims there is no comparison between Gandhi, who gave up his life to a cause he believed in, and Barack Obama, who is merely a clever politician coasting on a wave of change that he didn’t work to create.
So today in Christchurch we will hear how Brownlee will lump a giant great dull convention centre right onto two of the very best blocks of CBD Christchurch so that all manner of private business can do private business. Brownlee will require the ratepayers to pay for these private businesses.
Why don’t private businesses pay for their private business? I thought Brownlee and his ilk believed in user-pays and the free market and not corporate handouts or picking winners? Why do they force elderly ratepayers to pay for them?
Secondly, a lumpen great convention centre is completely the wrong thing to place in that location. White elephant city here we come…..
i despair.
and so do countless others – witness the decaying hole of the donut city.
Christchurch central city rebuild is failing. I hope I am proved wrong.
When the work is complete, and Christchurch looks like the National Party, and violence and crime flourish, will it be too late to tear their monuments to greed and corruption down? Of course not!
Well that’s kind of what is hoped for – that given the time it will take to bring these giant monuments to fruition and given that time and tide and new and different governments and councils will come and go and shoulder and shove and pull and push these projects all around and they will get variously dumped and amended and shrunken and expanded as the will of the peoples dictate.
That is the hope.
But when all you have is hope you have nothing (sorry JK (kirwan that is)…)
Apparently Lancaster Park, I mean Jade Stadium, oh I mean AMI Stadium, whatever the f… its current corporate tag is…. is not even bloody broken. It is apparently structurally sound and the only problem is that from one end of the field to the other the stadium drops 200mm.
That’s about 8 inches. About $45million to repair so the rumour goes. Why not leave it at that? And don’t tell visiting teams as we will then get the downhill advantage….
He certainly is a lot more fluent than Dave.
David Cunliffe should be and is ready to be the Leader of Labour, I didn’t really think so last year but he’s certainly developed a bit more humility and lost the arrogance and pompousness.
I guess having your colleagues lining up to kick you in the nads does that, tends to make you reassess your approach and how you do things.
Well, it’s a bit of a back-handed compliment to David Bennett, for knowing all the loopholes that needed to be ended, having specialised in fiddling farm accounts in the past.
Clearly David is a criminal mastermind…..according to the police.
Disregarding the new evidence, the crown story is just daft:
22 yr old David gets up, shoots 4 of his family in the house and then pops out to do the paper run as an alibi. Gets back home just in time to hide behind the curtains and snuff the old man. Then he just has to leave a wee note on the computer to implicate dad and then finally ring the police and turn on the water works.
Or as you suggest ,
An elderly man gets up , puts on his sons’ clothes and glasses, shoots 4 of his family. takes off his sons clothes, puts the bloodied clothes in the washing machine,
Changes his clothes, goes into the front room, logs on the family computer, types a note obsolving the son ,whos clothes hes just worn ,while murdering his family.
Shoots himself ,the guns’ mag falling out of the gun and landing on its edge beside Robin Bains’ ‘hand.
Robins. body found with no blood on him ,except his own.
David, who is found with his siblings blood on him. cant remember how he knows his family his dead, or why he waited 20 mins to ring an ambulance.
Sounds like something a defence lawyer would come up with.
It wouldn’t wash as an Agatha Christie novel.
Alternatively, dad wants to shoot his entire family except for one son. Equally bizarre.
Fortunately, we don’t have trial by TV or blogosphere.
Meanwhile, a relative of mine has to avoid watching the news for the next few days because every time pundits spout opinions (based solely on TV reports or the internet, which compete for the award for disseminating the most utter BS) or cheer their particular team, it reminds her how much she misses her friend, even after all this time.
Some folk try Agatha Christie whodunnits, others just don’t bother with hiding a murder-suicide. Arguing that one or the other could not be done because it sounds “just daft” in the cold light of day in my opinion shows a marked under-estimation of (to quote WSBurroughs) “just how far human kicks can go”.
I still have one question. What is the first thing most men do first thing after the get up? Have a piss . . . amirite or amitire?? So, how is it explained that Robin Bain didn’t empy his bladder before setting about murdering his family?
Don’t get me wrong, I believe this whole thing has been yet another ongoing, ochestrated miscarriage of justice perpetrated by, if not corrupt, then bumbling police officers aided and abetted by officious bureacrats and their babmboozled and indifferent politicians. Milton Weir . Kevin Anderson, Phill Goff, Crusher Collins, Peter Doone, Peter Robinson, Jim Doyle, Kim Jones, N C Jaine, B P Duncan . . . “when honor and the Law no longer stand on the same side of the line, how do we choose?”
I still have one question. What is the first thing most men do first thing after the get up? Have a piss . . . amirite or amitire?? So, how is it explained that Robin Bain didn’t empy his bladder before setting about murdering his family?
I would have thought that the body would have all sorts of overrides to normal biological functions when one was about to commit mass murder.
The full bladder, therefore victim, argument has no evidential weight.
This always supposes improbability Robin slept and committed crime soon after rising without emptying his bladder.
What evidence is there that Robin may not have had a sleepless night contemplating shooting his family or woke well before the shooting. In such scenarios he could easily have started with a partially full bladder and accumulated further urine during the activity of shooting his family.
I have not studied this David Bain case – but the thing that has always been the BIG question to me – is MOTIVE?
What MOTIVE did David Bain have to murder all these members of his family?”
The link you posted Penny goes to the review of the case that is damning of the police. We will never know who killed the Bain family, because the police didn’t do their job properly. What was the motive for that?
We will never know who killed the Bain family, because the police didn’t do their job properly. What was the motive for that
An excellent question, Weka!
Dunedin, moreso than many NZ cities, has a very dark history, one which includes police, politicians etc, being tied to organized, and underaged crime, and various other sadistic goings on.
Rather like it being, the Adelaide of NZ, if you will!
so, they want to intercept Skype? 1/3 of all internet traffic. Good luck with that Amy and co.
(You better you better you bet).
Seven Sharp characterize Assange as an “albino weasel”. Really?
DHB’s fail to meet safety stds (Health Quality and Safety Board).Only a 1/4 to a 1/3 of all DHB’s “doing enough” to prevent falls, infection etc.
RB seriously considering restrictions on low-deposit loans, first-home buyers not exempt. “Something has to be done to prevent damage (wreckage) to the financial system.”
This morning around the time on Morning Report about 7.45am that radionz reads out the headlines of the main papers I thought I heard that the Waikato Times had an item on spending by the NZ Forces likely to go into drones etc. I haven’t been able to track this down. Did anybody else hear the full mention, very short, or have seen it in a newspaper? I would like to look at it, hear it further.
In my day Joe, we believed everything that authorities told us. (Almost.) Now we should doubt everything that authorities tell us. Skills learnt to predict the bad guy in a stirring”whodunnit” will nowadays be focussed on real authority figures selling real misinformation. My brain hurts.
Message to Christine Rankin …
A Doz size 7 eggs are on special at New World for $3.99.
That’s great aye Krussy?
That means the kuds can live on weetbix and milk for breakfast (at 57cents?); noodles for lunch; and egg and toast for dinner for the next week.
Well I know mine couldn’t possibly have, but as you know Krussy Rankin seems to know better.
(i.e. basing her experiences of a couple of decades ago transposed on today’s reality).
They’d probably have to be raw eggs as well, given the lack of electricity.
So little birdies on the twittery grapevine saying things about how that there Auckland Council voted 10-7 that they weren’t interested in some deal involving no skycity and some pokies and a convention centre so that’s a thing.
The comments list seems to becoming overwhelmed with some material from Gaza GPJA.. And Karol’s one on Women receiving awards also extra long, the wording of headings if too long is hard to read.
Remember last year? When ABC were using Garner and Gower to dump on Cunliffe … all off the record, whispering in the dark, using the TV3 twins to push their self-serving agenda.
It’s on again. But this time Shearer is the target. Remember there are no real Shearer supporters, they were Parker supporters a couple of weeks before the leadership ballot in 2011, they just wanted a front man, and Shearer got the nod.
Turns out he’s not up to the job (who could have guessed, eh?) so they’re leaking into Gower’s ear (eww) and tonight on TV3 they got him to do their work – it’s their usual method. And the next idiot who says “Non-story! MSM!” try and think for a moment … who’s feeding him? And why?
Shearer will be dumped by the people who put him there. Next up, Robertson.
Yes. But don’t they need to put it to a full membership vote? They may try to go for someone like Andrew Little, or Jacinda Ardern. They are short on options.
But I thought Gower was supposed to have pretty much made everything up last time to make headlines? But this time he’s being fed?
Or maybe last time “ABC” fed gower the idea of a Cunliffe coup in order to discredit cunliffe, (who didn’t need discrediting if he wasn’t planning a challenge), and this time they’re feeding gower the idea of a caucus challenge because, well, whatever.
Or maybe gower realises his paycheck rests on taking unwary comments and blowing them out of proportion. Where’s the benefit in flagging a challenge months down the road? There is none.
Got that.
The reports gower was making last year about Shearer’s leadership facing a possible challenge within months were complete falsehoods spread by confidential sources. The reports gower is making right now about Shearer’s leadership facing a possible challenge within months are complete truths spread by confidential sources.
Did you see the story? Long, detailed quotes. Not somebody caught off guard, but somebody planting.
I said (and you ignored) Garner because it was his blog that started it all last year. A blog that was brought about by senior Labour MPs attacking Cunliffe – anonymously, of course.
Funny thing about anonymous attackers. You never know what was the actual quote and what is the intermediary’s little bit of editorialising. Sometimes they’re 100% accurate, sometimes it’s all just an invention by the intermediary, usually it’s somewhere in between. The point is, you can never know.
If s/he said the complete opposite, you’d be right. But if the reporter is the only one with recordings or notes of the meeting, there’s a lot of room for misinterpretation that wouldn’t ruin come to light.
And if a journo does burn a source who is expendable, what could the anonymous source do?
unless he got something slightly less clear cut, but he now has the lens through which everything can be interpreted and the mp is therefore no longer needed.
I mean, the difference is whether they had lunch for an hour and gower drew together disparate lines and placed less emphasis on qualifications and equivocations, or had a 2 minute chat in the john where the mp wasn’t interrupted at all and spoke straight into the recorder.
No, the difference is the quote marks. And it doesn’t matter if Gower is ignoring all the kumbayah stuff they may have said. They also said this stuff, to Gower, (and Dannat TVNZ). It’s deliberate that they said this stuff, it’s something they chose to do, to get a story like this.
I’ve been “quoted” in the paper once or twice – different hats back in the day. Just in the local pages, nothing earth shattering. Quotation marks seemed to be largely similar to the role of the target in the Texas Sharpshooter analogy.
And that’s without the interview style “would you say something roughly along the lines of xxxxxx?” “yes”.
What is the problem with someone saying that Shearer has to either demonstrate that he can get his performance right or step aside?
What is the problem with telling the media?
The Membership and the public would like to know that the Party leaders are taking the continual poll paralysis seriously.
The sooner the Leadship issue is opened to a proper debate the better.
But according to the “Shearer’s a patsy” theory, doesn’t that mean that I’d be undermining shearer at this time so Robertson can take the leadership?
But of course your justification for that delusion is even more tenuous than CV’s guess: it consists solely of amateur-hour content pattern analysis. Even a political news editor would regard that as a bit thin.
By the way, your content analysis is as mistaken as your trend analysis.
There has been one Labour MP who has been providing information to Gower. This goes back a long way ….. Gower himself has mentioned in passing the name of that MP when I was with a small group of people a few years ago.
Labour leader David Shearer has been put on two months’ notice by his own MPs – if the poll ratings don’t improve, his leadership will be challenged.
A Labour MP told 3 News today that Mr Shearer had until spring – two months away – to pick up his and Labour’s performance.
The MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “The caucus is just really flat. It’s not panic or anxiety just yet, but a couple more bad polls and it will be. David’s got a couple more months. A change in leadership cannot be ruled out before the end of the year.
“Spring time is when people will get really nervous, just over a year out from the election. We don’t want to get into the “Goff-zone”, where it’s too late to change the leader, but you’ve got someone in there the public just don’t want -the phone is just off the hook.”
It is rare for Labour MPs to speak so openly of leadership concerns.
The MP who spoke to 3 News is not a loyal supporter of leadership rival David Cunliffe. That makes the comments more significant as it shows there are broader concerns in the caucus about Mr Shearer’s performance.
Meanwhile Mr Shearer was on the by-election battlefield of Ikaroa-Rawhiti with Meka Whaitiri, Labour’s candidate for the seat.
There he vowed to be the Labour leader come the next general election.
3 News
let’s refresh everyone on the basis you have for saying that Robertson and I are “old friends”. I said:
The only relationship I have with Robertson is that he was present of the students’ association at about the same time I started uni.
From that you draw a long bow from “uni at roughly the same time”, through “actually spoke to each other at the time” all the way to “are friends” [present tense = “are friends now”]. And spout on as if it’s fact.
this would be the brilliant tactic of creating rumours of a cunliffe challenge because mallard didn’t want cunliffe to be leader, even though cunliffe was extremely loyal and in no way going to challenge.
No challenge = no need to purposefully create rumours.
But if there was a challenge, gower didn’t need mallard to make anything up.
The MP who spoke to 3 News is not a loyal supporter of leadership rival David Cunliffe. That makes the comments more significant as it shows there are broader concerns in the caucus about Mr Shearer’s performance.
That suggests to me the MP was a member of the broader caucus and not notably aligned at any point to either the Shearer or the Cunliffe camp.
That’s why I said at any point. The Robertson/Parker acolytes joined with the Shearer-ites once the deals were done. One faction leader got deputy and the other finance. I’m inclined to think this was someone who kept in the background during the leadership battle and its aftermath.
Great, more Labour MPs spilling their guts to news reporters. Also, I’m pretty sure that apart from a very few MPs, there is no actual “Shearer camp”.
EDIT ffs, this Labour caucus instability is Hooten’s wet dream planned well over a year ago, coming true. I’m just amazed though that none of us on The Standard spotted the plan before.
The leader is (usually) not in Parliament on Thursday – today he was campaigning in Ikaroa-Rawhiti. So it’s safe to talk to the gallery, cat’s away, mice play …
In unrelated news, Trevor Mallard *was* in Parliament today.
I can’t believe someone from Caucus chose to leak this to Gower instead of working within caucus to bring a resolution to the Leadership problem. Unbelievable, I don’t think we can blame Hooten for this, I’m afraid that Labour is seriously fucked if a senior member of caucus has gone to the media with this.
Who ever it is is putting their ambitions ahead of the Party’s (Its per emptive, Shearer is gone!)…they need to be outed. Clearly it is the same person who set up Cunliffe in November. This person is poisonous, Labour will never succeed with this person within its ranks IMO.
Hmmm, I thought the whole point was that Shearer was put in to prevent Cunliffe, and he would then later be rolled to get who the ABCs really want. At least that’s what the Standardistas were talking about last year.
Sorry Saarbo, but it’s a given that too many Labour MPs put their own careers ahead of the good of the party.
btw, Labour MPs playing bullshit internal politics and Hooton having his hand in things are not mutually exclusive.
Y’all know I’m neither a LP member nor list voter, so take this as whatever.
But this stuff hurts your party. From now till ‘spring’ Gower has been given an explicit narrative. All political stories will now be in the frame of “What does this mean for Shearer’s position as leader’.
You might think “So, what’s new?” and fair enough, but this has made it official. It’s a Labour party framing, the media don;t need to speculate that caucus is looking, they can state it all as fact.
So LP members should be writing letters and making calls to your mps, and letting them know that this anonymous sniping should stop, and that whoever is doing it should launch a challenge and get this ball rolling. You’ve got your new process, it will take time, but it needs to be put to bed, and that can only happen one way or the other through a vote. Untill the party wide vote happens, this story will run, and Labour will not look like a govt in waiting. That vote needs to happen as soon as possible.
Have the bloody NATs been taking lessons from the UK tories? Conservative Government has just announced a massive £100B infrastructure and social housing build plan…but none of it starts for at least 4 years.
This is more bullshit “things will get better in the future” BAU messaging.
So if Labour falls below 30% will people here finally admit, “hey we’re in trouble here” or will you be like bob dole who thought because his cousin friend in tempe was going to vote for him, hes still in with a chance.
Every 2 or 3 fortnightly Morgan polls I have a look at the trends. Basically I am ignoring jitter.
I essentially ignore the other polls as they happen so infrequently for each poll as to be useless because of their infrequencies and that they only seem to make and effort to get an accurate population sample close to the election – which is why they always have dramatic shifts then.
As far as I can see, most people here do the same. Reading the right blogs is amusing. Many if not most seem to largely ignore Morgan despite its sampling rate and despite the fact that it seldom shifts much leading into an election and is usually the most accurate. Instead they concentrate on the infrequent polls with piss poor track records.
I guess they are either credulous fools with little understanding of statistics, or they are credulous fools with delusions that the “big lie” technique keeps working.
in the roy morgan, I probably would. Especially if it was coupled with a noticable reversal in the trend (as opposed to a single 8-point drop from 37%).
You can relax McFlock. The true mean of support for Labour sits on or very close to 32%. It’s very unlikely that it will fall under 30%, except perhaps momentarily.
I get the impression that you pray it does dip below 30%, otherwise all the helpul advice for Labour you’ve offered here is just useless horseshit you’ve been spouting since feb 2012.
Either someone is manipulating iPredict to push their point, or there really has been backroom talk over the last few weeks and the leak is just it eventuating.
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Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the new figures for COVID-19 (as we must now call the novel coronavirus – though I’m not sure the capitalisation is correct) from Hubei province:Image from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51495484The spike yesterday is a consequence of a using a different way of ...
Bob Jones has dropped his defamation case against Renae Maihi. Good. But at the same time, it perfectly exposes what the case was all about: not protecting Jones' reputation, but punishing someone who had dared to criticise him, and deterring others from doing the same. This rich pompous asshat dragged ...
As I've done for the past few years, I'm curating and presenting The Listening Lounge, the talk programme at Splore. On the morning of Saturday the 22nd at the Living Lounge stage, the korero goes like this.Yes, we're talking about drugs again, not just because I'm professionally interested in drug ...
What Were They Thinking? RNZ's CEO Paul Thompson (left) and Jim Mather, Chairman of the RNZ Board of Governors, attempt to justify the debacle arising out of their attempt to downgrade RNZ Concert to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee at Parliament on Thursday, 13 February 2020.WHAT IS ...
Dame Tariana Turia with former PM John KeyWhat is it about Tariana Turia’s grudge against the Labour Party? Not content with attacking the Government over Whānau Ora funding, which was increased by $80 million in 2019, she has now made it personal by saying that Jacinda Ardern is out of her ...
Back in 2017, right after being elected, Jacinda Ardern promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. Since then, her government has done nothing to make that happen, and now the policy has been officially "parked" for the election:West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the "no new ...
So the guy who advocated for public burning and beheading feels offended because someone called him a racist!Perhaps Bob Jones hasn't heard of the very old saying; Live by the sword, die by the sword?I mean for someone who often writes opinionated nonsense about Maori; this is a ridiculous case ...
The government today announced a major support package aimed at reducing homelessness. A thousand new transitional housing places, more support for people to find homes (or not lose them in the first place), all good stuff. The one problem with it is that they're going to start charging people in ...
Courtroom Drama: There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the ...
As of today, the novel coronavirus spreading in China is called COVID-19. Why does it matter? Around the office, we’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks about how 2019-nCoV needed its own name. First, it was getting annoying calling it by the above designation, and ‘novel coronavirus’ doesn’t ...
by Philip Ferguson Last month B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported: “In 2019, Israeli security forces killed 133 Palestinians, including 28 minors. Of the casualties, 104 were killed in the Gaza Strip, 26 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and three within ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) (Brett Hudson)Its basicly more "tough on crime" nonsense (its already illegal for unlicensed people to own guns) designed to wedge NZ First against its arsehole base. ...
In 2015 the world agreed to the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. Each country would offer a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) "that it intends to achieve", and "pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving [it]". And every five years, they'd improve on it, ratcheting up ambition until ...
In theory, the emissions trading scheme should reduce emissions. Making polluters pay for permits to pollute lets them save money by reducing pollution, giving them a financial incentive to do the right thing. But right from the start the ETS was broken with a system of free allocation, so polluters ...
Irish voters went to the polls on Saturday in parliamentary elections, and perhaps delivered a political revolution. Since independence, Irish politics has been dominated by two parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Basicly patronage networks with indistinguishable policies, their cleavage isn't ideology, but who killed whose father or grandfather in ...
Once again the Aotearoa Bike Challenge is on us, and once again I’m participating. In principle this is not hard because it does not represent a significant switch in behavior for me. I already bike nearly every day. The Bicycle The fascinating thing about cycling is the realisation that this ...
Lately there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding the origins and purpose of Skeptical Science. As John Cook wrote nearly a decade ago, Skeptical Science is primarily a website that debunks climate misinformation with peer-reviewed science. Despite the ever-worsening impacts from climate change, with record after record being broken in ...
Under Attack: By sacking not only RNZ Concert’s presenters, but also its producers and librarians, and reducing the station to an automated purveyor of classical music in-between parliamentary broadcasts, RNZ’s CEO, Paul Thompson, wasn’t simply announcing an operational shake-up, he was declaring war on one of the most important guardians of ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Australian smoke plume sets recordsThe recent wildfires in Australia sent one of ...
The Global Protest to #FightInequality was powerful – thankyou and what next? Dear allies, We started the decade with a huge protest to #FightInequality that was heard around the world, including the 1% at Davos. Watch and share the highlights on facebook and twitter. A huge thank you. Together we ...
The Ministry of Health have announced a package that might ensure NZ will never experience another measles epidemic. While at the time of writing the details are still limited it appears that the important limitations in our current programme have been acknowledged and the intent is to address them. Great ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael BakerIn this blog we briefly summarise our assessment of the highly uncertain new coronavirus threat. Given its potential to become a severe and prolonged global pandemic, a precautionary response now means activating all components of our pandemic plan, with a particular focus on ‘keep ...
When Labour was running for election, Jacinda Ardern famously said that climate change was "my generation's nuclear free moment". The implication was that her government would take the problem seriously, and act swiftly to reduce emissions. The reality:New Zealand will emit a million more tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2020 ...
James Renwick is Professor of Physical Geography at Victoria University of Wellington. He studied at Canterbury and the University of Washington and has worked on diverse aspects of climate science, including global atmospheric circulation and Antarctic sea ice. In December 2019 he was appointed to the New Zealand Climate Change ...
by Philip Ferguson Exit polls are showing a three-way virtual tie between the main parties in the south of Ireland. Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are all on just over 22%. FG on 22.4, SF on 22.3, FF on 22.2. Exit polls indicate that over 30% of 18-24 ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 2, 2020 through Sat, Feb 8, 2020 Editor's Pick New Report Details How Fossil Fuel Industry's Climate Destruction Also Exacerbates Human Rights Abuses"Even in the face of the ...
In a previous post I described briefly when and how the Starlink satellite chains – recent launches by Space-X in a scheme to bring 5G internet connectivity to the whole globe – could be seen from New Zealand with the naked eye. Here I provide an update and predictions for ...
Keeping The Faith: This Government’s broad, new, heavily moderated, progressive faith does not require a prime minister with the powers of a medieval pope. Jacinda’s regime has no need of subterranean torture chambers to ensure compliance. A gift for diplomacy and the ability to inspire her fellow human-beings is all ...
Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian has penned a column which chastises the left wing of the Labour party for daring to retain principles and ideals, qualities - it seems - that should be jettisoned in pursuit of power.Never mind that Freedland was an ardent Remainer, that is to say, one ...
Tonight’s news suggests the coronavirus outbreak may have originated from pangolins. Details are very sketchy, almost nothing at all beyond a claim of high similarity. My impression is this claim comes from a press release by South China Agricultural University. Initial discussion online suggests this is a more likely candidate ...
by Susanne Kemp The Fire and Emergency service (FENZ) has recently asked firefighters in Auckland Areas 3, 4 and 5 to take on an additional duty that has rather ominous implications. Namely, to collect names and addresses of everyone on the premises of fires they attend. The firefighters’ union, the ...
Part of the story of the Nazis' rise to power in Germany was the willingness of mainstream right-wing parties to work with them to keep out the left. Because of this, one of the fundamental rules of postwar German politics has been "do not work with Nazis". As a result, ...
There has long been a truism in public broadcasting: don't mess with Concert FM. The theory was that although the station has been in a long-term audience decline, and that audience is steadily ageing out, it has powerful establishment support – and any threat to it would provoke a fury.As ...
This is a re-post from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The heat absorbed in Earth’s oceans reached a new record in 2019, found a recent study published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. Despite the fact that this has been the case for almost every year over the past decade, this information ...
We are confronted with the spectre of Simon Bridges making clear he cannot, will not, trust Winston Peters – the oft-cited “King Maker” in New Zealand politics.Supporters are lauding it as a master stroke, naturally, because in their eyes, it prevents him being the tail that wags the dog. ...
by Don Franks Under a government claiming empathy with the fine arts, Radio New Zealand ( RNZ) is poised to cut back its classical music station, RNZ Concert. The plan is replacing it on FM radio with music “for a younger audience” as part of a new multimedia music brand. ...
More Thwaites This past week we heard disturbing news about Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier. Helping to fill in the longer term history of Thwaites' behavior and especially helpful in interpreting results of the recent drilling project and what it may say about the future of this unstable mass of ice is Revealing the ...
Inaccuracies are very common in scientific paper abstracts. Image credit:Science in the Abstract: Don’t Judge a Study by its Cover I have come to accept anti-fluoride campaigners will never stop cherry-picking research and findings ...
“The scene is set, the players met…”. And what players they are in this farce of an Election coming up in the United States this year. There is a multi-faceted anger in the broader situation the world finds itself in, in which the false promises of so-called “moderates” find themselves ...
A few years ago, a company lowballed a contract to dispose of toxic waste from the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. So, they dumped it in a disused paper mill in Mataura, then went into liquidation - effectively dumping the problem on local councils. The waste is dangerous - it releases ...
Unhappy with the demonisation of Iran in Western media, I was fortunate to have the Australian Institute of International Affairs invite me to write an alternative analysis for their on-line journal Australian Outlook. I did, and they serialised it into two parts. The essays are short, so I did not ...
Over on The Good Society, Max Rashbrooke suggests that its time to start directly taxing wealth:A wealth tax would be levied on net wealth – that is, the value of people’s assets once their debts have been subtracted. Such a tax would be highly redistributive. Levied at 1% on wealth ...
The quarterly labour market statistics have been released, and unemployment has dropped to 4%. There are now 111,000 unemployed - 15,000 fewer than when Labour took office. Its not the performance we had under Clark (when unemployment was ~3.3%), but its still a reasonable improvement over prevailing conditions under National. ...
Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick Wilson, Louise Delany, Prof Richard Edwards, Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanThe current national measles epidemic in New Zealand is amongst the largest we have experienced in the last 40 years. It can be linked to the problems created by long-term erosion and fragmentation of national public health ...
I’m about to start teaching science communication to tertiary students, which is equally hilarious and terrifying to me. (Hi to my students who have Googled me and found this post.) I loved English at high school, but we spent most of our time reading The Outsiders, discussing the differences between metaphors and ...
Space-X has started launching its Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit with a plan to use some tens of thousands of these to deliver 5G wifi to the whole globe. Chains of these satellites can be seen in the evening or before-dawn skies, through the sunlight they scatter. Here I provide ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Broadcasting New Zealand First supports the commissioning of a business case to assess the viability of a new public media entity. “A strong media environment is critical for a healthy democracy. New Zealand First is a strong supporter of a diverse, independent media,” New Zealand First broadcasting spokesperson ...
Pounamou and technology industries in the West Coast region are set to receive more than $2 million in Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) funding. This was announced by the Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau during Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika. He said $800,000 would be given to Development West ...
Clayton Mitchell MP, New Zealand First spokesperson for Labour and Industrial Relations Unemployment and wage growth numbers released by Stats NZ today demonstrate a labour market in good shape with unemployment falling to 4.0%, the underutilisation rate falling to an 11 year low, and wage growth at a 10-year high ...
Hon. Ron Mark, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence Ron Mark, welcomes the official opening of Te Rau Aroha, a new museum at Waitangi Treaty Grounds as part of our Coalition Agreement. “It is a great honour to be part of an effective Government ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterGood morning,Let us start with important acknowledgements.First, this special day, in remembrance of the 28th Maori Battalion, is also to honour all those men and women who have risked their lives in the service of our country.Second, special guest Robert ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand will look to build on its relationship with the United Kingdom and recommit to the European Union, after the country officially left the continental union recently. The Minister said New Zealand already cooperates closely with Britain on defence and security issues and has ...
New Zealanders are increasingly better off under this Government as wages rise and families have more disposable income, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ reported today that average household disposable incomes after housing costs rose 4.9% in 2019. This was the highest rise in four years and came as ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
Today the Government is making progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in Parliament. “This Bill includes a series of reforms to improve the wellbeing of the 609,700 households that live in rented homes, and ...
A Government programme to wipe out pea weevil has achieved a world first, with Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor today announcing the successful eradication of the noxious pest from Wairarapa. This means the nearly four-year ban on pea plants and pea straw was lifted today. Commercial and home gardeners can again grow ...
Southland residents hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall can now access help finding temporary accommodation with the Government activating the Temporary Accommodation Service, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare announced today. “The Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) has been activated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to help ...
“Is that it?” That’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response to Simon Bridges’ much-hyped economic speech today. “Simon Bridges just gave the most over-hyped and under-delivered speech that I can remember during my time in politics,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s not surprising. Simon Bridges literally said on the radio this morning ...
A trial deployment of the Police Eagle helicopter in Christchurch will test whether the aircraft would make a significant difference to crime prevention and community safety. “The Bell 429 helicopter will be based in Christchurch for five weeks, from 17 February to 20 March,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The ...
The Government has kept up the pace of its work to promote New Zealand’s trade interests and diversify our export markets, with visits to Fiji and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. Building momentum to bring the PACER Plus trade and development agreement ...
The Coalition Government’s investment in a strong border and disrupting transnational organised crime produced record results for stopping drugs in 2019, says Minister of Customs Jenny Salesa. The illegal drugs were seized at the New Zealand border by Customs, and overseas by Customs’ international border partners before the drugs could ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off construction of a separated cycleway alongside Tamaki Drive. A two-way separated cycleway will be built along the northern side of Tamaki Drive, between the Quay Street Cycleway extension and Ngapipi Road. There will be a separate walking path alongside. Phil Twyford said giving ...
Owner-occupiers of unit and apartments living in earthquake-prone buildings will have certainty about the financial support they’ll be eligible for with the release of criteria for an upcoming assistance scheme, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. The Residential Earthquake-Prone Building Financial Assistance Scheme will help unit owners facing ...
Temporary restrictions on travel from China will remain in place as a precautionary measure to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The restrictions which prevent foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through, mainland China from entering New Zealand have been extended for a further 8 days. This position ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today that Tairāwhiti rangatahi will benefit from an investment made by the Government’s He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) scheme. The funding will go to the Tautua Village, Kauneke programme and the Matapuna Supported Employment Programme which will fund 120 rangatahi over two years. “Both programmes work ...
All parents and caregivers need to ensure that their children go to school unless they are sick, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin said today. “The school attendance results for 2019 show, across the board, a drop in the number of students going to school regularly,” the Minister says. “Apart from ...
A Deed of Settlement agreeing redress for historical Treaty claims has been signed by the Crown and Moriori at Kōpinga Marae on Rēkohu (Chatham Islands) today, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little has announced. Moriori have a tradition of peace that extends back over 600 years. This settlement ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today with Māori King Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII officially opened the country’s newest road, the $384 million Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway. The 15km four-lane highway with side and central safety barriers takes State Highway 1 east of Huntly town, across lowlands and streams ...
The rapid uptake of life-saving new hepatitis C medicine Maviret since it was funded by PHARMAC a year ago means the elimination of the deadly disease from this country is a realistic goal, Health Minister David Clark says. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus which attacks the liver, proving fatal ...
Kaupapa Māori will underpin the Government’s new plan to deal with homelessness announced by the Prime Minister in Auckland this morning. “Māori are massively overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness, so, to achieve different outcomes for Māori, we have to do things very differently,” says the Minister of Māori Development ...
1000 new transitional housing places delivered by end of year to reduce demand for emergency motel accommodation. Introduce 25% of income payment, after 7 days, for those in emergency motel accommodation to bring in line with other forms of accommodation support. Over $70m extra to programmes that prevents those at ...
Clear requirements for ensuring customers are treated fairly by banks, insurers and other financial service providers are included in new financial conduct legislation that passed its first reading today. “The recent reviews, by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and Reserve Bank of New Zealand, into the conduct of banks and ...
Applications are now open for the fifth round of the Regional Culture and Heritage Fund Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Grant Robertson announced today. “I am delighted to open this year’s fund which has some $7 million available to support performing arts venues, galleries, museums and whare ...
The Minister of Māori Development, Hon Nanaia Mahuta today congratulated Associate Professor Amokura Kawharu on her appointment as the next President of the Law Commission. “Amokura Kawharu will be a standout in her new role, leading in an innovative and forward looking approach to the law reform process. She will ...
Auckland University legal academic Amokura Kawharu has been appointed as the next President of the Law Commission, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. Associate Professor Kawharu will take up her new appointment on 11 May 2020. “I would like to congratulate Associate Professor Kawharu on her appointment,” Andrew ...
A programme for employers to help them engage effectively with younger employees was launched today by Minister of Employment, Willie Jackson. The Youth Ready Employer Programme contains a range of on-line templates that employers can easily access to help with employing and retaining young people in their businesses. The programme ...
Budget 2020 will be delivered on Thursday 14 May, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “This year’s Budget will continue the Coalition Government’s focus on tackling the long-term challenges facing New Zealand while also preparing the economy for the future. “Those challenges and opportunities cannot be resolved in one budget, ...
I move, That this House place on record its appreciation and thanks for the devoted and distinguished service to New Zealand by the late Rt Hon Michael Kenneth Moore, member of the Order of New Zealand, a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, an Honorary Member of the ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has today classified the drought conditions in Northland as an adverse event for the primary sector, unlocking $80,000 in Government support. “This is recognition that the extreme and prolonged nature of this dry spell is taking its toll on our farmers and growers and additional support ...
The Minister of Police says an operation to smash a trans national drug smuggling ring today will make a significant impact on the methamphetamine trade fuelling harm in our communities. Police have announced 10 arrests and the seizure of up to five million dollars’ worth of illicit drugs after an ...
The Government’s books are in a strong position to withstand global headwinds, with the accounts in surplus and expenses close to forecast, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown accounts for the six months to December. The operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) was above ...
Race courses can improve safety with this year’s second round of funding from the Racing Safety Development Fund. Minister for Racing Winston Peters has announced the second funding round of 2019/20 is open with $347,875 available for distribution. “The racing industry is integral to the economic and social fabric of ...
The Government is committing $300,000 to fund research to update behavioural information to make sure HIV and STI prevention services are targeted appropriately in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson made the announcement at today’s Big Gay Out in Auckland. “There is much talk about ...
The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media has announced work will begin on a business case to assess the viability of forming a new public media entity. “The Government must ensure New Zealanders have a strong independent public media service for decades to come, which means ensuring public ...
Minister of Civil Defence Hon Peeni Henare announced today that the Government will contribute $100,000 to the Southland regional Mayoral Relief Fund, to support communities impacted by the recent flooding in Southland. Mr Henare says this week’s flooding has caused significant disruption to communities in the lower South Island. ...
Heritage buildings throughout New Zealand will benefit from the $1.1 million in Heritage EQUIP funding grants announced today. “These grants for seismic strengthening projects help private building owners get the advice they need to start building work or to get the work completed,” Grant Robertson says. “Timaru’s Grosvenor Hotel has ...
A new survey has found New Zealand’s game development sector has grown beyond expectations and is on track to becoming a billion dollar industry in 2025, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford says. “New Zealand’s interactive media sector grew by 42 per cent in last financial year to $203.4 million, according ...
Te Tii, the lower marae at Waitangi, is among more than 70 marae now connected to broadband internet thanks to the Provincial Growth Fund’s marae connectivity scheme, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said today. In February 2019, the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) allocated $21 million to connect rural towns ...
The West Coast has had a funding injection of over $1.2 million from the Provincial Growth Fund, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika today. The PGF projects announced are: $800,000 to Development West Coast for a Grey District Regional Digital Hub ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has declared an adverse event for the Southland and Otago regions, unlocking Government support for farmers and growers. “Widespread flooding has resulted in severe disruption, with many people evacuated from their homes and many farms being affected by flood waters. It’s putting pressure on our farmers, ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Fresh developments around in the political donations saga, the Chinese ambassador speaks out, and some troubling poll numbers for advocates of cannabis law reform.The Serious Fraud Office is formally investigating the operations of the NZ First Foundation. The confirmation came in ...
ReadingRoom literary editor Steve Braunias interviews Dr Gwendoline Smith about how terrible it is to think too much.Certainly I overthink things, in the sense that I worry and fret and angst, but not in the sense that I actually think very deeply or intelligently. It’s more ...
A major report by the Auditor-General on how New Zealand's drinking, storm and waste waters are managed finds a conflicting, disorganised and stagnant system ill-prepared for climate change. Dileepa Fonseka reports. ...
The 10-year-old girl from Tawa who cherished a cricket bat signed by her 2000 World Cup heroes, now wants to spur a new crop of cricketers through her own swashbuckling deeds. In a recent column looking ahead to the T20 World Cup starting in Australia this week, Sophie Devine wrote that she “hoped to inspire ...
Transforming diseases into foes and therapies into battles isn’t the best way to face contagion. Annemarie Jutel asks: When did panic and catastrophe help anyone organise anything? Public anxiety and nations’ responses to coronavirus (COVID-19) have been shaped by the hyperbolic metaphors surrounding its discussion. Even the usually sedate and measured ...
Overworked and stressed teachers, overcrowded classrooms and substandard nutrition have ECE at crisis point. ECE teacher Susan Bates explains why everyone should care. If you want to know what NZ society might look like in the future, look into the eyes of the young children in your neighbourhood. Ask yourself ...
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Manchester City and the Houston Astros are latest inductees into the sports hall of shame. Dirty, rotten cheats. Calculated, cynical, premeditated, habitual, recidivist, despicable cheats. Committed cheats. Add Manchester City and the Houston Astros to a gallery of shame occupied for all eternity by Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Ben Johnson, ...
The dreaded pea weevil is no more in the Wairarapa, after a successful eradication effort. So why does this matter? OK, what on earth is a pea weevil?It’s a type of leaf beetle, so not actually a weevil after all, but the name is the name. Basically it gets into pea ...
Controversial Australian philosopher Peter Singer is coming to New Zealand in June. While he believes in reducing suffering for all humans and animals, his views on disability have sparked widespread alarm and condemnation.Utilitarian and moral philosopher Peter Singer is best known by many for the parable of the drowning child, ...
Sharon Brettkelly gets a rare look at the internal workings of Immigration New Zealand - and we look at what's holding up visa applications. Immigration New Zealand's Henderson office is like any other, with rows of workers at their computers. But in this workplace the lives of tens of thousands ...
Alex Casey delivers her seventh power rankings for The Bachelorette NZ, where a group of intruders have herniated the competition’s intestines forever. Click here for previous instalments. Welcome back to The Bachelorette NZ, where everything is made up and every man is suddenly named Mike. Intruders! Five of them! A whole ...
By Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila Solicitor-General Jose Calida asked the Supreme Court today to issue a gag order against ABS-CBN, claiming the Philippines’ largest television network was engaging in “propaganda” to sway the justices in the quo warranto case seeking to void its franchise. Calida filed the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karen R Fisher, Professor, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for young children with disability is not equal across Australia. Where you live can hinder access to information about disability support, assistance to apply for ...
The New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations applauds the changes to the Residential Tenancies Act released by the government yesterday but does not believe that they go far enough to improving the rights of renters. The power imbalance in the current ...
The Prime Minister will take no action against Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, after confirmation of a Serious Fraud Office investigation. ...
Eamonn Marra’s debut novel makes a study of the mundane: sanding a fence, heating baked beans, three pizzas for $29.99 delivered. Alie Benge reckons it belongs somewhere between Sally Rooney and Elena Ferrante. It was about page three of 2000ft Above Worry Level. A feeling burst inside me: the joy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzie Gibson, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Charles Sturt University The gothic developed as a European architectural phenomenon in 12th-century France, where awe-inspiring cathedrals reflected a world drenched in religious piety and superstition. Its veneration was revisited in 18th-century English literature, when ...
Financial services company Heartland Bank has reported a solid lift in its first-half profit driven by increased lending despite a squeeze on margins and rising costs. ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, e-bikes are now just a tap away! Josie Adams reviews the latest disruption in transport culture.When Lime launched in 2018, New Zealand’s transport culture got the electric shock it needed. For too long we’d ...
Ministers love to bray about the seizing of illegal drugs. Customs statistics on seizures last year – albeit “preliminary” statistics – therefore were irresistible to Customs Minister Jenny Salesa. They gave her a platform to remind us of her existence as a Minister while acknowledging the work of her officials. ...
The rise of ‘plant-based’ diets seems like a win for those who decry eating meat. But some vegan groups claim the halfway step of vegetarianism is ineffectual if you really care about animal cruelty, climate change, or your own personal health.An article in the Guardian last year asked “Why do ...
FIRST Union General Secretary Dennis Maga says that this morning’s comments from National Party Finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith that the party would consider scrapping the Government’s proposed minimum wage increases if elected ...
The State Housing Action Network (SHAN) is deeply disappointed that the Government’s recently announced Aotearoa Homelessness Action Plan fails to provide for increases in the state housing stock which are essential for addressing the homelessness crisis. ...
Electricity retailers will no longer be able to entice former customers with steep and exclusive discounts, the Electricity Authority has announced. ...
The National Party leader Simon Bridges says it came as a surprise to him that the Serious Fraud Office prosecution relates to two $100,000 donations to the party. ...
National Party leader Simon Bridges says it came as a surprise to him that a Serious Fraud Office prosecution relates to two $100,000 donations to the party. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne The federal court’s rejection of the ABC case against the Australian Federal Police raid on its Sydney headquarters in June 2019 reveals two issues of great importance to ...
Zero waste campaigners are petitioning the Government to take a more active stance in tackling Aotearoa New Zealand’s waste crisis, with a comprehensive ban on single-use disposable plastic food and drink serviceware, and a phasing in of accessible, reusable ...
“Callaghan Innovation’s $440,000 grant for an electric ferry design is pure corporate welfare,” says New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke. “If EV Maritime’s ferries present such good value, then why didn’t it get private ...
President Rodrigo Duterte takes legal action to shut down the biggest broadcaster in the Philippines in what is being described as the most severe attack on media freedom in the country. Video: Al JazeeraPacific Media Watch More than 500 journalists have gathered to protest threats to the survival ...
Pacific Media Centre Papua New Guinea’s Minister for State Enterprises Sasindran Muthuvel has reassured the nation that Air Niugini is taking all necessary steps to protect the country against the spread of coronavirus, reports EMTV News. “The airline has instituted a wide range of measures to minimise the risk ...
Our writers celebrate the best performances you can watch right now on NEON. Basically? They’re iconic.We all love a good story, and a great plot twist can turn a mediocre TV show into addictive weekly viewing. But what really keeps us coming back are the characters, and seeing actors at ...
National finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith has refused to give details on the party's planned tax cut policy announced in a speech by leader Simon Bridges yesterday. ...
The owners of three properties in Twizel will have to sell-up after they failed to seek consent from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO). Vanessa Horne, Group Manager for the OIO, says a group of overseas investors bought the three properties, which ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentNZ First donations scandal Guyon Espiner and Kate Newton (RNZ): NZ First Foundation trustee was lobbying for donor Bryce ...
A Southland school has been criticised for requiring girls to see a counsellor before opting to wear shorts as their uniform. It’s merely a symptom of a bigger problem, Madeleine Chapman writes.On Sunday, Stuff reported that James Hargest College in Southland would soon allow girls to wear shorts or pants ...
The Manawatu Tenants’ Union’ (MTU) celebrates yesterday’s release of the Residential Tenancies Act Reform Bill, but challenges the Minister to stil go further to improving tenancy rights. The Bill would remove the ability for landlords to terminate a tenancy ...
The Government is putting together an $11 million package to offset the fallout from coronavirus and attract tourists from countries other than China. ...
Friends of Sherwood are asking that the following question be put to all voters: “ Should New Zealand stop using all cruel and inhumane poisons, such as 1080, brodifacoum, and PAPP, to kill wildlife because these toxic substances inflict intense and prolonged, ...
Organise Aotearoa will be joining rallies for abortion law reform, scheduled today in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin. The National Day of Action is hosted by Fem Force - Feminist Action Aotearoa. “Nobody should be pressured to ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Biddle, Associate Professor, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University Last month, the Australian National University contracted with the Social Research Centre (SRC) to survey more than 3,000 Australian adults about their experiences and attitudes related to the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Davis, Professor of Law, UNSW In his Closing the Gap speech to parliament last week, the prime minister injected some order and transparency back into the constitutional recognition process. The PM anchored his government’s work on the co-design of a Voice ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Woods, Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney Heavily subsidised aged care services used to be seen as a right and entitlement for all older Australians. But as aged care demand grows and costs rise, it’s becoming increasingly clear the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carla Liuzzo, Sessional Lecturer, School of Business, Queensland University of Technology As a parent, I find it so frustrating to take my children shopping, reusable bags in hand, only to be offered plastic toys at the checkout. It’s an incredibly confusing message ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donna Mazza, Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts, Edith Cowan University Warning: this piece features frequent coarse language that may offend some readers. Since Adam Mansbuch’s 2011 bestseller, Go the Fuck to Sleep, book titles have been swearing profusely to grab audience attention. ...
Simon Bridges says National would cut taxes and invest much more than Labour in infrastructure, and with less waste. But he's holding back the detail, and got a key figure wrong. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Creative accounting around the ETS explored, Ardern goes to ground on Peters, and ACT criticised for keeping donation from extremist.Often when reporting on technical and thorny pieces of legislation, it helps to have a specialist reporter looking into it. Stuff’s Charlie Mitchell ...
Planners and hazard experts talk to Newsroom’s Eloise Gibson about how climate change will impact Auckland, and how good planning can help the city adapt. ...
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When it signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement, New Zealand pledged to increase its net greenhouse gas emissions by 10% across the 25 years to 2030. The latest government report shows with current policy settings it is on track to increase them by more than 20%. The challenge is acute ...
How are the children and grandchildren of Asian immigrants treading the line between immersion in a kiwi culture, and holding on to family traditions? ...
The $11 million tourism package announced after today’s Cabinet is a positive response. Auckland Business Chamber head Michael Barnett said possibly more important in the Prime Minister’s announcement was that further support was possible, as ...
By Joenner Paulo L. Enriquez and Ma. Alena O. Castillo in Manila Thomasian Jesuit priests Fr Albert Alejo and Fr Flaviano Villanueva have posted P10,000 (NZ$310) bail each after a judge issued a warrant of arrest in connection with their sedition case. “Nag-piyansa na kami Fr Flavie at sumama ...
Open mike 27/06/2013 
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More details come out on Obama’s plan of attack to address climate change.
Obama’s climate plan will limit emissions from plants and trucks
Political leaders from around the world give their reaction.
From the European Union:
From the United Nations:
From Britain:
From the Pacific Islands:
From the New Zealand Green Party:
To date their has been no response to Obama’s speech from either Labour or National. And I think neither can we expect one.
Time for David Cunliffe to fill the gap perhaps? If Labour keep up its silence… Might we see ia press statement from Cunliffe to make up for the missing leadership sadly lacking in his own party?
I also notice that so far there has been no post on Obama’s speech from anyone at The Standard
Why is this?
Does nobody have any opinion on Obama’s speech?
Or could it be, that The Standard authors (consciously, or unconsciously), don’t want to acknowledge or bring attention to the uncomfortable fact that National and Labour’s policies are generally in alignment on further increasing CO2 emissions through more and riskier oil drilling and coal mining etc?
[lprent:
Firstly – What speech? I heard a brief mention on it on the car radio on my late return home last night. Looking at the timestamp on the news story and allowing for date lines, it would have been when? late in the day yesterday? We aren’t a news service, nor are we journalists and we tend to work hard on things other than this blog.
Secondly – Authors write on what they wish to and when they want to – as is stated clearly in the about and the policy.
Thirdly – I see that there was a post scheduled for this morning at the time you wrote that comment. I’d guess that it was written late last night. It gives Anthony’s opinion (which is what we are here to express) on the speech. Changes in policy direction usually take time to digest because the detail is important – not the headline.
Fourthly – You are banned for a week for again trying to tell us what we should be writing – read the policy. ]
What Graham has said for the Nacts, could, painfully, be just as easily be said of Labour.
And a month ago you were calling the greens climate change deniers and sellouts.
“Does nobody have any opinion on Obama’s speech?”
I can’t even bear to listen to the man at the moment. He has no credibility left at all, imo. How can you trust that what he says in a speech is what he really means after Guantanamo not being ended, drones in Pakistan, NSA spying, Bradley Manning incarceration conditions etc, etc? Not to mention people living in tent cities and the nation having to subsidise Walmart pay with food stamps.
All I’d expect from this speech is that he’s trying to change the topic, not that he might mean what he says. So no, I don’t have an opinion on the speech, but I have a very negative opinion about why he might be making in right now, and I can’t believe he means a word of it.
And Jenny is aware, I take it, that Obama is advocating a massive reinvestment in NUCLEAR power. That’s how committed to conservation the man is.
It’s like being lectured on victims’ rights by Garth McVicar. Some people have simply no credibility at all.
Thats right Mozza, Jenny et al have not done their homework into the General Electric (GE) backing of Obama, and what this means to that company’s NUCLEAR power plant production revenue streams, and control of the *energy market*!
Its why we are in this mess, because people like Jenny, have NFI, what they are contributing to!
Whats the link between nuclear power and conservation, Moz?
I wonder if the Obama’s ephinany on US emissions has anything todo with the discovery of massive quantities of shale gas via large scale fracking. Is converting their coal burning to gas burning much better?
That too – I forgot about the fracking in the credibility stakes.
Biggest shale gas boom since whenever, isn’t it? Apparently it’s better than oil for climate change emissions, even more important is the shift from coal to gas. Although apparently the U.S. is displacing, rather than reducing, it’s emissions through coal exports.
then of course there are the tar-sands they are also going gangbusters for..
phillip ure..
Obama, like many of the names who have quoted above, Jenny, Barosso et al, is a criminal, who does exactly what he is told, by those who put him in power!
What part of that, do you NOT get!
kia ora jenny, 2 things strike me about the whole obama thing;
firstly i think your enthusiasm for it is more about the position he holds talking about what he is talking about.
secondly and more importantly you seem to be desiring equal leadership, concerning climate change, to be shown in this country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EaCr1aRits
in response to the first; the first minute of this clipsays it very succintly (if darkly).
secondly; dont look to wellington for leadership, it starts and ends with yourself
Luvvies on the Loose
No. 1: Ginette McDonald
GINETTE McDONALD: He came up to me and said, “Ginette McDonald, do you know who I am? My name is Paul Scott Holmes and I am a great broadcaster!”
JIM MORA: Ha ha ha ha! Did he say that, Paul Holmes? ….[Long pause to indicate mourning]…. Peter Sinclair was cerebral. He wrote some very insightful columns.
GINETTE McDONALD: How smart he was and how vulnerable! What a sacrifice it is to be a public figure!
MORA: We could riff on THAT for the next ten minutes!
….Several minutes later….
MORA: Mahhh-vellous! I’ll never forget your interview with Sir Elton John! He ADORED you!
….Later….
GINETTE McDONALD: I think the young are completely mahhhh-vellous!
—-Eight Months to Mars, Afternoons with Jim Mora, Radio NZ National, Monday 11 February 2013
I’m amazed you listen to this stuff…
Yes indeed. I have tried listening to this stuff for as long as I can bear, in the hope that something useful might be discussed. But always I have to end by either switching off or changing to another channel, before my brain dissolves.
You listen to other channels??!!!
What the famous fair and balanced ZB?
I’m amazed you listen to this stuff…
It’s poetry, Paul. Poetry is what it is.
‘luvvies on the loose’..?
this example is happening now/today..a whole gaggle of them..
..in parts foreign..
http://whoar.co.nz/2013/commentwhoar-ed-local-celebs-go-on-charity-wheezeboys-own-adventure-but-was-it-actually-just-a-free-junketscam-of-sorts/
(excerpt:..)
“..ed:..breakfast television has reported how a gaggle of local celebs have been on a ‘wheeze’ of an adventure..”
phillip ure..
Hell Morrissey don’t your ears bleed listening to this this drivel.
This does not have to be hard.
This poll is a concern and the flatness of the past polls is a concern. Between now and the spring the Caucus need to reform itself dramatically. It is possible.
As Toby Manhire suggested in the Herald last week “..the promotion of an MP who had served his time would project strength, evidence of the leader’s vaunted experience in conciliation..”
I’d add to that the early retirement of Goff, King and Mallard coupled with the appointment of new managers in Shearer’s office who are NOT selected by Grant Robertson. Shearer has to stop what he is currently doing. It is not working. He needs to create a new team.
Cunliffe seems to be more focused than ever on his portfolio. He continues to show that he can engage with business people and issues as well as with the workers, consumers and the disenfranchised. His recent contributions to debates in Parliament show he is more centered than ever. Cunliffe looks like a guy who has learned from whatever was done to him last year. He has demonstrated that he can swallow a rat, and get on with folk in the beltway as well a burbs.
Shearer has the choice: to continue as is or to make a change.
Go on Shearer, make the necessary changes, now, refresh and position yourself to get our score out of the low 30s and into the 40s.
Your last chance.
Don’t confuse Obama with Gandhi: Norman Finkelstein
At UBC on January 21, 2009, the day after Obama’s inauguration, Norman Finkelstein gave a short speech about his research into the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi. He claims there is no comparison between Gandhi, who gave up his life to a cause he believed in, and Barack Obama, who is merely a clever politician coasting on a wave of change that he didn’t work to create.
So today in Christchurch we will hear how Brownlee will lump a giant great dull convention centre right onto two of the very best blocks of CBD Christchurch so that all manner of private business can do private business. Brownlee will require the ratepayers to pay for these private businesses.
Why don’t private businesses pay for their private business? I thought Brownlee and his ilk believed in user-pays and the free market and not corporate handouts or picking winners? Why do they force elderly ratepayers to pay for them?
Secondly, a lumpen great convention centre is completely the wrong thing to place in that location. White elephant city here we come…..
i despair.
and so do countless others – witness the decaying hole of the donut city.
Christchurch central city rebuild is failing. I hope I am proved wrong.
When the work is complete, and Christchurch looks like the National Party, and violence and crime flourish, will it be too late to tear their monuments to greed and corruption down? Of course not!
Well that’s kind of what is hoped for – that given the time it will take to bring these giant monuments to fruition and given that time and tide and new and different governments and councils will come and go and shoulder and shove and pull and push these projects all around and they will get variously dumped and amended and shrunken and expanded as the will of the peoples dictate.
That is the hope.
But when all you have is hope you have nothing (sorry JK (kirwan that is)…)
What they believe in is user pays for the poor and government handouts from taxing the poor to themselves and their rich mates.
Yep, it’s what happens when dictators take over.
Covered Sports Stadium, Indoor Sports Stadium, Convention Centre; a monumental Tory.
(Crown- 2.9B Council- 1.9B; Game, set, match).
what? * cough splutter choke croak ….*
next government and council please
overturn coming
Apparently Lancaster Park, I mean Jade Stadium, oh I mean AMI Stadium, whatever the f… its current corporate tag is…. is not even bloody broken. It is apparently structurally sound and the only problem is that from one end of the field to the other the stadium drops 200mm.
That’s about 8 inches. About $45million to repair so the rumour goes. Why not leave it at that? And don’t tell visiting teams as we will then get the downhill advantage….
Really, sheesh, where is the thinking?
… thinking thinking thinking ….
And Brownlee better steer well fucking clear of tossing a covered stadium into the mix. That will seriously bring down the house.
Isn’t politics a funny thing sometimes …
Following is a recent speech by David Cunliffe where he praises Todd McClay, compliments David Bennett and agrees with Matthew Hooton …
I kid you not!
The video is here.
He certainly is a lot more fluent than Dave.
David Cunliffe should be and is ready to be the Leader of Labour, I didn’t really think so last year but he’s certainly developed a bit more humility and lost the arrogance and pompousness.
I guess having your colleagues lining up to kick you in the nads does that, tends to make you reassess your approach and how you do things.
Well, it’s a bit of a back-handed compliment to David Bennett, for knowing all the loopholes that needed to be ended, having specialised in fiddling farm accounts in the past.
I’m afraid that for a Tory its actually a 100% sincere compliment, nothing backhanded about it.
You know what, Auckland’s support for the CRL is proof that we’d get better governance from referendum than we get from representatives.
The latest David Bain revelations………….
(Just posted this comment on the Radio Live facebook page).
“Seen this Sean Plunket?
I would have put this on your facebook page directly – but you seem to have ‘blocked’ me?
(Don’t you believe in ‘freedom of expression’ Sean? 🙂
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/twelve-reasons-worry-about-bain-case-lf-134942 ”
______________________________________________________________________________
I have not studied this David Bain case – but the thing that has always been the BIG question to me – is MOTIVE?
What MOTIVE did David Bain have to murder all these members of his family?
A bad day on the paper run?
DUH?
Penny Bright
Clearly David is a criminal mastermind…..according to the police.
Disregarding the new evidence, the crown story is just daft:
22 yr old David gets up, shoots 4 of his family in the house and then pops out to do the paper run as an alibi. Gets back home just in time to hide behind the curtains and snuff the old man. Then he just has to leave a wee note on the computer to implicate dad and then finally ring the police and turn on the water works.
Sounds like something from Agatha Christie.
Or as you suggest ,
An elderly man gets up , puts on his sons’ clothes and glasses, shoots 4 of his family. takes off his sons clothes, puts the bloodied clothes in the washing machine,
Changes his clothes, goes into the front room, logs on the family computer, types a note obsolving the son ,whos clothes hes just worn ,while murdering his family.
Shoots himself ,the guns’ mag falling out of the gun and landing on its edge beside Robin Bains’ ‘hand.
Robins. body found with no blood on him ,except his own.
David, who is found with his siblings blood on him. cant remember how he knows his family his dead, or why he waited 20 mins to ring an ambulance.
Sounds like something a defence lawyer would come up with.
It wouldn’t wash as an Agatha Christie novel.
Alternatively, dad wants to shoot his entire family except for one son. Equally bizarre.
Fortunately, we don’t have trial by TV or blogosphere.
Meanwhile, a relative of mine has to avoid watching the news for the next few days because every time pundits spout opinions (based solely on TV reports or the internet, which compete for the award for disseminating the most utter BS) or cheer their particular team, it reminds her how much she misses her friend, even after all this time.
“Alternatively, dad wants to shoot his entire family except for one son. Equally bizarre.”
Why? Surely not any more bizzare than shooting one or all?
“equally”.
Some folk try Agatha Christie whodunnits, others just don’t bother with hiding a murder-suicide. Arguing that one or the other could not be done because it sounds “just daft” in the cold light of day in my opinion shows a marked under-estimation of (to quote WSBurroughs) “just how far human kicks can go”.
+1
a shooter is likely to have powder residue on his hands, regularly; shooting birds for example.
‘
I still have one question. What is the first thing most men do first thing after the get up? Have a piss . . . amirite or amitire?? So, how is it explained that Robin Bain didn’t empy his bladder before setting about murdering his family?
Don’t get me wrong, I believe this whole thing has been yet another ongoing, ochestrated miscarriage of justice perpetrated by, if not corrupt, then bumbling police officers aided and abetted by officious bureacrats and their babmboozled and indifferent politicians. Milton Weir . Kevin Anderson, Phill Goff, Crusher Collins, Peter Doone, Peter Robinson, Jim Doyle, Kim Jones, N C Jaine, B P Duncan . . . “when honor and the Law no longer stand on the same side of the line, how do we choose?”
I still have one question. What is the first thing most men do first thing after the get up? Have a piss . . . amirite or amitire?? So, how is it explained that Robin Bain didn’t empy his bladder before setting about murdering his family?
I would have thought that the body would have all sorts of overrides to normal biological functions when one was about to commit mass murder.
The full bladder, therefore victim, argument has no evidential weight.
This always supposes improbability Robin slept and committed crime soon after rising without emptying his bladder.
What evidence is there that Robin may not have had a sleepless night contemplating shooting his family or woke well before the shooting. In such scenarios he could easily have started with a partially full bladder and accumulated further urine during the activity of shooting his family.
“The latest David Bain revelations………….
I have not studied this David Bain case – but the thing that has always been the BIG question to me – is MOTIVE?
What MOTIVE did David Bain have to murder all these members of his family?”
The link you posted Penny goes to the review of the case that is damning of the police. We will never know who killed the Bain family, because the police didn’t do their job properly. What was the motive for that?
An excellent question, Weka!
Dunedin, moreso than many NZ cities, has a very dark history, one which includes police, politicians etc, being tied to organized, and underaged crime, and various other sadistic goings on.
Rather like it being, the Adelaide of NZ, if you will!
http://www.critic.co.nz/features/article/631/dunedins-dark-past
There has been a massive cover up, it always was, with the reasons most likely becoming, *future conspiracy theories*.
“There has been a massive cover up,”
Got any evidence of that muzza?
Just saw this gif on facebook:
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!!!
Very funny
so, they want to intercept Skype? 1/3 of all internet traffic. Good luck with that Amy and co.
(You better you better you bet).
Seven Sharp characterize Assange as an “albino weasel”. Really?
DHB’s fail to meet safety stds (Health Quality and Safety Board).Only a 1/4 to a 1/3 of all DHB’s “doing enough” to prevent falls, infection etc.
RB seriously considering restrictions on low-deposit loans, first-home buyers not exempt. “Something has to be done to prevent damage (wreckage) to the financial system.”
Is David Shearer merely a ‘great-souled-man’?
New Horizon Poll out today on how Aucklanders view the government, titled Government suffers poor performance ratings on Auckland issues.
Also worth a read is the follow up commentary:
What happened to Government supporters in the performance rating poll?
Guessing they knew this was the case when they swallowed the dead rat before them, and made noises about supporting the CRL.
This morning around the time on Morning Report about 7.45am that radionz reads out the headlines of the main papers I thought I heard that the Waikato Times had an item on spending by the NZ Forces likely to go into drones etc. I haven’t been able to track this down. Did anybody else hear the full mention, very short, or have seen it in a newspaper? I would like to look at it, hear it further.
Maybe this?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8850279/Kiwi-drones-won-t-be-killers
Truthers!.
/
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/here_come_the_edward_snowden_truthers/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/my-creeping-concern-that-the-nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-is-not-who-he-purports-to-be/5339161
http://tarpley.net/2013/06/19/how-to-identify-a-cia-limited-hangout-operation/
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/06/25/snowden-an-exercise-in-disinformation/
How would we ever, actually know!
We can’t, and have to draw our own conclusions!
In my day Joe, we believed everything that authorities told us. (Almost.) Now we should doubt everything that authorities tell us. Skills learnt to predict the bad guy in a stirring”whodunnit” will nowadays be focussed on real authority figures selling real misinformation. My brain hurts.
Maybe Naomi Wolf really works for the CIA. Or the KGB. Or the Al Qaeda!
That would not be any real surprise, Weka.
What all three? Busy woman I guess.
Message to Christine Rankin …
A Doz size 7 eggs are on special at New World for $3.99.
That’s great aye Krussy?
That means the kuds can live on weetbix and milk for breakfast (at 57cents?); noodles for lunch; and egg and toast for dinner for the next week.
they wouldn’t live on that mate.
it sounds like a recipe for enteric dysfunction.
i.e. diaorhea.
Well I know mine couldn’t possibly have, but as you know Krussy Rankin seems to know better.
(i.e. basing her experiences of a couple of decades ago transposed on today’s reality).
They’d probably have to be raw eggs as well, given the lack of electricity.
So little birdies on the twittery grapevine saying things about how that there Auckland Council voted 10-7 that they weren’t interested in some deal involving no skycity and some pokies and a convention centre so that’s a thing.
Don’t understand the point Pascal. As an out of Aucklander that is.
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/embarrassing.html
The comments list seems to becoming overwhelmed with some material from Gaza GPJA.. And Karol’s one on Women receiving awards also extra long, the wording of headings if too long is hard to read.
So the back-stabbing has begun.
Remember last year? When ABC were using Garner and Gower to dump on Cunliffe … all off the record, whispering in the dark, using the TV3 twins to push their self-serving agenda.
It’s on again. But this time Shearer is the target. Remember there are no real Shearer supporters, they were Parker supporters a couple of weeks before the leadership ballot in 2011, they just wanted a front man, and Shearer got the nod.
Turns out he’s not up to the job (who could have guessed, eh?) so they’re leaking into Gower’s ear (eww) and tonight on TV3 they got him to do their work – it’s their usual method. And the next idiot who says “Non-story! MSM!” try and think for a moment … who’s feeding him? And why?
Shearer will be dumped by the people who put him there. Next up, Robertson.
Yes. But don’t they need to put it to a full membership vote? They may try to go for someone like Andrew Little, or Jacinda Ardern. They are short on options.
Ahhh, yes they do. TRP, you asked me why I was still a member?
I’d always wondered that myself. Makes sense now.
makes it too easy for the bastards if you let them have it all their own way.
But I thought Gower was supposed to have pretty much made everything up last time to make headlines? But this time he’s being fed?
Or maybe last time “ABC” fed gower the idea of a Cunliffe coup in order to discredit cunliffe, (who didn’t need discrediting if he wasn’t planning a challenge), and this time they’re feeding gower the idea of a caucus challenge because, well, whatever.
Or maybe gower realises his paycheck rests on taking unwary comments and blowing them out of proportion. Where’s the benefit in flagging a challenge months down the road? There is none.
lolz Gower was being fed BS then, he’s being fed BS now, and thanks for repeating the BS McFlock.
Got that.
The reports gower was making last year about Shearer’s leadership facing a possible challenge within months were complete falsehoods spread by confidential sources. The reports gower is making right now about Shearer’s leadership facing a possible challenge within months are complete truths spread by confidential sources.
“Unwary comments”?
Did you see the story? Long, detailed quotes. Not somebody caught off guard, but somebody planting.
I said (and you ignored) Garner because it was his blog that started it all last year. A blog that was brought about by senior Labour MPs attacking Cunliffe – anonymously, of course.
Same MO.
Funny thing about anonymous attackers. You never know what was the actual quote and what is the intermediary’s little bit of editorialising. Sometimes they’re 100% accurate, sometimes it’s all just an invention by the intermediary, usually it’s somewhere in between. The point is, you can never know.
Nah Quotes are quotes. If a journo misrepresents an off the record quote they’ll never get another one.
If s/he said the complete opposite, you’d be right. But if the reporter is the only one with recordings or notes of the meeting, there’s a lot of room for misinterpretation that wouldn’t ruin come to light.
And if a journo does burn a source who is expendable, what could the anonymous source do?
An mp who has pretty much promised you two months worth of storyline is by definition, not burnable.
Paddy will be, quite rightly, wanting to follow this story up at some point.
unless he got something slightly less clear cut, but he now has the lens through which everything can be interpreted and the mp is therefore no longer needed.
I mean, the difference is whether they had lunch for an hour and gower drew together disparate lines and placed less emphasis on qualifications and equivocations, or had a 2 minute chat in the john where the mp wasn’t interrupted at all and spoke straight into the recorder.
No, the difference is the quote marks. And it doesn’t matter if Gower is ignoring all the kumbayah stuff they may have said. They also said this stuff, to Gower, (and Dannat TVNZ). It’s deliberate that they said this stuff, it’s something they chose to do, to get a story like this.
I’ve been “quoted” in the paper once or twice – different hats back in the day. Just in the local pages, nothing earth shattering. Quotation marks seemed to be largely similar to the role of the target in the Texas Sharpshooter analogy.
And that’s without the interview style “would you say something roughly along the lines of xxxxxx?” “yes”.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Shearer-put-on-notice-by-Labour-MPs/tabid/370/articleID/303006/Default.aspx
What is the problem with someone saying that Shearer has to either demonstrate that he can get his performance right or step aside?
What is the problem with telling the media?
The Membership and the public would like to know that the Party leaders are taking the continual poll paralysis seriously.
The sooner the Leadship issue is opened to a proper debate the better.
Btw, McFlock is a Grant Robertson tool.
But according to the “Shearer’s a patsy” theory, doesn’t that mean that I’d be undermining shearer at this time so Robertson can take the leadership?
But of course your justification for that delusion is even more tenuous than CV’s guess: it consists solely of amateur-hour content pattern analysis. Even a political news editor would regard that as a bit thin.
By the way, your content analysis is as mistaken as your trend analysis.
There has been one Labour MP who has been providing information to Gower. This goes back a long way ….. Gower himself has mentioned in passing the name of that MP when I was with a small group of people a few years ago.
Shearer should have a word with his deputy.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Shearer-put-on-notice-by-Labour-MPs/tabid/370/articleID/303006/Default.aspx
text version
Labour leader David Shearer has been put on two months’ notice by his own MPs – if the poll ratings don’t improve, his leadership will be challenged.
A Labour MP told 3 News today that Mr Shearer had until spring – two months away – to pick up his and Labour’s performance.
The MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “The caucus is just really flat. It’s not panic or anxiety just yet, but a couple more bad polls and it will be. David’s got a couple more months. A change in leadership cannot be ruled out before the end of the year.
“Spring time is when people will get really nervous, just over a year out from the election. We don’t want to get into the “Goff-zone”, where it’s too late to change the leader, but you’ve got someone in there the public just don’t want -the phone is just off the hook.”
It is rare for Labour MPs to speak so openly of leadership concerns.
The MP who spoke to 3 News is not a loyal supporter of leadership rival David Cunliffe. That makes the comments more significant as it shows there are broader concerns in the caucus about Mr Shearer’s performance.
Meanwhile Mr Shearer was on the by-election battlefield of Ikaroa-Rawhiti with Meka Whaitiri, Labour’s candidate for the seat.
There he vowed to be the Labour leader come the next general election.
3 News
Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Shearer-put-on-notice-by-Labour-MPs/tabid/1607/articleID/303006/Default.aspx#ixzz2XOu4ZQaZ
Flock off McFuck, you know full well that most people thought Trevor Mallard was leaking to Gower during the conference.
Please excuse him. McFlock is an old Dunedin and Otago uni friend of Grant Robertson.
That’s the sort of thing that should be called “doing a gower”, CV
Loyalty is a value underestimated these days, and it’s great that you are loyal to your friends. Good on ya mate.
let’s refresh everyone on the basis you have for saying that Robertson and I are “old friends”. I said:
From that you draw a long bow from “uni at roughly the same time”, through “actually spoke to each other at the time” all the way to “are friends” [present tense = “are friends now”]. And spout on as if it’s fact.
I think we can call that “a gower”.
Ummm.. I never knew that (on the same basis) Lyn was a close personal friend of R…
Nah….
this would be the brilliant tactic of creating rumours of a cunliffe challenge because mallard didn’t want cunliffe to be leader, even though cunliffe was extremely loyal and in no way going to challenge.
No challenge = no need to purposefully create rumours.
But if there was a challenge, gower didn’t need mallard to make anything up.
That suggests to me the MP was a member of the broader caucus and not notably aligned at any point to either the Shearer or the Cunliffe camp.
But it doesn’t rule the informant out from being a Robertson/Parker supporter.
That’s why I said at any point. The Robertson/Parker acolytes joined with the Shearer-ites once the deals were done. One faction leader got deputy and the other finance. I’m inclined to think this was someone who kept in the background during the leadership battle and its aftermath.
One fond of saying “a couple more”.
Great, more Labour MPs spilling their guts to news reporters. Also, I’m pretty sure that apart from a very few MPs, there is no actual “Shearer camp”.
EDIT ffs, this Labour caucus instability is Hooten’s wet dream planned well over a year ago, coming true. I’m just amazed though that none of us on The Standard spotted the plan before.
😉
It’s a classic “Thursday story”.
The leader is (usually) not in Parliament on Thursday – today he was campaigning in Ikaroa-Rawhiti. So it’s safe to talk to the gallery, cat’s away, mice play …
In unrelated news, Trevor Mallard *was* in Parliament today.
I can’t believe someone from Caucus chose to leak this to Gower instead of working within caucus to bring a resolution to the Leadership problem. Unbelievable, I don’t think we can blame Hooten for this, I’m afraid that Labour is seriously fucked if a senior member of caucus has gone to the media with this.
Who ever it is is putting their ambitions ahead of the Party’s (Its per emptive, Shearer is gone!)…they need to be outed. Clearly it is the same person who set up Cunliffe in November. This person is poisonous, Labour will never succeed with this person within its ranks IMO.
Hmmm, I thought the whole point was that Shearer was put in to prevent Cunliffe, and he would then later be rolled to get who the ABCs really want. At least that’s what the Standardistas were talking about last year.
Sorry Saarbo, but it’s a given that too many Labour MPs put their own careers ahead of the good of the party.
btw, Labour MPs playing bullshit internal politics and Hooton having his hand in things are not mutually exclusive.
Onya Edith.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-edie-windsor-doma-supreme-court-20130626,0,3126206.story
This labour party Gower thing.
Y’all know I’m neither a LP member nor list voter, so take this as whatever.
But this stuff hurts your party. From now till ‘spring’ Gower has been given an explicit narrative. All political stories will now be in the frame of “What does this mean for Shearer’s position as leader’.
You might think “So, what’s new?” and fair enough, but this has made it official. It’s a Labour party framing, the media don;t need to speculate that caucus is looking, they can state it all as fact.
So LP members should be writing letters and making calls to your mps, and letting them know that this anonymous sniping should stop, and that whoever is doing it should launch a challenge and get this ball rolling. You’ve got your new process, it will take time, but it needs to be put to bed, and that can only happen one way or the other through a vote. Untill the party wide vote happens, this story will run, and Labour will not look like a govt in waiting. That vote needs to happen as soon as possible.
Fuck spring.
So when will Labour give up on winning this election and concentrate on 2017?
“Three more years!, three more years!”
Have the bloody NATs been taking lessons from the UK tories? Conservative Government has just announced a massive £100B infrastructure and social housing build plan…but none of it starts for at least 4 years.
This is more bullshit “things will get better in the future” BAU messaging.
It is ‘pretend and extend’ creeping into policy promises.
So if Labour falls below 30% will people here finally admit, “hey we’re in trouble here” or will you be like bob dole who thought because his cousin friend in tempe was going to vote for him, hes still in with a chance.
I think you are right Brett. No-one on ts has ever speculated before now that Labour might be in trouble.
weka:
every time there is a poll here, it doesnt matter what it shows, everybody jumps
up and down and acts like its a victory for labour.
The only poll that counts is on election day unless that poll shows an increase for Labour in which case its an indicator of Labours resurgence
Brett Dale. Please attempt to pay more attention to what people actually say here, next time.
Every 2 or 3 fortnightly Morgan polls I have a look at the trends. Basically I am ignoring jitter.
I essentially ignore the other polls as they happen so infrequently for each poll as to be useless because of their infrequencies and that they only seem to make and effort to get an accurate population sample close to the election – which is why they always have dramatic shifts then.
As far as I can see, most people here do the same. Reading the right blogs is amusing. Many if not most seem to largely ignore Morgan despite its sampling rate and despite the fact that it seldom shifts much leading into an election and is usually the most accurate. Instead they concentrate on the infrequent polls with piss poor track records.
I guess they are either credulous fools with little understanding of statistics, or they are credulous fools with delusions that the “big lie” technique keeps working.
in the roy morgan, I probably would. Especially if it was coupled with a noticable reversal in the trend (as opposed to a single 8-point drop from 37%).
You can relax McFlock. The true mean of support for Labour sits on or very close to 32%. It’s very unlikely that it will fall under 30%, except perhaps momentarily.
I get the impression that you pray it does dip below 30%, otherwise all the helpul advice for Labour you’ve offered here is just useless horseshit you’ve been spouting since feb 2012.
Pretty amazing that iPredict hinted this last week.
https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=contract_detail&contract=SHR.DEPART.2013
Either someone is manipulating iPredict to push their point, or there really has been backroom talk over the last few weeks and the leak is just it eventuating.
Interesting times!
El Pueblo Unido Jamas sera vencido!
Viva el Chile, viva el mundo, viva Novo Zelanda, viva!!!
Libertad por Chile Y el mondo, especial por latin america!!!
Not taking sides, just detected info and downloaded, for others to research!