“The new top of the foundation will probably be about here,” he says, shifting his hand to 3 feet above the flood mark, indicating a spot level with the door knocker, about shoulder-height. REEF Design & Build is raising the foundation not only for Matt’s replacement house, but for many of the coastal houses the company is already building. Construction companies like his are responding to local building regulations, which are in turn responding to the most recent flood maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The councils buckle to pressure of rich litigators, aka they have had engineering that shows that Omaha will defiantly suffer substantial flood damage, but when they went to put it on the LIMs all the lawyers and big wigs who have holiday homes there threatened to litigate the council because their house prices would fall if the truth was put on the LIMS. So it was never put on the LIMS. Win win for the rich, because no doubt when the big flood happens they will litigate the council anyway for not putting it on! Rich win with no information, rich win without the information. Meanwhile if it’s folks with leaky buildings or what have you, no real interest in ensuring it never happens again.
Apparently 1 in 195 council workers at Auckland city are on over $200,000 pa, my guess is not many of them are planners or building inspectors, (while the council cry about the worker shortages and need foreign workers now to do those roles) but plenty of other council workers on $200k+ are lawyers and managers who shock doctrine style come and litigate AFTER the problems are well known but no money put spent where it should have been.
The story seems to say it was major error to combine all the possible risks to happen at once.
‘ the idea rising sea levels would combine with an extreme weather event, a nasty weather pattern with a super-spring tide, was ridiculous. ‘
Its not saying there was no increased risk- they say 3.8m not 5m, which would only affect a few properties
The Piha situation was an actual extreme weather event . I tell people I know who live in Bush clad areas near streams or along winding roads in Waitakeres that its coming around to 100 years since the last major weather catastrophe hit the whole ranges. Sell up and leave now.
The Piha flood was from a storm in a small area, the rest of the Waitakeres were lucky…that time.
There is absolutely no truth to the rumour that the National Party’s internal review of its culture is being conducted by former National MPs Roger McClay and Grahame Thorne.
Why do you have an issue with Tribes making money off traditional resources? Is it only OK for white people to do?
Kaitiakitanga is a system of sustainable harvest and environmental observation. If they’re saying the seals are becoming too numerous locally I’d be inclined to believe it.
Conservationists want to see NZ like the good old days. Despite the fact everything’s changing and adaptations are required for most anything to ‘remain the same’.
What I’d like to know about all this is whether these species natural predators have been decimated, which would necessitate eventual culls of these protected species.
If we’ve broken the food chain, we need to step in till prey numbers actually bring predators back from functional extinction. We need to be the faux predators. Or the seals will collapse other species populations.
Counting overall numbers and calling them low works for an accountant, for individual islands it’s a nonsense.
Practical and proper beats pious and preening any day.
So your fine with Japanese whaling using bloody great ships . ?
For it to be cultural practised surely it should be carried out in the old way . So maybe they should grab a few seals for the pot as well ,but stop selling mutton birds?
The issue is not really about the mutton bird harvest. It is about the sustainability of their populations, and of rising seal populations, within this small island system.
While conservation of the seals is admirable, the observation that their continued growth within this area can impact mutton bird populations is worth noting. We see plenty of roll on effects like this in conservation efforts where rise or fall of certain species leads to the rise or fall of others.
There is a seal carrying capacity for those islands. What is it?
Are the predators (shark/orca?) intact?
Sustainable systems require biological and ecological knowledge, not someone in an office calling shots. Kaitiakitanga is ahead of current agricultural practice with regards to earth care and future care.
It’s worth listening we pale folk might learn something.
Assad will fall
Dick Gregory – News Of The Revolution In Syria, October 25, 2018
The following is an insight into how the Assad regime survives on the destruction of its economy, its productive base, and the massacre and expulsion of its people. And why this will ultimately lead to regime’s inevitable collapse.
……In late 2012, looking at the reporting of an Assadist counter-offensive in Aleppo, I noticed that when the régime advanced, there was no return of the population to their homes. Clearly there was a large section of the population, predominantly Sunni Muslims but including anyone who might be suspected of opposition to Assad, that he intended to kill or induce to flee…..
….. ‘ “By now, it is estimated that 90 % of those arrested by the regime or régime militias had nothing to do with the revolution,” says Amer, a former officer in the Syrian military. Free rein when it comes to arrests is one of the ways in which the régime renders it possible for various parts of its security apparatus to enrich themselves……
…….Assad’s state is more than a sectarian military dictatorship. It is a torture-rape kleptocracy that profits from the destruction of the society it rests upon. As such it is the most unstable state in the world, a black hole that constantly destabilises the world around it as it fights to maintain its existence. There have been other states that resemble it in some ways. Only one government had ever bombed its own cities before – though it is time to stop calling a ruling party a government when it eschews government in favour of murder so blatantly – General Somoza’s in Nicaragua. The only state I can think of that so systematically murdered the professional classes of the population was Pol Pot’s Kampuchea. Neither lasted for more than a few years after they began to destroy the foundations of their society……
…… The régime is left with very immediate threats of violence as its governing strategy, and cannot step back to a more consensual method. Because those who carry it out the arrests, rape torture and extortion, those who profit from it, are the core of the state. Individual militias can sometimes be disbanded by the Russians, but the nature of the state relying on extreme violence for profit cannot be changed while the state remains……
……. To prevent themselves being carted off the Hague, the state from Assad at the top to the torturers and looters at the bottom don’t just need to protect themselves against actual threats. They need an excuse to avoid facing up to justice. They need the war to continue so that they can claim to be stopping chaos. Even if all military activity against them ended, the claim that they were still fighting terrorism would never end. The arrest and torture to suppress all opposition and provide opportunities for profit would never end. Once all opposition eyes were removed from the country, it would likely increase. Because that’s what violently sadistic people do when their violent sadism seems to have produced results……
violently sadistic ???? …… ” The supposed outrage is not connected to any concern for human rights, it is merely a foreign policy propaganda trick. And the main priority for people in the west should be to stop the crimes being committed, or abetted, by their own governments.”
Nelson Mandela …. “: “If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace. If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the USA. They don’t care for human beings.”
Nelson Mandela was referring to the illegal invasion of Iraq … but no doubt would denounce the violently sadistic actions against Libya and Syria and Yemen, Afghanistan etc etc.
If Martin Luther King was alive and able to repeat these quotes to jenny ….. in relation to Syria, or Libya,… or Iraq, or Afghanistan etc … “We again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long,” … “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government”.
Would she call Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Assadists? .
Both Nelson Mandela & Martin Luther King were correct …. as the sadistic violent actions never stop …
” Disgusted, Von Sponeck resigned as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq. His predecessor, Denis Halliday, an equally distinguished senior UN official, had also resigned. “I was instructed,” Halliday said, “to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.”
A study by the United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, found that between 1991 and 1998, the height of the blockade, there were 500,000 “excess” deaths of Iraqi infants under the age of five.”
Present day….. There is a deliberate genocide taking place right now …. “The cause is well known: the Saudi-led coalition’s bombardment and blockade of the country, with the full support of the US and UK”
” The issue is that the West is directly responsible for the tragedy in Yemen. Western companies supply the weapons, western military advisors are involved in the intelligence work and the selection of targets, US airplanes are refuelling Saudi (and coalition) jets as they carry out their savage bombings in Yemen.”
Check out this guy – he has turned a fifty point vote for Trump district into a highly marginal race – and wonder what party would he fit into here in New Zealand – my guess is his natural home would be NZ First, not Labour.
Such a glum assessment kinda sums up how NZ Labour is now a party of liberal elites who embrace the current late capitalist paradigm and do little more than tinker with the system to chip the worst off the edges, not a reforming party for the working Joe.
Labour ought to thank it’s lucky stars that a guy like this hasn’t emerged in New Zealand First. Instead, NZ First looks set to promote the pompous, elitist and widely unpopular Shane Jones to it’s leader. The promotion of Jones to the leadership (should it happen) would be fundamental strategic misunderstanding of nature of NZ First’s supporters, and would prolong the neoliberal hegemony in NZ’s two major parties.
If NZ First ever got a guy with the same sort of message as Ojeda, I reckon Labour would suffer the fate of the Dutch Labour party, whose support has fallen by 80%.
Hell, I’d vote for an Ojeda rather than a Jacinda in a heartbeat!
Fivethirtyeight currently have him as a 1:8 underdog, with a 45.1% projected vote share in a two-dog race. He’s not quite the Messiah. Not yet, anyway.
edit: Meanwhile, Joe Manchin (who’s nominally a Democrat but is ideologically and votes more like a moderate Republican) is strongly favoured to keep his Senate seat in West Virginia.
We went down the North Carolina coastal “outer banks” and down to ‘Jekyll island’ strips where many home owners were inundated with previous flooded properties and we saw homes being moved or lifted with another set of stilts placed under them so their homes were set higher again.
But the Minister thinks he is a great chap to allow to stay in New Zealand.
I wonder if he has donated anything to one of the coalition Government parties?
And will Lees-Galloway take responsibility for the guys actions in the future and resign the next time he gets into a little bit of bother with the Police?
Perhaps all the people who are calling for JLR’s health problems to be made public will start demanding that Lees-Galloway start explaining exactly what it is that caused him to make this decision?
Or not, as the case may be. After all, that might embarrass the Coalition of Fools.
It’s almost certain Lees-Galloway was acutely aware of the negative publicity it would get, so I’m picking there must be a credible reason he has let the guy stay. That reason might be that he has a bloody good lawyer, but it could also be that it’s very likely he would be killed if he returned to his country of origin. We don’t condemn people to death.
It’s almost certain Lees-Galloway would tell us the details if he could too.
The last thing this country needs is more fucking lawyers or drug dealers,
There is no credible reason to import crims we have more than enough already. Deport the prick.
“people who are calling for JLR’s health problems to be made public ”
being detained by police at the instigation of National party leaders office , isnt ‘treatment’. What the Doctors do is.
Paula Bennetts role in organising a media story base on complaints from women working ‘in national partys leaders office’ should be made public. A National party woman MP role in in getting back at her former lover using the leaders office/Bridges and Bennett should be made public.
“being detained by police at the instigation of National party leaders office”
And your evidence for this far-fetched claim is what, precisely?
Apart from your overactive imagination that is.
Bridges Chief of staff – the puppet on strings being pulled by Soimun.
It was all his doing.
Are you saying the Police were just out for a drive Saturday night and they ‘found’ an Auckland Mp in The Waikato ….hello hello …
What seems to be the circumstances was in yesterdays Herald, and the day before and last week when National issued a statement Sunday night that confirmed their knowledge of the police involvement …..hahaha
@ Alwyn – disgusting and despicable decision by Lees-Galloway
No wonder our drug use is increasing when our government is actively giving drug dealers residency , I guess for $100k donation he can get the order of merit too (from both parties in power).
What a joke, I don’t care if the guy is an informant for what the crap he pulled out of the bag, he should not be staying here, he’s got the EU to go back too. Get rid of him.
The message that NZ sends to the world, is criminals welcome… commit crimes here but don’t worry your residency application is assured… bring your criminal mates, NZ is open for business, any business, we turn a blind eye even if you are caught. wink. wink.
As long as you are not Maori you will get off and prosper here if you engage in criminal activity.
Crims come to NZ, free residency and welfare with every crime! Any story will do, to get off!
We have a range of valid skill shortages, didn’t know that criminals were part of this shortage
As we are told it costs us $100k to house someone in prison, then reward them with Citizenship.
We have “Member of wealthy wine family has drug charges overturned” https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/108005567/Member-of-wealthy-wine-family-has-drug-charges-overturned
But don’t worry at least our justice system is working for all BUT …. Maori and victims 🤫
residency converts to citizenship and we have a housing and prison crisis! remember , next thing is that they will give him a state home or Kiwibuild because he is such a victim.
Reading between the lines I would say he’s probably in mortal danger if he gets sent home . I would have no problem shipping him out but the laws of our country might.
Rubbish, the EU could protect him better than we could. We don’t want him. If that’s the caliber of people who get residency, aka sob story the their criminal gang connections back home are a danger so they need to stay in NZ and commit crimes here instead??? The politicians needs to get some perspective, who is at risk – back Kiwis safety NOT people like him and his connections to the underworld who could kill him here if they wanted anyway. Pathetic logic as usual.
Yeah why aren’t we more like Saudi or somewhere where we just destroy his life rather than send him back for others to do it. Why are we so soft on these absolute scum that deserve all the retribution we can heap on them for bringing drugs in for other people to buy. We don’t want no drugs in this country.
Thanks to REO reader Rita Maria LeDrew for alerting us to this story…
In Auckland, New Zealand, a deaf girl is murdered, and her father has been charged. In the investigation, it comes out that the family was upset because they were told by the NZ immigration authorities that they’d likely be denied residency because their daughter was deaf and would be “a burden on the state.”
From the New Zealand Star:
The Immigration Service requires immigrants to prove they or their dependents will not be a burden on health services and applicants have to answer medical questions, including whether they have hearing difficulties.
Deaf children are considered a potential burden because of the need for surgery and cochlear implants.
I assume youre talking to me – How could I be consistent rosemary? If you think there is a group of disadvantaged people in this country that i dont care about put the links and evidence up.
What are you trying to say Rosemary, that these murdering parents should have the right to stay in NZ… these are the criminal types that are attracted to migrating here these days. Oh gosh, one of our kids might hold up our application, lets murder them. That’s the caliber of our recent migration applicants.
It did not used to be like that, we used to have real rules and quality migrants coming here. It was not some ponzi business scheme trying to get the worst types here with few skills (last five years the skills have dropped for migration in NZ and more criminals coming to light as well as continual scams).
Oh dear. Please read the articles I linked to at raggededge. Now raggededge is a disability magazine that’s been around for decades and quite often publishes articles which require readers to be up for an intellectual challenge. Sometimes requires thinking differently and having an open mind. Quite often the context is not necessarily explicit…
But no, I don’t think murdering parents should have the right to stay in NZ.
But I do think that if our Czech friend can be accommodated despite his proven criminal tendencies and with his known gang associates heightening the risk of violence around him then at the very least a family’s application for NZ residency should not be rejected merely because of health or disability.
Many countries have similar rules….only the fittest and the most perfect are welcome to immigrate…and I found it interesting that those articles from raggededge (Ragged Edge when it was printed) popped up on the first page when googling ‘rejected for residency on grounds of disability’.
Good old Godzone…world famous for all the wrong reasons.
But no surprises for those NZ citizens living with disability or permanent debilitating illness….chances are that the gummint spends more per year on the criminal than it does on the invalids….and taxpayers seem quite ok with that.
And, as for granting residency to drug dealers, the Nats were experts at that having opened the immigration gates to the worst characters China has to offer.
“But the Minister thinks he is a great chap to allow to stay in New Zealand.”
Who says he thinks that other than you Alwyn? Hemay even think the guy is a complete fukwit.
When, under the previous junta, an immigration policy structure was implemented that bonded immigrants to employers (and the consequential opportunity for exploitation as the norm – let alone the other ‘side effects’ such as driving down wages and all that went with it); when it was designed to get a 4 or 5 or 6 billion dollar earn from attracting overseas students to come and indulge in worthless tertiary study and tik-a-box certification (often meaning incredible debt in their home country they may never be free from, and where some are having to sell land if they haven’t yet committed chop suey, AND even that’s aside from more important considerations such as educational standards ); when that policy sent the message to opportunists and any other arsehole that NZ was an easy touch), then I think you can probably rest assured that the decision allowing this little munter PR has been made judiciously.
I think even the pox-faced, pompous Woodhouse will be in despair because growing numbers now realise the whole tertiary-study/work visa croc of shit is being exposed and that the fleeced are beginning to leave in droves (AND sending the message to others who have any notion of coming to lil ole Nu Zull because its a caring and sharing place to be).
I’d be more concerned about others who’ve been granted PR and Citizenship by lying and cheating and not living up to the promises they’d made. A Peter Thiel immediately springs to mind.
Sometimes, our minds wander from one thing to another just from simple little triggers such as a name, date, event etc. without any conscious rationale for doing so.
This morning someone here mentioned Mandy Hager. Here it is – reason on Duped
The mention of Mandy’s name took me back to the wonderful serialisation of her award-winning (2015) young adult’s novel “Singing Home the Whale” on RNZ’s Nine to Noon from 1 Oct – 18 Oct.
Listening to this became mandatory for me over that period as it offered a complete opposite to the cynicism and negativity related with what was going on in our political scene with JLR’s sending on health leave, and the ongoing revelations etc .
The mention of Mandy’s name led me to finding the RNZ link to the audio recordings which are now permanently in their Listen Anytime Library collection. I highly recommend listening to this adaptation or reading the book as an anecdote to negativity etc
Just by coincidence, as I was doing this, Wallace Chapmen on his RNZ Sunday Morning programme began an interview with this wonderful woman:
10.30 Dr Ingrid Visser: Orca spotter extraordinaire
Dr Ingrid Visser* has dedicated most of her life to following, documenting, helping and protecting orca. She’s an international expert on the species and is part of an body of advocates pushing to free captive orca all over the world. Ingrid explains her passion for animals means she has missed weddings, family events and stood up boyfriends. Her work features in the opening episode of a new television series, Ocean Predators**, hosted by Kina Scollay. It premieres Sunday night, October 28 at 7.30pm on Prime.
The RNZ interview has only just finished, but I will put the link to the interview up here when it is available. And she mentioned Mandy and her book, LOL.
Now know what I will be doing this evening – Prime TV!
A few weeks ago we were sitting fishing on a wharf when a huge bull orca surfaced mere metres off the edge of the wharf…and us! Peter damn near leapt from his wheelchair the big fellow was so close.
Two smaller orca (we assumed they were females) and two youths appeared and proceeded to go hunting as the tide reached its peak.
Only the bull came close to the wharf, but the others were well visible as they rounded up the rays in the shallows.
A family up the harbour in their boat watched spellbound as the two young ones threw a couple of sharks back and forth.
They remained inside the harbour until the tide began retreating and gave those at the harbour entrance a real treat as the hunt continued on the last of the tide.
Not the first time we’ve had the privilege of such a close cetacean encounter, but this time there were other witnesses. An awesome event shared.
Some of those harbours have very shallow sandbanks and narrow channels.
I confess to having been concerned on more than one occasion seeing large dolphins come up in the channel and indulge in a mass feeding frenzy in the shallows that a mass stranding was imminent. Silly me…these feeding sessions happen all the time with few cases of actual strandings. These fellows are in their element and know which end is up.
Which makes the cases of actual mass cetacean strandings all the more tragic and worthy of investigation. There’s something else going on….
This recent Sciblogs post is balanced and of relevance also.
“The scientists and conservation workers that I know look forward to the time when reliable, equally-effective alternatives become available – but that time is still, realistically, years away and frankly, our native ecosystems can’t wait that long. We definitely need to keep talking about this issue, and we need to improve the way we do that.”
Zip are doing some leading edge research looking at ways to improve delivery, and outcomes!
“ZIP is attempting to develop a modified technique for the aerial application of 1080 to completely remove possums and rats from large mainland areas. If we are successful, and we also successfully develop techniques to prevent possum and rat invaders from re-establishing, then the large-scale repeated application of aerial 1080 may no longer be necessary to protect New Zealand’s biodiversity.”
RNZ quoted Mark Mitchell as saying due process wasn’t followed.
Due process is Mitchell making as much inane noise as possible so that in due time he is challenging for the leadership. In his case it’ll be leadershit.
“Images provided by Biosecurity New Zealand show the threat wilding pines present to New Zealand landscapes.
The images show the unchecked spread of pines at Mid Dome, Upper Tomogalak catchment, in Southland from 1998 to 2015.”
Let me see. A chemical-laden truck overturned north of Wellington and caused absolute traffic chaos just before Labour weekend. At the same time, two trucks collided and blocked the Rimutaka hill road. Today, a truck caught fire and has blocked the Waikato expressway at Rangiriri for a full day. Driving through the North Island a coule of times recently I’ve noticed trucks are more numerous, look more badly maintained and are being driven quite recklessly.
How long until someone joins the dots between a corrupt National party being in the pocket of the trucking industry, and the quite deliberate defunding of various government agencies tasked with enforcing roading regulations on trucking companies including police road enforcement, the on-going scandals around shonky vehicle inspectors and the skyrocketing numbers of truck accidents causing huge disruptions?
Well apparently not only do we have truck filled roads but we also have fake licences. and dodgy maintenance to boot.
When you bring in people on $18 – $20 p/h to drive trucks because of our “skills shortages” – it’s fake – know an experienced truck driver and he had to quit the industry as he was expected to work for $18 p/h and he had a family to feed! He knew he was never going to see a pay rise in that industry and there was zero future in it for him.
A few weeks ago an ex forestry worker who posts here, was saying after being made redundant a few times, he too quit the forestry industry… also an experienced worker…
Don’t worry once getting residency, the migrants will quit too, if they can
the Ponzi continues with everyone else paying the costs for poor practices and not getting to the root of why they can’t keep the Kiwis in the job.
Same will happen to the doctors, the teachers and so forth. They will recruit more people, put more strain on existing people to train them, then the existing people will quit through the strain, the new teachers will quit eventually, and the Ponzi will continue with worse and worse teaching and conditions becoming the norm. Then the money they could have spent on the existing teachers will be spent on third party recruitment and incentives for overseas teachers to come here, rather than giving the incentives to the local teachers to stay in the job!
“Signs of the underlying malaise do occasionally become apparent. Every now and then, highly trained and capable clinicians will throw up their hands and leave New Zealand, generating newspaper headlines such as “Top Specialist Quits in Disgust.”
In mid-November, one such departure highlighted some of the issues behind the negative trends. Wellington Hospital lost its leading cardio-electrophysiologist, Dr Alejandro Jimenez Restrepo. Born in Colombia and trained in the US, Jimenez had arrived here in 2012 with his wife and young family, intending to settle permanently in New Zealand. Within two and a half years, he was gone.”
Fake psychiatrist sentenced to more than four years prison
I love how our taxes are being used to pay for fake doctors and then pay for their prison stays as well… in this case… they seem to have managed to deport him, but at a rough guess he cost NZ taxpayers $500,000+ dollars plus imagine the social costs of having these fakes in our health system. Could have bought a house for someone who needed it, with that money, or used it to train real doctors instead of leaving them with 6 figure student loans.
EXCLUSIVE: Some troubling questions about the Ross Affair
Jami Lee Ross vs Simon Bridges
Whatever drama is taking place before our eyes, one certainty should be borne in mind: this is not a story of Good vs Evil; Light vs Darkness; a lone battler for justice vs corruption in our highest political places. What we are seeing are two faces of the same coin at war with each other.
One is motivated by revenge – for ambitions thwarted.
The other is motivated by desperation – for pure political survival.
Jami Lee Ross has been associated with a small cabal of far-right political activists; Simon Lusk, David Farrar, Judith Collins, Aaron Bhatnagar, and Cameron Slater. (There are others, but they are bit-players.) More on this shortly.
Someone is lying. By now the Police probably have a good idea who.
Perhaps not quite so “insignificant?
All of which makes Bryce Edwards recent remarks questionable;
“The extraordinary National Party scandal currently unfolding before our eyes is undoubtedly high drama. It has it all – leaks, anonymous texts, threats, secret recordings and explosive allegations… At its heart, however, the scandal is empty. It contains nothing of significance for democracy and society.”
As a series of stories on Radio NZ’s Morning Report began to explore – whilst the prurient side-show of sex, tapes, and personality-plays dominated media headlines last week (15- 19 October) – the real issues of campaign donations is yet to play out.
Ross’s allegations may be the critically-needed spark that reviews our party donation rules by casting the glare of public scrutiny over ways the Electoral Act has been, and is, being rorted.
Judith Collins appears to be campaigning. She was at the Diwali celerations in Papatoetoe a few weeks back where she was introduced as a senior National Party mp. Today she appeared briefly at Kabbadi to get her photo taken
. James if you want to meet your idol I would suggest keeping an eye out for these community events.
Kia ora Newshub Duncan was that a good week off.
Ka pai To the Prince & Duchess visit its cool that she talked in te reo and highlighted the suffering of wahine around the world and minority cultures .
The Labyrinth was a cool move with Daved Bowie & Jennifer Connelly the hope the remake will be cool to.
Mark humor is good for the wairua but not when your culture is the but of the joke
The Simpson’s issues with Habu being canned.
I totally disagree we need to legislate so wahine are on the boards that control OUR business . Why because men bully them and cheat to to keep wahine out of the top jobs these men think its there right to do this.
Wet wipes my offspring can not get by with out the stuff in my day it was a wash able pack of cloths I say good advertising saying not to be flushed we have to do all we can to keep our water ways clean.
Having a visit from The Prince & Duchess will give Aotearoa more positive publicity that money could buy that is good for Equality for all.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora The cafe hows it going Mike you were a bit flush last week I quit like the cake .
Eco see all.
Big Buddy is a good organization that give young Tane a father’s role model its cool
Eco know what it’s like not having parents as my true parent died when I was nine.
Ka kite ano
Here is a good nature loving bird rescue person Vicki and other’s are doing a wonderful job caring for injured birds
Promiscuous penguins terrified of water, harried harrier hawks, clumsy kererū and greedy kea owe their lives to the growing cavalry of everyday Kiwis who are helping rehabilitate our injured wildlife, writes VICKI ANDERSON Ka kite ano link is below.
Eco Maori says Human Caused Global Warming is poking us in the eyes tornado are only seen in Aotearoa once and a while about 3 to 5 years apart not 10 in one year.
A “massive” tornado that swirled over farmland east of Hamilton left observers stunned and sent one woman to hunker down in the toilet.Meanwhile motorists in Tauranga saw a giant tornado swirling above the harbour and threatening to touch down near the port’s tank farm . Ka kite ano link is below P.S Feel the thunder
Eco Maori says the best way to get one health on the UP and weight on the Down is to chuck all the added sugar out of the house no fizzys cut the beezzy down to once a month that’s full of sugar to no sugar at all I don’t have sugar now and I feel good . Like I have said before the big comapnys will sue the —– off anyone who points out the bad facts about sugar.
And the way I see It the Big companys win in court most times It takes about 30 years for the truth to rise thru the Bigotry of Plutocracy that is running our world into the dirt. Ka kite ano link is below P.S Try and eat more vegtables but I back up no sugar one has to be strong for the Tamariki/ Moko’s.
Kia ora tekaea Kasey and Karena are going to put on a mean Hakari for the Prince and Duchess when they visit Rotorua .
I have allready given my opinion on Nga puhi I say settel and build a bright future for te mokopuna’s.
Te whakatohea Mussel Waka is a good move mussle farming they do grow fast in Tangaroa around those ways they are sweet to.
Ka kite ano P.S I say our tradition of providing ones guest with a mean Hakari has a lot of good thing that follow the feast everyone is happy
Kia ora Newshub That Lion Air plane that crashed is a tragedy it was only 2 month’s old condolences to the familys that have lost whano on that ??????plane.
I see the Armys man of Brazil has won the presidency well see what he does.
Just because simon says resign doesn’t mean anyone is going to listen to him .I like to have seen national sack a mp ex tobacco lobbyist.
Leicester must be in shock to see a big figure there soccor club owner die in the chopper crash is some one putting bad parts on the market.
Can you see it he’s a muppet trump that is.
Ka pai Nigel Richards is a kiwi world best scrabble player thats not Eco forty Reading is tho.
I say blind people should not be held back by short minded employers .
Ka kite ano
Kia ora The Crowd Goes Wild James & Mulls
I think the Couch is saying kicks keep it smart
It will be good to get some of the young Rugby players a run together .
Ka pai to the Fast 5 Netball team’s win.
Mulls a American baseball puka puka.
The Super bike man would have had to change some clothing after that flight.
Ka kite ano P.S my thought to James global warming in Venice race
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
The Government Communications Security Bureau denies hosting a foreign spying capability flagged by the watchdog, differentiating it from the system recently criticised. ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
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 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
“Since 2009, flood risk has been covered on every LIM report for an Auckland home.”
“”Homeowners need to know that if a risk is not mitigated or is unable to be, then their policy could change.”
Change in weather patterns looks to be enough excuse to leave lives in limbo.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12149949
Earthquake, flood… Insurance companies will do their best to let you down.
Not much about insurance problems in this article, but well worth a read.
….They’re Not Abandoning Their Beloved Cape Cod. Lifelong residents are building higher with each flood….
Meera Subramanian – Insideclimate News, October 26, 2018
The councils buckle to pressure of rich litigators, aka they have had engineering that shows that Omaha will defiantly suffer substantial flood damage, but when they went to put it on the LIMs all the lawyers and big wigs who have holiday homes there threatened to litigate the council because their house prices would fall if the truth was put on the LIMS. So it was never put on the LIMS. Win win for the rich, because no doubt when the big flood happens they will litigate the council anyway for not putting it on! Rich win with no information, rich win without the information. Meanwhile if it’s folks with leaky buildings or what have you, no real interest in ensuring it never happens again.
Apparently 1 in 195 council workers at Auckland city are on over $200,000 pa, my guess is not many of them are planners or building inspectors, (while the council cry about the worker shortages and need foreign workers now to do those roles) but plenty of other council workers on $200k+ are lawyers and managers who shock doctrine style come and litigate AFTER the problems are well known but no money put spent where it should have been.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405893
The story seems to say it was major error to combine all the possible risks to happen at once.
‘ the idea rising sea levels would combine with an extreme weather event, a nasty weather pattern with a super-spring tide, was ridiculous. ‘
Its not saying there was no increased risk- they say 3.8m not 5m, which would only affect a few properties
The Piha situation was an actual extreme weather event . I tell people I know who live in Bush clad areas near streams or along winding roads in Waitakeres that its coming around to 100 years since the last major weather catastrophe hit the whole ranges. Sell up and leave now.
The Piha flood was from a storm in a small area, the rest of the Waitakeres were lucky…that time.
There is absolutely no truth to the rumour that the National Party’s internal review of its culture is being conducted by former National MPs Roger McClay and Grahame Thorne.
Only an independent judicial inquiry will suffice.
There needs to be a female and a male doing the internal inquiry.
Jackie Blue would be good.
If you say so. LOL
Toad? Delves into long term memory … Is that really you or a newie?
LOLZ Try Beazley !!
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/108083727/doc-asked-to-control-seals-to-save-muttonbirds
Is it really about cultural practices . Or is it about money . ?
😁
Cultural practices – not everyone is a money grubber.
So they only take for personal use?
Deleted
Sorry I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Why do you have an issue with Tribes making money off traditional resources? Is it only OK for white people to do?
Kaitiakitanga is a system of sustainable harvest and environmental observation. If they’re saying the seals are becoming too numerous locally I’d be inclined to believe it.
Conservationists want to see NZ like the good old days. Despite the fact everything’s changing and adaptations are required for most anything to ‘remain the same’.
What I’d like to know about all this is whether these species natural predators have been decimated, which would necessitate eventual culls of these protected species.
If we’ve broken the food chain, we need to step in till prey numbers actually bring predators back from functional extinction. We need to be the faux predators. Or the seals will collapse other species populations.
Counting overall numbers and calling them low works for an accountant, for individual islands it’s a nonsense.
Practical and proper beats pious and preening any day.
Don’t suppose the humans could lay off the muttonbirds for a bit.
So your fine with Japanese whaling using bloody great ships . ?
For it to be cultural practised surely it should be carried out in the old way . So maybe they should grab a few seals for the pot as well ,but stop selling mutton birds?
The issue is not really about the mutton bird harvest. It is about the sustainability of their populations, and of rising seal populations, within this small island system.
While conservation of the seals is admirable, the observation that their continued growth within this area can impact mutton bird populations is worth noting. We see plenty of roll on effects like this in conservation efforts where rise or fall of certain species leads to the rise or fall of others.
There is a seal carrying capacity for those islands. What is it?
Are the predators (shark/orca?) intact?
Sustainable systems require biological and ecological knowledge, not someone in an office calling shots. Kaitiakitanga is ahead of current agricultural practice with regards to earth care and future care.
It’s worth listening we pale folk might learn something.
My pick is the mutton birds invaded the seal areas in the 1800s when the seals were hunted out and now they are coming back to their old areas
It’s not a bad guess…
Is Syria approaching its own Year Zero?
After a devastating drought followed by political unrest, and knowing no other method of rule, could the system of genocidal kleptocracy even futher refined by the Assad Regime during the civil war, be a possible distopian strategy for other nation states faced with the twin challenges of climate change and collapse?
Assad will fall
Dick Gregory – News Of The Revolution In Syria, October 25, 2018
The following is an insight into how the Assad regime survives on the destruction of its economy, its productive base, and the massacre and expulsion of its people. And why this will ultimately lead to regime’s inevitable collapse.
Assad will fall?
They said that 5 years ago, His position is even stronger now than then.
violently sadistic ???? …… ” The supposed outrage is not connected to any concern for human rights, it is merely a foreign policy propaganda trick. And the main priority for people in the west should be to stop the crimes being committed, or abetted, by their own governments.”
Nelson Mandela …. “: “If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace. If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the USA. They don’t care for human beings.”
Nelson Mandela was referring to the illegal invasion of Iraq … but no doubt would denounce the violently sadistic actions against Libya and Syria and Yemen, Afghanistan etc etc.
If Martin Luther King was alive and able to repeat these quotes to jenny ….. in relation to Syria, or Libya,… or Iraq, or Afghanistan etc … “We again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long,” … “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government”.
Would she call Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Assadists? .
Both Nelson Mandela & Martin Luther King were correct …. as the sadistic violent actions never stop …
” Disgusted, Von Sponeck resigned as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq. His predecessor, Denis Halliday, an equally distinguished senior UN official, had also resigned. “I was instructed,” Halliday said, “to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.”
A study by the United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, found that between 1991 and 1998, the height of the blockade, there were 500,000 “excess” deaths of Iraqi infants under the age of five.”
Present day….. There is a deliberate genocide taking place right now …. “The cause is well known: the Saudi-led coalition’s bombardment and blockade of the country, with the full support of the US and UK”
” The issue is that the West is directly responsible for the tragedy in Yemen. Western companies supply the weapons, western military advisors are involved in the intelligence work and the selection of targets, US airplanes are refuelling Saudi (and coalition) jets as they carry out their savage bombings in Yemen.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/05/the-1-5-billion-campaign-to-whitewash-genocide-in-yemen/
The Syrian people ….. the bulk of whom support their state …. are up against ‘ “The greatest purveyors of violence in the world.”
Check out this guy – he has turned a fifty point vote for Trump district into a highly marginal race – and wonder what party would he fit into here in New Zealand – my guess is his natural home would be NZ First, not Labour.
Such a glum assessment kinda sums up how NZ Labour is now a party of liberal elites who embrace the current late capitalist paradigm and do little more than tinker with the system to chip the worst off the edges, not a reforming party for the working Joe.
Labour ought to thank it’s lucky stars that a guy like this hasn’t emerged in New Zealand First. Instead, NZ First looks set to promote the pompous, elitist and widely unpopular Shane Jones to it’s leader. The promotion of Jones to the leadership (should it happen) would be fundamental strategic misunderstanding of nature of NZ First’s supporters, and would prolong the neoliberal hegemony in NZ’s two major parties.
If NZ First ever got a guy with the same sort of message as Ojeda, I reckon Labour would suffer the fate of the Dutch Labour party, whose support has fallen by 80%.
Hell, I’d vote for an Ojeda rather than a Jacinda in a heartbeat!
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-democrat-trump-country-richard-ojeda-west-virginia-0918-story.html
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/02/richard-ojeda-west-virginia-blue-army-one-217217
Fivethirtyeight currently have him as a 1:8 underdog, with a 45.1% projected vote share in a two-dog race. He’s not quite the Messiah. Not yet, anyway.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/west-virginia/3/
edit: Meanwhile, Joe Manchin (who’s nominally a Democrat but is ideologically and votes more like a moderate Republican) is strongly favoured to keep his Senate seat in West Virginia.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/senate/west-virginia/
Please, scry me a horse’s name from your tea leaves reading’s. A fast horse, a horse to bet on…
Over blowing it Sanctuary
The WV 3rd district was a democratic seat from 1949-2015 , with the Republicans holding it for very short periods , 2 yrs 83-85 and 2 yrs 16-18
Its a natural Democratic party seat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia%27s_3rd_congressional_district
Looking at who votes for Trump doesnt mean the Congress vote is the same.
Opps the seat changed hands in 2014 not 2016
Looking at actual votes from this site
https://ballotpedia.org/West_Virginia%27s_3rd_Congressional_District_election,_2016
Sanctuary, This Governments Workplace Reforms must show teeth as the Nats say “their world will end”
We went down the North Carolina coastal “outer banks” and down to ‘Jekyll island’ strips where many home owners were inundated with previous flooded properties and we saw homes being moved or lifted with another set of stilts placed under them so their homes were set higher again.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-carolina/articles/2018-03-05/flooding-closes-main-road-on-north-carolina-outer-banks
This is the true effect of today’s increasing raising of the global sea levels that many don’t see or comprehend is facing them until now – sadly.
It’s Sunday, so here is a bit of light relief – a very short read, but LOL.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/369632/scary-halloween-reveller-sparks-emergency-call-out-to-wellington-elevator
What the hell is Lees-Galloway up to?
Someone who comes here using another persons passport.
The goes in for a bit of drug dealing.
Was described by the Parole Board convener as giving manifestly untruthful responses.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/108155476/jailed-drugdealer-escapes-deportation-as-govt-grants-him-nz-residency-behind-bars
But the Minister thinks he is a great chap to allow to stay in New Zealand.
I wonder if he has donated anything to one of the coalition Government parties?
And will Lees-Galloway take responsibility for the guys actions in the future and resign the next time he gets into a little bit of bother with the Police?
Perhaps all the people who are calling for JLR’s health problems to be made public will start demanding that Lees-Galloway start explaining exactly what it is that caused him to make this decision?
Or not, as the case may be. After all, that might embarrass the Coalition of Fools.
It’s almost certain Lees-Galloway was acutely aware of the negative publicity it would get, so I’m picking there must be a credible reason he has let the guy stay. That reason might be that he has a bloody good lawyer, but it could also be that it’s very likely he would be killed if he returned to his country of origin. We don’t condemn people to death.
It’s almost certain Lees-Galloway would tell us the details if he could too.
The last thing this country needs is more fucking lawyers or drug dealers,
There is no credible reason to import crims we have more than enough already. Deport the prick.
Who gives a shit deport him
“people who are calling for JLR’s health problems to be made public ”
being detained by police at the instigation of National party leaders office , isnt ‘treatment’. What the Doctors do is.
Paula Bennetts role in organising a media story base on complaints from women working ‘in national partys leaders office’ should be made public. A National party woman MP role in in getting back at her former lover using the leaders office/Bridges and Bennett should be made public.
“being detained by police at the instigation of National party leaders office”
And your evidence for this far-fetched claim is what, precisely?
Apart from your overactive imagination that is.
Bridges Chief of staff – the puppet on strings being pulled by Soimun.
It was all his doing.
Are you saying the Police were just out for a drive Saturday night and they ‘found’ an Auckland Mp in The Waikato ….hello hello …
What seems to be the circumstances was in yesterdays Herald, and the day before and last week when National issued a statement Sunday night that confirmed their knowledge of the police involvement …..hahaha
@ Alwyn – disgusting and despicable decision by Lees-Galloway
No wonder our drug use is increasing when our government is actively giving drug dealers residency , I guess for $100k donation he can get the order of merit too (from both parties in power).
What a joke, I don’t care if the guy is an informant for what the crap he pulled out of the bag, he should not be staying here, he’s got the EU to go back too. Get rid of him.
The message that NZ sends to the world, is criminals welcome… commit crimes here but don’t worry your residency application is assured… bring your criminal mates, NZ is open for business, any business, we turn a blind eye even if you are caught. wink. wink.
As long as you are not Maori you will get off and prosper here if you engage in criminal activity.
Crims come to NZ, free residency and welfare with every crime! Any story will do, to get off!
We have a range of valid skill shortages, didn’t know that criminals were part of this shortage
As we are told it costs us $100k to house someone in prison, then reward them with Citizenship.
We have “Member of wealthy wine family has drug charges overturned”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/108005567/Member-of-wealthy-wine-family-has-drug-charges-overturned
But don’t worry at least our justice system is working for all BUT …. Maori and victims 🤫
Herodotus residency is not citizenship
residency converts to citizenship and we have a housing and prison crisis! remember , next thing is that they will give him a state home or Kiwibuild because he is such a victim.
stone him stone him! but not in the drug sense way of getting him stoned no!
Nope
They could bring in some more pot growers to help keep kids off P.
Reading between the lines I would say he’s probably in mortal danger if he gets sent home . I would have no problem shipping him out but the laws of our country might.
Rubbish, the EU could protect him better than we could. We don’t want him. If that’s the caliber of people who get residency, aka sob story the their criminal gang connections back home are a danger so they need to stay in NZ and commit crimes here instead??? The politicians needs to get some perspective, who is at risk – back Kiwis safety NOT people like him and his connections to the underworld who could kill him here if they wanted anyway. Pathetic logic as usual.
He’s likely been promised residency as part of an agreement to roll on his associates.
Any story will do.
Peter Thiel.
Yeah why aren’t we more like Saudi or somewhere where we just destroy his life rather than send him back for others to do it. Why are we so soft on these absolute scum that deserve all the retribution we can heap on them for bringing drugs in for other people to buy. We don’t want no drugs in this country.
//sarc
Hot take over at the sewer.
https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/47d96eae-d28f-4fb6-bfb0-cff93cae89e3.png
“We don’t want no drugs in this country.”
And no sick or disabled either. //no sarc
http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/departments/closerlook/000577.html
“Deaf NZ child — ‘a burden on the state’ — is murdered; father charged
http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/departments/news/000564.html
Thanks to REO reader Rita Maria LeDrew for alerting us to this story…
In Auckland, New Zealand, a deaf girl is murdered, and her father has been charged. In the investigation, it comes out that the family was upset because they were told by the NZ immigration authorities that they’d likely be denied residency because their daughter was deaf and would be “a burden on the state.”
From the New Zealand Star:
The Immigration Service requires immigrants to prove they or their dependents will not be a burden on health services and applicants have to answer medical questions, including whether they have hearing difficulties.
Deaf children are considered a potential burden because of the need for surgery and cochlear implants.
Read story from the Sunday Star Times.
Posted on October 24, 2005″
At least be consistent. And please note the date.
I assume youre talking to me – How could I be consistent rosemary? If you think there is a group of disadvantaged people in this country that i dont care about put the links and evidence up.
What are you trying to say Rosemary, that these murdering parents should have the right to stay in NZ… these are the criminal types that are attracted to migrating here these days. Oh gosh, one of our kids might hold up our application, lets murder them. That’s the caliber of our recent migration applicants.
It did not used to be like that, we used to have real rules and quality migrants coming here. It was not some ponzi business scheme trying to get the worst types here with few skills (last five years the skills have dropped for migration in NZ and more criminals coming to light as well as continual scams).
Oh dear. Please read the articles I linked to at raggededge. Now raggededge is a disability magazine that’s been around for decades and quite often publishes articles which require readers to be up for an intellectual challenge. Sometimes requires thinking differently and having an open mind. Quite often the context is not necessarily explicit…
But no, I don’t think murdering parents should have the right to stay in NZ.
But I do think that if our Czech friend can be accommodated despite his proven criminal tendencies and with his known gang associates heightening the risk of violence around him then at the very least a family’s application for NZ residency should not be rejected merely because of health or disability.
Many countries have similar rules….only the fittest and the most perfect are welcome to immigrate…and I found it interesting that those articles from raggededge (Ragged Edge when it was printed) popped up on the first page when googling ‘rejected for residency on grounds of disability’.
Good old Godzone…world famous for all the wrong reasons.
But no surprises for those NZ citizens living with disability or permanent debilitating illness….chances are that the gummint spends more per year on the criminal than it does on the invalids….and taxpayers seem quite ok with that.
He sounds like a labour voter perhaps that’s all that’s needed these days.
He doesn’t sound like a voter at all.
And, as for granting residency to drug dealers, the Nats were experts at that having opened the immigration gates to the worst characters China has to offer.
Only the ones with money
Like Bill Liu for example.
Oh wait – that was labour again.
I’m bemused about the Nats’ war on P when they at the same time invited all the low lives from China who import the ingredients.
Seems a bit counter productive to me…
Not if you’re privatising prisons.
Funny how hard he worked for the Gnats though.
He was every inch the wretched foreign crim Dotcom got blamed for being.
Never seen you denounce him either.
It’s all good so long as he’s your lying scumbag eh.
John Key and Judith collins pulled one of their first ‘dirty politics’ hit jobs for the biggest drug Lords in NZ …
Doug myers : “The chequebooks always ready for political parties ….as long as they get the things right”
“We spend about $85 million per week on alcohol, thats why they don’t want you to understand its a drug”- Sgt Alastair Lawn ”
“there was mounting evidence that MDMA was one of the safest intoxicants around, especially when compared with alcohol.” https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/69680287/ed-doctor-john-key-needs-to-do-his-homework-on-mdma
The dangers of ecstasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2oDLPcYc5k
“But the Minister thinks he is a great chap to allow to stay in New Zealand.”
Who says he thinks that other than you Alwyn? Hemay even think the guy is a complete fukwit.
When, under the previous junta, an immigration policy structure was implemented that bonded immigrants to employers (and the consequential opportunity for exploitation as the norm – let alone the other ‘side effects’ such as driving down wages and all that went with it); when it was designed to get a 4 or 5 or 6 billion dollar earn from attracting overseas students to come and indulge in worthless tertiary study and tik-a-box certification (often meaning incredible debt in their home country they may never be free from, and where some are having to sell land if they haven’t yet committed chop suey, AND even that’s aside from more important considerations such as educational standards ); when that policy sent the message to opportunists and any other arsehole that NZ was an easy touch), then I think you can probably rest assured that the decision allowing this little munter PR has been made judiciously.
I think even the pox-faced, pompous Woodhouse will be in despair because growing numbers now realise the whole tertiary-study/work visa croc of shit is being exposed and that the fleeced are beginning to leave in droves (AND sending the message to others who have any notion of coming to lil ole Nu Zull because its a caring and sharing place to be).
I’d be more concerned about others who’ve been granted PR and Citizenship by lying and cheating and not living up to the promises they’d made. A Peter Thiel immediately springs to mind.
This ugly immigrant had tried to cut his english wifes throat before arriving in NZ.
Since here he’s killed two women ….. and got manslaughter convictions each time.
He was paroled under National …… why did we not boot him back to England ?
Any ideas you cynical political point scorer …. Alwyn ????
https://hellbeasts.com/malcolm-alan-francis/
He could be an informant as well
That’s the most likely background.
Could be he was secret witness in a mjor trial that saw major figures jailed.
Sometimes, our minds wander from one thing to another just from simple little triggers such as a name, date, event etc. without any conscious rationale for doing so.
This morning someone here mentioned Mandy Hager. Here it is – reason on Duped
https://thestandard.org.nz/duped/#comment-1543097
The mention of Mandy’s name took me back to the wonderful serialisation of her award-winning (2015) young adult’s novel “Singing Home the Whale” on RNZ’s Nine to Noon from 1 Oct – 18 Oct.
Listening to this became mandatory for me over that period as it offered a complete opposite to the cynicism and negativity related with what was going on in our political scene with JLR’s sending on health leave, and the ongoing revelations etc .
The mention of Mandy’s name led me to finding the RNZ link to the audio recordings which are now permanently in their Listen Anytime Library collection. I highly recommend listening to this adaptation or reading the book as an anecdote to negativity etc
https://www.radionz.co.nz/collections/readings/singing-home-the-whale-by-mandy-hager
Just by coincidence, as I was doing this, Wallace Chapmen on his RNZ Sunday Morning programme began an interview with this wonderful woman:
10.30 Dr Ingrid Visser: Orca spotter extraordinaire
Dr Ingrid Visser* has dedicated most of her life to following, documenting, helping and protecting orca. She’s an international expert on the species and is part of an body of advocates pushing to free captive orca all over the world. Ingrid explains her passion for animals means she has missed weddings, family events and stood up boyfriends. Her work features in the opening episode of a new television series, Ocean Predators**, hosted by Kina Scollay. It premieres Sunday night, October 28 at 7.30pm on Prime.
* http://www.orcaresearch.org/index.php/research/our-team
** https://www.primetv.co.nz/-/mk_prime_oceanpredators
The RNZ interview has only just finished, but I will put the link to the interview up here when it is available. And she mentioned Mandy and her book, LOL.
Now know what I will be doing this evening – Prime TV!
Link to Sunday Morning interview with Dr Ingrid Visser
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018668671/dr-ingrid-visser-orca-spotter-extraordinaire
A few weeks ago we were sitting fishing on a wharf when a huge bull orca surfaced mere metres off the edge of the wharf…and us! Peter damn near leapt from his wheelchair the big fellow was so close.
Two smaller orca (we assumed they were females) and two youths appeared and proceeded to go hunting as the tide reached its peak.
Only the bull came close to the wharf, but the others were well visible as they rounded up the rays in the shallows.
A family up the harbour in their boat watched spellbound as the two young ones threw a couple of sharks back and forth.
They remained inside the harbour until the tide began retreating and gave those at the harbour entrance a real treat as the hunt continued on the last of the tide.
Not the first time we’ve had the privilege of such a close cetacean encounter, but this time there were other witnesses. An awesome event shared.
🙂
Wonderful, Rosemary. Thank you for sharing. Where was that?
Up north.
Some of those harbours have very shallow sandbanks and narrow channels.
I confess to having been concerned on more than one occasion seeing large dolphins come up in the channel and indulge in a mass feeding frenzy in the shallows that a mass stranding was imminent. Silly me…these feeding sessions happen all the time with few cases of actual strandings. These fellows are in their element and know which end is up.
Which makes the cases of actual mass cetacean strandings all the more tragic and worthy of investigation. There’s something else going on….
This is one reason why I read Sciblogs: Why New Zealand needs alternatives to 1080.
https://sciblogs.co.nz/guestwork/2018/10/26/why-new-zealand-needs-alternatives-to-1080/
This recent Sciblogs post is balanced and of relevance also.
“The scientists and conservation workers that I know look forward to the time when reliable, equally-effective alternatives become available – but that time is still, realistically, years away and frankly, our native ecosystems can’t wait that long. We definitely need to keep talking about this issue, and we need to improve the way we do that.”
https://sciblogs.co.nz/bioblog/2018/09/18/science-1080/
Zip are doing some leading edge research looking at ways to improve delivery, and outcomes!
“ZIP is attempting to develop a modified technique for the aerial application of 1080 to completely remove possums and rats from large mainland areas. If we are successful, and we also successfully develop techniques to prevent possum and rat invaders from re-establishing, then the large-scale repeated application of aerial 1080 may no longer be necessary to protect New Zealand’s biodiversity.”
http://zip.org.nz/findings/2017/11/1080-to-zero-trial-in-south-westland
You can even watch the (short) vid here:
http://zip.org.nz/updates/2018/5/the-perth-valley-project-what-is-it-all-about
Ian les Galloway has put strict conditions on his residency not told in the sensationalised media headlines.
Link?
Rnz news
This one?
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/369641/czech-drug-smuggler-gains-residence-in-nz
RNZ quoted Mark Mitchell as saying due process wasn’t followed.
Due process is Mitchell making as much inane noise as possible so that in due time he is challenging for the leadership. In his case it’ll be leadershit.
The dude is likely to have assisted police with their enquiry, as they say
It seems that the police made the application for him as he isn’t out of jail yet so not in a position to contest any possible deportation order
Great images that show the problem.
“Images provided by Biosecurity New Zealand show the threat wilding pines present to New Zealand landscapes.
The images show the unchecked spread of pines at Mid Dome, Upper Tomogalak catchment, in Southland from 1998 to 2015.”
https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/rural-life-other/threat-wilding-pines-highlighted-biosecurity-nz-images
Let me see. A chemical-laden truck overturned north of Wellington and caused absolute traffic chaos just before Labour weekend. At the same time, two trucks collided and blocked the Rimutaka hill road. Today, a truck caught fire and has blocked the Waikato expressway at Rangiriri for a full day. Driving through the North Island a coule of times recently I’ve noticed trucks are more numerous, look more badly maintained and are being driven quite recklessly.
How long until someone joins the dots between a corrupt National party being in the pocket of the trucking industry, and the quite deliberate defunding of various government agencies tasked with enforcing roading regulations on trucking companies including police road enforcement, the on-going scandals around shonky vehicle inspectors and the skyrocketing numbers of truck accidents causing huge disruptions?
Well apparently not only do we have truck filled roads but we also have fake licences. and dodgy maintenance to boot.
When you bring in people on $18 – $20 p/h to drive trucks because of our “skills shortages” – it’s fake – know an experienced truck driver and he had to quit the industry as he was expected to work for $18 p/h and he had a family to feed! He knew he was never going to see a pay rise in that industry and there was zero future in it for him.
A few weeks ago an ex forestry worker who posts here, was saying after being made redundant a few times, he too quit the forestry industry… also an experienced worker…
Don’t worry once getting residency, the migrants will quit too, if they can
the Ponzi continues with everyone else paying the costs for poor practices and not getting to the root of why they can’t keep the Kiwis in the job.
Same will happen to the doctors, the teachers and so forth. They will recruit more people, put more strain on existing people to train them, then the existing people will quit through the strain, the new teachers will quit eventually, and the Ponzi will continue with worse and worse teaching and conditions becoming the norm. Then the money they could have spent on the existing teachers will be spent on third party recruitment and incentives for overseas teachers to come here, rather than giving the incentives to the local teachers to stay in the job!
Wake up. Why can’t they retain staff in NZ???
NZTA was given a rocket by the Minister of TRansport and the Board Chair a week ago.
As a result the head of regulatory stuff at NZTA has been “let go” and new management brought in.
All files for prosecutorial evaluation are now subbed out to Meredith Connell.
It sure ain’t this government that’s asleep at the wheel.
Should sack the whole lot, as the root starts from the top and a certain Aussie
That’s heartening Ad.
Any more clues as to the rockets nature?
Surely NZTA isn’t the driver (boom boom!) of the love affair with big trucks on the road.
Get the freight on the rail and employ the former (self)employed drivers at Kiwirail.
C’mon Labour, what to lose?
Thanks for that info Ad.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108066860/transport-agencys-waiheke
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/369310/vtnz-admits-using-inferior-brake-test-on-waiheke-island
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/vtnz-admits-using-inferior-brake-test-trucks-and-buses
What happens to the skilled migrants…
“Signs of the underlying malaise do occasionally become apparent. Every now and then, highly trained and capable clinicians will throw up their hands and leave New Zealand, generating newspaper headlines such as “Top Specialist Quits in Disgust.”
In mid-November, one such departure highlighted some of the issues behind the negative trends. Wellington Hospital lost its leading cardio-electrophysiologist, Dr Alejandro Jimenez Restrepo. Born in Colombia and trained in the US, Jimenez had arrived here in 2012 with his wife and young family, intending to settle permanently in New Zealand. Within two and a half years, he was gone.”
http://werewolf.co.nz/2014/12/public-health-the-silent-crisis/
The fake doctors seem to love it here though.
Fake psychiatrist sentenced to more than four years prison
I love how our taxes are being used to pay for fake doctors and then pay for their prison stays as well… in this case… they seem to have managed to deport him, but at a rough guess he cost NZ taxpayers $500,000+ dollars plus imagine the social costs of having these fakes in our health system. Could have bought a house for someone who needed it, with that money, or used it to train real doctors instead of leaving them with 6 figure student loans.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/339641/fake-psychiatrist-sentenced-to-more-than-four-years-prison
Frank Macskasy has done some detailed research.
Read it all here.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/10/25/some-troubling-questions-about-the-ross-affair/
Thanks Ed.
Mainstream media seem to be ignoring the entire story now.
They were told to.
Because Bridges rang round saying he had been defamed? Making sure editorial lines favoured him?
Frank does good research, and is excellent at analysis imo.
Judith Collins appears to be campaigning. She was at the Diwali celerations in Papatoetoe a few weeks back where she was introduced as a senior National Party mp. Today she appeared briefly at Kabbadi to get her photo taken
. James if you want to meet your idol I would suggest keeping an eye out for these community events.
I think PR is Judith’s biggest supporter:) each to their own…
That’s right I had it wrong. It certainly looks like she is campaigning hard but wait the election is not until 2020.
But the leadership of the National Party is ……….
Please ignore – phone rang and then too late to continue or delete.
I thought that was the sort of thing most MPs do? Part of the job.
Kia ora Newshub Duncan was that a good week off.
Ka pai To the Prince & Duchess visit its cool that she talked in te reo and highlighted the suffering of wahine around the world and minority cultures .
The Labyrinth was a cool move with Daved Bowie & Jennifer Connelly the hope the remake will be cool to.
Mark humor is good for the wairua but not when your culture is the but of the joke
The Simpson’s issues with Habu being canned.
I totally disagree we need to legislate so wahine are on the boards that control OUR business . Why because men bully them and cheat to to keep wahine out of the top jobs these men think its there right to do this.
Wet wipes my offspring can not get by with out the stuff in my day it was a wash able pack of cloths I say good advertising saying not to be flushed we have to do all we can to keep our water ways clean.
Having a visit from The Prince & Duchess will give Aotearoa more positive publicity that money could buy that is good for Equality for all.
Ka kite ano
Having a visit from The Prince & Duchess will give Aotearoa more positive publicity that money could buy that is good for Equality for all.
Nonsense. He’s a criminal. He should be in prison.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/05/murdering-rich-bastard-condemned-around.html
I can smell some thing its smells like a payed troll are you and your m8 still link below
Muppet I will just ignore your out dated words.
Kia ora The cafe hows it going Mike you were a bit flush last week I quit like the cake .
Eco see all.
Big Buddy is a good organization that give young Tane a father’s role model its cool
Eco know what it’s like not having parents as my true parent died when I was nine.
Ka kite ano
Here is a good nature loving bird rescue person Vicki and other’s are doing a wonderful job caring for injured birds
Promiscuous penguins terrified of water, harried harrier hawks, clumsy kererū and greedy kea owe their lives to the growing cavalry of everyday Kiwis who are helping rehabilitate our injured wildlife, writes VICKI ANDERSON Ka kite ano link is below.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/108092661/bird-is-the-word–meet-the-everyday-kiwis-saving-feathered-lives
Eco Maori says Human Caused Global Warming is poking us in the eyes tornado are only seen in Aotearoa once and a while about 3 to 5 years apart not 10 in one year.
A “massive” tornado that swirled over farmland east of Hamilton left observers stunned and sent one woman to hunker down in the toilet.Meanwhile motorists in Tauranga saw a giant tornado swirling above the harbour and threatening to touch down near the port’s tank farm . Ka kite ano link is below P.S Feel the thunder
https://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/108187888/funnel-cloud-touches-down-in-rural-waikato
Eco Maori says the best way to get one health on the UP and weight on the Down is to chuck all the added sugar out of the house no fizzys cut the beezzy down to once a month that’s full of sugar to no sugar at all I don’t have sugar now and I feel good . Like I have said before the big comapnys will sue the —– off anyone who points out the bad facts about sugar.
And the way I see It the Big companys win in court most times It takes about 30 years for the truth to rise thru the Bigotry of Plutocracy that is running our world into the dirt. Ka kite ano link is below P.S Try and eat more vegtables but I back up no sugar one has to be strong for the Tamariki/ Moko’s.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/teach-me/107676589/kiwis-have-normalised-childhood-obesity-says-expert
Kia ora tekaea Kasey and Karena are going to put on a mean Hakari for the Prince and Duchess when they visit Rotorua .
I have allready given my opinion on Nga puhi I say settel and build a bright future for te mokopuna’s.
Te whakatohea Mussel Waka is a good move mussle farming they do grow fast in Tangaroa around those ways they are sweet to.
Ka kite ano P.S I say our tradition of providing ones guest with a mean Hakari has a lot of good thing that follow the feast everyone is happy
Kia ora Newshub That Lion Air plane that crashed is a tragedy it was only 2 month’s old condolences to the familys that have lost whano on that ??????plane.
I see the Armys man of Brazil has won the presidency well see what he does.
Just because simon says resign doesn’t mean anyone is going to listen to him .I like to have seen national sack a mp ex tobacco lobbyist.
Leicester must be in shock to see a big figure there soccor club owner die in the chopper crash is some one putting bad parts on the market.
Can you see it he’s a muppet trump that is.
Ka pai Nigel Richards is a kiwi world best scrabble player thats not Eco forty Reading is tho.
I say blind people should not be held back by short minded employers .
Ka kite ano
Kia ora The Crowd Goes Wild James & Mulls
I think the Couch is saying kicks keep it smart
It will be good to get some of the young Rugby players a run together .
Ka pai to the Fast 5 Netball team’s win.
Mulls a American baseball puka puka.
The Super bike man would have had to change some clothing after that flight.
Ka kite ano P.S my thought to James global warming in Venice race