Scumball Key has been up the Kapiti Coast yesterday selling the concept of asset sales to the oldies…..sad and desperate individual. Cannot express enough contempt for this parasite and anybody scuzzy enough to buy into his nasty world view.
Seems like fertile ground for such a campaign – asset sales generate revenue now and a lot of them won’t be around in 20-30 years time when the sale really starts to bite us in the ass.
My town is like a giant old folks home – it’s like the dawn of the living dead, hobbling around on sticks – all these people have lived a good life under the 1935 Labour Party egalitarian philosophy; they will not be affected by the ’67’ change, yet they are against the change. They will all vote NActCon.
Rest home villages are popping up like triffids all over the place, all the same colours – I want to scream “for goodness sake, paint a giant flower on the wall. Show me you have a life going on in there”.
Some of them, and these are the people I know, are full of life and would certainly want their grandchildren to have a lifestyle such as they once had – green, active, pollution-free – but those older people are too few in my town.
Youth is paying for the olds’ gobbling up of resources, cheap house ownership in many cases, the abundance of jobs and the backing of a decent welfare system.
Somewhere along the way, the olds got greedy; credit cards came along and so did the trillion dollar marketing propaganda. Now the olds blame the young for ‘wanting it all now’, but they taught that philosophy to the young by their own greedy and selfish actions.
Labour needs to get back in; it needs to increase the pension age. There is plenty of time to prepare and let’s face it; with at least a minimum wage of $15 everyone will be able to prepare, not just the few.
I particularly like the part where people who have worked in heavy manual jobs will get treated with respect with special dispensation given the heavy duty work they do. You cannot keep doing that sort of work.
I put the man (or woman) with the shovel on top of the heap and the CEO, sitting in the sterile office, acting like a god, ruining people’s lives with a stroke of a pen – like the smiling assassin, Key did moneytrading and still does with bad policy – at the bottom.
How we ever bought into the idea that somehow a person with the ruthlessness to reach CEO level was somehow better than the man with the shovel makes me feel bad. The CEO may have more skills, did the study, took on the responsibility, got more money – I understand all of that.
But, it does not make him or her BETTER than the man or woman with the shovel.
Jum That’s an impassioned comment from the heart and experience. I’m unhappy about people having to deal with WINZ as possibly unemployed, till they are 67. I haven’t been in for a while but I believe it can be really shitty.
I’ve been thinking about the large numbers of people in the older age group and the difficulties they have getting jobs, and that they are competing with younger people for them. It is hard to have reached a senior age and be treated as a dispensable worker of no value which in casual jobs is often the way for older people..
I have suggested that voluntary work in approved positions where the work adds to the community wellbeing as an acceptable alternative to paid work. It is not popular as an idea with old age pensioners who can’t get past the idea of entitlement as if all the tax they have paid over the years has gone into a superannuation savings chest. Not so, until the recent start by a Labour government of payments, but abandoned (for now) by NACT.
And lastly as more people live to older ages, the politicians still refuse to allow euthanasia so that people can make a choice of following a set of legal requirements so they can die when they feel they are ready to go. Alzheimers and other dementias are increasing and no thoughtful person would want their children to go through the increasing care needs and deterioration of the loved one until the brain is annihilated and only the body remains.
The cost of libraries, the cost of ring fencing gas or electricity supply.
The cost of RMA, or a oil cleanup vessel!
WE need cars to be louder damnit, ACT is doing the
businesss allowing refitting of existing older car
fleet vehcicles to allow for excessive noise vandalism
and noise graffii.
And why? because we don’t have a world standard tax system,
we have to have our profits quickly, a high return fast, that
pushes up the demand for borrowing and weights us down
with a risk premium and makes our country a magnet for
speculative currency excess.
So of course when I can’t even buy a burger from burger king
becuse the gas is out, i know Key has our back, he had nine years
in opposition to know how to fix th ecomony, and three years
to do it.
And all without a capital gains tax.
Are you completely blind, the mans a genius. I’m
willing to accept no burgers and the jokes about
Auckland party, power, or the next billion dollar loses.
As long as we keep key
how darn you criticize our shit pm and his shate
party.
I must have missed something when they announced the asset sales. I thought the sale was to pay down debt? Now he says it’s to buy more…what assets are they buying?
There are few depths to which this larcenous crew will not sink to in order to loot the countries assets for the benefit of their mates. There are no investment plans, the only “assets” they wish to buy are loyal votes and funding from the fat cats of this world.
The only reason I can see for Nats selling assets is to ensure they can keep paying for the tax cuts they bribed the electorate with last time. Scumballs.
Without a modern tax system companies and individuals will continue to
reap quick capital gain profits at the expense of economic resilience.
Now its the gas thats fallen over. Labour has accepted the need to
shift our tax system into a high gear, its not too costly, its too
costly if we don’t. Why? Because a company that has to
worry more about the bottomline, in line with comparable
companies abroad, will inevitable play a longer game.
What’s shocking is the world is in crisis economically
because it doesn’t play the long game, and in NZ we play
and even shorter game!!! Carried by farming and farmers.
Bored – “This larcenous crew”.. of NACTS buying “loyal votes and funding” – I don’t know if they even have to do that to draw in loyal supporters. I think there is a snob value that makes some people cling to National no matter what they do. It’s like the Anglicans had their High Church services and the Cathedrals which you would attend if you felt you were rising socially and financially, and Low Church which was for the others. NACT and Labour get similar sentiments I think.
But this is is a generalised statement about the emotional response to NZ political parties! I don’t mean that everybody who votes Labour is a wharfie, and my impression is that the blue collar workers seem to have been replaced by lawyers. I think that those who vote National are often following an upwardly-moving social concept and don’t want to ally themselves with Labour people who they consider as lesser ‘workers’.
The new Waikato expressway avoids the river gorge and goes over the hills through a
valley north to Auckland.
I can’t help think that once oil price double again the road will be a
desert as drivers opt to take the flat route on the old gorge line and send
freight by rail.
We do need the upgrade but its like the referendum, why would anyone
who fought for MMP vote it out and let National decide the committee
overseaing the alternative.
Here’s a thoughtful analysis of the movement itself, rather than of the surrounding political environment that it seeks to offer a counter weight to, that might interest you.
Thanks Bill. Great article and ideas for moving forward.
My reading in the last few days suggests this I beginning to appear in the New York franchise, with people realizing they can participate in the movement without physically being at Zucotti Park.
The Occupy London Times launched today http://theoccupiedtimes.com/ and the Occupy Wall St Journal and twitter and YouTube are showing the beginning of a successful occupation of the Media.
For me, the notion of ‘occupy’ is really about occupying the space within which power concentrates. You don’t achieve that by putting in place a vehicle for the concentration of power.
Having a new, embedded form of interaction between people should be the aim. I say ‘new’, but actually it’s the oldest form of interaction on record.
Despite appearances to the contrary over the past 10,000 years, sustainable hierarchy isn’t in our blood. We are not a hierarchical social species – hence the millenia of bitter conflict and oppression.
The signs have been there from the start but International Socialists seem to be pushing themselves forward more in Occupy Dunedin as internal debate continues over where the “protest” should go from here.
Is this the real problem?
Serious questions should be asked about whether Occupy around the country is just a front for ISO.
What’s really funny about all you in auto-diss mode, the changes I’m proposing in Dunedin North (and have been for months) are very similar to changes to democracy that a number of ex-Occupiers want to see.
you’ve outed yourself as a lowrider for deliberately doing what you falsely accused your political opponents of doing. We need less of your type in parliament and politics.
pete, I thought they were commies – is this your campaign – reds under the bed? so yesterday pete, so last century. I think your pre-emptive attack on your political opponents is low and using Occupy as a weapon to further your personal ambitions, even lower.
So someone or something other than you is considering “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals”?
If you’re not the one considering it, is the considerer Peter Dunne? His hairdo?
you can slide and slither all you like – your tongue is forked.
This is what I said “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals.” Notice the you’s and yours. So some exOccupiers are using YOUR ideas (that you have been wedded to for years) and although you are in discussion with them it is nothing to do with YOU. Pathetic!
I think I’ve read and seen of Pete George and his whiney clinging to the coat tails of the no-percent party to see why Pete George is your classic United Future man.
The Occupy movement in Dunedin has done us all a favour, by exposing this letters-to-the-editor busy body as a charlatan, just like to coiffured has-been that is his inspiration. With his attitude to the Occupiers, we’ve seen his surface of faux-reasonableness is simply the charade of a faker and deceiver. On the first issue that he can be measured on, Pete George is exposed as little more than a narrow minded small town authoritarian, Dunedin’s own pensioner Colonel Blimp.
Here is a bit of advice Pete George: Give up politics. Walmington-on-Sea has a platoon whose requirements closely match your age and talents. I suggest you head there ASAP.
What is the difference between Occupy being potentially co-opted by a parliamentary party or by non-parliamentary groupings from the same ‘representative’ tradition?
Both scenarios introduce secondary agendas which eventually come to dominate proceedings. Both introduce a power imbalance to any meaningful democratic process leading to a disempowerment of the individual citizens involved. Both eventually create and a false or misleading impression of any professed movement.
Pete may be hypocritical. But he does make a valid point nonetheless.
A movement that allows the greater influence of organisations to play a part in its determinations is no movement at all, but rather a coalition with disempowered on-lookers. Or to put it another way. Movements are democratic and individually empowering. Coalitions aren’t.
There was a post concerning all this, written before the Occupations happened.
I don’t know Pete outside this blog, but I too feel the local franchise of #Occupy is currently not as inspiring as it is in the US and the UK and Spain. What is so successful there, the representation so broad and the decision making so horizontal, neither political parties of established movements can successfully co-opt it.
Until the youth in NZ, outside the established organizations and traditional activists start to participate, I’d much rather focus on the progress being made abroad.
Freedom means being able to think critically and act courageously, even when confronted with the limits of one’s knowledge. Without such thinking, critical debate and dialogue degenerates into slogans, while politics, disassociated from the search for justice, becomes a power grab, or simply hackneyed.
And. This very process (of silencing critical thinking) and of disabling the ability to act are present within some Occupy’s.
Organisations imposing or introducing programmes and/or agendas achieves an over all dumbing down or narrowing of dialogue and the marginalisation and eventual disengagement of any non-conformist points of view or people.
And even where organisations are absent, action is stymied through the stultifying application of consensus to every matter or issue. Democracy does not imply, as many in Occupy seem to believe, that every decision must be the subject of consensus.
This very process (of silencing critical thinking)
I thought you were talking about here for a minute. Apart from you Bill all everyone else has tried running inteference.
Regarding Occupy Dunedin I have had the freedom to voice my opinion outside the occupation and also a number of times on site, but I have done nothing to limit anyone else’s freedom to express their views.
I can’t say the same of the attack squads in action here who seem to be intent on smothering alternate views with personal attacks and either lies or deliberate misinformation,.
I was told from the start onsite that there was to be no party politics but individual opinions were welcome. I haven’t promoted party politics at all onsite.
I know Green Party members who were involved who chose not to display party material onsite becasue they thought it was against the spirit of Occupy. They weren’t happy about other obvious influences.
All you have to do is follow the several related FB pages to see the divisions and disagreements due to the influence of factions. As has already been posted here that lead to threats of assault on Tuesday.
But carry on the personal attacks if that’s all you can come up with.
A two week old baby has been found alive in the rubble of Turkey’s earthquake FOUR DAYS after the shake.
Recall rescuers at the Christchurch earthquake found nobody alive from one day after the shake. It was questioned at the time. It seemed odd that no further survivors had been found alive after such a short time.
This fact raised one huge question about the competency of Chch’s rescuers and whether the rescue system meant that survivors died subsequently from factors not directly due to the quake. i.e. the rescue was poorly executed resulting in unnecessary deaths post-shake.
This question remains well alive in the minds of many in Christchurch and it is yet to be answered.
Um, a lot more people were trapped (and killed) by Turkey’s quake than Chch. Simple statistics means there are going to be more people to rescue.
Mortality when trapped in rubble drops off fairly quickly so only 2/100 people might survive 4 days and be found, if you’ve got 1,000 people buried as opposed to 200, that’s 20 people that have the potential to be rescued after 4 days instead of just 4.
What’s better – 200 people being trapped and no one being rescued after day 3, or 1000 people being trapped?
I realise the statistical implications. But my points still stand. The Turkey quake simply highlights this issue once again, and as said, the issue has not been fully answered yet although I understand it is the next part of the inquiry.
Its time we threw Tomorrow’s Schools out, and returned to a more centralised education system, because the system as it stands seems to be principals are out of control loose cannons, and parents arent really having much say about these things. especially in having to buy a very expensive device or risk their child falling behind futher and further.
Yep, Tomorrow’s Schools philosophy has lived up to predictions. Schools run as businesses. Oddly enough, in high decile schools the boards actually have immense power whereas in lower decile schools equally savvy teachers and pressure groups know how to work them as well.
The disastrous government laissez-faire attitude to the development of IT in schools is manifested by the storerooms full of well-intentioned BOT purchases now sitting idle gathering dust. (A member of the BOT might have connections with a city business that is upgrading their systems and get a “super-generous” offer of getting the redundant PC’s for the school. Yep, that’s it, let the kids cut their teeth on yesterday’s low performance hardware.) You could argue that billions have been wasted by schools floundering to introduce IT into their curriculum.
And then there is the issue of “readers.” The publishers must have rubbed their hands with glee when they knew that they were getting an open door to the budget holders for books in schools.
Are you over 30? Know how to use an iPod? An iPad? Windows 7? An Android smartphone?
Tell me, how did the computers you were working with at school 20-25 years ago possibly prepare you to use any of those catastrophically advanced pieces of equipment?
You see, it just doesn’t matter whether the PC a school pupil is using today is brand new and state of the art or 5 years old and used. Both of them will still be pieces of junk 25 years down the track.
Agreed, but you do need some form of direction from a more central source rather than ad hoc development within schools … massive duplication of policies, everyone reinventing the wheel, and no real standard.
I always remember with great fondness the full height one gigabyte SCSI hard drive I brought for my 486 50MHz home computer in ? 1991 ? It served well for until about 1995. After it failed (to the great comfort of my ears that had grown sensitive to the whine), it then spent another 5 years as a door stop that had origionally cost a few thousand dollars. There was so much weight in the damn thing that no door held open by it could do anything except what the slab of metal told it to do.
The Kiwi tradition of listening to the cricket over the summer has the first nail hammered into its coffin. While this may not bother people here, I belive that it is one of the conseqences of privatisation, and how the standard of media has declined over the past 20 years or so. I presume we will have Murray Deaker drone on and on instead.
The only think more boring than watching cricket is listening to long turgid hours of people blathering about nothing much through its many hours of dead time.
It was always rather relaxing to play cricket because of all of that dead time. Nice idle way to expend weekend time (in those faroff days when I had very little to do)……
My 81 year old mother has become a sport junkie since my father died in 2002 and she’s been living on her own.
She has an old transistor radio that she carries everywhere with her around the house and garden of her ownership flat, usually tuned to newstalk in the morning and radio sport at other times.
She often has cricket matches on the radio when I visit during the summer. She’ll be upset by this news.
According to Moody’s senior credit officer,the Treasury’s pre-election economic and fiscal update on Tuesday was largely in line with expectations. “The future path of government deficits and debt is overall not too different from earlier projections. As a result, this document does not change our thinking about New Zealand’s rating…
Now there’s a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the doom-sayers.
[lprent: You don’t think that it is significant that they felt an announcement was required? I think that Anthony was spot on looking at the risk.
However, I think that bringing up something about an author in a comment that is unrelated to either the comment or the post or the discussion falls under the general category of stalking and intimidation of one of my authors. Bad bad bad idea.
And I’m already annoyed with reading your later trolling..
You just lost your right to comment here after the election. Banned until 27th Nov ]
The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control.
Nice post Joe. What really gets stuck in my craw when listening to the media and politicians we have is that the moment you oppose their stance you become painted as taking a “radical and marginal” viewpoint.
Therefore if you oppose financial corruption you become an extreme leftist, if you oppose the corporatisation of democracy you are branded as anti capitalist. Which is why I despise National (and to a lesser extent Labour), they have become subsumed by corporate interests, they are in the pay of the money men as are the media. Their complicity condemns them, and I cannot see any way to reform this than a collapse of the economic status quo. Roosevelt famously referred to this scenario as being fascist. That is the true velvet glove nature of our corporatist state.
I am blocked from several Nat MP’s pages for merely asking their opinion on certain things – e.g. How much of the $38 billion you have borrowed from overseas is for tax cuts? and “Is it really true that John key was in Hamilton putting up billboards when he could have been in Tauranga liaising about the Rena?”
They really don’t like criticism, removed quick as a flash; they probably have Farrar sitting in a cave doing that.
Labour is going to put up the age of retirement albeit gradually. Totally responsible but a big call politically. It will show that Key is being totally irresponsible in gutting the Cullen Fund and Kiwisaver AND refusing to put the age up.
There is no age of retirement. This is about the age you get National Super.
I agree that Key is irresponsible ignoring the issue, I criticised his stand for that in a public meeting in Port Chalmers last night.
But I don’t think Labour have got it right either, unless there are variations in the detail. Simply pushing up the age disadvantages manual workers, it disadvantages ethnic groups (eg Maori) with lower life expectancies, and it disadvantages people with lefe xpectanncy shortening medical conditions like diabeties.
Geez Petey stop being pedantic. “Age of retirement” is shorthand for “age that National Superannuation starts and you can retire if you want”. Use the latter phrase if you want but it looks sort of retentive.
Pete this is one of your trolling habits. Respond to a significant event by deflecting. Do it again and I will follow you around for the rest of the day and call you a troll.
You two seem to follow each other around already mr savage. Like a couple of people wandering around in their own world bickering away at each other oblivious to everything around them…
The question HS is why would you support raising (or dropping) the age? I get the feeling that nobody here is actually thinking, observing and most importantly projecting. In the near future there will be less work, and more real need.
Here is an alternative: younger people need the income to raise families, build an asset base etc far more than empty nesters should. Younger people generally have more energy for the harder tasks. Maybe we have the wrong people doing the work at different ends of their lives. As a 50 something I have no mortgage, some independent means, and if the income got cut in five who cares? In a sane world I would be pensioned off on the condition I did some needed work that attracted no margin like grandchild care, looking after the real oldies, etc.
I’m not expecting there to be a pension by the time I get there.
But for those who will be affected, I hope provision has been made for full early super for those whose bodies have been munted before retirement age. Lot of people could do with that right now.
For those who cannot work for an extra two years, Labour would create a superannuation transition payment which would be the same rate as normal superannuation.
But there’s no details there about how this would be decided.
Excellent, expose the charlatan Key for what he is – a cheap and nasty populist.
Anyway, raising the age needs to happen (as does means-testing) and I would suggest that most people will see it as ok. Many more people today expect to work a little longer and, further, many of the younger ilk don’t expect that super will be around at all when their time comes. Even some of those on the verge of super will no doubt support it – unless they are greedy buggers of course.
Just like the capital gains tax – solid policy that works to NZ’s longer term benefit.
Labour, though less often a party I support, has traditionally done the big things in NZ. Good to see it continues to lead to way forward for NZ.
Can anybody name something significant that National has done? Something on a par with the creation of the welfare system, nuclear-free, super, etc? Conservative is as conservative does I suppose …..
edit: I imagine also that many older superannuitants who already receive the super will support it too because it doesn’t affect them. It will affect only a minor few.
The meme that retirement is going to cost us too much is part of TINA, which has been repeated so often that even the left now believe it.
Already commented here. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.com/2011/06/on-retirement-pensions-and-age-of.html
“In fact super has been so effective in removing poverty amongst the elderly it should be extended to everyone in the form of a guaranteed minimum income. There is no excuse for having people with inadequate food and housing in a country which is capable of supplying an excess of both internally”.
The idea that we cannot feed and house our elderly in a country that is capable of feeding and housing many times the current population is bullshit.
It does need to be means or work tested. No reason to pay it to someone who is still working and earning $1000/day.
Even since Muldoons election bribes to superannuates i’ve worked on the assumption that there will be no super when I retire, so it will not affect me much.
Not very fair on manual workers whose knees are stuffed by 60, Maori and others who do not live long into retirement now.
A gradual rise will impact most on Gen x and y, not us boomers, so savings will be little.
It is alright for paper shufflers to talk about working until 75. For the rest of us we will often be incapable of working in our jobs well before.
A courageous policy would be extending super to everyone in the form of a GMFI.
Affordability in future depends on how much we invest in a sustainable future economy. Not how much is invested in dodgy offshore markets.
The biggest problem with seeing money as the economy is that you lose sight of the real economy and the true resources that a nation has available to it especially after those resources have been privatised and used to only benefit the few as happens in capitalism.
Maori and others who do not live long into retirement now.
My parents (English and NZ-Scots) were two of those. My father died at 54 and my mother at 62, my brother at 42… I am already older than I ever expected to be. I have been unemployed for the past 2.5 years (and working for the past 4 weeks to my surprised delight) but if the work ends soon, as it’s supposed to, the NS is my only chance of an income higher than UB. Will I make it? 😀
7 years to go, and I feel as if I am sodding 91 like Betty Driver who just croaked…
I’ll pop this comment here too from the other thread greg so you don’t miss it 🙂
What are your views on the inequality facing tangata whenua whilst saving (or trying to) for retirement, and after retirement. Should any political party address this inequality, which is increased when the retirement age is increased because of reduced life expectancy for tangata whenua. How does this fit with the promises in the treaty, or with any political party attempting to govern.
I know you are concerned about the boomer bulge greg but what about the inequality.
mr marty, would that policy also extend to other groups with lower life expectancy such as males? It would be quite nice to pick up the super 6-7 years before others…
The issue is an entirely reasonable one and worthy of examination. Whether it is politically acceptable in our current landscape though I doubt very much. And I imagine that the practicalities and detail would be horrific – everyone would jump up and down who has a lower life expectancy and want it. Because of course it would need to be applied equally and have an absence of any race component, in accordance with good non-racist practice.
Better would be Gareth Morgan’s proposal for a universal living allowance applied throughout a person’s lifetime. Then all of these anomolies would disappear and everyone would be guaranteed of at least some kind of basic living allowance.
p.s. – your mention of indigineouity implies that you still think they should have a special place apart from the rest …. ? Not that we need to rehash that again eh.
I am not sure what you mean about the ‘race’ component – you did get that i’m JUST talking about tangata whenua. The cost, setting up, admin etc are all red herrings that simply distract from the realities of fronting up to the disgrace and shame of the inequality faced by the indigenous people of this country. I’ll say it again so we have no misunderstandings vto – EQUALITY – at the moment we do not have that.
“First, it tries to solve a problem that is not there, and second, if it was there, the solution would not be two decades of timidity,” Mr Dunne said.
“We have the same old parties having the same old debate between 65 and 67, but if you make KiwiSaver compulsory, there will simply be no 65 or 67 issue.
“Make KiwiSaver compulsory and you have a sustainable situation where you can then give New Zealanders full choice on when and how they retire with UnitedFuture’s Flexi-Super policy.
“Flex-Super would then allow people to take their superannuation at a reduced rate from 60, or at an enhanced rate each year they delay taking it up until 70, if they so choose,” Mr Dunne said.
He said that at a time when Labour should be providing innovative alternatives for New Zealanders to consider, they were delivering “doctrinaire, uninspired and ill thought-out dross”.
Pete George. Explain the mechanics of Dunne’s policy. How do you determine the NPV of a person’s entire pension so you know how to spread it out over varying time periods?
Janet Frame was not a recluse, revisionism bollocks.
People who are sensitive make more mistakes and
so withdraw, so invariably some happen to be great
writers and thinkers. Frame was exposed to mad
people and would have spent even more time
absorbing them.
So Janet frame could not have been the writer she
was, the person she was, without being reclusive.
So why this revisionism, reclusive people are still
social animals, they just withdraw, take flight more
easily.
I guess it depends who does the revising and the mood of the buying/reading public and which personality trait is socially ascendent: extroversion or introversion. In a world of big business pop culture, introversion doesn’t sell all that well, but behind every good movie or literary masterpiece, there is a “reclusive” writer doing the chops. At least Janet Frame found a mode of communicating with the world. Many don’t.
Send for Mike Williams – he is neede to go to Melbourne.
And stop those bickering over the Mt Roskill nomination and get back to winning the election now.
[lprent: Again, can’t see how this has anything to do with the post – moved to OpenMike. And if I see another one out of context, then you’re getting the chop for trolling until after the election. ]
hey lprent.
giving the trolls some shit huh!
you need help then call randal for pointless but satisfying abuse.
[lprent: Thanks for your (ummm) generous offer. But I’m steadily increasing my trophy room with scalps, ears and other anatomical specimens. So I won’t be requiring extra help as I cull the sick and the lame out of the herd.
However pointed but satisfying abuse may be indulged in. ]
Who do you call (for pointless and satisfying abuse)? Politicobuster! Pollybuster? When words fail us on some incredible event can any of us call on you randal?
Hmm I see Labour has made Kiwisaver compulsory and plans to increase employer contributions up to 7% eventually. Its a good policy for Labour actually along with raising the retirement age (something National would never be able to even if Key hadn’t promised not to do it).
It makes no sense whatsoever though to increase employer contributions without increasing employee contributions.
In Australia, it’s a flat 9% employer contributions, and employee contributions are completely optional.
Probably in Australia you would find cases where the employer increases their contribution if the employee does also, and that would be part of the salary and benefits package that the employer offers to their employees.
What I want to know, is if Labour will roll back the employer contribution tax that National are putting in next year.
As it stands, I’m on 2%/2%, and when they start taxing employer contributions I’m effectively going to go to 2%/1.34%. Then when they bring the minimum up to 3%/3% I’m effectively going to be on 3%/2%. So next year I’ll get less than I got this year (not even counting the reduced government contributions), and the year after I’ll pay more and only return back to the amount I currently get from my employer.
I would’ve thought they aren’t intending to roll it back. Purely based on the fact that if they were it would’ve been included in the policy today. Could be wrong though.
I just heard Blenglish being interviewed by Mary Wilson. He made the point when discussing the gas pipeline failure that if it was government owned then steps could be taken to monitor it but because its privately owned that’s difficult. And for Vector to put another pipeline in would mean that the price of gas might go up beyond customers’ willingness or capacity to pay.
Arent’t these the points that the thinking left (as opposed to the Roger Douglas/Treasury cohort of the past) have always made and which have been ignored or derided?
In December 1986, all of the 10 largest companies had private sector origins, and most were named after their creators.
Top 10 company founders included Ron Brierley, James Fletcher, James Wattie, Bob Jones and Frank Renouf. Chase and Equiticorp were also dominated by individuals, Colin Reynolds and Allan Hawkins respectively.
Thirteen years later only Carter Holt Harvey and Brierley Investments remained in the top 10, and Brierley’s value is down from $5481 million to $1097 million.
At the end of 1999, three of the top 10 companies – Telecom, Contact Energy and Auckland International Airport – had public sector origins.
The latest top 10 list, based on Wednesday’s closing prices, includes six former publicly-owned companies; Telecom, Contact Energy, Auckland International Airport, Vector, Port of Tauranga and Air New Zealand….
These top 10 sharemarket value figures show that New Zealand businessmen and women have lost the ability to create great companies and the domestic sharemarket is now heavily reliant on former publicly owned organisations.
A study released Tuesday by the [United States of America] Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the richest 1 percent of US households nearly tripled their income between 1979 and 2007 and doubled their share of the national income.
The report also concludes that the top 20 percent of US households increased its share of national income while every other quintile saw its share decline. The top 20 percent received 53 percent of income in 2007—that is, its income surpassed the income of the other 80 percent of Americans.
…
The massive growth of social inequality over the past three decades has been the result of an unrelenting ruling class offensive against the working class.
The mentally challenged commenters were out in force on Stuff today, going off their nut about Labour’s Superann policy (brave, sensible move but foolhardy methinks) and spaffing themselves over the return of the vile bigot Paul Henry to television. Someone get me the f*ck off this ship of fools/bogans. Oh and TV3, you’re banned from my telly. Most of it is crap anyway so no big loss, but Campbell is better than teh Walrus.
Raising the age to 67 is basic sensible, scientific economics, work is good. Here’s another basic of work is good, and a fundamental of future society building, no fucking unemployment, no work ghetto, no bastards and bastards sons to be constantly demonised and whipped. Every wants to spend, (their 80 years here) in N.Z in health and growth.
Sort the country out, it’s 2011 and New Zealand’s ( little islands in the deep ocean) only sustainable future is to be the Glowing light of the area, the holland of the south pacific , the jewel of the oceans, which it is, the last islands (b)reached by man .
Also I would like to point out that I have always considered scientific economics an oxymoron (by always this is actually the first time that I have ever seen it before, but still…).
“John – Your comment hangs together like those odd Google references that have a dictionary of words that will strike a match in any search heading.”
I’m a marketer of ideas, good ideas, not illogical ideas, not bank driven ideas, banking is the industry any sane prime minister would reform quickly, what an unproductive fuckfest that is.
I thought marketers liked short sentences of 12 words or less? Try using full stops as you paddle along the stream of consciousness.
You went from “idea marketing” to “fuckfest” in one sentence, and not in a “please give me a loan so I can start a swingers club/sauna”.
AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
Doesn’t have to be capitalist employment. Beautifying public schools, conservation work, caring for the elderly and the infirm, creating a new work of art for the town centre.
People need to have a role in and a contribution to their communities.
No it doesn’t but that’s what Labour means. I’m with Puddleglum, employment should be seen as the problem.
People need to have a role in and a contribution to their communities.
Yep, but it shouldn’t be forced through a threat of poverty as we have in this psychopathic capitalist system (Especially what we have under a NAct government).
Yes, that was the employment I was signifying with the scare quotes.
The employee-employer relationship lowers a sense of autonomy and self-respect. You are, in effect, selling part of your life to someone else so that it can be used to attain their ends rather than your own (or your community’s).
That shouldn’t be surprising since the greatest stress for a social animal that depends for its emotional wellbeing primarily on the worth accorded to it by others, is to be explicitly marked as being of little value.
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...
The Committee of Disobedient Women has intercepted an email from Dr Emma Eejut, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas. Dear Jan, Thank you for your courageous move. I think 10 pages of blether** should tie any of the students game enough to try holding ...
That's the only response to the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation into LGOIMA practices at the Christchurch City Council:My investigation identified serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency. In particular, Council staff raised concerns with me about various methods employed by some ...
NZ First seems to be nakedly trying to enrich itself from public office:A powerful New Zealand First figure helped establish a forestry company that then pushed for money from two key funding streams controlled by a New Zealand First Minister. An RNZ investigation has found Brian Henry, lawyer for Winston ...
Behrouz Boochani is an award winning author and journalist. He is also a refugee, who for the past six years has been detained in Australia's offshore gulag on Manus Island, and in Papua New Guinea. But last night, with the cooperation of the WORD Christchurch festival and Amnesty International, he ...
Different Strokes: If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S ...
Protective Zone: Reading the rules and guidelines released by Massey University, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that its governing body considers the whole concept of free speech a disruptive threat to the orderly imparting of orthodox academic knowledge.IN TRUE ORWELLIAN fashion, Massey University has announced its commitment to ...
Farmers held a hate-march on Parliament today, complete with MAGA hats, gun-nut signs, and gendered insults. While supposedly about a grab-bag of issues - including, weirdly, mental health - it was clear that the protest was about one thing, and one thing only: climate change. And specifically, forestry "destroying" rural ...
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security released their annual report today, and I've been busy reading through it. In amongst the usual review of what they've been doing all year, there's a few interesting bits. For example, a discussion on "agency retention and disposal of information", which points out that ...
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...
Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as ...
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...
Last month, Greenpeace head Russel Norman surrendered his speaking slot at an EPA conference to student climate activist Sorcha Carr, who told the EPA exactly what she thought of them. It was a bold move, which confronted both regulators and polluters (or, as the EPA calls them, "stakeholders") with the ...
The core principle supposedly underlying New Zealand's electoral finance regime is transparency: parties can accept large donations from rich people wanting to buy policy, but only if they tell the public they've been bought. Most parties abide by this, so we know that TOP was wholly-owned by Gareth Morgan, and ...
Today is a Member's Day, probably the second-to-last one of the year, and its a big one, with the Third Reading of David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. last Member's Day it was reported back from committee, after MPs voted narrowly to make it subject to a (rules TBA) ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThe growth of the human population over the last 70 ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...
by Don Franks In 1957, E M Forster wrote, of his greatest work: “The India described in ‘A Passage to India’ no longer exists either politically or socially. Change had begun even at the time the book was published ( 1924) and during the following quarter of a century it ...
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff@DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...
Now the Zero Carbon Bill is law, what's next? Obviously, the ETS changes currently before select committee are going to be the next battleground. But we're also going to get a good idea of where we're going, and if the progress the Zero Carbon Act promises is good enough, during ...
Grant PearceThe effects of the current Australian bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland (and also again in California) are devastating and far-reaching. To date, the fires have resulted in several lives being lost and many homes and properties destroyed. Here in New Zealand, the impacts have been only ...
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
In the spirit of Remember, remember the fifth of November, let's keep this in mind FOREVER.
Oh dear. Extraordinary interview on PM with Andrew Bridgen and @EvanHD just now. Bridgen was defending Jacob Rees Mogg’s Grenfell comments. Evan asked him if JRM had meant to say he would have left ...
Collision Course? In conditions of ideological white-out, the international bankers’ “Woop-Woop! Pull Up!” warning may have come too late to save global capitalism.WHAT DOES IT MEAN when international bankers are more willing to embrace radical solutions than our politicians and their electors? At both the International Monetary Fund and the ...
Pertussis (whooping cough) is a conundrum. It is a disease that was described hundreds of years ago and the bacteria that causes it (Bordetella pertussis) isolated in 1906. We have had vaccines for about 80 years but this disease is defiant in the face of human immunity. I wanted to ...
The Zero Carbon Bill has just passed its third reading, uanimously. In the end, National supported it - but we all know they'll turn around and gut it the moment they regain power. Meanwhile, I guess ACT's David Seymour didn't even bother to show up. I am on record as ...
Dr Lindsay Robertson, Dr Jerram Bateman, Professor Janet HoekMembers of the public health community hold divergent views on how access to vaping products or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products should be arranged. Some believe ENDS should be as widely available as smoked tobacco and argue for liberal ...
When the Police were trying to cover up for the National Party over Dirty Politics, they went all-in with their abuses of power. They illegally search Nicky Hager's house, violating his journalistic privilege and invading his privacy. They unlawfully acquired Hager's bank records. They did the same to left-wing blogger ...
Last month, in response to a wave of protests by Extinction Rebellion, the British government purported to ban their protests from the whole of London. It was a significant interference with the freedoms of expression and assembly, and another sign of the country's decline into tyranny. But now, a court ...
Last year, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security reported on significant problems with the intelligence warrant system. While they were unwilling to declare any warrant "irregular" (meaning unlawful) due to the recent law change, they were also not willing to give the system a clean bill of health. Now, they've ...
The National Party has come out in support of encouraging greater vaccination uptake. But it sure isn’t the way I’d do it. National’s suggested docking the benefits of those on benefit whose kids aren’t keeping up with their vaccinations. Some in National have suggested extending that to payments under Working ...
Feeding The Flames: It is simply not enough to demand an end to “corruption”, or “inequality”, or the overbearing influence of the authorities in Beijing. These are just “lowest common denominator” demands: the sort of slogans that pull people onto the streets. They are not a plan.WHERE’S THE PLAN? Across ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and unemployment has risen to 4.2%. There are 115,000 unemployed - 11,000 fewer than when Labour took office. In that time the minimum wage has gone up by $2 an hour, which shows that the right's fears about increases causing unemployment are simply ...
The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has called for submissions on Andrew Little's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. Normally I encourage participation in the democratic process. I am not doing so in this case. Instead, I encourage all of you to boycott this submissions process, and to post ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIf tiny concentrations of carbon dioxide can hold enough heat ...
Aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and within it, one of the fastest sources is elite travel: billionaires flitting around the world in their private jets, spewing excessive pollution into the atmosphere just so they can avoid mixing with us dirty peasants. But in ...
That's what we face if we don't stop climate change, according to a warning from 11,000 scientists:The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists. “We declare clearly and unequivocally ...
by Phil Duncan Here’s just a few of the kind of threats issued day in and day out against gender-critical women – feminists, marxists, etc – overwhelmingly by MEN (albeit men identifying as women). “Kill all Terfs”. “Shoot a Terf today”. “All terfs deserve to be shot in the head”. ...
This is the third of the synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Unlike the humble cup of coffee and t-shirt that we looked at in ...
Tom MooreTraditionally a food source and cutting tool, freshwater mussels/kākahi are now widely valued as water filters that help clean our waterbodies and maintain ecosystem health throughout Aotearoa. The improvement they provide in water quality can make it easier for other animals to live in streams and rivers, as ...
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…Installation complete: this was nothing ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is back in the House today for its second reading. While this isn't the final stage, its still effectively D-Day for the bill. Because today, at around 5pm, is when we're going to find out if it has a majority, whether National will support it or ...
Winston Peters is in court today, suing a bunch of former Minister and civil servants over their pre-election leak of his superannuation repayment. He's characterised the leak as malicious, and said that it is repugnant that his information was passed on to Ministers to use for political advantage. And he's ...
Murray CoxDo I have to finish my favourite genome? That’s an often-asked question. Geneticists generally strive to produce high-quality genomes that sequence every last gene, making full use of the state-of-the-art technologies coming on stream. Sequencing DNA means determining the order of the four chemical building blocks – called ...
Transformative Politics: The idea is to turn each recipient into an unwitting accomplice in their own transformation. From interested observer to hyped-up activist, sharing our messages promiscuously with ‘friends’. You’ll be part of an ever-expanding circulatory system, Jennifer, for the ideas that will win us the election.”JENNIFER SKITTERED her chair ...
The boycott is a fundamental tool of protest. By choosing who we buy from, we can send a message, and hopefully change corporate behaviour. Historically, boycotts have been effective, for example over apartheid in South Africa and Israel, in forcing divestment from Myanmar, and in ending bus segregation in the ...
Jan Rivers spoke at the Abortion Legislation Select Committee in favour of the bill, but in opposition to calls from other submitters to exchange the word ‘woman’ for ‘person’ throughout the bill. Jan is a supporter of the feminist group Speak Up For Women and has recently written an excellent ...
I checked my traffic stats:I was intrigued by 'monica29' - who was this very dedicated individual? I clicked on the link, to be greeted with ...Ho, hum.Spreadin' the word, spreadin' the word. Doesn't matter who hears it, as long as it gets out there. ...
There have been three polls since the election was announced, and I will shamelessly steal YouGov / UK Polling Report's Anthony Wells' summary of them:Survation – CON 34%, LAB 26%, LDEM 19%, BREX 12%, GRN 1% Ipsos MORI – CON 41%, LAB 24%, LDEM 20%, BREX 7%, GRN 3% YouGov ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
We began the week by commemorating the New Zealand Wars and celebrating a major increase in the number of teachers. Then, we were busy supporting offenders into work and getting our rail back on track after years of underinvestment. And that's just the start! ...
In October I was sworn in as the Mayor of Lower Hutt.It’s the privilege of my life to serve Hutt people as their Mayor. There is something really special to be able to serve the community where I was raised, and where I live. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters met with Korea Racing Authority Chairperson Nak Soon Kim in Seoul today to discuss closer cooperation between the New Zealand and Korean horse racing industries. As part of the visit to the Seoul Racecourse, Mr Peters witnessed ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $10 million to establish Otago as the centre of New Zealand’s creative digital industry over the next ten years, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “The initiative will bring us closer to the vision of ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)’s skills and employment programme will help young Otago people into long-term forestry careers, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. Te Ara Mahi will invest $63,000 in the 2020 school year to support eight 17 and 18 ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) will support local plans to revitalise and stimulate economic development opportunities in Otago, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The four Regional Economic Development Ministers have approved an in-principle investment of $19.9 million towards the region’s ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is pleased to have received the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) report on the Coalition Government’s Mycoplasma bovis eradication efforts, which shows significant progress in the fight against the disease. New Zealand First Spokesperson for Primary Industries, Mark Patterson, says the report’s findings ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon David Parker, Minister for Trade and Export Growth The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing to support economic growth opportunities for Otago’s engineering and manufacturing sectors, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Trade and Export Minister David Parker announced today. Almost $20 million ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, discussed in Seoul today opportunities to work more closely in the Pacific and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Mr Peters and Minister Kang confirmed New Zealand and the ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Minister for Māori Development The three marae in the historic Parihaka Pa complex in Taranaki have been upgraded to high speed broadband with the support of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Connecting the ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence Minister of Defence Ron Mark will today launch the Advancing Pacific Partnerships 2019 Defence Assessment during a speech at Te Papa. The Assessment outlines how Defence will partner with our Pacific Island neighbours and invest in Pacific regional security architecture. The Plan aligns with the Coalition ...
A new Provincial Growth Fund investment could create about 80 new jobs in Gisborne over the next two years, turning a local small business into a “beacon of employment” in the process. Regional Economic Development Parliamentary Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau said the PGF’s Te Ara Mahi funding stream would provide $1.6m ...
The Government is asking the food industry to step up work to tackle obesity including reducing sugar, fat and salt in their products, better information for consumers, and tighter restrictions on advertising to children. Health Minister David Clark and Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor have responded to a ...
ew, modern emergency department and outpatient facilities at Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital mean better emergency care for the growing tourist mecca’s visitors and locals, says Health Minister David Clark. Today Dr Clark officially opened the hospital’s redeveloped Emergency Department and Outpatient facilities. The new facilities include: • An extended Emergency Department ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter says today’s release of sexual and reproductive health data reinforces the significance of the Government’s commitment to providing free or very low-cost contraception. The Ministry of Health today published statistics from the Ministry of Health’s 2014/15 Health Survey. “It is important people can make ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that at the request of the Samoan Government, New Zealand will be providing further support to Samoa as it faces a worsening measles outbreak. “In response to a request from the people of Samoa, New Zealand is providing 3000 measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) ...
“The new Disability Action Plan 2019–2023 moves us towards the inclusive and accessible New Zealand that this government has committed to,” Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni announced today. “The Action Plan was designed by disabled people, their family and supporters, the disability sector and government agencies. It will ensure ...
Third Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting 14 November 2019 Joint Statement 1. Defence Ministers Ron Mark and Dr Ng Eng Hen today conducted their third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore. 2. Building on the Enhanced Partnership signed between both countries in May this year, this annual meeting ...
A Bill to improve the court system’s response to sexual violence has passed its first reading in Parliament today. Justice Minister Andrew Little says the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill will reduce the trauma sexual violence complainants experience in court, while maintaining defendants’ fundamental rights and making sure the trial process ...
Streamlined payment practices are a step closer for Kiwi businesses with the formal launch of New Zealand’s e-Invoicing framework. Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the government has now established the structure to enable automated and direct data exchange between the accounting systems of buyers and sellers. “The move to ...
Another 51 quarantine officers and four new biosecurity detector dog teams will help protect New Zealand from invasive pests and diseases this summer, says Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor. “The Government is delivering on its commitment to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity system and support our valuable primary sector “New Zealand’s flora, fauna ...
A new report has found New Zealand’s space sector contributed $1.69 billion to the economy in the last financial year and employs 12,000 people, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. The report by Deloitte was commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and shows New Zealand ...
Judge Coral Shaw has been appointed as the new Chair of the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. "Judge Shaw, who is currently one of the inquiry commissioners, is extremely well qualified for the ...
The Government has confirmed its third major mental health facility upgrade since the Budget, this time at Palmerston North Hospital. The Prime Minister and Health Minister today visited MidCentral DHB to announce that $30 million has been allocated to upgrade its acute mental health facility. It follows earlier announcements in ...
The roll out of the National Bowel Screening Programme has reached the halfway mark, with 10 out of 20 District Health Boards now part of the programme. MidCentral DHB, which covers Palmerston North, Manawatu and surrounding districts, this week became the latest to DHB to offer free bowel screening to ...
The Government welcomes PHARMAC’s decision to fund a vaccine to protect young people from meningococcal disease from 1 December this year. “Meningococcal disease is a serious threat which people at higher risk should be protected from,” says Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter. “The combined pharmaceutical budget was increased by ...
Groups involved with innovative fisheries research projects are encouraged to apply for government support in the latest funding round from the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures programme. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash says the SFF Futures funding is designed to be flexible enough to support small or large projects across a ...
The Government has fixed an issue affecting how Immigration New Zealand has processed visa applications for culturally arranged marriages, which will now see a consistent process applied which ensures people with legitimate arranged marriages can visit New Zealand while also preventing any rorting of the system. Earlier this year Immigration ...
The Royal Commission into the Attacks on Christchurch Mosques will report back on 30 April 2020 to give it more time to hear submissions and consider information, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Royal Commission was originally scheduled to report back to Government by 10 December 2019. “There has ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Washington DC today to attend a ministerial meeting focused on defeating ISIS, and to continue pursuing New Zealand’s trade opportunities. Mr Peters will participate in a meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers from key countries contributing to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. ...
The recently crowned Bird of the Year, the hoiho/yellow eyed penguin, is getting a much needed helping hand alongside more than 168 other community conservation projects announced Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage today. 168 community conservation projects throughout New Zealand are benefiting from $8 million in government grants, including $500,000 ...
Controls on assault rifles and semi-automatic firearms are to be broadened to include some types of pistols, under changes to a bill currently making its way through Parliament. Police Minister Stuart Nash has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper to the Arms Legislation Bill, which is currently before a Select Committee ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark will travel to Singapore today to conduct a counterpart visit and to co-chair the third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting with his counterpart, Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen. “Singapore is one of our most important defence partners in the region, and our ...
Nelson’s Salisbury School is to be rebuilt, creating a modern and suitable learning environment for students at the residential special school, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The school for girls aged 8-15, in Richmond, was earmarked for closure by National until the process ...
The panel undertaking a comprehensive review of the Resource Management Act has identified the main issues to be addressed and options for reform and is calling for feedback to inform its final report. In July the Government announced the comprehensive review of the resource management system, including the RMA - ...
An important safety valve has been added to New Zealand’s criminal justice system with the third reading of the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill today. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) will investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “We’ve seen how our justice system can very occasionally get things spectacularly wrong, ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters welcomes the tabling of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) 2019 Annual Report in Parliament today. He says the 2019 Annual Report marks the point when New Zealand’s racing industry’s decline was arrested and a turnaround started. RITA’s 2019 Annual Report recorded an industry net profit ...
The New Zealand Government is today sending 21 firefighters to help fight the ongoing catastrophic Australian bushfires. “The fires in Australia are in some of the toughest, most challenging conditions ever,” says Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin. “As of yesterday morning, there were 100 active bushfire-related incidents across Queensland and ...
More frontline support for schools through a new education agency, as part of a redesigned Ministry of Education More support for principals and school boards including through a new centre of leadership and local leadership advisor roles New independent disputes panels for parents and students Management of school property ...
The Government’s reform of the Tomorrow’s Schools system is a watershed moment in education and an opportunity to create meaningful change for ākonga Māori and their whānau, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis said today. “Last year through Kōrero Mātauranga | Education Conversation, Māori teachers, parents, ākonga, whānau, hapū and iwi ...
Infrastructure Minister is welcoming the first of many updated project pipelines from the newly established New Zealand Infrastructure Commission today. The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, has released an expanded pipeline of major capital projects – another crucial step towards delivering better infrastructure outcomes. “The first iteration of the ...
Tougher gun laws designed to improve public safety through firearms prohibition orders are proposed in a new document released for public input. Police Minister Stuart Nash says firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) would give new powers to Police to ensure high-risk individuals come nowhere near firearms. “We have already prohibited the ...
Andy Coupe has been confirmed as TVNZ’s new Board Chair. “Mr Coupe has strong commercial and capital markets experience and TVNZ has benefited from his technical knowledge of business and finance, as well as his extensive governance experience,” the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Kris Faafoi said. Andy ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today officially opened a separated pathway, following the completion of the Kaiwharawhara Stream bridge, which will improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians along Hutt Road. The $6.8m Hutt Road project provides a separated path for cycling and pedestrians, the replacement of informal parking ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of career diplomat Si’alei van Toor as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to Russia. “I’m pleased to appoint Ms van Toor to this position. She brings a wealth of experience to the role having previously served as Senior Trade Adviser to the ...
The Treasury’s 2019 Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) will be released on Wednesday December 11, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Coalition Government will publish the 2020 Budget Policy Statement at the same time, outlining the priorities for Budget 2020. Further details on arrangements for the release will ...
A new initiative to better support small businesses through hands-on mentoring and advice has been launched by the Minister for Small Business. The first event in the Kiwi Business Boost series of regional workshops and online tools has been launched in Wairoa by Stuart Nash. “The Business Boost initiative combines ...
The latest Quarterly Connectivity Report shows that more and more New Zealanders are moving to Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB), with Rolleston having the highest uptake at 74 per cent, as at the end of September. “This means that nearly three quarters of Rolleston’s households and businesses have moved to ultra-fast services. ...
The passing of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill will help ensure a safe planet for our kids and grandkids, the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw said today. The landmark legislation which provides a framework to support New Zealanders to prepare for, and adapt to, the effects ...
The review of Oranga Tamariki practice around the planned uplift of a Hastings baby in May shows significant failings by the Ministry and that the planned and funded changes to shift from a child crisis service to a proper care and protection service need to be accelerated, Children’s Minister Tracey ...
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has wished students the best of luck for this year’s NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams which start tomorrow. Around 140,000 students will have participated in 119 NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams by the end of the exam period on 3 December. “I want to ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of Bede Corry as New Zealand’s next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. “The appointment of a senior diplomat to this important role underlines the significance New Zealand places on our relationship with the United Kingdom,” said Mr Peters. “The United ...
As a follow-up to our post about police station office hours for the public and in the cause of balance, we bring positive news – or rather, we are passing on the positive news which the police delivered in a press statement, It’s all about the productivity gains achieved – it ...
Books editor Catherine Woulfe follows Wellington author Lawrence Patchett into his extraordinary story of heat and humanity and history repeating. The Burning River begins like the best kind of yarn. “Someone had been there. Someone strange. In the centre of his camp, a new circle of sooted rocks. A campfire, with ...
SPECIAL REPORT: By Philip Cass in BrisbaneMelanesian Media Freedom Forum – Day two –The second day of the Melanesian Media Freedom Forum began with praise for the work of young Pacific journalists by Professor David Robie and ended with a warning that threats to journalism in the ...
In this special episode of The Real Pod, brought to you by Nando’s, we chat to the champions of My Restaurant Rules NZ 2019.In the afterglow of Rustic Kitchen’s historic win on My Restaurant Rules NZ, Duncan and Alex got on the blower with Tyson and Denise. Then we forgot ...
Hannah Kronast attends a women’s empowerment panel focused on the huge disparities in training and employment within science and technology. In the far back left-hand corner of a women’s equality and empowerment event, a male stuck up his hand. “What can men do to help?” he asked.It was at a panel ...
Our recent Spinoff Art survey provided a snapshot on gender equality in the local art scene, but it wasn’t the full story. Anna Knox continues the conversation by asking some gallery owners and directors for their responses to our findings.The Spinoff’s survey of gender bias in visual arts found that ...
Based on their study of trans wellbeing Aotearoa, the research team at Counting Ourselves find six data points that highlight the strength of our trans and non-binary community.Last month the first comprehensive national survey on transgender health and wellbeing in Aotearoa was published by the academics and researchers at Counting ...
The SpinoffBy Dr Jaimie Veale, Jack Byrne and Ahi Wi-Hongi
Ten thousand years ago, roasted hares and figs were flat-layed on Levantine flax leaves. Now, we drape prosciutto over strawberries on computer desks. Josie Adams mourns the death of the platter.Three days ago I stumbled on an accidental recreation of a 1950s platter: a giant ham, a cake that was ...
India’s decision not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership promoted by China is politically significant. But its impact on trade and prosperity is more nuanced, as Bloomberg explains.It avoids some market opening on both sides (India to agriculture; others to services) that would have been economically beneficial. But ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Geoff Crisp discusses the the week in politics the government’s response to the bush fires as well as the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action. They also talk about ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The proposed acquisition of infant formula producer Bellamy’s Australia Ltd by China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited has been given approval by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Strict, legally enforceable conditions, have been set by the treasurer, which ...
The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) is condemning the All Saints Day evening raid on 31 October. With the arrest of over 60 union organisers, human rights defenders and activists in the Philippines province of Negros. The 16th of November is an international ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Assistant professor, University of Canberra What’s happening? Suddenly, at the level of central banks, Australia is regarded as an investment risk. On Wednesday Martin Flodén, the deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, announced that because Australia and Canada were “not ...
SPECIAL REPORT: By Philip Cass in Brisbane Opening session – Day OneThe problems of operating in the Pacific and the impact of online news and the emergence of ‘citizen journalists’ were common concerns for all delegates to this week’s Melanesian Media Freedom Forum.The forum, held at Griffith ...
Standoff between protesters and the police at Yeung Uk Road, Hong Kong. Image by Studio Incendo – 20190825 Tsuen Wan March. CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81751531.The recent surge in social protests world-wide is quantitatively and qualitatively different than in previous ages. The advent of individualised mass communications technologies and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is going to start asking internet service providers to block certain offshore gambling websites. The decision follows former New South Wales premier ...
The Zero Carbon Act (ZCA) is over a week old, but it’s still being heavily debated and analysed. After all, depending on who you listen to, it’s the most significant new law of the year, of this Government, or even of some people’s lifetime. And it deals with a giant ...
Green MP and refugee Golriz Ghahraman was there last night when the former Manus Island detainee and acclaimed writer arrived in New Zealand.Last night, quietly and without fanfare a small group made up of human rights activists, literary folk, and just two journalists, came together at Auckland Airport to welcome ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra D’urso, Researcher, The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne To perform an exit is not as simple as it sounds. In fact, exiting a situation can be almost impossible for some. Exit Strategies is a new production by indie performer and theatre ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niro Kandasamy, Tutor, University of Melbourne Sri Lanka’s presidential election on Saturday comes at a critical time for the country. The government has been in turmoil since President Maithripala Sirisena sacked the prime minister last year and replaced him with former strongman ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Hansen, Chief of Staff, The Conversation If you have kids, chances are you’ve worried about their presence on social media. Who are they talking to? What are they posting? Are they being bullied? Do they spend too much time on it? ...
New Zealand Police has won a prestigious World Class Policing Award for its ‘more street than station approach’ Mobility programme, which has saved millions of hours of officers’ time. ...
SEA-Unite SkyCity workers are expected to strike this weekend after 50 called in sick with symptoms linked to smoke inhalation from the convention centre fire. ...
In a powerful rebuff to critics who question whether the prime minister is willing to use her political capital, this morning she powerfully demonstrated her commitment to New Zealand culture.For two years, my professional life has been devoted to winning respect for the lowbrow, beaten-up, off-brand artefacts that truly define ...
MPs and staffers will likely begin moving out of their Bowen House offices over the next six months, so the building can undergo earthquake strengthening work. ...
The party that sold off the BNZ, NZ Rail, Petrocorp, Postbank, the Shipping Corporation, Air New Zealand, the State Insurance Office, the Tourist Hotel Corporation and a host of other New Zealand assets is at it again – with the assistance of its coalition ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trent Penman, Associate professor, University of Melbourne As sure as night follows day, this week’s bushfires prompted inevitable debate about whether fire authorities should have carried out more hazard reduction burning, and whether opposition from conservationists prevented this. There are two key ...
A new poem by writer and performer Freya Daly Sadgrove.TURDUCKEN I blow my body around like the huge clump of brown hairthat I once saw blowing up Cuba StreetI follow its movements with interestI put a video of it on the internet my favourite bragis that a groundskeeper ...
PHARMAC has backed down on a controversial drug brand switch affecting patients with epilepsy and mental health conditions after three people died following the change. ...
Tara Ward reviews Goodnight Kiwi, a new series that features well-known New Zealanders reading bedtime stories to kids. It’s strange to think that New Zealand television wasn’t always the 24-hour, infomercial-tastic extravangza that it is today. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, our televisions used to go dark every night at ...
FIRST Union members at Countdown have ratified a new agreement that will set their supermarket team on a path towards a living wage, and significantly raise the pay of 15,000 workers across the country. ...
13 moments that prove the music awards are so much > than all other award showsBENEE cleaned up, every performance was somewhere between an eight and a ten, there was an unfeasible quantity of award presenter awkwardness and many nights ended very late. The music awards are over 50 and ...
While the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights Commission are examining whether New Zealand laws properly balance the issues of freedom of speech and hate speech (whatever that might be), taxpayers are helping to finance Chinese propaganda. Hateful propaganda, we suggest. The Screen Production Grant has handed a $243,000 subsidy to a ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Media Peter Thompson (Stuff): A new model for public media – but have the old ...
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 Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin $35)“Olive struggles to figure herself out, and has an urgent ...
After more than seven months of trying to end a tenancy to protect neighbours, a Rotorua property manager has finally received approval from the High Court to end the tenancy. ...
We agree with the Ombudsman Peter Boshier in his new report on councils QUOTE ; “leaders, officials lack of action to "ensure an approach is adopted that is consistent with openness and transparency" Un-quote. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1911/S00186/chief-ombudsman-new-report-wakeup-call-for-council-leaders.htm ...
Māori food systems are rich with potential, and whānau-based food producers across the country are looking to traditional ways to ensure their communities thrive in the future. Alice Neville reports from the Eat New Zealand Food Hui.In recent years there has been much talk – in food business, hospitality, tourism ...
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) commends the Government’s proposal to take school zoning responsibilities out of the hands of school boards and principals and instead have these taken up by a new Education Service Agency. ...
SINGAPORE, Nov 15, 2019 - (ACN Newswire) - Global BioLife Inc, the U.S. subsidiary of Singapore eDevelopment Ltd (SeD), will present its 3F Antimicrobial Fragrance as a new method to prevent and treat Tuberculosis at the ASM Biothreats Conference, ...
The National Party is calling for the Auditor General to investigate a bid for tax payer money made by a forestry company set up by a senior New Zealand First figure; and an award-winning author detained on Manus Island by Australia for six years has touched down in Auckland ...
Responding to news that the Screen Production Grant handed a $243,000 subsidy to a propaganda film produced by Chinese state-owned enterprises, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Louis Houlbrooke says: “Taxpayers have all been made complicit ...
The campaign to take more colour coded bins into the regions has been developed by The Packaging Forum which promotes recycling under the Government’s Love NZ brand and The Auckland Litter Prevention Steering Group which manages the Be a Tidy Kiwi ...
Shane Jones calls protesting farmers 'rednecks' following rowdy march on Parliament; and top council staff 'manipulated' reports to hide bad news from councillors and public. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodie Bradby, Professor of Physics, Australian National University There’s a lot of uncertainty in a research career. Most funding – and most jobs – are doled out by the project, or in chunks of a few years at a time. Recently, however, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wanning Sun, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Technology Sydney The Australian government has indicated that “diaspora communities” are crucial to Australia’s public diplomacy mission to promote the country abroad. It has also identified online and social media as essential ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Bright, Senior Lecturer of Addiction, Edith Cowan University For many parents whose teenage children are completing Year 12, this time of year means mixed emotions. Parents might feel proud, exhausted and excited. And as young people start heading to schoolies and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heiko Timmers, Associate Professor of Physics, School of Science, UNSW Canberra, UNSW Much is made of the “next generation” of nuclear reactors in the debate over nuclear power in Australia. They are touted as safer than older reactors, and suitable for helping ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fran Gale, Senior Lecturer, Social Work and Community Welfare, School of Social Science and Psychology, Western Sydney University Children are too rarely asked their perspectives on public spaces. Traditionally, adults make choices for children, particularly about how they live and play. In ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW What do a billionaire, a former vice president, and a US democratic socialist have to do with Australia’s nearly three-decade run of economic growth? More than you might think. The race for the Democratic Party’s 2020 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lydia Edwards, Fashion historian, Edith Cowan University Eyebrows can turn a smile into a leer, a grumpy pout into a come hither beckoning, and sad, downturned lips into a comedic grimace. So, it’s little wonder these communicative markers of facial punctuation have ...
The rules around use of parliamentary TV are set to be liberalised and MPs will no longer have to give permissions for clips of them to be used in political advertising. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra When five former fire chiefs held a news conference on Thursday to urge the federal government to take more action on climate change, it was a challenging moment for Scott Morrison. Those who fronted the ...
A powerful New Zealand First figure helped establish a forestry company that then pushed for money from two key funding streams controlled by a New Zealand First Minister. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Farmers square off with Shane Jones at parliament, tax rebates for Chinese propaganda film criticised, and ructions over future shape of public media.Now first of all, I just want to make it clear rednecks isn’t the term I’d use. But it was ...
The biggest shakeup in the country’s broadcasting history looks to be looming as the Government gets serious about its options for strengthening public service broadcasting. ...
Support for the Zero Carbon Bill shows our action on climate will have to disrupt the status quo, writes Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton. That will mean new opportunities - and costs. ...
Football Ferns captain Ali Riley is making the most of her opportunity to play for German giants Bayern Munich, harbouring a dream to represent NZ at her fifth World Cup ...
'Policing' is increasingly falling to private security and citizen-led initiatives. Yet the wages and the training don't match the responsibility. So what can we do? ...
Yesterday, Stuff reported that the 2017 Chinese-made propaganda blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2 was partially made in New Zealand. Sam Brooks watched it and – spoiler alert – found it weird as hell.About halfway through Wolf Warrior 2 on Netflix, the unnamed leader of a revolution in an unnamed African country marches up ...
Rather than get distracted by the stadium debate, we need to urgently acknowledge that unlocking this land now for future integration into the CBD is critical for Auckland’s future, aruges Paul Winstanley.Don’t be fooled. This is not just another story about the waterfront stadium. Well, not really. Like the mayor ...
The Period Poverty Solution Petition: The Health and Wellbeing Implications was presented by the Positive Periods campaign team, of which The Period Place is a part of, at a cross-party breakfast, thanks to Louisa Wall MP and Joanne Hayes MP in Parliament ...
Open mike 27/10/2011 
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...4 hours ago
The Committee of Disobedient Women has intercepted an email from Dr Emma Eejut, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas. Dear Jan, Thank you for your courageous move. I think 10 pages of blether** should tie any of the students game enough to try holding ...17 hours ago
That's the only response to the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation into LGOIMA practices at the Christchurch City Council:My investigation identified serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency. In particular, Council staff raised concerns with me about various methods employed by some ...22 hours ago
Different Strokes: If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S ...1 day ago
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...2 days ago
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...3 days ago
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...4 days ago
4 days ago
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ... 6 days ago
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…
Installation complete: this was nothing ... 2 weeks ago
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...2 days ago
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...1 week ago
The Government is asking the food industry to step up work to tackle obesity including reducing sugar, fat and salt in their products, better information for consumers, and tighter restrictions on advertising to children. Health Minister David Clark and Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor have responded to a ...3 hours ago
As a follow-up to our post about police station office hours for the public and in the cause of balance, we bring positive news – or rather, we are passing on the positive news which the police delivered in a press statement, It’s all about the productivity gains achieved – it ...47 mins ago
Books editor Catherine Woulfe follows Wellington author Lawrence Patchett into his extraordinary story of heat and humanity and history repeating. The Burning River begins like the best kind of yarn. “Someone had been there. Someone strange. In the centre of his camp, a new circle of sooted rocks. A campfire, with ...1 hour ago
SPECIAL REPORT: By Philip Cass in Brisbane Melanesian Media Freedom Forum – Day two – The second day of the Melanesian Media Freedom Forum began with praise for the work of young Pacific journalists by Professor David Robie and ended with a warning that threats to journalism in the ...1 hour ago
"I rang the ambulance service then went to the shed": a new short story by a master of the form, Oamaru writer Owen Marshall. ...5 hours ago
India’s decision not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership promoted by China is politically significant. But its impact on trade and prosperity is more nuanced, as Bloomberg explains. It avoids some market opening on both sides (India to agriculture; others to services) that would have been economically beneficial. But ...10 hours ago
The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) is condemning the All Saints Day evening raid on 31 October. With the arrest of over 60 union organisers, human rights defenders and activists in the Philippines province of Negros. The 16th of November is an international ...16 hours ago
MPs and staffers will likely begin moving out of their Bowen House offices over the next six months, so the building can undergo earthquake strengthening work. ...21 hours ago
Phil Goff warns of further city centre chaos as City Rail Link project enters stage three. ...22 hours ago
PHARMAC has backed down on a controversial drug brand switch affecting patients with epilepsy and mental health conditions after three people died following the change. ...23 hours ago
The National Party is calling for the Auditor General to investigate a bid for tax payer money made by a forestry company set up by a senior New Zealand First figure; and an award-winning author detained on Manus Island by Australia for six years has touched down in Auckland ...1 day ago
Shane Jones calls protesting farmers 'rednecks' following rowdy march on Parliament; and top council staff 'manipulated' reports to hide bad news from councillors and public. ...1 day ago
The rules around use of parliamentary TV are set to be liberalised and MPs will no longer have to give permissions for clips of them to be used in political advertising. ...1 day ago
A widening of the definition of "culturally arranged marriage" means this week's change for Immigration NZ is greater than originally thought. ...1 day ago
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias. ...1 day ago
The Tall Ferns reward their first home crowd in four years with a massive victory over the Philippines on their road to Tokyo 2020. ...1 day ago
The biggest shakeup in the country’s broadcasting history looks to be looming as the Government gets serious about its options for strengthening public service broadcasting. ...1 day ago
Support for the Zero Carbon Bill shows our action on climate will have to disrupt the status quo, writes Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton. That will mean new opportunities - and costs. ...1 day ago
Football Ferns captain Ali Riley is making the most of her opportunity to play for German giants Bayern Munich, harbouring a dream to represent NZ at her fifth World Cup ...1 day ago
'Policing' is increasingly falling to private security and citizen-led initiatives. Yet the wages and the training don't match the responsibility. So what can we do? ...1 day ago
The dairy farmers who celebrated an historic court victory against the ANZ Bank earlier this year, have learned the fight isn’t over yet. ...1 day ago
Chloe Swarbrick's 'OK Boomer' aside in Parliament has a serious message behind it ...1 day ago
National has proved it can’t be trusted on our climate or other environmental challenges. ...2 days ago
In an over-stretched funding environment an more DHB-affiliated charities are plugging the holes. ...2 days ago
Scumball Key has been up the Kapiti Coast yesterday selling the concept of asset sales to the oldies…..sad and desperate individual. Cannot express enough contempt for this parasite and anybody scuzzy enough to buy into his nasty world view.
Seems like fertile ground for such a campaign – asset sales generate revenue now and a lot of them won’t be around in 20-30 years time when the sale really starts to bite us in the ass.
Granny and gramps selling their grandkids down the river of serfdom.
Charming.
Colonial Viper,
My town is like a giant old folks home – it’s like the dawn of the living dead, hobbling around on sticks – all these people have lived a good life under the 1935 Labour Party egalitarian philosophy; they will not be affected by the ’67’ change, yet they are against the change. They will all vote NActCon.
Rest home villages are popping up like triffids all over the place, all the same colours – I want to scream “for goodness sake, paint a giant flower on the wall. Show me you have a life going on in there”.
Some of them, and these are the people I know, are full of life and would certainly want their grandchildren to have a lifestyle such as they once had – green, active, pollution-free – but those older people are too few in my town.
Youth is paying for the olds’ gobbling up of resources, cheap house ownership in many cases, the abundance of jobs and the backing of a decent welfare system.
Somewhere along the way, the olds got greedy; credit cards came along and so did the trillion dollar marketing propaganda. Now the olds blame the young for ‘wanting it all now’, but they taught that philosophy to the young by their own greedy and selfish actions.
Labour needs to get back in; it needs to increase the pension age. There is plenty of time to prepare and let’s face it; with at least a minimum wage of $15 everyone will be able to prepare, not just the few.
I particularly like the part where people who have worked in heavy manual jobs will get treated with respect with special dispensation given the heavy duty work they do. You cannot keep doing that sort of work.
I put the man (or woman) with the shovel on top of the heap and the CEO, sitting in the sterile office, acting like a god, ruining people’s lives with a stroke of a pen – like the smiling assassin, Key did moneytrading and still does with bad policy – at the bottom.
How we ever bought into the idea that somehow a person with the ruthlessness to reach CEO level was somehow better than the man with the shovel makes me feel bad. The CEO may have more skills, did the study, took on the responsibility, got more money – I understand all of that.
But, it does not make him or her BETTER than the man or woman with the shovel.
A few generalisations (speaking as someone approaching ‘olds’ status on a steep incline) but, otherwise, agree.
Well said – and with passion, which is always good to see.
Jum That’s an impassioned comment from the heart and experience. I’m unhappy about people having to deal with WINZ as possibly unemployed, till they are 67. I haven’t been in for a while but I believe it can be really shitty.
I’ve been thinking about the large numbers of people in the older age group and the difficulties they have getting jobs, and that they are competing with younger people for them. It is hard to have reached a senior age and be treated as a dispensable worker of no value which in casual jobs is often the way for older people..
I have suggested that voluntary work in approved positions where the work adds to the community wellbeing as an acceptable alternative to paid work. It is not popular as an idea with old age pensioners who can’t get past the idea of entitlement as if all the tax they have paid over the years has gone into a superannuation savings chest. Not so, until the recent start by a Labour government of payments, but abandoned (for now) by NACT.
And lastly as more people live to older ages, the politicians still refuse to allow euthanasia so that people can make a choice of following a set of legal requirements so they can die when they feel they are ready to go. Alzheimers and other dementias are increasing and no thoughtful person would want their children to go through the increasing care needs and deterioration of the loved one until the brain is annihilated and only the body remains.
We can’t afford it.
The cost of libraries, the cost of ring fencing gas or electricity supply.
The cost of RMA, or a oil cleanup vessel!
WE need cars to be louder damnit, ACT is doing the
businesss allowing refitting of existing older car
fleet vehcicles to allow for excessive noise vandalism
and noise graffii.
And why? because we don’t have a world standard tax system,
we have to have our profits quickly, a high return fast, that
pushes up the demand for borrowing and weights us down
with a risk premium and makes our country a magnet for
speculative currency excess.
So of course when I can’t even buy a burger from burger king
becuse the gas is out, i know Key has our back, he had nine years
in opposition to know how to fix th ecomony, and three years
to do it.
And all without a capital gains tax.
Are you completely blind, the mans a genius. I’m
willing to accept no burgers and the jokes about
Auckland party, power, or the next billion dollar loses.
As long as we keep key
how darn you criticize our shit pm and his shate
party.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/election-2011/5858306/Asset-sales-promoted-to-seniors“National would use the estimated $5 billion to $7b the sales would generate to buy other assets. “At the end of this process we will own more assets, not less, but the mix will be different.””
I must have missed something when they announced the asset sales. I thought the sale was to pay down debt? Now he says it’s to buy more…what assets are they buying?
There are few depths to which this larcenous crew will not sink to in order to loot the countries assets for the benefit of their mates. There are no investment plans, the only “assets” they wish to buy are loyal votes and funding from the fat cats of this world.
The only reason I can see for Nats selling assets is to ensure they can keep paying for the tax cuts they bribed the electorate with last time. Scumballs.
Without a modern tax system companies and individuals will continue to
reap quick capital gain profits at the expense of economic resilience.
Now its the gas thats fallen over. Labour has accepted the need to
shift our tax system into a high gear, its not too costly, its too
costly if we don’t. Why? Because a company that has to
worry more about the bottomline, in line with comparable
companies abroad, will inevitable play a longer game.
What’s shocking is the world is in crisis economically
because it doesn’t play the long game, and in NZ we play
and even shorter game!!! Carried by farming and farmers.
Bored – “This larcenous crew”.. of NACTS buying “loyal votes and funding” – I don’t know if they even have to do that to draw in loyal supporters. I think there is a snob value that makes some people cling to National no matter what they do. It’s like the Anglicans had their High Church services and the Cathedrals which you would attend if you felt you were rising socially and financially, and Low Church which was for the others. NACT and Labour get similar sentiments I think.
But this is is a generalised statement about the emotional response to NZ political parties! I don’t mean that everybody who votes Labour is a wharfie, and my impression is that the blue collar workers seem to have been replaced by lawyers. I think that those who vote National are often following an upwardly-moving social concept and don’t want to ally themselves with Labour people who they consider as lesser ‘workers’.
They’re selling power stations so they can buy some white-elephant Roads of Notional Significance.
The new Waikato expressway avoids the river gorge and goes over the hills through a
valley north to Auckland.
I can’t help think that once oil price double again the road will be a
desert as drivers opt to take the flat route on the old gorge line and send
freight by rail.
We do need the upgrade but its like the referendum, why would anyone
who fought for MMP vote it out and let National decide the committee
overseaing the alternative.
Great discussion of Occupy movement..
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11961
Kicking off on Oakland…
Prof Steve Keen on RT Capital Account
Here’s a thoughtful analysis of the movement itself, rather than of the surrounding political environment that it seeks to offer a counter weight to, that might interest you.
http://www.zcommunications.org/occupy-to-self-manage-by-michael-albert
Thanks Bill. Great article and ideas for moving forward.
My reading in the last few days suggests this I beginning to appear in the New York franchise, with people realizing they can participate in the movement without physically being at Zucotti Park.
The Occupy London Times launched today http://theoccupiedtimes.com/ and the Occupy Wall St Journal and twitter and YouTube are showing the beginning of a successful occupation of the Media.
Yes, a very thoughtful analysis Bill.
For me, the notion of ‘occupy’ is really about occupying the space within which power concentrates. You don’t achieve that by putting in place a vehicle for the concentration of power.
Having a new, embedded form of interaction between people should be the aim. I say ‘new’, but actually it’s the oldest form of interaction on record.
Despite appearances to the contrary over the past 10,000 years, sustainable hierarchy isn’t in our blood. We are not a hierarchical social species – hence the millenia of bitter conflict and oppression.
The signs have been there from the start but International Socialists seem to be pushing themselves forward more in Occupy Dunedin as internal debate continues over where the “protest” should go from here.
Is this the real problem?
Serious questions should be asked about whether Occupy around the country is just a front for ISO.
Wow, socialists are interested in changing the economic system.
Who would have thunk it?
Micky Savage,
And Labour did what they promised they would do; they listened.
The occupy movement must have really struck a nerve with PG.
What is he scared of.
People may actually gain a say in their own Government!
Or is he just supporting his corporate backers???
The most terrifying thing of all – Change.
Funny.
What’s really funny about all you in auto-diss mode, the changes I’m proposing in Dunedin North (and have been for months) are very similar to changes to democracy that a number of ex-Occupiers want to see.
you’ve outed yourself as a lowrider for deliberately doing what you falsely accused your political opponents of doing. We need less of your type in parliament and politics.
The “changes” you’re proposing keep everything the same but have you at the centre instead of no one.
pete, I thought they were commies – is this your campaign – reds under the bed? so yesterday pete, so last century. I think your pre-emptive attack on your political opponents is low and using Occupy as a weapon to further your personal ambitions, even lower.
I’m actually talking to ex Octagon protesters to see how to try and advance Occupy without the hijackers holding it down.
There’s a lot of disillusionment here. Occupy is not supposed to be a front for “the workers party”.
maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals.
That’s being considered.
and how is that not doing what you accuse others of doing? Occupy pete does have a ring to it.
I’m not doing it. I can only support anything positive from the sideline at this stage.
Petey
Make up your mind. At one stage you say you are considering setting up #OccupyPetey and the next stage you say you are not. Which is it?
I haven’t said I’m considering it. I’m not, it’s clear that would be incompatible with the campaign I’m involved in.
I said it is being considered.
What?
Someone else is thinking of setting up #OccupationPetey?
Petey has a fan club?
Say it isn’t so …
So someone or something other than you is considering “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals”?
If you’re not the one considering it, is the considerer Peter Dunne? His hairdo?
you can slide and slither all you like – your tongue is forked.
This is what I said “maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals.” Notice the you’s and yours. So some exOccupiers are using YOUR ideas (that you have been wedded to for years) and although you are in discussion with them it is nothing to do with YOU. Pathetic!
‘Tedious Pete’ has more of a ring to it.
I think I’ve read and seen of Pete George and his whiney clinging to the coat tails of the no-percent party to see why Pete George is your classic United Future man.
The Occupy movement in Dunedin has done us all a favour, by exposing this letters-to-the-editor busy body as a charlatan, just like to coiffured has-been that is his inspiration. With his attitude to the Occupiers, we’ve seen his surface of faux-reasonableness is simply the charade of a faker and deceiver. On the first issue that he can be measured on, Pete George is exposed as little more than a narrow minded small town authoritarian, Dunedin’s own pensioner Colonel Blimp.
Here is a bit of advice Pete George: Give up politics. Walmington-on-Sea has a platoon whose requirements closely match your age and talents. I suggest you head there ASAP.
I wonder if Pete has done more to win votes, or lose votes, for UF.
MM
maybe you set up an alternative Occupy based around you then you can control the hijackers and make sure you achieve your goals
Petey
That’s being considered
So socialist takeover bad but United Follicle take over good?
All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others, especially when called Pete
What is the difference between Occupy being potentially co-opted by a parliamentary party or by non-parliamentary groupings from the same ‘representative’ tradition?
Both scenarios introduce secondary agendas which eventually come to dominate proceedings. Both introduce a power imbalance to any meaningful democratic process leading to a disempowerment of the individual citizens involved. Both eventually create and a false or misleading impression of any professed movement.
Pete may be hypocritical. But he does make a valid point nonetheless.
A movement that allows the greater influence of organisations to play a part in its determinations is no movement at all, but rather a coalition with disempowered on-lookers. Or to put it another way. Movements are democratic and individually empowering. Coalitions aren’t.
There was a post concerning all this, written before the Occupations happened.
+1
I don’t know Pete outside this blog, but I too feel the local franchise of #Occupy is currently not as inspiring as it is in the US and the UK and Spain. What is so successful there, the representation so broad and the decision making so horizontal, neither political parties of established movements can successfully co-opt it.
Until the youth in NZ, outside the established organizations and traditional activists start to participate, I’d much rather focus on the progress being made abroad.
This is a brilliant article…
http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-wall-streets-battle-against-american-style-authoritarianism/1319570241
I just don’t think that the #Occupy people in NZ have as much to complain about those in the US or EU.
America is the cannery in our mine.
Canned coal? Who’d have thunk it 😉 Only in ‘America’, I guess.
Cannery Row?
Big thumbs, small phone = miscommunication.
From the article …
And. This very process (of silencing critical thinking) and of disabling the ability to act are present within some Occupy’s.
Organisations imposing or introducing programmes and/or agendas achieves an over all dumbing down or narrowing of dialogue and the marginalisation and eventual disengagement of any non-conformist points of view or people.
And even where organisations are absent, action is stymied through the stultifying application of consensus to every matter or issue. Democracy does not imply, as many in Occupy seem to believe, that every decision must be the subject of consensus.
This very process (of silencing critical thinking)
I thought you were talking about here for a minute. Apart from you Bill all everyone else has tried running inteference.
Regarding Occupy Dunedin I have had the freedom to voice my opinion outside the occupation and also a number of times on site, but I have done nothing to limit anyone else’s freedom to express their views.
I can’t say the same of the attack squads in action here who seem to be intent on smothering alternate views with personal attacks and either lies or deliberate misinformation,.
I was told from the start onsite that there was to be no party politics but individual opinions were welcome. I haven’t promoted party politics at all onsite.
I know Green Party members who were involved who chose not to display party material onsite becasue they thought it was against the spirit of Occupy. They weren’t happy about other obvious influences.
All you have to do is follow the several related FB pages to see the divisions and disagreements due to the influence of factions. As has already been posted here that lead to threats of assault on Tuesday.
But carry on the personal attacks if that’s all you can come up with.
Jones was correct then.
“They don’t like it up ’em, Captain Mannering”
A two week old baby has been found alive in the rubble of Turkey’s earthquake FOUR DAYS after the shake.
Recall rescuers at the Christchurch earthquake found nobody alive from one day after the shake. It was questioned at the time. It seemed odd that no further survivors had been found alive after such a short time.
This fact raised one huge question about the competency of Chch’s rescuers and whether the rescue system meant that survivors died subsequently from factors not directly due to the quake. i.e. the rescue was poorly executed resulting in unnecessary deaths post-shake.
This question remains well alive in the minds of many in Christchurch and it is yet to be answered.
Um, a lot more people were trapped (and killed) by Turkey’s quake than Chch. Simple statistics means there are going to be more people to rescue.
Mortality when trapped in rubble drops off fairly quickly so only 2/100 people might survive 4 days and be found, if you’ve got 1,000 people buried as opposed to 200, that’s 20 people that have the potential to be rescued after 4 days instead of just 4.
What’s better – 200 people being trapped and no one being rescued after day 3, or 1000 people being trapped?
I realise the statistical implications. But my points still stand. The Turkey quake simply highlights this issue once again, and as said, the issue has not been fully answered yet although I understand it is the next part of the inquiry.
Yet another school thinks that parents can just shit money out
Its time we threw Tomorrow’s Schools out, and returned to a more centralised education system, because the system as it stands seems to be principals are out of control loose cannons, and parents arent really having much say about these things. especially in having to buy a very expensive device or risk their child falling behind futher and further.
Yep, Tomorrow’s Schools philosophy has lived up to predictions. Schools run as businesses. Oddly enough, in high decile schools the boards actually have immense power whereas in lower decile schools equally savvy teachers and pressure groups know how to work them as well.
The disastrous government laissez-faire attitude to the development of IT in schools is manifested by the storerooms full of well-intentioned BOT purchases now sitting idle gathering dust. (A member of the BOT might have connections with a city business that is upgrading their systems and get a “super-generous” offer of getting the redundant PC’s for the school. Yep, that’s it, let the kids cut their teeth on yesterday’s low performance hardware.) You could argue that billions have been wasted by schools floundering to introduce IT into their curriculum.
And then there is the issue of “readers.” The publishers must have rubbed their hands with glee when they knew that they were getting an open door to the budget holders for books in schools.
You don’t need advanced computers in schools.
Are you over 30? Know how to use an iPod? An iPad? Windows 7? An Android smartphone?
Tell me, how did the computers you were working with at school 20-25 years ago possibly prepare you to use any of those catastrophically advanced pieces of equipment?
You see, it just doesn’t matter whether the PC a school pupil is using today is brand new and state of the art or 5 years old and used. Both of them will still be pieces of junk 25 years down the track.
Agreed, but you do need some form of direction from a more central source rather than ad hoc development within schools … massive duplication of policies, everyone reinventing the wheel, and no real standard.
I always remember with great fondness the full height one gigabyte SCSI hard drive I brought for my 486 50MHz home computer in ? 1991 ? It served well for until about 1995. After it failed (to the great comfort of my ears that had grown sensitive to the whine), it then spent another 5 years as a door stop that had origionally cost a few thousand dollars. There was so much weight in the damn thing that no door held open by it could do anything except what the slab of metal told it to do.
1G back in ’91. I didnt even know that they had that size back then…
Radio sport pulls out of Plunket Shield commentary
The Kiwi tradition of listening to the cricket over the summer has the first nail hammered into its coffin. While this may not bother people here, I belive that it is one of the conseqences of privatisation, and how the standard of media has declined over the past 20 years or so. I presume we will have Murray Deaker drone on and on instead.
Very sad news indeed, no more first class cricket on the radio. 🙁
Ah why do you think that is sad news?
The only think more boring than watching cricket is listening to long turgid hours of people blathering about nothing much through its many hours of dead time.
It was always rather relaxing to play cricket because of all of that dead time. Nice idle way to expend weekend time (in those faroff days when I had very little to do)……
Iprent:
It was more of a memory trigger, you know as a kid out in the back yard, having a bbq, listening to Paul McEwan plodding along to a century.
🙂 Shudder… Yeah I remember it all too well.
Damned if I have the time to do that kind of thing now.
My 81 year old mother has become a sport junkie since my father died in 2002 and she’s been living on her own.
She has an old transistor radio that she carries everywhere with her around the house and garden of her ownership flat, usually tuned to newstalk in the morning and radio sport at other times.
She often has cricket matches on the radio when I visit during the summer. She’ll be upset by this news.
Look’s like the hapless Anthony Robbins should stick to the study of neural networks because he’s crap at economics.
Moody’s have just confirmed New Zealands AAA credit rating.
According to Moody’s senior credit officer,the Treasury’s pre-election economic and fiscal update on Tuesday was largely in line with expectations. “The future path of government deficits and debt is overall not too different from earlier projections. As a result, this document does not change our thinking about New Zealand’s rating…
Now there’s a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the doom-sayers.
[lprent: You don’t think that it is significant that they felt an announcement was required? I think that Anthony was spot on looking at the risk.
However, I think that bringing up something about an author in a comment that is unrelated to either the comment or the post or the discussion falls under the general category of stalking and intimidation of one of my authors. Bad bad bad idea.
And I’m already annoyed with reading your later trolling..
You just lost your right to comment here after the election. Banned until 27th Nov ]
You mean this Moody? The corrupt to the core financed by the banksters Moody?
Didn’t they rate Lehman Bros AAA+ moments before it went bust!?
S&P rated Lehman Bros an investment grade A+ in Mar 2008 but with a negative outlook (i.e. possibility of further downgrade within the next 2 years).
Lehman Bros completely collapsed 6 months later.
The science of September 11. On hour for those who want to educate themselves!
Andrew Sullivan: You Say You Want a Revolution.
The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control.
Nice post Joe. What really gets stuck in my craw when listening to the media and politicians we have is that the moment you oppose their stance you become painted as taking a “radical and marginal” viewpoint.
Therefore if you oppose financial corruption you become an extreme leftist, if you oppose the corporatisation of democracy you are branded as anti capitalist. Which is why I despise National (and to a lesser extent Labour), they have become subsumed by corporate interests, they are in the pay of the money men as are the media. Their complicity condemns them, and I cannot see any way to reform this than a collapse of the economic status quo. Roosevelt famously referred to this scenario as being fascist. That is the true velvet glove nature of our corporatist state.
http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-wall-streets-battle-against-american-style-authoritarianism/1319570241
I, and many of my friends have had posts deleted by facebook.
The posts were of this video from TV3.
http://www.3news.co.nz/PMs-credit-downgrade-claim-under-fire/tabid/370/articleID/228940/Default.aspx
It seems someone is asking facebook to remove them? Whom?
I am blocked from several Nat MP’s pages for merely asking their opinion on certain things – e.g. How much of the $38 billion you have borrowed from overseas is for tax cuts? and “Is it really true that John key was in Hamilton putting up billboards when he could have been in Tauranga liaising about the Rena?”
They really don’t like criticism, removed quick as a flash; they probably have Farrar sitting in a cave doing that.
All I can say is keep up the good work!
Wow big call.
Labour is going to put up the age of retirement albeit gradually. Totally responsible but a big call politically. It will show that Key is being totally irresponsible in gutting the Cullen Fund and Kiwisaver AND refusing to put the age up.
Brave, brave campaigning.
There is no age of retirement. This is about the age you get National Super.
I agree that Key is irresponsible ignoring the issue, I criticised his stand for that in a public meeting in Port Chalmers last night.
But I don’t think Labour have got it right either, unless there are variations in the detail. Simply pushing up the age disadvantages manual workers, it disadvantages ethnic groups (eg Maori) with lower life expectancies, and it disadvantages people with lefe xpectanncy shortening medical conditions like diabeties.
Geez Petey stop being pedantic. “Age of retirement” is shorthand for “age that National Superannuation starts and you can retire if you want”. Use the latter phrase if you want but it looks sort of retentive.
It’s not pedantic, they are two different things. Some people retire before they are eligible for national super, and some after.
Pete this is one of your trolling habits. Respond to a significant event by deflecting. Do it again and I will follow you around for the rest of the day and call you a troll.
You two seem to follow each other around already mr savage. Like a couple of people wandering around in their own world bickering away at each other oblivious to everything around them…
Yeah I should be doing paid work. But it is a bit like sport …
I’d support an increase in the age of entitlement – do you know what it’s going up to and when it would be introduced ?
The question HS is why would you support raising (or dropping) the age? I get the feeling that nobody here is actually thinking, observing and most importantly projecting. In the near future there will be less work, and more real need.
Here is an alternative: younger people need the income to raise families, build an asset base etc far more than empty nesters should. Younger people generally have more energy for the harder tasks. Maybe we have the wrong people doing the work at different ends of their lives. As a 50 something I have no mortgage, some independent means, and if the income got cut in five who cares? In a sane world I would be pensioned off on the condition I did some needed work that attracted no margin like grandchild care, looking after the real oldies, etc.
I’m not expecting there to be a pension by the time I get there.
But for those who will be affected, I hope provision has been made for full early super for those whose bodies have been munted before retirement age. Lot of people could do with that right now.
No one is retiring in the future, no one.
According to TV 3, Labour would:
http://www.3news.co.nz/NZ-Super-is-unaffordable-at-65—Labour/tabid/419/articleID/230923/Default.aspx
But there’s no details there about how this would be decided.
I was thinking more like 55.
Excellent, expose the charlatan Key for what he is – a cheap and nasty populist.
Anyway, raising the age needs to happen (as does means-testing) and I would suggest that most people will see it as ok. Many more people today expect to work a little longer and, further, many of the younger ilk don’t expect that super will be around at all when their time comes. Even some of those on the verge of super will no doubt support it – unless they are greedy buggers of course.
Just like the capital gains tax – solid policy that works to NZ’s longer term benefit.
Labour, though less often a party I support, has traditionally done the big things in NZ. Good to see it continues to lead to way forward for NZ.
Can anybody name something significant that National has done? Something on a par with the creation of the welfare system, nuclear-free, super, etc? Conservative is as conservative does I suppose …..
edit: I imagine also that many older superannuitants who already receive the super will support it too because it doesn’t affect them. It will affect only a minor few.
Raising the age does not need to happen.
The meme that retirement is going to cost us too much is part of TINA, which has been repeated so often that even the left now believe it.
Already commented here. http://kjt-kt.blogspot.com/2011/06/on-retirement-pensions-and-age-of.html
“In fact super has been so effective in removing poverty amongst the elderly it should be extended to everyone in the form of a guaranteed minimum income. There is no excuse for having people with inadequate food and housing in a country which is capable of supplying an excess of both internally”.
The idea that we cannot feed and house our elderly in a country that is capable of feeding and housing many times the current population is bullshit.
It does need to be means or work tested. No reason to pay it to someone who is still working and earning $1000/day.
Even since Muldoons election bribes to superannuates i’ve worked on the assumption that there will be no super when I retire, so it will not affect me much.
Not very fair on manual workers whose knees are stuffed by 60, Maori and others who do not live long into retirement now.
A gradual rise will impact most on Gen x and y, not us boomers, so savings will be little.
It is alright for paper shufflers to talk about working until 75. For the rest of us we will often be incapable of working in our jobs well before.
A courageous policy would be extending super to everyone in the form of a GMFI.
Affordability in future depends on how much we invest in a sustainable future economy. Not how much is invested in dodgy offshore markets.
Don’t panic. Retirement age can always be brought down again if alternative funding or super mechanisms are found 🙂
The biggest problem with seeing money as the economy is that you lose sight of the real economy and the true resources that a nation has available to it especially after those resources have been privatised and used to only benefit the few as happens in capitalism.
My parents (English and NZ-Scots) were two of those. My father died at 54 and my mother at 62, my brother at 42… I am already older than I ever expected to be. I have been unemployed for the past 2.5 years (and working for the past 4 weeks to my surprised delight) but if the work ends soon, as it’s supposed to, the NS is my only chance of an income higher than UB. Will I make it? 😀
7 years to go, and I feel as if I am sodding 91 like Betty Driver who just croaked…
Enjoy your life Vicky32.
Do as much of what gladdens your heart as you can.
NRT has a write-up on it. I tend to agree with him.
I’ll pop this comment here too from the other thread greg so you don’t miss it 🙂
What are your views on the inequality facing tangata whenua whilst saving (or trying to) for retirement, and after retirement. Should any political party address this inequality, which is increased when the retirement age is increased because of reduced life expectancy for tangata whenua. How does this fit with the promises in the treaty, or with any political party attempting to govern.
I know you are concerned about the boomer bulge greg but what about the inequality.
mr marty, would that policy also extend to other groups with lower life expectancy such as males? It would be quite nice to pick up the super 6-7 years before others…
no – I am talking about the inequality facing tangata whenua – you know, the indigenous people of this land.
But i have no problem with advocates for any group laying out their case. What do you think about the issue re tangata whenua vto?
The issue is an entirely reasonable one and worthy of examination. Whether it is politically acceptable in our current landscape though I doubt very much. And I imagine that the practicalities and detail would be horrific – everyone would jump up and down who has a lower life expectancy and want it. Because of course it would need to be applied equally and have an absence of any race component, in accordance with good non-racist practice.
Better would be Gareth Morgan’s proposal for a universal living allowance applied throughout a person’s lifetime. Then all of these anomolies would disappear and everyone would be guaranteed of at least some kind of basic living allowance.
p.s. – your mention of indigineouity implies that you still think they should have a special place apart from the rest …. ? Not that we need to rehash that again eh.
I have talked about this here http://mars2earth.blogspot.com/2011/10/lower-maori-retirement-age.html
I am not sure what you mean about the ‘race’ component – you did get that i’m JUST talking about tangata whenua. The cost, setting up, admin etc are all red herrings that simply distract from the realities of fronting up to the disgrace and shame of the inequality faced by the indigenous people of this country. I’ll say it again so we have no misunderstandings vto – EQUALITY – at the moment we do not have that.
MM
My father is a boilermaker and the only one of his age who survived into his 70s so I hear what you say.
If a worker has flogged themselves out they deserve to be able to retire early on an invalid’s benefit.
Tangata whenua’s life expectancy is so poor because so many of them work in similar jobs.
I even think (gasp) that Petey’s suggestion about allowing people to opt to retire early should be given further consideration.
But at least for me I think I should work a bit longer rather than expect my kids to have to work harder to support me.
Super is more money than the IB. Do you think that would be fair?
Yep. I did not know about the policy to allow those who are worked out to retire early and I think it is a very good idea.
eter Dunne comments on Labour’s lame rush job to be diferent to National, and suggests how it should be done.
Pete George. Explain the mechanics of Dunne’s policy. How do you determine the NPV of a person’s entire pension so you know how to spread it out over varying time periods?
Labour is making KiwiSaver compulsory, AND ensuring that it is not used as an excuse to do away with NZ Super.
Janet Frame was not a recluse, revisionism bollocks.
People who are sensitive make more mistakes and
so withdraw, so invariably some happen to be great
writers and thinkers. Frame was exposed to mad
people and would have spent even more time
absorbing them.
So Janet frame could not have been the writer she
was, the person she was, without being reclusive.
So why this revisionism, reclusive people are still
social animals, they just withdraw, take flight more
easily.
I guess it depends who does the revising and the mood of the buying/reading public and which personality trait is socially ascendent: extroversion or introversion. In a world of big business pop culture, introversion doesn’t sell all that well, but behind every good movie or literary masterpiece, there is a “reclusive” writer doing the chops. At least Janet Frame found a mode of communicating with the world. Many don’t.
Who are the people currently “negotiating” for the Mt Roskill nomination, rather than concentrating on the current election ?
[lprent: Can’t see how this has anything to do with the post – moved to OpenMike ]
Send for Mike Williams – he is neede to go to Melbourne.
And stop those bickering over the Mt Roskill nomination and get back to winning the election now.
[lprent: Again, can’t see how this has anything to do with the post – moved to OpenMike. And if I see another one out of context, then you’re getting the chop for trolling until after the election. ]
About to kick off in the states, NY straight onto street, not footpath. Which caused arrests last time.
Marching in Oakland and NYC in unison to city hall to protest use of force in Oakland last night.
Live tweeting at
@RDevro
@ChristRobbins
@allisonkilkenny
hey lprent.
giving the trolls some shit huh!
you need help then call randal for pointless but satisfying abuse.
[lprent: Thanks for your (ummm) generous offer. But I’m steadily increasing my trophy room with scalps, ears and other anatomical specimens. So I won’t be requiring extra help as I cull the sick and the lame out of the herd.
However pointed but satisfying abuse may be indulged in. ]
Do you charge or do you offer your services for free?
Who do you call (for pointless and satisfying abuse)? Politicobuster! Pollybuster? When words fail us on some incredible event can any of us call on you randal?
Hmm I see Labour has made Kiwisaver compulsory and plans to increase employer contributions up to 7% eventually. Its a good policy for Labour actually along with raising the retirement age (something National would never be able to even if Key hadn’t promised not to do it).
It makes no sense whatsoever though to increase employer contributions without increasing employee contributions.
In Australia, it’s a flat 9% employer contributions, and employee contributions are completely optional.
Probably in Australia you would find cases where the employer increases their contribution if the employee does also, and that would be part of the salary and benefits package that the employer offers to their employees.
What I want to know, is if Labour will roll back the employer contribution tax that National are putting in next year.
As it stands, I’m on 2%/2%, and when they start taxing employer contributions I’m effectively going to go to 2%/1.34%. Then when they bring the minimum up to 3%/3% I’m effectively going to be on 3%/2%. So next year I’ll get less than I got this year (not even counting the reduced government contributions), and the year after I’ll pay more and only return back to the amount I currently get from my employer.
good question, worth checking out.
I would’ve thought they aren’t intending to roll it back. Purely based on the fact that if they were it would’ve been included in the policy today. Could be wrong though.
I just heard Blenglish being interviewed by Mary Wilson. He made the point when discussing the gas pipeline failure that if it was government owned then steps could be taken to monitor it but because its privately owned that’s difficult. And for Vector to put another pipeline in would mean that the price of gas might go up beyond customers’ willingness or capacity to pay.
Arent’t these the points that the thinking left (as opposed to the Roger Douglas/Treasury cohort of the past) have always made and which have been ignored or derided?
Some pertinent comments in GrabOne from Brian Gaynor 27/8/2011 quoted in NZHerald 27/10/2011 – Brian Gaynor: Decline and fall of Kiwi private enterprise
Yep but, hey, can’t go round having reality mentioned as it may knock the delusion that the free-market and privatisation works from peoples head.
Government report says richest 1 percent doubled their share of US national income
The mentally challenged commenters were out in force on Stuff today, going off their nut about Labour’s Superann policy (brave, sensible move but foolhardy methinks) and spaffing themselves over the return of the vile bigot Paul Henry to television. Someone get me the f*ck off this ship of fools/bogans. Oh and TV3, you’re banned from my telly. Most of it is crap anyway so no big loss, but Campbell is better than teh Walrus.
Raising the age to 67 is basic sensible, scientific economics, work is good. Here’s another basic of work is good, and a fundamental of future society building, no fucking unemployment, no work ghetto, no bastards and bastards sons to be constantly demonised and whipped. Every wants to spend, (their 80 years here) in N.Z in health and growth.
Sort the country out, it’s 2011 and New Zealand’s ( little islands in the deep ocean) only sustainable future is to be the Glowing light of the area, the holland of the south pacific , the jewel of the oceans, which it is, the last islands (b)reached by man .
John – Your comment hangs together like those odd Google references that have a dictionary of words that will strike a match in any search heading.
Haha when you say that it really does.
Also I would like to point out that I have always considered scientific economics an oxymoron (by always this is actually the first time that I have ever seen it before, but still…).
Has there always been the authorization down the bottom? Or has that just gone up recently?
It’s hilarious anyways.
Got pissed off by a dickhead the other day. We don’t need it. But I figured that I should give fair warning before I chew people’s heads off….
Yeah I kind of want someone to complain to you now just to see the response…
“John – Your comment hangs together like those odd Google references that have a dictionary of words that will strike a match in any search heading.”
I’m a marketer of ideas, good ideas, not illogical ideas, not bank driven ideas, banking is the industry any sane prime minister would reform quickly, what an unproductive fuckfest that is.
I thought marketers liked short sentences of 12 words or less? Try using full stops as you paddle along the stream of consciousness.
You went from “idea marketing” to “fuckfest” in one sentence, and not in a “please give me a loan so I can start a swingers club/sauna”.
I am always available for a fee.
heres a sample: ***NEWSFLASH***, john keys declared inane!
randal 😀
Science dissects the invisible hand.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed–the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html
The self-organising economy, (A.K.A. The Invisible Hand) made more visible.
Work till you drop. Vote Labour.
In a better world, ’employment’ would be seen as the problem, not the solution.
Doesn’t have to be capitalist employment. Beautifying public schools, conservation work, caring for the elderly and the infirm, creating a new work of art for the town centre.
People need to have a role in and a contribution to their communities.
No it doesn’t but that’s what Labour means. I’m with Puddleglum, employment should be seen as the problem.
Yep, but it shouldn’t be forced through a threat of poverty as we have in this psychopathic capitalist system (Especially what we have under a NAct government).
Yes, that was the employment I was signifying with the scare quotes.
The employee-employer relationship lowers a sense of autonomy and self-respect. You are, in effect, selling part of your life to someone else so that it can be used to attain their ends rather than your own (or your community’s).
It isn’t called ‘wage slavery’ for nothing.
The greatest stress is experienced by low-status individuals in our society.
That shouldn’t be surprising since the greatest stress for a social animal that depends for its emotional wellbeing primarily on the worth accorded to it by others, is to be explicitly marked as being of little value.