This dumb-cunt boofhead managed a much higher score of injured victims than Delegat, feels the same “remorse” that could be better described as “sentence mitigation tactic” and has escaped a prison term because it might hurt his “career” prospects, to the extent that playing a game for a living can be called a career. Still, nice to see consistency from NZ rugby in the role models it provides for us.
what “future prospects” are acceptable to the courts, and what “future prospects” are deemed of no value?
Whether your future prospects are capable of making you a millionaire or not. It’s essentially the courts deciding who’s worthy or not which is something that the courts simply should not be doing.
ANAND HIRA: One law for rugby players and a different law for everyone else.
A man has beat up four people – including two women. No one is denying it happened. And if this mongrel was an accountant, truck driver, labourer, firefighter, lawyer, doctor or just about anything else – he would be in prison. Because no one in their right mind would believe their job should excuse such a brutal behaviour.
Unless your name is Losi Filipo and that career is playing rugby.
Then we can’t have the punishment adversely affect his career. That just wouldn’t be fair. If you are good at rugby, you can get away with anything. That’s the New Zealand we live in. There is one law for rugby players and a different law for everyone else.
One victim couldn’t work for three months. One of the women has to get platic surgery on her face, she was a model. The other women – a world class barbershop singer – feared she’d never sing again. And one of his victims couldn’t work for eight months after the assault, and still suffers chronic fatigue and migraines, oh – and he was a promising rugby player too, who will never play the game again.
Their careers were affected by this attack. So can someone explain to me how it’s fair that Losi Filipo gets discharged without conviction. Because it makes no sense to me.
Playing sport for a living should be an honour. To represent the rest of the community and be paid for it is a privledge. This is a god-damn disgrace. Our justice system cares more about rugby potential than protecting New Zealanders from monsters. I am ashamed of a justice system that cares so little for victims. But that’s not the worst of it. We should be afraid.
There are monsters walking our streets who think they are above the law. And the law as proven them right.
Steve Tew does not front for interview about abuse case.
Paul Henry talks with family spokesperson Ruth Money, followed by Mark Henaghan, University of Otago Law Professor, on the case of Losi Filipo. How can someone violently attack a group of four people and escape conviction?
Yes , another bullshit case from a thoroughly Neolib society.
It’s all about ‘personal responsibility’ if you’re a designated loser, but ‘nice guy- give him a break’ if you’re a designated winner.
It’s not so much a matter of class, it’s a matter of total bloody hypocrisy.
Obvious mitigating features would include his age (he was only 17 at the time); his lack of previous convictions; his remorse; willingness to undergo restorative justice; the large body of community support he enjoys suggesting an unlikelihood of ever re-offending; his commitment to counselling and voluntary community work and the like.
Judges’ willingness to call some particular bullshit a “mitigating feature” is entirely subjective.
In this case, “remorse” from the kind of person who hangs out on the street looking for people he can issue with an unprovoked beating should be treated with skepticism, not just accepted at face value. Is there any evidence that the shithead perp felt “remorse” at any time other than when he was facing sentencing? Because, according to his victims, there’s evidence that he didn’t.
The “commitment to counselling and voluntary community work” is likewise easy to say when facing sentencing – actual intent to carry it out is another matter.
And “the large body of community support he enjoys” is as likely to endow him with a feeling of entitlement to impunity as it is to discourage further offending.
All that is true Psycho.
Maybe though the issue of support and remedy and compensation for the victims should be a vital part of the story. Victims do seem to be neglected. Of course whatever happens to the assailant will not change the victims’ position.
If he got chucked on the scrap heap and left to rot in the company of career crims, would that change anything for his victims? What would they, or anyone, stand to gain?
Ugh he deserves to have the book thrown at him, and hard. I’m just thinking as to what that would actually achieve tho?
Not so important for League because you can have a viable sports career in one or two countries easily, and it helps that NZ and Oz have softer rules for each other than anyone else.
For rugby, you have to be able to travel for at least Super rugby, and once you get into international and overseas pro comps, international travel is a big part of it.
The case law on the subject is that loss of careers in these circumstances amount to fines to the amount of the lost income, which can be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars for a young player with 10-15 years ahead of them, particularly if they from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
By all accounts hes pretty good at league as well so really protecting his career shouldn’t have come into it as he would still have options after a sentence
“Protecting a persons possible career is not the job of the courts.”
Agree, its a disgrace that he avoided a criminal conviction. This thug not only stomped (multiply times) on one of his victims head, but also male v female assault.
If he was a truck driver, jail time would of been a real possibility…
In my recent line of work, I have, among other things, been trying to place people (mostly beneficiaries) into low-skilled jobs. It is nigh impossible to place people with convictions of any sort at this level because it’s one of the first filters applied by the employer, rightly or wrongly.
I agree with the judge’s reasons because the alternative, in my view, is worse, and will involve throwing a teenager on the scrapheap until the Clean Slate Act saves him, and he can’t even rely on that if he’s jailed. Meanwhile, the gaps in his CV will also make him hard to employ later on.
When people say “he deserves it for his actions”, understand that a conviction makes life much, much harder, particularly for young people with no employment history to overcome the conviction in employers’ considerations. Also understand that the outcome is massively expensive to the taxpayer, both in terms of immediate sentence, and in terms of long term welfare dependency.
I realise not everyone agrees.
However, it’s not just potential pro sports players who receive discharges without conviction. Here are a couple of manslaughter cases which resulted in discharges:
In my recent line of work, I have, among other things, been trying to place people (mostly beneficiaries) into low-skilled jobs. It is nigh impossible to place people with convictions of any sort at this level because it’s one of the first filters applied by the employer, rightly or wrongly.
You know, the whole idea behind a sentence is that the person convicted has paid their debt to society for the crime that they committed, that there is an end to the punishment. What you’re describing is people continuing the punishment after the punishment is supposed to have ended.
Perhaps what we should be doing at the end of the sentence is clearing/hiding the conviction so that people understand that the punishment is over.
I agree with the judge’s reasons because the alternative, in my view, is worse, and will involve throwing a teenager on the scrapheap until the Clean Slate Act saves him, and he can’t even rely on that if he’s jailed.
I don’t. People who commit crimes should be convicted. What we should be doing is far more in rehabilitation for those convicted and making people understand that the punishment doesn’t go on forever no matter how much those at the Sensible Sentencing Trust want it to.
I’d love to see it, particularly with substantially stronger Clean Slate legislation (ours is weak compared to elsewhere) and following the Scandinavian model of rehabilitative prisons, but until we do, judges are required to make that decision based on the rules and society we have, not the rules and society we’d like to have.
I’d also add the Basic Income and better employment to decrease the 100 applications for 1 job which leads to that kind of filtering – almost as if this stuff is interlinked…
If he got chucked on the scrap heap and left to rot in the company of career crims, would that change anything for his victims?
A prison sentence for him isn’t about improving things for his victims, it’s about protecting his future victims for the duration of his sentence, and hopefully giving him a reason to want to not do stuff that would put him back there again.
Compensation would change things for his victims – it’s a pity the courts can’t put a lien on his future earnings.
For me the issue is not what effect putting someone in prison has – clearly not a good effect in many, many cases.
The issue, however, is that many, many people ARE thrown in prison, and certainly convicted, for just this kind of offence – yet not this person.
That he has lots of support, ‘mentoring’ and the like actually suggests to me that a conviction (which is what he completely escaped, never mind the sentence) would not be as severe a penalty as it would be for someone who has little social support, ‘mentoring’, etc.. He could ‘bounce back’ from a conviction given all those in his corner.
He’s actually in better condition and circumstances to sustain a conviction than many who come to court in these circumstances – yet he is the one who is let off.
No doubt the community work will be rugby centric.
I have been responsible for ensuring someone doing community work actually does it and it is a bit of a joke really. Very easy to manipulate and abuse.
His community work involved working with kids around his chosen sport. All his games and practices ended up being community work as well. He probably did about a quarter of what was required.
The “dumb-cunt boofhead” mentioned in comment number 1 above. Your comment is in the thread as a reply to that comment – I guess it was intended be a new comment, not a reply?
There are no “moderate” rebels in Syria. Just Islamists who pretend to be moderate in order to get aid and arms from the US, and then go back to being Islamists after receiving the aid and the arms from the US.
Colonial Viper, did you hear John “Lord of Empathy” Campbell’s little performance on National Radio yesterday? He seems to have bought in to every single bit of propaganda from the White House about Syria.
oh yeah i heard a bit of that; I replied that Campbell needs to instead interview Stephen F Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, Princeton University and New York University, Contributing Editor to the Nation Magazine.
Miller’s own blurb. This is the propagandist Campbell accepted without question.
“JAMES MILLER is the Managing Editor of The Interpreter where he reports on Russia, Ukraine, and Syria. James runs the “Under The Black Flag” column at RFE/RL which provides news, opinion, and analysis about the impact of the Islamic State extremist group in Syria, Iraq, and beyond. He is a contributor at Reuters, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy Magazine, and other publications. He is an expert on verifying citizen journalism, and has been covering developments in the Middle East, specifically Syria and Iran, since 2009. ”
“The Interpreter is a daily translation and analysis journal funded and presented by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. In addition to covering political, social and economic events inside the Russian Federation, it chronicles Russia’s war in East Ukraine and its intervention in Syria in real time.
Founded in May 2013, this online journal set out with the modest goal of translating articles from the Russian press, the better to lower the language barrier that separates journalists, analysts, policymakers, diplomats and interested laymen in the English-speaking world from events taking place inside the Russian Federation.
Little did we realize then that The Interpreter would devote as much energy to covering what the Russian Federation got up to outside of its own borders.
The Interpreter is a leading real-time chronicle and analysis resource on all aspects of the crisis in Ukraine. Every day since violence first erupted in Kiev’s Independence Square, The Interpreter’s Ukraine live-blog has documented a revolution that became a war on European soil, often breaking news stories about Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its maskirovka insurgency in the Donbass, its cross-border shelling of Ukraine, the downing of MH17, and the Minsk II “cease-fire.”
None? Not a single one out of the entire 20 million people living there? Please keep in mind we’re talking about this planet, not the alternative one inhabited by RT watchers, in which the US government blew up the WTC and the Russian air force magically kills only “terrorists” when it rains phosphorus incendiaries on Aleppo.
It’s an especially astonishing claim because you’ve previously described the Assad regime, one of the most brutal dictatorships in the Middle East, as “moderate.” Those “Islamist” rebels must be demons in human form…
So why doesn’t everyone whose employment (and future employment) might be jeopardised by a conviction get similar lenient treatment under that section of the crimes act?
Or does only having a low wage job that’s at stake somehow make a conviction easier to bear?
When you’re on the bones of your bum, having trouble finding menial work because of a conviction can tip you into far more suffering than missing out on a professional rugby career and having to settle for an ordinary job.
There are many examples of diversion and discharge without convictions for precisely those reasons – two manslaughter cases are up thread. This gets press because of rugby, but with good legal representation, anyone else could have argued a similar case, and may well have been granted it as well.
That is according to prat Henry. You know the one who had his nose so far up Keys arse yesterday morning it was embarrassing.
Why I am not surprised by this prats right wing rant. Also, the Guardian is saying the shit against Corbyn is continuing.
It won’t be Corbyn that is unelectable, it will be the Labour Party that is unelectable if the shits don’t screw their heads in and get in behind the leader, and work to get Thatcher MkII and the Tories out.
Pat Mc Fadden calls for the party to seek inspiration from Wilson. Wilson who helped to destroy the British Aircraft Industry and fucking Blair a war criminal that should have been arrested years ago for war crimes, was so slippery earned the nickname of “Teflon Tony” McFadden must be fucking joking.
Quote from the Guardian
“Pat McFadden, the former minister, called for the party to seek inspiration from its “three great postwar leaders”, who he named as Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair.”
“the Guardian is saying the shit against Corbyn is continuing”
I’m in the UK at the moment and can confirm that – surprise, surprise – the vilification continues. A whole series of spurious, utterly contrived little Gotchas in the broadcast media since Corbyn’s latest victory.
Same old “Left are Anti-Semitic” smears (eg arch-Blairite Tristram Hunt on ITV’s Peston on Sunday last night) , same sad attempts to portray Corbynite support-group Momentum as a hotbed of violent misogynist larrikins (unfortunately for the Blairite-Brownite brigade – almost two thirds of Women Labour Party Members voted for Corbyn – including, incidentally, my strongly-feminist cousin – a kiwi domiciled in London since the early 80s. Momentum activists, meanwhile, appear to be disproportionately female and middle-aged)
… and a few new variations on these themes …
For example, after a post-leadership election TV interview yesterday in which Corbyn’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell made very conciliatory gestures towards the PLP, he gets condemned by both the MSM, the Tories and the Establishment Centre-Right of the Labour Party for calling former Tory Minister Esther McVey “a stain on humanity” wayyyyy back in 2014 and refusing to apologise now. (also suggestions that he joked back in 2014 that McVey should be lynched – though he strongly disputes that allegation, suggesting he’d simply reported to the media what had been shouted at him at a public meeting).
McDonnell actually accepted in the interview that he’d sometimes “gone too far” in criticism of opponents but said voters wanted honesty rather than spin and he had been expressing honest anger back in 2014 over savage Tory Govt cuts to services for people with disabilities (McVey had been Disabilities Minister at the time) … Cue media beat-up over the last couple of days that McDonnell is encouraging a culture of intimidation, abuse and violence in the Party.
These tropes really are looking increasingly tired and desperate.
Meanwhile, the PLP plotters are pursuing a strategy of forcing Corbyn into a corner – either give whole-hearted support for the restoration of Shadow Cabinet elections (thus greatly empowering Corbyn’s critics in the PLP and possibly influencing which faction ultimately controls the NEC) or we’ll use every opportunity in the media to portray you as aggressive, divisive and insincere in your calls for unity and compromise.
Thanks for your report swordfish. Pretty much the impression I got over here from reading the UK media.
Those who control the narrative … just won’t give up their control of that narrative.
Makes sense when you don’t have popular support and it’s the only power going. But it results in such transparently silly hypocrisy it’s quite embarrassing. Dignity flies out the door when your grip on the levers starts to get a bit greasy.
Yes, Corbyn’s election has certainly shone a bright light on the enforcer role of various Courtiers and Bottom-feeders to the UK Establishment. Particularly the ruthlessly ambitious network of Blairite fellow-travellers within the “liberal” MSM and academia (not least, my own former lecturer in British politics, Tim Bale).
It seems that the moment they sniff a perceived threat to their interests, the UK Establishment swiftly closes ranks – and its those desperate souls out on the periphery of power – the most precarious of hangers-on – who appear to be the most aggressive in their defence of the Elite. Much like the legendary social snobbery of the Aristocracy’s leading Servants.
I enjoyed your Of bewildered herds blog post from July, incidentally. At roughly the same time as you, I was looking through Thrasher and Rallings’ National Equivalent Share of the Vote to try and get an unbiased take on the 2016 UK Locals in comparative perspective (I put all the detailed results going back to the late 70s in a draft post on my blog for future reference but, here in the UK, I’m locked out of both my email and my blog. Happens every time !).
Although some of Corbyn’s more enthusiastic supporters got a little carried away in their celebration of Labour’s result, the much more obvious spin came from the PLP plotters and their chums in the UK media who outrageously claimed that it was Labour’s worst performance in decades (They had a pre-prepared script and they were determined to stick to it)
For me, Labour’s Local Election results were mediocre but a long way from the disaster Blairites and Brownites were both predicting beforehand and desperately claiming afterwards.
I would be very afraid of a” more united Christendom”. History would lead one to suspect it would result in the usual “Preach more love and peace but carry out more war”.
I make the same comment about any of the monotheist religions . Their “one and only God” creates nothing but trouble as they run around killing each other in the name of their ‘version’.
I’m actually genuinely surprised about this, the amount of posts and threads on Clinton v Saunders and then Clinton v Trump I’d have thought people would want to see this
I’m pretty sure that there’s a lot of people interested in it. I’m not one of them and I’ve been keeping myself out of the Trump/Clinton debate as well. I don’t think either of them will be good for the US or the world.
+1,000,000 Muttonbird. Hype and more hype-Trump/Clinton will have been coached and scripted to the nth degree. Nothing new to learn here.
What gets me is the financial commentators are saying the stock market is jumping around on the basis of this debate, rather than on economic fundamentals.
On the same theme NZ’s awful trade figures today have been spun by the media as showing how strong the economy is where in fact it shows that we are not paying our way in the world. Borrowing and spending on flash cars and boats cannot go on ad infinitum, though Key and Blinglish seem to think it is fine.
The piece couches seven degrees in a 1000 year time frame. So, nothing to be concerned about. (Forget that we’re on track for something like four or six on our present course or that even if all Paris pledges honoured we’ll be hitting three or four)
Then the vid has talk of rectifying climate change – y’know, like we’ll just stick everything back together after we’ve broken it.
Don’t count on your time frame Bill. No-one knows exactly how this planet is going to behave because we have no record of such rapid change to make comparisons with. Anything is possible, and it’s not too far away (say ,about two decades).
Of course if you are an expert , like Hosking , then everything is business as usual and all will be honkydory as soon as these sunspots go away. Afterall these leftie plonkers that believe in Climate Change have just made a poor choice haven’t they?
No-one knows exactly how everything will respond to rising CO2. But we can extrapolate from ‘bench top’ experiments and employ concepts of probability to account for the uncertainty that a complex set of systems introduces to matters.
So we know that ‘x’ amount of CO2 will result in ‘y’ warming in a bench top scenario.
From that we can suggest carbon budgets for the planet and attach probable outcomes to each budget total. Not full proof. But bloody useful.
And when we throw in known rates of CO2 emissions, we can give a range of likely outcome. So. At present rates, we’re looking at 4 – 6 by century’s end. With Paris commitments, we’re looking at 3 – 4 by century’s end.
‘Century’s end’ doesn’t mean that we don’t hit that range of temperature before then – just that it’s the likely temp at that snapshot in time.
And, of course, that’s consciously and necessarily ignoring any and all non-linear tipping points that would set temps soaring and render any climate action redundant. All we know about them is that we don’t want them and that they become more likely with each incremental rise in temp.
So we know that ‘x’ amount of CO2 will result in ‘y’ warming in a bench top scenario.
That’s fine for a simplified, highly linear world, as you have identified.
However, you have also pointed out the reality which largely invalidates the usefulness of those bench top scenarios – or even the most complex climate models of today – as they do not account for all the positive feedback loops that climate change has already kicked off.
Everything from methane releases from fracking and melting permafrost (today’s increased atmospheric methane levels are equivalent to an extra 40-50ppm CO2), to the reduced albedo due to lost arctic sea ice, to the increased level of water vapour (a powerful greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere as the planet warms, to the cooling effect of the reflective heat shield that industrial pollutants in the atmosphere give us – which will disappear as we reduce the amount of coal and diesel that we burn, to the fact that large areas of rain forests – like the Amazon – have now become net contributors of CO2 as they become ravaged by climate change droughts and fires.
The dynamics of feedback loops are not known. What the threshold is for initiating any of the numerous feedback loops is also not known and probably not knowable. Feedback loops can only be learned about in retrospect – hardly useful. Given that, they can’t be factored in. Now, what’s your problem? Things aren’t being made to sound terrible enough?
Atmospheric concentrations of various gasses can be and are taken. Again, given the nightmarish complexities involved, extrapolations are made from basic knowable ‘bench top’ observations. Those extrapolations become more refined as better knowledge is gained from the observation of the real world situation.
What has been said to date – and this won’t hold in the future – is that the clutch of negative and positive forcings more or less balance out so that just looking at CO2 gives us a useful and usable ball park view of things.
But are you really saying that all the science around CO2 should be thrown away or disregarded and that we should just grapple blindly? Shining any light into a dark room is useful.
As a comparison. You know that the world view we use for navigation is a croc of shit? We place the world at the centre of things…and that’s not how things are. But it works – it’s accurate enough. The alternative is a complex tangle of head wrecking nonsense that produces results that are no better for most day to day, real world applications of navigational knowledge than the ‘wrong headed’ or simplistic one most people employ.
By the way – did you note that I wasn’t referring to models at all? No matter what complexities you want to feed in, they work on assumptions – circular walks in other words. Simply change an assumption (or two) if the results aren’t what are being sought. That’s useful for gaining understanding or insight.
Well, I think the whole mindset of – we still have this many more hundred gigatonnes of carbon dioxide we can put up, we have until 2030/2040/2050 to do this and do that – all that needs to be ended, right now, and some realistic talk take its place.
The dynamics of feedback loops are not known. What the threshold is for initiating any of the numerous feedback loops is also not known and probably not knowable.
However, at least some of these aren’t theoretical future phenomena. All the feedback loops I mentioned, defrosting permafrost, darkening of the arctic etc, are already well in motion.
I’ll indulge you one last time on this. (Will it finally get through to you?)
Until now, governments and NGOs have not quantified CO2. All they’ve done is push everything out into the future, disregard accumulated and accumulating amounts of CO2 and promised to cellotape everything back together after we’ve smashed it up.
The introduction of budgets provides a quantitative measure to work to/from. So all the unscientific and deeply insane talk of 30 below 1990 by 50 or whatever becomes redundant. Carbon budgets mean we have to look at what carbon we are releasing today and sort out what we are doing today.
Analogy?
How CC has been treated.
We’ll undertake to only drink half as much as we’re drinking now by the time 2 a.m. comes around. We’ll be right. We’ll have developed some detox wonder drug or technique by 2.30 am.
With carbon budgets.
If we carry on drinking like this, we’re on track for severe alcohol poisoning. We know that, by and large, the human body can only tolerate x amount of alcohol. So we can consume no more than y amount of alcohol if we want to avoid severe alcohol poisoning.
But you’d dismiss the latter because it wasn’t tabulating precise body weight or individual tolerances and a host of other factors?
However, at least some of these aren’t theoretical future phenomena. All the feedback loops I mentioned, defrosting permafrost, darkening of the arctic etc, are already well in motion.
See, here’s the question that you need to ask. Is defrosting permafrost (etc) currently irreversible? If it is, then we’re looking a non-linearity. If it’s not, then we’re not.
Can you answer that question one way or the other without the answer just being a matter of opinion?
Then – and even if your opinion is correct (that feed-back loops are proceeding) – what’s the point in clutching feverishly at the cock of doom?
We are in the midst of “abrupt climate change.” While there is no strict definition of what this is, major climate alterations occurring within one human life span would seem to count.
Methane release craters hundreds of metres wide, being discovered on land and on the sea floor.
I pick two degrees centigrade increase by 2030 (we are over one degree now) and four to six degrees centigrade by 2100.
That’s on average of course. Warming of five deg C to ten deg C over the last century has already been identified in various regions of the Arctic circle.
Which means that over the next 2 to 3 human generations (assuming a “generation” = 30 years or so) we are going to see multi metre sea level rise.
By the way, in the 1990s and early 2000s, serious scientists were talking about how anything over one degree C warming meant that we would cause serious, dangerous damage to the planet as we know it.
But like a frog in a pot of heating water we make excuses for how we can still manage things successfully.
People like McPherson need to stop flying. If they don’t, other people less commited will look at them and get the message that we can carry on BAU (see, the CC activists are still flying, it must be alright!). Actions speak louder than words.
I’m not only talking about the GHG emissions of his flights (divided by the numbers of people on the plane). I’m talking about the bigger picture. How much of the infrastructure that McPherson will use to get here is precisely the things that are causing CC. eg demands for cheap flights creates demand for new infrastructure, including new airports, which in turn increase the number of flights. And following from that all the GHG emitting infrastructure from transport, accommodation, meals etc. Unless one believes that airplanes will soon run on something other than FF, we have to stop flying now unless it is essential. There is no way around that argument morally if we are taking CC seriously.
We have the technology to share information without travelling (‘speaking tours’ are generally information sharing and not a lot else). And we need to be working towards relocalising as much as we can, and that includes activism (and making a living from speaking engagements). McPherson could instead be working with local activists remotely, training them up, getting them to work in their own communities, through NZ networks etc.
In order to respond meaningfully to CC we have to change our behaviour, all of us. And we have to stop using the cultural and conceptual tools that created CC in the first place (in this case flying, travel at will, globalisation,
Do I think we are at serious risk of runaway CC? Yes, of course. Do I think it’s too late and we are going to go extinct? Possibly but we don’t know that for a fact, so I disagree on McPherson’s view on that. Scaring people too much stops them acting.
What did you think about my viewpoints above re flying and change?
One reason it appears to be a “thousand year time frame” is because the scientists analysis wanted to cover several million years.
There is nothing to say that the 7 deg C rise detected in any given millenia could not have happened in say just 200 years.
Indeed, modern ice core analysis techniques can give researchers a year by year (or even month by month) account of how the atmosphere and climate changed. This is how scientists detected that in the past, parts of Greenland warmed by 10 deg C in just a few years.
The researchers talked about in the article could not have given us this same year by year account as much of the research they were examining for their own work would have been done before such techniques were available.
We’re already really fucked, but to have any chance at all we need to radically change everything we do today, and how we do it. And even then we’ll probably still be fucked but you might as well try and have fun doing it.
That during Democratic President Obama’s time, some of which Sec State Clinton was the top foreign policy officer, CO2 levels went up 20ppm, deep sea wells got green lit even after Deep Sea Horizon, the USA fought hard to water down the languaging at Paris COP, the fracking industry grew huge and Obama boasted how this would make the USA be energy independent.
But you support the Democrats if that makes you feel better, just make sure you understand what their true record on climate change actually is.
Point is that a media outlet headlined a possible 7 degree increase in a thousand years from now. Most casual readers (most people) would take that as some eye-brow raising factoid about the distant future…and then get straight down to their carbon profligacy. Climate change (the headline suggests) is a thousand years away. If 7 degrees takes a thousand years, then 1 degree takes 1/7th of 1000 years. Nothing to worry about. Torch that oil.
What is this ‘university educated political elite’ you refer to? You mean politicians?
You think the piece in stuff was penned with politicians in mind? Even in the highly unlikely event that it was, why would a politician (assuming that’s what you mean by that phrase you used) be more or less likely to read it in any way differently to any other reader?
Quite true, although I am not sure why you used the word “IF”.
The permafrost is melting.
Entire Siberian towns are falling down as the foundations of buildings crumble over through softening permafrost and huge sink holes open up.
Under the sea, researchers have taken video of mile long plumes of methane bubbles rising up from destabilised thawing methane hydrates as if the water is lemonade.
New Zealand, we looked like hypocrites this week.
We told the rest of the world to help with Syria, but we’re not doing our own share.
Prime Minister John Key gave the United Nations a telling off this week.
He said the international community had failed Syria.
This is the exact quote:
“Syria has become a byword for failure. Failure of the parties and their supporters to put peace, and the lives of innocent people ahead of self-interest and zero-sum politics.”
It would be a bold statement, if not for our double-standards.
If New Zealand had put “the lives of innocent people ahead” of “politics” we’d have taken more refugees.
There are more Syrians who have fled their country than there are Kiwis living in New Zealand: an estimated 5 million of them.
We offered to take an extra 750 a year ago (7 September 2015).
Lebanon is a country of roughly the same size as New Zealand. They’ve taken more than a million refugees. Admittedly, Lebanon doesn’t have much choice given its proximity to Syria, but regardless, the international burden isn’t being spread equally.
The truth is, John Key would suffer politically if he accepted thousands of Syrians and things went wrong. Maybe they’d struggle to get jobs. Maybe they’d put pressure on housing.
But hey, he reckons we should put the lives of innocent people ahead” of “politics”.
“Schools, orphanages and hospitals in Aleppo that moved underground to escape the destruction around them now feel that even they are at risk.
” “When I saw it I thought, my God, is it possible that there is so much destruction here and nobody wants to help us?” he said. “At that moment I knew that the international community had sentenced us to death, that we would be recorded as martyrs that they will weep over at some future date.”
————
“I’ve been in Aleppo for five years and I’ve seen a lot of bombing, but the destruction of these bombs, I have never seen before,” said Omar Arab, a journalist who lives in the Mashhad neighbourhood..
———–
“The mask fell a long time ago from Russia and the regime, but now the mask has fallen from human rights defenders, from the international community. This is hell itself.”
As previously discussed, the PRA plays no part in decisions about *releasing* information – that’s the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA).
Among the insanity it seems that if you do anything for the rugby player perpetrator of the violent attacks who has been in the news, that you condone what he did.
So someone who serves him take-aways condones his behaviour.
These deductions from the Paul Henry book of logic. Which it must be said, include more than a few chapters on the “look at me” syndrome.
It’s not who cares Paul. It’s so what you Tory scum bags, so business like you. Are you that retarded you need a survey to tell you that the party represents their issues is supported by them.
Seems the Tory scum in this country are that stupid…
Well for one the Labour party president who’s job is to fund raise for the 2017 election.
With Andrew Little rating below the grandmother of NZ gardening (Maggie Barry) it clearly indicates that Little has little respect (and confidence) from the business community.
And Paul ask yourself why James Shaw is so high on the list…and for that matter Jacinda…
He who pays the piper calls the tune. Getting money from business was Labour’s greatest mistake, and they are still paying for it. But your vision is limited to the importance of finance and business, it seems.
Well, that list has lost it’s credibility straight away when they list The Double Dipping Dickhead from Dipton who I would not trust with the local boy scouts jamboree money let alone the economy as the top of the hit parade.
Pretty much all of our credentials including yours are ” Not having added 100 Billion to the nations debt.”
Bill English is , has and always will be a tool, a sly old double dipping no nothing tool. I suppose the best on economics they had was someone who was smart enough to claim housing costs whilst owning a home in Wellington.
Isn’t that also about the time Rodney and a few others got greedy too.
Yeah, we should has slashed benefits,cut WFF and taken an axe to the public sevice , none of this borrowing money to get us through the earth quake and global recession 🙄
And the left wonders why no one takes them seriously.
Bingles speaks their language. He’s really good at not noticing stuff and he doesn’t think anything stinks to high heaven. Ponyboy knows a not tax haven when he doesn’t see one.
Can’t imagine what a bunch of bonus hungry ceos could possibly see in them.
As you may have heard in the news, on Friday 23 September our current email provider, Yahoo, announced that they had discovered a security breach that took place in late 2014 where a large number of customer accounts were compromised.
Unfortunately we believe that your account was one of these. While Yahoo have advised that they have no evidence that the stolen passwords were used to gain unauthorized access to your account, we highly recommend you change your email password now to keep your email safe.
Changed my password, but I sure would like to know which “foreign government” enabled the hacking. Russia or China?
“Please note: By resetting your password, you are also giving permission for Spark to bring my email home in the move early next year. Once your email has been moved, it will continue to be provided free of charge as long as you have a broadband, dial-up or mobile broadband service plan with us on the same account. If you don’t have one of these plans, Xtra email will cost $5.95 per month from early next year.”
Try the GSCB, five eyes n all that.., they know i’m a hard core sympathizer for the communist, isis, holy trinity roman catholic death squad lefty righty splinter group hell bent on planting another highly explosive bomb on the table at any meeting that might occur near Emperor Rimmer and Herr Keynocio in the future,
Long live the rebellion alalalalalalalala
Who knows if they want to trawl through some account I have I hope letters from mum were worth the several days it probably took them to get it.
No doubt i’ll be getting mailing from readers digest and lotto’s in Europe saying that I won, can’t wait.
A cousin in Kenya, left millions from a dieing spinster, my lucks changing.
No dirty deal. I have no doubt the Greens decided it wasn’t worth the expense of standing a candidate especially when Labour’s candidate, Michael Wood is so highly regarded. Open and honest.
Unlike National who pretended to stand a candidate in Epsom while making sure their voters knew to vote for the ACT candidate. Dirty and dishonest.
“No dirty deal. I have no doubt the Greens decided it wasn’t worth the expense of standing a candidate especially when Labour’s candidate, Michael Wood is highly regarded by both parties. Open and honest.”
Oh please Anne can’t you at least be a little honest??
Here is what Metiria Turei said today…
“The Mt Roskill by-election will be closely contested, and we don’t want to play any role in National winning the seat.”
False equivalence. Not putting up a candidate to avoid splitting left vote is far less despicable than National putting up a candidate, telling him not to campaign, then telling Nats to vote for a tiny party that would have no seat in Parliament without such skulduggery. Nats would normally win easily in Mt Eden. Not the same thing at all. Greens all that time ago won their electorate because enough people genuinely supported Jeanette. Nobody ever believed in ACT winners in Epsom = dirty rort; Greens are clean. And please note – Jeanette won her seat in 1993 before MMP, so no rort there. No extra seat in parliament, as Epsom gives.
@rsbandit It is an entirely sensible decision. If National is going to do deals in Epsom election after election, which it does, then any electorate is fair game for a deal on the Left.
And the argument that National never pulls its candidate in Epsom is bollocks-it told people to vote for Seymour/Act and gave Goldsmith a high place on the list, which is 99% the same as pulling a candidate.
Now the Greens need to pull their candidate from Ohariu in the election.
For those who want to know why the site had some outages and now has a different performance profile…
The caching plugin using on the site proved to have a nasty vulnerability. The update provided to fix it broke the site. I’ve been having too many issues with it, so I fixed by purchasing and installing a different one.
Expect a few idiocies from the site while I tune this one up. Looks adequate so far.
We can’t say just because they do, we’ll do it. That makes us no better. If we don’t have our integrity, then why should we trust our politicians any more than we trust the other team?
No deals. I hope this not the shape of things to come, because it makes a mockery of MMP.
by Daphna Whitmore I thought the #LetWomenSpeak meeting would be a good time to talk about free speech and why it is important for the left. Then the mob stampeded the open-air gathering and no one got to speak. Here’s what I was had prepared. Today I want to talk ...
By Don Franks Today my friend Ani O’Briien went to a meeting in Auckland and wrote: “No sooner had Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull arrived at the Rotunda, a protestor (who had managed to get past the barrier) ran at her and threw a red substance all over her and a security ...
Jonathan Milne, managing editor for Newsroom Pro, has expressed his indignation about the outcome of a court decision yesterday in an article headed Posie Parker wins the beautiful freedom to make an ugly argument.Newsroom Pro laments: High Court Justice David Gendall has regretfully allowed an outspoken anti-trans activist to enter New ...
imagine my surprise this week when the National Party, in their infinite wisdom, decided to release an education policy. As you can imagine, this got us so riled up here in the office that we dusted off our Windows XP laptop, waiting 17 hours for all the updates to be ...
Come on Jess thought Mr Evans come on. He watched the large clock on the wall tick closer to 8:40am. Come on girl.In two minutes he had to submit the class attendance report and with Jess having already been late once that term it’d mean an automatic visit from the ...
This week’s UN IPCC report warned climate emissions will need to be cut by almost half by 2030, if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C. Bronwyn Hayward points out in The Hoon podcast how far behind NZ’s government and councils are now on climate action compared to the rest ...
Chris Hipkins, after he became prime minister, committed to defeating the cost-of- living crisis. He proceeded to make a bonfire of policies that were at the heart of Jacinda Ardern’s administration. But, as Richard Prebble pointed out this week, “the government has not just U-turned, it has repudiated the ...
There are some wellness, crystal-gazing, holistic spiritual guidance types in my disaster-hit coastal community who insist that the power of positive thinking will overcome the physical and material damages incurred by the community. They object to restrictions on road travel … Continue reading → ...
Evaluating the recent crashes of Silicon Valley Bank in the US and Credit Suisse in Switzerland plus two other banks (perhaps more by the time you read this) needs to begin with a review of the inevitable instability in the financial sector. The financial sector is inherently unstable, like military ...
1. We see here new police minister Ginny Andersen. Which larger than life NZ political figure was her great-uncle?a. Rob Muldoonb. Bill Andersenc. Richard John Seddond. Norman Kirk2. We see here archival footage of Ginny Andersen coming out of her electorate office to ask ex-tobacco lobbyist Chris Bishop if he ...
Buzz from the Beehive Stuart Nash, speaking as Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, one of his remaining portfolios after he was dropped down the Hipkins Government batting order, has drawn attention to the blue economy and its potential. Nash says the government is investing in the blue economy, or – ...
Photo by Josh Mills on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for the next hour, including:The runs on Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank on the west coast of the United States that forced the ...
Roundup is back! We skipped last week’s Friday post due to a shortage of person-power – did you notice? Lots going on out there… Our header image this week shows a green street that just happens to be Queen St, by @chamfy from Twitter. This week (and last) in ...
After threatening Prime Minister Chris Hipkins of consequences if he dared to bar her entry, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull has been given her visa, regardless. This will enable her to hold rallies in Auckland and Wellington this weekend, and spread her messages of hostility against an already marginalised trans community. Neo-Nazis may, ...
* Bryce Edwards writes – The New Zealand Government has been silent about Australia’s decision to commit up to $400bn acquiring nuclear submarines, even though this is a significant threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. The deal was struck by the Albanese Labor Government as ...
Boomers voted him in, but Brown’s Trumpish moments might spook Aucklanders worried about what a change to National nationally might mean. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR:Auckland MayorWayne Brown has become our version of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, except without any of the insatiable appetite for media appearances. He ...
The New Zealand Government has been silent about Australia’s decision to commit up to $400bn acquiring nuclear submarines, even though this is a significant threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. The deal was struck by the Albanese Labor Government as part of its Aukus pact with the ...
Recently you might have heard of a person called Posie Parker and her visit to Aotearoa. Perhaps you’re not quite sure what it’s all about. So let’s start with who this person is, why their visit is controversial, and what on earth a TERF is.Posie Parker is the super villain ...
The chair of Parliament’s Select Committee looking at the Government’s resource management legislation wants the bills sent back for more public consultation. The proposal would effectively kill any chance of the bills making it into law before the election. Green MP, Eugenie Sage, stressing that she was speaking as ...
Open access notables The United States experienced some historical low temperature records during the just-concluded winter. It's a reminder that climate and weather are quite noisy; with regard to our warming climate,, as with a road ascending a mountain range we may steadily change our conditions but with lots of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The Nanny State has scored some wins (or claimed them) in the past day or two but it faltered when it came to protecting Kiwi citizens from being savaged by one woman armed with a sharp tongue. The wins are recorded by triumphant ministers on the ...
Sometimes you see your friends making the case so well on social media you think: just copy and share.On acceptance and decency, from Michèle A’CourtA notable thing about anti-trans people is they way they talk about transgender women and men as though they are strangers “over there” when in fact ...
Not that long ago, things were looking pretty good for climate change policy in Aotearoa. We finally had an ETS, and while it was full of pork and subsidies, it was delivering high and ever-rising carbon prices, sending a clear message to polluters to clean up or shut down. And ...
Comparing (and switching) electricity providers has become easier, but bundling power up with broadband and/or gas makes it more challenging. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā TL;DR: The new Consumer Advocacy Council set up as a result of the Labour Government’s Electricity Price Review in 2019 has called on either ...
Hokitika-based Westland Milk Products has put the heat on dairy giant Fonterra with a $120m profit turnaround in 2022, driven by record sales. Westland paid its suppliers a 10c premium above the forecast Fonterra price per kilo, contributing $535m to the West Coast and Canterbury economies. The dairy ...
* Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealanders are uncomfortable with the high level of influence corporate lobbyists have in New Zealand politics, and demands are growing for greater regulation. A recent poll shows 62 per cent of the public support having a two-year cooling off period between ministers leaving public ...
New Zealanders are uncomfortable with the high level of influence corporate lobbyists have in New Zealand politics, and demands are growing for greater regulation. A recent poll shows 62 per cent of the public support having a two-year cooling off period between ministers leaving public office and becoming lobbyists and ...
This is a guest post by accessibility and sustainable transport advocate Tim Adriaansen It originally appeared here. A friend calls you and asks for your help. They tell you that while out and about nearby, they slipped over and landed arms-first. Now their wrist is swollen, hurting like ...
Floating offshore wind turbines offer incredible opportunities to capture powerful winds far out at sea. By unlocking this wind energy potential, they could be a key weapon in our arsenal in the fight against climate change. But how developed are these climate fighting clean energy giants? And why do I ...
Over the past two or three weeks, a procession of Maori iwi and hapu in a series of little-noticed appearances before two Select Committees have been asking for more say for Maori over resource management decisions along the co-governance lines of Three Waters. Their submissions and appearances run counter ...
The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue war crimes arrest warrants for the Russian President and the Russia Children Ombudsman may have been welcomed by the ideologically committed but otherwise seems to have been greeted with widespread cynicism (see Situation in Ukraine: ICC judges issue arrest warrants ...
Let’s say you’re clasping your drink at a wedding, or a 40th, or a King’s Birthday Weekend family reunion and Drunk Uncle Kevin has just got going.He’s in an expansive frame of mind because we’re finally rid of that silly girl. But he wants to ask an honest question about ...
National Party leader Christopher Luxon may be feeling glum about his poll ratings, but he could be tapping into a rich political vein in describing the current state of education as “alarming”. Luxon said educational achievement has been declining, with a recent NCEA pilot exposing just how far it has ...
Way Beyond Reform: Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have no more interest in remaining permanent members of “New Zealand’s” House of Representatives than did Lenin and Trotsky in remaining permanent members of Tsar Nicolas II’s “democratically-elected” Duma. Like the Bolsheviks, Te Pāti Māori is a party of revolutionaries – not reformists.THE CROWN ...
Buzz from the Beehive Auckland was wiped off the map, when Education Minister Jan Tinetti delivered her speech of welcome as host of the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers “here in Tāmaki Makaurau”. But – fair to say – a reference was made later in the speech to a ...
Morning mate, how you going?Well, I was watching the news last night and they announced this scientific report on Climate Change. But before they got to it they had a story about the new All Blacks coach.Sounds like important news. It’s a bit of a worry really.Yeah, they were talking ...
Always a bailout: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Government would fully guarantee all savers in all smaller US banks if needed. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: No wonder an entire generation of investors are used to ‘buying the dip’ and ‘holding on for dear life’. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ...
Wealthy vested interests have an oversized influence on political decisions in New Zealand. Partly that’s due to their use of corporate lobbyists. Fortunately, the influence lobbyists can have on decisions made by politicians is currently under scrutiny in Guyon Espiner’s in-depth series published by RNZ. Two of Espiner’s research exposés ...
Yesterday afternoon it rained and traffic around the region ground to a halt, once again highlighting why it is so important that our city gets on with improving the alternatives to driving. For additional irony, this happened on the same day the IPCC synthesis report landed, putting the focus on ...
The Beginning: Anti-Co-Governance agitator, Julian Batchelor, addresses the Dargaville stop of his travelling roadshow across New Zealand . Fascism almost always starts small. Sadly, it doesn’t always stay that way. Especially when the Left helps it to grow.THERE IS A DREADFUL LOGIC to the growth of fascism. To begin with, it ...
Hi,From an incredibly rainy day in Los Angeles, I just wanted to check in. I guess this is the day Trump may or may not end up in cuffs? I’m attempting a somewhat slower, less frenzied week. I’ve had Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s new record on non-stop, and it’s been a ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
RNZ has been shining their torch into corners where lobbyists lurk and asking such questions as: Do we like the look of this?and Is this as democratic as it could be?These are most certainly questions worth asking, and every bit as valid as, say:Are weshortchanged democratically by the way ...
RNZ has continued its look at the role of lobbyists by taking a closer look at the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Andrew Kirton. He used to work for liquor companies, opposing (among other things) a container refund scheme which would have required them to take responsibility for their own ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has left for Beijing for the first ministerial visit to China since 2019. Mahuta is to meet China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang where she might have to call on all the diplomatic skills at her command. Almost certainly she will face questions on what role ...
TL;DR:The Opportunities Party’s Leader Raf Manji is hopeful the party’s new Teal Card, a type of Gold card for under 30s, will be popular with students, and not just in his Ilam electorate where students make up more than a quarter of the voters and where Manji is confident ...
When I was a kid New Zealand was actually pretty green. We didn’t really have plastic. The fruit and veges came in a cardboard box, the meat was wrapped in paper, milk came in a glass bottle, and even rubbish sacks were made of paper. Today if you sit down ...
Looking back through the names of our Police Ministers down the years, the job has either been done by once or future party Bigfoots – Syd Holland, Richard Prebble, Juduth Collins, Chris Hipkins – or by far lesser lights like Keith Allen, Frank Gill, Ben Couch, Allen McCready, Clem Simich, ...
Chris Trotter writes – The Crown is a fickle friend. Any political movement deemed to be colourful but inconsequential is generally permitted to go about its business unmolested. The Crown’s media, RNZ and TVNZ, may even “celebrate” its existence (presumably as proof of Democracy’s broad-minded acceptance of diversity). ...
Four out of the five people who have held the top role of Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff since 2017 have been lobbyists. That’s a fact that should worry anyone who believes vested interests shouldn’t have a place at the centre of decision making. Chris Hipkins’ newly appointed Chief of ...
Feedback on Auckland Council’s draft 2023/24 budget closes on March 28th. You can read the consultation document here, and provide feedback here. Auckland Council is currently consulting on what is one of its most important ever Annual Plans – the ‘budget’ of what it will spend money on between July ...
by Molten Moira from Motueka If you want to be a woman let me tell you what to do Get a piece of paper and a biro tooWrite down your new identification And boom! You’re now a woman of this nationSpelled W O M A Na real trans woman that isAs opposed ...
Buzz from the Beehive New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti is hosting the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers for three days from today, welcoming Education Ministers and senior officials from 18 Pacific Island countries and territories, and from Australia. Here’s hoping they have brought translators with them – or ...
Let’s say you’ve come all the way from His Majesty’s United Kingdom to share with the folk of Australia and New Zealand your antipathy towards certain other human beings. And let’s say you call yourself a women’s rights activist.And let’s say 99 out of 100 people who listen to you ...
James Shaw gave the Green party's annual "state of the planet" address over the weekend, in which he expressed frustration with Labour for not doing enough on climate change. His solution is to elect more Green MPs, so they have more power within any government arrangement, and can hold Labour ...
RNZ this morning has the first story another investigative series by Guyon Espiner, this time into political lobbying. The first story focuses on lobbying by government agencies, specifically transpower, Pharmac, and assorted universities, and how they use lobbyists to manipulate public opinion and gather intelligence on the Ministers who oversee ...
Nick Matzke writes – Dear NZ Herald, I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland. I teach evolutionary biology, but I also have long experience in science education and (especially) political attempts to insert pseudoscience into science curricula in ...
James Shaw has again said the Greens would be better ‘in the tent’ with Labour than out, despite Labour’s policy bonfire last week torching much of what the Government was doing to reduce emissions. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Green Party has never been more popular than in some ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler Poor air quality is a long-standing problem in Los Angeles, where the first major outbreak of smog during World War II was so intense that some residents thought the city had been attacked by chemical weapons. Cars were eventually discovered ...
Yesterday I was reading an excellent newsletter from David Slack, and I started writing a comment “Sounds like some excellent genetic heritage…” and then I stopped.There was something about the phrase genetic heritage that stopped me in tracks. Is that a phrase I want to be saying? It’s kind of ...
Brian Easton writes – Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go ...
This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War. While it strongly opposed the US-led invasion, New Zealand’s then Labour-led government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark did deploy military engineers to try to help rebuild Iraq in mid-2003. With violence soaring, their 12-month deployment ended without being renewed ...
After seventy years, Auckland’s motorway network is finally finished. In July 1953 the first section of motorway in Auckland was opened between Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Mt Wellington Highway. The final stage opens to traffic this week with the completion of the motorway part of the Northern Corridor Improvements project. Aucklanders ...
National’s appointment of Todd McClay as Agriculture spokesperson clearly signals that the party is in trouble with the farming vote. McClay was not an obvious choice, but he does have a record as a political scrapper. The party needs that because sources say it has been shedding farming votes ...
Rays of white light come flooding into my lounge, into my face from over the top of my neighbour’s hedge. I have to look away as the window of the conservatory is awash in light, as if you were driving towards the sun after a rain shower and suddenly blinded. ...
The columnists in Private Eye take pen names, so I have not the least idea who any of them are. But I greatly appreciate their expert insight, especially MD, who writes the medical column, offering informed and often damning critique of the UK health system and the politicians who keep ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Mar 12, 2023 thru Sat, Mar 18, 2023. Story of the Week Guest post: What 13,500 citations reveal about the IPCC’s climate science report IPCC WG1 AR6 SPM Report Cover - Changing ...
Buzz from the Beehive The building of financial capability was brought into our considerations when Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced she had dipped into the government’s coffers for $3 million for “providers” to help people and families access community-based Building Financial Capability services. That wording suggests some ...
Do you ever come across something that makes you go Hmmmm?You mean like the song?No, I wasn’t thinking of the song, but I am now - thanks for that. I was thinking of things you read or hear that make you stop and go Hmmmm.Yeah, I know what you mean, ...
By the end of the week, the dramas over Stuart Nash overshadowed Hipkins’ policy bonfire. File photo: Lynn GrieveasonTLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included:PM Chris Hipkins’ announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but ...
When word went out that Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would be making an announcement about Stuart Nash on the tiles at parliament at 2:45pm yesterday, the assumption was that it was over. That we had reached tipping point for Nash’s time as minister. But by 3pm - when, coincidentally, the ...
Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go on to attack physics by citing Newton.So ...
Photo by Walker Fenton on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on Riverside (we’ve moved from Zoom) for our chat about the week’s news with ...
In a nice bit of news, my 2550-word deindustrial science-fiction piece, The Dream of Florian Neame, has been accepted for publication at New Maps Magazine (https://www.new-maps.com/). I have published there before, of course, with Of Tin and Tintagel coming out last year. While I still await the ...
In response to Newshub and Amelia Wade’s obvious and ham-fisted attempt at a typical and predicted political hit job. As any politically aware reporter would know, any Cabinet subcommittee has a duty and obligation as a part of any government to respond to any UN declaration, in this case ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today and in your busy lives turning up to this meeting. Forty five years ago, in Howick, often described as racist, and where few Maori lived because it had been a ‘Fencible’ settlement at the time of the Anglo-Maori ...
The Green Party has marked the National Party’s new education policy and given it a fail, especially for its failure to address the underlying drivers of school performance. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised in their State of the Planet speech today. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party after the election must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised today. ...
You will never truly understand, from the pictures you’ve seen in the newspapers or on the six o-clock news, the sheer scale of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. ...
We’re boosting incomes and helping ease cost of living pressures on Kiwis through a range of bread and butter support measures that will see pensioners, students, families, and those on main benefits better off from the start of next month. ...
The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government. ...
“Cabinet needs to do better - and today has shown exactly why we need Green Ministers in cabinet, so we can prioritise action to cut climate pollution and support people to make ends meet,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson. ...
Biggest increase in food prices for over three decades shows the need for an excess profit tax on corporations to help people put food on the table. ...
The Green Party has today launched a submission guide to help Aucklanders give crucial input and prevent potentially disastrous Auckland Council budget proposals. ...
With calls growing for inquiries and action on bank profits, the Greens say the Government has all the information it needs to act now and put a levy on banks. ...
As large parts of Aotearoa recover from two of the worst climate disasters we have ever experienced, it would be a huge mistake for the Government to deprioritise climate action from future transport investments, the Green Party says. ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little has delivered the Crown apology to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua for its historic breaches of Te Tiriti of Waitangi today. The ceremony was held at Queen Elizabeth Park in Masterton, hosted by Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua, with several hundred ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta has concluded her visit to China, the first by a New Zealand Foreign Minister since 2018. The Minister met her counterpart, newly appointed State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Qin Gang, who also hosted a working dinner. This was the first engagement between the two ...
World-class satellite positioning services that will support much safer search and rescue, boost precision farming, and help safety on construction sites through greater accuracy are a significant step closer today, says Land Information Minister Damien O’Connor. Damien O’Connor marked the start of construction on New Zealand’s first uplink centre for ...
Attorney-General David Parker has announced the appointment of Christopher John Dellabarca of Wellington, Dr Katie Jane Elkin of Wellington, Caroline Mary Hickman of Napier, Ngaroma Tahana of Rotorua, Tania Rose Williams Blyth of Hamilton and Nicola Jan Wills of Wellington as District Court Judges. Chris Dellabarca Mr Dellabarca commenced his ...
A new Government-backed project will help ocean-related businesses in the Nelson Tasman region to accelerate their growth and boost jobs. “The Nelson Tasman region is home to more than 400 blue economy businesses, accounting for more than 30 percent of New Zealand’s economic activity in fishing, aquaculture, and seafood processing,” ...
After three years of COVID-19 disruptions schools are finally settling down and National want to throw that all in the air with major disruption to learning and underinvestment. “National’s education policy lacks the very thing teachers, parents and students need after a tough couple of years, certainty and stability,” Education ...
People aged over 50 with innovative business ideas will now be able to receive support to advance their ideas to the next stage of development, Minister for Seniors Ginny Andersen said today. “Seniors have some great entrepreneurial ideas, and this programme will give them the support to take that next ...
A cross government target for relevant government procurement contracts for goods and services to be awarded to Māori businesses annually will increase to 8%, after the initial 5% target was exceeded. The progressive procurement policy was introduced in 2020 to increase supplier diversity, starting with Māori businesses, for the estimated ...
77,000 fewer children living in low income households on the after-housing-costs primary measure since Labour took office Eight of the nine child poverty measures have seen a statistically significant reduction since 2018. All nine have reduced 28,700 fewer children experiencing material hardship since 2018 Measures taken by the Government during ...
Deputy Prime Minister Kamikamica; distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Tēnā koutou katoa, ni sa bula vinaka saka, namaste. Deputy Prime Minister, a very warm welcome to Aotearoa. I trust you have been enjoying your time here and thank you for joining us here today. To all delegates who have travelled to be ...
$2.9 million convertible loan for Scapegrace Distillery to meet growing national and international demand $4.5m underwrite to support Silverlight Studios’ project to establish a film studio in Wanaka Gore’s James Cumming Community Centre and Library to be official opened tomorrow with support of $3m from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood has today launched the first national EV (electric vehicle) charging strategy, Charging Our Future, which includes plans to provide EV charging stations in almost every town in New Zealand. “Our vision is for Aotearoa New Zealand to have world-class EV charging infrastructure that is accessible, affordable, ...
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment Priyanca Radhakrishnan has today launched the Love Better campaign in a world-leading approach to family harm prevention. Love Better will initially support young people through their experience of break-ups, developing positive and life-long attitudes to dealing with hurt. “Over 1,200 young kiwis told ...
Hon Rino Tirikatene, Minister for Courts, welcomes the Ministry of Justice’s appointment of Dr Garry Clearwater as New Zealand’s first Chief Clinical Advisor working with the Coroners Court. “This appointment is significant for the Coroners Court and New Zealand’s wider coronial system.” Minister Tirikatene said. Through Budget 2022, the Government ...
The Government via the Cyclone Taskforce is working with local government and insurance companies to build a picture of high-risk areas following Cyclone Gabrielle and January floods. “The Taskforce, led by Sir Brian Roche, has been working with insurance companies to undertake an assessment of high-risk areas so we can ...
E te huia kaimanawa, ko Ngāpuhi e whakahari ana i tau aupikinga ki te tihi o te maunga. Ko te Ao Māori hoki e whakanui ana i a koe te whakaihu waka o te reo Māori i roto i te Ao Ture. (To the prized treasure, it is Ngāpuhi who ...
113,400 exits into work in the year to June 2022 Young people are moving off Benefit faster than after the Global Financial Crisis Two reports released today by the Ministry of Social Development show the Government’s investment in the COVID-19 response helped drive record numbers of people off Benefits and ...
The Government’s priority to keep New Zealand at the cutting edge of food production and lift our sustainability credentials continues by backing the next steps of a hi-tech vertical farming venture that uses up to 95 per cent less water, is climate resilient, and pesticide-free. Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor visited ...
E nga mana, e nga iwi, e nga reo, e nga hau e wha, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou kātoa. Warm Pacific greetings to all. It is an honour to host the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers here in Tāmaki Makaurau. Aotearoa is delighted to be hosting you ...
The new renal unit at Taranaki Base Hospital has been officially opened by the Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall this afternoon. Te Huhi Raupō received around $13 million in government funding as part of Project Maunga Stage 2, the redevelopment of the Taranaki Base Hospital campus. “It’s an honour ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little has marked the arrival of the country’s second P-8A Poseidon aircraft alongside personnel at the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s Base at Ohakea today. “With two of the four P-8A Poseidons now on home soil this marks another significant milestone in the Government’s historic investment in ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will provide further humanitarian support to those seriously affected by last month’s deadly earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, says Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta. “The 6 February earthquakes have had devastating consequences, with almost 18 million people affected. More than 53,000 people have died and tens of thousands more ...
Migrant communities across New Zealand are represented in the new Migrant Community Reference Group that will help shape immigration policy going forward, Immigration Minister Michael Wood announced today. “Since becoming Minister, a reoccurring message I have heard from migrants is the feeling their voice has often been missing around policy ...
Construction has begun on major works that will deliver significant safety improvements on State Highway 3 from Waitara to Bell Block, Associate Minister of Transport Kiri Allan announced today. “This is an important route for communities, freight and visitors to Taranaki but too many people have lost their lives or ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has today appointed Ginny Andersen as Minister of Police. “Ginny Andersen has a strong and relevant background in this important portfolio,” Chris Hipkins said. “Ginny Andersen worked for the Police as a non-sworn staff member for around 10 years and has more recently been chair of ...
Six further bailey bridge sites confirmed Four additional bridge sites under consideration 91 per cent of damaged state highways reopened Recovery Dashboards for impacted regions released The Government has responded quickly to restore lifeline routes after Cyclone Gabrielle and can today confirm that an additional six bailey bridges will ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for China tomorrow, where she will meet with her counterpart, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in Beijing. This will be the first visit by a New Zealand Minister to China since 2019, and follows the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions between New Zealand and China. ...
Education Ministers from across the Pacific will gather in Tāmaki Makaurau this week to share their collective knowledge and strategic vision, for the benefit of ākonga across the region. New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti will host the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers (CPEM) for three days from today, ...
A vital transport link for communities and local businesses has been restored following Cyclone Gabrielle with the reopening of State Highway 5 (SH5) between Napier and Taupō, Associate Minister of Transport Kiri Allan says. SH5 reopened to all traffic between 7am and 7pm from today, with closure points at SH2 (Kaimata ...
Internal Affairs Minister Barbara Edmonds has thanked generous New Zealanders who took part in the special Lotto draw for communities affected by Cyclone Gabrielle. Held on Saturday night, the draw raised $11.7 million with half of all ticket sales going towards recovery efforts. “In a time of need, New Zealanders ...
The Government has announced funding of $3 million for providers to help people, and whānau access community-based Building Financial Capability services. “Demand for Financial Capability Services is growing as people face cost of living pressures. Those pressures are increasing further in areas affected by flooding and Cyclone Gabrielle,” Minister for ...
Minister of Education, Hon Jan Tinetti, has announced appointments to the Board of Education New Zealand | Manapou ki te Ao. Tracey Bridges is joining the Board as the new Chair and Dr Therese Arseneau will be a new member. Current members Dr Linda Sissons CNZM and Daniel Wilson have ...
Fifteen ākonga Māori from across Aotearoa have been awarded the prestigious Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships and Awards for 2023, Associate Education Minister and Ngarimu Board Chair, Kelvin Davis announced today. The recipients include doctoral, masters’ and undergraduate students. Three vocational training students and five wharekura students, ...
High Court Judge Jillian Maree Mallon has been appointed a Judge of the Court of Appeal, and District Court Judge Andrew John Becroft QSO has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Mallon graduated from Otago University in 1988 with an LLB (Hons), and with ...
The economy has continued to show its resilience despite today’s GDP figures showing a modest decline in the December quarter, leaving the Government well positioned to help New Zealanders face cost of living pressures in a challenging global environment. “The economy had grown strongly in the two quarters before this ...
Aucklanders now have more ways to get around as Transport Minister Michael Wood opened the direct State Highway 1 (SH1) to State Highway 18 (SH18) underpass today, marking the completion of the 48-kilometre Western Ring Route (WRR). “The Government is upgrading New Zealand’s transport system to make it safer, more ...
This section contains briefings received by incoming ministers following changes to Cabinet in January. Some information may have been withheld in accordance with the Official Information Act 1982. Where information has been withheld that is indicated within the document. ...
Aotearoa New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta reaffirmed her commitment to working together with the new Government of Fiji on issues of shared importance, including on the prioritisation of climate change and sustainability, at a meeting today, in Nadi. Fiji and Aotearoa New Zealand’s close relationship is underpinned by the Duavata ...
The Government is delivering a coastal shipping lifeline for businesses, residents and the primary sector in the cyclone-stricken regions of Hawkes Bay and Tairāwhiti, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan announced today. The Rangitata vessel has been chartered for an emergency coastal shipping route between Gisborne and Napier, with potential for ...
The Government will progress to the next stage of the NZ Battery Project, looking at the viability of pumped hydro as well as an alternative, multi-technology approach as part of the Government’s long term-plan to build a resilient, affordable, secure and decarbonised energy system in New Zealand, Energy and Resources ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Dean Lewins/AAP With 36% of enrolled voters counted in today’s New South Wales state election, the Poll Bludger’s results currently ...
A former entertainment mecca in the middle of Auckland is up for grabs. The problem? It’s been run into the ground. Have you got spare cash sitting around? Do you want to buy something grand, something special? How does a nine-storey complex covering 3,486 square metres in the middle of ...
Posey Parker appeared in Auckland today for a brief few moments, but it was clear that she was going to have a hard time being heard above thousands of people exercising their own right to free speech The streets of Auckland’s city centre were thick today with the noise of tubas, ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson was knocked to the ground by a motorcyclist who appeared to fail to stop at a pedestrian crossing after today's counter-protest against Posie Parker. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson was struck by a passing motorcycle this morning as she protested Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s rally event at Albert Park. Davidson was standing on Princes St holding a sign reading “trans solidarity” when a band of motorcyclists, there in support of Brian and Hannah Tamaki’s Vision NZ, ...
By Krishneel Nair in Suva“The most important thing from my perspective is a strategic partnership — a partnership where the media should not be seen as the enemy or a nuisance.” This was the view of the Communications Fiji Ltd news director and Fijian Media Association executive Vijay Narayan ...
The noise began long before Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (AKA Posie Parker) arrived. Despite an 11am scheduled start time to her planned rally to “speak for women”, the Albert Park rotunda was surrounded by 10.30. But the crowd was not there to see or hear her. A truck parked at the entrance ...
Chris Schulz on the nearly three-hours of joy Keanu Reeves’ latest non-stop orgy of violence brings. This is an excerpt from our pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up to have it delivered to your inbox every Friday here. Keanu Reeves has annihilated the place. In what appears to be ...
Teacher unions have criticised National's curriculum plan, but the party was targeting concerned parents and his political opponent, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. ...
Don’t underestimate the significance of TVNZ’s new documentary series about Kai Kara-France, a fighter acclaimed on the world stage but still criminally underrated at home, writes Don Rowe. In 2015, when I first profiled Kai Kara-France for the now-defunct Mana magazine, he told me he’d never wanted to sign with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Justin Lloyd/AAP The New South Wales state election is today. Polls close at 6pm AEDT. Votes cast on election day ...
If current trends continue, by 2053 half of retirement-age New Zealanders will be renters. Right now, options for over-65s who don’t own their own home are limited.This story was first published on Stuff. What’s life like when you reach retirement age, but don’t own a home of your own? Most ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Feigin, Postdoctoral Fellow in Genomics and Evolution, The University of Melbourne Anom Harya/ShutterstockShoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land on the next tree. Many groups of mammals seem to have taken this evolutionary advice to ...
When a big corporate is alarmed about possible law changes, it asks its well-connected lobbyist to intervene. A text message exchange between a Cabinet Minister and his lobbyist "mate" follows. ...
The popularity of stories about unhappy rich people says more about our need to view them that way than it does about how they experience their livesOpinion:Succession is returning to Aotearoa’s television screens. It joins other portrayals of the emotional traumas that come from having far, far too ...
The popularity of stories about unhappy rich people says more about our need to view them that way than it does about how they experience their livesOpinion:Succession is returning to Aotearoa’s television screens. It joins other portrayals of the emotional traumas that come from having far, far too ...
This is The Detail's Long Read - one in-depth story read by us every weekend This week, it's What's Up With ADHD?, written by Mirjam Guesgen and published in North & South's April 2023 issue. You can find the full article, with illustrations by Rachel Salazar, in this month’s issue of North & South. Once a condition ...
This is The Detail's Long Read - one in-depth story read by us every weekend This week, it's What's Up With ADHD?, written by Mirjam Guesgen and published in North & South's April 2023 issue. You can find the full article, with illustrations by Rachel Salazar, in this month’s issue of North & South. Once a condition ...
"He imagines the rattling windows of his bach": a sad seaside saga by Majella Cullinane Màiri watches him as he walks down the hill next to her house. The man appears gradually – first his head covered in a tweed cap and earphones, then the unkempt hair and beard, ...
"He imagines the rattling windows of his bach": a sad seaside saga by Majella Cullinane Màiri watches him as he walks down the hill next to her house. The man appears gradually – first his head covered in a tweed cap and earphones, then the unkempt hair and beard, ...
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. This week, we looked at how our top authors make a living writing books, the sky-high fares coming from independent taxi drivers, how the people of Muriwai are putting their lives back together post-Cyclone Gabrielle, why a Levin chocolate maker is ...
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. This week, we looked at how our top authors make a living writing books, the sky-high fares coming from independent taxi drivers, how the people of Muriwai are putting their lives back together post-Cyclone Gabrielle, why a Levin chocolate maker is ...
Not content with transforming KiwiSaver, Simplicity is now planning to out-build Kāinga Ora. Duncan Greive meets a pair of of unlikely revolutionaries trying to fix housing – a task which seems impossible, even for the state itself.In September of 2020, a builder named Shane Brealey sat down and typed ...
The Auckland Writers Festival has just launched its 23rd programme, the first since Covid to include its signature line-up of visiting international writers. With 160 events to choose from, here’s books editor Claire Mabey’s top 10 to help you navigate your way through the lit fest universe.Straight Up: Ruby ...
Taking her her young family around the world as she rows is a key factor in Emma Twigg's decision to defend her Olympic single sculls title at next year's Paris Olympics. And, Andy Hay writes, the next Emma Twigg could be waiting in the wings at the Maadi Cup next week. ...
The Fijian Drua will need to start and finish well, while Moana Pasifika’s coach wants to see a full 80-minute performance this weekend as the two regional teams continue their Super Rugby Pacific campaigns. The Drua tackle the Highlanders in Dunedin today and Pasifika face the Hurricanes at Mt Smart ...
By Todagia Kelola in Port Moresby A number of small contractors in Papua New Guinea are still waiting for positive feedback for money owed to them by government agencies after 12 years. A 2015 Post-Courier front page picture showed a man, David Goli, who chained himself at the then headquarters ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Beryl Exley, Professor, Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Griffith University Shutterstock Last August, the federal government set up an expert panel to look at the continuous improvement agenda in teacher education in Australia. The panel, led by ...
The New Zealand First leader took to the altar of an East Auckland church today to set out his 2023 election agenda. It was, as Stewart Sowman-Lund found out, pretty much what you’d expect. Winston Peters rolled into Howick today with a state of the nation speech that, he claimed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Wardle, Professor of Public Health, Southern Cross University Shutterstock Earlier this week, Australian retail giant Woolworths announced a move into health-care delivery via development of its subsidiary HealthyLife’s online portal. Through this portal, Australians can book a same-day ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters - eyeing a political comeback - has used a scene-setting speech in Auckland warning against a "conceited, conniving, cultural cabal". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Peterson, Adjunct Associate Professor, Auckland University of Technology The Sheep Song.Tim Standing/Daylight Breaks/Adelaide Festival Few Adelaideans remember a time before the Adelaide Festival. Formed in 1960 as a civic enterprise and financed against loss by prominent Adelaide businessmen, the ...
Analysis - The Greens lay down a challenge as the minor parties approach an election in which both National and Labour are going to need coalition partners to form a government, writes Peter Wilson. ...
By Arieta Vakasukawaqa in Suva Communications Fiji Ltd (CFL) chair William Parkinson has called for a repeal of Fiji’s Media Industry Development Act 2010 and more discussion on the proposed Media Ownership and Registration Bill 2023. He said this during a public consultation on the review of MIDA Act 2010 ...
High Court Justice David Gendall regretfully allows anti-trans activist to enter New Zealand, but warns the expression of her views may be harmful to our vulnerable rainbow community. Jonathan Milne does his best to be civil.Opinion: Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull calls herself Posie Parker. And that's what I'm going to call her. Because she is ...
It’s about time somebody made a wacky TV show about how bonkers spelling is. Enter comedian Guy Montgomery and his Guy Mont Spelling Bee. The three years since Covid-19 began have been pretty rocky, but one of the best things to come out of the chaos was Guy Montgomery’s Guy ...
Te Rōpū Mātai Hinengaro o Aotearoa, The New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS) stands beside LGBTQIA+ and Takatāpui communities rallying against anti-trans rhetoric in light of the impending visit of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker). We are ...
Earlier this month, everybody’s favourite Monster of the Week series Married at First Sight Australia toppled 1News to become the highest rating television show for New Zealand viewers aged 25-54. The controversial reality series garnered an average audience of 137,000, or 6.7% audience share from March 5 until March 11. ...
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for feijoa lovers – here’s how to make the most of it.Fragrant and sweet, with a delicate jelly centre surrounded by gritty, tangy flesh, all encased in a green sour skin. My parents’ feijoa tree has just dropped its first fruit, ...
A new poem by poet and novelist Maggie Rainey-Smith. Bang a Drum We’ve hit Gentle Annie passed the pub at Okaramio and on the left, at Wakapuaka there’s Sunnybank where parents left their children An oddly named orphanage manned (ha) by Nuns childless women in black habits, scapula, cowls and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathy Buntting, Director, Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, University of Waikato Getty Images Less than a fortnight after teachers staged a national strike, education was back in the headlines with the National Party’s release of its curriculum policy – ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)Number one in both ...
The Free Speech Union welcomes the decision of the High Court to reject the application to overrule the decision of the Minister of Immigration to allow Kellie-Jay entry into New Zealand. This was the only right result for a nation that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fan Yang, Research Associate at RMIT and Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University Baidu’s ERNIE Bot was launched to considerable disappointment.Ng Han Guan / AP On March 16, Baidu unveiled China’s latest rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT – ERNIE Bot (short for “Enhanced ...
By Meri Radinibaravi in Suva Former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has told The Fiji Times to ask the Republic of Fiji Military Forces about claims that his bodyguards were allowed to take guns on to Fiji Link flights without proper authorisation. “I understand that there’s some enquiries going on regarding that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University Installation view of Troy Emery’s work Mountain climber 2022 on display as part of the Melbourne Now exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne from 24 March – 20 August ...
National’s education policy reinforces an old-fashioned and hierarchical curriculum that does lasting harm to many students, writes educational specialist Dr Sarah Aiono. Announcing the National Party’s new education policy this week, leader Christopher Luxon cited a recent NCEA pilot in which two-thirds of students were unable to meet the minimum ...
Attempts by rainbow groups to stop an anti-trans campaigner entering the country have failed. The High Court has dismissed a judicial review application from Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT Kōara and Auckland Pride, aimed at the immigration minister for allowing Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull into New Zealand. As part of the application, the ...
The High Court is this morning considering an interim order that would prevent an anti-trans campaigner from making it into New Zealand. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is expected to arrive on our shores today ahead of two planned rallies in Auckland and Wellington over the weekend. After immigration officials deemed her safe ...
I was disappointed to see yesterday afternoon’s announcement that Auckland has chosen to leave Local Government NZ (LGNZ). Hamilton’s membership of LGNZ is one of collaboration and sharing. Being a member gives us important views from other ...
It’s the most talked about local opera production in years – but does it live up to the chatter?The lowdownYou’ve probably heard of the “unruly tourists”, the British family who created a media firestorm as they toured around the country leaving trash and turmoil in their wake. You’ve ...
As reported by Newsroom’s Marc Daalder this morning, correspondence released under the Official Information Act shows advice about puberty blockers was removed from the Ministry of Health website “in the hopes it creates fewer queries” from anti-trans campaigners. The line that was removed from the site said puberty blockers “are ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards. Political Roundup: NZ needs to distance itself from Australia’s anti-China nuclear submarines The New Zealand Government has been silent about Australia’s decision to commit up to $400bn acquiring nuclear submarines, even though this is a significant threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. The ...
Secondary teachers will strike again next week after an agreement on improved pay and working conditions was not reached. The strike will take place on Wednesday, less than two weeks after thousands of educators took to the streets across the country. “PPTA Te Wehengarua members have shown they are serious ...
Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission is encouraging organisations and individuals to share their views on human rights in Aotearoa New Zealand for the government’s upcoming report to the United Nations. The report informs a process ...
Secondary and area school teachers around the country have voted overwhelmingly in favour of more industrial action, including a one day national strike next Wednesday, in support of their collective agreement negotiations. “PPTA Te Wehengarua members ...
At a time when our need for collective action is stronger than ever, Auckland Council has opted out to save each of its residents just 25c a year, writes former Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins.I grew up in rural Southland, in the shadows of the Cut The Cable movement. In ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Jakoboski, Oceanographic Data Scientist, Moana Project’s Te Tiro Moana Team Lead, MetService — Te Ratonga Tirorangi Moana project, CC BY-ND The world’s oceans are buffering us from the worst climate impacts by taking up more than 90% of the ...
Morning Report - RNZ and Newsroom's political editors consider National's education pitch, and the political responses to lobbying revelations and Posie Parker. ...
The Free Speech Union will be an intervener this morning as the High Court considers whether Immigration New Zealand's decision to allow Posie Parker (Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull) entry into New Zealand was legal, says Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free ...
For over a decade, Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club has come under fire for denying entry to people wearing religious headwear. Despite the Human Rights Commission getting involved, it seems the rule remains unchanged.One of the definitions given by the Oxford dictionary for the word cosmopolitan is: “including people from many ...
Chris Hipkins’ dump of Ardern-era policy has potentially jeopardised a major part of the government’s climate change response. In this week’s episode of When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey talks to climate policy expert Christina Hood from Climate Compass to find out why this month’s Emissions Trading Scheme auction failed and ...
The head of Local Government NZ, the group representing councils across the country, has hit back at claims made by Auckland mayor Wayne Brown. It was his casting vote that saw Auckland Council leave the representative group yesterday evening, with councillors divided on whether or not it was the right ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Al-Tamini Tapu, Geoscientist, The University of Queensland Warrumbungle national park.colinslack/Shutterstock Our new study published in Nature Geoscience on an ancient chain of Australian volcanoes is helping to change our understanding of “hotspot” volcanism. You may be surprised to learn eastern ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University There’s been a lot of recent shouting about Australia’s national security policy. It began with the Nine newspapers’ “Red Alert” extravaganza, spread over multiple articles. Featuring a graphic of warplanes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Goldlust, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University Shutterstock Earlier this month, regulators flagged electricity price rises in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Like many people, you’re probably wondering how you can ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Veal, Adjunct Professor, Business School, University of Technology Sydney Shutterstock A little more than a century ago, most people in industrialised countries worked 60 hours a week – six ten-hour days. A 40-hour work week of five eight-hour days ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xavier Ho, Lecturer in Interaction Design, Monash University Sony Entertainment Mainstream games are embracing openly queer characters – and so are many of their players and fans. The Last of Us, the prestige HBO adaptation of the critically lauded ...
The capital’s transport overhaul will have spent $130 million on consultant fees by the end of next year, Stuff reports. Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) expects to spend $60 million on outside experts in the coming year, after already spending $38.5m in the past three years and $35m this year. Greater ...
Chris Hipkins’ dump of Ardern-era policy has potentially jeopardised a major part of the government’s climate change response. Bernard Hickey talks to climate policy expert Christina Hood from Climate Compass to find out why this month’s Emissions Trading Scheme auction failed and how she feels cabinet have destroyed confidence in ...
Christopher Luxon says the policy is what’s needed to address serious issues with reading, writing and maths in primary schools. Others aren’t so sure, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.Back ...
Although Auckland Council’s big cleanup following this year’s extreme weather events continues, “things are getting more difficult at this point”. Five weeks after Cyclone Gabrielle, some 7,000 Aucklanders remain impacted by the aftermath of the floods, slips and heavy winds that battered the region in January and February. Auckland Council’s ...
A traffic bypass stole 20,000 potential daily visitors from its main streets and local businesses. Three years on, how are the Waikato town’s 9,000 residents coping?The tourism centre is closed – “permanently”, says the sign. The cafe next door, once called River Haven, now with two missing letters making ...
So much for “If Nikolas Delegat had been poor and brown he would have got gaol time:”
Wellington rugby player discharged without conviction
This dumb-cunt boofhead managed a much higher score of injured victims than Delegat, feels the same “remorse” that could be better described as “sentence mitigation tactic” and has escaped a prison term because it might hurt his “career” prospects, to the extent that playing a game for a living can be called a career. Still, nice to see consistency from NZ rugby in the role models it provides for us.
everyone who comes before the court must be able to run the “will harm my future prospects” line ….
what “future prospects” are acceptable to the courts, and what “future prospects” are deemed of no value?
Whether your future prospects are capable of making you a millionaire or not. It’s essentially the courts deciding who’s worthy or not which is something that the courts simply should not be doing.
White Privilege
Sport privilege
Wealth privilege
I could go on.
Classless society all right,
ANAND HIRA: One law for rugby players and a different law for everyone else.
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/ANAND-HIRA-One-law-for-rugby-players-and-a-different-law-for-everyone-else/tabid/615/articleID/129218/Default.aspx
Steve Tew does not front for interview about abuse case.
Paul Henry talks with family spokesperson Ruth Money, followed by Mark Henaghan, University of Otago Law Professor, on the case of Losi Filipo. How can someone violently attack a group of four people and escape conviction?
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Wellington-rugby-player-escapes-conviction-after-assaulting-four-people/tabid/504/articleID/129217/Default.aspx
Sponsors of the Wellington Lions.
Victoria University
Vodafone
Les Mills
The Dominion Post
Powerade
The image below shows the whole list.
Boycott them.
http://www.wellingtonlions.co.nz/assets/Uploads/_resampled/SetWidth586-Lions-sponsors-2016.png
How do you boycott a university?
Aren’t universities supposed to be progressive lefty organisations?
Students can pressurise their University.
Like this…
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1609/S00124/yale-students-urge-auckland-university-to-go-fossil-free.htm
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1609/S00309/chancellor-presented-with-student-petition.htm
http://sustainable.org.nz/sustainability-news/victoria-university-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels#.V-muA_l97cs
The students are all paying big fees and in deep debt, they need to graduate to feed themselves, the system is designed to keep them quiet.
True, that.
Another person let off.
Now a prominent voice in sport…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Veitch#Domestic_violence_controversy
Yes , another bullshit case from a thoroughly Neolib society.
It’s all about ‘personal responsibility’ if you’re a designated loser, but ‘nice guy- give him a break’ if you’re a designated winner.
It’s not so much a matter of class, it’s a matter of total bloody hypocrisy.
+111
On Morning Report they read out the Judge’s reasons for his judgement on the 17 year old school boy. Not quite so black and white.
@ 9:20 http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201817670
The judge says:
Obvious mitigating features would include his age (he was only 17 at the time); his lack of previous convictions; his remorse; willingness to undergo restorative justice; the large body of community support he enjoys suggesting an unlikelihood of ever re-offending; his commitment to counselling and voluntary community work and the like.
Judges’ willingness to call some particular bullshit a “mitigating feature” is entirely subjective.
In this case, “remorse” from the kind of person who hangs out on the street looking for people he can issue with an unprovoked beating should be treated with skepticism, not just accepted at face value. Is there any evidence that the shithead perp felt “remorse” at any time other than when he was facing sentencing? Because, according to his victims, there’s evidence that he didn’t.
The “commitment to counselling and voluntary community work” is likewise easy to say when facing sentencing – actual intent to carry it out is another matter.
And “the large body of community support he enjoys” is as likely to endow him with a feeling of entitlement to impunity as it is to discourage further offending.
All that is true Psycho.
Maybe though the issue of support and remedy and compensation for the victims should be a vital part of the story. Victims do seem to be neglected. Of course whatever happens to the assailant will not change the victims’ position.
+1
If he got chucked on the scrap heap and left to rot in the company of career crims, would that change anything for his victims? What would they, or anyone, stand to gain?
Ugh he deserves to have the book thrown at him, and hard. I’m just thinking as to what that would actually achieve tho?
Would going to prison preclude him from a professional sports career?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Packer
Not so important for League because you can have a viable sports career in one or two countries easily, and it helps that NZ and Oz have softer rules for each other than anyone else.
For rugby, you have to be able to travel for at least Super rugby, and once you get into international and overseas pro comps, international travel is a big part of it.
The case law on the subject is that loss of careers in these circumstances amount to fines to the amount of the lost income, which can be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars for a young player with 10-15 years ahead of them, particularly if they from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
By all accounts hes pretty good at league as well so really protecting his career shouldn’t have come into it as he would still have options after a sentence
Yep, including being a truck driver.
Protecting a persons possible career is not the job of the courts.
“Protecting a persons possible career is not the job of the courts.”
Agree, its a disgrace that he avoided a criminal conviction. This thug not only stomped (multiply times) on one of his victims head, but also male v female assault.
If he was a truck driver, jail time would of been a real possibility…
In my recent line of work, I have, among other things, been trying to place people (mostly beneficiaries) into low-skilled jobs. It is nigh impossible to place people with convictions of any sort at this level because it’s one of the first filters applied by the employer, rightly or wrongly.
I agree with the judge’s reasons because the alternative, in my view, is worse, and will involve throwing a teenager on the scrapheap until the Clean Slate Act saves him, and he can’t even rely on that if he’s jailed. Meanwhile, the gaps in his CV will also make him hard to employ later on.
When people say “he deserves it for his actions”, understand that a conviction makes life much, much harder, particularly for young people with no employment history to overcome the conviction in employers’ considerations. Also understand that the outcome is massively expensive to the taxpayer, both in terms of immediate sentence, and in terms of long term welfare dependency.
I realise not everyone agrees.
However, it’s not just potential pro sports players who receive discharges without conviction. Here are a couple of manslaughter cases which resulted in discharges:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5981533/Mum-walks-free-after-daughters-drowning
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/69124061/no-conviction-for-woman-in-manslaughter-of-her-son
Yes, they are negligent rather than deliberate offenses, but on the other hand, people died.
You know, the whole idea behind a sentence is that the person convicted has paid their debt to society for the crime that they committed, that there is an end to the punishment. What you’re describing is people continuing the punishment after the punishment is supposed to have ended.
Perhaps what we should be doing at the end of the sentence is clearing/hiding the conviction so that people understand that the punishment is over.
I don’t. People who commit crimes should be convicted. What we should be doing is far more in rehabilitation for those convicted and making people understand that the punishment doesn’t go on forever no matter how much those at the Sensible Sentencing Trust want it to.
I’d love to see it, particularly with substantially stronger Clean Slate legislation (ours is weak compared to elsewhere) and following the Scandinavian model of rehabilitative prisons, but until we do, judges are required to make that decision based on the rules and society we have, not the rules and society we’d like to have.
I’d also add the Basic Income and better employment to decrease the 100 applications for 1 job which leads to that kind of filtering – almost as if this stuff is interlinked…
If he got chucked on the scrap heap and left to rot in the company of career crims, would that change anything for his victims?
A prison sentence for him isn’t about improving things for his victims, it’s about protecting his future victims for the duration of his sentence, and hopefully giving him a reason to want to not do stuff that would put him back there again.
Compensation would change things for his victims – it’s a pity the courts can’t put a lien on his future earnings.
For me the issue is not what effect putting someone in prison has – clearly not a good effect in many, many cases.
The issue, however, is that many, many people ARE thrown in prison, and certainly convicted, for just this kind of offence – yet not this person.
That he has lots of support, ‘mentoring’ and the like actually suggests to me that a conviction (which is what he completely escaped, never mind the sentence) would not be as severe a penalty as it would be for someone who has little social support, ‘mentoring’, etc.. He could ‘bounce back’ from a conviction given all those in his corner.
He’s actually in better condition and circumstances to sustain a conviction than many who come to court in these circumstances – yet he is the one who is let off.
Makes no sense.
No doubt the community work will be rugby centric.
I have been responsible for ensuring someone doing community work actually does it and it is a bit of a joke really. Very easy to manipulate and abuse.
His community work involved working with kids around his chosen sport. All his games and practices ended up being community work as well. He probably did about a quarter of what was required.
A guy wearing a “New Zealand” t-shirt beats a Syrian soldier senseless
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/warning-graphic-content-syrias-moderate-rebels-brutally-torture-syrian-soldier/
I’m pretty sure Filipo’s not responsible for that one.
Who is, or was, Filipo ?
The “dumb-cunt boofhead” mentioned in comment number 1 above. Your comment is in the thread as a reply to that comment – I guess it was intended be a new comment, not a reply?
There are no “moderate” rebels in Syria. Just Islamists who pretend to be moderate in order to get aid and arms from the US, and then go back to being Islamists after receiving the aid and the arms from the US.
Colonial Viper, did you hear John “Lord of Empathy” Campbell’s little performance on National Radio yesterday? He seems to have bought in to every single bit of propaganda from the White House about Syria.
oh yeah i heard a bit of that; I replied that Campbell needs to instead interview Stephen F Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, Princeton University and New York University, Contributing Editor to the Nation Magazine.
This was the interview.
Miller’s own blurb. This is the propagandist Campbell accepted without question.
“JAMES MILLER is the Managing Editor of The Interpreter where he reports on Russia, Ukraine, and Syria. James runs the “Under The Black Flag” column at RFE/RL which provides news, opinion, and analysis about the impact of the Islamic State extremist group in Syria, Iraq, and beyond. He is a contributor at Reuters, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy Magazine, and other publications. He is an expert on verifying citizen journalism, and has been covering developments in the Middle East, specifically Syria and Iran, since 2009. ”
“The Interpreter is a daily translation and analysis journal funded and presented by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. In addition to covering political, social and economic events inside the Russian Federation, it chronicles Russia’s war in East Ukraine and its intervention in Syria in real time.
Founded in May 2013, this online journal set out with the modest goal of translating articles from the Russian press, the better to lower the language barrier that separates journalists, analysts, policymakers, diplomats and interested laymen in the English-speaking world from events taking place inside the Russian Federation.
Little did we realize then that The Interpreter would devote as much energy to covering what the Russian Federation got up to outside of its own borders.
The Interpreter is a leading real-time chronicle and analysis resource on all aspects of the crisis in Ukraine. Every day since violence first erupted in Kiev’s Independence Square, The Interpreter’s Ukraine live-blog has documented a revolution that became a war on European soil, often breaking news stories about Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its maskirovka insurgency in the Donbass, its cross-border shelling of Ukraine, the downing of MH17, and the Minsk II “cease-fire.”
There are no “moderate” rebels in Syria.
None? Not a single one out of the entire 20 million people living there? Please keep in mind we’re talking about this planet, not the alternative one inhabited by RT watchers, in which the US government blew up the WTC and the Russian air force magically kills only “terrorists” when it rains phosphorus incendiaries on Aleppo.
It’s an especially astonishing claim because you’ve previously described the Assad regime, one of the most brutal dictatorships in the Middle East, as “moderate.” Those “Islamist” rebels must be demons in human form…
Psycho Milt, you’re out of your depth, my friend.
He escaped a sentence because of section 106 of the crimes act when the punishment may outweigh the crime.
So why doesn’t everyone whose employment (and future employment) might be jeopardised by a conviction get similar lenient treatment under that section of the crimes act?
Or does only having a low wage job that’s at stake somehow make a conviction easier to bear?
When you’re on the bones of your bum, having trouble finding menial work because of a conviction can tip you into far more suffering than missing out on a professional rugby career and having to settle for an ordinary job.
There are many examples of diversion and discharge without convictions for precisely those reasons – two manslaughter cases are up thread. This gets press because of rugby, but with good legal representation, anyone else could have argued a similar case, and may well have been granted it as well.
Breaking News.
CORBYN IS UNELECTABLE.
That is according to prat Henry. You know the one who had his nose so far up Keys arse yesterday morning it was embarrassing.
Why I am not surprised by this prats right wing rant. Also, the Guardian is saying the shit against Corbyn is continuing.
It won’t be Corbyn that is unelectable, it will be the Labour Party that is unelectable if the shits don’t screw their heads in and get in behind the leader, and work to get Thatcher MkII and the Tories out.
Pat Mc Fadden calls for the party to seek inspiration from Wilson. Wilson who helped to destroy the British Aircraft Industry and fucking Blair a war criminal that should have been arrested years ago for war crimes, was so slippery earned the nickname of “Teflon Tony” McFadden must be fucking joking.
Quote from the Guardian
“Pat McFadden, the former minister, called for the party to seek inspiration from its “three great postwar leaders”, who he named as Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/25/jeremy-corbyn-critics-will-not-be-silenced-despite-unity-calls
Maybe Corbyn is just feeding them rope ….
Funny how ‘Mr Unelectable’ has held his own seat for 30+ years and now won two leadership elections and increased his majority.
Corbyn’s detractors want to replace him with someone electable, like THIS BLOKE…
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/12/11/15/ed-miliband.jpg
“the Guardian is saying the shit against Corbyn is continuing”
I’m in the UK at the moment and can confirm that – surprise, surprise – the vilification continues. A whole series of spurious, utterly contrived little Gotchas in the broadcast media since Corbyn’s latest victory.
Same old “Left are Anti-Semitic” smears (eg arch-Blairite Tristram Hunt on ITV’s Peston on Sunday last night) , same sad attempts to portray Corbynite support-group Momentum as a hotbed of violent misogynist larrikins (unfortunately for the Blairite-Brownite brigade – almost two thirds of Women Labour Party Members voted for Corbyn – including, incidentally, my strongly-feminist cousin – a kiwi domiciled in London since the early 80s. Momentum activists, meanwhile, appear to be disproportionately female and middle-aged)
… and a few new variations on these themes …
For example, after a post-leadership election TV interview yesterday in which Corbyn’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell made very conciliatory gestures towards the PLP, he gets condemned by both the MSM, the Tories and the Establishment Centre-Right of the Labour Party for calling former Tory Minister Esther McVey “a stain on humanity” wayyyyy back in 2014 and refusing to apologise now. (also suggestions that he joked back in 2014 that McVey should be lynched – though he strongly disputes that allegation, suggesting he’d simply reported to the media what had been shouted at him at a public meeting).
McDonnell actually accepted in the interview that he’d sometimes “gone too far” in criticism of opponents but said voters wanted honesty rather than spin and he had been expressing honest anger back in 2014 over savage Tory Govt cuts to services for people with disabilities (McVey had been Disabilities Minister at the time) … Cue media beat-up over the last couple of days that McDonnell is encouraging a culture of intimidation, abuse and violence in the Party.
These tropes really are looking increasingly tired and desperate.
Meanwhile, the PLP plotters are pursuing a strategy of forcing Corbyn into a corner – either give whole-hearted support for the restoration of Shadow Cabinet elections (thus greatly empowering Corbyn’s critics in the PLP and possibly influencing which faction ultimately controls the NEC) or we’ll use every opportunity in the media to portray you as aggressive, divisive and insincere in your calls for unity and compromise.
Thanks for your report swordfish. Pretty much the impression I got over here from reading the UK media.
Those who control the narrative … just won’t give up their control of that narrative.
Makes sense when you don’t have popular support and it’s the only power going. But it results in such transparently silly hypocrisy it’s quite embarrassing. Dignity flies out the door when your grip on the levers starts to get a bit greasy.
Cheers, Puddleglum.
Yes, Corbyn’s election has certainly shone a bright light on the enforcer role of various Courtiers and Bottom-feeders to the UK Establishment. Particularly the ruthlessly ambitious network of Blairite fellow-travellers within the “liberal” MSM and academia (not least, my own former lecturer in British politics, Tim Bale).
It seems that the moment they sniff a perceived threat to their interests, the UK Establishment swiftly closes ranks – and its those desperate souls out on the periphery of power – the most precarious of hangers-on – who appear to be the most aggressive in their defence of the Elite. Much like the legendary social snobbery of the Aristocracy’s leading Servants.
I enjoyed your Of bewildered herds blog post from July, incidentally. At roughly the same time as you, I was looking through Thrasher and Rallings’ National Equivalent Share of the Vote to try and get an unbiased take on the 2016 UK Locals in comparative perspective (I put all the detailed results going back to the late 70s in a draft post on my blog for future reference but, here in the UK, I’m locked out of both my email and my blog. Happens every time !).
Although some of Corbyn’s more enthusiastic supporters got a little carried away in their celebration of Labour’s result, the much more obvious spin came from the PLP plotters and their chums in the UK media who outrageously claimed that it was Labour’s worst performance in decades (They had a pre-prepared script and they were determined to stick to it)
For me, Labour’s Local Election results were mediocre but a long way from the disaster Blairites and Brownites were both predicting beforehand and desperately claiming afterwards.
This was a timely and welcome return with the first presidential debate being imminent:
Awesomesauce, ty for the link, it’s brilliant
What a great teaser for this afternoons debate 🙂
A couple of really good points from the Pope.
All about corruption…
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2016/09/18/pope-francis-says-corruption-addictive-drugs/
You can just see some priests kicking themselves over that one.
And for all of you who take peace seriously…
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/peace-requires-us-to-do-more-than-change-the-channel-pope-francis-says-95272/
Good to see a more united Christendom
I would be very afraid of a” more united Christendom”. History would lead one to suspect it would result in the usual “Preach more love and peace but carry out more war”.
You do release it is no longer the middle ages there Garibaldi????
You sure about that adam.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11717522
I make the same comment about any of the monotheist religions . Their “one and only God” creates nothing but trouble as they run around killing each other in the name of their ‘version’.
Nice one adam, pay no attention to the ignorant. The current Pope is the most progressive ever, doing God’s work always annoys people
IT IS ON!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11717437
Yawn.
You’re really not interested in the Trump v Clinton debate?
Yawn.
I am surprised
Two establishment figures working for the establishment?
No.
pr sees politics are a form of entertainment, not a means to improve our society and our world.
It can ackshully be both so I’m interested in seeing how Clinton is going to handle Trump and vice versa
Its probably going to determine the US election (or at least a large part of it) so yeah I look forward to it
I’m actually genuinely surprised about this, the amount of posts and threads on Clinton v Saunders and then Clinton v Trump I’d have thought people would want to see this
Definitely, though I may not be able to watch it live this afternoon unfortunately
I’m wondering if I have the sound down real low I might be able to catch it on line though management tend to look down on that sort of thing 🙂
It won’t be as fun but there’s got to be a live subtitled version somewhere for the hearing impaired
Jennifer Saunders is from the UK and isn’t running for Pres.
George Clinton v Jennifer Saunders would be an interesting match up
Its the US
How about George Clooney vs Jennifer Garner
He’ll probably end up in politics at some point
I’m pretty sure that there’s a lot of people interested in it. I’m not one of them and I’ve been keeping myself out of the Trump/Clinton debate as well. I don’t think either of them will be good for the US or the world.
+1,000,000 Muttonbird. Hype and more hype-Trump/Clinton will have been coached and scripted to the nth degree. Nothing new to learn here.
What gets me is the financial commentators are saying the stock market is jumping around on the basis of this debate, rather than on economic fundamentals.
On the same theme NZ’s awful trade figures today have been spun by the media as showing how strong the economy is where in fact it shows that we are not paying our way in the world. Borrowing and spending on flash cars and boats cannot go on ad infinitum, though Key and Blinglish seem to think it is fine.
If you watch no other music video this year.
The wonderful and thought provoking Saul Williams.
I’m a candle…
Poetic genius
Indeed
A dose of reality in the msm for once.
Today’s greenhouse gas levels could result in up to 7 degrees of warming
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/84687810/todays-greenhouse-gas-levels-could-result-in-up-to-7-degrees-of-warming
Dunno about that Paul.
The piece couches seven degrees in a 1000 year time frame. So, nothing to be concerned about. (Forget that we’re on track for something like four or six on our present course or that even if all Paris pledges honoured we’ll be hitting three or four)
Then the vid has talk of rectifying climate change – y’know, like we’ll just stick everything back together after we’ve broken it.
Don’t count on your time frame Bill. No-one knows exactly how this planet is going to behave because we have no record of such rapid change to make comparisons with. Anything is possible, and it’s not too far away (say ,about two decades).
Of course if you are an expert , like Hosking , then everything is business as usual and all will be honkydory as soon as these sunspots go away. Afterall these leftie plonkers that believe in Climate Change have just made a poor choice haven’t they?
I didn’t give a time frame.
No-one knows exactly how everything will respond to rising CO2. But we can extrapolate from ‘bench top’ experiments and employ concepts of probability to account for the uncertainty that a complex set of systems introduces to matters.
So we know that ‘x’ amount of CO2 will result in ‘y’ warming in a bench top scenario.
From that we can suggest carbon budgets for the planet and attach probable outcomes to each budget total. Not full proof. But bloody useful.
And when we throw in known rates of CO2 emissions, we can give a range of likely outcome. So. At present rates, we’re looking at 4 – 6 by century’s end. With Paris commitments, we’re looking at 3 – 4 by century’s end.
‘Century’s end’ doesn’t mean that we don’t hit that range of temperature before then – just that it’s the likely temp at that snapshot in time.
And, of course, that’s consciously and necessarily ignoring any and all non-linear tipping points that would set temps soaring and render any climate action redundant. All we know about them is that we don’t want them and that they become more likely with each incremental rise in temp.
That’s fine for a simplified, highly linear world, as you have identified.
However, you have also pointed out the reality which largely invalidates the usefulness of those bench top scenarios – or even the most complex climate models of today – as they do not account for all the positive feedback loops that climate change has already kicked off.
Everything from methane releases from fracking and melting permafrost (today’s increased atmospheric methane levels are equivalent to an extra 40-50ppm CO2), to the reduced albedo due to lost arctic sea ice, to the increased level of water vapour (a powerful greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere as the planet warms, to the cooling effect of the reflective heat shield that industrial pollutants in the atmosphere give us – which will disappear as we reduce the amount of coal and diesel that we burn, to the fact that large areas of rain forests – like the Amazon – have now become net contributors of CO2 as they become ravaged by climate change droughts and fires.
The dynamics of feedback loops are not known. What the threshold is for initiating any of the numerous feedback loops is also not known and probably not knowable. Feedback loops can only be learned about in retrospect – hardly useful. Given that, they can’t be factored in. Now, what’s your problem? Things aren’t being made to sound terrible enough?
Atmospheric concentrations of various gasses can be and are taken. Again, given the nightmarish complexities involved, extrapolations are made from basic knowable ‘bench top’ observations. Those extrapolations become more refined as better knowledge is gained from the observation of the real world situation.
What has been said to date – and this won’t hold in the future – is that the clutch of negative and positive forcings more or less balance out so that just looking at CO2 gives us a useful and usable ball park view of things.
But are you really saying that all the science around CO2 should be thrown away or disregarded and that we should just grapple blindly? Shining any light into a dark room is useful.
As a comparison. You know that the world view we use for navigation is a croc of shit? We place the world at the centre of things…and that’s not how things are. But it works – it’s accurate enough. The alternative is a complex tangle of head wrecking nonsense that produces results that are no better for most day to day, real world applications of navigational knowledge than the ‘wrong headed’ or simplistic one most people employ.
By the way – did you note that I wasn’t referring to models at all? No matter what complexities you want to feed in, they work on assumptions – circular walks in other words. Simply change an assumption (or two) if the results aren’t what are being sought. That’s useful for gaining understanding or insight.
Well, I think the whole mindset of – we still have this many more hundred gigatonnes of carbon dioxide we can put up, we have until 2030/2040/2050 to do this and do that – all that needs to be ended, right now, and some realistic talk take its place.
However, at least some of these aren’t theoretical future phenomena. All the feedback loops I mentioned, defrosting permafrost, darkening of the arctic etc, are already well in motion.
I’ll indulge you one last time on this. (Will it finally get through to you?)
Until now, governments and NGOs have not quantified CO2. All they’ve done is push everything out into the future, disregard accumulated and accumulating amounts of CO2 and promised to cellotape everything back together after we’ve smashed it up.
The introduction of budgets provides a quantitative measure to work to/from. So all the unscientific and deeply insane talk of 30 below 1990 by 50 or whatever becomes redundant. Carbon budgets mean we have to look at what carbon we are releasing today and sort out what we are doing today.
Analogy?
How CC has been treated.
We’ll undertake to only drink half as much as we’re drinking now by the time 2 a.m. comes around. We’ll be right. We’ll have developed some detox wonder drug or technique by 2.30 am.
With carbon budgets.
If we carry on drinking like this, we’re on track for severe alcohol poisoning. We know that, by and large, the human body can only tolerate x amount of alcohol. So we can consume no more than y amount of alcohol if we want to avoid severe alcohol poisoning.
But you’d dismiss the latter because it wasn’t tabulating precise body weight or individual tolerances and a host of other factors?
See, here’s the question that you need to ask. Is defrosting permafrost (etc) currently irreversible? If it is, then we’re looking a non-linearity. If it’s not, then we’re not.
Can you answer that question one way or the other without the answer just being a matter of opinion?
Then – and even if your opinion is correct (that feed-back loops are proceeding) – what’s the point in clutching feverishly at the cock of doom?
We are in the midst of “abrupt climate change.” While there is no strict definition of what this is, major climate alterations occurring within one human life span would seem to count.
Methane release craters hundreds of metres wide, being discovered on land and on the sea floor.
I pick two degrees centigrade increase by 2030 (we are over one degree now) and four to six degrees centigrade by 2100.
That’s on average of course. Warming of five deg C to ten deg C over the last century has already been identified in various regions of the Arctic circle.
Which means that over the next 2 to 3 human generations (assuming a “generation” = 30 years or so) we are going to see multi metre sea level rise.
By the way, in the 1990s and early 2000s, serious scientists were talking about how anything over one degree C warming meant that we would cause serious, dangerous damage to the planet as we know it.
But like a frog in a pot of heating water we make excuses for how we can still manage things successfully.
Professor Guy McPherson’s November 2016 NZ Speaking Tour
In November 2016 Professor Guy McPherson will be returning to NZ for another speaking tour on Runaway Abrupt Climate Change. ,
https://kevinhester.live/2016/05/15/professor-guy-mcphersons-november-2016-nz-speaking-tour/
People like McPherson need to stop flying. If they don’t, other people less commited will look at them and get the message that we can carry on BAU (see, the CC activists are still flying, it must be alright!). Actions speak louder than words.
I’m not only talking about the GHG emissions of his flights (divided by the numbers of people on the plane). I’m talking about the bigger picture. How much of the infrastructure that McPherson will use to get here is precisely the things that are causing CC. eg demands for cheap flights creates demand for new infrastructure, including new airports, which in turn increase the number of flights. And following from that all the GHG emitting infrastructure from transport, accommodation, meals etc. Unless one believes that airplanes will soon run on something other than FF, we have to stop flying now unless it is essential. There is no way around that argument morally if we are taking CC seriously.
We have the technology to share information without travelling (‘speaking tours’ are generally information sharing and not a lot else). And we need to be working towards relocalising as much as we can, and that includes activism (and making a living from speaking engagements). McPherson could instead be working with local activists remotely, training them up, getting them to work in their own communities, through NZ networks etc.
In order to respond meaningfully to CC we have to change our behaviour, all of us. And we have to stop using the cultural and conceptual tools that created CC in the first place (in this case flying, travel at will, globalisation,
Do you agree with his viewpoint?
Which viewpoint?
Abrupt climate change, as outlined by cv and Guy McPherson.
Also explained in this film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ll1mzLulc
Do I think we are at serious risk of runaway CC? Yes, of course. Do I think it’s too late and we are going to go extinct? Possibly but we don’t know that for a fact, so I disagree on McPherson’s view on that. Scaring people too much stops them acting.
What did you think about my viewpoints above re flying and change?
I agree with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulBWavCPS8Q
One reason it appears to be a “thousand year time frame” is because the scientists analysis wanted to cover several million years.
There is nothing to say that the 7 deg C rise detected in any given millenia could not have happened in say just 200 years.
Indeed, modern ice core analysis techniques can give researchers a year by year (or even month by month) account of how the atmosphere and climate changed. This is how scientists detected that in the past, parts of Greenland warmed by 10 deg C in just a few years.
The researchers talked about in the article could not have given us this same year by year account as much of the research they were examining for their own work would have been done before such techniques were available.
Thanks CV… just what I said above, but with a little more verbosity!
A bad habit of mine lol
We’re already really fucked, but to have any chance at all we need to radically change everything we do today, and how we do it. And even then we’ll probably still be fucked but you might as well try and have fun doing it.
Yeah we could support deniers too – like you do.
I’ve learnt a lot about climate change in the last 6 months marty mars, do yourself a favour and do the same.
I know deniers are the problem and hypocrites also. What have you learnt 5ppm?
That during Democratic President Obama’s time, some of which Sec State Clinton was the top foreign policy officer, CO2 levels went up 20ppm, deep sea wells got green lit even after Deep Sea Horizon, the USA fought hard to water down the languaging at Paris COP, the fracking industry grew huge and Obama boasted how this would make the USA be energy independent.
But you support the Democrats if that makes you feel better, just make sure you understand what their true record on climate change actually is.
You throw that and then support a denier who is worse based on your own reckoning – bit funny that eh 5ppm
Just saying it like it is marty mars.
Yep foot in both camps – plausible deniability – a weak strategy in the times we are in 5ppm.
Point is that a media outlet headlined a possible 7 degree increase in a thousand years from now. Most casual readers (most people) would take that as some eye-brow raising factoid about the distant future…and then get straight down to their carbon profligacy. Climate change (the headline suggests) is a thousand years away. If 7 degrees takes a thousand years, then 1 degree takes 1/7th of 1000 years. Nothing to worry about. Torch that oil.
Ok that’s the casual reader, and yes they probably thought – hey that’s a long time away that makes it someone elses problem.
How about our university educated political elite class? What message will they take from it?
What is this ‘university educated political elite’ you refer to? You mean politicians?
You think the piece in stuff was penned with politicians in mind? Even in the highly unlikely event that it was, why would a politician (assuming that’s what you mean by that phrase you used) be more or less likely to read it in any way differently to any other reader?
If the permafrosts melt, get ready for a methane overload. And some pretty nasty consequences to go with it.
https://willnewzealandberight.com/2016/09/25/carbon-dioxide-not-th-only-gas-threat-to-climate/
Quite true, although I am not sure why you used the word “IF”.
The permafrost is melting.
Entire Siberian towns are falling down as the foundations of buildings crumble over through softening permafrost and huge sink holes open up.
Under the sea, researchers have taken video of mile long plumes of methane bubbles rising up from destabilised thawing methane hydrates as if the water is lemonade.
Heather du Plessis Allen writes some sense.
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/HEATHER-DU-PLESSIS-ALLAN-Were-hypocrites/tabid/615/articleID/129036/Default.aspx
Sharon Murdoch nails it.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtJUd2VVUAAYDId.jpg:large
Has anyone noticed that since Key has been at the UN ‘helping’ Clarke her rating in the straw polls have been falling.
Yeah – Because the International Media and Leaders of every country hate Keys and laugh at him
He is a disgrace
Let’s hope, for Helen’s sake, he shakes off his magic ‘flag referendum’ touch.
Bunker bombs being used in Aleppo:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/26/hell-itself-aleppo-reels-from-alleged-use-of-bunker-buster-bombs
“Schools, orphanages and hospitals in Aleppo that moved underground to escape the destruction around them now feel that even they are at risk.
” “When I saw it I thought, my God, is it possible that there is so much destruction here and nobody wants to help us?” he said. “At that moment I knew that the international community had sentenced us to death, that we would be recorded as martyrs that they will weep over at some future date.”
————
“I’ve been in Aleppo for five years and I’ve seen a lot of bombing, but the destruction of these bombs, I have never seen before,” said Omar Arab, a journalist who lives in the Mashhad neighbourhood..
———–
“The mask fell a long time ago from Russia and the regime, but now the mask has fallen from human rights defenders, from the international community. This is hell itself.”
At last a Council actually does what Penny Bright thinks has been going on elsewhere all the time – breach the Public Records Act: http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/full-and-accurate.html
As previously discussed, the PRA plays no part in decisions about *releasing* information – that’s the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA).
Among the insanity it seems that if you do anything for the rugby player perpetrator of the violent attacks who has been in the news, that you condone what he did.
So someone who serves him take-aways condones his behaviour.
These deductions from the Paul Henry book of logic. Which it must be said, include more than a few chapters on the “look at me” syndrome.
Mood of the boardroom survey.
Warning you have to scroll a long way down for Mr Little … Marks out of 5
Jacinda however received a strong endorsement.
1 – Bill English 4.51
2 – John Key 4.00
3 – Steven Joyce 3.51
4 – Jacinda Ardern 3.37
5 – James Shaw 3.21
6 – Jonathan Coleman 3.17
7 – Simon Bridges 3.12
9 – Annette King 3.10
10 – Anne Tolley 3.09
11 – Michael Woodhouse 3.06
12 – Phil Twyford 2.93
13 – Nathan Guy 2.91
14 – Todd McClay 2.90
15 – Winston Peters 2.90
16 – Grant Robertson 2.86
17 – Hekia Parata 2.85
18 – Murray McCully 2.77
19 – David Shearer 2.72
20 – Gerry Brownlee 2.66
21 – David Parker 2.55
22 – Nick Smith 2.52
23 – Chris Hipkins 2.46
24 – Julie-Anne Genter 2.42
25 – Metiria Turei 2.37
26 – David Clark 2.35
27 – Maggie Barry 2.34
28 – Andrew Little 2.22
29 – Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 2.15
30 – Ron Mark 2.13
Who cares?
Get out of the cave Paul, the shadows are not reality
Hes kind of ignorant like that. Head in sand and not very bright.
I mean it.
Why do most people care what CEOs think?
If you could just answer the question as opposed to the usual ad hominems.
Well. Some voters care for a start.
And let’s face it – being on 7% preferred PM you would think Little would care as well.
Yes the CEOs represent the 1%.
So ACT voters care.
It’s not who cares Paul. It’s so what you Tory scum bags, so business like you. Are you that retarded you need a survey to tell you that the party represents their issues is supported by them.
Seems the Tory scum in this country are that stupid…
“Who cares?”
Well for one the Labour party president who’s job is to fund raise for the 2017 election.
With Andrew Little rating below the grandmother of NZ gardening (Maggie Barry) it clearly indicates that Little has little respect (and confidence) from the business community.
And Paul ask yourself why James Shaw is so high on the list…and for that matter Jacinda…
Why would the leader of a socialist party want the support of neo-liberal business leaders.
Sausage sizzles Chuck, no need for these neo-liberal business swine.
I for one am getting tired of your straw man arguments Chucky. Go troll whaleoil, I’m sure he’d love to have your half baked conspiracy theories.
Where is the conspiracy theory Adam?
Labour needs funds, business has funds, business thinks Andrew Little is a clown, therefore highly likely business won’t part with much needed funds.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. Getting money from business was Labour’s greatest mistake, and they are still paying for it. But your vision is limited to the importance of finance and business, it seems.
Well, that list has lost it’s credibility straight away when they list The Double Dipping Dickhead from Dipton who I would not trust with the local boy scouts jamboree money let alone the economy as the top of the hit parade.
He is responsible for this.
$111 billion and counting.
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/newzealand
And your credentials regarding finance are ?
Pretty much all of our credentials including yours are ” Not having added 100 Billion to the nations debt.”
Bill English is , has and always will be a tool, a sly old double dipping no nothing tool. I suppose the best on economics they had was someone who was smart enough to claim housing costs whilst owning a home in Wellington.
Isn’t that also about the time Rodney and a few others got greedy too.
Yeah, we should has slashed benefits,cut WFF and taken an axe to the public sevice , none of this borrowing money to get us through the earth quake and global recession 🙄
And the left wonders why no one takes them seriously.
I reckon Cullen would have got us through, with a surplus, the two big debt excuses Nats like yourself always trot out, the GFC and the quakes.
Or maybe English shouldn’t have done a regressive tax switch, or bailed out SCF, or trashed CoalCorp, or impoverished thousands of workers
Badge of Honour for Little
More like mark of the arse.
Bingles speaks their language. He’s really good at not noticing stuff and he doesn’t think anything stinks to high heaven. Ponyboy knows a not tax haven when he doesn’t see one.
Can’t imagine what a bunch of bonus hungry ceos could possibly see in them.
Anyone else had one of these from Spark?
Changed my password, but I sure would like to know which “foreign government” enabled the hacking. Russia or China?
Did you notice this?
“Please note: By resetting your password, you are also giving permission for Spark to bring my email home in the move early next year. Once your email has been moved, it will continue to be provided free of charge as long as you have a broadband, dial-up or mobile broadband service plan with us on the same account. If you don’t have one of these plans, Xtra email will cost $5.95 per month from early next year.”
Yes.
The United States is a “foreign government” and they have worked closely with all the large internet providers to put back doors in all their systems.
Try the GSCB, five eyes n all that.., they know i’m a hard core sympathizer for the communist, isis, holy trinity roman catholic death squad lefty righty splinter group hell bent on planting another highly explosive bomb on the table at any meeting that might occur near Emperor Rimmer and Herr Keynocio in the future,
Long live the rebellion alalalalalalalala
Who knows if they want to trawl through some account I have I hope letters from mum were worth the several days it probably took them to get it.
No doubt i’ll be getting mailing from readers digest and lotto’s in Europe saying that I won, can’t wait.
A cousin in Kenya, left millions from a dieing spinster, my lucks changing.
What’s the dirty deal in Mt Roskill?
I thought we were better than NACT….
Not impressed.
No dirty deal. I have no doubt the Greens decided it wasn’t worth the expense of standing a candidate especially when Labour’s candidate, Michael Wood is so highly regarded. Open and honest.
Unlike National who pretended to stand a candidate in Epsom while making sure their voters knew to vote for the ACT candidate. Dirty and dishonest.
“No dirty deal. I have no doubt the Greens decided it wasn’t worth the expense of standing a candidate especially when Labour’s candidate, Michael Wood is highly regarded by both parties. Open and honest.”
Oh please Anne can’t you at least be a little honest??
Here is what Metiria Turei said today…
“The Mt Roskill by-election will be closely contested, and we don’t want to play any role in National winning the seat.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11717757
Right. There is no moral high ground here at all. If it’s dirty when NACT do it, it’s dirty when we do it.
Dirty Politics. Disappointed.
False equivalence. Not putting up a candidate to avoid splitting left vote is far less despicable than National putting up a candidate, telling him not to campaign, then telling Nats to vote for a tiny party that would have no seat in Parliament without such skulduggery. Nats would normally win easily in Mt Eden. Not the same thing at all. Greens all that time ago won their electorate because enough people genuinely supported Jeanette. Nobody ever believed in ACT winners in Epsom = dirty rort; Greens are clean. And please note – Jeanette won her seat in 1993 before MMP, so no rort there. No extra seat in parliament, as Epsom gives.
and the rest of the article directly after your link makes it clear all it is is an independant decision by the greens to not run in that seat
theres no deal
theres no directing voters to vote labour
theres no joint decision by labour and greens
and most importantly,
the greens arent engineering a situation that allows a sub 5% party to get a seat
the whole thing is a dumb beat up
Its quite funny reading these comments…at least Bearded Git is being honest about the situation (apart from pulling a candidate, its not the same).
Unlike framu, Anne, Paul, adam etc.
Ignore the chuck troll.
😎
Chucky is a conspiracy theorist….
Chuck’s not clued up enough to recognise a by-election is different to a general election. Go easy on him.
MMP for the win, hope they do the same for the Nelson seat. MOU all the way.
@rsbandit It is an entirely sensible decision. If National is going to do deals in Epsom election after election, which it does, then any electorate is fair game for a deal on the Left.
And the argument that National never pulls its candidate in Epsom is bollocks-it told people to vote for Seymour/Act and gave Goldsmith a high place on the list, which is 99% the same as pulling a candidate.
Now the Greens need to pull their candidate from Ohariu in the election.
Dirty Politics.
What about the Green voters in Ohariu who WANT to vote Green?
They vote Green on the party vote. Which is the vote that matters if you want another Green MP in parliament.
Dr Gabor Maté – Why Capitalism Makes Us Sick
For those who want to know why the site had some outages and now has a different performance profile…
The caching plugin using on the site proved to have a nasty vulnerability. The update provided to fix it broke the site. I’ve been having too many issues with it, so I fixed by purchasing and installing a different one.
Expect a few idiocies from the site while I tune this one up. Looks adequate so far.
Thanks; I’m prone to idiocies so quite used to them 😉
You’re welcome. I’m unhappy to have supplied them for you tonight, however it is gratifying to meet a satisfied and replete customer….
😈
Ah, well that may explain why on my replies tab I have all of RedLogix’ replies but not mine.
EDIT: 😈 😀 🙄
And better smilies as well 🙂
Yes, I’m getting replies to RedLogix’s comments as well.
Me too 😺
We are all RedLogix
Actually, none of the tabs are updating at all.
Same here. But we have some new html tags to play with (shame img isn’t one of them)
code
If MMP were a software program it’s got a massive bug and needs a programmer to fix it.
Simply put.
The ACT scam with National, shows how the bug can be exploited.
But since this bug/glitch exploitation favours a particular party that’s ok.
IF you want people to engage in the political system make the political system hold a smidgeon of integrity.
But I don’t think ANY of you MP’s want that.
Well said.
We can’t say just because they do, we’ll do it. That makes us no better. If we don’t have our integrity, then why should we trust our politicians any more than we trust the other team?
No deals. I hope this not the shape of things to come, because it makes a mockery of MMP.