Stubbs says the Manapouri electricity will go to waste if Tiwai Point isn't using it. Wrong now, and even wronger when grid upgrades that are already underway get completed.
Stubbs buys into that low-carbon high-purity sales spin. Wrong. That Tiwai Point is sucking so much electricity from NZ electricity supply is keeping the coal going into Huntly. Close Tiwai Point, and the coal boilers at Huntly will very likely close very soon after. So in fairness, we should be attributing Huntly's coal-derived emissions to Tiwai Point.
The smelting process also releases CO2 (and other nasties) as a result of the carbon anodes that are consumed in the smelting process. As I understand it, Tiwai Point's performance in this part of the process is middling. Rio Tinto are underway with commercialising an alternative process that doesn't have these carbon emissions, but using that process will require retrofitting the whole smelter. Which will reduce any residual value existing carbon-emitting "assets" may still have.
The "dollar" price Stubbs tosses around would presumably have hidden in it the hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities associated with environmental problems at the Tiwai Point site.
'Sam Stubbs makes a good case for nz buying tiwai smelter, '
The debate has moved on from this and the facts show that it is not an idea to fly. Forget this one, and think of what else could use the workforce of seasoned practical men, accompanied by abundant electricity.
Interesting article. The China production is huge- are they aiming for a monopoly hold on the market with all the strategic and destructive potential that implies? Rio may not want to shoot itself in the foot but by default will it be shooting a lot of other industries and national interests. Warplanes?
I am really getting sick of these opinion pieces on what is supposed to be a news website. But Stubbs is wrong about Tiwai on so many fronts its really a joke. Tiwai produces "high quality aluminium" because the smelting process is old and really inefficient. The world production of aluminium in 2018 was 60,000,000 metric tons. China has huge numbers of smelters and produces 33,000,000 metric tons while NZ's sole smelter produces 337,000 metric tons. ie NZ produces 0.5% of the world's production. NZ isn't even a pimple on the backside of this elephant. As well as that China has all of the manufacturing infrastructure underneath that to use the aluminium. The NZ smelter has been under threat for years and years for very basic reasons – it isn't making money and its output is minscule. The best thing NZ can do with the power from Manapouri is to eventually connect it to the Transpower grid but that is going to take a few years.
It's already connected to the grid. It's just that the part of the grid between Invercargill and the Waitaki area wasn't really grunty enough to take the 600ishMW that will be freed up next year. But an upgrade was already underway before the closure announcement, and is no doubt being accelerated.
Now the thing to notice is that the reporter fails to inform the public what actually happened to cause the injury – or injuries. Even worse, the reporter is evidently too stupid to consider how other parents who leave their kids at that daycare centre are going to feel about the cover-up.
At the very least the reporter and Stuff's editor ought to be considering the public interest in the situation. Is privacy law being used to perform the cover-up? Then say so! What part of morality do you dorks not get??
Gems Educational Daycare general manager Gemma Smith said the centre was “deeply saddened” over the incident. “Our focus right now is supporting the child and their family, as well as our centre community.” Smith would not give details about the victim’s age or gender.
Yes, yes, the ritualised issuance of politically-correct banalities has been rigorously adhered to, we get that.
WorkSafe said it was investigating. Do you know more? Email newstips@stuff.co.nz
Who do they believe are going to inform them, if not those who were there, on the spot, supervising the kids? Pathetic. Disgusting.
Smith said the centre would cooperate with WorkSafe and Ministry of Education investigations. “We do everything possible to provide a safe environment for the children we care for. If accidents occur, we have systems in place to offer immediate assistance,” Smith said.
You can imagine how thrilled the other parents will be to see this. If I was one of them I would yank my kids out of there pronto. I wonder how those parents will react to being frozen out by the manager/owner and media.
The Worksafe shadow over all – is it more talked about than evidenced? Are they actually operating under their own aegis – making sure that any work they do results in safe outcomes – that match their contracts in a satisfactory and positive manner. Minister Andrew Little this morning sounded like a kindly uncle as I listened while I worked.
The thing I am hearing regularly from agencies supposed to be arms of the government is that they decide what they will investigate on the test of – 'Can it be tested and won in Court' and so, be a plus mark in their activity success tickbox. If not, 'There is not enough evidence to pursue this matter'. They all need to be pursued by eager citizens, noses to the ground and teeth at the ready to nip them on their fat butts. (Or very thin ones because their personal drives go into the new middle-class memes of personal fitness and setting goals of running marathons, bicycle riding in lycra etc).
Worksafe has been defunded under National as well as reorganized so the enforcement side hasn't got the funds to investigate or prosecute let alone prevention.Pike River.
Half of Queenstown will know by now what happened. Certainly the parents with kids in that daycare will. There's no public interest here that requires immediate media coverage of the details, and it works against the public interest to publish too quickly and then find out the details were wrong because the people the journo was talking to were still in shock and/or dealing with the event and didn't have their facts straight. We see this with rapid emergencies fairly often now, where MSM rush to publish before they've confirmed what happened. It takes time to get a reliable and truthful narrative.
The incident happened Monday morning, the report was published late Monday afternoon. I'd expect more information in the next few days once the police, WorkSafe, and the Ministry have started on their processes.
Yet over 60 per cent of respondents want the economy rejigged towards something better. “Let's use this time to reform the economic system” is what the question reads. A large majority said yes.
Yet the question is a crucial one, because it really does go to the heart of each major party’s pitch for the election.
Yet you can bet both major parties will duck the issue! Labour because it can now coast to victory on its poll ratings. National because it is the party of business as usual.
And if you consider the trajectory of the tourist industry, the change to zero international tourists becomes clear. Visitor arrivals in New Zealand have roughly doubled every 10 or so years since the advent of the jet in the 1950s, and were 3.9 million in 2019. That has now stopped in its tracks.
National will now start whining like the drug addict who needs their regular hit. How feeble their calls for re-opening the borders are will be amusing to see.
Labour, for the first time since the fourth Labour Government of David Lange and Roger Douglas, could have the parliamentary numbers to ram through serious changes to the fabric of New Zealand’s economy.
The prospect of Labour ramming anything anywhere is zilch. Think limp dishrag.
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has consistently said Labour, should it be re-elected to the Treasury benches, would look to make the economy better than it was before. Quite what that will mean in practical terms will have to wait until after the election.
Got that right! Don't spook the horses, Grant! He's done well, to my surprise, presenting centrism as a benign economic model to the electorate, and it complements the PM's mastermind managerial style nicely. Expect them to rise above bland though, spicing it up with a few futuristic signals in the next few weeks – carefully designed not to provoke expectation of drastic change.
Unsurprising to see a libertarian journo like Malpass struggle to articulate any other approach to changing an economy than cutting taxes and protections. No imagination.
An unfortunate name for that journo surely. I'm rereading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – it would be a name that might occur there. Fact stranger than fiction.
Today, will we see National’s internal polling leaked to the media and endorsed by its Leader? If so, who will be the recipient of the info? What will the National tacticians decide? Will it be a shot across the bow or one in the foot? I’ve ordered extra popcorn.
Listening to recent interviews with Musk's mate Thiel, is mindbending . It is hard to grasp what he believes in as he makes ambiguous, confusing responses. The world consists of only three doors to choose from ?
The power of money to have those in power then court you, yet the Mont Pelerin Society describe Thiel as a philanthropist. https://youtu.be/IXG2F0a6I28
Under Evo's term of indigenous socialism has been "the majority population has, for the first time in their lives, lived above poverty.
The achievements were more than economic. Bolivia made a great leap forward in indigenous rights."
Evo’s crime.
“My sin was being indigenous, leftist, and anti-imperialist,” Evo said after being coerced into resigning this week.
His replacement, Jeanine Añez Chávez, agreed. “I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rites,” the opposition senator tweeted in 2013, “the city is not for the Indians who should stay in the highlands or the Chaco!!!” After Evo’s departure, Chavez declared herself interim president while holding up a large bible, though she failed to get the required quorum in the senate to do so.
Maybe Collins sees herself as a Chavez when she vowed to "crush the other lot", meaning just about all! Would she also burn the indigenous flag that was hung upside down behind Mueller while ripping the UN Agenda 30 to shreds. Could Collins stick to NZ alligning to the seventeen 2030 goals ? Can you hear her saying,
"We resolve to build a better future for all people, including the millions who have been denied the chance to lead decent, dignified and rewarding lives……We can be the first generation to succeed in ending poverty; just as we may be the last to have a chance of saving the planet."
Musk is trolling clueless idiots with a predisposition to think 'Tesla batteries use lots of lithium -hmm, Bolivia has lots of lithium and just had a coup = Tesla bad' who have zero understanding of lithium supply chains and technical details of battery chemistry.
Are you aware on mobile version some of these articles are not readable. I cant read either this one or Mickeys about Labour being better economic managers without switching to desktop version.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Try it again now. Between us, weka and I have both played with the tweet.
My cell (Samsung S10 running Chrome on Android 10) requested that I whitelisted the page at the client side – probably because it was picking up the tweet. Try to reload the page and see what happens. Also tell me what kind of device you’re using.
Finally some true vision, reminiscent of old…world leading and full of common sense and undeterred by the fact it hasnt been done before…this is the type of thinking we need.
The thinking has always been there,for pumped storage between two natural reservoirs called Tekapo and Pukeko.
The fly in the ointment was the breaking up of generators,with little thought as to the future beyond shareholder entitlement.
Sustainable Energy forum’s hydro expert, Alastair Barnett, estimates that the Onslow scheme could provide 5000 gigawatt-hours storage. But a simpler pumped storage system between Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki could provide over half Onslow’s dry-year storage with minimal construction cost – the two lakes were originally designed to do exactly that.
That scheme was precluded by the separation of ownership within the Tekapo-Waitaki hydro scheme. Genesis owns and manages Tekapo, Meridian owns the power stations below Tekapo. Each gentailer manages their part of the resource to maximise profit and shareholder value, not to minimise financial or environmental cost.
Bill English so he could privatise them and grab a large dividend ( repalced by borrowing) for tax cuts for the high earning mates. The electricity industry in New Zealand could do with a ground zero reset and rstructure to eliminate all the market inefficencies of privatisation. 29 power company CEO's – really? We used to run the lot out of the 8 floors of Rutherford house in Wellington.
Pumped hydro not new or ground breaking but the vision of the scheme incorporating wetlands and the scale are….the impact on the workings of the electricity market in NZ is also a great opportunity to revisit the profit motive, particularly in light of the recent finding on 'spillage' and wholesale pricing.
There appears a difference of opinion between Barnett and Bardsley on the viability of Tekapo and Pukaki around suitable geology but I expect those differences can be evaluated.
The cost appears to me to be overemphasised considering construction time is estimated to be 6-8 years…thats an annual outlay of approx half a billion per annum….weve just spent 16 billion on wage subsidies in less than 5 months.
I heard Orams piece on RNZ where he questioned the ability of (any) gov to plan a multigenerational project however the decision and construction can occur inside a decade…potentially inside the term of one administration.
In any event, we have wasted numerous years the decisions on long term infrastructure and energy provision and cannot be delayed any longer….and that system must be as close to zero carbon as possible.
Covid will be omnipresent, the placement of polling booths will be sparse, in larger halls, but there'll be many more of them around the place to ensure, we're told, that you will be able to keep your social distance.
This at the same time that we're assured there is no community spread, to the extent it's now okay to join the thousands of spectators packed in at rugby matches for hours. But it seems that when it comes to the few minutes you will spend in the polling booth, you will be reminded to keep your distance.
That's what this is really all about, it's a reminder of who the Conqueror of Covid is and why we should all bear thanks and show our appreciation with a tick in the correct box.
To be clear, Barry is insinuating the Labour Party has influenced the spacing of polling booths in order to win the election.
Thank heavens incognito we've got you – you're onto it. Probably people will see some red arrows soon and it will show how pervasive the Labour propagamda is. It's all around you, like a red rag to a bull. Better put – /sarc.
He's been reporting on elections for decades, so I'm sure he knows who really makes these decisions.
But his readers/listeners might not. So he feeds them BS he knows is false. That fails the most basic test of ethics, and he should be facing disciplinary action from NZME. Lying about our democratic process is unacceptable.
The fool thinks that no covid now means no covid in 8 weeks. And yet if we had a new outbreak at election time and hadn't made these plans, Captain Hindsight will be cursing the government's foolishness. 🙄
Yep – that is clearly the thinking behind it. To allow for the possibility that there IS some community transmission in 8 weeks.
If Soper really wanted to make mischief (which he does), rather than sound like a daft conspiracy theorist, he would argue that this forward planning shows how little confidence the government has that they can keep Covid out and that it's all 'shambolic'etc. etc. Missed opportunity there Bazza – I wonder whether next week's cheque might be going to a more competent propagandist?
I don't normally watch vid of her, but that one is kind of intense. She's trying to make a joke, but her eyes are seriously dark when she speaks to Henry and then she puts a smile on it. But those eyes just before the smile. She's like that earlier in the piece with someone else too (Tova I think).
I think I tore an eyebrow muscle when watching that. Did she say Monthly Pie-a-ton? Getting hungry now and licking the salt from my empty popcorn bowl.
In fact, I think we need to note every time in future when her eyebrow rises while she is trying to speak seriously and convincingly. She does it all the time..
Has she got rogue eyebrows do you think? That if studied will give accurate indications of the truthfulness of her statements. Cripes, what a disadvantage for a politician. Some bird watchers in the UK who are more interested in showy stats than being informed experts are called 'twitchers'. I imagine Collins is more interested in numbers of voters rather than deep interest in us as people and citizens, so she is a sort of twitcher; which may explain her eyebrow movements. If it is a Pavlovian response (moving from birds to dogs) she may be unable to control it and so bird fanciers might have to keep their eyes on this twitcher, who could end up going to the dogs! Do hope you followed this. It's all a deep code you know.
Eyebrow up or not, Collins was clearly joking when she said that, but has made a rod for her own eyebrow. Everything she says from now on will be parsed in an 'Are you joking now?' context.
Under Collins’ ‘leadership‘, the National Party’s puddle of ‘truthfulness‘ has dried up – just can’t trust them. Mind you, ‘She’s a handsome Tory’
Judith statistics – 436000 and no eyebrows were raised ? Was that a plucked or tweeked guess?
Maybe she has leaked info because it does not seem to correlate with Treasury's weekly data indicators.
Prior, Treasury presented at the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) 2020. "We still expect to see a large contraction in growth in the June quarter, followed by a partial rebound in the September quarter, and a further economic recovery afterwards."
However there was upward activity for June. Treasury responded to the need for the more immediate need of pertinent, economy indicator reports, as complementary to the less frequent quarterly GDP ; hence using the NZAC index ( The GDP not due for this quarter until September 17, 2020).
"The NZAC does nonetheless point to some upside to those initial estimates. Our initial estimate for June quarter GDP was based on longer periods of time at higher alert levels. We’ve also made a quicker progression to Alert level 1 than what we assumed at BEFU, and therefore activity has been able to resume more quickly.
Current Stats NZ statistics suggests to Treasury that, " employment continued to hold up in June (Figure 2). For the week ended 21 June, the most accurate measure (which lags by 27 days) showed the total number of paid jobs up 4.5% on the same week in 2019. At the industry level, paid jobs in the primary industries were up 10.1% on last year, goods-producing jobs were up 2.5%, and services jobs were up 3.1% on 2019 after falling by around 80,000 between March and April 2020. "
My computer shows a completely blank screen in the middle of your comment. When you look at the screen is there a big white space or is it filled with graphs and content you've put up? Please advise. It would be a help for me to know.
To protect your security, treasury.govt.nz will not allow Firefox to display the page if another site has embedded it. To see this page, you need to open it in a new window.
Thanks solkta I have Firefox but didn't get that message.
Thanks incognito I tried that link and got some really interesting artwork snaking over various backgrounds.
I'm having trouble with pdfs – can't get many of them. I have to ask my associate what to do and write down in a book so I can transfer the instructions to the particular part of my brain which is dedicated to keeping up with this wonderful technology that is so helpful in showing us how far we have dipped or risen every day, and that is not just referring to Covid-19. Anyway if I don't do it today, it might have changed by tomorrow, and then I have had an hour or so for some other activity that might be more useful. However I will try, so don't give up on me please.
For that link to the quick summary dashboard, the Treasury site only gives the one format link. It also then required giving Chrome app storage permission to download.
However, other articles such as the weekly updates, were not embedded with Chrome and have a choice of formats.
I never went to the website. I simply took your link and turned it into a URL that TS readers can see/read and click on (or not). I was trying to help.
Agree Treetop. She was however in a similar position of trying to escape so needed to divert by flippancy.
Trapped, she could have said, “I shouldn’t be in this predicament ! Everyone agrees with me. Seperate but equal is great policy ( for my eyebrows )".
The reporters further questioned, “Everyone? You’re standing alone in here.” She gestures around, “Everyone, you know, the paintings on the corridor wall, tables and the clock all of them think I should be PM .”
I have heard The Telegraph soundly run down and yet have found much in it of value. Yet this latest on Harry and Meghan shows the vicious probing of a mosquito, and too many of such bites can maim its host.
This from Angela Levin: Just before Prince Harry got engaged to Meghan Markle, he invited me to Kensington Palace for a chat as I was writing his biography. One of the things he was keen to get across was the importance of teamwork.
If you want to be a success you have to be a team player,” he told me. “You get taught in the Army that you can’t get anywhere without the support of other people. I agree.”
It seems as if he is trying to establish a reasonable rapport with the media as his mother tried. But is the media reasonable; can it be reasoned with? Or is lurking behind it the malign drive of unalloyed pleasure in malicious gossip, desire for power through knowledge, and overall, lovely moolah – profit?
Harry and Meghan did not include a Covid-19 senario in their plans. The timing was bad for them to make a clean break, more so for Harry than Meghan.
Harry had issues with how the media treated his mother and a double up with negative media when Meghan became upset about media coverage about her which she did not like. Media coverage became personalised about Meghan and her father and this cannot be brushed off. The Royal family are reliant on the media for their charity work and on tourism to justify the expense of keeping them.
What is the Royal position on the media "don't explain, don't complain." This could have been modernised and a human element to it. I would have liked Harry and Meghan to have delayed leaving the firm for 3 years.
Look how the Queen's job has become redundant due to Covid-19. The Queen is 94 and I expect she is enjoying having a bit more rest.
I see we have caved in to our Yankee Masters in regard to extradition to Hong Kong, so much for being independent. Better if we dump the spy game and opt out of 'five eyes'
Say someone from here goes to Hong Kong and ends up murdering someone there, then rushes back to NZ , can't be extradited and we're stuck with a murderer?
Surely there should be case by case considerations?
Ok if China executes mainly for drug trafficking, and murder , we still end up potentially protecting rapists , fraudsters, criminals as well
Either way we could end up with undesirables evading justice
I did plenty of stupid things when I was 14, and 18 (or 28 or 38 or … OK, never mind).
I certainly won't condemn him for that. But he – and above all the National Party – need to accept that they made a silly decision to have a high school kid as a candidate, and they can't have it both ways: get a pass for being a teenager OR don't get a pass, because you're ready to be an MP. But pick one.
Maybe William Wood (opposition National Party candidate for the Palmerston North electorate) shouldn't be punished politically for a 'mistake' made four years ago, but…
Might the 'tactic' of fielding very young candidates in general elections be more widely adopted to minimise political risk from revelations of past 'misdemeanors'?
Its more about selecting a rude, green (as in naivety) inexperienced teenager whose brain is still not fully developed.
You can almost read their simplistic thought process:
he'll bring in the votes of the 18-20 year olds.
He'll do nothing of the sort. Half of them couldn't care less and won't vote. The other half will more than likely go with Labour because they are promising better training and employment opportunities for the young.
I just hope he has a good support system as he is on the young side. He has guts putting himself out there. A lot of seasoned MPs have been known to struggle. Politics can be dehumanising.
Under most laws, young people are recognized as adults at age 18. But emerging science about brain development suggests that most people don't reach full maturity until the age 25. Guest host Tony Cox discusses the research and its implications with Sandra Aamodt, neuroscientist and co-author of the book Welcome to Your Child's Brain.
Swarbrick's brain developed early, whereas Wood is a late ‘bloomer‘?
COX: Is there a difference between males and females with regard to their brain development, particularly in this age category?
AAMODT: Females' brains develop about on average two years earlier than male brains, so you're more likely to have a late developing male brain than female.
If you're choosing Swarbrick and Wood as examples, then it's only political parties in opposition that pick under-developed brains.
Swarbrick's brain may have been "under-developed" when she became an MP at age 23 – if so then what I'd give for that level of under-development! She is, however, the youngest person to be elected to NZ's parliament since the opposition National party selected Marylin Waring to stand for the Raglan electorate in 1975.
Of course it might just be pure coincidence that the two youngest MPs in the modern history of NZ's parliament are women. You have to go all the way back to 1906 to find anyone younger than Waring, and people didn't live as long in them thar days.
You're jumping to conclusions (a common characteristic of the under-developed) – I'll vote 'support' in the End of Life Choice referendum (promoted by ACT's David Seymour), but I’m (still) genuinely undecided on the Cannabis Legalisation and Control referendum (supported by the Green party's Chlöe Swarbrick). And yes, I will Party Vote Green.
I couldn't persuade Swarbrick to partake in an MRI brain scan, so had to resort to other objective measurements of achievement to inform my conclusions about her level of development.
I'm unlikely to vote for the Greens but that is no excuse IMO for this sort of mindset in someone so young – how usual is it for a then 17 to be that determined to push themselves into politics The choice of those politics leans to the right as does it appears the couple of incidents shows a determined certain mindset. Set beside the observation by Politik that certain National MPs in safe seats are reckless with their behaviours & lacking in personal responsibilities – the "twins" Barclay & Walker, Falloon, Muller's misplaced personal confidence. These people have had approval from the National Party none of it speaks of interest in serving wider NZ
The details are pretty important in order for the admin to fix it. This site isn't sponsored, it consists of very few very dedicated people.
It would be a great help if you didn’t trivialise and paid attention to your device, operating system, and browser so The Standard can make your experience better.
edit
Prince Andrew embroiled in allegations of relations with under-age girls. Woman accused of organising young girls for sex.
Jeffrey Epstein ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell charged in US Jul.3/20 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53268218
All very modern. Yet concerned women and men were fighting to stop exactly the same thing in the 1800s.
Part of an interview in 1885 between 'the campaigning editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead' and the head of London's Criminal Investigation Department, Howard Vincent.
"But", I said in amazement, "then do you mean to tell me that in very truth actual rapes, in the legal sense of the word, are constantly being perpetrated in London on unwilling virgins, purveyed and procured to rich men at so much a head by keepers of brothels?" "Certainly", said he, "there is not a doubt of it." "Why", I exclaimed, "the very thought is enough to raise hell." "It is true", he said; "and although it ought to raise hell, it does not even raise the neighbours."
Stead, to stir the public and prove that child slavery was being condoned, purchased a 13-year old girl from her mother for Five pounds, and took her out of Britain to France. For his effrontery in bringing this to public notice he was charged, taken before the Courts, and sentenced to three months imprisonment.
Josephine Butler aided by her husband had been devoted for years to the cause of helping young girls and women from being discriminated against by the justice system in the cruellest way. A Bill was passed in 1885 that set standards as to higher age, and other protections. Then the fervent campaigners went further and began to attempt purist conditions going to higher levels in controlling sexuality, a moral outrage movement.
The passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act led to the formation of purity societies, such as the White Cross Army, whose aims were to force the closure of brothels through prosecution. The societies widened their remit to suppress what they considered indecent literature—including information on birth control—and the entertainment provided by the music halls.
Butler warned against the purity societies because of their "fatuous belief that you can oblige human beings to be moral by force, and in so doing that you may in some way promote social purity".
I think this example makes a point about now and not being extreme in PC speech bans, with moral crusaders becoming over zealous about words and behaviour being over-censored. If we could strike the right balance we could live more harmoniously.
I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have ...
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
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RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
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Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
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Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
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The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
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https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300066798/heres-why-government-buying-tiwai-point-is-not-a-crazy-idea
Sam Stubbs makes a good case for nz buying tiwai smelter,
I'd add if they can pick it up for a dollar they could sell a share of it to kiwis.
Stubbs says the Manapouri electricity will go to waste if Tiwai Point isn't using it. Wrong now, and even wronger when grid upgrades that are already underway get completed.
Stubbs buys into that low-carbon high-purity sales spin. Wrong. That Tiwai Point is sucking so much electricity from NZ electricity supply is keeping the coal going into Huntly. Close Tiwai Point, and the coal boilers at Huntly will very likely close very soon after. So in fairness, we should be attributing Huntly's coal-derived emissions to Tiwai Point.
The smelting process also releases CO2 (and other nasties) as a result of the carbon anodes that are consumed in the smelting process. As I understand it, Tiwai Point's performance in this part of the process is middling. Rio Tinto are underway with commercialising an alternative process that doesn't have these carbon emissions, but using that process will require retrofitting the whole smelter. Which will reduce any residual value existing carbon-emitting "assets" may still have.
The "dollar" price Stubbs tosses around would presumably have hidden in it the hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities associated with environmental problems at the Tiwai Point site.
'Sam Stubbs makes a good case for nz buying tiwai smelter, '
The debate has moved on from this and the facts show that it is not an idea to fly. Forget this one, and think of what else could use the workforce of seasoned practical men, accompanied by abundant electricity.
Rod Oram sizes up the situation well – thoroughly and coolly. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/oram-how-the-global-aluminium-market-killed-tiwai-point
Interesting article. The China production is huge- are they aiming for a monopoly hold on the market with all the strategic and destructive potential that implies? Rio may not want to shoot itself in the foot but by default will it be shooting a lot of other industries and national interests. Warplanes?
I am really getting sick of these opinion pieces on what is supposed to be a news website. But Stubbs is wrong about Tiwai on so many fronts its really a joke. Tiwai produces "high quality aluminium" because the smelting process is old and really inefficient. The world production of aluminium in 2018 was 60,000,000 metric tons. China has huge numbers of smelters and produces 33,000,000 metric tons while NZ's sole smelter produces 337,000 metric tons. ie NZ produces 0.5% of the world's production. NZ isn't even a pimple on the backside of this elephant. As well as that China has all of the manufacturing infrastructure underneath that to use the aluminium. The NZ smelter has been under threat for years and years for very basic reasons – it isn't making money and its output is minscule. The best thing NZ can do with the power from Manapouri is to eventually connect it to the Transpower grid but that is going to take a few years.
It's already connected to the grid. It's just that the part of the grid between Invercargill and the Waitaki area wasn't really grunty enough to take the 600ishMW that will be freed up next year. But an upgrade was already underway before the closure announcement, and is no doubt being accelerated.
Where are you going to sell the Aluminium and buy the bauxite.
No economic viability even for the biggest mining company in the World .
This happened yesterday: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122262318/toddler-critically-injured-at-queenstown-daycare
Now the thing to notice is that the reporter fails to inform the public what actually happened to cause the injury – or injuries. Even worse, the reporter is evidently too stupid to consider how other parents who leave their kids at that daycare centre are going to feel about the cover-up.
At the very least the reporter and Stuff's editor ought to be considering the public interest in the situation. Is privacy law being used to perform the cover-up? Then say so! What part of morality do you dorks not get??
Yes, yes, the ritualised issuance of politically-correct banalities has been rigorously adhered to, we get that.
Who do they believe are going to inform them, if not those who were there, on the spot, supervising the kids? Pathetic. Disgusting.
You can imagine how thrilled the other parents will be to see this. If I was one of them I would yank my kids out of there pronto. I wonder how those parents will react to being frozen out by the manager/owner and media.
The Worksafe shadow over all – is it more talked about than evidenced? Are they actually operating under their own aegis – making sure that any work they do results in safe outcomes – that match their contracts in a satisfactory and positive manner. Minister Andrew Little this morning sounded like a kindly uncle as I listened while I worked.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018756842/andrew-little-on-worksafe
The thing I am hearing regularly from agencies supposed to be arms of the government is that they decide what they will investigate on the test of – 'Can it be tested and won in Court' and so, be a plus mark in their activity success tickbox. If not, 'There is not enough evidence to pursue this matter'. They all need to be pursued by eager citizens, noses to the ground and teeth at the ready to nip them on their fat butts. (Or very thin ones because their personal drives go into the new middle-class memes of personal fitness and setting goals of running marathons, bicycle riding in lycra etc).
Worksafe has been defunded under National as well as reorganized so the enforcement side hasn't got the funds to investigate or prosecute let alone prevention.Pike River.
If the matter has already been prosecuted by the police, what would worksafe be adding?
Half of Queenstown will know by now what happened. Certainly the parents with kids in that daycare will. There's no public interest here that requires immediate media coverage of the details, and it works against the public interest to publish too quickly and then find out the details were wrong because the people the journo was talking to were still in shock and/or dealing with the event and didn't have their facts straight. We see this with rapid emergencies fairly often now, where MSM rush to publish before they've confirmed what happened. It takes time to get a reliable and truthful narrative.
The incident happened Monday morning, the report was published late Monday afternoon. I'd expect more information in the next few days once the police, WorkSafe, and the Ministry have started on their processes.
The (r)evolution pending: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/122262881/why-do-kiwis-want-the-economic-system-reformed
Yet you can bet both major parties will duck the issue! Labour because it can now coast to victory on its poll ratings. National because it is the party of business as usual.
National will now start whining like the drug addict who needs their regular hit. How feeble their calls for re-opening the borders are will be amusing to see.
The prospect of Labour ramming anything anywhere is zilch. Think limp dishrag.
Got that right! Don't spook the horses, Grant! He's done well, to my surprise, presenting centrism as a benign economic model to the electorate, and it complements the PM's mastermind managerial style nicely. Expect them to rise above bland though, spicing it up with a few futuristic signals in the next few weeks – carefully designed not to provoke expectation of drastic change.
Unsurprising to see a libertarian journo like Malpass struggle to articulate any other approach to changing an economy than cutting taxes and protections. No imagination.
An unfortunate name for that journo surely. I'm rereading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – it would be a name that might occur there. Fact stranger than fiction.
Today, will we see National’s internal polling leaked to the media and endorsed by its Leader? If so, who will be the recipient of the info? What will the National tacticians decide? Will it be a shot across the bow or one in the foot? I’ve ordered extra popcorn.
Judith was planning to release them yesterday, but her sharpie ran out of ink
To be expected when you borrow Gerry's.
If the internal polls were good, they would have been released before now,.expect polling figures that did not come off a poll
Listening to recent interviews with Musk's mate Thiel, is mindbending . It is hard to grasp what he believes in as he makes ambiguous, confusing responses. The world consists of only three doors to choose from ?
The power of money to have those in power then court you, yet the Mont Pelerin Society describe Thiel as a philanthropist. https://youtu.be/IXG2F0a6I28
For Musk, the arrogant prat to make that tweet and pass it off as a joke reminds me of Collins and her similar attempt
Things haven't gone well for the indigenous people of Bolivia since the coup
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/14/what-the-coup-against-evo-morales-means-to-indigenous-people-like-me
Under Evo's term of indigenous socialism has been "the majority population has, for the first time in their lives, lived above poverty.
The achievements were more than economic. Bolivia made a great leap forward in indigenous rights."
Evo’s crime.
“My sin was being indigenous, leftist, and anti-imperialist,” Evo said after being coerced into resigning this week.
His replacement, Jeanine Añez Chávez, agreed. “I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rites,” the opposition senator tweeted in 2013, “the city is not for the Indians who should stay in the highlands or the Chaco!!!” After Evo’s departure, Chavez declared herself interim president while holding up a large bible, though she failed to get the required quorum in the senate to do so.
Maybe Collins sees herself as a Chavez when she vowed to "crush the other lot", meaning just about all! Would she also burn the indigenous flag that was hung upside down behind Mueller while ripping the UN Agenda 30 to shreds. Could Collins stick to NZ alligning to the seventeen 2030 goals ? Can you hear her saying,
"We resolve to build a better future for all people, including the millions who have been denied the chance to lead decent, dignified and rewarding lives……We can be the first generation to succeed in ending poverty; just as we may be the last to have a chance of saving the planet."
well he has spoken the truth, nothing more nothing left.
but hey, green clean electric cars, no fossil fuel mining…..well, when one does not count lithium mining as 'fossil fuel'.
So he is not joking, he is literally just saying the truth. We can coup anyone.
Musk is trolling clueless idiots with a predisposition to think 'Tesla batteries use lots of lithium -hmm, Bolivia has lots of lithium and just had a coup = Tesla bad' who have zero understanding of lithium supply chains and technical details of battery chemistry.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/26/tesla-battery-materials-production-lithium-nickel-sourcing/
https://theconversation.com/bolivian-lithium-why-you-should-not-expect-any-white-gold-rush-in-the-wake-of-morales-overthrow-127139
Are you aware on mobile version some of these articles are not readable. I cant read either this one or Mickeys about Labour being better economic managers without switching to desktop version.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
thanks. Have moved this to Open Mike so it's easier to keep track of. Lynn (sysop) is aware of the issue, I will let him know about today's one too.
I dunno if this makes any difference, but I've noticed it's mostly Mickeys pieces.
That’s a hilarious comment 😀
Probably more noticeable because micky is writing more posts than anyone else.
Try it again now. Between us, weka and I have both played with the tweet.
My cell (Samsung S10 running Chrome on Android 10) requested that I whitelisted the page at the client side – probably because it was picking up the tweet. Try to reload the page and see what happens. Also tell me what kind of device you’re using.
Works for me now, cheers. (Chrome, Samsung).
how do you white list on a phone?
Just checked, restriction on my phone are disabled, so that means there is no blacklisting happening?
Finally some true vision, reminiscent of old…world leading and full of common sense and undeterred by the fact it hasnt been done before…this is the type of thinking we need.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018756855/lake-onslow-hydro-project-pros-and-cons
The thinking has always been there,for pumped storage between two natural reservoirs called Tekapo and Pukeko.
The fly in the ointment was the breaking up of generators,with little thought as to the future beyond shareholder entitlement.
Sustainable Energy forum’s hydro expert, Alastair Barnett, estimates that the Onslow scheme could provide 5000 gigawatt-hours storage. But a simpler pumped storage system between Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki could provide over half Onslow’s dry-year storage with minimal construction cost – the two lakes were originally designed to do exactly that.
That scheme was precluded by the separation of ownership within the Tekapo-Waitaki hydro scheme. Genesis owns and manages Tekapo, Meridian owns the power stations below Tekapo. Each gentailer manages their part of the resource to maximise profit and shareholder value, not to minimise financial or environmental cost.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK2007/S00524/green-the-grid-no-use-mixed-energy-sources-to-reach-true-carbon-zero.htm
Who was the bright spark who split them up?
Bill English so he could privatise them and grab a large dividend ( repalced by borrowing) for tax cuts for the high earning mates. The electricity industry in New Zealand could do with a ground zero reset and rstructure to eliminate all the market inefficencies of privatisation. 29 power company CEO's – really? We used to run the lot out of the 8 floors of Rutherford house in Wellington.
Pumped hydro not new or ground breaking but the vision of the scheme incorporating wetlands and the scale are….the impact on the workings of the electricity market in NZ is also a great opportunity to revisit the profit motive, particularly in light of the recent finding on 'spillage' and wholesale pricing.
There appears a difference of opinion between Barnett and Bardsley on the viability of Tekapo and Pukaki around suitable geology but I expect those differences can be evaluated.
The cost appears to me to be overemphasised considering construction time is estimated to be 6-8 years…thats an annual outlay of approx half a billion per annum….weve just spent 16 billion on wage subsidies in less than 5 months.
I heard Orams piece on RNZ where he questioned the ability of (any) gov to plan a multigenerational project however the decision and construction can occur inside a decade…potentially inside the term of one administration.
In any event, we have wasted numerous years the decisions on long term infrastructure and energy provision and cannot be delayed any longer….and that system must be as close to zero carbon as possible.
Barry Soper going full conspiracy theory:
To be clear, Barry is insinuating the Labour Party has influenced the spacing of polling booths in order to win the election.
Lunatic.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12351444
As long as there’s no red tape to send subliminal messages.
Thank heavens incognito we've got you – you're onto it. Probably people will see some red arrows soon and it will show how pervasive the Labour propagamda is. It's all around you, like a red rag to a bull. Better put – /sarc.
Probably says alot more about the NZ Herald's quality of trite shite selected to pass off as news. The eyebrows!
He's been reporting on elections for decades, so I'm sure he knows who really makes these decisions.
But his readers/listeners might not. So he feeds them BS he knows is false. That fails the most basic test of ethics, and he should be facing disciplinary action from NZME. Lying about our democratic process is unacceptable.
Soapy Baz still struggling with the old this is inside, this is outside thing. Come to the door Soapy, we'll run through it again.
If Soper is insinuating the Labour Party has influenced the spacing of polling booths in order to win the election he is an idiot.
I've sent in a complaint. I hope others do as well.
One sentence (not too rude!) is enough. Soper's piece is not "bad opinion", it is simply false.
Maybe he was joking.
The fool thinks that no covid now means no covid in 8 weeks. And yet if we had a new outbreak at election time and hadn't made these plans, Captain Hindsight will be cursing the government's foolishness. 🙄
Yep – that is clearly the thinking behind it. To allow for the possibility that there IS some community transmission in 8 weeks.
If Soper really wanted to make mischief (which he does), rather than sound like a daft conspiracy theorist, he would argue that this forward planning shows how little confidence the government has that they can keep Covid out and that it's all 'shambolic'etc. etc. Missed opportunity there Bazza – I wonder whether next week's cheque might be going to a more competent propagandist?
"“When my eyebrow goes up, it’s a joke.”"
Comedy (and political) gold!
Every time those eyebrows rise, she's
telling porkiesjoking.https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300067642/election-2020-judith-collins-says-she-was-joking-when-falsely-saying-no-one-escaped-while-she-was-corrections-minister
https://twitter.com/David_Cormack/status/1287891151333122048
Have you watched the video interview, weka? You must, and especially focus on the end where she addresses "Henry".
I don't normally watch vid of her, but that one is kind of intense. She's trying to make a joke, but her eyes are seriously dark when she speaks to Henry and then she puts a smile on it. But those eyes just before the smile. She's like that earlier in the piece with someone else too (Tova I think).
Is she always like that?
I think I tore an eyebrow muscle when watching that. Did she say Monthly Pie-a-ton? Getting hungry now and licking the salt from my empty popcorn bowl.
I noticed that early in the piece her eyebrows went right up as she was saying that she cared about the thousands of NZers about to lose their jobs…
In fact, I think we need to note every time in future when her eyebrow rises while she is trying to speak seriously and convincingly. She does it all the time..
Has she got rogue eyebrows do you think? That if studied will give accurate indications of the truthfulness of her statements. Cripes, what a disadvantage for a politician. Some bird watchers in the UK who are more interested in showy stats than being informed experts are called 'twitchers'. I imagine Collins is more interested in numbers of voters rather than deep interest in us as people and citizens, so she is a sort of twitcher; which may explain her eyebrow movements. If it is a Pavlovian response (moving from birds to dogs) she may be unable to control it and so bird fanciers might have to keep their eyes on this twitcher, who could end up going to the dogs! Do hope you followed this. It's all a deep code you know.
“When my eyebrow goes up, it’s a joke.”
Eyebrow up or not, Collins was clearly joking when she said that, but has made a rod for her own eyebrow. Everything she says from now on will be parsed in an 'Are you joking now?' context.
Under Collins’ ‘leadership‘, the National Party’s puddle of ‘truthfulness‘ has dried up – just can’t trust them. Mind you, ‘She’s a handsome Tory’
"I don't understand how that's funny, can you explain how it's funny?"
That was so funny i had to watch it twice. I wonder if someone should explain to Collins why this is funny? I guess she has staff for that.
I was terrified she was going to turn to camera and look at me.
The Medusa effect?
This was a sub headline in this story about 10 mins ago:
Unfortunately it's now been changed to this:
"Interestingly", when Collins made the claim to her National Party faithful audience, her eyebrows didn't "go up".
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/07/judith-collins-hits-out-at-shane-jones-avoids-talking-about-political-polls.html
I thought her eyebrows were always up?
Judith statistics – 436000 and no eyebrows were raised ? Was that a plucked or tweeked guess?
Maybe she has leaked info because it does not seem to correlate with Treasury's weekly data indicators.
Prior, Treasury presented at the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) 2020. "We still expect to see a large contraction in growth in the June quarter, followed by a partial rebound in the September quarter, and a further economic recovery afterwards."
However there was upward activity for June. Treasury responded to the need for the more immediate need of pertinent, economy indicator reports, as complementary to the less frequent quarterly GDP ; hence using the NZAC index ( The GDP not due for this quarter until September 17, 2020).
"The NZAC does nonetheless point to some upside to those initial estimates. Our initial estimate for June quarter GDP was based on longer periods of time at higher alert levels. We’ve also made a quicker progression to Alert level 1 than what we assumed at BEFU, and therefore activity has been able to resume more quickly.
https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/weu/weekly-economic-update-24-july-2020-html
High-frequency activity indicators continued to hold steady in July along with other upward expansion indicated on Treasury's dashboard.
https://treasury.govt.nz/system/files/2020-07/covid-19-econ-dashboard-24jul2020.pdf
Current Stats NZ statistics suggests to Treasury that, " employment continued to hold up in June (Figure 2). For the week ended 21 June, the most accurate measure (which lags by 27 days) showed the total number of paid jobs up 4.5% on the same week in 2019. At the industry level, paid jobs in the primary industries were up 10.1% on last year, goods-producing jobs were up 2.5%, and services jobs were up 3.1% on 2019 after falling by around 80,000 between March and April 2020. "
How did Judith calculate her prediction ?
Is it my computer or is that the opposite to a black hole?
Please explain your comment or are you trying to be pernicious because ……?
My computer shows a completely blank screen in the middle of your comment. When you look at the screen is there a big white space or is it filled with graphs and content you've put up? Please advise. It would be a help for me to know.
I think that is because it is a link to a PDF.
Try this instead: https://treasury.govt.nz/system/files/2020-07/covid-19-econ-dashboard-24jul2020.pdf
I get this message:
and then a box to click to go there.
Thanks solkta I have Firefox but didn't get that message.
Thanks incognito I tried that link and got some really interesting artwork snaking over various backgrounds.
I'm having trouble with pdfs – can't get many of them. I have to ask my associate what to do and write down in a book so I can transfer the instructions to the particular part of my brain which is dedicated to keeping up with this wonderful technology that is so helpful in showing us how far we have dipped or risen every day, and that is not just referring to Covid-19. Anyway if I don't do it today, it might have changed by tomorrow, and then I have had an hour or so for some other activity that might be more useful. However I will try, so don't give up on me please.
For that link to the quick summary dashboard, the Treasury site only gives the one format link. It also then required giving Chrome app storage permission to download.
However, other articles such as the weekly updates, were not embedded with Chrome and have a choice of formats.
I never went to the website. I simply took your link and turned it into a URL that TS readers can see/read and click on (or not). I was trying to help.
Her "It doesn't give my opponents much time to run up to an election, does it?" moment I reckon. She's not very good is she?
Muldoon was drunk when he uttered those words. Words of a desperate man who knew it was all over for him.
A leader should not joke about an escape from corrections.
Does she think it is a joke when someone leaves a psychiatric ward and harm occurs?
Agree Treetop. She was however in a similar position of trying to escape so needed to divert by flippancy.
Trapped, she could have said, “I shouldn’t be in this predicament ! Everyone agrees with me. Seperate but equal is great policy ( for my eyebrows )".
The reporters further questioned, “Everyone? You’re standing alone in here.” She gestures around, “Everyone, you know, the paintings on the corridor wall, tables and the clock all of them think I should be PM .”
I have heard The Telegraph soundly run down and yet have found much in it of value. Yet this latest on Harry and Meghan shows the vicious probing of a mosquito, and too many of such bites can maim its host.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/harry-meghan-seem-bring-worst/
This from Angela Levin: Just before Prince Harry got engaged to Meghan Markle, he invited me to Kensington Palace for a chat as I was writing his biography. One of the things he was keen to get across was the importance of teamwork.
If you want to be a success you have to be a team player,” he told me. “You get taught in the Army that you can’t get anywhere without the support of other people. I agree.”
It seems as if he is trying to establish a reasonable rapport with the media as his mother tried. But is the media reasonable; can it be reasoned with? Or is lurking behind it the malign drive of unalloyed pleasure in malicious gossip, desire for power through knowledge, and overall, lovely moolah – profit?
Harry and Meghan did not include a Covid-19 senario in their plans. The timing was bad for them to make a clean break, more so for Harry than Meghan.
Harry had issues with how the media treated his mother and a double up with negative media when Meghan became upset about media coverage about her which she did not like. Media coverage became personalised about Meghan and her father and this cannot be brushed off. The Royal family are reliant on the media for their charity work and on tourism to justify the expense of keeping them.
What is the Royal position on the media "don't explain, don't complain." This could have been modernised and a human element to it. I would have liked Harry and Meghan to have delayed leaving the firm for 3 years.
Look how the Queen's job has become redundant due to Covid-19. The Queen is 94 and I expect she is enjoying having a bit more rest.
Where can we view the interview with Henry and Tova please?
It’s in Robert Guyton's post @11:33am
Surprise surprise..
/
https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1287811120691126272
And Chump's brownshirts were nowhere to be seen?
I see we have caved in to our Yankee Masters in regard to extradition to Hong Kong, so much for being independent. Better if we dump the spy game and opt out of 'five eyes'
It might have been less confrontational just to be unable to extradite individual cases.
How does it work ?
Say someone from here goes to Hong Kong and ends up murdering someone there, then rushes back to NZ , can't be extradited and we're stuck with a murderer?
Surely there should be case by case considerations?
True, but would that be satisfactory to our Master, Uncle Sam.
If China executes murderers we wouldn't be extraditing anyway would we?
Ok if China executes mainly for drug trafficking, and murder , we still end up potentially protecting rapists , fraudsters, criminals as well
Either way we could end up with undesirables evading justice
Nats teen candidate apologises for Hitler impression…
asked why he did it by journalists Mr Wood replied “ve aks ze qvestions!…”
-sarc-
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/07/national-s-teen-candidate-william-wood-apologises-after-appearing-to-impersonate-hitler-in-resurfaced-image.html?fbclid=IwAR1GZYfFQRbnE6IX9PK7zFgks-ekGDMgKVtt2Y8r8sHoZfi8VjiWgc1TZlE
I did plenty of stupid things when I was 14, and 18 (or 28 or 38 or … OK, never mind).
I certainly won't condemn him for that. But he – and above all the National Party – need to accept that they made a silly decision to have a high school kid as a candidate, and they can't have it both ways: get a pass for being a teenager OR don't get a pass, because you're ready to be an MP. But pick one.
He was only 14. Mind you, now he's only 18.
Maybe William Wood (opposition National Party candidate for the Palmerston North electorate) shouldn't be punished politically for a 'mistake' made four years ago, but…
Oh come on! It was a joke; he raised an eyebrow.
Might the 'tactic' of fielding very young candidates in general elections be more widely adopted to minimise political risk from revelations of past 'misdemeanors'?
A freudian slip of the tongue caused him to froth at mouth.
Stiff upper lip
Its more about selecting a rude, green (as in naivety) inexperienced teenager whose brain is still not fully developed.
You can almost read their simplistic thought process:
he'll bring in the votes of the 18-20 year olds.
He'll do nothing of the sort. Half of them couldn't care less and won't vote. The other half will more than likely go with Labour because they are promising better training and employment opportunities for the young.
I just hope he has a good support system as he is on the young side. He has guts putting himself out there. A lot of seasoned MPs have been known to struggle. Politics can be dehumanising.
As a secondary school teacher, I have seen heaps of 16-yr-olds who possessed more understanding of experience and wisdom than many 30-yr-olds.
Unfortunately, the minute William Wood opened his mouth, I excluded him from that category.
It comes down to having good judgment.
The Labour person made them at 29.
The latest 'leader' of the opposition National party made them at 50+
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-07-2020/nicky-hager-five-reasons-why-judith-collins-wont-be-prime-minister/
DIRTY POLITICS – Chapter 4: The Crusher and the Attack Dog [link to PDF]
Perhaps you are hoping for another William Pitt the younger?
I'm not hoping for anything.
Have no idea who he is.
How old was Swarbrick when she ran for the mayoralty?
20ish?
22ish – it's a well known truism that females mature earlier than males.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141164708#:~:text=Brain%20Maturity%20Extends%20Well%20Beyond%20Teen%20Years%20Under%20most%20laws,maturity%20until%20the%20age%2025.
Swarbrick's brain developed early, whereas Wood is a late ‘bloomer‘?
So you have proof Swarbrick is below the average 26?
I’d guess no on the age restriction on her weed bill
Not following – can you show your working?
"Swarbrick's brain developed early, whereas Wood is a late ‘bloomer‘?"
What is the proof of this
You're quoting a question, not an assertion, and you brought up Swarbrick @15.1.3.2.1.
I'm not following your question @10:31 pm.
True
So going by the scientists link then both Swarbricks and the Nat idiots brains would not have been fully developed, when entering politics.
So hey. Both the govt and the opposition pick under developed brains
If you're choosing Swarbrick and Wood as examples, then it's only political parties in opposition that pick under-developed brains.
Swarbrick's brain may have been "under-developed" when she became an MP at age 23 – if so then what I'd give for that level of under-development! She is, however, the youngest person to be elected to NZ's parliament since the opposition National party selected Marylin Waring to stand for the Raglan electorate in 1975.
Of course it might just be pure coincidence that the two youngest MPs in the modern history of NZ's parliament are women. You have to go all the way back to 1906 to find anyone younger than Waring, and people didn't live as long in them thar days.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/mps-and-parliaments-1854-onwards/youngest-members-of-parliament/
That purely comes down to opinion of her ideas.
You obviously agree with them, so to you she wasn't under developed. Others don't.
“That purely comes down to opinion of her ideas.”
You're jumping to conclusions (a common characteristic of the under-developed) – I'll vote 'support' in the End of Life Choice referendum (promoted by ACT's David Seymour), but I’m (still) genuinely undecided on the Cannabis Legalisation and Control referendum (supported by the Green party's Chlöe Swarbrick). And yes, I will Party Vote Green.
I couldn't persuade Swarbrick to partake in an MRI brain scan, so had to resort to other objective measurements of achievement to inform my conclusions about her level of development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chl%C3%B6e_Swarbrick
I am actually in the same scenario with the EoL and weed referendum
EoL yes, Weed still humming and harring over.
The difference is I doubt I would ever vote for the Greens
🙂
I've voted Green for a looong time, but it wasn't always the case, so never say ‘never‘. As long as you vote, it's all good.
I'm unlikely to vote for the Greens but that is no excuse IMO for this sort of mindset in someone so young – how usual is it for a then 17 to be that determined to push themselves into politics The choice of those politics leans to the right as does it appears the couple of incidents shows a determined certain mindset. Set beside the observation by Politik that certain National MPs in safe seats are reckless with their behaviours & lacking in personal responsibilities – the "twins" Barclay & Walker, Falloon, Muller's misplaced personal confidence. These people have had approval from the National Party none of it speaks of interest in serving wider NZ
Works now. Samsung Something
The details are pretty important in order for the admin to fix it. This site isn't sponsored, it consists of very few very dedicated people.
It would be a great help if you didn’t trivialise and paid attention to your device, operating system, and browser so The Standard can make your experience better.
Cheers.
I have just been able to reinstall click to edit. I lost it a few days ago.
People try to help me and it goes in one ear and out the other.
edit
Prince Andrew embroiled in allegations of relations with under-age girls. Woman accused of organising young girls for sex.
Jeffrey Epstein ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell charged in US Jul.3/20 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53268218
All very modern. Yet concerned women and men were fighting to stop exactly the same thing in the 1800s.
Part of an interview in 1885 between 'the campaigning editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead' and the head of London's Criminal Investigation Department, Howard Vincent.
"But", I said in amazement, "then do you mean to tell me that in very truth actual rapes, in the legal sense of the word, are constantly being perpetrated in London on unwilling virgins, purveyed and procured to rich men at so much a head by keepers of brothels?" "Certainly", said he, "there is not a doubt of it." "Why", I exclaimed, "the very thought is enough to raise hell." "It is true", he said; "and although it ought to raise hell, it does not even raise the neighbours."
Stead, to stir the public and prove that child slavery was being condoned, purchased a 13-year old girl from her mother for Five pounds, and took her out of Britain to France. For his effrontery in bringing this to public notice he was charged, taken before the Courts, and sentenced to three months imprisonment.
Josephine Butler aided by her husband had been devoted for years to the cause of helping young girls and women from being discriminated against by the justice system in the cruellest way. A Bill was passed in 1885 that set standards as to higher age, and other protections. Then the fervent campaigners went further and began to attempt purist conditions going to higher levels in controlling sexuality, a moral outrage movement.
The passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act led to the formation of purity societies, such as the White Cross Army, whose aims were to force the closure of brothels through prosecution. The societies widened their remit to suppress what they considered indecent literature—including information on birth control—and the entertainment provided by the music halls.
Butler warned against the purity societies because of their "fatuous belief that you can oblige human beings to be moral by force, and in so doing that you may in some way promote social purity".
Her warnings went unheeded by other suffragists, and some, such as Millicent Fawcett—who was later Butler's biographer—continued to combine their activities in the feminist movement with the work for the purity societies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Butler#Early_married_life;_1850%E2%80%931864
I think this example makes a point about now and not being extreme in PC speech bans, with moral crusaders becoming over zealous about words and behaviour being over-censored. If we could strike the right balance we could live more harmoniously.