Would like to know more about rotting and dangerous hospitals that came to be like this under Nationals watch. Why am I having to put up with all this crap about Curran and Hirschfield? Listening to the Esp and Melissa Lee now. Tedious.Espiner beating it up like crazy.
Yes, they should give the Nats labour and NZ Firsts questions too to ensure they spend 100 percent of their time explaining and losing.
I fear this government is under delivering for the left and nowhere near cynical enough about the media. They are being eaten slowly.
Labour so far are underachieving at being a “warm, caring, “inclusive” gentle, transparent government as jacinda promised us, as she fought the election by saying this at her town hall speech but we still await for this and achieve these promises.
It appears the MP,s inside her caucus is letting her down as we saw happen with Donald Ttrump also but trump removed “ineffective politicians” and now surprisingly his approval rating in a poll today was at 42% and the report says this is a string signal he is being now accepted by the voters.
Perhaps Jacinda needs to have a crisis meeting with her caucus and play back her first speech at Auckland’s town hall at the start of her election time and tell her ministers to listen to her speech every day before parliament and honour her promises we voted for?
New ministers in a new government always make these small basic mistakes.
You could see even Bridges fluffing his responses to questions, making basic mistakes in his early days. As hes on a steep learning curve for his new job.
I remember Joyces parting comments when asked recently about the ‘things that went wrong’- he was being truthfull when he said ‘Most you dont hear about’
Its war without guns…and an unequal struggle at that…all governments are prone to errors.
What are the differences between this and the previous admin that are concerning power?
Nobody said democracy would be easy, in fact it would appear from disengagement levels that it is becoming too difficult for many but even so it remains the best of a range of poor options.
Nobody said democracy would be easy, in fact it would appear from disengagement levels that it is becoming too difficult for many but even so it remains the best of a range of poor options.
This assumes that we have a democracy rather than an elected dictatorship that resembles the oligarchy of the US.
Radio New Zealand
NEW ZEALAND
27 Mar 2018
Carol Hirschfeld resigns over meeting minister: ‘There are serious questions here’
1:37 pm on 27 March 2018
This was definitely a ‘parting attack’ by Steven joyce as he today says goodbye in parliament.
The timing was staged here, and this flurry from the right wing news hub breakfast show host Duncan Garner just laid it on so heavy in today’s breakfast show to confirm he was part of the plan to hit back at Carol Hirschfeld and RNZ at the same time just to raise the ratings for TV3-newshub you can bet.
The top man CEO of RNZ is a National plant and needs to be shoved under the bus as does the head of the board of RNZ Richard Griffin.
Seriously, labour need to review all the appointments National made to boards, ministries etc as they have stacked them with sycophants who will try to bring down the government.
Correctly said there national have sacked every corner of government organisations with National “sycophants who will try to bring down the government”
Jacinda needs to do what David Langey did when he entered as a first time PM in 1984 as he went on a big hunt to remove all “impediments” when he went on “The great Qwango hunt” to remove biased groups and advisors/committees.
Jacinda needs to show ‘leadership’ and use her Caucus to do this now.
Yes , make strong positive changes, go on the front foot, or sit back and get creasebound with no runs on the board until your innings is over. God I hate cricket.
If Ardern even tries, watch the right-wingers cry foul over the importance of an impartial public service. But I agree… she should and, I believe, she must otherwise it’s a death by a thousand cuts.
The public service will play the coalition government with everything they’ve got. I’m already hearing word about information being withheld by senior civil servants from their Ministers – can’t verify it yet though.
Steven Joyce using MBIE “employment rules’ was behind all the funding cuts to certain media platforms if they did not pull into line on ‘refraining from broadcasting negative issues of the National party – (we were tipped off )
But if labour tried this the right wing would howl wouldn’t they now?
I would expect her caucus (Jacindas) is busy doing just that cleangreen but all this takes time. Firstly they need to do full reviews of everything as you cant trust the previous government.
Some of those national sycophants you refer to will be protected for now with employment agreements and contracts. Some of these agreements will lock them in for years and some would have been purposely signed just before the election so it will take some time to get rid of these sycophants.
Correct. The idea of a non-politicised public service is dead and buried.
It is long past the time that alongside their party list political parties published a list of senior government appointments where they will be replacing person X with person Y, similar to the way a whole list of Republicans give way to Democrats and vice versa in the USA.
By examining such a list, by looking at who will be allowed to stay and who will be made to go and who will replace them, voters will be much better informed as to how radical an agenda a government actually wishes to enact when in power.
Look, the corporate media hate RNZ. The idea of a publically funded competitor doing real journalism and showing up their click bait bullshit drives them nuts and drives up their costs, because they have to employ journalists and do journalism to compete with RNZ. They are going to lay it on thick in this case to try and stop an extra 38 million going to public broadcasting.
This is the extent of Curran’s f**king idiocy – she has politicised RNZ’s funding and she has given powerful enemies of the governments policies a stick with which to beat a policy they hate, and they won’t need to be asked twice. The MSM loud-mouths Hosking, Garner, all of them will bay like the pack hunting bullies they are and milk this for all it is worth.
Why did she feel she had to go behind Griffin’s back? She’s the Minister, just call him in for what would be the first in a series of ‘tough conversations’. Explain the vision for RNZ, then explain why she doesn’t believe he’s the person to deliver it. Then ask him what he plans to do to convince her that he can. Let him fluff around for a while, then say “I don’t think this is working Richard”.
I agree but when we wrote to Clare Curran to discuss our public concerns with her CEO and staff including the chair, she wrote us saying the 1996 Broadcasting Act prevented her from getting involved in RNZ operations.
That is where the problem is as National have been allowed to keep their act current and labour must change it now.
Shall I place the letter from Clare curran we received on 15th February 2018 on this website now showing this anomaly ?
To have that kind of intestinal fortitude and leadership requires good chess moves.
This minister is sadly reactive not proactive. Her use of a supporter to “Find the lay of the land” has backfired badly. She should have asked them all to submit a written plan going forward.
Now she is fighting them alone. She’d better regroup quickly. Griffin is well named.
All she has done is “put them on notice” by her clumsy moves, and removed a friend at court.
Mycoplasma Bovis is set to cost the taxpayer via compensation and the whole package to stop further spread of this disease — $60M and counting.
Ok so how did this disease enter the country? With the Van Leeuwen dairy group being the 1st farms found infected, how/why were cattle still moved without testing? Why the initial secrecy as to which farms were infected so neighbors and other cattle buyers were not helping the spread? Why didn’t the National Govt/MPI hit this hard and prosecute transgressors hard?
Can we trust all the farm owners to be honest about their losses? We know some farmers are cruel to their animals which can sometimes result in the death of the animal. So these could now be lumped into the cull figures and at $1000-$2000 per animal it would be very tempting to slide those other ear tags into the mix.
#2
The media bs beatup over Clare Curran and Carol Hirschfeld.
Seems to be getting headline treatment and we even have opinion pieces front page from the likes of Brigitte Morten of all people……………… sigh!
Meanwhile the whole saga of Finlayson V Kim Dotcom slides awaaaaay……
Meanwhile the whole saga of rotting hospitals slides awaaaaay………..
Meanwhile the whole saga of willful neglect of infrastructure by National slides awaaaay…………
Labour needs to up their game in the whole PR battle, they’re currently getting a right shafting
You are doing a passable imitation of a right wing troll Cleangreen.
Why all the negativity? Governments take time to bed in and the media was always going to be against them. For me the Jacinda crew still represents a breath of fresh air after 9 repressive and regressive years.
Twyford’s housing announcement was good, with more to come.
The budget will reveal a change of direction from the old mob.
The whole sorry saga regarding the outing of the litany of lies told by the General and NZ Defense forces re the killing of civillians during Operation Burnham.
………………….. sliding awaaaay
1) after the disease was identified, the farms were locked down. Then MPI traced or tried to, every cattle movement off farm in the months preceding that and tested those “ new” herds. New positive farms also could not/ cannot move stock.
Re Mycoplasma Bovis, Minister of Agriculture, Damian O’Connor made a Ministerial Statement at the beginning of yesterday’s sitting of the House at 2pm to update the House on the action being taken to deal with this crisis. (No oral questions were requested/scheduled to be asked in Question Time on this subject.)
Responses to this Statement were then made by Nathan Guy (N), Winston Peters (NZF) and Gareth Hughes (G); followed by a further reply from O’Connor.
Here is the Hansard draft transcript of the above;
Videos can be also be watched on the Parliament website in the Watch/On Demand section. Here is just the first, O’Connor’s Statement. the rest are also in this section.
why are we paying for this rort (mico plasma bogus) and why did the gnats pay for indian dairy owners security when they didn’t give a stuff about many of our chch earthquake victims plight
We hear fuck all from MSM or even RNZ so they need to be an active investigative media as we used to have with “close-up, and other shows from the 2000-2005 time.
#2
The media bs beatup over Clare Curran and Carol Hirschfeld.
Seems to be getting headline treatment and we even have opinion pieces front page from the likes of Brigitte Morten of all people……………… sigh!
Meanwhile the whole saga of Finlayson V Kim Dotcom slides awaaaaay……
Meanwhile the whole saga of rotting hospitals slides awaaaaay………..
Meanwhile the whole saga of willful neglect of infrastructure by National slides awaaaay…………
Labour needs to up their game in the whole PR battle, they’re currently getting a right shafting
Reply
John up North 4.2
28 March 2018 at 9:30 am
Hah!
This one too!
The whole sorry saga regarding the outing of the litany of lies told by the General and NZ Defense forces re the killing of civilians during Operation Burnham.
True if you have the choice of having a “willing media to cover your matters that are occurring in our own backyards.”
As of today we on the east coast HB/Gisborne have been without a full time reporter on staff at RNZ to cover all our “matters that are occurring in our own backyards.”
See our story on 9.3.1.3
Oh good grief. Now we have the drip who just keeps dripping. Hosking just jumped on the bus breathing righteous hell fire and brimstone. I must say hes a tedious little bore.
The more I think about it, the more Clare Curran’s imbecility pisses me off.
The wrong person – as in, the competent one with integrity – has resigned. The moron who jacked up the meeting and then clumsily tried to hide it then threw Hirschfield under the bus survives. Government just got a little bit stupidier. I hope Hirschfield gets the press officer job going on the ninth floor.
Labour’s big plan for using RNZ as a counterweight to the knee-jerk right wing reaction of the corporate MSM is clearly being opposed by the right wing revanchists who oversee RNZ, and Curran’s complete idiocy as a minister has given round one to the reactionaries. I doubt it is fatal, Griffin is a goneburger in April anyway. But the political losses are much higher now.
How can a ‘competent one with integrity’ tell big fat lies about a meeting? Can you see the error that leads to your confusion on this point
It was in a very public place no need for a cover up about how it was arranged and even saying it was agreed for a place and time is small cheese , maybe just a telling off.
“I hope Hirschfield gets the press officer job going on the ninth floor.”
In the circumstances it would be the least Jacinda Ardern could do for Carol Hirschfeld – if she wants it of course. No matter what the official story turns out to be, it’s Carol who has been unfairly up-ended on this one.
She lied for months to her bosses and this lead to them misleading parliament. It’s hard to see how Labour could employ her at this time given that, and given that the lie involved one of their own Ministers and she was working for a govt broadcaster at the time.
I suspect she’s been shafted here, but we don’t know the full story. On the face of it, I can’t see how Labour could employ her with integrity. But then there’s not explaining why CC still has her Minister’s job.
My suspicion too. I am sure Carol Hirschfeld would have told Clare Curran at some point that she was going to have to tread carefully with her bosses – or something along those lines. So, surely Clare Curran could have borne that in mind with her subsequent utterings. From what I’ve read she appears to have done the opposite.
I’m sure I read somewhere he actually rang her which in my view is worse. Lee claims she was surprised at the call but thought it was probably a courtesy call. I suspect it was more a politically motivated call.
Griffin told the Herald he rang Lee at the same time the media statement was released as a matter of courtesy because she had asked a series of questions around the meeting.
I would like to know who he advised inside the government, and whether he personally rang them – as a matter of courtesy.
Griffin will not give a … whether he should or should not have called Melissa Lee – such niceties do not apply to Griffin in his mind. (He described employment law to me in those terms (niceties) many years ago.)
Melissa Lee has a question to Curran at Q11 today – “MELISSA LEE to the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media: On how many occasions has she met with Carol Hirschfeld since becoming Minister?”
However, I am pretty sure that Bridges asked the same question of the PM under Q2 – but was only half listening.
Griffin will not give a … whether he should or should not have called Melissa Lee – such niceties do not apply to Griffin in his mind. (He described employment law to me in those terms (niceties) many years ago.)
So he doesn’t give a [shit] about calling a member of the Opposition Nats and talking, but he fires Carol Hirschfeld for talking to the Minister.
And don’t lets quibble about the white lies Carol told because I suspect there was a good reason she felt she couldn’t tell him the truth and it would have gone beyond any RNZ protocol. Silver tongued bosses can be tyrants behind the scene. I’ve had first hand experience.
Griffin is a very slippery customer – no integrity, only expediency. And his days at RNZ are now very numbered – five weeks until 30 April. So he has nothing to lose – he will just throw every spanner he can find into the works.
As I said in 9.4 below, I fully understand why Herschfeld held off telling Griffin and Thompson that the meeting was pre-arranged – she knew it would be used against her by Griffin to get her out of RNZ. That is how he has operated in the past.
Clare Curran was out of the starting chogs after the election on her promise to begin a truly free of interference media platform RNZ+ commercial free of funding by corporates policy balanced media for public to use as their voice of the people.
Since then She has not even made the RNZ available to our NGO which is a community advocacy group available to us for media press releases from our NGO on maters that HB/Gisborne communities are concerned about.
Clare Curran has failed us in HB/Gisborne on the matter of our loss of our rail six years ago and since we all have made great strides to find a way to restore our rail service but we cant get our story told over RNZ so our public media is failing us.
Last month Government’s Regional Development team came to Gisborne to release the policy and Shane jones said he has not heard from any party about a rail plan and RNZ prevented us placing our case before him so again we say;
Clare Curran is failing us.
Read the story again please as it needs to be told by the media not just in a local rag.
February 27, 2018
gisborneherald.co.nz
COLUMN – Shafted by Eastland Group lobbyists
by Gillian Ward Published: February 27, 2018 2:14PM
Gillian Ward is Chairwoman of the Gisborne Rail Action Group
Re: Mixed Signals — Minister yet to receive strong case for Wairoa to Gisborne rail line, February 24 story.
The Minister actually has received a strong business case for reinstating the rail line between Wairoa and Gisborne. In response to his request in November, a proposal was delivered to him two weeks ago. So, it is very disappointing that in the national launch of the Provincial Growth Fund on Friday neither restoration, nor a feasibility study, was announced for the Wairoa-Gisborne railway line.
Rather than being let down because of the lack of a “strong case”, the Gisborne residents who have marched and signed a petition requesting that the government restore the rail line, and businesses who need rail to move their fresh produce to Napier’s export container port, have been shafted by a small handful of Gisborne business leaders.
These few people who should be representing the best interests of the region are instead conflicted. They are focused solely on the expansion plans of Eastland Port, and planning for large profits, and they have the ear of the politicians.
Rail freight of containers of fresh chilled produce destined for export from Napier’s container port will provide flexibility, be competitive, and offer security of freight transport with an additional land transport option for our isolated region. Huge container ships and multiple container cranes handle enormous stacks of containers at Napier Port’s deep-water port.
Eastland Port on the other hand has a totally different situation, being located in a silty river mouth, which is carefully dredged to attain the depth required for log ships, while minimising disturbance of sensitive marine habitats. There is much less capacity to handle containers.
Hon Shane Jones is aware of this conflict of interest, and although he has stated that, “There’s political will to back rail”, he would prefer that the community sort out our priorities, rather than the government imposing decisions.
Mayor Foon has stated that Gisborne needs all the transport modes — roads, rail, coastal shipping and air transport. The residents and business community have indicated, with a march of 2000 people led by Mayor Foon along Grey Street to the Railway Station in April 2012, a petition of 10,480 signatures presented by Mayor Foon to Hon Anne Tolley at Parliament in May 2012, fundraising $11,000 for BERL Economics to review KiwiRail’s May 2012 analysis of the economics of the railway line, public meetings, letters to the Gisborne Herald editor, articles in The Gisborne Herald, presentations to the District Council, as well as business case analyses of the commercial viability of the line, that reopening the railway line would be well-supported by the community and businesses.
It is a small city characteristic that influential leaders can be conflicted, wearing more than one “hat”, and the aspirations of the Gisborne community to restore our other land transport option have been well and truly undermined by a few people determined to scuttle these aspirations.
Gisborne had to campaign hard to be included in the Government’s national rail-building effort in the late 1920s. It was a hard-won battle and a challenging line to complete, but the rail line was opened in 1942 amid jubilation from the Gisborne community.
Now that we have the line, it is a gift from an earlier generation. The cost to repair the storm damage is minimal compared to the value of the asset. Imagine the cost to build a railway line through the Wharerata hills now!
Please Minister Jones, hear the voice of the Gisborne community and filter out the noise from the Eastland Group lobbyists!
Many here have extremely SHORT memories, the most important issues of the day haven’t even been mentioned, nada, yet this media driven nonsense of nothing is the highlight and even has a dedicated platform to discuss.
How many cows will be put down, and why
Finlayson’s debacle
Russian spies?
Oh, Aussies cheat, when they can.
And the bid one, Why are our Hospitals in such a poor state and how are we going to fix them?
I was being tongue in cheek on that suggestion last night. !. I don’t think Herschfeld would actually want that job – a thankless one and all consuming and pretty below her experience, and a teenage daughter to consider.
There is no way she could be appointed to that position now; or any similar position until a little time has passed to allow the dust to settle.
I gather that Herschfeld was really loving her job with RNZ and was looking forward to what seems to be ahead for RNZ etc. Given this but with Griffin as Chair and Thompson as CEO, I do actually understand her trying to maintain her position.
Re Curran, I believe that the PM is caught in a catch-22 situation at present, but that in the not too distant future we will see Curran out of that Ministerial role.
A change of Minister at this time could be disastrous. In the next few weeks, the Budget proposals in respect of RNZ+ and the other changes proposed to NZ on Air etc must be completed, (eg by mid-April).- together with the overall Budget. It is absolutely the worst time of the Government year to make changes to Ministerial appointments.
In that same time period decisions need to be made on the next Chair of the Board of RNZ. Hopefully this will not be to roll over Griffin, but to appoint someone else more aligned to the Labour Party campaign proposals on public service media.
In fact, the one good thing to come out of this situation might be the fact that it has brought into focus the distance between Griffin’s views and those of the new government.
After the last two years in HB/Gisborne being left without a local reporter (by National Government design) after the election I asked Clare curran to sack Paul Thompson over this and she refused.
I received a letter from Clare Curran that did not impress me.
Beaded git challenged me as to why I was so negative.4.1.1
I am tempted to place the letter on this social media site but will refrain for now but will say Clare Curran made great efforts to give a “legal interpretation as to why she cannot “influence the public broadcaster ” due to the 1996 RNZ broadcasting Act??????
Well Ms Curran said effectively that this toxic Act for not permitting any hands on by a minister of Broadcasting was set-up by the last round during the national Government in the 1990’s so why did labour never ever make this RNZ a more ‘independent media then??????
Now we still have National Party selected people like the CEO of RNZ Paul Thompson who is a National plant and needs to be shoved under the bus along with his partner RNZ Chair Richard Griffin and get some unbiased balanced minds to run the public media like Carol Hirschfeld is or Kim Kim is?
As a ‘old white man’ I am starting to believe with Julie Anne Genter over getting rid of the old dead wood.
I’ve never been impressed with Curran. Ardern is probably keen to keep her in place because of the Dunedin connection and as a woman minister.
Agree totally about Griffin and Thompson. These guys are probably on cast iron contracts. It takes time to change these things.
It is obvious the Right’s strategy is to make out that the Lab/Gr/Nzf coalition is incompetent. Granny Herald has its orders and is following them assiduously. Don’t buy into this.
Thanks for the understanding here as we have been shafted by these national Party planted Chair/CEO guys and it is up to Clare Curren to finally play tough with them or give the job to who ever will carry the peoples wishes for a free fair coverage of our local issues as we are frozon out of RNZ as of now and this is wrong.
Me too. I’m prepared to accept she may have had good intent, but the naivety just astounds me. Especially when she could have recalled the very tricks gNats used in order to stack the deck in the PS.
Probably half the Thordon bubble, most of MoBIE and other snr PS would have been showing off their ‘threads’ at the time.
Even worse if she thought this would be the perfect place for ‘a chance encounter’.
If she didn’t understand the gNats can’t stand CH (let alone her husband) and will seize ANY opprtunity (no matter how hypocrotical), I don’t think by now she ever will.
Over on TDB btw, Frank McSkasey puts in in a bit of perspective, but it’s a stretch if you think any of that will make a diff.
JACINDA (as someone else has suggested) needs to have a bit of a crisis meeting (in trendy language – a ‘war room’), and come up with something that is bold in each of the portfolios. RNZ+ doesn’t need to die in fact it could be the opportunity to go for something even better.
Similarly on matters such as the promises made re HCNZ that have been rolled back a little.
Similarly on matters such as the business of Immigration (so far, both I L-G and Chris FF are prepared to rely on the advice of ‘their officials – i.e. those having a vested interest in preserving a status quo) EVEN THOUGH no doubt, some of them are nice blokes
Similarly resolving the issue of worker exploitation and slavery (the manager of the Labour Indpectorate perfectly prepared to tell us all there are ‘sufficient’ numbers of Inspectors JUST BEFORE the last election.
Similarly ……… (health)
Similarly ……… (education)
Similarly ……… (infrastructure and NZTA’S wisdom)
AND no doubt other little gems of wisdom. I can well remember (for example) when some sage did away with a division called ‘treaty compliance’ in order to be more fishint n fektiv, then another sage who was part of Tau Henae’s Maori Dev Commisions who simply ( having access to a Minstry’s servers) simply went on to reword and recycle existing advice.
Btw….that sage went on to deprive prisoner’s right to vote.
I mean FFS…..EVEN Winnie’s bro (one of them at least), understood the magnitude of the problem.
I kind of despair really.
Jacinda: it really IS time to come up with something bold. These little tiny weeny steps and mis-steps are not going to cut it.
I realise that pholossphically you’re not into nastiness and you are into principle and being ‘nice’
BUT it really is time to understand (get yourself some learnings) the magnitude, intent, and volume of your opposition
I think the biggest problem is that the left do not really understand the lengths that the right will go to to hang on to their power – they suffer from the delusion that most people are decent, really.
20 years ago I was running a small building company – we got taken to the cleaners by developers and lost everything – home included. They used more dirty tricks than I could have believed possible a human could stoop to and in the end we just had to walk away. I tried to explain to my friends how it had happened and just got blank looks – no-one else I knew (apart from people in the building industry, many of whom had suffered similar treatment) could credit that behaviour that low could operate successfully in what they thought of as a civilised society. I just gave up trying to explain.
I think this attitude is still prevalent on the left, despite 30 years of neoliberalism providing plenty of evidence to the contrary. They persist in seeing many of the worst operators as mistaken but fundamentally decent, somewhere in there. Wrong!!!!
Well of course it did, but my real point was the naivety most of us have about the intentions and lack of ethics shown by the greedy and power hungry who will stop at nothing to get what they want. This government is being hit with a barrage of ghastliness now, and I’m not sure all (including Curran) have a real understanding of what’s coming at them
I think this attitude is still prevalent on the left, despite 30 years of neoliberalism providing plenty of evidence to the contrary. They persist in seeing many of the worst operators as mistaken but fundamentally decent, somewhere in there. Wrong!!!!
That is what many said about jhonkey and he lasted 3 term bullsheritng and lying his way out of everything and then finally he realised I’m one of the most hated men in new Zealand I better leave. Hooray!
I watched the TV3 late news last night.
They had a piece on the protesters at an Oil and Gas conference in Wellington.
The protesters were gaily piling up large heaps of material in order to block up all the emergency exit doors. That is how the TV announcer described it anyway.
About five minutes later we had a story about the fire at a shopping centre in Russia where at least 64 people were killed. They were unable to escape because the emergency exits were blocked.
I hope the New Zealand Police are collecting all the TV footage this morning so that they can identify and charge all those who were protesting at the conference and who were deliberately putting several hundred people’s lives in danger by blocking the doors. That is a very serious offence in my view and deserves a great deal more of a punishment than just a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
Any lawyer care to say what is the most serious offence they could be charged with and what a likely sentence might be? I presume that charges like wilfully endangering peoples lives exist?
Protesting is of course acceptable. What these protesters were doing is not.
I haven’t seen the footage. One would assume that the building owners did have normal fire safety plans. If the protestors were doing something dangerous that’s not ok, but I’m not going to assume alwyn is telling the truth on this. It’s possible that the protest organisers did have a strategy that included not putting people at risk if there was a fire.
They’re not my friends (do you really have to be such a dick?). I did watch it and I can’t tell if that is a fire exit or not. If it is, it was a stupid thing to do (as I have already said).
Oh. Not your friends? Fitzsimmons was in the crowd on one of the TV clips of the demo. and a friend told me he saw two of the current Green MPs there. I thought that was your preferred party.
I withdraw and apologise for trampling on you reputation for probity by linking you to that lot.
What lie did I tell about the exit?
If you are going to make such ridiculous accusations please be specific. Otherwise I can only assume you fit your own description of being a “sniveling little weasel child”
I am not trying to start a flame war. I am simply pointing out that you are making wild accusations with no evidence ever being produced to back them up.
Oh do grow up alwyn, your it’s ok to protest, then smug fake shrill is tiresome.
No one was hurt, except you. You got offended once again that your worldview is actually utter crap. So you make shit up to justify getting in a huffy.
My guess is you will take this as offencive, and well quite simply, it is. Your suppose to be offended. I get offended every time you spin lies to make yourself feel better.
I havent seen the footage, they have every right to protest but if they were blocking emergency exits that is incredibly dumb.
It doesn’t matter that no incident happened but they put people at potential risk by doing it.
Emergency exits are there for a reason.
Your issue is with Alwyn but if they did block emergency exits then that is wrong. Had something happened and I am sure a legal person here can answer what would the charge be.
I just watched the footage. It’s obviously a back door. Whether its an emergency exit as TV3 claim, I can’t tell. Don’t emergency exits have signs saying that is what they are and to not block them? If it is an emergency exit, I agree it was stupid.
And let’s not forget this is a conference that is either in denial of CC or doesn’t care. That’s not theoretic deaths from a potential accident, that’s actual deaths we are responsible for.
My justification for saying that is that you can go to google maps, search for “TSB Arena wellington”, click on “satellite” view instead of map, and zoom in until it goes to Streetview. You can actually see the door they were blocking on the south side of the building. No “fire exit” notices at all.
I hope your photo’s were more up to date than what I just had a look at. The date of the photos was given as being just over 3 years ago when I used your method. Things have been known to change after that long
I certainly hope they clean up their rubbish a little more often than that. What date do you get on your Streetview pictures?
Actually I shall be down there on Saturday. I might try and find the spot.
You can see the fire exit signs on the doors they were banging on, but the camera shot is too low to see if the door they were blocking had a similar sign (the signs on the doors were about half a foot above head height).
I’m not aware of too many conference venues that have single-width external-handled doors right next to a loading bay roller door as fire exits for auditoriums, though. Dicks found empty pallets next to the loading bay around the back, blocked a service door. Might or might not have been an official fire exit for kitchen staff – camera shot was too low to tell.
Yep, if you want an example of Stuart Nash’s mind set then this is an example. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11820250
Then again he and seven other Labour party MP’s also joined the block voting by NZ First and National to prevent a first reading of the Greens bill for cannabis reform, but hey published advocacy for corrections department inmates having no rights and inciting scalping must be a new low for a politician who now is the minister of police. Shame on him.
“No one was hurt, except you”.
I wasn’t there, so it wasn’t likely that I would be hurt anyway.
You have an interesting viewpoint though. Nobody was hurt so it’s all right.
Do you think it would work if I was to drive at 180 kph on the Motorway out of Wellington? When they post me the speeding ticket I can say that I didn’t actually have an accident so they should just drop the whole thing.
Do you think they will agree and nothing further will happen?
Like hell they will.
In the meantime why don’t you just lie down and have a little nap. You’ll no doubt feel ever so much better afterward.
Alternatively you don’t really have to read what I say. It isn’t compulsory you know and if it plays hell with your digestion you really shouldn’t bother.
I won’t be hurt by your ignoring my pearls of wisdom. After all I don’t really want to cast those pearls before swine.
It was a protest. It’s supposed to be disruptive and force a closure of the event, not just ask nicely if the people could just please have their conference somewhere else.
“It’s supposed to be disruptive and force a closure of the event”.
Of course it is. But do you really consider it to be acceptable to risk killing a few hundred people if things go wrong?
If that is OK perhaps they should have just set fire to the building. That would certainly have the effect you desire wouldn’t it?
As it is the people wouldn’t have even known that you might have put their lives at risk. Still, you don’t really appear to care.
“Nothing of importance was blocked”.
And just how do you determine that?
Are you really saying that TV3 were lying when they said Emergency exits were being blocked?
Or are you the one that is lying?
Considering the Police were between the protesters and the exits, do you hope said Policemen/women are also identified and charged with blocking the exits?
Please don’t pretend you care about the 64 or so people killed in the Siberian shopping centre fire.
“It isn’t a fire exit”
How did you determine that? It certainly seems to be such a certain viewpoint, even if it is somewhat hard to see why TV3 should deliberately get it wrong?
I was thinking of going down to the waterfront to see on Saturday but if you have already done that I won’t have to bother.
Read McFlocks answer up above. And if you can’t actually take the time to read what other people have said on somthing you post, then you really need to take the time to look at yourself and how you operate.
I did read it adam.
And I tried to look at Google maps to see for myself.
And I also replied to McFlock asking about what he saw.
If you look you will see it.
You see, and you would understand this if you had bothered to “actually take the time to read what other people have said”, that the photos I found were just over 3 years old.
Now, given that you seem only to happy to pontificate on the subject how do I find up to date images?
After all, if I thought that nothing changed in 3 years I would think that Russel Norman and Meteria Turei were still the leaders of the New Zealand Green Party.
Now, please tell me. How do I get reasonably current photos on Google?
Reclad the north, south and east elevations. The new cladding and paint will match the already re-painted west elevation of the TSB Bank Arena and Shed 6.
Remove the amphitheatre at the building’s south end to eliminate leaks and to revitalise this area which will link with the new Children’s Playground being built in Frank Kitts Park.
Remove all stair access to the uppermost deck areas on the south elevation improving safety in this area.
Remove tiles and leaky membrane on the balcony walkway and deck. They will be replaced with a new membrane and suspended tile system.
Replace the main egress stairs on the south elevation for improved water proofing details and non-slip surface.
The western and north sides of the TSB Bank Arena, home to Capital E and commercial tenants, do not need works done on the exterior façades.
I have no idea whether the building is the same as it was then. Why don’t you provide proof that it hasn’t?
I don’t really think that 3 year old photos would be particularly good evidence though. I assume McFlock had access to more recent ones. Otherwise I’m sure he would have told us about the age of the information in the photo. I would like to know how he gets more recent data than I could manage.
I’m sure he will enlighten me. He really is a reasonable fellow on these matters.
The multiple exits, they double as fire escapes, are used to disgorge a full house of 4k en masse for the after match dash into to Courtenay Place, Cuba St, etc.
The PEPANZ conference has about 500 attendees so it’s not as though a kerfuffle at the exits posed any risk to life and limb.
You appear to be the true rarity in this discussion. You actually know something about the topic.
A couple of very brief questions then.
Were the doors (or door) that TV3 showed having material being piled against emergency exits?
Was TV3 correct or making it up when they described them as Emergency exits?
Are they marked as being such doors?
The fact that everyone can normally get out through the main exits isn’t really the point is it? After all emergency exits are only meant to be used if the main ones are impassable for some reason and the last thing you want is for people to head toward such doors and then can’t get through them.
If they weren’t marked as such then TV3 were obviously wrong to describe them as being for emergency egress. If they were intended for such use they should never be blocked, regardless of how few people were actually in the room.
Also, there’s a longer shot in the three news piece that shows the ground outside the door being blocked. No paint indicating “keep clear”, as I’ve seen with other fire exits next to parking areas or places where goods are routinely stacked.
As you point out, there is a possibility that sometime in the last three years or whatever the museum identified a deficiency in their emergency signage and put a sign up that was just out of the 3news shot. Until you or some other Wellingtonian pops down to check, it does seem that if it is indeed a fire exit then there was nothing to indicate that to the people outside. Who were being dicks, yes, but possibly not the calibre of dicks that would serve tory purposes.
You made shit up alwyn and part of that was to accuse people, some of who have spent 40+ years activism promoting the rights and dignity of human beings. You accuse them of trying to kill people by blocking doors.
It’s a disgusting lie, manufactured to support you selfish world view. I hope you get that, but you probably keep whining like the Tory *&^% tard that you are.
It seems to me that Helen Clark is setting herself up as a self appointed mentor to Jacinda Ardern. To quote from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12021261 “Jacinda was let down. She should have been told. Immediately, actually. And then events would have taken a different course,” Clark said.
“And I cannot understand why she was not told. Unbelievable.”
Asked what she would have done if she had not been told, the former prime minister said: “If you get out the book and ask ‘what would Helen have done?’ … draw your own conclusions.”
Of course Helen has a wide range of policy options to offer, from Rogernomics to regarding the SAS as her private secret army hired out to the Americans to please them then giving refuge to queue jumping doubtful genuine refugees boat people from the Tampa to please the United Nations, all part of her resume for the job she wanted. Maybe she is just looking for another job, an ambassadors position perhaps.
I am now realising the memory of when National cried foul back some several years ago when they ordered the head of a maori TV network resign as he was found to be a labour Party member, so do you recall that hypocrisy?
Here we see national party ‘parachuted in’ heading RNZ now so we are truly fucked if national did this systematically by “installing their puppets all over government agencies now left to trip up labour every day?
Taurima wasn’t the head of a Maori TV network.
He was responsible for the production of Maori and Pacific Island programs at TVNZ. He was also a front man on Q&A.
He wasn’t forced to resign because he was a Labour Party member.
His problem was that he held Labour Party meetings and used TVNZ resources on TVNZ premises. That is an absolute no-no as TVNZ are required to be politically neutral. It was also TVNZ management, not the Government who told him he had to go. The then Government, correctly, kept well clear.
I suggest you read this which is a Law Firms interpretation of the rules for Public Servants in Election Year.
It shouldn’t take you more than a couple of days to get through it. I assume you have a friend who can tell you what the big words with more than two syllables mean. https://minterellison.co.nz/our-view/dos-and-donts-for-public-servants-in-election-year
Friend of Weka’s are you? She throws lying around with gay abandon too. Never does explain where it was supposed to have happened of course because I can, and do, demonstrate that it isn’t true.
However perhaps you have some reason for your drivel. What is it?
It doesn’t matter what Taurima was, the point is there is too many national sycophants in government jobs and others hierarchal positions why do you think it is so hard to make traction.
Interesting. Winston asked a question,(ruled out of order) which was it right that the Leader of the Opposition described himself as a Crown Prosecutor when he does not have such a Certificate ?
Naughty Simon.
“I am advised by the NZ SIS, and so has the Prime Minister been, that there is no individual here in New Zealand that fits the profile of those being expelled by other countries and that is people within the embassies in other countries. If there were, we would have taken action a long time before Salisbury.”
Peters said New Zealand’s Five Eyes security partners were consulted.
Opposition and Media condemn the action taken by the Government yet if Australia could find only two, it is no wonder that “”People in the Five Eyes have consulted with us on our decision, understand our decision, and did so before the decision was made.”
After the Prime Minister – citing MFAT advice yesterday – swore to the world that there were no Russian operatives in New Zealand, Winston Peters – using the far more appropriate SIS intelligence, just flatly contradicts her.
There is Russian intelligence activity in New Zealand, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has confirmed.
In answer to a question in Parliament today, Peters said: “The NZ SIS advise us it is aware of Russian intelligence activity in New Zealand and where it is seen, appropriate action is taken.
“I am advised by the NZ SIS, and so has the Prime Minister been, that there is no individual here in New Zealand that fits the profile of those being expelled by other countries and that is people within the embassies in other countries. If there were, we would have taken action a long time before Salisbury.”
Absurd hair-splitting.
Where the Fuck is DPMC coordinating intelligence and Ministerial briefings?
There is no walking this back. This is a briefing diasster that makes Ardern look like a total naive idiot to the world: The PM looks SparklePony, Minister FOreign Affairs looks like Realo, public service look like complete dorks.
Jesus Prime Minister start rolling out some pre-budget Good News. You look like a fucking idiot.
No, Ad. It is not “Absurb hair-splitting”. I don’t want to call you an idiot, but calm down.
The agreed approach to expelling Russian intelligence operatives is in respect of only one category of these – “undeclared intelligence staff (or agents)”.
Andrew Geddis on the Pundit Blog has done the best job I have ever seen of explaining this category of intelligence operatives. Here is the link and an excerpt:
(Sorry for the long quote but it is necessary to give the whole explanation)
And so the action that obviously was agreed behind the scenes was to kick out the “undeclared intelligence agents” that each country has identified as working out of its various Russian diplomatic posts. Exactly what is meant by an “undeclared intelligence agent” is then very important, as it is the key to why NZ acted (or, didn’t act) as it did.
An undeclared intelligence agent is not an ordinary diplomat who gathers gossip, monitors news media and attends cocktail functions in order to report to their government at home what is happening in NZ. All diplomats do this – our embassy staff overseas just as much as Russian embassy staff here. So “collecting information for your government” does not make someone an undeclared intelligence agent.
Instead, an undeclared intelligence agent is a member of a country’s secret service who pretends to be a diplomat in order to actually undertake covert operations in the country to which they are posted. They are really spies who are pretending to be diplomats so as to get the benefits of diplomatic immunity should they get caught spying.
Because these two things are not the same, they are not viewed the same in diplomatic interactions. A country kicking out a diplomat because they actually are an undeclared intelligence agent is a lesser deal than is kicking out a diplomat proper, because the “diplomat’s” country knows that they’ve basically been rumbled misusing their diplomatic privileges.
So, that’s the level of response that the UK’s various friends collectively decided was warranted – not kicking out “real” diplomats (which is a major step) but kicking out spies-in-diplomats-clothing (which is a lesser step). Which then is a problem for New Zealand.
Because it appears that we don’t have any Russian undeclared intelligence agents on hand to kick out. This claim has, I know, been met with ridicule by many. I mean, it’s Russia! We all know they spy all the time on everyone!! And New Zealand is so very, very important that they must spy on us, too!!! Please? We need the validation … .
Except – maybe there just aren’t any down here at the bottom of the world. And even if there is some undeclared intelligence agent kicking about in the Russian embassy, our SIS doesn’t know who it is. Nor do our overseas intelligence partners, apparently, because we asked them and they couldn’t finger anyone either.
I know that we have had Russian undeclared intelligence agents as defined above on occasions in the past and recall at least one instance when they have been expelled very publicly. I also know that there are times when it is in fact ‘useful’ to leave them in place in some instances. For example, to be able to expel them en masse as in the current situation to send a message.
The PM was pretty confused/confusing in her initial language, but she is probably on a steep learning curve. Peters obviously understands the situation with his longer experience – hence his explanation in the House yesterday under Question 8.
Note – was editing the para re Question 8 in the House near the end of the above but then ran out of time. Was editing this to say that Peters’ explanations were only slightly clearer and got lost in the ‘noise’ around the whole issue evident throughout this question. A minute or so in Peters seeks to clarify that expulsions were only being applied to ‘undeclared’ agents; and then later this:
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Far too late—we’ve been doing that from day one. But we want to make it very clear that what we’ve been challenged by, in terms of the Opposition and the media, is often demonstrably false. For example, 40 percent of the European Union, like New Zealand, have made no expulsions. But no, no—we hear from the media that the European Union has does this and so has everybody else. Well, in the end, Australia found two. We’re a much smaller country, and we haven’t found any yet inside the embassy in the way that, abroad, they did.
Blimey! Hooton’s putting the boot in. Touting a one term government under Ardern. What’s his problem? Apart from breathing. Is he not worried at all about the Health Scandal left behind Si Bridges Bestie Cut Your Spending Coleman. Does he not want to write something cutting about that. Plenty of material there. Far more dangerous and detrimental to sick helpless citizens than any of the lesser SCANDALS that he is so SCANDALISED! by.
The AM Show Duncan when one is the smallest tuna in te Waipu river one does not give A big tuna the pukana because all the other big tuna are pointing the finger at that tuna . The big picture is we are on our own side we show the world we are not puppets like our Nuclear free stance know.
After all one of the finger pointers is not going to say we will take your apples .
Wow Toyota changing there business model my dad can’t use a compute he will have to get the mokopunas to help him but good on Toyota for innervating to deliver more value to them and there customers.
I new the Media and the rest of the Papatuanuku world would blow the Australian Cricket incident up into hysterical hype thats why I’m saying drop it after they are human and I see a lot of cheating going on right in front of my eyes or can’t you see it Duncan.
World Vision has a good purpose but these charity’s need to become innovative teach the people how to become self sustainable with food and income there is a lot of ways this can be achieved innervation is a good thing Ka kite ano
The AM Show years ago when I was fishing out of Bluff we ended up with 12 dozen oysters each well they disappeared so I had only fish and scampi to take home.
I had my first surimi she could not believe that I had not had surimi before it was part of her cultures dishes it tasted very good with fresh fish and all .Ka kite ano.
P.S I like mountain oysters
(The mandatory preface) “so……” thanks SO much for having us JESSIE. STARDOM (as in the Jessie becomes the Afternoons. I mean I accept he’s probably the most gorgeous specimen that ever dwalked and could probably become the next Joolie Krusty eligible whatever.
Just as checkpoint could bcome the next ‘John campbell’ show.
Jesus…. they really don’t get it do they?
Frank(ly mcS)?…? They really don’t get it do they
PERHAPS they need a dose of an Aunt Daisy’s floor polish up their back passage.
Ekshully that’d be a bloody good cure for a ZB hosking and his bimbo bimbo where ya gonna goeeeoh.
( doubt even daddyo would risk his vintard trying to save ya)
Newshub Mike there you go our prison system are archaic ancient flogging horses for some political party’s used to stir up racial division just to get votes .
In a intelligent society both political party’s should listen to the humane advisors and change this system to one that educates the people and prepares them for employment and survival in a ever changing society . At the minute the prison system is a major hindrance on the people whom end up in its tentacles on there journey of life into a complete stop or reverse in there fortunes .
I look at the assets that the police displayed and confiscated from 25 people well one would find the value of those assets in one persons garage in a wealthy suburb and the price of the wealthy person House would cover the $2million dollars that was confiscated money from 25 people can you see the Hippocratic system . yes its good that the Drug PEE is taken off the streets but we need to teach these people that it is more profitable to get into a legal business than crime.
Ka kite ano .P.S my business would be flourishing if the sand flies were not defecating on it Kia Kaha
Newshub letts get this strait the only gang I have allegiance to is my mokopuna and my children’s future well being so if you hear any different disregard it as proper gander against ECO MAORI everyone that knows me knows this fact I still respect all though . Kia Kaha ka kite ano
The Crowd Goes Wild kia ora Wairangi Kopu staunch to League as you are I seen Tawera Nikau a few years back I was going to my lawyers office in Hamilton I just gave him the heads up .Yes many thanks to the NRL Australia for gifting the Warriors A Ladies League team ka pai why did you cut your hair ??????? Im thinking on growing mine and use my real first name my wairua is leading me in this direction I back all Teams as I am colour blind so I respect all I have my favourites .
But the kumra never tells how sweet it is Kai kaha Tana Ka kite ano
This is how state civil servants act after 9 years of shonky rule protect the money man at the expense of OUR beautiful Endangered Dolphins Maui there are only 80 left we should be pouring resources into saving these beautiful creates enough said here’s a link
Newshub there you go the first 3 story’s have a connection and that connection is Alcohol this drug does a lot of damage to Our society but so long as the big companies push this drug we will have a lot more carnage .
Yes boat people please keep our island wild life sanctuaries free from dangerous vermin rats stoats check your boats thoroughly as the animals and birds on these Islands are endangered .
I can remember not so long ago they were saying eggs dairy meat is bad for you what a sham to much of anything is bad for you coffee is in the lime light now Alcohol has cancer causing carcinogens to much Alcohol will kill you instantly why is this fact not advertised .
Kia ora Mike hope the weather is good. I wonder If someone has been putting a spin on things once again. How did the book go hopefully she sold out.
Ka kite ano
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In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
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 ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
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. ...
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 Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
The Ministry of Health has delayed the release of its evidence brief on the safety, reversibility and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for puberty blockers. While we wait, Julia de Bres speaks to those with firsthand experience. Best practice gender-affirming healthcare is based on trans people’s self-determination and agency. The ...
Barcelona’s city streets have gone from traffic-clogged to pedestrian-friendly. How? Superblocks. Ellen Rykers explains. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week I read a great interview with renowned urbanist Janette Sadik-Khan by The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus: “You can reimagine streets, ...
Student groups ‘Climate Action VUW’, Schools Strike 4 Climate and VUWSA will be on the street in Wellington today, the last day for submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill, with a message that the fight against the Government’s ‘War on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sofia Ammassari, Research Fellow, Griffith University Since 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity has grown exponentially – and so has the formidable organisational machine of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These two factors will be key to delivering the BJP a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Associate Professor of Education (Adjunct) & Senior Manager (BCE), Charles Sturt University During COVID almost all Australian students and their families experienced online learning. But while schools have long since gone back to in-person teaching, online learning has not gone ...
Yes, they’re better for the environment. No, that’s not a good enough reason for me to use them. Once every 26 days or so, my period arrives, and if struck by an act of God, I am caught red-crotched without products. How, after 17 years of this, do I still ...
“It will cause significant harm to our environment and communities. It is completely at odds with New Zealanders’ relationship with nature and our need for a low-carbon, sustainable economic future." ...
The Chair of the National Maori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, has warned a Parliamentary Select Committee that fast-tracking legislation is a perilous practice that undermines the core tenets of democracy, transparency, and accountability. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Tenbensel, Associate Professor, Health Policy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Since coming into power, the coalition government has adopted a simple but shrewd see-how-fast-we-can-move political strategy. However, in the health sector this need for speed entails ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Hronis, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Darya Sannikova/Pexels Whether you’re watching TV, attending a footy game, or eating a meal at your local pub, gambling is hard to escape. Although the rise of gambling is not unique to Australia, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Wong, Forrest Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia Have you ever wondered if there are more insects out at night than during the day? We set out to answer this question by combing through the scientific ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor, University of South Australia IR Stone/Shutterstock In Australia, it’s not the done thing to know – let alone ask – what our colleagues are paid. Yet, it’s easy to see how pay transparency can make pay ...
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is sounding a warning to migrants, that running foul of the law may see them leaving the country prematurely. ...
The government’s plan to get 50,000 people off jobseeker support by 2030 has had a rocky start, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Beneficiary numbers are up – and so are ...
Raglan Roast is a staple of Wellington coffee culture. But with five branches across the capital, which one is the best? I am a die-hard Raglan Roast fan. It’s consistently the most affordable cafe in Wellington, and one of the only places you can get a coffee after 3pm. So, ...
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Would like to know more about rotting and dangerous hospitals that came to be like this under Nationals watch. Why am I having to put up with all this crap about Curran and Hirschfield? Listening to the Esp and Melissa Lee now. Tedious.Espiner beating it up like crazy.
If the govt weren’t making stupid mistakes continuously you might get your wish.
Yes, they should give the Nats labour and NZ Firsts questions too to ensure they spend 100 percent of their time explaining and losing.
I fear this government is under delivering for the left and nowhere near cynical enough about the media. They are being eaten slowly.
Yes keep calm, carry on;
Labour so far are underachieving at being a “warm, caring, “inclusive” gentle, transparent government as jacinda promised us, as she fought the election by saying this at her town hall speech but we still await for this and achieve these promises.
It appears the MP,s inside her caucus is letting her down as we saw happen with Donald Ttrump also but trump removed “ineffective politicians” and now surprisingly his approval rating in a poll today was at 42% and the report says this is a string signal he is being now accepted by the voters.
Perhaps Jacinda needs to have a crisis meeting with her caucus and play back her first speech at Auckland’s town hall at the start of her election time and tell her ministers to listen to her speech every day before parliament and honour her promises we voted for?
I’m not sure you could compare Ardern to Trump in any manner whatsoever
New ministers in a new government always make these small basic mistakes.
You could see even Bridges fluffing his responses to questions, making basic mistakes in his early days. As hes on a steep learning curve for his new job.
I remember Joyces parting comments when asked recently about the ‘things that went wrong’- he was being truthfull when he said ‘Most you dont hear about’
Its war without guns…and an unequal struggle at that…all governments are prone to errors.
What are the differences between this and the previous admin that are concerning power?
Nobody said democracy would be easy, in fact it would appear from disengagement levels that it is becoming too difficult for many but even so it remains the best of a range of poor options.
This assumes that we have a democracy rather than an elected dictatorship that resembles the oligarchy of the US.
It assumes we have democracy insofar as it dosnt interfere with the pursuits of power
A good thread subject you started Ffloyd.
Cambo’s doing the hospital. Gyno gets the let’s not be accused of going easy on ourselves.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/353466/hirschfeld-resignation-there-are-serious-questions-here-bridges
Radio New Zealand
NEW ZEALAND
27 Mar 2018
Carol Hirschfeld resigns over meeting minister: ‘There are serious questions here’
1:37 pm on 27 March 2018
This was definitely a ‘parting attack’ by Steven joyce as he today says goodbye in parliament.
The timing was staged here, and this flurry from the right wing news hub breakfast show host Duncan Garner just laid it on so heavy in today’s breakfast show to confirm he was part of the plan to hit back at Carol Hirschfeld and RNZ at the same time just to raise the ratings for TV3-newshub you can bet.
The top man CEO of RNZ is a National plant and needs to be shoved under the bus as does the head of the board of RNZ Richard Griffin.
They should be replaced by Hirschfeld.
Seriously, labour need to review all the appointments National made to boards, ministries etc as they have stacked them with sycophants who will try to bring down the government.
Hootch
Correctly said there national have sacked every corner of government organisations with National “sycophants who will try to bring down the government”
Jacinda needs to do what David Langey did when he entered as a first time PM in 1984 as he went on a big hunt to remove all “impediments” when he went on “The great Qwango hunt” to remove biased groups and advisors/committees.
Jacinda needs to show ‘leadership’ and use her Caucus to do this now.
Yes , make strong positive changes, go on the front foot, or sit back and get creasebound with no runs on the board until your innings is over. God I hate cricket.
If Ardern even tries, watch the right-wingers cry foul over the importance of an impartial public service. But I agree… she should and, I believe, she must otherwise it’s a death by a thousand cuts.
The public service will play the coalition government with everything they’ve got. I’m already hearing word about information being withheld by senior civil servants from their Ministers – can’t verify it yet though.
Yes SM.
Steven Joyce using MBIE “employment rules’ was behind all the funding cuts to certain media platforms if they did not pull into line on ‘refraining from broadcasting negative issues of the National party – (we were tipped off )
But if labour tried this the right wing would howl wouldn’t they now?
I would expect her caucus (Jacindas) is busy doing just that cleangreen but all this takes time. Firstly they need to do full reviews of everything as you cant trust the previous government.
Some of those national sycophants you refer to will be protected for now with employment agreements and contracts. Some of these agreements will lock them in for years and some would have been purposely signed just before the election so it will take some time to get rid of these sycophants.
Correct. The idea of a non-politicised public service is dead and buried.
It is long past the time that alongside their party list political parties published a list of senior government appointments where they will be replacing person X with person Y, similar to the way a whole list of Republicans give way to Democrats and vice versa in the USA.
By examining such a list, by looking at who will be allowed to stay and who will be made to go and who will replace them, voters will be much better informed as to how radical an agenda a government actually wishes to enact when in power.
yeah because the united states is functioning so well at a bureaucratic level
Look, the corporate media hate RNZ. The idea of a publically funded competitor doing real journalism and showing up their click bait bullshit drives them nuts and drives up their costs, because they have to employ journalists and do journalism to compete with RNZ. They are going to lay it on thick in this case to try and stop an extra 38 million going to public broadcasting.
This is the extent of Curran’s f**king idiocy – she has politicised RNZ’s funding and she has given powerful enemies of the governments policies a stick with which to beat a policy they hate, and they won’t need to be asked twice. The MSM loud-mouths Hosking, Garner, all of them will bay like the pack hunting bullies they are and milk this for all it is worth.
Absolutely Sanctuary, a perfect summary.
1000% Curran has caused a huge problem.
Why did she feel she had to go behind Griffin’s back? She’s the Minister, just call him in for what would be the first in a series of ‘tough conversations’. Explain the vision for RNZ, then explain why she doesn’t believe he’s the person to deliver it. Then ask him what he plans to do to convince her that he can. Let him fluff around for a while, then say “I don’t think this is working Richard”.
AB
I agree but when we wrote to Clare Curran to discuss our public concerns with her CEO and staff including the chair, she wrote us saying the 1996 Broadcasting Act prevented her from getting involved in RNZ operations.
That is where the problem is as National have been allowed to keep their act current and labour must change it now.
Shall I place the letter from Clare curran we received on 15th February 2018 on this website now showing this anomaly ?
To have that kind of intestinal fortitude and leadership requires good chess moves.
This minister is sadly reactive not proactive. Her use of a supporter to “Find the lay of the land” has backfired badly. She should have asked them all to submit a written plan going forward.
Now she is fighting them alone. She’d better regroup quickly. Griffin is well named.
All she has done is “put them on notice” by her clumsy moves, and removed a friend at court.
100%
Things that have me thinking today.
Mycoplasma Bovis is set to cost the taxpayer via compensation and the whole package to stop further spread of this disease — $60M and counting.
Ok so how did this disease enter the country? With the Van Leeuwen dairy group being the 1st farms found infected, how/why were cattle still moved without testing? Why the initial secrecy as to which farms were infected so neighbors and other cattle buyers were not helping the spread? Why didn’t the National Govt/MPI hit this hard and prosecute transgressors hard?
Can we trust all the farm owners to be honest about their losses? We know some farmers are cruel to their animals which can sometimes result in the death of the animal. So these could now be lumped into the cull figures and at $1000-$2000 per animal it would be very tempting to slide those other ear tags into the mix.
#2
The media bs beatup over Clare Curran and Carol Hirschfeld.
Seems to be getting headline treatment and we even have opinion pieces front page from the likes of Brigitte Morten of all people……………… sigh!
Meanwhile the whole saga of Finlayson V Kim Dotcom slides awaaaaay……
Meanwhile the whole saga of rotting hospitals slides awaaaaay………..
Meanwhile the whole saga of willful neglect of infrastructure by National slides awaaaay…………
Labour needs to up their game in the whole PR battle, they’re currently getting a right shafting
Well said on #2 there John up North!!!
Labour are not good at PR at all and had better buy the best avaible help right now before their poll ratings sink.
#2
The media bs beatup over Clare Curran and Carol Hirschfeld.
Seems to be getting headline treatment and we even have opinion pieces front page from the likes of Brigitte Morten of all people……………… sigh!
Meanwhile the whole saga of Finlayson V Kim Dotcom slides awaaaaay……
Meanwhile the whole saga of rotting hospitals slides awaaaaay………..
Meanwhile the whole saga of willful neglect of infrastructure by National slides awaaaay…………
Labour needs to up their game in the whole PR battle, they’re currently getting a right shafting
You are doing a passable imitation of a right wing troll Cleangreen.
Why all the negativity? Governments take time to bed in and the media was always going to be against them. For me the Jacinda crew still represents a breath of fresh air after 9 repressive and regressive years.
Twyford’s housing announcement was good, with more to come.
The budget will reveal a change of direction from the old mob.
Just hang in there.
BG
My response on 9.5
Hah!
This one too!
The whole sorry saga regarding the outing of the litany of lies told by the General and NZ Defense forces re the killing of civillians during Operation Burnham.
………………….. sliding awaaaay
1) after the disease was identified, the farms were locked down. Then MPI traced or tried to, every cattle movement off farm in the months preceding that and tested those “ new” herds. New positive farms also could not/ cannot move stock.
Re Mycoplasma Bovis, Minister of Agriculture, Damian O’Connor made a Ministerial Statement at the beginning of yesterday’s sitting of the House at 2pm to update the House on the action being taken to deal with this crisis. (No oral questions were requested/scheduled to be asked in Question Time on this subject.)
Responses to this Statement were then made by Nathan Guy (N), Winston Peters (NZF) and Gareth Hughes (G); followed by a further reply from O’Connor.
Here is the Hansard draft transcript of the above;
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20180327_20180327_08
Videos can be also be watched on the Parliament website in the Watch/On Demand section. Here is just the first, O’Connor’s Statement. the rest are also in this section.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/WatchParliament/VideoDetail/198997
This issue has also been covered on most main media websites over the last few days. Just a few examples:
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/03/22-000-mycoplasma-bovis-infected-cattle-to-be-culled.html
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/102598044/more-than-22000-cattle-to-be-culled-to-stop-spread-of-mycoplasma
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/country/353409/mpi-calls-for-cull-of-22-000-m-bovis-infected-cattle
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12015937
why are we paying for this rort (mico plasma bogus) and why did the gnats pay for indian dairy owners security when they didn’t give a stuff about many of our chch earthquake victims plight
So right John,
We hear fuck all from MSM or even RNZ so they need to be an active investigative media as we used to have with “close-up, and other shows from the 2000-2005 time.
#2
The media bs beatup over Clare Curran and Carol Hirschfeld.
Seems to be getting headline treatment and we even have opinion pieces front page from the likes of Brigitte Morten of all people……………… sigh!
Meanwhile the whole saga of Finlayson V Kim Dotcom slides awaaaaay……
Meanwhile the whole saga of rotting hospitals slides awaaaaay………..
Meanwhile the whole saga of willful neglect of infrastructure by National slides awaaaay…………
Labour needs to up their game in the whole PR battle, they’re currently getting a right shafting
Reply
John up North 4.2
28 March 2018 at 9:30 am
Hah!
This one too!
The whole sorry saga regarding the outing of the litany of lies told by the General and NZ Defense forces re the killing of civilians during Operation Burnham.
The media are all over the Carol/Clare thing because they’re human. We all place emphasis on matters that are occurring in our own backyards.
100% David mac.
True if you have the choice of having a “willing media to cover your matters that are occurring in our own backyards.”
As of today we on the east coast HB/Gisborne have been without a full time reporter on staff at RNZ to cover all our “matters that are occurring in our own backyards.”
See our story on 9.3.1.3
Didn’t TEC parachute that dodgy VC into Lincn University’s perfect storm? [Trick comment…]
Oh good grief. Now we have the drip who just keeps dripping. Hosking just jumped on the bus breathing righteous hell fire and brimstone. I must say hes a tedious little bore.
The more I think about it, the more Clare Curran’s imbecility pisses me off.
The wrong person – as in, the competent one with integrity – has resigned. The moron who jacked up the meeting and then clumsily tried to hide it then threw Hirschfield under the bus survives. Government just got a little bit stupidier. I hope Hirschfield gets the press officer job going on the ninth floor.
Labour’s big plan for using RNZ as a counterweight to the knee-jerk right wing reaction of the corporate MSM is clearly being opposed by the right wing revanchists who oversee RNZ, and Curran’s complete idiocy as a minister has given round one to the reactionaries. I doubt it is fatal, Griffin is a goneburger in April anyway. But the political losses are much higher now.
What an idiot Curran is.
How can a ‘competent one with integrity’ tell big fat lies about a meeting? Can you see the error that leads to your confusion on this point
It was in a very public place no need for a cover up about how it was arranged and even saying it was agreed for a place and time is small cheese , maybe just a telling off.
Integrity isn’t being perfect. It’s also about what you do when you fuck up. This is a perfect side by side example.
Well, you’ve got a good point. Presumably Hirschfield was told by Curran she had her back.
Trusting a politician like Curran is naive in the extreme.
No one will trust Curran now. Her effectiveness as a minister is thus further diminished.
Yep. And I’m not even angry with CC, I’m looking at the Labour caucus and going wtf are you thinking?
“I hope Hirschfield gets the press officer job going on the ninth floor.”
Wouldn’t that be weird for her to get that job at this time all things considered?
“I hope Hirschfield gets the press officer job going on the ninth floor.”
In the circumstances it would be the least Jacinda Ardern could do for Carol Hirschfeld – if she wants it of course. No matter what the official story turns out to be, it’s Carol who has been unfairly up-ended on this one.
She lied for months to her bosses and this lead to them misleading parliament. It’s hard to see how Labour could employ her at this time given that, and given that the lie involved one of their own Ministers and she was working for a govt broadcaster at the time.
I suspect she’s been shafted here, but we don’t know the full story. On the face of it, I can’t see how Labour could employ her with integrity. But then there’s not explaining why CC still has her Minister’s job.
I suspect she’s been shafted here,…
My suspicion too. I am sure Carol Hirschfeld would have told Clare Curran at some point that she was going to have to tread carefully with her bosses – or something along those lines. So, surely Clare Curran could have borne that in mind with her subsequent utterings. From what I’ve read she appears to have done the opposite.
Well we now know that Griffin ( The chair of RNZ board) txted Nationals Melissa Lee to to give advance Warning of Caroles resignation.
Griffin should be sacked immediately ( yes he wasnt going to be reappointed in April) but you know ‘whats good for the Goose is good for the gander’
I’m sure I read somewhere he actually rang her which in my view is worse. Lee claims she was surprised at the call but thought it was probably a courtesy call. I suspect it was more a politically motivated call.
This. Because his first call should have been to his Minister. He should be sacked for this alone.
So much for novsurprises policy
Here is the item:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12021562
I would like to know who he advised inside the government, and whether he personally rang them – as a matter of courtesy.
Here it is – Stuff this morning. Lee says halfway down that Griffin called her a few minutes before he announced Herschfeld’s resignation.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/102652206/melissa-lee-was-given-a-heads-up-about-carol-hirschfelds-resignation
SNAP – but slightly different wordings.
Griffin will not give a … whether he should or should not have called Melissa Lee – such niceties do not apply to Griffin in his mind. (He described employment law to me in those terms (niceties) many years ago.)
I have now found this announcement by Amy Adams in 2016 which confirms Griffin’s appointment as Chair of the Board of RNZ Ltd was for two years from 1 May 2016, So – 30 April 2018 is the date.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/appointments-radio-new-zealand-board
Melissa Lee has a question to Curran at Q11 today – “MELISSA LEE to the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media: On how many occasions has she met with Carol Hirschfeld since becoming Minister?”
However, I am pretty sure that Bridges asked the same question of the PM under Q2 – but was only half listening.
So he doesn’t give a [shit] about calling a member of the Opposition Nats and talking, but he fires Carol Hirschfeld for talking to the Minister.
And don’t lets quibble about the white lies Carol told because I suspect there was a good reason she felt she couldn’t tell him the truth and it would have gone beyond any RNZ protocol. Silver tongued bosses can be tyrants behind the scene. I’ve had first hand experience.
I’ve had first hand experience with Griffin – and he is certainly silver tongued as well as silver haired, but also a total misogynist. I said more here yesterday – https://thestandard.org.nz/an-orwellian-minister-for-open-government/#comment-1466820 and also see the last sentence in this reply from Peterlepaysan –
https://thestandard.org.nz/an-orwellian-minister-for-open-government/#comment-1466827
Griffin is a very slippery customer – no integrity, only expediency. And his days at RNZ are now very numbered – five weeks until 30 April. So he has nothing to lose – he will just throw every spanner he can find into the works.
As I said in 9.4 below, I fully understand why Herschfeld held off telling Griffin and Thompson that the meeting was pre-arranged – she knew it would be used against her by Griffin to get her out of RNZ. That is how he has operated in the past.
Bullies appoint bullies
So “no surprises ” policy still sees things directed to National not Labour
Agreed weka.
Clare Curran was out of the starting chogs after the election on her promise to begin a truly free of interference media platform RNZ+ commercial free of funding by corporates policy balanced media for public to use as their voice of the people.
Since then She has not even made the RNZ available to our NGO which is a community advocacy group available to us for media press releases from our NGO on maters that HB/Gisborne communities are concerned about.
Clare Curran has failed us in HB/Gisborne on the matter of our loss of our rail six years ago and since we all have made great strides to find a way to restore our rail service but we cant get our story told over RNZ so our public media is failing us.
Last month Government’s Regional Development team came to Gisborne to release the policy and Shane jones said he has not heard from any party about a rail plan and RNZ prevented us placing our case before him so again we say;
Clare Curran is failing us.
Read the story again please as it needs to be told by the media not just in a local rag.
http://gisborneherald.co.nz/opinion/3251978-135/shafted-by-eastland-group-lobbyists
February 27, 2018
gisborneherald.co.nz
COLUMN – Shafted by Eastland Group lobbyists
by Gillian Ward Published: February 27, 2018 2:14PM
Gillian Ward is Chairwoman of the Gisborne Rail Action Group
Re: Mixed Signals — Minister yet to receive strong case for Wairoa to Gisborne rail line, February 24 story.
The Minister actually has received a strong business case for reinstating the rail line between Wairoa and Gisborne. In response to his request in November, a proposal was delivered to him two weeks ago. So, it is very disappointing that in the national launch of the Provincial Growth Fund on Friday neither restoration, nor a feasibility study, was announced for the Wairoa-Gisborne railway line.
Rather than being let down because of the lack of a “strong case”, the Gisborne residents who have marched and signed a petition requesting that the government restore the rail line, and businesses who need rail to move their fresh produce to Napier’s export container port, have been shafted by a small handful of Gisborne business leaders.
These few people who should be representing the best interests of the region are instead conflicted. They are focused solely on the expansion plans of Eastland Port, and planning for large profits, and they have the ear of the politicians.
Rail freight of containers of fresh chilled produce destined for export from Napier’s container port will provide flexibility, be competitive, and offer security of freight transport with an additional land transport option for our isolated region. Huge container ships and multiple container cranes handle enormous stacks of containers at Napier Port’s deep-water port.
Eastland Port on the other hand has a totally different situation, being located in a silty river mouth, which is carefully dredged to attain the depth required for log ships, while minimising disturbance of sensitive marine habitats. There is much less capacity to handle containers.
Hon Shane Jones is aware of this conflict of interest, and although he has stated that, “There’s political will to back rail”, he would prefer that the community sort out our priorities, rather than the government imposing decisions.
Mayor Foon has stated that Gisborne needs all the transport modes — roads, rail, coastal shipping and air transport. The residents and business community have indicated, with a march of 2000 people led by Mayor Foon along Grey Street to the Railway Station in April 2012, a petition of 10,480 signatures presented by Mayor Foon to Hon Anne Tolley at Parliament in May 2012, fundraising $11,000 for BERL Economics to review KiwiRail’s May 2012 analysis of the economics of the railway line, public meetings, letters to the Gisborne Herald editor, articles in The Gisborne Herald, presentations to the District Council, as well as business case analyses of the commercial viability of the line, that reopening the railway line would be well-supported by the community and businesses.
It is a small city characteristic that influential leaders can be conflicted, wearing more than one “hat”, and the aspirations of the Gisborne community to restore our other land transport option have been well and truly undermined by a few people determined to scuttle these aspirations.
Gisborne had to campaign hard to be included in the Government’s national rail-building effort in the late 1920s. It was a hard-won battle and a challenging line to complete, but the rail line was opened in 1942 amid jubilation from the Gisborne community.
Now that we have the line, it is a gift from an earlier generation. The cost to repair the storm damage is minimal compared to the value of the asset. Imagine the cost to build a railway line through the Wharerata hills now!
Please Minister Jones, hear the voice of the Gisborne community and filter out the noise from the Eastland Group lobbyists!
Jhonkey lied and bullsherted for 9 years so what is months of being mislead weka
Michelle
The voice of reason and sensibility.
Many here have extremely SHORT memories, the most important issues of the day haven’t even been mentioned, nada, yet this media driven nonsense of nothing is the highlight and even has a dedicated platform to discuss.
How many cows will be put down, and why
Finlayson’s debacle
Russian spies?
Oh, Aussies cheat, when they can.
And the bid one, Why are our Hospitals in such a poor state and how are we going to fix them?
Because John Key is not the yardstick for behaviour of our elected representatives. Some of want higher conduct than the gutter level he set it at.
I cannot see anyone advising Ardern to appoint CH to her team now. Althought, it is Labour, they are proving to be very slow learners
I know, it’s like people can’t see the massive problem for integrity appointing her into that role now would be. smh.
I was being tongue in cheek on that suggestion last night. !. I don’t think Herschfeld would actually want that job – a thankless one and all consuming and pretty below her experience, and a teenage daughter to consider.
https://thestandard.org.nz/an-orwellian-minister-for-open-government/#comment-1466769
https://thestandard.org.nz/an-orwellian-minister-for-open-government/#comment-1466791
There is no way she could be appointed to that position now; or any similar position until a little time has passed to allow the dust to settle.
I gather that Herschfeld was really loving her job with RNZ and was looking forward to what seems to be ahead for RNZ etc. Given this but with Griffin as Chair and Thompson as CEO, I do actually understand her trying to maintain her position.
Re Curran, I believe that the PM is caught in a catch-22 situation at present, but that in the not too distant future we will see Curran out of that Ministerial role.
A change of Minister at this time could be disastrous. In the next few weeks, the Budget proposals in respect of RNZ+ and the other changes proposed to NZ on Air etc must be completed, (eg by mid-April).- together with the overall Budget. It is absolutely the worst time of the Government year to make changes to Ministerial appointments.
In that same time period decisions need to be made on the next Chair of the Board of RNZ. Hopefully this will not be to roll over Griffin, but to appoint someone else more aligned to the Labour Party campaign proposals on public service media.
In fact, the one good thing to come out of this situation might be the fact that it has brought into focus the distance between Griffin’s views and those of the new government.
Yes Sanctuary
After the last two years in HB/Gisborne being left without a local reporter (by National Government design) after the election I asked Clare curran to sack Paul Thompson over this and she refused.
I received a letter from Clare Curran that did not impress me.
Beaded git challenged me as to why I was so negative.4.1.1
I am tempted to place the letter on this social media site but will refrain for now but will say Clare Curran made great efforts to give a “legal interpretation as to why she cannot “influence the public broadcaster ” due to the 1996 RNZ broadcasting Act??????
Well Ms Curran said effectively that this toxic Act for not permitting any hands on by a minister of Broadcasting was set-up by the last round during the national Government in the 1990’s so why did labour never ever make this RNZ a more ‘independent media then??????
Now we still have National Party selected people like the CEO of RNZ Paul Thompson who is a National plant and needs to be shoved under the bus along with his partner RNZ Chair Richard Griffin and get some unbiased balanced minds to run the public media like Carol Hirschfeld is or Kim Kim is?
As a ‘old white man’ I am starting to believe with Julie Anne Genter over getting rid of the old dead wood.
@cleangreen
I’ve never been impressed with Curran. Ardern is probably keen to keep her in place because of the Dunedin connection and as a woman minister.
Agree totally about Griffin and Thompson. These guys are probably on cast iron contracts. It takes time to change these things.
It is obvious the Right’s strategy is to make out that the Lab/Gr/Nzf coalition is incompetent. Granny Herald has its orders and is following them assiduously. Don’t buy into this.
Beared git,
Thanks for the understanding here as we have been shafted by these national Party planted Chair/CEO guys and it is up to Clare Curren to finally play tough with them or give the job to who ever will carry the peoples wishes for a free fair coverage of our local issues as we are frozon out of RNZ as of now and this is wrong.
Me too. I’m prepared to accept she may have had good intent, but the naivety just astounds me. Especially when she could have recalled the very tricks gNats used in order to stack the deck in the PS.
Probably half the Thordon bubble, most of MoBIE and other snr PS would have been showing off their ‘threads’ at the time.
Even worse if she thought this would be the perfect place for ‘a chance encounter’.
If she didn’t understand the gNats can’t stand CH (let alone her husband) and will seize ANY opprtunity (no matter how hypocrotical), I don’t think by now she ever will.
Over on TDB btw, Frank McSkasey puts in in a bit of perspective, but it’s a stretch if you think any of that will make a diff.
JACINDA (as someone else has suggested) needs to have a bit of a crisis meeting (in trendy language – a ‘war room’), and come up with something that is bold in each of the portfolios. RNZ+ doesn’t need to die in fact it could be the opportunity to go for something even better.
Similarly on matters such as the promises made re HCNZ that have been rolled back a little.
Similarly on matters such as the business of Immigration (so far, both I L-G and Chris FF are prepared to rely on the advice of ‘their officials – i.e. those having a vested interest in preserving a status quo) EVEN THOUGH no doubt, some of them are nice blokes
Similarly resolving the issue of worker exploitation and slavery (the manager of the Labour Indpectorate perfectly prepared to tell us all there are ‘sufficient’ numbers of Inspectors JUST BEFORE the last election.
Similarly ……… (health)
Similarly ……… (education)
Similarly ……… (infrastructure and NZTA’S wisdom)
AND no doubt other little gems of wisdom. I can well remember (for example) when some sage did away with a division called ‘treaty compliance’ in order to be more fishint n fektiv, then another sage who was part of Tau Henae’s Maori Dev Commisions who simply ( having access to a Minstry’s servers) simply went on to reword and recycle existing advice.
Btw….that sage went on to deprive prisoner’s right to vote.
I mean FFS…..EVEN Winnie’s bro (one of them at least), understood the magnitude of the problem.
I kind of despair really.
Jacinda: it really IS time to come up with something bold. These little tiny weeny steps and mis-steps are not going to cut it.
I realise that pholossphically you’re not into nastiness and you are into principle and being ‘nice’
BUT it really is time to understand (get yourself some learnings) the magnitude, intent, and volume of your opposition
“… I’m looking at the Labour caucus and going wtf are you thinking..?”
Curran has thus far operated with the reflexive secrecy of the incompetent. Perhaps she didn’t tell them.
I think Curran is just way out of her depth
I think the biggest problem is that the left do not really understand the lengths that the right will go to to hang on to their power – they suffer from the delusion that most people are decent, really.
20 years ago I was running a small building company – we got taken to the cleaners by developers and lost everything – home included. They used more dirty tricks than I could have believed possible a human could stoop to and in the end we just had to walk away. I tried to explain to my friends how it had happened and just got blank looks – no-one else I knew (apart from people in the building industry, many of whom had suffered similar treatment) could credit that behaviour that low could operate successfully in what they thought of as a civilised society. I just gave up trying to explain.
I think this attitude is still prevalent on the left, despite 30 years of neoliberalism providing plenty of evidence to the contrary. They persist in seeing many of the worst operators as mistaken but fundamentally decent, somewhere in there. Wrong!!!!
Sorry to hear all that. Must have sucked.
Well of course it did, but my real point was the naivety most of us have about the intentions and lack of ethics shown by the greedy and power hungry who will stop at nothing to get what they want. This government is being hit with a barrage of ghastliness now, and I’m not sure all (including Curran) have a real understanding of what’s coming at them
Yes JanM Many can’t accept the awful attitudes from seemingly nice people.
They DO NOT share our values. They DO NOT think as we do.
Their over riding mantra is to be “on top” “win” “do well” “Be the best” “get on” anything else is a anethema to them.
They don’t want others to co-operate…. that is communism don’t you know.
QFT
That is what many said about jhonkey and he lasted 3 term bullsheritng and lying his way out of everything and then finally he realised I’m one of the most hated men in new Zealand I better leave. Hooray!
I watched the TV3 late news last night.
They had a piece on the protesters at an Oil and Gas conference in Wellington.
The protesters were gaily piling up large heaps of material in order to block up all the emergency exit doors. That is how the TV announcer described it anyway.
About five minutes later we had a story about the fire at a shopping centre in Russia where at least 64 people were killed. They were unable to escape because the emergency exits were blocked.
I hope the New Zealand Police are collecting all the TV footage this morning so that they can identify and charge all those who were protesting at the conference and who were deliberately putting several hundred people’s lives in danger by blocking the doors. That is a very serious offence in my view and deserves a great deal more of a punishment than just a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
Any lawyer care to say what is the most serious offence they could be charged with and what a likely sentence might be? I presume that charges like wilfully endangering peoples lives exist?
Protesting is of course acceptable. What these protesters were doing is not.
Did the protest organisers have a plan in the event of fire or earthquake?
Its not the responsibility of the protesters to have a plan, its the building owners and the occupants responsibility.
I haven’t seen the footage. One would assume that the building owners did have normal fire safety plans. If the protestors were doing something dangerous that’s not ok, but I’m not going to assume alwyn is telling the truth on this. It’s possible that the protest organisers did have a strategy that included not putting people at risk if there was a fire.
Have a look, and a listen, to this at about 1m 20s
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/03/three-arrested-at-protest-outside-oil-and-gas-conference.html
According to the announcer there were about 500 people in the building and they are “blocking fire exits”.
Of course you probably won’t believe it because it makes your friends look bad.
They’re not my friends (do you really have to be such a dick?). I did watch it and I can’t tell if that is a fire exit or not. If it is, it was a stupid thing to do (as I have already said).
Oh. Not your friends? Fitzsimmons was in the crowd on one of the TV clips of the demo. and a friend told me he saw two of the current Green MPs there. I thought that was your preferred party.
I withdraw and apologise for trampling on you reputation for probity by linking you to that lot.
Oh do grow up. You lied and got caught alwyn. Face the facts your spin is a lie to not hold the oil and gas industry to account.
Your fake pathos was cringe worthy, and the continued lies in the face of evidence, are just pathetic.
What have I lied about adam?
Evidence please you silly little boy.
You lied about the exit, and you lied about what the protesters did.
You are trying to start a flame war – you sniveling little weasel child.
What lie did I tell about the exit?
If you are going to make such ridiculous accusations please be specific. Otherwise I can only assume you fit your own description of being a “sniveling little weasel child”
I am not trying to start a flame war. I am simply pointing out that you are making wild accusations with no evidence ever being produced to back them up.
Oh do grow up alwyn, your it’s ok to protest, then smug fake shrill is tiresome.
No one was hurt, except you. You got offended once again that your worldview is actually utter crap. So you make shit up to justify getting in a huffy.
My guess is you will take this as offencive, and well quite simply, it is. Your suppose to be offended. I get offended every time you spin lies to make yourself feel better.
I saw it as well
Was pretty pathetically stupid of the protestors
There is a line that shouldn’t be crossed even if you are trying to make a point
Blocking emergency doors sits on the other side of it
Just another right wing lie. Any chance you could apologize for your lie?
Hey Adam.
I havent seen the footage, they have every right to protest but if they were blocking emergency exits that is incredibly dumb.
It doesn’t matter that no incident happened but they put people at potential risk by doing it.
Emergency exits are there for a reason.
Your issue is with Alwyn but if they did block emergency exits then that is wrong. Had something happened and I am sure a legal person here can answer what would the charge be.
I just watched the footage. It’s obviously a back door. Whether its an emergency exit as TV3 claim, I can’t tell. Don’t emergency exits have signs saying that is what they are and to not block them? If it is an emergency exit, I agree it was stupid.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/03/three-arrested-at-protest-outside-oil-and-gas-conference.html
And let’s not forget this is a conference that is either in denial of CC or doesn’t care. That’s not theoretic deaths from a potential accident, that’s actual deaths we are responsible for.
Not denying that fossil fuels well should be that fossils and will hopefully be phased out sooner rather than latter.
They have the right to protest but putting people at risk is what the media will focus on and the message behind the protest will get lost.
I agree. I hope TV3 weren’t telling porkies.
They were. It’s not a fire exit.
My justification for saying that is that you can go to google maps, search for “TSB Arena wellington”, click on “satellite” view instead of map, and zoom in until it goes to Streetview. You can actually see the door they were blocking on the south side of the building. No “fire exit” notices at all.
It even has empty pallets stacked beside it, lol.
Nice work McFlock!
I hope your photo’s were more up to date than what I just had a look at. The date of the photos was given as being just over 3 years ago when I used your method. Things have been known to change after that long
I certainly hope they clean up their rubbish a little more often than that. What date do you get on your Streetview pictures?
Actually I shall be down there on Saturday. I might try and find the spot.
Feel free to photograph the signs they put up when they changed evacuation routes in the last three years then.
Great work McFlock.
You can see the fire exit signs on the doors they were banging on, but the camera shot is too low to see if the door they were blocking had a similar sign (the signs on the doors were about half a foot above head height).
I’m not aware of too many conference venues that have single-width external-handled doors right next to a loading bay roller door as fire exits for auditoriums, though. Dicks found empty pallets next to the loading bay around the back, blocked a service door. Might or might not have been an official fire exit for kitchen staff – camera shot was too low to tell.
I hope someone has a serious talk to them about safety and about tactics.
100% Monty.
I recall the new police minister Nash saying “the NZ Police will now be a softer gentler police force than before” Really???? fooled me.
Yep, if you want an example of Stuart Nash’s mind set then this is an example.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11820250
Then again he and seven other Labour party MP’s also joined the block voting by NZ First and National to prevent a first reading of the Greens bill for cannabis reform, but hey published advocacy for corrections department inmates having no rights and inciting scalping must be a new low for a politician who now is the minister of police. Shame on him.
“No one was hurt, except you”.
I wasn’t there, so it wasn’t likely that I would be hurt anyway.
You have an interesting viewpoint though. Nobody was hurt so it’s all right.
Do you think it would work if I was to drive at 180 kph on the Motorway out of Wellington? When they post me the speeding ticket I can say that I didn’t actually have an accident so they should just drop the whole thing.
Do you think they will agree and nothing further will happen?
Like hell they will.
In the meantime why don’t you just lie down and have a little nap. You’ll no doubt feel ever so much better afterward.
Alternatively you don’t really have to read what I say. It isn’t compulsory you know and if it plays hell with your digestion you really shouldn’t bother.
I won’t be hurt by your ignoring my pearls of wisdom. After all I don’t really want to cast those pearls before swine.
Holy Pearl-Clutching False Equivalence, Batman!
It was a protest. It’s supposed to be disruptive and force a closure of the event, not just ask nicely if the people could just please have their conference somewhere else.
Nice one. But don’t expect self-righteous old alwyn to acknowledge anything.
“It’s supposed to be disruptive and force a closure of the event”.
Of course it is. But do you really consider it to be acceptable to risk killing a few hundred people if things go wrong?
If that is OK perhaps they should have just set fire to the building. That would certainly have the effect you desire wouldn’t it?
As it is the people wouldn’t have even known that you might have put their lives at risk. Still, you don’t really appear to care.
Stop lying.
Seriously are you trying to start a flame war?
Nothing of importance was blocked. You really need to get over this continued lying alwyn, it’s not good for you.
“Nothing of importance was blocked”.
And just how do you determine that?
Are you really saying that TV3 were lying when they said Emergency exits were being blocked?
Or are you the one that is lying?
That is exactly what I’m saying, you and TV3 lied.
And what evidence do you have for that wild claim.
You know the building do you?
Considering the Police were between the protesters and the exits, do you hope said Policemen/women are also identified and charged with blocking the exits?
Please don’t pretend you care about the 64 or so people killed in the Siberian shopping centre fire.
Physical items etc take time to remove. A human can move and the police are trained.
Trained in driving skills,
too soon??!?
As serious as an Attorney General effectively laughing at a citizens rights?
It isn’t a fire exit. Tv3 duped you as easily as the National Party does.
“It isn’t a fire exit”
How did you determine that? It certainly seems to be such a certain viewpoint, even if it is somewhat hard to see why TV3 should deliberately get it wrong?
I was thinking of going down to the waterfront to see on Saturday but if you have already done that I won’t have to bother.
Read McFlocks answer up above. And if you can’t actually take the time to read what other people have said on somthing you post, then you really need to take the time to look at yourself and how you operate.
I did read it adam.
And I tried to look at Google maps to see for myself.
And I also replied to McFlock asking about what he saw.
If you look you will see it.
You see, and you would understand this if you had bothered to “actually take the time to read what other people have said”, that the photos I found were just over 3 years old.
Now, given that you seem only to happy to pontificate on the subject how do I find up to date images?
After all, if I thought that nothing changed in 3 years I would think that Russel Norman and Meteria Turei were still the leaders of the New Zealand Green Party.
Now, please tell me. How do I get reasonably current photos on Google?
So your telling me the building plan has changed in 3 years. OK got proof?
My guess is like you just did you will reach for more spin, let’s call spin what it is, lying. So more lies from you, you really have to stop buddy.
It has.
Work plan
The western and north sides of the TSB Bank Arena, home to Capital E and commercial tenants, do not need works done on the exterior façades.
https://wellington.govt.nz/your-council/projects/tsb-bank-arena-recladding-of-exterior
I have no idea whether the building is the same as it was then. Why don’t you provide proof that it hasn’t?
I don’t really think that 3 year old photos would be particularly good evidence though. I assume McFlock had access to more recent ones. Otherwise I’m sure he would have told us about the age of the information in the photo. I would like to know how he gets more recent data than I could manage.
I’m sure he will enlighten me. He really is a reasonable fellow on these matters.
You’re trolling.
The multiple exits, they double as fire escapes, are used to disgorge a full house of 4k en masse for the after match dash into to Courtenay Place, Cuba St, etc.
The PEPANZ conference has about 500 attendees so it’s not as though a kerfuffle at the exits posed any risk to life and limb.
You appear to be the true rarity in this discussion. You actually know something about the topic.
A couple of very brief questions then.
Were the doors (or door) that TV3 showed having material being piled against emergency exits?
Was TV3 correct or making it up when they described them as Emergency exits?
Are they marked as being such doors?
The fact that everyone can normally get out through the main exits isn’t really the point is it? After all emergency exits are only meant to be used if the main ones are impassable for some reason and the last thing you want is for people to head toward such doors and then can’t get through them.
If they weren’t marked as such then TV3 were obviously wrong to describe them as being for emergency egress. If they were intended for such use they should never be blocked, regardless of how few people were actually in the room.
Also, there’s a longer shot in the three news piece that shows the ground outside the door being blocked. No paint indicating “keep clear”, as I’ve seen with other fire exits next to parking areas or places where goods are routinely stacked.
As you point out, there is a possibility that sometime in the last three years or whatever the museum identified a deficiency in their emergency signage and put a sign up that was just out of the 3news shot. Until you or some other Wellingtonian pops down to check, it does seem that if it is indeed a fire exit then there was nothing to indicate that to the people outside. Who were being dicks, yes, but possibly not the calibre of dicks that would serve tory purposes.
You made shit up alwyn and part of that was to accuse people, some of who have spent 40+ years activism promoting the rights and dignity of human beings. You accuse them of trying to kill people by blocking doors.
It’s a disgusting lie, manufactured to support you selfish world view. I hope you get that, but you probably keep whining like the Tory *&^% tard that you are.
Are you the fire monitor alwyn?
It seems to me that Helen Clark is setting herself up as a self appointed mentor to Jacinda Ardern. To quote from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12021261 “Jacinda was let down. She should have been told. Immediately, actually. And then events would have taken a different course,” Clark said.
“And I cannot understand why she was not told. Unbelievable.”
Asked what she would have done if she had not been told, the former prime minister said: “If you get out the book and ask ‘what would Helen have done?’ … draw your own conclusions.”
Of course Helen has a wide range of policy options to offer, from Rogernomics to regarding the SAS as her private secret army hired out to the Americans to please them then giving refuge to queue jumping doubtful genuine refugees boat people from the Tampa to please the United Nations, all part of her resume for the job she wanted. Maybe she is just looking for another job, an ambassadors position perhaps.
Like Key for Bridges?
Weka
I am now realising the memory of when National cried foul back some several years ago when they ordered the head of a maori TV network resign as he was found to be a labour Party member, so do you recall that hypocrisy?
Former broadcaster Shane Taurima
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11836352
Here we see national party ‘parachuted in’ heading RNZ now so we are truly fucked if national did this systematically by “installing their puppets all over government agencies now left to trip up labour every day?
Taurima wasn’t the head of a Maori TV network.
He was responsible for the production of Maori and Pacific Island programs at TVNZ. He was also a front man on Q&A.
He wasn’t forced to resign because he was a Labour Party member.
His problem was that he held Labour Party meetings and used TVNZ resources on TVNZ premises. That is an absolute no-no as TVNZ are required to be politically neutral. It was also TVNZ management, not the Government who told him he had to go. The then Government, correctly, kept well clear.
Correct he was ‘Presenter’
Thanks for the correction Alwtyn.
Now go get some national trolls please.
alwyn
” TVNZ are required to be politically neutral”
So how did Hoskings manage to stay there for years then, not what anyone would refer to as Neutral, or are you lying again
Touche
I suggest you read this which is a Law Firms interpretation of the rules for Public Servants in Election Year.
It shouldn’t take you more than a couple of days to get through it. I assume you have a friend who can tell you what the big words with more than two syllables mean.
https://minterellison.co.nz/our-view/dos-and-donts-for-public-servants-in-election-year
Friend of Weka’s are you? She throws lying around with gay abandon too. Never does explain where it was supposed to have happened of course because I can, and do, demonstrate that it isn’t true.
However perhaps you have some reason for your drivel. What is it?
To provoke your pompous arrogant cacklemush?
Mike Hoskings is not a member of the National Party therefore he is politically neutral ?
It doesn’t matter what Taurima was, the point is there is too many national sycophants in government jobs and others hierarchal positions why do you think it is so hard to make traction.
Still making the sounds of REASON, keep up the good work, you deserve a chocolate fish.
This is not sarcasm.
Interesting. Winston asked a question,(ruled out of order) which was it right that the Leader of the Opposition described himself as a Crown Prosecutor when he does not have such a Certificate ?
Naughty Simon.
A lovely shot across Bridges’ bow. Nice one. I am sure it will be brought up again in the near future. LOL.
Perhaps his certificate is with the 10 bridges he lost
Russian Spies: Peters Foreign Affairs Minister
Opposition and Media condemn the action taken by the Government yet if Australia could find only two, it is no wonder that “”People in the Five Eyes have consulted with us on our decision, understand our decision, and did so before the decision was made.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12021937
Watching the General Debate in Parliament, a National speaker criticised the Labour PM for not expelling Russians.
Seated next to her was former defence minister, Mark Mitchell.
He was reported in Newshub, “Former defence minister Mark Mitchell told media he had never been made aware of any Russian spies here.”
First, do they not see how easily they are seen to be so two-faced?
Secondly, why was this enormous hypocritical two-facedness not hammered by a government speaker.
Shane Jones was next up and in his self-absorbed grandiloquence, missed the opportunity.
The problem partly is, as the Speaker warned, too many people reading their speeches and not actually debating.
After the Prime Minister – citing MFAT advice yesterday – swore to the world that there were no Russian operatives in New Zealand, Winston Peters – using the far more appropriate SIS intelligence, just flatly contradicts her.
There is Russian intelligence activity in New Zealand, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has confirmed.
In answer to a question in Parliament today, Peters said: “The NZ SIS advise us it is aware of Russian intelligence activity in New Zealand and where it is seen, appropriate action is taken.
“I am advised by the NZ SIS, and so has the Prime Minister been, that there is no individual here in New Zealand that fits the profile of those being expelled by other countries and that is people within the embassies in other countries. If there were, we would have taken action a long time before Salisbury.”
Absurd hair-splitting.
Where the Fuck is DPMC coordinating intelligence and Ministerial briefings?
There is no walking this back. This is a briefing diasster that makes Ardern look like a total naive idiot to the world: The PM looks SparklePony, Minister FOreign Affairs looks like Realo, public service look like complete dorks.
Jesus Prime Minister start rolling out some pre-budget Good News. You look like a fucking idiot.
But Bill English was OK with his Chinese spy trained Chinese MP?
You bloody crack me up!!! LOL
Hooten sums up the current cluster**k of a government well at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12022002.
And it’s going to get worse.
Lipstick on a pig ?
No, Ad. It is not “Absurb hair-splitting”. I don’t want to call you an idiot, but calm down.
The agreed approach to expelling Russian intelligence operatives is in respect of only one category of these – “undeclared intelligence staff (or agents)”.
Andrew Geddis on the Pundit Blog has done the best job I have ever seen of explaining this category of intelligence operatives. Here is the link and an excerpt:
(Sorry for the long quote but it is necessary to give the whole explanation)
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/my-spy-boy-told-your-spy-boy-im-gonna-set-you-flag-on-fi-yo
And so the action that obviously was agreed behind the scenes was to kick out the “undeclared intelligence agents” that each country has identified as working out of its various Russian diplomatic posts. Exactly what is meant by an “undeclared intelligence agent” is then very important, as it is the key to why NZ acted (or, didn’t act) as it did.
An undeclared intelligence agent is not an ordinary diplomat who gathers gossip, monitors news media and attends cocktail functions in order to report to their government at home what is happening in NZ. All diplomats do this – our embassy staff overseas just as much as Russian embassy staff here. So “collecting information for your government” does not make someone an undeclared intelligence agent.
Instead, an undeclared intelligence agent is a member of a country’s secret service who pretends to be a diplomat in order to actually undertake covert operations in the country to which they are posted. They are really spies who are pretending to be diplomats so as to get the benefits of diplomatic immunity should they get caught spying.
Because these two things are not the same, they are not viewed the same in diplomatic interactions. A country kicking out a diplomat because they actually are an undeclared intelligence agent is a lesser deal than is kicking out a diplomat proper, because the “diplomat’s” country knows that they’ve basically been rumbled misusing their diplomatic privileges.
So, that’s the level of response that the UK’s various friends collectively decided was warranted – not kicking out “real” diplomats (which is a major step) but kicking out spies-in-diplomats-clothing (which is a lesser step). Which then is a problem for New Zealand.
Because it appears that we don’t have any Russian undeclared intelligence agents on hand to kick out. This claim has, I know, been met with ridicule by many. I mean, it’s Russia! We all know they spy all the time on everyone!! And New Zealand is so very, very important that they must spy on us, too!!! Please? We need the validation … .
Except – maybe there just aren’t any down here at the bottom of the world. And even if there is some undeclared intelligence agent kicking about in the Russian embassy, our SIS doesn’t know who it is. Nor do our overseas intelligence partners, apparently, because we asked them and they couldn’t finger anyone either.
I know that we have had Russian undeclared intelligence agents as defined above on occasions in the past and recall at least one instance when they have been expelled very publicly. I also know that there are times when it is in fact ‘useful’ to leave them in place in some instances. For example, to be able to expel them en masse as in the current situation to send a message.
The PM was pretty confused/confusing in her initial language, but she is probably on a steep learning curve. Peters obviously understands the situation with his longer experience – hence his explanation in the House yesterday under Question 8.
Video https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=199069
Hansard https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20180328_20180328_08
I hope that helps but I also suggest that you read the whole Geddis article to put the above into context.
Note – was editing the para re Question 8 in the House near the end of the above but then ran out of time. Was editing this to say that Peters’ explanations were only slightly clearer and got lost in the ‘noise’ around the whole issue evident throughout this question. A minute or so in Peters seeks to clarify that expulsions were only being applied to ‘undeclared’ agents; and then later this:
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Far too late—we’ve been doing that from day one. But we want to make it very clear that what we’ve been challenged by, in terms of the Opposition and the media, is often demonstrably false. For example, 40 percent of the European Union, like New Zealand, have made no expulsions. But no, no—we hear from the media that the European Union has does this and so has everybody else. Well, in the end, Australia found two. We’re a much smaller country, and we haven’t found any yet inside the embassy in the way that, abroad, they did.
Next week, Queen Elsa of Arendelle, you’re hired!.
/
Blimey! Hooton’s putting the boot in. Touting a one term government under Ardern. What’s his problem? Apart from breathing. Is he not worried at all about the Health Scandal left behind Si Bridges Bestie Cut Your Spending Coleman. Does he not want to write something cutting about that. Plenty of material there. Far more dangerous and detrimental to sick helpless citizens than any of the lesser SCANDALS that he is so SCANDALISED! by.
The AM Show Duncan when one is the smallest tuna in te Waipu river one does not give A big tuna the pukana because all the other big tuna are pointing the finger at that tuna . The big picture is we are on our own side we show the world we are not puppets like our Nuclear free stance know.
After all one of the finger pointers is not going to say we will take your apples .
Wow Toyota changing there business model my dad can’t use a compute he will have to get the mokopunas to help him but good on Toyota for innervating to deliver more value to them and there customers.
I new the Media and the rest of the Papatuanuku world would blow the Australian Cricket incident up into hysterical hype thats why I’m saying drop it after they are human and I see a lot of cheating going on right in front of my eyes or can’t you see it Duncan.
World Vision has a good purpose but these charity’s need to become innovative teach the people how to become self sustainable with food and income there is a lot of ways this can be achieved innervation is a good thing Ka kite ano
The AM Show years ago when I was fishing out of Bluff we ended up with 12 dozen oysters each well they disappeared so I had only fish and scampi to take home.
I had my first surimi she could not believe that I had not had surimi before it was part of her cultures dishes it tasted very good with fresh fish and all .Ka kite ano.
P.S I like mountain oysters
(The mandatory preface) “so……” thanks SO much for having us JESSIE. STARDOM (as in the Jessie becomes the Afternoons. I mean I accept he’s probably the most gorgeous specimen that ever dwalked and could probably become the next Joolie Krusty eligible whatever.
Just as checkpoint could bcome the next ‘John campbell’ show.
Jesus…. they really don’t get it do they?
Frank(ly mcS)?…? They really don’t get it do they
PERHAPS they need a dose of an Aunt Daisy’s floor polish up their back passage.
Ekshully that’d be a bloody good cure for a ZB hosking and his bimbo bimbo where ya gonna goeeeoh.
( doubt even daddyo would risk his vintard trying to save ya)
Newshub Mike there you go our prison system are archaic ancient flogging horses for some political party’s used to stir up racial division just to get votes .
In a intelligent society both political party’s should listen to the humane advisors and change this system to one that educates the people and prepares them for employment and survival in a ever changing society . At the minute the prison system is a major hindrance on the people whom end up in its tentacles on there journey of life into a complete stop or reverse in there fortunes .
I look at the assets that the police displayed and confiscated from 25 people well one would find the value of those assets in one persons garage in a wealthy suburb and the price of the wealthy person House would cover the $2million dollars that was confiscated money from 25 people can you see the Hippocratic system . yes its good that the Drug PEE is taken off the streets but we need to teach these people that it is more profitable to get into a legal business than crime.
Ka kite ano .P.S my business would be flourishing if the sand flies were not defecating on it Kia Kaha
Newshub letts get this strait the only gang I have allegiance to is my mokopuna and my children’s future well being so if you hear any different disregard it as proper gander against ECO MAORI everyone that knows me knows this fact I still respect all though . Kia Kaha ka kite ano
The Crowd Goes Wild kia ora Wairangi Kopu staunch to League as you are I seen Tawera Nikau a few years back I was going to my lawyers office in Hamilton I just gave him the heads up .Yes many thanks to the NRL Australia for gifting the Warriors A Ladies League team ka pai why did you cut your hair ??????? Im thinking on growing mine and use my real first name my wairua is leading me in this direction I back all Teams as I am colour blind so I respect all I have my favourites .
But the kumra never tells how sweet it is Kai kaha Tana Ka kite ano
This is what was on youtube when I opened it good sounds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4
Happy Easter to all be safe in all your journeys Kia kaha ka kite ano
This is how state civil servants act after 9 years of shonky rule protect the money man at the expense of OUR beautiful Endangered Dolphins Maui there are only 80 left we should be pouring resources into saving these beautiful creates enough said here’s a link
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11999834
Newshub there you go the first 3 story’s have a connection and that connection is Alcohol this drug does a lot of damage to Our society but so long as the big companies push this drug we will have a lot more carnage .
Yes boat people please keep our island wild life sanctuaries free from dangerous vermin rats stoats check your boats thoroughly as the animals and birds on these Islands are endangered .
I can remember not so long ago they were saying eggs dairy meat is bad for you what a sham to much of anything is bad for you coffee is in the lime light now Alcohol has cancer causing carcinogens to much Alcohol will kill you instantly why is this fact not advertised .
Kia ora Mike hope the weather is good. I wonder If someone has been putting a spin on things once again. How did the book go hopefully she sold out.
Ka kite ano