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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Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
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. ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, 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. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
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Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has apologised in Parliament after National accused her of intimidating and attacking one of its ministers in the House. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met on Wednesday as the national cabinet to discuss a crisis gripping Australia – the horrific number of women murdered this year. The killings have shocked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Radhika Raghav, Teaching Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Otago Netflix Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for his big-budget Bollywood production, featuring grand sets, star casts, meticulously choreographed dance sequences and lavish costumes, jewellery and furnishings. ...
Sir Robert devoted his life to disability rights after living in institutions in his younger years, says Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga | Disability Rights Commissioner Prudence Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
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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!.
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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