Are the bloggers on “The Standard” the cause of the divisions in he Labour Party?
Mike Smith, a Standard luminary, who i’ve heard recently went on the payroll of the Labour Caucus offices, effectively says so. See his post http://thestandard.org.nz/amidst-thencircling-gloom/
“our aim was to set up a labour movement blog and offer a counter to Kiwiblog’s pro-National line; not to join Farrar in making the prospect of Labour government the principal target for attack”.
I’m perplexed frustrated and angry with this comment by Mike Smith.
As a Labour activist I want to kick John Key and his team out of the Treasury Benches and install a Labour led government ASAP.
Mike Smith and the current Labour Caucus leadership, and the bloggers and their fellow travellers are being painted into two opposing camps within the New Zealand Labour Party.
–What has caused this division within the Party?
–What is characterising and feeding the ongoing divide?
–How can the destructive spell be broken and the ground prepared for a Labour victory in 2014?
My view- at the heart of the ongoing tensions within Labour is the divide between the Neo-Liberals and what could be seen as the traditional Labour membership, the ‘cloth cap’…
One suspects after 220 comments Mike Smith realises that sometimes not even the Jesuits could convert such a rebellious, stinky, furious, mucky, inchoate, atavistic, ebullient, wilful, growly, vituperative, beastly bunch of heathens as The Standard.
And Mike, just as we took back the constitution, we are going to convert you as well.
You are going to go Native by the time we’ve finished.
Nice post kandalla.
I see a party a a cross roads, desperate to embrace modernitively practices and ideas but scared of the reactionary element – the loud vocal voices crying for a new direction or any direction but rightwards.
We have the Fabian influence steering middlewards, the traditionale neoliberal neo glib centralists do nothing scare no one, and then the progressives, the young bloods who desire change, open govt. we also have the coming home to roost misaligned lefties, all splintered and cross aligned into different ideological matrix makeup.
Poor shearer twisting turning pulled in every direction.
We have CC back off message and on segregation on gift giving at hillside for the workers but for only the deep red ones. Message to the electorate from CC this xmas. Love me tender love me true but only if you are a extreme red, an extreme feminist and or anti freedom of speecher and I will love you too.
Way to reconnect to all the people in Dunedin south CC and regain those lost and turned off voters.
Way to go reframing the message and your image to the electorate.
Framed from the centre voter viewpoint anything not centre or middle wide wide middle is extreme my friend, scary scary scary and too easy for the spinners and the msm spin adopters to twist.
The problem being though that the political centre has swung to the right over the past quarter century – which unfortunately is the way many in the Labour Party parly r munt like it.
From my perspective, its a case of “I didn’t leave Labour, Labour left me”.
I see the problem as being many with loud vocal voices crying for a new direction. They do want Labour to get into power and National gone. The change and policy direction they are asking for is good and just and for the benefit of many. It is direction that understands the importance and value of people over money.
The problem is that this is at odds with the party leaders current focus to recapture the centre ground. There are many centre/swing voters out there that are not yet as open to (or more accurately unaware) of the values and policies being pushed at a more grass roots level. Yet it is these very voters that may very well be needed to secure a Labour victory. Getting their vote is the goal of the party leaders and therefore the apparant direction of the party and policies that will do this. This is scary for many longterm Labour voters who see themselves as not aligned with this direction. They feel they have been deserted by their party.
What all this fails to take into account is the effects of MMP on this situation. Make no mistake Labour need to shift their policy to appeal to the centre/swing voter, but they will not be in power without the Greens and even Mana and as a result what is implemented policywise once in power may be much more aligned with what it is that the left and grassroots Labour are wanting. But again they have to do what is necessary to get into power first, such is the nature of our system.
What we need is to do away with mass private automobile ownership, get lots of young hoodlums to give the private car a bad name, have them running around killing people like the women just a few days ago when a boy racer run the lights.
Once in power they will be limited in what they can do if they get in on the promise of a pretty right wing government. The shift to a new direction needs to happen well before the election, and in a way that carries a significant number of people with it.
segregation on gift giving at hillside for the workers but for only the deep red ones
funny. Publicly it was a bit of an oversight, but at worst it was a case of “National Party member who didn’t join the union did not receive a union service and ran crying about it to the ODT”. Fuck freeloaders.
” Lawyers had challenged the decision in court, arguing there was “no logical reason” Paige could not receive the same payment in Britain, but the case was dismissed.
Wellington firm John Miller Law, representing the family, launched further tribunal action.
Practice manager Jonathon Miller said the case was a result of Parliament establishing that payment for overseas claimants was available only through attendant care, with decisions at the discretion of ACC and not challengeable.
“No one denies that if Paige was back here in New Zealand, she’d be getting attendant care – but it’s just really the stopping of the payments, and whether we can legally challenge that,” he said.
“It’s not a matter of how horrible the ACC decision seems, or how unjustified it is – the bottom line is there’s a provision in the act which says you’re not allowed to challenge these types of decisions.”
Mr Little said he had not seen anything like the case. “From what I’ve seen, I can’t understand why ACC has made the payments, stopped the payments, and then put them through the extra hassle of demonstrating their situation,” he said.
“I just think there’s got to be a better and more streamlined way for ACC to handle their particular case. There just seems to be a lack of transparency about it at the very least, and that needs to be clarified.”
Citing privacy reasons, ACC said it could not comment on the case.”
This is one of those awful bad cross border policies. Our economies are interwoven, our ability to live in each other countries is taken up, so let’s to the cost analysis. Scenario A,
i.) pay lawyers to get the same access to health care they would of,
ii.) just provide the same access across the border (based around some metric like how much our economies are engaged in activity together). So if we have the same economic integration as another state of Australia has internally to Australia, then matching provisions must be made. If its only 80% then pay only 80% of the ACC provision. Similar to the UK, if we are integrated with their economy in the billions a significant part of our own economy, then pay a proportion. If we have no economy with say an country then pay zilch. Why should Chinese NZ suffer because some UK NZ can use the legal system to get a remedy? We should have a ranking of our economic friends, and above some amount payment should be 100% maybe. All those pacific islands who get tempted by China might think twice if many of their potential retires are living in NZ with a pension coming to them.
Similarly with Tarp. Why should a country pay out the full amount, as if a international company were equal to a national company. Pay a proportion of the fine to the international firm based on their proportion of their business in the country, since their loses would only be proportional to their activity in that country. So if a company won an action against a nation for loses, then the lose would be much less if the company has a wide international foot print.
Lucky. The last one I recall hitting the news was signed. The Chinese govt assured the customer who complained about it (apparently the note quite disrupted their Christmas) that it wouldn’t happen again.
Not sure that sexy people are all that “ordinary” but effectively this is the same as forcing women to wear burkas because they might inspire lustful thoughts in weak-willed, childish men. I rest my case.
A simple thought on a dull morning, as part of the extensive sloganeering that accompanied the ‘neo-liberal revolution’ we were constantly fed new-speak slogans such as ”the Government has no business in business”,
It’s the same part of the ism which provides the ‘justification’ for the present Slippery lead National Government to offer up the most profitable of the remaining State Owned Assets for sale,
Looked at seriously though in a small economy with continual high levels of unemployment the Government would seem to be the only institution of such a size to have the means at hand to alter these statistics in any meaningful way,
Lets take something simple like clothing manufacture, this is a highly labour intensive area of business where a Government need only,(if the business owner),’break even’ to turn an actual ‘real’ profit for itself,
The real profit for a Government to be involved in business, especially that which is labor intensive can be found in the other areas of Government concern, for every 1 person employed a Government would pay 1 less unemployment benefit and collect 1 more weekly PAYE payment, those 2 previous items alone would make a ‘break even’ business for a Government highly profitable,
Obviously if we follow the money, the wages paid to our Government owned factory workers, out into the real world of the economy we can see that having come from the unemployment benefit to a wage the workers would now spend more into their local community where Government would again collect more profit from it’s investment in the form of increased business and the taxes it collects from this,
Yeah but computers, automation, petrol powered machines, have done away with work. So much so that by Thatcher revolution was required to create a service economy, where the huge glut of cheap middle eastern fuel would create excesses of activity for its own sake. Enter thirty years of declining government integrity, enter in rout education for kids, universities that publish publish publish, the modern sprawl all forcing longer commutes, housing shonkier every decade….
Its call national socialism, its fascism, as all fascism is, its cannibalizes to create a veneer of success.
That’s a interestingly negative view of my comment, i would imagine every neo-liberal politician past and present would agree with you,
By your reckoning Government ownership of Solid Energy and various Power company’s is National Socialism???,
The fact is that ‘globalization’ of economy has lead directly to a glut of ‘labour’, this over-supply of labour will not become less into the future, instead becoming even more pronounced where the Asian and Indian economy’s use their advantage of ‘low priced labour’ to make more and more of the worlds consumer products,
A large part of the shift of production to the ‘low priced labour’ economy’s’ is the cost of capital and the profit motive, funded from the tax base with only the impetus to ‘break even’ Government owned and operated factory’s of production would easily match or better the ‘low priced labour’ economy’s on a retail price of product basis…
We can feed, house, entertain, educate everyone on the planet. We don’t because the debt machine is at work, having turned money into the new one God to rule us all. All money is is a abstract construction of the people to facilitate society, its the MSM and corporations that demand we keep the status quo by imposing government upon the people (either by deregulaing and letting corporations run roughshot over the people, or regulating badly so needing the private sector either sell offs of state functions or PPPs). Science and industry have reduced the need for people to work, Thatcher came along, and using the cheap oil of the middle east, decided we all needed to be active, the alternative was a more leisure oriented society, so in order to create this new utopia of activity we have cannibalized the one off energy windfall of hydrocarbons, all to build a unbalanced economy design upon the precept of continuing cheapening energy supplies. Until we recognize that the free market can only work when the right wing stop their mantras used to cover up how they are gaming the market. The relative question of the merits of the low wage economy is irrelevant in the present context of peak oil induced climate change.
My view is that the ‘free market’ would have worked fine if there had of been at the outset that other mantra force fed us all at the time we ‘globalized’ our economy and went all international free trade,
Remember ‘the level playing field’, not often mentioned these days simply because it was one of the bigger lies that sold the masses the ism,
If all country’s had an ‘internationally policed minimum wage of an equal value, AND, if all country’s had their individual currency’s of an equal value then and only then would we have ‘a level playing field’ on which to base competitive capitalism,
As far as i can tell you are agreeing with me on the issue of a global over-supply of labor, but, there will obviously be no move by either of the major political party’s to truthfully address such an over-supply where the dialog is firmly entrenched in labeling those who have no work in a negative way,
Back to my original question tho, if a Government owned clothing factory is ‘national socialism’, then is not Government ownership of Solid Energy and various Power company’s the same…
Helen. Yes, Saint Helen herself…Sorta…
She, and the then Party leadership including M. Smith, failed to move the Constitution forward with the times and especially failed to put a democratic leadership process in place.
Also Helen (&H2) ran a very tight centrist and autocratic shop. She and Michael were doing such a good job on many fronts that they were forgiven failings.
Many of the current team like Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson, Faafoi and more learned, as Beehive interns, to believe that this was the NZ Labour way. When Phil Goff became leader, under an opaque process, he surrounded himself with these neophytes.
But the world has changed: Helen is gone and only mere mortals were available to succeed her. Also the take-up of Social Media has changed the dynamic of the relationship between the foot-soldiers and the leaders in organisations, whether business, governmental, social or political.
Once the party leadership (Moira) announced that the members would attend Leadership debates the Jeannie was truly out of the bottle. And the membership were very very disappointed with how all the leadership gig was conducted.
The Majority of the Membership did not buy into the self anointing of the current Leadership team. And that team said: Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers!
They embraced division rather than unity.
The division will remain until Shearer and leadership do something to fix otherwise many of us will simply move to the greens. A very interesting and well researched article by Chris Trotter in Bowally today on David Shearer, for me it supports some the reasons I have about his weaknesses to lead Labour. Shearer needs to make sure there is a membership vote for Labour leader in Feb. If he wins then fine, if not that is the way it is. Then we can work together, otherwise I am very uncomfortable with the structure of the labour party caucus given the shenanigans that went on in the days after the conference.
What was interesting was what they did do at the conference. Reconnect to the root of the party rank and file. The Labour was able to go far right into neo-liberalism because it disengaged from the roots, Clark was able to run a strong leadership because the party was disengaged. So the current batch of MPs know they would be washed up, exposed as they were, out of touch with a party base. The base had been shrinking because members could not get a voice. Obama election and re-election was due to a strong rank and file, and Labour’s collapse in vote matches up with a party not representing its members. The strength of the Greens emphasis this, Labour is tired insular and boring. Geez, Shearer looks tired, uninteresting and as closed to evaluation as John Key. They want the power but not the accountability. As for the up coming challenge, the new opening up will not have the effect on the leadership to change anything, that’s why the rush in the Shearer camp, over time they will have to move to a new way to deal with politics. The politics of huge fiscal activity force driven by cheapening middle east fuel is over. Welcome back to the return of compromise and the death of ‘don’t they miscarry if its rape’, ‘our children are patriots they should fear gun violence even at school’.. …elder abuse does mean denying your bedridden relative a mobile phone for emergencies.
I suspect Helen’s tight management style was a delayed reaction to Lange’s loose management style, which had the lasting effect of making neoliberalism the new kiwi paradigm. Even though she did little to roll back the changes in favour of capital, she made sure she knew what was going on and that any further changes would be the ones she approved of.
Until the neoliberal Rogergnomes are finally cleared out of caucus, Labour needs Helen’s style, not David Lange’s. I see Shearer as having the management style of David Lange, but without the wit, oratory, or vision. Lange was obviously a narcissist, but a very bright and talented one. Shearer is a dreary and mediocre narcissist who would let the remaining Rogergnomes run amok as long as they complimented his guitar playing and his (wooden) stance on a longboard. He really is hopeless and we should all be worried because just when we have some new blood entering the political scene with the Greens and Mana, we have the ABC crowd, who should probably change their initials to ABCEKOC (Anyone but Cunliffe, even Key or Collins). They, not the left activists, will be the ones responsible for a potential loss at the next elections. There is no reason to vote for Mallard that doesn’t equally hold for Key, for example. Ditto Shane Jones and Tau Henare.
I want them to clean up their act not so that we can end up with a Labour government, but so that the Greens and Mana can have some access to the levers of power and actually change a few things. A government formed by the Mallards and Hipkins of this world would be little different from the one we’ve got now. The idea will not inspire the hundreds of thousands who didn’t vote last time to get out and vote. I hope Shearer is gone in the New Year and we can get to work building some sort of real alternative to the financial sector driven “business as usual” that we have now.
Kia kaha and Happy New Year.
Having read Trotter’s post on Shearer’s back-story, and some of Shearer’s 1990s-2001 articles on private military companies, I am thinking he may not be the toothless, guitar-strumming hippy I took him for. Consider some of the things that have happened int he ,last year under Shearer’s watch?
Well he’s definitely shown an authoritarian streak.
* Support for the intimidation of party members who speak out
* Support for Jones’ bullying attacks on the Green Party
* Showtrial-like punishment of those who even look like they might ever challenge him
Interestingly, this authoritarian streak only seems to come out when he’s attacking to his left.
But these pro-privatisation writings perhaps offer an insight into the reason that extreme right-wing free-marketeers like O’Sullivan and Hooton are such big fans.
It seems that DS has privatisation/outsourcing tendencies driven by his experience in the UN, perhaps mainly the success at Sierra Leone which he failed to replicate to the same level later in his career. Trotter’s article does show that DS operated at a higher level than I thought he was cable of, given his atrocious mismanagement throughout most of 2012. But perhaps the biggest problem is that he was clearly buried in the business of the UN over the 1990’s and 2000’s…which does explain his performance, he is not au fait with New Zealand.
But these pro-privatisation writings perhaps offer an insight into the reason that extreme right-wing free-marketeers like O’Sullivan and Hooton are such big fans.
Would that not also mean they both knew about Shearer’s links to the secretive world of the military, foreign intelligence agencies and sub-contracting ‘security’ companies? If so, I want to know how they knew…
Chris Trotter has done a magnificent job hunting this information down, and I’m interested in his timing – under cover of Christmas?
It wasn’t unknown previously. When I was researching for my (tomorrow’s) post, I found some old posts on NZ, very well-known, right wing blogs, having a go at Shearer, some with images of Blackwater etc (postings from 2009). I think Trotter has some extra info via personal communication.
Also Shearer’s articles, or at least abstracts for them, were easy to find using google – needed to use my public library login to access the full texts. Shearer wrote a few articles between 1990s & 2001, on use of private military companies, especially for UN and peace-keeping operations.
(I’m not keen to link to the sewer or the blubbery one).Try searching on:
Amongst the dust there has to be a story,so i went the the source, the labour party website,
there i found some crucial fundamental principles the labour party was founded on and it
all involves the care, welfare and concern for the people of NZ, those aspects have been
tossed aside and today the labour party caucus beliefs and principles certainly don’t resemble
anything it was founded on, below is a paragraph i thought i would use.
‘ Labour started it’s life as a party of change – a voice for the working classes who believed
that a fairer future was possible.
Many of those first involved just wanted the basics – adequate food,clothing and shelter,a
job with reasonable conditions and regular wages; support in illness or old age; and a hope
for an even brighter future for their children.
When Micheal Joseph Savage led labour to a sweeping victory in 1935,he promised major
changes.
Over the next few years labour introduced a series of measures which would become
fundamentals of NZ society and culture.
For the first time accesss to health care became affordable for all, the state assumed a
major responsibility to provide low cost housing to those in need.
A comprehensive social welfare system that gave support and security to the elderly,the
sick and those without employment’, end of paragraph.
The labour party representatives in cacus over the years have strayed far from the core values
and fundamentals and that is the problem.
The current housing policy, ie, building 100.000 homes is only targeted at those who can afford
a deposit, the beneficiaries have been made to feel like ‘bludgers’ and in the Clark era it was ‘pay as you go’ for our elderly in rest homes,some lost their life long homes because of Clark’s changes to the health policies.
It’s is easy to see why so many of us here are disturbed by the continual movement
away by the current caucus to exact even more destruction of what was an
amazing,respectable Labour party,it brings tears to the eyes.
Leadership’s of the labour party change but there is one aspect that doesn’t change and
that is the fundamental needs of the people,those needs are forever.
“the labour party was founded on and it
all involves the care, welfare and concern for the people of NZ”
Fine and great, but having been through what I went through, even under Labour, I feel “tossed aside”, sames as I feel they “tossed aside” some of their principles.
I recall back in the day that local MP (especially opposition) staff were dynamite at dealing with people “tossed aside”. If Labour were no good, try the Greens or Mana. Or a charity/church advocate (see your Citizens Advice Bureau).
A lot of the time things were dealable without expensive court action as soon as the people doing the shafting realised that you had people who knew the system on your side. Good luck.
ream (did two front axles, both sides, hangars and eyes, one time, arms above my head, with
adjustable hand reamers)
Thomas Oord-The Polkinghorne Reader
Keith Ward-The God Conclusion (which reminds me, listened to Lloyd Geering up last night
more to come)
Roy Baumeister-The Cultural Animal. Meanings of Life.
Antonio Damasio-Self Comes To Mind; constructing the conscious brain
Iain McGilchrist-The Divided Brain and the Making of The Modern World
Jerome Bruner-Acts of Meaning. Making Stories
Jung- Answer to Job (just throwing that out there)
Rodney Stark-One True God. The Victory of Reason; how Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism
and (former) Western Success
Stephen Toulmin-Cosmopolis; the hidden agenda of modernity
Jurgen Habermas-The Future of Human Nature
Joshua Berman-Created Equal
Martin Buber-I and Thou
William P. Brown-The Seven Pillars of Creation (remember T.E Lawrence?)
John F. Haught-God After Darwin; a theology of evolution
Martin J. Rees-Just Six Numbers. Our Cosmic Habitat (and now he’s formed an “existential” society
For God’s Sake) 😉
Gerald L. Schroeder-Genesis and the Big Bang
Robert D. Putnam-American Grace
Peter L. Berger-The Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics
Mark Lilla-The Stillborn God
Steven Solomon-Water;the epic struggle for wealth, power, and civilization
Reinhold Niebuhr-Moral Man and Immoral Society
“Let us face the fact that the monastic vocation tends to present itself to the modern world as a
problem, and, a scandal”
-Merton (it’s a scandal i tell ya, a scandal; not a sandal)
“But often, in the crowded streets, but often in the din of strife, there rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life…”
-Arnold
“I circle around God, around our primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years
And I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song.”
-Rilke, Book of Hours
“Word I was in the house alone
Somehow 😉 must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.(that’s “deception” for ya)
-Robert Frost, Bereft.
(i know which Spirit i prefer) and how that story ends.
I guess when solo parents are unable to partake in the usual “holiday season” activities many people enjoy at this time of year then today at 9am is as good as any day to phone them (behind the veil of “unknown number”) to “gently” terrorise them with questions about their job seeking activities and to “remind” them of their obligations to seek part-time work for those caring for children under 14, and full-time work once their youngest reaches 14 years of age.
Heck if they are not exactly a “box of fluffies” at this time we could get some of them off their “welfare dependency” by making them feel worse and maybe drive them to suicide if we hassle them enough.
It makes no difference at all that the present Govt. have done NOTHING to create any employment whatsoever, in fact despite them shrinking the job market today would be a fine day to ring around these “bludgers” and terrorise them some more.
Oops, I had wanted to point out this paragraph by Cohen:
“There is, of course, an easier solution to this problem: do nothing. Let the tax cuts expire on 1 January, with taxes going up on every American. Then, Congress can quickly pass a massive tax cut for those making less than $250,000, retroactive to 1 January. Neither side will want to wait long and force Americans to pay higher taxes, but especially Republicans won’t – as they will likely be blamed if no deal is swiftly reached. To do so would mean that all sides are politically satisfied: President Obama can say he stuck to his word about raising taxes on rich Americans, and taxes will have gone up without Republicans having to cast a vote; and both parties can reap the political benefit and claim credit for having cut taxes for the middle class.”
RNZ-Lloyd, coal and the commotion;
cosmogenesis-our common origins-“adam”-Hebrew for mankind
communication and cooperation for a viable for future (even Lloyd is a semi-pessimist)
We can tell. Expanding U? Red Shift; Let us expand.Universality is a safe assumption
Singularity and homogenesis follow.quarks, hadrons and me sons et al;
“Come together…right now..over you.” Here we are, Back in the USSR.
Dark Energy-mysterious or not.Red Giant.oils the white dwarf and the Black Hole
for Satan himself masquerades from Berlin as an angel of light.It is not surprising if his servants
Masquerade. Sex…I’M a man, I’m a goddess, I’m a one night stand and we make love
Together we can do know wrong is Right (he hardens whom he wants to harden)
a slice of Lemon with your Corona?
Tasmanian devils-hardwood.Shearer Hawkes Bay Today?”Leopard does not change it’s spots”
Space and Time drawing the Son out with the bathwater; There’s always the Son
ahhh…The circle of life
-Man in Black (does the lion sleep at night?) I witnessed a meteorite yesterday p.m
these thoughts are fading, will not see them again.See that chameleon there like
The News of The World pressing down on your receiver.Is there anybody out there…
“run run away”.Meanwhile, whose singing lullabyes?; the Arab world’s gettin in tune http://www.abeautifullie.org/ Who do not lie.She don’t like that kind of behaviour
Like Scott on the ant arctic, faith, if not accompanied by action is dead.
home is just an emotion sticking in our throat, Home is Close to control, home is “i don’t recall”
Let’s go to hawaii for the “Holy Days”. Home’s mind your business, “well pay the fine”
Fuck you all very much; we value ENZA.Let the good times roll down the sluice…
“rollin, rollin, rollin down the highway of no return.Not Fragile,Production’s in Overdrive
concrete catchment.Time for some parchment anarchristic
“but it’s not sphere, raising taxes will tie up our boats.”
Ho, blind Bartimaeus…your faith is healing you…no more occular reduction. Think Globally
act locally. Chavez is up and about. Beautiful Gate to the south the Golden Bay.
The greatest amongst you will be your servant; Einstein and The Reverend Hone Kaa.III John
poverty tours missionaries.you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come scoffing
following their evil desires. 270,000 children living in poverty.The wealth of the rich is their
Fortified City, but poverty is the ruin of the poor Refuges funded for 2000 women and children
Respond to 30,000 while principals chalk reaching breaking point.Yes, it will break now,
I think it will break now this is Permanent.Love lies bleeding in the Strand while lawyers milk the
ERA.”pack mentality” as the Brethren “king of this world” bites back, yet our real furry friends
lead the way; modify that science priests (no funeral for a friend quite yet) Don’t give up 🙂
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry.
an inspection of the pharoah’s surplus grain reveals the draft papyri passes with nearly two thirds
while parts of China duck the coldest temperatures on record (judgement without mercy will be
demonstrated to any merchant not merciful; the potter has the right to make from the same lump
of clay, some soldiers for noble purposes and some for common serfdom, yet Mao’s vision-
That every chinese citizen prosper.However, cars are not just a particulate matter or a polished
Customline.White Detroit Noise; freeze block parking. Got hot near the former freezing works
Klan Lab? burn like a fire, burn like a fire in Cairo; neither can you bear fruit unless you remain
In Lyn e. Love each other and not serve the apple. Make every effort to ad to your faith, goodness
To goodness, knowledge to knowledge, self-control to self-control…perseverance cos the
Spooks are comin’ outta the hoodwork, disclosing to Facebook HQ.ED (where upon 17M
Iranians are disobeying their Holy Father, or following above) cultivation of virtue = called
Benediction; lets talk 16 Times about ending the slaughter of Syria.shoulda sucked it up Hillary
he is not William Jefferson by accidental cigar. Did you know that a foundational function of the
ACLU was to defend against the pitch poured upon the cause of radical labour rights following
the arrest and deportation of leftist activists deemed to be communist, Bolshevik or Anarchist
During the 20’s? Scope it out.leek out into the world the love that God leeks into us-AB of C
self preserve not (are we agee jars, or Jars of Clay?). Consequently, faith will come from
Hearing the Message in a Bottle, we are spirits, in a material world (no need to break a leg
walking on the moon) or be carried away into Babylon at 5 by strange teachings.
There are three magisteria
-The Police (speaking on behalf of Hermes Trismegistus)
A merry festive New Year to our furry bouncy government immune to the storm due to their rich fur coats, happily bouncing around like Tigger, and making as much sense.
Obama returns home from Hawaii early……
………there goes a social climbing slippery Dick Wanker’s chance to meet and fraternise aye!
Oh well……there’s always next year I ‘spose.
Hope and Change (and all that kaka).
I bet Dippery Slick has done more hoping and changing than Obama has though
He wakens me morning by mourning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught
The sovereign Lord has opened my ears,
No longer rebellious and practicing the “withdrawl” method; ahhh…the sweet and sour release 🙂
Under Pressure…people on the street, It’s a terror knowing what the world’s about
Watching the good people scream “let me out”
Shameful to mention what the disobedient do in secret Banks (do not dwell on evils that The Sun
exposes)
These columns have renounced secret and shameful ways, using deception sparingly
Aero, Baby won’t you had me a line. Set forth truth plainly
For The Sandman has Entered and blinded
the minds of the unbelievers.To paraphrase “American slavery is not a spaghetti western”-Spike
You did not choose me, but i chose you and lprent gives us shelter. Standardize to go and bear fruit
that will last longer than Zespri; lepers and famine. Starvation, Self, or, Shares? 2 Kings 3-
Each of you may look not only to their own interests; Look to the interests of others.
Follow the money trail as it comes round the mountain social climbing.
As for us? Let Him lead you, and the road will rise as you follow the way.
Pr 10:9 The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.
Pr 10:20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value
Heb 5:1
-Billy The Kid, beyond the Pale.Rider. (off to clean and oil the Revolver)
Wish you would talk in English, as you write it in your comments it hurts my head to read and attempt to de-cypher so much that i have taken to skimming past your comments un-read…
Maybe if I still lived in New Zealand, the country has lost it’s charm for me. In 2014 though things could change, but while National is in total power I don’t think I could cope living there either psychologically or financially.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
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Are the bloggers on “The Standard” the cause of the divisions in he Labour Party?
Mike Smith, a Standard luminary, who i’ve heard recently went on the payroll of the Labour Caucus offices, effectively says so. See his post http://thestandard.org.nz/amidst-thencircling-gloom/
“our aim was to set up a labour movement blog and offer a counter to Kiwiblog’s pro-National line; not to join Farrar in making the prospect of Labour government the principal target for attack”.
I’m perplexed frustrated and angry with this comment by Mike Smith.
As a Labour activist I want to kick John Key and his team out of the Treasury Benches and install a Labour led government ASAP.
Mike Smith and the current Labour Caucus leadership, and the bloggers and their fellow travellers are being painted into two opposing camps within the New Zealand Labour Party.
–What has caused this division within the Party?
–What is characterising and feeding the ongoing divide?
–How can the destructive spell be broken and the ground prepared for a Labour victory in 2014?
My view- at the heart of the ongoing tensions within Labour is the divide between the Neo-Liberals and what could be seen as the traditional Labour membership, the ‘cloth cap’…
One suspects after 220 comments Mike Smith realises that sometimes not even the Jesuits could convert such a rebellious, stinky, furious, mucky, inchoate, atavistic, ebullient, wilful, growly, vituperative, beastly bunch of heathens as The Standard.
And Mike, just as we took back the constitution, we are going to convert you as well.
You are going to go Native by the time we’ve finished.
LOLZ…we bad…
Nice post kandalla.
I see a party a a cross roads, desperate to embrace modernitively practices and ideas but scared of the reactionary element – the loud vocal voices crying for a new direction or any direction but rightwards.
We have the Fabian influence steering middlewards, the traditionale neoliberal neo glib centralists do nothing scare no one, and then the progressives, the young bloods who desire change, open govt. we also have the coming home to roost misaligned lefties, all splintered and cross aligned into different ideological matrix makeup.
Poor shearer twisting turning pulled in every direction.
We have CC back off message and on segregation on gift giving at hillside for the workers but for only the deep red ones. Message to the electorate from CC this xmas. Love me tender love me true but only if you are a extreme red, an extreme feminist and or anti freedom of speecher and I will love you too.
Way to reconnect to all the people in Dunedin south CC and regain those lost and turned off voters.
Way to go reframing the message and your image to the electorate.
The Labour party has extreme feminists?
Framed from the centre voter viewpoint anything not centre or middle wide wide middle is extreme my friend, scary scary scary and too easy for the spinners and the msm spin adopters to twist.
The problem being though that the political centre has swung to the right over the past quarter century – which unfortunately is the way many in the Labour Party parly r munt like it.
From my perspective, its a case of “I didn’t leave Labour, Labour left me”.
I see the problem as being many with loud vocal voices crying for a new direction. They do want Labour to get into power and National gone. The change and policy direction they are asking for is good and just and for the benefit of many. It is direction that understands the importance and value of people over money.
The problem is that this is at odds with the party leaders current focus to recapture the centre ground. There are many centre/swing voters out there that are not yet as open to (or more accurately unaware) of the values and policies being pushed at a more grass roots level. Yet it is these very voters that may very well be needed to secure a Labour victory. Getting their vote is the goal of the party leaders and therefore the apparant direction of the party and policies that will do this. This is scary for many longterm Labour voters who see themselves as not aligned with this direction. They feel they have been deserted by their party.
What all this fails to take into account is the effects of MMP on this situation. Make no mistake Labour need to shift their policy to appeal to the centre/swing voter, but they will not be in power without the Greens and even Mana and as a result what is implemented policywise once in power may be much more aligned with what it is that the left and grassroots Labour are wanting. But again they have to do what is necessary to get into power first, such is the nature of our system.
What we need is to do away with mass private automobile ownership, get lots of young hoodlums to give the private car a bad name, have them running around killing people like the women just a few days ago when a boy racer run the lights.
Once in power they will be limited in what they can do if they get in on the promise of a pretty right wing government. The shift to a new direction needs to happen well before the election, and in a way that carries a significant number of people with it.
So there aren’t any extreme feminists in the Labour party?
funny. Publicly it was a bit of an oversight, but at worst it was a case of “National Party member who didn’t join the union did not receive a union service and ran crying about it to the ODT”. Fuck freeloaders.
+100
+ another 100.
Can all the right-wing anti-union commenters please register your thoughts on this freeloader here, for the record? kthanx.
Smith should stick to chopping down pine trees.
ACC makes another family miserable because they can, top lawyers powerless to stop the bastards:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10856177
” Lawyers had challenged the decision in court, arguing there was “no logical reason” Paige could not receive the same payment in Britain, but the case was dismissed.
Wellington firm John Miller Law, representing the family, launched further tribunal action.
Practice manager Jonathon Miller said the case was a result of Parliament establishing that payment for overseas claimants was available only through attendant care, with decisions at the discretion of ACC and not challengeable.
“No one denies that if Paige was back here in New Zealand, she’d be getting attendant care – but it’s just really the stopping of the payments, and whether we can legally challenge that,” he said.
“It’s not a matter of how horrible the ACC decision seems, or how unjustified it is – the bottom line is there’s a provision in the act which says you’re not allowed to challenge these types of decisions.”
Mr Little said he had not seen anything like the case. “From what I’ve seen, I can’t understand why ACC has made the payments, stopped the payments, and then put them through the extra hassle of demonstrating their situation,” he said.
“I just think there’s got to be a better and more streamlined way for ACC to handle their particular case. There just seems to be a lack of transparency about it at the very least, and that needs to be clarified.”
Citing privacy reasons, ACC said it could not comment on the case.”
This is one of those awful bad cross border policies. Our economies are interwoven, our ability to live in each other countries is taken up, so let’s to the cost analysis. Scenario A,
i.) pay lawyers to get the same access to health care they would of,
ii.) just provide the same access across the border (based around some metric like how much our economies are engaged in activity together). So if we have the same economic integration as another state of Australia has internally to Australia, then matching provisions must be made. If its only 80% then pay only 80% of the ACC provision. Similar to the UK, if we are integrated with their economy in the billions a significant part of our own economy, then pay a proportion. If we have no economy with say an country then pay zilch. Why should Chinese NZ suffer because some UK NZ can use the legal system to get a remedy? We should have a ranking of our economic friends, and above some amount payment should be 100% maybe. All those pacific islands who get tempted by China might think twice if many of their potential retires are living in NZ with a pension coming to them.
Similarly with Tarp. Why should a country pay out the full amount, as if a international company were equal to a national company. Pay a proportion of the fine to the international firm based on their proportion of their business in the country, since their loses would only be proportional to their activity in that country. So if a company won an action against a nation for loses, then the lose would be much less if the company has a wide international foot print.
Chinese slave labourer slips desperation note into Halloween decorations, discovered by US housewife.
Indicative of the character of the nation. Is this who we want buying our farms? Do we really need more cheap plastic shit??
http://www.oregonlive.com/happy-valley/index.ssf/2012/12/halloween_decorations_carry_ha.html
Anonymous desperation note. Which as we all know means not valid.
Lucky. The last one I recall hitting the news was signed. The Chinese govt assured the customer who complained about it (apparently the note quite disrupted their Christmas) that it wouldn’t happen again.
Can’t have the world’s privileged being reminded what their lifestyle expectations are actually built on.
I’m so glad we’re in business with the Chinese Govt.
This is why we have batch control numbers, so we can fire a worker who puts political stuff in with the NZ product.
Ah hahha ha. It’s from 2008 and parodies the Reserve Bank (Australian). Watchout for the bit at the end just after the first credits run…
Some good points made
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10856144
Saw this the other day…
Employers can fire workers they find too sexy, US court rules
Yeah, apparently the Taliban have taken over the Supreme Court of Oregon
No, it’s just that the US judicial system no longer consistently protects the rights of ordinary citizens.
Not sure that sexy people are all that “ordinary” but effectively this is the same as forcing women to wear burkas because they might inspire lustful thoughts in weak-willed, childish men. I rest my case.
A simple thought on a dull morning, as part of the extensive sloganeering that accompanied the ‘neo-liberal revolution’ we were constantly fed new-speak slogans such as ”the Government has no business in business”,
It’s the same part of the ism which provides the ‘justification’ for the present Slippery lead National Government to offer up the most profitable of the remaining State Owned Assets for sale,
Looked at seriously though in a small economy with continual high levels of unemployment the Government would seem to be the only institution of such a size to have the means at hand to alter these statistics in any meaningful way,
Lets take something simple like clothing manufacture, this is a highly labour intensive area of business where a Government need only,(if the business owner),’break even’ to turn an actual ‘real’ profit for itself,
The real profit for a Government to be involved in business, especially that which is labor intensive can be found in the other areas of Government concern, for every 1 person employed a Government would pay 1 less unemployment benefit and collect 1 more weekly PAYE payment, those 2 previous items alone would make a ‘break even’ business for a Government highly profitable,
Obviously if we follow the money, the wages paid to our Government owned factory workers, out into the real world of the economy we can see that having come from the unemployment benefit to a wage the workers would now spend more into their local community where Government would again collect more profit from it’s investment in the form of increased business and the taxes it collects from this,
Just a thought…
Yeah but computers, automation, petrol powered machines, have done away with work. So much so that by Thatcher revolution was required to create a service economy, where the huge glut of cheap middle eastern fuel would create excesses of activity for its own sake. Enter thirty years of declining government integrity, enter in rout education for kids, universities that publish publish publish, the modern sprawl all forcing longer commutes, housing shonkier every decade….
Its call national socialism, its fascism, as all fascism is, its cannibalizes to create a veneer of success.
That’s a interestingly negative view of my comment, i would imagine every neo-liberal politician past and present would agree with you,
By your reckoning Government ownership of Solid Energy and various Power company’s is National Socialism???,
The fact is that ‘globalization’ of economy has lead directly to a glut of ‘labour’, this over-supply of labour will not become less into the future, instead becoming even more pronounced where the Asian and Indian economy’s use their advantage of ‘low priced labour’ to make more and more of the worlds consumer products,
A large part of the shift of production to the ‘low priced labour’ economy’s’ is the cost of capital and the profit motive, funded from the tax base with only the impetus to ‘break even’ Government owned and operated factory’s of production would easily match or better the ‘low priced labour’ economy’s on a retail price of product basis…
We can feed, house, entertain, educate everyone on the planet. We don’t because the debt machine is at work, having turned money into the new one God to rule us all. All money is is a abstract construction of the people to facilitate society, its the MSM and corporations that demand we keep the status quo by imposing government upon the people (either by deregulaing and letting corporations run roughshot over the people, or regulating badly so needing the private sector either sell offs of state functions or PPPs). Science and industry have reduced the need for people to work, Thatcher came along, and using the cheap oil of the middle east, decided we all needed to be active, the alternative was a more leisure oriented society, so in order to create this new utopia of activity we have cannibalized the one off energy windfall of hydrocarbons, all to build a unbalanced economy design upon the precept of continuing cheapening energy supplies. Until we recognize that the free market can only work when the right wing stop their mantras used to cover up how they are gaming the market. The relative question of the merits of the low wage economy is irrelevant in the present context of peak oil induced climate change.
My view is that the ‘free market’ would have worked fine if there had of been at the outset that other mantra force fed us all at the time we ‘globalized’ our economy and went all international free trade,
Remember ‘the level playing field’, not often mentioned these days simply because it was one of the bigger lies that sold the masses the ism,
If all country’s had an ‘internationally policed minimum wage of an equal value, AND, if all country’s had their individual currency’s of an equal value then and only then would we have ‘a level playing field’ on which to base competitive capitalism,
As far as i can tell you are agreeing with me on the issue of a global over-supply of labor, but, there will obviously be no move by either of the major political party’s to truthfully address such an over-supply where the dialog is firmly entrenched in labeling those who have no work in a negative way,
Back to my original question tho, if a Government owned clothing factory is ‘national socialism’, then is not Government ownership of Solid Energy and various Power company’s the same…
—-What has caused this division within the Party?
Helen. Yes, Saint Helen herself…Sorta…
She, and the then Party leadership including M. Smith, failed to move the Constitution forward with the times and especially failed to put a democratic leadership process in place.
Also Helen (&H2) ran a very tight centrist and autocratic shop. She and Michael were doing such a good job on many fronts that they were forgiven failings.
Many of the current team like Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson, Faafoi and more learned, as Beehive interns, to believe that this was the NZ Labour way. When Phil Goff became leader, under an opaque process, he surrounded himself with these neophytes.
But the world has changed: Helen is gone and only mere mortals were available to succeed her. Also the take-up of Social Media has changed the dynamic of the relationship between the foot-soldiers and the leaders in organisations, whether business, governmental, social or political.
Once the party leadership (Moira) announced that the members would attend Leadership debates the Jeannie was truly out of the bottle. And the membership were very very disappointed with how all the leadership gig was conducted.
The Majority of the Membership did not buy into the self anointing of the current Leadership team. And that team said: Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers!
They embraced division rather than unity.
Double jeapody double bind, double division or twin unity, party and caucus. Trouble is we have an election to win and time is ticking.
The division will remain until Shearer and leadership do something to fix otherwise many of us will simply move to the greens. A very interesting and well researched article by Chris Trotter in Bowally today on David Shearer, for me it supports some the reasons I have about his weaknesses to lead Labour. Shearer needs to make sure there is a membership vote for Labour leader in Feb. If he wins then fine, if not that is the way it is. Then we can work together, otherwise I am very uncomfortable with the structure of the labour party caucus given the shenanigans that went on in the days after the conference.
If he doesn’t win Labour may not win the next election….. Unless the replacement also covets the centre vote.
What was interesting was what they did do at the conference. Reconnect to the root of the party rank and file. The Labour was able to go far right into neo-liberalism because it disengaged from the roots, Clark was able to run a strong leadership because the party was disengaged. So the current batch of MPs know they would be washed up, exposed as they were, out of touch with a party base. The base had been shrinking because members could not get a voice. Obama election and re-election was due to a strong rank and file, and Labour’s collapse in vote matches up with a party not representing its members. The strength of the Greens emphasis this, Labour is tired insular and boring. Geez, Shearer looks tired, uninteresting and as closed to evaluation as John Key. They want the power but not the accountability. As for the up coming challenge, the new opening up will not have the effect on the leadership to change anything, that’s why the rush in the Shearer camp, over time they will have to move to a new way to deal with politics. The politics of huge fiscal activity force driven by cheapening middle east fuel is over. Welcome back to the return of compromise and the death of ‘don’t they miscarry if its rape’, ‘our children are patriots they should fear gun violence even at school’.. …elder abuse does mean denying your bedridden relative a mobile phone for emergencies.
I suspect Helen’s tight management style was a delayed reaction to Lange’s loose management style, which had the lasting effect of making neoliberalism the new kiwi paradigm. Even though she did little to roll back the changes in favour of capital, she made sure she knew what was going on and that any further changes would be the ones she approved of.
Until the neoliberal Rogergnomes are finally cleared out of caucus, Labour needs Helen’s style, not David Lange’s. I see Shearer as having the management style of David Lange, but without the wit, oratory, or vision. Lange was obviously a narcissist, but a very bright and talented one. Shearer is a dreary and mediocre narcissist who would let the remaining Rogergnomes run amok as long as they complimented his guitar playing and his (wooden) stance on a longboard. He really is hopeless and we should all be worried because just when we have some new blood entering the political scene with the Greens and Mana, we have the ABC crowd, who should probably change their initials to ABCEKOC (Anyone but Cunliffe, even Key or Collins). They, not the left activists, will be the ones responsible for a potential loss at the next elections. There is no reason to vote for Mallard that doesn’t equally hold for Key, for example. Ditto Shane Jones and Tau Henare.
I want them to clean up their act not so that we can end up with a Labour government, but so that the Greens and Mana can have some access to the levers of power and actually change a few things. A government formed by the Mallards and Hipkins of this world would be little different from the one we’ve got now. The idea will not inspire the hundreds of thousands who didn’t vote last time to get out and vote. I hope Shearer is gone in the New Year and we can get to work building some sort of real alternative to the financial sector driven “business as usual” that we have now.
Kia kaha and Happy New Year.
Having read Trotter’s post on Shearer’s back-story, and some of Shearer’s 1990s-2001 articles on private military companies, I am thinking he may not be the toothless, guitar-strumming hippy I took him for. Consider some of the things that have happened int he ,last year under Shearer’s watch?
Well he’s definitely shown an authoritarian streak.
* Support for the intimidation of party members who speak out
* Support for Jones’ bullying attacks on the Green Party
* Showtrial-like punishment of those who even look like they might ever challenge him
Interestingly, this authoritarian streak only seems to come out when he’s attacking to his left.
But these pro-privatisation writings perhaps offer an insight into the reason that extreme right-wing free-marketeers like O’Sullivan and Hooton are such big fans.
Agreed. Though it’s kind of joining up some dots, because the writings are over 10 years old. Still, does make one wonder?
Wouldn’t have to wonder if he’d said anything to contradict his earlier statements in the intervening years.
Indeed. I have a post on it scheduled for publication tomorrow morning.
It seems that DS has privatisation/outsourcing tendencies driven by his experience in the UN, perhaps mainly the success at Sierra Leone which he failed to replicate to the same level later in his career. Trotter’s article does show that DS operated at a higher level than I thought he was cable of, given his atrocious mismanagement throughout most of 2012. But perhaps the biggest problem is that he was clearly buried in the business of the UN over the 1990’s and 2000’s…which does explain his performance, he is not au fait with New Zealand.
Would that not also mean they both knew about Shearer’s links to the secretive world of the military, foreign intelligence agencies and sub-contracting ‘security’ companies? If so, I want to know how they knew…
Chris Trotter has done a magnificent job hunting this information down, and I’m interested in his timing – under cover of Christmas?
It wasn’t unknown previously. When I was researching for my (tomorrow’s) post, I found some old posts on NZ, very well-known, right wing blogs, having a go at Shearer, some with images of Blackwater etc (postings from 2009). I think Trotter has some extra info via personal communication.
Also Shearer’s articles, or at least abstracts for them, were easy to find using google – needed to use my public library login to access the full texts. Shearer wrote a few articles between 1990s & 2001, on use of private military companies, especially for UN and peace-keeping operations.
(I’m not keen to link to the sewer or the blubbery one).Try searching on:
David Shearer Private military companies
Test message. Checking on the reedit.
Amongst the dust there has to be a story,so i went the the source, the labour party website,
there i found some crucial fundamental principles the labour party was founded on and it
all involves the care, welfare and concern for the people of NZ, those aspects have been
tossed aside and today the labour party caucus beliefs and principles certainly don’t resemble
anything it was founded on, below is a paragraph i thought i would use.
‘ Labour started it’s life as a party of change – a voice for the working classes who believed
that a fairer future was possible.
Many of those first involved just wanted the basics – adequate food,clothing and shelter,a
job with reasonable conditions and regular wages; support in illness or old age; and a hope
for an even brighter future for their children.
When Micheal Joseph Savage led labour to a sweeping victory in 1935,he promised major
changes.
Over the next few years labour introduced a series of measures which would become
fundamentals of NZ society and culture.
For the first time accesss to health care became affordable for all, the state assumed a
major responsibility to provide low cost housing to those in need.
A comprehensive social welfare system that gave support and security to the elderly,the
sick and those without employment’, end of paragraph.
The labour party representatives in cacus over the years have strayed far from the core values
and fundamentals and that is the problem.
The current housing policy, ie, building 100.000 homes is only targeted at those who can afford
a deposit, the beneficiaries have been made to feel like ‘bludgers’ and in the Clark era it was ‘pay as you go’ for our elderly in rest homes,some lost their life long homes because of Clark’s changes to the health policies.
It’s is easy to see why so many of us here are disturbed by the continual movement
away by the current caucus to exact even more destruction of what was an
amazing,respectable Labour party,it brings tears to the eyes.
Leadership’s of the labour party change but there is one aspect that doesn’t change and
that is the fundamental needs of the people,those needs are forever.
“the labour party was founded on and it
all involves the care, welfare and concern for the people of NZ”
Fine and great, but having been through what I went through, even under Labour, I feel “tossed aside”, sames as I feel they “tossed aside” some of their principles.
SAD!
I recall back in the day that local MP (especially opposition) staff were dynamite at dealing with people “tossed aside”. If Labour were no good, try the Greens or Mana. Or a charity/church advocate (see your Citizens Advice Bureau).
A lot of the time things were dealable without expensive court action as soon as the people doing the shafting realised that you had people who knew the system on your side. Good luck.
“The Saint is a sinner too” (not a love song, or Pop :))
ream (did two front axles, both sides, hangars and eyes, one time, arms above my head, with
adjustable hand reamers)
Thomas Oord-The Polkinghorne Reader
Keith Ward-The God Conclusion (which reminds me, listened to Lloyd Geering up last night
more to come)
Roy Baumeister-The Cultural Animal. Meanings of Life.
Antonio Damasio-Self Comes To Mind; constructing the conscious brain
Iain McGilchrist-The Divided Brain and the Making of The Modern World
Jerome Bruner-Acts of Meaning. Making Stories
Jung- Answer to Job (just throwing that out there)
Rodney Stark-One True God. The Victory of Reason; how Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism
and (former) Western Success
Stephen Toulmin-Cosmopolis; the hidden agenda of modernity
Jurgen Habermas-The Future of Human Nature
Joshua Berman-Created Equal
Martin Buber-I and Thou
William P. Brown-The Seven Pillars of Creation (remember T.E Lawrence?)
John F. Haught-God After Darwin; a theology of evolution
Martin J. Rees-Just Six Numbers. Our Cosmic Habitat (and now he’s formed an “existential” society
For God’s Sake) 😉
Gerald L. Schroeder-Genesis and the Big Bang
Robert D. Putnam-American Grace
Peter L. Berger-The Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics
Mark Lilla-The Stillborn God
Steven Solomon-Water;the epic struggle for wealth, power, and civilization
Reinhold Niebuhr-Moral Man and Immoral Society
“Let us face the fact that the monastic vocation tends to present itself to the modern world as a
problem, and, a scandal”
-Merton (it’s a scandal i tell ya, a scandal; not a sandal)
“But often, in the crowded streets, but often in the din of strife, there rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life…”
-Arnold
“I circle around God, around our primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years
And I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song.”
-Rilke, Book of Hours
“Word I was in the house alone
Somehow 😉 must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.(that’s “deception” for ya)
-Robert Frost, Bereft.
(i know which Spirit i prefer) and how that story ends.
-“When The Man Comes Around”
I guess when solo parents are unable to partake in the usual “holiday season” activities many people enjoy at this time of year then today at 9am is as good as any day to phone them (behind the veil of “unknown number”) to “gently” terrorise them with questions about their job seeking activities and to “remind” them of their obligations to seek part-time work for those caring for children under 14, and full-time work once their youngest reaches 14 years of age.
Heck if they are not exactly a “box of fluffies” at this time we could get some of them off their “welfare dependency” by making them feel worse and maybe drive them to suicide if we hassle them enough.
It makes no difference at all that the present Govt. have done NOTHING to create any employment whatsoever, in fact despite them shrinking the job market today would be a fine day to ring around these “bludgers” and terrorise them some more.
FenderViper on 27 Dec – did this really happen ? please explain further ….
Yes this happened on 27th, the (surely more costly) “contractor” may get paid by the phone call.
Has anyone been keeping an eye on this?
Fiscal cliff – or “a slope, or a slow but steady decline, down the road of fiscal austerity (for the US)”
1. “The New Zealand dollar fell against most major currencies as the looming US fiscal cliff sapped risk appetite, stoking demand for the greenback …” (http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/124395/nz-dollar-continues-fall-ahead-of-fiscal-cliff)
2. Obama shortens his Hawaii holiday to return to the White House for talks (http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/8121789/Fiscal-cliff-threat-nears-reality)
3. Let it fall … and pick up the pieces – as Michael Cohen, last month, was picking would/should happen (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/28/falling-off-fiscal-cliff-scenario)
Much ado about nothing (till 1 Jan) ?
Oops, I had wanted to point out this paragraph by Cohen:
“There is, of course, an easier solution to this problem: do nothing. Let the tax cuts expire on 1 January, with taxes going up on every American. Then, Congress can quickly pass a massive tax cut for those making less than $250,000, retroactive to 1 January. Neither side will want to wait long and force Americans to pay higher taxes, but especially Republicans won’t – as they will likely be blamed if no deal is swiftly reached. To do so would mean that all sides are politically satisfied: President Obama can say he stuck to his word about raising taxes on rich Americans, and taxes will have gone up without Republicans having to cast a vote; and both parties can reap the political benefit and claim credit for having cut taxes for the middle class.”
testing (ok, i do make random notes; i’m not a machine yet)
-The Swedenborg (a replicant)
RNZ-Lloyd, coal and the commotion;
cosmogenesis-our common origins-“adam”-Hebrew for mankind
communication and cooperation for a viable for future (even Lloyd is a semi-pessimist)
We can tell. Expanding U? Red Shift; Let us expand.Universality is a safe assumption
Singularity and homogenesis follow.quarks, hadrons and me sons et al;
“Come together…right now..over you.” Here we are, Back in the USSR.
Dark Energy-mysterious or not.Red Giant.oils the white dwarf and the Black Hole
for Satan himself masquerades from Berlin as an angel of light.It is not surprising if his servants
Masquerade. Sex…I’M a man, I’m a goddess, I’m a one night stand and we make love
Together we can do know wrong is Right (he hardens whom he wants to harden)
a slice of Lemon with your Corona?
Tasmanian devils-hardwood.Shearer Hawkes Bay Today?”Leopard does not change it’s spots”
Space and Time drawing the Son out with the bathwater; There’s always the Son
ahhh…The circle of life
-Man in Black (does the lion sleep at night?) I witnessed a meteorite yesterday p.m
these thoughts are fading, will not see them again.See that chameleon there like
The News of The World pressing down on your receiver.Is there anybody out there…
“run run away”.Meanwhile, whose singing lullabyes?; the Arab world’s gettin in tune
http://www.abeautifullie.org/ Who do not lie.She don’t like that kind of behaviour
Like Scott on the ant arctic, faith, if not accompanied by action is dead.
home is just an emotion sticking in our throat, Home is Close to control, home is “i don’t recall”
Let’s go to hawaii for the “Holy Days”. Home’s mind your business, “well pay the fine”
Fuck you all very much; we value ENZA.Let the good times roll down the sluice…
“rollin, rollin, rollin down the highway of no return.Not Fragile,Production’s in Overdrive
concrete catchment.Time for some parchment anarchristic
“but it’s not sphere, raising taxes will tie up our boats.”
Ho, blind Bartimaeus…your faith is healing you…no more occular reduction. Think Globally
act locally. Chavez is up and about. Beautiful Gate to the south the Golden Bay.
The greatest amongst you will be your servant; Einstein and The Reverend Hone Kaa.III John
poverty tours missionaries.you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come scoffing
following their evil desires. 270,000 children living in poverty.The wealth of the rich is their
Fortified City, but poverty is the ruin of the poor Refuges funded for 2000 women and children
Respond to 30,000 while principals chalk reaching breaking point.Yes, it will break now,
I think it will break now this is Permanent.Love lies bleeding in the Strand while lawyers milk the
ERA.”pack mentality” as the Brethren “king of this world” bites back, yet our real furry friends
lead the way; modify that science priests (no funeral for a friend quite yet) Don’t give up 🙂
-Gabriel (from the burning bush)
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry.
an inspection of the pharoah’s surplus grain reveals the draft papyri passes with nearly two thirds
while parts of China duck the coldest temperatures on record (judgement without mercy will be
demonstrated to any merchant not merciful; the potter has the right to make from the same lump
of clay, some soldiers for noble purposes and some for common serfdom, yet Mao’s vision-
That every chinese citizen prosper.However, cars are not just a particulate matter or a polished
Customline.White Detroit Noise; freeze block parking. Got hot near the former freezing works
Klan Lab? burn like a fire, burn like a fire in Cairo; neither can you bear fruit unless you remain
In Lyn e. Love each other and not serve the apple. Make every effort to ad to your faith, goodness
To goodness, knowledge to knowledge, self-control to self-control…perseverance cos the
Spooks are comin’ outta the hoodwork, disclosing to Facebook HQ.ED (where upon 17M
Iranians are disobeying their Holy Father, or following above) cultivation of virtue = called
Benediction; lets talk 16 Times about ending the slaughter of Syria.shoulda sucked it up Hillary
he is not William Jefferson by accidental cigar. Did you know that a foundational function of the
ACLU was to defend against the pitch poured upon the cause of radical labour rights following
the arrest and deportation of leftist activists deemed to be communist, Bolshevik or Anarchist
During the 20’s? Scope it out.leek out into the world the love that God leeks into us-AB of C
self preserve not (are we agee jars, or Jars of Clay?). Consequently, faith will come from
Hearing the Message in a Bottle, we are spirits, in a material world (no need to break a leg
walking on the moon) or be carried away into Babylon at 5 by strange teachings.
There are three magisteria
-The Police (speaking on behalf of Hermes Trismegistus)
A merry festive New Year to our furry bouncy government immune to the storm due to their rich fur coats, happily bouncing around like Tigger, and making as much sense.
Obama returns home from Hawaii early……
………there goes a social climbing slippery Dick Wanker’s chance to meet and fraternise aye!
Oh well……there’s always next year I ‘spose.
Hope and Change (and all that kaka).
I bet Dippery Slick has done more hoping and changing than Obama has though
He wakens me morning by mourning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught
The sovereign Lord has opened my ears,
No longer rebellious and practicing the “withdrawl” method; ahhh…the sweet and sour release 🙂
Under Pressure…people on the street, It’s a terror knowing what the world’s about
Watching the good people scream “let me out”
Shameful to mention what the disobedient do in secret Banks (do not dwell on evils that The Sun
exposes)
These columns have renounced secret and shameful ways, using deception sparingly
Aero, Baby won’t you had me a line. Set forth truth plainly
For The Sandman has Entered and blinded
the minds of the unbelievers.To paraphrase “American slavery is not a spaghetti western”-Spike
You did not choose me, but i chose you and lprent gives us shelter. Standardize to go and bear fruit
that will last longer than Zespri; lepers and famine. Starvation, Self, or, Shares? 2 Kings 3-
Each of you may look not only to their own interests; Look to the interests of others.
Follow the money trail as it comes round the mountain social climbing.
As for us? Let Him lead you, and the road will rise as you follow the way.
Pr 10:9 The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.
Pr 10:20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value
Heb 5:1
-Billy The Kid, beyond the Pale.Rider. (off to clean and oil the Revolver)
Wish you would talk in English, as you write it in your comments it hurts my head to read and attempt to de-cypher so much that i have taken to skimming past your comments un-read…
+1
+2
+3
I rather like it myself. Just let it soak in.
Turns on those nice under used non-rational parts of the brain.
New Zealand really needs anti-corruption legislation, Roger Douglus would have been imprisoned rather than been given a knighthood. But I can dream.
New Zealand really needs anti-corruption legislation, Roger Douglus would have been imprisoned rather than been given a knighthood.
As would David Caygill, Richard Prebble and Trevor De Cleene.
But I can dream.
Don’t dream; SCHEME.
Don’t agonize, ORGANIZE.
“Don’t dream; SCHEME.
Don’t agonize, ORGANIZE.”
Maybe if I still lived in New Zealand, the country has lost it’s charm for me. In 2014 though things could change, but while National is in total power I don’t think I could cope living there either psychologically or financially.
I’m sorry to hear that, my friend.
We need you back here, pronto.
nice thought 🙂