Time to change our relationships to our waterways.
“Fish & Game commissioned the nationwide poll which was conducted in early December by Colmar Brunton.
About 82 percent of respondents said they would support a move to introduce mandatory environmental standards for New Zealand’s waterways, even if it meant regulating intensive farming.
Support is stronger among people who are very concerned about the pollution of rivers and lakes, with nine out of ten supporting tougher rules.
Fish & Game chief executive Martin Taylor said local authorities had for too long allowed intensive farms to become established in unsuitable areas, and then protected them at the expense of the environment.”
7 billion people.
Enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world a thousand times.
Trillions of litres of chemicals in the air in the water in the land.
I wonder by the end of this century if living out doors will still be possible
or if the survivors will be in sealed in bubbles.
Many of those contributing to the degradation of rivers through their farming practices might be caring, unwitting, reluctant, unable to do otherwise. But those uncaring ones, they deserve a reckoning.
Most people live in the Cities so won’t be impacted by any tough new regulations. It is easy to call for this when it isn’t your livelihood that is directly impacted.
There are much tougher regulations in urban areas too.
Farmers have had it too easy too long.
Either comply or sell the land to someone who will comply.
I just heard Vernon Tava on Morning Report, interviewed about his initiative for a new green party. He said it has to be genuinely centrist. That’s reassuring. He didn’t use the bluegreen framing. In fact, he explained that he hadn’t canvassed the idea with any other National MPs.
That’s a puzzle! It suggests the Nats view their brand as captive and want to keep it in-house. It also suggests tacit thinking: their bluegreen MPs are dogs who need to be kept in their kennels, rather than be allowed to roam freely in public.
This all paints a picture in which establishment politics has successfully marginalised both political wings of the Green movement. Since the public, as revealed in the new poll, is 80% behind authentic environmentalism, the political arena is wide open for centrist political representation.
Vernon reckons the time is right. People seem to feel the same, but we ought not to discount the gate-keeper effect of MMP. Getting a new party through the gate already clogged up with other parties can only succeed if voters see it as a better option and switch their support. One leader can’t achieve that result: authenticity requires a genuine convergence of political activists from the margins. No sign of that yet.
Bit like searching for an oasis in the desert, eh? There, alright, but always real hard to find. If it was easy, environmental problems wouldn’t persist.
Robert G
As a non-market solution to trees needing water in a drought, I have a street tree with tap root apparently – liquidamber, with a lot of grass around it, and also a decorative plum prunus cerasifera nigra I think.
Now would it be good and useful to the tree to carry a 10 litre bucket of water and splash it round about 1 metre from the trunk each day? It’s been dry here for a while and the recent high winds have been getting warmer.
If I just did the above daily would that help the trees or would I be wasting my time?
Hi Greywarshark. How big/old are the trees? If they are young (1 or 2 years) then hand-watering is a good option. Often the grass will be affecting the availability of water and nutrient to the tree, so carefully (no weed-whackers, ever!) removing the live grass will help – lay it down as mulch. If the tree is well established and showing signs of stress from drought, the chances of saving it with buckets of water are reduced, but you’ll probably enjoy the activity anyway and it could help. Often, amenity trees are poorly planted and have distorted roots, so it’s difficult to really know what’s going on down there.
Why is that a Troll? That is a valid environmental question. If you have a scarce resource such as water you have to make decisions on the best use of it. In some circumstances giving it to a tree might not make sense.
Is Gosman breaking the Rules as set out in the “Policy” for TS?
Or is he actually within the Rules in putting up “dissenting views” and participating in “reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints”?
IE “We encourage robust debate and we’re tolerant of dissenting views. But this site run for reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints and we intend to keep it operating that way.”
Is Gosman making “pointless personal attacks”, or commenting in a “tone or language that has the effect of excluding others”?
IE “What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others.”
Is Gosman continuing a flame war “where there is little discussion or debate”?
IE “We are intolerant of people starting or continuing flamewars where there is little discussion or debate.”
Is Gosman making assertions that he/she is unable to substantiate with some proof?
Is Gosman unable/refusing to argue when requested to do so?
IE “We are intolerant of people starting or continuing flamewars where there is little discussion or debate. This includes making assertions that you are unable to substantiate with some proof (and that doesn’t mean endless links to unsubstantial authorities) or even argue when requested to do so”
Hint – what about Gosman’s comment at 2.1.2.3 below.
Now I don’t often agree with Gosman’s comments, but my perceptions/opinion of his behaviour here is that, for the most part, Gosman actually complies with the TS rules above – much more so that the (many) commenters who have and continue to:
— Call for Gosman to be him banned ( “using language that has the effect of excluding others”)
— Make personal attacks, derogatory or snide personal remarks about him/her, attack the messenger not the message (“pointless personal attacks”).
Ta I’ll give it a try Robert. The amenity tree liquidamber, is large well established growing on a berm, swale-style. The prunus is old but lovely, so will take out the yarrow that I mistakenly planted, I don’t want more large roots to go with the bindweed, what a dope I am. That should give the old lady a bit of a boost.
“Case study: acid rain
Problem: Sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants was creating harmful acid rain several decades ago. Traditional regulation would have simply directed every plant owner to cut pollution by a specific amount in a specific way, an expensive and often ineffective solution.
Solution: Our experts proposed a cap-and-trade approach that required overall sulfur emissions be cut in half, but would let each company decide how to do it. Power plants that cut their pollution more than required could sell the extra allowances.
Outcome: Cap and trade was so effective and affordable that The Economist magazine called it the “greatest green success story of the decade.”
“
The Right loves talking about the so-called free market. While on paper this utopia of the free market system seems to make sense in the real world it does not.
A free market in order to work as they claim it should requires all those involved to deal fairly with each other and everyone to have equal negotiation power. However, in the real world, it falls over very fast as greedy people always find ways to manipulate the market in their favor.
Some business people who claim to be for the free market, for example, use their power to force workers to take crappy deals to keep their jobs and when they attempt to unionize to give them equal negotiating power to get their fair market share of the profits they are suddenly no longer for a free and fair market and try and break the unions.
The current non-free market cannot find a solution to solving environmental issues as it would require the greedy to spend a tiny bit of their profits to prevent pollution.
There are a lot of solutions out there right now that will work, but because they require extra money to be spent they choose to ignore them.
Fabulous: having no basis in reality; mythical.
“fabulous creatures”
synonyms: mythical, legendary, mythic, mythological, fabled, folkloric, fairy-tale, heroic, traditional; More
Have you listened to this Morrissey?
It’s an excellent interview with Laith Marouf by Eva Bartlett on the history and current state in the Middle East. Particularly how the Kurds got to be Syrian citizens.
Yes but the Maori party sounded great at the time, but sadly hijacked for a “seat at the table” mentality. Now Maori seem worse off in terms of homelessness and wages and conditions post the near decade of support the Maori party gave to the Natz, which also destroyed and divided the Maori/party in reality as well.
The party The Maori party most served was the National party, it helped take down the Mana party which was a lot more focused on raising poverty standards and genuine treaty issues for Maori.
I’d say the Green Party are already too close to the National party, and it’s taking down their voter support along with their tenancy to go woke left as well as intentionally or unintentionally supporting the right, so I don’t necessarily think that another Green Party allied to the Natz is going to help the environment, more like have an outcome like the Maori party.
The biggest 3rd party can often play Queen maker
so well worth the Greens looking to add to it’s vote.
Green/Red, Green/Blue, Green/Old Fartz NZF, Green/Brown, or Green /young?
Do the research, get the stats find two photogenic articulate spin doctors
and hit the hustings I mean FB,Snap Chat and E-Mail.
Don’t forget to tick, share,and subscribe.
Idiot/Savant looks at the issue of an “astroturf” party.:
“National has no friends, leaving them with an obvious problem in the MMP coalition game next election. Their solution? To simply create one:
…
The problem: if they do, then its a clear signal that the party isn’t really green. Because National’s policies of supporting the dairy, oil and trucking industries, sucking the rivers dry, and dragging their feet on climate change in the name of “balance” with economic growth are inherently anti-environment, and any environmentally-minded voter can see that. Which makes their “BlueGreen” astroturf idea laughable – the only people it convinces are people who don’t understand environmental issues at all. But like Colin Craig, Kim Dotcom and Gareth Morgan, they probably think they can simply throw money at the problem and buy the votes they need, with a fallback of hoping to buy enough votes away from the actual Green Party to drive them out of Parliament – a deeply undemocratic goal. But unlike National, I think environmentally-minded voters are smart enough not to fall for it.”
Are you stating that there are not Green voters who would be swayed by a political party willing to work across the political divide to solve environmental problems?
The trouble is you would think ANY political party willing to work with National is a puppet. Take off your ideological blinkers for one second and try and look at the situation with the minimal of bias.
The same can be stated for Labour. Where is the Alliance? Where is United Future (a Labour partner as much as National). NZ First disappeared from Parliament after the last time it was in coalition with Labour. Look what is happening to The Greens now.
I wonder how they’ll respond to challenges over any policies or principles they might profess. Environmentalists are well practiced at arguing these issues, centrists and right wingers, not so much, beyond their narrow range. “Off-setting” would be a good example.
A good example of the Right’s approach to conserving natural taonga. Turn it into money, wreck it, buy something somewhere else that fits your own model of what’s valuable.
You haven’t explained how “Off-setting” is bad beyond your emotive dislike of it. I have yet to see anybody argue that “Off-setting” should be used in all circumstances to deal with every environmental concern. It is merely one of multiple tools that could be employed. I am pretty sure you don’t have an issue with the principle behind it either.
Gosman – what is it about my explanation for the failings of the off-set model described at 10:14 don’t you understand to be bad? My dislike of it, is not based on emotion; I’ve had close associations with the process and weighed up the reality of it carefully. It’s typical of the Right’s approach to environmental management and it’s a fail, imo.
You have not explained why. You objection does seem to be based purely on your emotional dislike of the ideology behind it rather than whether it works or not. If it was based on some actual facts showing that it doesn’t work (i.e. it makes the overall environmental problem worse) then you have a valid argument against it.
My argument is, Gosman, that something like a pristine river can be damned/dammed if the dammers pay for the creation of a kiwi sanctuary elsewhere. That is, the river is lost. Gone. Environmental loss, right there. Not emotive, actual.
Where is this proposal to build a Kiwi sanctuary to enable a river to have a dam to be built on it? That generally is not how a proper “Off-setting” scheme works anyway.
“something like” was to indicate a theoretical example.
What is your understanding of “off setting” Gosman?
In any case, off setting, as proposed by Right wingers, is just one of many examples where the Right ideology (everything has a price!) exemplifies the narrow range the Right makes decisions from on environmental matters – my original claim.
Yes, that possibility is what will be deterring those in the know. If their market research has established the likelihood. From a design perspective, they have to ensure the split is more like 35:10.
That was implied in my suggestion re Bridges & Nat caucus endorsement. They ought to brainstorm the design then create consensus. Just enough front-people to pull the bluegreens over the threshold, up to a comfortable margin. At least two sitting MPs with centrist street cred and safe seats should suffice.
But Tava is not actually proclaiming the bluegreen brand. Leftist misrepresentation is a ruse to lead observers astray.
“Blue Greens will fail to get any electorate traction at all and I support National wasting energy on this bullshit as it will only eat into National’s voter base without any representation.” Bridges hasn’t endorsed use of the bluegreen brand, has he? Bradbury’s kool-aid intake must’ve gone over the limit.
“The only purpose for running Blue Greens is as a spoiler to the actual Greens who will face a strong challenge again from TOP and with the additional syphoning off by Blue Greens would see the Greens slip beneath 5%.”
Now there he actually makes a very good point. Splitting the centrist vote defeats the centrist cause, so both tribes within the GP could lose big.
And “global warming and the catastrophes it’s bringing will demand radical policy responses”. True. Does this mean the GP will go radical? Of course not. Democracy will always marginalise radicals. That’s why it’s a prescription for disaster.
I suspect there probably is room for a socially and economically centrist, environmentally focused party. I’m aware of more than a few voters that can relate to the likes of Kennedy Graham and David Clendon, but can’t swallow the idea of voting for a party whose public profile is as much about reclaiming the c-word or promoting the crap Sue Kedgley was into, as it is about environmental issues.
These are people that enjoy spending time in the outdoors, can see and are distressed by the damage currently being done and want to turn it around. Sneering comments like ” … don’t understand environmental issues at all” simply provokes a ‘fuck you very much’ in return.
“These are people that enjoy spending time in the outdoors, can see and are distressed by the damage currently being done and want to turn it around”
Farmers? Operators of earth moving machinery? Hunters?
Listening to Minister Mahuta on RNZ drone on about water industry and regulation reform, looks like the most she will achieve in a term is slightly stronger drinking water standards some time after the election – once she puts up her Cabinet paper mid this year.
In reality there will be nothing that gets the critical issues of
– water and wastewater pricing regulation,
– system amalgamation, state capex subsidy, or
– the kind of either regulatory approach to networks seen in the Electricity Authority over our electricity generators, or
– the full core+subsidy approach that extends over the New Zealand land transport network through NZTA.
Nothing from Mahuta this morning told us we will see effective action about water.
The weakness in this cabinet to regulate is pretty apparent in water.
“National leader Simon Bridges says he retains confidence in Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie and she won’t be stood down, despite a police investigation into a message sent from her phone to Jami-Lee Ross.
But he said he does not condone her behaviour, in relation to the text in question.”
Tells us two things:
Bridges is a weak leader who would have demanded a “stand down” at least, if it was the other way round.
That Dowie did send the message.
The engines are currently idling on an eco-friendly fuel mix of botulinum and ethanol produced from a load of rotting old spuds with a heavy dose of colagen in the sump to keep everything all greased up.
And the only problem they’ve yet to overcome is the potential for being charged with ‘sustained loss of traction’
“Bridges retains confidence”.
So when Dowie steps down in the near future
she can say “although I retained support of my colleagues
I believe it is best I step aside”.
This will make it easier for the Nat’s to win any by- election.
Spin spin spin.
NB.
News caster ends with
“Dowie does not rule out a return to politics
at some time in the future”
Blenheim 33 degrees at moment Cinny. As kids we used to revel in very hot summers but now not so much fun. The washing on the line dried almost instantly though.
Overhead sun doesn’t reach inside much but doors windows wide open and a stiff gutsy gusty norwester keeps the air moving. Refuse the use of an air conditioner.
Cinny in Australia one household I know of, puts 8 cool packs in the freezer to be used if a household member becomes heat stressed, wrapped, placed on head and back.
Also four milk bottles in freezer. Place two at at a time in front of a fan so air blows across them.
Make fruit juice and cordial iceblocks/popcicles
DRINK PLENTY, a pinch of salt and sugar help quickly replace lost sweat.
Fill the bath with cold water, sit in it for ten minutes before bed.
Wear pure cotton or lawn. Cheers. Not everyone has aircon, or even power goes down for a while sometimes
The so called “new” idea about a cooler using the simple evaporation of water works OK. We had a little porous concrete one 60 plus years ago to keep the butter cool.
A soaking wet towel near the breeze or a fan would work.
I would tell my kids to get the water off their swimming skins as the change of state water to gas, is what chills them.
Yes, Ian, did you hear about how our soldiers kept beer cool in the desert during WWII? Wrapped in a wet towel suspended from a line in blazing sunshine, apparently. Actually, did they really get a beer ration from the powers that be or was that an urban legend? Maybe it was water…
Bags of frozen vegetables (eg peas) can also be used in place of cool packs for heat stress – and of course, sprained ankles etc. Better in fact than solid style cool packs as they ‘wrap’.
Sssshhh – not PC these days, but Glad sell soft plastic ice block bags in packs of 8 (?) for just a couple of dollars where you fill a bag with tap water through a pocket which then self-seals and you end up with a wrapable ice pack for next to nothing. Not reuseable however, unless you use something else (peg?) to reseal the filling hole.
Not available in all supermarkets but if so, in the same part as sandwich bags etc.
patricia b
Something i remember from time in Oz – they tend to line bathroom and have on floor, ceramic tiles which tend to remain cold. Lying lightly clad on the floor, with damp towels over body, could be emergency cooling. Perhaps some soothing music to lower stress, and alleviate the discomfort, cold water for sipping.
Then there are the novelty caps with reservoirs of water and tubes to suck on, silly but they could save extreme heat stress. Can’t find much on google for these which i remember from decades ago. But coca Cola has come up with a simple? version. I would recommend having plastic disposable gloves though. Bit stupid not including these in the demonstration as nothing is ever as simple as you expect.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q50UL5LpeEo
Greywarshark, my brother and family used to sleep in the dining room on the tiled floor with the fan going. It was a regular thing in summer if the temperature got above 35 deg. It had a cathedral ceiling
Google diy swamp cooler for a bunch of ideas (if an article from that blathering idiot The Hosk appears, don’t bother with that one).
Swamp coolers really work a treat in dry areas, but if it’s humid heat they don’t do anything useful.
Window coverings stopping the heat getting in are good. Something on the outside works better than a curtain on the inside if there’s an easy way to put something there.
Private enterprise will look after us better than slack government – so the mantra goes. It is much more efficient to employ people in a just-in-time scenario? This is very hard on anyone wanting to have a life.
Prime is a 24/7 emergency medical service which relies on local doctors and nurses, who also have day jobs, as on-call contractors. The medics who are signed-up with Prime drop everything to attend call outs as and when they arise.
For rural communities, it’s a lifeline.
Dr Creegan was a Prime doctor on isolated Great Barrier Island before moving to Waimate in South Canterbury, where she raised her family and established her practice while continuing her Prime work.
She’s one of three Prime responders in the practice covering the service.
“There’s a thing in the back of your mind all of the time that you’re on call. You just tuck it in and get on with it. But you go to sleep with that thought that you might be woken up in the night,” Dr Creegan said.
“You can’t go and have a swim without thinking that you’re away from your pager or your phone so you might need to ask someone to hold it for you and sing out to you, or you might just actually say ‘I’m going to go for a swim and I’m not going to worry about it for 20 minutes’. But then you’re going to look at your pager when you come back and if something’s come in that time, how are you going to feel?”
What planet are these people on if they think those paltry fines will act as a deterrent. Many of the migrants pay that just for the job in the first place! They should have a minimum $50k fine and increasing the more turnover the business has, then 10 times the amount undercharged paid back to the worker with a minimum of $25,000 and then be banned from employing migrant workers and defiantly not allowed to sponsor them permanantly! IF the employer is not a citizen they should be deported for illegal trading and not be allowed to become a resident here!
If businesses are still better off when they are caught underpaying or asking for money for the job, then what is the deterrent???
Probably costs more than that for the government to prosecute them, when you look at the lawyers fees and court costs! crazy!
Allan Nairn: “I think someone like Mr. Abrams would
be a fit subject for such a Nuremberg-style inquiry.”
In March 1995, journalist Allan Nairn exposed how Elliott Abrams organized death squads in Guatemala. and confronted him on television.
Twenty-four years later, Abrams has yet to serve a day in prison for his crimes. Donald Trump has just appointed this terrible criminal “Special U.S. Envoy to Venezuela.”
ROSE: Let me just ask you a hypothetical question. Would you as an
assistant secretary of State for Latin American affairs, if you found out that our government was paying a man in the Guatemalan military after it learned that he had been implicated in the assassination of an American or someone married to an American, would you be outraged?
ABRAMS: I would certainly be outraged in the Devine case which looked like the cold blooded murder of an innocent American. The notion that we would continue to employ such a person would give him and others in the Guatemalan military the sense that we just didn’t care about the killing of American citizens. The Bamaca case is a different case. That guy was a guerrilla and he was not an American.
ROSE: Yeah, but he wasn’t killed in battle, he was killed in prison.
ABRAMS: No, but it is a different case. And the responsibility we have is to protect above all American citizens, not Guatemalan guerrillas. So it is a different case, different kind of level of seriousness for the U.S. government.
NAIRN: Charlie, you asked a hypothetical: How would Mr. Abrams react? In fact we have the historical record. We can see how he and the other Reagan and Bush and Clinton officials have reacted.
ROSE: In the State Department, or in the CIA, or both?
NAIRN: Across the board. And in the face of this systematic policy of slaughter by the Guatemalan military, more than 110,000 civilians killed by that military since 1978, what Amnesty International has called a “government program of political murder,” the U.S. has continued to provide covert assistance to the G-2 and they have continued, especially during the time of Mr. Abrams, to provide political aid and comfort. For example. . .
ABRAMS: Uh, Charlie.
ROSE: One second.
NAIRN: …during the Northwest Highland massacres of the [early] ’80s when the Catholic Church said: “never in our history has it come to such grave extremes. It has reached the point of genocide,” President Reagan went down, embraced Rios Montt, the dictator who was staging these massacres, and said he was getting “a bum rap on human rights.” In ’85 when human rights leader Rosario Godoy was abducted by the army, raped, and mutilated, her baby had his fingernails torn out, the Guatemalan military said: “Oh, they died in a traffic accident.” Human rights groups contacted Mr. Abrams, asked him about it, he wrote back-this is his letter of reply-he said: yes, “there’s no evidence other than that they died in a traffic accident.” Now this is a woman raped and mutilated, a baby with his fingernails torn out. This is
long-standing policy.
ROSE: …these are specific points raised by Allan having to do with your public conduct.
ABRAMS: I’m not, I tell you, whatever Allan Nairn wants to do, Charlie, I’m not here to refight the Cold War. I’m glad we won, maybe he’s not. What I’m here to say is we’re talking not about U.S. policy in the world .
NAIRN: Won against who, won against those civilians the Guatemalan army was massacring?
ABRAMS: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We’re not here to refight the Cold War.
“Mr Barclay was employed by MBIE from July to October 2018 when the KiwiBuild programme was transferred to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. During this period, there were no issues raised about his performance, management style or leadership,” the statement [from Barclay’s PR company] said.
“Within two weeks of the KiwiBuild programme moving to MHUD, he can confirm there were a small number of complaints from individuals who held a close relationship to the Chief Executive, Mr [Andrew] Crisp.”
The statement said the nature of the complaints related to Barclay’s direct management style and dealings with certain individuals.
“They were entirely linked to the implementation of the KiwiBuild programme which was Mr Barclay’s only remit. His commitment was to execute against the targets of the KiwiBuild programme, and he was attempting to do this at pace.”
I actually worked with/for Andrew briefly in his Department of Labour days back in the early 2000s and also had dealings with him when he was at Treasury. I always found him excellent (and easy) to work for and with. I consider him someone with integrity, very intelligent but down to earth, a good team player who worked to bring people along with him. Haven’t seen him for years but I doubt he has changed much over the yearsin those respects.
Probably from a quick read of the articles today. Crisp has previous ‘form’ in cleaning up similar messy CE situations. Exactly what he was doing when I worked under him. LOL. I mean “form” in the best of meanings . He was/ hopefully still is, top notch in that regard/role.
A New Zealander, Barclay was chief executive of the 2013 America’s Cup defence in San Francisco …
Barclay copped bitter criticism from both city politicians and media amid accusations the event had not delivered sufficiently for San Francisco, leading him to launch a parting broadside after the event had ended.
They deployed a trained killer. What could possibly go wrong?
New details in the case against a Navy SEAL charged with multiple war crimes emerged during a marathon hearing this week at Naval Base San Diego.
Friday’s hearing revealed that seven Navy SEALs have been granted immunity to testify for the prosecution during the upcoming trial of Edward R. Gallagher, a chief special warfare operator alleged to have murdered a wounded teenage Islamic State combatant by stabbing him in the neck.
[…]
Witnesses told investigators that Gallagher boasted of killing up to 200 people during the 2017 deployment. Another witness said Gallagher told him he killed “three a day” and to “do the math” for the total number he killed.
[…]
Prosecutors said the incident began May 3, 2017, with a drone strike and two Hellfire missiles hitting two sides of a home in Mosul. Witness statements conflict about whether the injured Islamic State fighter was inside the home when it was struck. The prosecution says he was, but the defense said their witnesses say he was injured by gunfire, not the drone strike. Both sides agree that Iraqi forces loaded the combatant onto the hood of a Humvee and delivered him to Gallagher’s team. Gallagher, a medic, began treating him.
Prosecutors say Gallagher stabbed the fighter, estimated to be between 15 and 17 years old. Gallagher also is accused of posing for photos with the corpse, operating a drone over it and, sometime later, celebrating his reenlistment next to it.
[…]
In unrelated incidents, Gallagher is charged with shooting two civilians — an old man and a little girl — and with shooting indiscriminately at civilians throughout his deployment.
One witness told investigators Gallagher told him it was “OK to shoot at women.”
This could be the subject of an interesting fast paced scam novel. From 2016 but part of our interesting development as we tried to be the sleazy Switzerland or offshore haven for those with hot money, perhaps hot from being passed around so quickly; too much friction.
A foreign exchange business that looks and smells like a Ponzi scheme targeting Malaysians, a Nelson-based global stock exchange, a warning from the Czech Republic’s central bank, a fantasist, and curious French-Latvian connections all have one thing in common. New Zealand registered financial service providers.
While the NZ government looks, albeit unenthusiastically, at changing foreign trust laws in the wake of the Panama Papers, here’s a reminder the country’s international reputation is being degraded by more than just Mossack Fonseca and foreign trusts. This statement is based on our probe of just a handful of NZ registered financial service providers.
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The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
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Time to change our relationships to our waterways.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/381064/new-zealanders-want-tougher-protections-for-waterways
The day of reckoning is coming for uncaring polluters.
7 billion people.
Enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world a thousand times.
Trillions of litres of chemicals in the air in the water in the land.
I wonder by the end of this century if living out doors will still be possible
or if the survivors will be in sealed in bubbles.
Many of those contributing to the degradation of rivers through their farming practices might be caring, unwitting, reluctant, unable to do otherwise. But those uncaring ones, they deserve a reckoning.
Most people live in the Cities so won’t be impacted by any tough new regulations. It is easy to call for this when it isn’t your livelihood that is directly impacted.
There are much tougher regulations in urban areas too.
Farmers have had it too easy too long.
Either comply or sell the land to someone who will comply.
I just heard Vernon Tava on Morning Report, interviewed about his initiative for a new green party. He said it has to be genuinely centrist. That’s reassuring. He didn’t use the bluegreen framing. In fact, he explained that he hadn’t canvassed the idea with any other National MPs.
That’s a puzzle! It suggests the Nats view their brand as captive and want to keep it in-house. It also suggests tacit thinking: their bluegreen MPs are dogs who need to be kept in their kennels, rather than be allowed to roam freely in public.
This all paints a picture in which establishment politics has successfully marginalised both political wings of the Green movement. Since the public, as revealed in the new poll, is 80% behind authentic environmentalism, the political arena is wide open for centrist political representation.
Vernon reckons the time is right. People seem to feel the same, but we ought not to discount the gate-keeper effect of MMP. Getting a new party through the gate already clogged up with other parties can only succeed if voters see it as a better option and switch their support. One leader can’t achieve that result: authenticity requires a genuine convergence of political activists from the margins. No sign of that yet.
I would be tempted to support a Blue-Green party if they genuinely searched for market based solutions to environmental issues.
Bit like searching for an oasis in the desert, eh? There, alright, but always real hard to find. If it was easy, environmental problems wouldn’t persist.
“market based solutions to environmental issues.”
Can you give an example of one such solution, Gosman?
Gosman?
Robert G
As a non-market solution to trees needing water in a drought, I have a street tree with tap root apparently – liquidamber, with a lot of grass around it, and also a decorative plum prunus cerasifera nigra I think.
Now would it be good and useful to the tree to carry a 10 litre bucket of water and splash it round about 1 metre from the trunk each day? It’s been dry here for a while and the recent high winds have been getting warmer.
If I just did the above daily would that help the trees or would I be wasting my time?
Hi Greywarshark. How big/old are the trees? If they are young (1 or 2 years) then hand-watering is a good option. Often the grass will be affecting the availability of water and nutrient to the tree, so carefully (no weed-whackers, ever!) removing the live grass will help – lay it down as mulch. If the tree is well established and showing signs of stress from drought, the chances of saving it with buckets of water are reduced, but you’ll probably enjoy the activity anyway and it could help. Often, amenity trees are poorly planted and have distorted roots, so it’s difficult to really know what’s going on down there.
Or the tree should be left to die and the precious water used for something more appropriate. Not all tress are good in every location they exist.
And still the administrators of this blog allow gosman to continue to troll.
Why is that te reo putake, LPrent?
After all te reo putake, you set a precedent with banning Ed you know.
Why is that a Troll? That is a valid environmental question. If you have a scarce resource such as water you have to make decisions on the best use of it. In some circumstances giving it to a tree might not make sense.
+10000000 the market based Green Party comment is worth a year long ban…trolling par excellence
Why?
Is Gosman breaking the Rules as set out in the “Policy” for TS?
Or is he actually within the Rules in putting up “dissenting views” and participating in “reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints”?
IE “We encourage robust debate and we’re tolerant of dissenting views. But this site run for reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints and we intend to keep it operating that way.”
Is Gosman making “pointless personal attacks”, or commenting in a “tone or language that has the effect of excluding others”?
IE “What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others.”
Is Gosman continuing a flame war “where there is little discussion or debate”?
IE “We are intolerant of people starting or continuing flamewars where there is little discussion or debate.”
Is Gosman making assertions that he/she is unable to substantiate with some proof?
Is Gosman unable/refusing to argue when requested to do so?
IE “We are intolerant of people starting or continuing flamewars where there is little discussion or debate. This includes making assertions that you are unable to substantiate with some proof (and that doesn’t mean endless links to unsubstantial authorities) or even argue when requested to do so”
Hint – what about Gosman’s comment at 2.1.2.3 below.
Now I don’t often agree with Gosman’s comments, but my perceptions/opinion of his behaviour here is that, for the most part, Gosman actually complies with the TS rules above – much more so that the (many) commenters who have and continue to:
— Call for Gosman to be him banned ( “using language that has the effect of excluding others”)
— Make personal attacks, derogatory or snide personal remarks about him/her, attack the messenger not the message (“pointless personal attacks”).
etc, etc.
‘
Ta I’ll give it a try Robert. The amenity tree liquidamber, is large well established growing on a berm, swale-style. The prunus is old but lovely, so will take out the yarrow that I mistakenly planted, I don’t want more large roots to go with the bindweed, what a dope I am. That should give the old lady a bit of a boost.
https://www.edf.org/approach/markets
“Case study: acid rain
Problem: Sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants was creating harmful acid rain several decades ago. Traditional regulation would have simply directed every plant owner to cut pollution by a specific amount in a specific way, an expensive and often ineffective solution.
Solution: Our experts proposed a cap-and-trade approach that required overall sulfur emissions be cut in half, but would let each company decide how to do it. Power plants that cut their pollution more than required could sell the extra allowances.
Outcome: Cap and trade was so effective and affordable that The Economist magazine called it the “greatest green success story of the decade.”
“
Meanwhile in the real world,it is not as simple ie it increased surface radiation.
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/group/climate-and-water-cycle/research/radiation-and-the-hydrological-cycle/global-dimming-and-brightening.html
and increased methane in the atmosphere.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2005GL022544
The Right loves talking about the so-called free market. While on paper this utopia of the free market system seems to make sense in the real world it does not.
A free market in order to work as they claim it should requires all those involved to deal fairly with each other and everyone to have equal negotiation power. However, in the real world, it falls over very fast as greedy people always find ways to manipulate the market in their favor.
Some business people who claim to be for the free market, for example, use their power to force workers to take crappy deals to keep their jobs and when they attempt to unionize to give them equal negotiating power to get their fair market share of the profits they are suddenly no longer for a free and fair market and try and break the unions.
The current non-free market cannot find a solution to solving environmental issues as it would require the greedy to spend a tiny bit of their profits to prevent pollution.
There are a lot of solutions out there right now that will work, but because they require extra money to be spent they choose to ignore them.
That’s easy enough. Simply charge polluters for the cost of cleaning up just as was done with SOX/NOX emissions in the 1980s
Any political party genuinely interested in environmemtal sustainability would be fabulous,
Fabulous: having no basis in reality; mythical.
“fabulous creatures”
synonyms: mythical, legendary, mythic, mythological, fabled, folkloric, fairy-tale, heroic, traditional; More
He hasn’t a clue, Robert. You’re wasting your time trying to argue in good faith with him.
Have you listened to this Morrissey?
It’s an excellent interview with Laith Marouf by Eva Bartlett on the history and current state in the Middle East. Particularly how the Kurds got to be Syrian citizens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB_GcVLRJTQ&feature=youtu.be
Gosman don’t listen to this, it’s way beyond your intellect.
Thanks robert , looks like “fabulous” is the correct word then at this time. Altho i think i intended “welcome”
Yes but the Maori party sounded great at the time, but sadly hijacked for a “seat at the table” mentality. Now Maori seem worse off in terms of homelessness and wages and conditions post the near decade of support the Maori party gave to the Natz, which also destroyed and divided the Maori/party in reality as well.
The party The Maori party most served was the National party, it helped take down the Mana party which was a lot more focused on raising poverty standards and genuine treaty issues for Maori.
I’d say the Green Party are already too close to the National party, and it’s taking down their voter support along with their tenancy to go woke left as well as intentionally or unintentionally supporting the right, so I don’t necessarily think that another Green Party allied to the Natz is going to help the environment, more like have an outcome like the Maori party.
Well when you have an idiot as a leader (Fox) who supports screwing up the RMA what chance do u have?
The biggest 3rd party can often play Queen maker
so well worth the Greens looking to add to it’s vote.
Green/Red, Green/Blue, Green/Old Fartz NZF, Green/Brown, or Green /young?
Do the research, get the stats find two photogenic articulate spin doctors
and hit the hustings I mean FB,Snap Chat and E-Mail.
Don’t forget to tick, share,and subscribe.
Idiot/Savant looks at the issue of an “astroturf” party.:
“National has no friends, leaving them with an obvious problem in the MMP coalition game next election. Their solution? To simply create one:
…
The problem: if they do, then its a clear signal that the party isn’t really green. Because National’s policies of supporting the dairy, oil and trucking industries, sucking the rivers dry, and dragging their feet on climate change in the name of “balance” with economic growth are inherently anti-environment, and any environmentally-minded voter can see that. Which makes their “BlueGreen” astroturf idea laughable – the only people it convinces are people who don’t understand environmental issues at all. But like Colin Craig, Kim Dotcom and Gareth Morgan, they probably think they can simply throw money at the problem and buy the votes they need, with a fallback of hoping to buy enough votes away from the actual Green Party to drive them out of Parliament – a deeply undemocratic goal. But unlike National, I think environmentally-minded voters are smart enough not to fall for it.”
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2019/01/an-astroturf-party.html
I suspect it will mostly grab existing NAct voters – certainly won’t take many Green voters.
Plus maybe a few rightish Labour voters – this is probably the biggest risk to a left-side coalition.
Are you stating that there are not Green voters who would be swayed by a political party willing to work across the political divide to solve environmental problems?
There are very few Green voters who won’t be able to see straight through a green-painted puppet of the National Party.
The trouble is you would think ANY political party willing to work with National is a puppet. Take off your ideological blinkers for one second and try and look at the situation with the minimal of bias.
How many parties that worked with National are still alive and kicking?
so like a child the National party uses others for play time and when broken goes to find a new toy.
So yeah, generally speaking any Party willing to work with National, especially one created to work with National, is a Puppet.
The same can be stated for Labour. Where is the Alliance? Where is United Future (a Labour partner as much as National). NZ First disappeared from Parliament after the last time it was in coalition with Labour. Look what is happening to The Greens now.
troll
See my reply to your other similar (unnumbered) comment further up thread a couple under 2.1.2.2.1.
I wonder how they’ll respond to challenges over any policies or principles they might profess. Environmentalists are well practiced at arguing these issues, centrists and right wingers, not so much, beyond their narrow range. “Off-setting” would be a good example.
How is “Off-setting” a good example?
A good example of the Right’s approach to conserving natural taonga. Turn it into money, wreck it, buy something somewhere else that fits your own model of what’s valuable.
You haven’t explained how “Off-setting” is bad beyond your emotive dislike of it. I have yet to see anybody argue that “Off-setting” should be used in all circumstances to deal with every environmental concern. It is merely one of multiple tools that could be employed. I am pretty sure you don’t have an issue with the principle behind it either.
Gosman – what is it about my explanation for the failings of the off-set model described at 10:14 don’t you understand to be bad? My dislike of it, is not based on emotion; I’ve had close associations with the process and weighed up the reality of it carefully. It’s typical of the Right’s approach to environmental management and it’s a fail, imo.
You have not explained why. You objection does seem to be based purely on your emotional dislike of the ideology behind it rather than whether it works or not. If it was based on some actual facts showing that it doesn’t work (i.e. it makes the overall environmental problem worse) then you have a valid argument against it.
My argument is, Gosman, that something like a pristine river can be damned/dammed if the dammers pay for the creation of a kiwi sanctuary elsewhere. That is, the river is lost. Gone. Environmental loss, right there. Not emotive, actual.
Where is this proposal to build a Kiwi sanctuary to enable a river to have a dam to be built on it? That generally is not how a proper “Off-setting” scheme works anyway.
“something like” was to indicate a theoretical example.
What is your understanding of “off setting” Gosman?
In any case, off setting, as proposed by Right wingers, is just one of many examples where the Right ideology (everything has a price!) exemplifies the narrow range the Right makes decisions from on environmental matters – my original claim.
troll
You could be very wrong there.
You wont get the far left nutters, but you will get some of the more rational people who like to vote for the enviornment.
When you are just hovering above 5% you wouldn’t want to lose many.
esp with NZ first under 5%.
Hell – Labour could lose all their friends after just one term.
And national could split itself apart into two ~20% parties.
Two can play “coulds”.
Yes, that possibility is what will be deterring those in the know. If their market research has established the likelihood. From a design perspective, they have to ensure the split is more like 35:10.
That was implied in my suggestion re Bridges & Nat caucus endorsement. They ought to brainstorm the design then create consensus. Just enough front-people to pull the bluegreens over the threshold, up to a comfortable margin. At least two sitting MPs with centrist street cred and safe seats should suffice.
He’s not the only one to get it wrong. Here’s what the bomber thinks: “There’s no actual electorate here for Blue Greens so getting to 5% is a total pipe dream.” https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/01/27/vernon-tava-blue-green-fantasy-shows-how-desperate-national-are-becoming/
But Tava is not actually proclaiming the bluegreen brand. Leftist misrepresentation is a ruse to lead observers astray.
“Blue Greens will fail to get any electorate traction at all and I support National wasting energy on this bullshit as it will only eat into National’s voter base without any representation.” Bridges hasn’t endorsed use of the bluegreen brand, has he? Bradbury’s kool-aid intake must’ve gone over the limit.
“The only purpose for running Blue Greens is as a spoiler to the actual Greens who will face a strong challenge again from TOP and with the additional syphoning off by Blue Greens would see the Greens slip beneath 5%.”
Now there he actually makes a very good point. Splitting the centrist vote defeats the centrist cause, so both tribes within the GP could lose big.
And “global warming and the catastrophes it’s bringing will demand radical policy responses”. True. Does this mean the GP will go radical? Of course not. Democracy will always marginalise radicals. That’s why it’s a prescription for disaster.
I suspect there probably is room for a socially and economically centrist, environmentally focused party. I’m aware of more than a few voters that can relate to the likes of Kennedy Graham and David Clendon, but can’t swallow the idea of voting for a party whose public profile is as much about reclaiming the c-word or promoting the crap Sue Kedgley was into, as it is about environmental issues.
These are people that enjoy spending time in the outdoors, can see and are distressed by the damage currently being done and want to turn it around. Sneering comments like ” … don’t understand environmental issues at all” simply provokes a ‘fuck you very much’ in return.
“These are people that enjoy spending time in the outdoors, can see and are distressed by the damage currently being done and want to turn it around”
Farmers? Operators of earth moving machinery? Hunters?
Listening to Minister Mahuta on RNZ drone on about water industry and regulation reform, looks like the most she will achieve in a term is slightly stronger drinking water standards some time after the election – once she puts up her Cabinet paper mid this year.
In reality there will be nothing that gets the critical issues of
– water and wastewater pricing regulation,
– system amalgamation, state capex subsidy, or
– the kind of either regulatory approach to networks seen in the Electricity Authority over our electricity generators, or
– the full core+subsidy approach that extends over the New Zealand land transport network through NZTA.
Nothing from Mahuta this morning told us we will see effective action about water.
The weakness in this cabinet to regulate is pretty apparent in water.
“National leader Simon Bridges says he retains confidence in Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie and she won’t be stood down, despite a police investigation into a message sent from her phone to Jami-Lee Ross.
But he said he does not condone her behaviour, in relation to the text in question.”
Tells us two things:
Bridges is a weak leader who would have demanded a “stand down” at least, if it was the other way round.
That Dowie did send the message.
Bridges is an appaling poitical operator imo. He is wrecking the gnats, just him. Funny as hell.
Paula’s warming up her engines as we speak.
The engines are currently idling on an eco-friendly fuel mix of botulinum and ethanol produced from a load of rotting old spuds with a heavy dose of colagen in the sump to keep everything all greased up.
And the only problem they’ve yet to overcome is the potential for being charged with ‘sustained loss of traction’
“Bridges retains confidence”.
So when Dowie steps down in the near future
she can say “although I retained support of my colleagues
I believe it is best I step aside”.
This will make it easier for the Nat’s to win any by- election.
Spin spin spin.
NB.
News caster ends with
“Dowie does not rule out a return to politics
at some time in the future”
Heatwave, it’s been warm in Motueka.
What are your tips for keeping cool in the heat?
Have been opening up the house at night, then getting up before the sun and closing all the windows, curtains etc to keep out the sun.
Blenheim 33 degrees at moment Cinny. As kids we used to revel in very hot summers but now not so much fun. The washing on the line dried almost instantly though.
Overhead sun doesn’t reach inside much but doors windows wide open and a stiff gutsy gusty norwester keeps the air moving. Refuse the use of an air conditioner.
Whanganui 37c degrees here today
Cinny in Australia one household I know of, puts 8 cool packs in the freezer to be used if a household member becomes heat stressed, wrapped, placed on head and back.
Also four milk bottles in freezer. Place two at at a time in front of a fan so air blows across them.
Make fruit juice and cordial iceblocks/popcicles
DRINK PLENTY, a pinch of salt and sugar help quickly replace lost sweat.
Fill the bath with cold water, sit in it for ten minutes before bed.
Wear pure cotton or lawn. Cheers. Not everyone has aircon, or even power goes down for a while sometimes
The so called “new” idea about a cooler using the simple evaporation of water works OK. We had a little porous concrete one 60 plus years ago to keep the butter cool.
A soaking wet towel near the breeze or a fan would work.
I would tell my kids to get the water off their swimming skins as the change of state water to gas, is what chills them.
Yes, Ian, did you hear about how our soldiers kept beer cool in the desert during WWII? Wrapped in a wet towel suspended from a line in blazing sunshine, apparently. Actually, did they really get a beer ration from the powers that be or was that an urban legend? Maybe it was water…
Bags of frozen vegetables (eg peas) can also be used in place of cool packs for heat stress – and of course, sprained ankles etc. Better in fact than solid style cool packs as they ‘wrap’.
Sssshhh – not PC these days, but Glad sell soft plastic ice block bags in packs of 8 (?) for just a couple of dollars where you fill a bag with tap water through a pocket which then self-seals and you end up with a wrapable ice pack for next to nothing. Not reuseable however, unless you use something else (peg?) to reseal the filling hole.
Not available in all supermarkets but if so, in the same part as sandwich bags etc.
VeutoviperThe cool packs are a gel and can be pushed around an ankle. yes frozen pea pks are a good old stand by.
patricia b
Something i remember from time in Oz – they tend to line bathroom and have on floor, ceramic tiles which tend to remain cold. Lying lightly clad on the floor, with damp towels over body, could be emergency cooling. Perhaps some soothing music to lower stress, and alleviate the discomfort, cold water for sipping.
Then there are the novelty caps with reservoirs of water and tubes to suck on, silly but they could save extreme heat stress. Can’t find much on google for these which i remember from decades ago. But coca Cola has come up with a simple? version. I would recommend having plastic disposable gloves though. Bit stupid not including these in the demonstration as nothing is ever as simple as you expect.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q50UL5LpeEo
Beer hats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swiqgxDolxw
(https://www.amazon.com/Bazaar-Hands-Beverage-Tubularis-Drinking/dp/B06X9FJ2J3
(https://www.ebay.com.au/b/Beer-Hat/155078/bn_72173313
Greywarshark, my brother and family used to sleep in the dining room on the tiled floor with the fan going. It was a regular thing in summer if the temperature got above 35 deg. It had a cathedral ceiling
Awesome tips everyone thanks for the advice and tips, much appreciated.
No air-con at ours, so this kind of info being shared is gold.
Thanks again.
Google diy swamp cooler for a bunch of ideas (if an article from that blathering idiot The Hosk appears, don’t bother with that one).
Swamp coolers really work a treat in dry areas, but if it’s humid heat they don’t do anything useful.
Window coverings stopping the heat getting in are good. Something on the outside works better than a curtain on the inside if there’s an easy way to put something there.
Private enterprise will look after us better than slack government – so the mantra goes. It is much more efficient to employ people in a just-in-time scenario? This is very hard on anyone wanting to have a life.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/insight/audio/2018679697/survival-mode-why-some-rural-emergency-services-are-under-threat
Prime is a 24/7 emergency medical service which relies on local doctors and nurses, who also have day jobs, as on-call contractors. The medics who are signed-up with Prime drop everything to attend call outs as and when they arise.
For rural communities, it’s a lifeline.
Dr Creegan was a Prime doctor on isolated Great Barrier Island before moving to Waimate in South Canterbury, where she raised her family and established her practice while continuing her Prime work.
She’s one of three Prime responders in the practice covering the service.
“There’s a thing in the back of your mind all of the time that you’re on call. You just tuck it in and get on with it. But you go to sleep with that thought that you might be woken up in the night,” Dr Creegan said.
“You can’t go and have a swim without thinking that you’re away from your pager or your phone so you might need to ask someone to hold it for you and sing out to you, or you might just actually say ‘I’m going to go for a swim and I’m not going to worry about it for 20 minutes’. But then you’re going to look at your pager when you come back and if something’s come in that time, how are you going to feel?”
What planet are these people on if they think those paltry fines will act as a deterrent. Many of the migrants pay that just for the job in the first place! They should have a minimum $50k fine and increasing the more turnover the business has, then 10 times the amount undercharged paid back to the worker with a minimum of $25,000 and then be banned from employing migrant workers and defiantly not allowed to sponsor them permanantly! IF the employer is not a citizen they should be deported for illegal trading and not be allowed to become a resident here!
If businesses are still better off when they are caught underpaying or asking for money for the job, then what is the deterrent???
Probably costs more than that for the government to prosecute them, when you look at the lawyers fees and court costs! crazy!
Restaurant owner fined for poor treatment of migrant workers
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/381115/restaurant-owner-fined-for-poor-treatment-of-migrant-workers
No wonder places like Hawkes bay have high unemployment of local people and they have a rental crisis!
Allan Nairn: “I think someone like Mr. Abrams would
be a fit subject for such a Nuremberg-style inquiry.”
In March 1995, journalist Allan Nairn exposed how Elliott Abrams organized death squads in Guatemala. and confronted him on television.
Twenty-four years later, Abrams has yet to serve a day in prison for his crimes. Donald Trump has just appointed this terrible criminal “Special U.S. Envoy to Venezuela.”
He sounds like a real peach of a guy morry. Maybe the Venezuelans should apply for his extradition.
Sounds like the KiwiBuild boss who resigned had trouble with the inertia of the Housing department team he was transferred to – and his previous strong record across multiple jobs supports that: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12197474
What’s Crispy’s track record like.
Looks OK on paper as well. Someone may know.
Here is an article from Dec 2018 with a short bio for Andrew Crisp and the SSC press release on which it is based:
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/97196/andrew-crisp-appointed-ceo-new-ministry-housing-and-urban-development-responsible
http://www.ssc.govt.nz/chief-executive-ministry-housing-and-urban-development-appointed
And here is a 2016 one which gives a little more about his earlier Public Service career.
https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/andrew-crisp-appointed-linz-chief-executive-195920
I actually worked with/for Andrew briefly in his Department of Labour days back in the early 2000s and also had dealings with him when he was at Treasury. I always found him excellent (and easy) to work for and with. I consider him someone with integrity, very intelligent but down to earth, a good team player who worked to bring people along with him. Haven’t seen him for years but I doubt he has changed much over the yearsin those respects.
Thank you. Must have been quite the clash in styles then.
Probably from a quick read of the articles today. Crisp has previous ‘form’ in cleaning up similar messy CE situations. Exactly what he was doing when I worked under him. LOL. I mean “form” in the best of meanings . He was/ hopefully still is, top notch in that regard/role.
And Barclay has form for badmouthing after leaving a role:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1901/S00241/housing-ministry-head-hints-he-acted-against-barclay.htm
‘Nuff said.
https://twitter.com/tina_plunkett/status/1089658011377790976
They deployed a trained killer. What could possibly go wrong?
New details in the case against a Navy SEAL charged with multiple war crimes emerged during a marathon hearing this week at Naval Base San Diego.
Friday’s hearing revealed that seven Navy SEALs have been granted immunity to testify for the prosecution during the upcoming trial of Edward R. Gallagher, a chief special warfare operator alleged to have murdered a wounded teenage Islamic State combatant by stabbing him in the neck.
[…]
Witnesses told investigators that Gallagher boasted of killing up to 200 people during the 2017 deployment. Another witness said Gallagher told him he killed “three a day” and to “do the math” for the total number he killed.
[…]
Prosecutors said the incident began May 3, 2017, with a drone strike and two Hellfire missiles hitting two sides of a home in Mosul. Witness statements conflict about whether the injured Islamic State fighter was inside the home when it was struck. The prosecution says he was, but the defense said their witnesses say he was injured by gunfire, not the drone strike. Both sides agree that Iraqi forces loaded the combatant onto the hood of a Humvee and delivered him to Gallagher’s team. Gallagher, a medic, began treating him.
Prosecutors say Gallagher stabbed the fighter, estimated to be between 15 and 17 years old. Gallagher also is accused of posing for photos with the corpse, operating a drone over it and, sometime later, celebrating his reenlistment next to it.
[…]
In unrelated incidents, Gallagher is charged with shooting two civilians — an old man and a little girl — and with shooting indiscriminately at civilians throughout his deployment.
One witness told investigators Gallagher told him it was “OK to shoot at women.”
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-seals-granted-immunity-in-murder-trial-20190126-story.html
This could be the subject of an interesting fast paced scam novel. From 2016 but part of our interesting development as we tried to be the sleazy Switzerland or offshore haven for those with hot money, perhaps hot from being passed around so quickly; too much friction.
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/81725/nelsons-stock-exchange-big-ponzi-scheme-and-other-tales-john-keys-offshore-financial
A foreign exchange business that looks and smells like a Ponzi scheme targeting Malaysians, a Nelson-based global stock exchange, a warning from the Czech Republic’s central bank, a fantasist, and curious French-Latvian connections all have one thing in common. New Zealand registered financial service providers.
While the NZ government looks, albeit unenthusiastically, at changing foreign trust laws in the wake of the Panama Papers, here’s a reminder the country’s international reputation is being degraded by more than just Mossack Fonseca and foreign trusts. This statement is based on our probe of just a handful of NZ registered financial service providers.