‘Prime Minister John Key is poised to outline the possible sale of thousands of state houses to community groups today, as the Government advances its reform of social housing.’
The privatisation of housing.
Is really the way to solve NZ’s housing crisis, Mr Key?
It’s about transferring public assets to private hands and another issue buried at the GE that all opposition parties should have been demanding a please explain.
Wonder if it will be at the types of discounts the power generators were flogged for especially genesis.
At least will someone in opposition demand the detail on how rents will be controlled and get the attack of this abdication of repsonsibilities going on a few fronts please.
This can only be true if he meant there was no housing crisis for rich people and the Government’s policies are aimed at increasing the supply of rental properties to landlords.
The damage that he does to the plain meaning of words is horrendous.
There was a doozy on Morning Report. When quizzed on whether Mike Sabin was being investigated by the police, he said he couldn’t comment. When quizzed further he said he was advised not to comment. When asked who advised him not to comment he said he was not at liberty to say. When asked why he was not at liberty to say, he said, “Well that’s a circular argument.” It’s about halfway through a 6 minute interview.
yesterday he said he comments on what he wants to comment and not on what he doesnt. I guess overnight they rethought the effectiveness of that childish response and decided to pretend someone was stopping him from commenting. I mean, this is the guy who gets documents declassified to help his election campaign.
I agree on both counts. Yes, Labour and the Greens need to take a strong stand on state house sales, and yes, Key is an arch dissembler. He seems to have three basic moves – (1) Toy out loud with the idea doing something extreme and scary. (get the government out of housing) (2) Step back a little to something more ‘moderate’ (we’ll sell a few but still remain the main provider) (3) Do what he wants to do anyway.
@ Olwyn
That is what the political commentator on Radionz said today. The gummint goes OTT and get people’s backs up, then there is the announcement putting that to rest with a smaller change that appears to be more considered and puts the critics on the back foot as being dogmatic and unreasonable. It’s not too bad, what are you going on about sort of thing.
It also means the government can say homelessness isn’t their responsibility. Families living in cars, caravans and sheds? That will be the fault of the charities that take this on according to the Nats.
Done correctly I think this may help the situation, as well as private charity I imagine there’ll be groups that concentrate on housing and as such should do a better job of handling housing
I’m sure you agree that as peoples circumstances change their housing needs change as well?
You assume that these housing associations have the capacity and the ability to deliver (without prejudice) healthy, affordable housing for communities. In our small country, they don’t. And the private developers included in the mix, don’t have the intent.
And if you want social cohesion, and enhanced community, then transitional housing is not the answer. People are more likely to be connected, and resilient when they have strong stable communities. View the difference in established communities with little turnover, with transient communities such as student areas or holiday home towns.
As people’s circumstances change, if their housing is secure, their energies can be directed towards other benefits for themselves, their families and their communities.
By proposing that when they are on their (choose arbitrary financial point) feet, they are then expected to move house and community, keeps them on a perpetual treadmill, supposedly doing everything right to move forward, but being given other obstacles to achieve to stay in place.
Just how many 3-4 bedroom state houses do you believe are being occupied by single people living alone? Really would be interested Undecided, in whatever information you have on this topic. You do have some right? You are surely not just repeating tired spin from the 1990’s. That time before a concerted effort was made by successive Governments, to relocate people living in such circumstances, not to mention the ensuing shifts in policy direction where such circumstances rarely, if ever, occur today.
The Government will be selling thousands and thousands of homes our grandparents paid to have built so their children and their children’s children could live in a country where need was less.
Was a nice theory, if only the kids had had the guts to follow through with the sentiment, instead of turning the most awesome little country in the world (still full of potential) into a vapid whore working one of the smaller South Pacific outposts of Greed Inc.
Meaning that people in state houses should be moved around depending on their circumstances
However as reported
Prime Minister John Key has confirmed the Government plans to sell 1000 to 2000 state houses in the next year to be run by community housing providers with more sales possible over the next few years.
In his state of the nation speech today Key said Housing New Zealand would still remain the biggest provider of social housing with at last 60,000 properties by 2017 against 65,000 now.
2000 to be sold to community providers with possibly more to come certainly isn’t as bad as some feared
Posters on here were assuming the worst, that Key would sell off most of the housing stock and probably to private investers whereas hes selling off less then 5% to private providers so no loss off housing
Well in regards to asset sales Key said he wouldn’t seel any assets in first term and he didn’t, he said he’d partially sell some power companies in his second term and did so on asset sales hes done what hes said he’d do
and in case you didnt grasp what was happening there, thats the nats trying to not frighten you in order to advance their actual agenda – an agenda they are pretty open about and one that hasnt changed for years now
and yet again your avoiding engaging with the actual questions and points being put to you. What are you afraid of?
your contradicting yourself – in one comment you say they did what they said they would then when i point out that theres more going no and its nbo big secret you resort to “well their popular”
Appeals to populism doesnt explain anything other than popularity
I will take it you are incapable of backing up you opening play.
really weak – so weak that i can only assume your a troll.
Have to confess I’m undecided as to whether Undecided is Dissembling or merely Obfuscating…….while noting that they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive and may indeed be cousins.
Undecided, why are you so scared of answering one simple question?
Let me take a stab at the answer you really wanted to give but were just too timid to front up with:
‘I do not know, but I have faith in John Key to do what is right for New Zealand.’
Is that a fair approximation of your thoughtful “undecided” point of view.
p.s. In today’s speech, was there any mention of a mechanism where Social Providers will get first dibs on State Assets that are being sold?
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?
considering thats not the question being asked, you are avoiding
or your not very good at this language thingy
this is what you said
“I’m thinking that a single person taking up a 3-4 bedroom house when theres a family needing a house seems to be a waste of that house”
i responded that the policy being proposed doesnt have anything to do with that
this whole thread between the two of us is based off that one comment – why you think that instead of answers that follow and stick to this argument, im more interested in what you want the nats to do is beyond me
oh for fucks sake!
————————————–
“then the answer isnt sell off current stock is it
the answer is change the stock
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
———————————–
what bit of that isnt clear?
then i repeated the main question AGAIN to you
—————————
“notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
—————————
what bit of that isnt clear?
Let’s call them “desirable areas” rather than expensive ones. The reason why they are expensive are many and varied, but the primary reason is the failure of government (especially this one), to address rising housing costs. That is a series of posts in itself.
These areas are desirable because they are within easy access of schools, public transport, central city, services and community facilities.
Your suggestion to send those living there to “less expensive” areas results in a transfer of housing providing responsibility costs from government to increased transport and living costs to already vulnerable tenants. Add to that social isolation and reduction of access to sporting and community engagement, and the true costs of this type of policy become apparent.
If we take Glen Innes as an example. This was the creation of a desirable area for social housing, by the government at the time.
Access to services, school, work and health as well as to some of Auckland’s natural environment was excellent.
The encroachment of higher-priced property means that this purpose built social housed community is no longer welcome. Without any regard for the social equity that exists.
We have a government that is not providing enough social housing. It is also not providing access to affordable housing for an increasing number of NZers… It is however, going to provide discounted assets to private property developers. And that seems to be the sum total of it’s efforts on this issue.
I said decent but less expensive areas, I’ll use Christchurch as an example as i’m not from Auckland so I’m thinking if there are any state houses in Merivale, Fendalton etc then sell them off and buy in Hornby (which is a pretty decent suburb) so I’m not suggesting they buy houses in Aranui and stick families there
Your view is that “what you think” is what actually occurs despite evidence to the contrary.
By putting the provision of healthy, affordable homes for all NZ’ers to third parties, a government (such as National) removes itself adroitly from the chain of responsibility and will continue to do so as long as it can get away with it.
By bringing in for-profit providers, not only are they dismantling their responsibility, they are effectively saying “we do not have the capability or otherwise to look after this fundamental requirement for healthy and engaged NZers’. And yet they are responsible for the health and wellbeing of our whole economy.
So we must “never forget” Auschwitz. As a kid raised on WWII stories, books and gruesome pictures courtesy of parents directly involved via the air force and nursing during London blitz I of course concur.
Unfortunately large sections of the Israeli leadership and population do appear to have forgotten. Persecution of the Palestinians remains perilously close to the ideology that sanctioned the death camps.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) conducted a fact-finding mission, utilising 8 independent international forensic and medical experts. They’re the only human rights group to have been granted access to Gaza by both Israel and Egypt (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Council were repeatedly denied entry).
“The report’s authors adopt a cautious and professional tone but describe the stuff of nightmares.”
mouthing off to perpetuate the market they make their living from. Am sick of Bank employees being asked for comment on stuff that hurts or harms banks… real estate agency owners being used as experts on affordable housing when they have no interest in it.
While workers’ rights, living standards and general conditions of life have been made worse over the past 30 years, workers’ resistance has declined to negligible levels. Moreover, the rare tussle that does take place is a defensive one. Workers in this country, with the possible exception of the early days of Unite union when it was organising new workplaces and fighting to get contracts for new union members, haven’t been going on the offensive for several decades now.
Sometimes it seems that two generations of workers got defeated – through the 1980s and 1990s – and the next generation therefore hasn’t had a fighting spirit and class consciousness passed on to it nor developed these through its own experiences.
But if workers here have forgotten or, in the case of the new generation, not yet learned what resistance is let alone what going on the offensive is, there is no shortage of examples of powerful workers’ upsurges and of workers’ resistance pointing to, or at least offering a glimpse of the potential for, alternative ways of organising economic, social and political life.
So we’ve stuck up on Redline links to pieces about workers’ occupations, about the biggest general strike in history (a couple of years ago in India), the May-June 68 events in France, the formation of bodies of workers’ power in Portugal and Chile in the early 1970s – forms of organising that point the way out of capitalism.
One of the reasons there’s little resistance is small- and medium-sized employers in areas of moderate- to high-unemployment.
I live in one of those areas, and I’ve been in and out of employment since the early 1990s. In that time, one employer has met their obligations and told me who my union was.
One.
My current employer refuses to talk about it, stating they have no official position but if I joined a union we’d all lose our jobs because it’d mean higher wages and better conditions.
This is why their wage theft is on-going. It’s been made quite clear that if any of us cause trouble by attempting to enforce our basic legal rights, our reference will be simply an acknowledgement of employment – the implication being that we were a bad employee because they had nothing good to say about us.
My previous employer didn’t mention a union, but the owner did tell me I was salaried so they didn’t need to pay overtime, and I was waged so they didn’t need to pay me if I was off sick for more days than I had accrued.
During the last years of National’s run in the 1990s, when the ECA required negotiation of pay and conditions, one employer stated wages and conditions, and said “There’s no negotiation of that, that’s the job. If you don’t accept that pay, you don’t get the job.” WINZ, of course, required me to accept the job.
As I understand it, the bulk of the jobs in the area are the same. The employers know there aren’t many jobs out there, so they have low wages and bad conditions, and if you don’t like it you can sod off.
Eventually, the employees do so, moving to towns with better jobs, wages, and conditions, and it seems to me that these factors are such an improvement that they don’t see the need to join a union.
I hear what you are saying. There is the implied threat, that if you do this, then your co-workers will turn against you as to blame for ANY job loss… no matter how unrelated to your decision to join a union
That said, I now have a list of rather important questions to ask employers at my next job interviews. I’ll figure out better phrasings for them, but if they turn me down because I want to know an employer’s position on worker rights, I’m fairly sure I don’t want to work there.
There is no obligation for employers to tell you who your union might be unless there is a Collective Agreement that covers your work and your employer is a party to that agreement, i.e for the first 30 days of your employment you will be covered by the terms & conditions of the Collective ( from 6 March this provision will no longer apply to new employees), after which you can join the union or negotiate individual terms & conditions of employment.
I thought an employer must know what Union/s their staff can join and if asked is required to impart that knowledge to the employee or person being interviewed. If I am incorrect on this please let me know.
Unfortunately you are incorrect unless there is an applicable Collective Agreement for that workplace and the employees work is covered by the agreement.
hi phil and bass guy, couldnt agree more.
i had the misfortune to have desired to be a chef as a youngster. (30 odd years later i still love cooking!)
i have been mainly in hospitality since 1985, and on both sides of this discussion (worker, here and overseas, and employer here).
in my experience in mainly small businesses (less than 10 employees), and have never been involved with a union, let alone acted collectively.
incidentally i am in the throws of renegotiating my wages currently.
the nature of these small businesses tends to create “relationships” between employer and worker, which can make negotiating potentially fraught, tense or non-existant, especially for the younger workers.
none of this is a defence of greedy employers, just my 2 cents worth.
The National government in 1991 legislated against working people and their unions and for their business mates by introducing the Employment Contracts Act (ECA). The award structure was completely gutted and replaced with enterprise bargaining & individual employment contracts, which for many workers meant an offer of inferior terms & conditions of employment on a take it or leave basis. Compulsory unionism was abolished and in many industries and workplaces a collective approach to wage bargaining never took place again. Unions and unionism was decimated. Workers, especially the low & semi skilled, became increasingly reliant upon the benevolence of employers and government who set minimum requirements such as the minimum wage, annual leave and grievance procedures. The workplace power imbalance between employer and worker increased – and remains – heavily weighted in favour of the former. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living because working people no longer enjoy a collective voice in both the workplace and society.
Employers and their supportive governments love high unemployment numbers especially youth. The idea and ability to pick and choose is very appealing. They strongly advocate for and support 90 day trial periods for new employees. They don’t want assertive union officials supporting & promoting alternatives. That weakens their power & control.
Do you think this government would want their business buddies to be made to tell the workers the contact details of Andrew Littles mates?
Noam Chomsky had some choice words about the popularity of “American Sniper,” its glowing New York Times review, and what the worship of a movie about a cold-blooded killer says about the American people.
It’s not good.
During a Cambridge, Massachusetts event hosted by The Baffler, Chomsky first read the glowing recent review the New York Times gave the movie. That review begins inauspiciously by insulting “America’s coastal intelligentsia, which has busied itself with chatter over little-seen art dramas while everyday Americans showed up en masse for a patriotic, pro-family picture which broke all attendance records in its opening days.”
So, Chomsky wonders aloud: “What was the patriotic, pro-family film that so entranced everyday Americans? It’s about the most deadly sniper in American history, a guy named Chris Kyle, who claims to have used his skills to have killed several hundred people in Iraq.”
Kyle’s first kill was a woman who apparently walked into the street with a grenade in her hand as the Marines attacked her village.
“‘I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting,’” Chomsky said, quoting Kyle. “‘Savage, despicable, evil — that’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy savages. There was really no other way to describe what we encountered there.’”
Chomsky also pointed out that The New Yorker loved the film, saying, “it was great, kept to the cinematic values, said it was well done.” On the other hand, Newsweek‘s Jeff Stein, a former US intelligence officer, called it appalling. In that review, Chomsky says, Stein remembered a visit he had made to a “clubhouse for snipers, where to quote him, ‘the barroom walls featured white-on-black Nazi SS insignia, and other Wehrmacht regalia. The Marine shooters clearly identified with the marksmen of the world’s most infamous killing machine, rather than regular troops.”
“Getting back to Chris Kyle,” Chomsky said, arriving at his larger point. “He regarded his first kill as a terrorist — this woman who walked in the street — but we can’t really attribute that to the mentality of a psychopathic killer, because we’re all tarred by the same brush insofar as we tolerate or keep silent about official policy. Now, that mentality helps explain why it’s so easy to ignore what is most clearly the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever — Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us.”
Chomsky recommends reading some of the transcripts with drone operators, calling them “harrowing” in their dehumanizing treatment of people who are targeted.
The implication is clear and chilling. Are we all, at least tacitly, American snipers?
Rich people around the world buying boltholes in NZ to escape to when the shit they have been taking advantage of to enrich themselves backfires in their faces. Been suggesting such since the Rothschilds bought a large coastal farm on banks Peninsula about 10 or so years ago….. boat access, airstrips, etc…..
Why don’t these people go to the private market for support rather than ask the taxpayer? It is not as if the projects are any larger than countless other private projects in the country….
Aren’t they free market supporters? Why would they push through a project that the free market doesn’t support?
Why do they ask for the taxpayer to start it? Then later ask the taxpayer to support them when the waters run dry? Then ask the taxpayers to pay to clean up the shit afterwards?
I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms
Yeah nah – those ‘for the greater good’ arguments have little credibility these days. Unfortunately no time to go into it… though ….
We would get short shrift if we went to government for loans for our business (which is similar scale to some of these irrigation projects) – and the exact same ‘greater good’ arguments apply. Why should farming business be treated differently to any other business mr waghorn ?
“I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms”
Pretty sure if you did a cost/benefit analysis that took all costs and benefits and downsides into account, it wouldn’t look so good. The theory is based on the idea that it brings jobs and supports businesses and that those can’t happen in any other way so it’s ok to ruin the environment. That theory is wrong.
It needs to be looked at on a case by case basis. I’d say the irrigation of the Canterbury Plains for Fonterra is bad. Trickle irrigation of a kumara garden in Te Tai Tokerau, probably quite reasonable.
I can’t see that the huge scale automated irrigation of large areas of flat grassland is good at all. It’s extremely wasteful of water, which is not well absorbed by pasture where shelter belts have been removed. I think there are less harmful uses of the Canterbury Plains, but I’m no expert. I grew up in Te Tai Tokerau, where the land is hilly and there was usually plenty of water. It was good country for dairy on the smaller scale that it was done in those days.
I think there are crops that could be grown that would need far less irrigation than dairy. I think irrigation of the Canterbury Plains to fatten Tory voters is extremely bad.
herald online is putting the soon to be heard Key speech into ten points.
Interestingly they use this stat, presumably because Key does?
“There are almost 5000 people on a social housing waiting list (as at the end of December). That’s down from just over 11,000 in 2002, but the true level of unmet housing need is estimated to be in the region of 43,000-55,000.”
The use of 2002 as a point of reference piques my interest… Isn’t the number on the waiting list from the end of 2008 to december most relevant?
In 2008 the then Labour Minister stated there were
“as at 29 February 2008 the number of applicants on the waiting list was 9,875. This figure includes 2,435 applicants already living in Housing New Zealand houses who are seeking a transfer.”
In a 2013 Briefing for the Minister HNZ noted the following
“As New Zealand’s largest landlord, Housing New Zealand owns or leases nearly 70,000 rental properties, housing over 200,000 people. This portfolio is worth $15.1 billion and is the Government’s second largest asset. There are also 2,100 families – about 6,000 people – on the waiting list with a serious need for a state house.”
It appears that when National entered parliament in late 2008 there were about 7440 people in serious need of a state house. At the end of 2013 this had dropped to 6000. Why not use the real figures, they seem to still show a decline?
Ordinarily I take conspiracy theories with a grain of salt, but the timing plus the fact that these guys were responsible for many of the “disappeared” in Argentina during the junta…
Hmmm, I don’t understand your approach to humans acting in a conspiracy…. you seem to suggest that only those supporting facts which make it into the public arena are determinative of whether or not people have conspired….
Have you conspired today McFlock? Over the last week? I know I have, I know my family members have, I know John Key and Andrew Little have, I know virtually anyone in business has ……. it is what humans do. They conspire together to achieve ends.
this prevailing idea that humans don’t conspire ……. just makes absolutely no sense, flies in the face of reality and is as silly as some person thinking that a lone gunman killed JFK
Even if we were to ignore the negative connotations of the word “conspiracy”, just because humans conspire does not mean that every conspiracy theory is true.
So yeah, I demand evidence before I determine the probability of any particular conspiracy theory being true.
So unless the evidence in the public arena is in your view supportive then you dismiss the notion that some event may be the result of a conspiracy….
kinda misses the notion of how conspiracies are attended to i.e. in secret
You know, another way to make an assessment about an event is to use the well tried and proved method of following the money… or looking at who has benefitted …..
There are ways to assess things other than your own narrow method. Proven ones.
For years, the US Government used this approach to discredit people in court who were claiming that they were being subject to illegal surveillance.
The US Government would say – well you have no evidence of this surveillance, the kind of spying you are talking about is illegal, and we would never do it any way – so you have no standing and no merits in this court.
The moon landings were faked.
Aircraft release chemtrails for geoengineering.
Nasa covered up its photos of martians.
The Earth is hollow and run by Tibetans from Atlantis.
Stealth bombers were made with alien tech from the Roswell crash.
There is a teacup orbiting the sun somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.
All without evidence, so all must be credible /sarc
I demand evidence before I determine the probability of any particular conspiracy theory being true.
to mean this:
So unless the evidence in the public arena is in your view supportive then you dismiss the notion that some event may be the result of a conspiracy….
BTW, CR’s “perfectly good discussion point” seemed to be that one particular conspiracy theory was largely true. That stunning observation’s relevance to the discussion about how we discern a true conspiracy theory from a false one is somewhat thin – although in that case it did rely on evidence being made public. But then we don’t know whether the specific individuals “in open court” were indeed subjected to illegal surveillance.
Not “dismiss”. Not take a position until I have evidence. This can be evidence for the popular theory, evidence of a conspiracy, or evidence of the doubtful reliability of conspiracy theorists.
Oh, we can look at who benefitted, but that merely means that if there actually had been a conspiracy, all the conspirators have to do is benefit slightly less than someone else.
The flipside is that I arbitrarily accept as true conflicting conspiracy theories in the absence of any evidence whatsoever.
E.g. that LHO shot JFK alone, or that the Cubans assassinated JFK,
and that the CIA/military assassinated JFK and used Oswald as a patsy,
and that the mafia assassinated JFK because of Bobby Kennedy going after them as AG,
and all convoluted combinations of any and/or all of the above
Please remember, a conspiracy theory is simply where people have shared their considered views and ideas when attempting to understand an event or situation. When used as a derogatory label or as an attempt to demean and diminish the validity of another’s viewpoint, it is nothing but taking a short cut away from critical thought. Critical thinking is not a threat to knowledge, it is how humanity uses knowledge to survive. At least it used to be.
Language mutates and adapts, freedom. Conspiracy theory still has a literal meaning, but it also now has a pejorative meaning, due mostly to the rise of sites on the interwebs who propagate mindless nonsense but insist we all take it very seriously indeed.
My favourite form of madness is the ‘right of reply’ or ‘balance’ argument, where the deluded demand that their theory should be given equal weight to actual, proven knowledge. The master of this approach is the self aggrandising climate change denier, and fake Lord, Christopher Monckton.
I am eternally grateful that language mutates and adapts. If you accept what you wrote, you also must accept the absurdity of our present condition. By simply speaking two little words in conjunction, many rational brains are triggered to the ‘ignore’ position, predominately without any rationality applied. Behaviour like that does not happen by accident. It is learned and it is learned largely through the use of language. That is where personal responsibility comes into play.
We are the language we let ourselves use. We are the questions that we ask.
The situation today is so absurd that if a person is over-heard to have read a book about JFK, they are immediately assumed to be converts to the writings of David Icke. The short cut away from critical thinking I mentioned earlier? That is well and truly sprinted every time “conspiracy theories” from different fields of research are compared. Do you discuss mainsail maintenance of a racing yacht when talking Bathurst tyre wear?
We both would agree that this world is in a ridiculous position. There is too much fear, not enough love, a boogyman behind every doorway. The true horror though, is the apparent disdain for facts. This of course is where 9/11 is the mother lode of nonsensical discussion. As you know I do not enter into 9/11 discussion here although I might throw a few breadcrumbs on occasion. But disdain for facts is at the core of the 9/11 issue. People go to extraordinary lengths to defend the Official Story, mostly with little to no knowledge of its immense failings, yet decide that all 9/11 Truth is a falsehood because… albatross.
Take The New Pearl Harbour. An amazing achievement by any standard of research, if somewhat lacking in production values. I will repeat what I have said since it first arrived on the scene.
“I am not aware of any person who having claimed to believe the Official Story, after seeing this documentary, still claims that position.” Not one!
To be honest I still have my doubts that you yourself have actually viewed it at all, let alone its entire five hours. Only you can know the truth of your answer. Facts matter. Science matters. Lies just hurt people and the bigger the lies, the more hurt they create. Is that what you want? A simpering humanity, cowering under the baton of ignorance and fear as the totality of knowledge is decided for you by people who most certainly do not have your best interests at heart?
Too afraid to open a window for air, because you are told the window is locked.
Is that not the locking mechanism, laying broken at your feet? Language will mutate, language will adapt, but only you can know the truth of your answer.
He’s not a fake lord – he’s a hereditary peer inheriting the title from his father in 2006 (he’s the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley).
What he did do is falsely (or at least misleadingly) claim in a letter to US Senators to be a member of the House of Lords which he has never been (since the hereditary peers lost the right to automatically be in the Lords in 1999 and he is not one of the 92 elected hereditaries). The lords even issued a cease and desist to refute his claims in 2011.
As an aside he’s stood 4 times for when a seat for the hereditary peers has fallen vacant in the Lords since 2006 and at least 3 times received no votes.
Definitely a crank though. (Now plowing his furrow with UKIP when not climate denying).
Cheers for the correction, GJ. And I didn’t know he was standing for UKIP! Not sure what that does for the nutter quotient there, but from what I’ve seen of the rest, Monckton might be a civilising influence.
I’d say that’s par for the course in Latin America. The mistake Dilma and Kirchner make is to leave the same state apparatus that served the dictatorships in place. Labour does it here as well. They should realise by now that the SIS is a branch of the Tories, but will they change anything if they ever get voted back in? They could all do with reading ‘State and Revolution” again.
By the way, I don’t see this as a conspiracy theory at all. It’s a reasonable explanation of the facts.
he says, “Islam’s direct threat to our rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and our culture”. But I don’t hear him saying anything about Christianity which imo has done and will continue to be more of a direct threat than Islam ever could. Ban crosses? yeah right.
It is clearly the very notion of religion that is the problem… and has been for a very long time.
The sooner it disappears as an idea the better – pretty much like some religions which used to think the sun was a higher being have evaporated in the heat of reality, so too should all religions which think there is a higher being. Dolly the cloned sheep put paid to these ideas some years ago.
there will come a time when this will happen anyway so lets do it now ….
The sun is a higher being* for all intensive purposes. Whether some entreaty from this planet cuts through the solar flares and stuff and impacts upon the sun causing ‘it’ to ‘hear’ and ‘react’ to those calls is debatable for sure based upon whichever belief system we believe in.
*
Noun
higher being (plural higher beings)
Any of various theoretical, or otherwise unknown, non-human life forms believed to have power over human life.
People have a need for faith and a need to believe in something. Get rid of religion if you like, ban it if you like, it will merely be replaced with faith in the free markets, faith in nationalism, faith in exceptionalism, faith in scientism and infinite technological progress.
I’ve had a bit of odd behaviour with the Replies tab in the last few days. Normally, the tab only appears when I’ve posted that day (it disappears some time after midnight each night), so I usually don’t see replies if I haven’t posted for several days.
Today, I had replies listed only for Raided of the Last Shark, and that was after reloading because I had replies listed for Micky Savage.
I’m going to have to put the aircond on to figure out what it is doing wrong. Mind is fuzzy after I get home through the beautiful warm mind-numbing weather (after being in a fridge all day).
Sean Plunket is a vile, whining piece of shit who sounds like a ten year old reading lines written by Whalespew. His calling Eleanor Catton an ungrateful hua on the basis that she works at a public university makes me sick. FJK is paid by the state, yet he spends whatever time is left after working on his golf handicap on attacking the working class. Why doesn’t Plunket call him a traitor?
Nah, bugger it. Why doesn’t Plunket just go for a long walk off a short pier? I’d never listened to him before, but he obviously bases himself on Alan Jones, speaking slowly and in short sentences so as to not get too far ahead of his audience.
[lprent: Do not go down to far on that avocation of self-harm path yourself, unless you want to discover the limits to moderator tolerance. ]
Just far enough for him to have a nice swim. Do you really think “take a long walk off a short pier” is a hobby involving violent self harm? How about “go jump in the lake?” I see both as dismissive, rather than being any sort of hobby at all. I think I’ve missed what you meant by avocation.
I once inherited a cellfone from someone whose occupation was that of a ‘publicist’ (you know – someone whose job it is to promote). Sean Plonker (among others) contact numbers remained in its contact list. I refrained from making bothersome calls, and from calling them out on their bullshit. There were some very intersting numbers in that little gem that I retain to this day.
Thankfully, the publicist saw sense and left the country, but not before using me (and others as her confidant) – including one of her boyfriends (an electrical engineer). He/they’d actually taken the long walk along the Pike River Mine entrance – according to he: “an accident waiting to happen”. As for Plunket …. I can only relate her comment – he’d be a thoroughly useless fuck.
Funny ole wurl aye.
I imagine tho’ that in future times, that publicist will be ready and anxious to testify.
I fear that might be a little longer than my lifetime will allow.
Oh…. btw – Chris Finalyson fiigured heavily in her daily commentary – it kind of reinforced my impressions of just what a bitter old queen he’s become. And I say that ONLY because had he not been subjugated by the Jonky phenomenon, there’d have been a different outcome.
Common fucking sense anyone? (Not for the foreseeable future it seems) – EVEN in here judging by some comments above
Reply to LPrent’s comments on Little’s State of the nation address thread
”
Martyn Bradbury seemed to be quite close to David Cunliffe and Hone Harawira. However that is beside the point. You are making a guilt by association argument. That is usually bad form.
[lprent: Why? Have you looked at the side of this site at John Key’s face recently – that accurately expresses my opinion of his ethics of getting involved with Slater’s garbage diving. As far as I can see John Key has been politically profiting from having his head stuffed firmly in Slater’s faecal bacteria for the last 7 years. I can’t see any justification for having a dirty politician to not be called for what he is.
For the record, I have a number of politician’s numbers. I don’t use them unless I have to. They are mainly there for caller id when they (rarely) call me so that I pick up the phone. The only phone numbers that I ever call cold were those of Helen Clark. That was because I was part of the Mt Albert campaign team and I sometimes needed direct information about targeting.
As much as I think that Martyn is a bit of a dork, I don’t think that he is trying to blackmail journalists with prostitutes or any of the other crap that Slater did. I suspect Martyn mainly contacts them when he was organising events or pitching for work.
Answer in OpenMike, but I suspect that I am going to be completely unsympathetic to your theory of disassociation of a dirty politician and his dirty operatives. ]”
I’m not discussing how you you can be associated with the behaviour of an individual. I would agree you can argue that being in contact with someone who is overtly behaving in a particular manner does suggest a degree of tacit support.
What I am meaning is that if someone I know and associate with holds a particular view (say on the benefits or otherwise of collectivisation) that it does not hold that the view is held by myself as well. For example just because you are majorly involved in this blog does not mean you agree with the views expressed by the authors who post articles here. I am sure you would come down hard on anyone trying to state that you did.
And what if you gave them your cellphone number, and contacted them frequently, which was the original comparison?
That at least suggests that the beliefs they espouse are not contrary to one’s ethical standards. For example, I don’t socialise with any white supremacists AFAIK.
John Key is a good example of a “mainstream” (your relocated goalpost, I remind you) tory, no?
Cameron Slater has a number of views that I suspect the PM does not hold. Key’s reasons for contacting him has been well publicised. You may disagree with it but even if it was some insidious plot to subvert democracy in NZ it doesn’t mean that they share the same views.
Anyway I suspect Slater is not anti-collective as you suggest. He may well be anti-Union but that is a different matter.
Birds of a feather flock together aye goosey.
Always defending the indefensable!
Your like a cheap little wind up doll repeating the same old lies!
you make mathew hootton look good.
always having to have the last word never admitting when your wrong!
Men who are into selfies are more likely to be Narcissistic Nutjobs .
Key Slater.and you are both narcissistic Nutjobs Goosy birds of a feather
Key’s willing association with slater certainly means that slater’s attitudes and practises are not incompatible with his own. Otherwise key would not willingly associate with him.
Trade me and Harmoney. Money lenders operating through Trade me – not sure what I think about this. It is being promoted as peer to peer lending. So what’s peer-to-peer lending?
It’s a new way of lending and borrowing that has proved very successful in Australia, the USA and the UK and is just getting started here in New Zealand. Investors loan money directly to borrowers anonymously via an online platform, without having to go through a financial institution like a bank.
It’s simple. By missing out the middleman, Harmoney can provide lower interest rates for borrowers and higher returns for lenders – a win-win for everyone.
A new way of getting into financial strife? I don’t know what to make of it.
I know it in the context of an alternative source of business funding and I was about to spout on about that, and how useful it can be as a more flexible way to raise venture capital or early stage funding for a good business idea. And I’ve seen that work really well overseas. The crowd funding idea in the US is great because it disintermediates the whole formal financing business and people with relatively small amounts of money can get into deals they’d otherwise never see, and spread their risk (which is essential for venture capital type deals).
However, looking at the Harmoney website, first thing I see is:
Borrow
Debt Consolidation
Car Loans
Home Improvements
Holiday Loans
What the farque? This is not really peer to peer lending or crowd funding. This is your neighbourhood predatory lender dressed up in fancy internet clothes. The good thing is that it is very transparent and simple, but does NZ really need this? I guess we will see.
On old maps from ancient times, areas outside the known were labelled “There be Dragons” as a warning of possible perils and pitfalls. In NZ citizens should be aware that this situation applies in their own fair land if, while travelling at the other end of an island or the country, they fall ill.
The story I heard was that a couple were on holiday and one got really ill and was said to need an operation. But the DHB was reluctant to carry it out and stated they should go back to their own hospital board and have it done there. Insistence and threats of negative publicity resulted in agreement to attend to the op at the holiday location.
This is the result of the lack of adequate funding to DHBs. They have had financial sinking lids for some time. Also their budgets are population-based for the locals only and even that may be scant, not providing much for those at the fringes of the areas, and isolated farming settlements. The technology costs for a modern hospital are high also, not only capital costs, but maintenance, and security measures.
The surgeons may have been on holiday, there may have been pressures from car crashes and drunken mayhem incidents in the case I was given. But it is an example of the difficulties the gummint is causing to the public service provision we thought we had provided as a permanent public good.
So beware of the dragons that might pop up when you are away from home. You may need to buy health insurance to get you home within the country’s borders if health provisioning isn’t funded appropriately. If the governnment is running NZ without oil, sooner or later the mechanism will seize up and stop.
Yesterday, Greece canceled the privatisation of the biggest port yesterday, which was a key component of the their existing bailout.
Merkel quoted along the lines of astonished Greece is looking for a debt cut, the new ggovenmnet has to show they are committed to the EU aid program, and the ball is in Greece’s court.
Greek bank equities -11% yesterday.
But the real test comes today. The EU is voting on whether to add to sanctions on Russia. This has to be unanimous and given Greece was reported to say yesterday “we don’t consent”, this vote will be interesting. If Greece does veto the sanctions I guess that signals a really hardball approach to negotiations.
I spoke earlier to a few people in London – a European political analyst at a bank, an economist and a debt trader- were all of the view that the Germans will be happy to say no to any Greek haircut demands, perhaps ease the repayment schedule, but ultimately play hardball. And if the Greeks threaten to leave the Euro, ask them not to let the door hit their bum on the way out.
Personally I don’t know, though I do believe the best thing for Greece would be to negotiate a departure form the Euro, stay in the EU and get transitional support as they go back to controlling their own policy settings. As long as their productivity lags so far behind northern Europe they will never make a go of being in the Euro. They need a weaker currency in order to compete.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
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‘Prime Minister John Key is poised to outline the possible sale of thousands of state houses to community groups today, as the Government advances its reform of social housing.’
The privatisation of housing.
Is really the way to solve NZ’s housing crisis, Mr Key?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/65481888/Key-set-to-air-plan-on-state-houses
It’s about transferring public assets to private hands and another issue buried at the GE that all opposition parties should have been demanding a please explain.
Wonder if it will be at the types of discounts the power generators were flogged for especially genesis.
At least will someone in opposition demand the detail on how rents will be controlled and get the attack of this abdication of repsonsibilities going on a few fronts please.
Probably. This government just loves ripping us off for the benefit of the cronies.
“small government is good”
“the state has no business being in business”
“can we sell the people to?”
“there is no housing crisis”
“sell more assets Bill needs a surplus”
“that Catton women is just a greenie”
“sell it all there will be a profit in there somewhere”
“Angry Andy is living in the past”
“I grew up in a state house….sell them all”
“look there’s a squirrel”
John Key slot machine circa 2015
“Mr Key said there was no housing “crisis” and the Government’s policies were aimed at increasing supply.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11392703
This can only be true if he meant there was no housing crisis for rich people and the Government’s policies are aimed at increasing the supply of rental properties to landlords.
The damage that he does to the plain meaning of words is horrendous.
There was a doozy on Morning Report. When quizzed on whether Mike Sabin was being investigated by the police, he said he couldn’t comment. When quizzed further he said he was advised not to comment. When asked who advised him not to comment he said he was not at liberty to say. When asked why he was not at liberty to say, he said, “Well that’s a circular argument.” It’s about halfway through a 6 minute interview.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20165124
+1 Olwyn.
Key sounded like a blithering idiot in this interview. Full marks to Espiner. All 6 minutes well worth a listen.
Classic, dear leader has “zipped it” on Sabin, like Richard Worth Sabin is not MP material at all which the Nats now have to deal with.
Is Key’s farcical dodging just about buying time for HQ to manage the details of Sabin’s exit or is there more to it?
yesterday he said he comments on what he wants to comment and not on what he doesnt. I guess overnight they rethought the effectiveness of that childish response and decided to pretend someone was stopping him from commenting. I mean, this is the guy who gets documents declassified to help his election campaign.
His calling Espiner’s persistent questioning a “circular argument” came across like a line from that Monty Python parrot sketch.
well, funny you should say that, cos his response yesterday to not commenting reminded me of the Python “argument clinic”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
😀
The Greens position was very weak on this. Both Labour and Greens need to take a strong stand against sales.
Key is an arch dissembler aka known as a lying asswipe. He doesn’t give straight answers to anything.
I agree on both counts. Yes, Labour and the Greens need to take a strong stand on state house sales, and yes, Key is an arch dissembler. He seems to have three basic moves – (1) Toy out loud with the idea doing something extreme and scary. (get the government out of housing) (2) Step back a little to something more ‘moderate’ (we’ll sell a few but still remain the main provider) (3) Do what he wants to do anyway.
@ Olwyn
That is what the political commentator on Radionz said today. The gummint goes OTT and get people’s backs up, then there is the announcement putting that to rest with a smaller change that appears to be more considered and puts the critics on the back foot as being dogmatic and unreasonable. It’s not too bad, what are you going on about sort of thing.
“Mr Key said there was no housing “crisis””
yet were gutting the rma to fix said housing crisis
Oh I see:
There is a housing crisis, so need to gut the RMA.
Now that attention is on the RMA, there’s no housing crisis.
🙄
I’m more concerned with the projected increase in housing subsidies. Ultimately they feed the landlords which just makes the situation worse.
This is all going to lead to higher rents, and a bigger struggle for people to find accomodation in the private sector.
And do we really want to hand over public services to private charity? Who pick and choose who they help? And put rules and regulations around it?
It also means the government can say homelessness isn’t their responsibility. Families living in cars, caravans and sheds? That will be the fault of the charities that take this on according to the Nats.
Done correctly I think this may help the situation, as well as private charity I imagine there’ll be groups that concentrate on housing and as such should do a better job of handling housing
I’m sure you agree that as peoples circumstances change their housing needs change as well?
what did these groups say the last time this policy was discussed?
~ We arent able to handle such a scheme – not by a long shot ~
using the “~” for paraphrasing
You assume that these housing associations have the capacity and the ability to deliver (without prejudice) healthy, affordable housing for communities. In our small country, they don’t. And the private developers included in the mix, don’t have the intent.
And if you want social cohesion, and enhanced community, then transitional housing is not the answer. People are more likely to be connected, and resilient when they have strong stable communities. View the difference in established communities with little turnover, with transient communities such as student areas or holiday home towns.
As people’s circumstances change, if their housing is secure, their energies can be directed towards other benefits for themselves, their families and their communities.
By proposing that when they are on their (choose arbitrary financial point) feet, they are then expected to move house and community, keeps them on a perpetual treadmill, supposedly doing everything right to move forward, but being given other obstacles to achieve to stay in place.
I’m thinking that a single person taking up a 3-4 bedroom house when theres a family needing a house seems to be a waste of that house
Just how many 3-4 bedroom state houses do you believe are being occupied by single people living alone? Really would be interested Undecided, in whatever information you have on this topic. You do have some right? You are surely not just repeating tired spin from the 1990’s. That time before a concerted effort was made by successive Governments, to relocate people living in such circumstances, not to mention the ensuing shifts in policy direction where such circumstances rarely, if ever, occur today.
The Government will be selling thousands and thousands of homes our grandparents paid to have built so their children and their children’s children could live in a country where need was less.
Was a nice theory, if only the kids had had the guts to follow through with the sentiment, instead of turning the most awesome little country in the world (still full of potential) into a vapid whore working one of the smaller South Pacific outposts of Greed Inc.
Meaning that people in state houses should be moved around depending on their circumstances
However as reported
Prime Minister John Key has confirmed the Government plans to sell 1000 to 2000 state houses in the next year to be run by community housing providers with more sales possible over the next few years.
In his state of the nation speech today Key said Housing New Zealand would still remain the biggest provider of social housing with at last 60,000 properties by 2017 against 65,000 now.
2000 to be sold to community providers with possibly more to come certainly isn’t as bad as some feared
i fail to see what your trying to prove with the cut and paste of what key claims the nats are doing
its not proof of anything other than “this is what key said” and im struggling to see its relevance to the comment directly preceding yours
Posters on here were assuming the worst, that Key would sell off most of the housing stock and probably to private investers whereas hes selling off less then 5% to private providers so no loss off housing
which is still irrelevant to the question you were replying to.
“Just how many 3-4 bedroom state houses do you believe are being occupied by single people living alone?”
And if you think the nats will stop there your deluding yourself
stop taking things at face value (and especially at “what JK says” value) and apply some historical and ideological context
Well in regards to asset sales Key said he wouldn’t seel any assets in first term and he didn’t, he said he’d partially sell some power companies in his second term and did so on asset sales hes done what hes said he’d do
im sorry – did history stop waaay back in 2008?
and in case you didnt grasp what was happening there, thats the nats trying to not frighten you in order to advance their actual agenda – an agenda they are pretty open about and one that hasnt changed for years now
and yet again your avoiding engaging with the actual questions and points being put to you. What are you afraid of?
sheesh
an agenda they are pretty open about and one that hasnt changed for years now
Its an agenda that enough people think is a good one then as its got National back into power
Key is selling off the wealth of the nation, to the wealthy of the nation.
What a bastard.
your contradicting yourself – in one comment you say they did what they said they would then when i point out that theres more going no and its nbo big secret you resort to “well their popular”
Appeals to populism doesnt explain anything other than popularity
I will take it you are incapable of backing up you opening play.
really weak – so weak that i can only assume your a troll.
end of subject
Have to confess I’m undecided as to whether Undecided is Dissembling or merely Obfuscating…….while noting that they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive and may indeed be cousins.
Undecided, why are you so scared of answering one simple question?
Let me take a stab at the answer you really wanted to give but were just too timid to front up with:
‘I do not know, but I have faith in John Key to do what is right for New Zealand.’
Is that a fair approximation of your thoughtful “undecided” point of view.
p.s. In today’s speech, was there any mention of a mechanism where Social Providers will get first dibs on State Assets that are being sold?
then the answer isnt sell off current stock is it
the answer is change the stock
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?
I agree mostly with this though I’d also look at selling state houses in the very expensive suburbs and buying more in decent but less expensive areas
“notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
your avoiding again
Not avoiding, theres quite a lot I’d like National to do but they won’t however just because I want them to do something doesn’t make me right
considering thats not the question being asked, you are avoiding
or your not very good at this language thingy
this is what you said
“I’m thinking that a single person taking up a 3-4 bedroom house when theres a family needing a house seems to be a waste of that house”
i responded that the policy being proposed doesnt have anything to do with that
this whole thread between the two of us is based off that one comment – why you think that instead of answers that follow and stick to this argument, im more interested in what you want the nats to do is beyond me
You’re not very good at asking questions, make the question clear and unambiguous and I’ll answer
oh for fucks sake!
————————————–
“then the answer isnt sell off current stock is it
the answer is change the stock
case in point – used to live in wesley (sandringham) in AK – there was one street where about 10 old style 1/4 acre state houses were moved off site and sold as relocateables. Then a mixture of town and terrace houses with differing numbers of bedrooms was built. Thereby increasing total houses and reformatting to suit a wider variety of circumstances
notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
———————————–
what bit of that isnt clear?
then i repeated the main question AGAIN to you
—————————
“notice how thats utterly different to the nats plan?”
—————————
what bit of that isnt clear?
The last thing NZ needs is for the enclaves of the rich to shut themselves off from the rest of society.
Let’s call them “desirable areas” rather than expensive ones. The reason why they are expensive are many and varied, but the primary reason is the failure of government (especially this one), to address rising housing costs. That is a series of posts in itself.
These areas are desirable because they are within easy access of schools, public transport, central city, services and community facilities.
Your suggestion to send those living there to “less expensive” areas results in a transfer of housing providing responsibility costs from government to increased transport and living costs to already vulnerable tenants. Add to that social isolation and reduction of access to sporting and community engagement, and the true costs of this type of policy become apparent.
The role of government includes creating many “desirable” areas in many places, as well as ensuring their affordability.
If we take Glen Innes as an example. This was the creation of a desirable area for social housing, by the government at the time.
Access to services, school, work and health as well as to some of Auckland’s natural environment was excellent.
The encroachment of higher-priced property means that this purpose built social housed community is no longer welcome. Without any regard for the social equity that exists.
We have a government that is not providing enough social housing. It is also not providing access to affordable housing for an increasing number of NZers… It is however, going to provide discounted assets to private property developers. And that seems to be the sum total of it’s efforts on this issue.
I said decent but less expensive areas, I’ll use Christchurch as an example as i’m not from Auckland so I’m thinking if there are any state houses in Merivale, Fendalton etc then sell them off and buy in Hornby (which is a pretty decent suburb) so I’m not suggesting they buy houses in Aranui and stick families there
Your view is that “what you think” is what actually occurs despite evidence to the contrary.
By putting the provision of healthy, affordable homes for all NZ’ers to third parties, a government (such as National) removes itself adroitly from the chain of responsibility and will continue to do so as long as it can get away with it.
By bringing in for-profit providers, not only are they dismantling their responsibility, they are effectively saying “we do not have the capability or otherwise to look after this fundamental requirement for healthy and engaged NZers’. And yet they are responsible for the health and wellbeing of our whole economy.
Can you give us their address? I’ll go and ask them why they live there. You’re right, we need to get to the bottom of this.
So we must “never forget” Auschwitz. As a kid raised on WWII stories, books and gruesome pictures courtesy of parents directly involved via the air force and nursing during London blitz I of course concur.
Unfortunately large sections of the Israeli leadership and population do appear to have forgotten. Persecution of the Palestinians remains perilously close to the ideology that sanctioned the death camps.
Here’s a report that’s just been published on Israel’s July-August 2014 massacre of 1500 civilians and 500 children in Gaza…http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/double_tapping_in_gaza
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) conducted a fact-finding mission, utilising 8 independent international forensic and medical experts. They’re the only human rights group to have been granted access to Gaza by both Israel and Egypt (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Council were repeatedly denied entry).
“The report’s authors adopt a cautious and professional tone but describe the stuff of nightmares.”
Thanks swordfish. A harrowing but necessary read.
Radio NZ is covering Andrew Little’s speech at http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/264639/live-andrew-little-taking-the-nation's-pulse
We will have the text up shortly.
i already have it up..
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/tex-of-littles-state-of-the-nation-2015/
This advertorial tells us that there are Thousands of ‘affordable’ Auckland homes in outer suburbs
Obviously these idiots don’t know the meaning of the word affordable.
can they identify the transport times required to get to their jobs and home, as well as the cost.
Of course not, that would require them actually making informed comment rather than just mouthing off to sound good.
mouthing off to perpetuate the market they make their living from. Am sick of Bank employees being asked for comment on stuff that hurts or harms banks… real estate agency owners being used as experts on affordable housing when they have no interest in it.
or conversely they have a truly vested interest in it…
While workers’ rights, living standards and general conditions of life have been made worse over the past 30 years, workers’ resistance has declined to negligible levels. Moreover, the rare tussle that does take place is a defensive one. Workers in this country, with the possible exception of the early days of Unite union when it was organising new workplaces and fighting to get contracts for new union members, haven’t been going on the offensive for several decades now.
Sometimes it seems that two generations of workers got defeated – through the 1980s and 1990s – and the next generation therefore hasn’t had a fighting spirit and class consciousness passed on to it nor developed these through its own experiences.
But if workers here have forgotten or, in the case of the new generation, not yet learned what resistance is let alone what going on the offensive is, there is no shortage of examples of powerful workers’ upsurges and of workers’ resistance pointing to, or at least offering a glimpse of the potential for, alternative ways of organising economic, social and political life.
So we’ve stuck up on Redline links to pieces about workers’ occupations, about the biggest general strike in history (a couple of years ago in India), the May-June 68 events in France, the formation of bodies of workers’ power in Portugal and Chile in the early 1970s – forms of organising that point the way out of capitalism.
See: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/this-is-what-resistance-looks-like/
Phil
One of the reasons there’s little resistance is small- and medium-sized employers in areas of moderate- to high-unemployment.
I live in one of those areas, and I’ve been in and out of employment since the early 1990s. In that time, one employer has met their obligations and told me who my union was.
One.
My current employer refuses to talk about it, stating they have no official position but if I joined a union we’d all lose our jobs because it’d mean higher wages and better conditions.
This is why their wage theft is on-going. It’s been made quite clear that if any of us cause trouble by attempting to enforce our basic legal rights, our reference will be simply an acknowledgement of employment – the implication being that we were a bad employee because they had nothing good to say about us.
My previous employer didn’t mention a union, but the owner did tell me I was salaried so they didn’t need to pay overtime, and I was waged so they didn’t need to pay me if I was off sick for more days than I had accrued.
During the last years of National’s run in the 1990s, when the ECA required negotiation of pay and conditions, one employer stated wages and conditions, and said “There’s no negotiation of that, that’s the job. If you don’t accept that pay, you don’t get the job.” WINZ, of course, required me to accept the job.
As I understand it, the bulk of the jobs in the area are the same. The employers know there aren’t many jobs out there, so they have low wages and bad conditions, and if you don’t like it you can sod off.
Eventually, the employees do so, moving to towns with better jobs, wages, and conditions, and it seems to me that these factors are such an improvement that they don’t see the need to join a union.
I hear what you are saying. There is the implied threat, that if you do this, then your co-workers will turn against you as to blame for ANY job loss… no matter how unrelated to your decision to join a union
Yep.
That said, I now have a list of rather important questions to ask employers at my next job interviews. I’ll figure out better phrasings for them, but if they turn me down because I want to know an employer’s position on worker rights, I’m fairly sure I don’t want to work there.
There is no obligation for employers to tell you who your union might be unless there is a Collective Agreement that covers your work and your employer is a party to that agreement, i.e for the first 30 days of your employment you will be covered by the terms & conditions of the Collective ( from 6 March this provision will no longer apply to new employees), after which you can join the union or negotiate individual terms & conditions of employment.
I thought an employer must know what Union/s their staff can join and if asked is required to impart that knowledge to the employee or person being interviewed. If I am incorrect on this please let me know.
Unfortunately you are incorrect unless there is an applicable Collective Agreement for that workplace and the employees work is covered by the agreement.
thanks Atiawa
Ah – I was under the impression that they had to. I’ve had a few people tell me that, actually.
hi phil and bass guy, couldnt agree more.
i had the misfortune to have desired to be a chef as a youngster. (30 odd years later i still love cooking!)
i have been mainly in hospitality since 1985, and on both sides of this discussion (worker, here and overseas, and employer here).
in my experience in mainly small businesses (less than 10 employees), and have never been involved with a union, let alone acted collectively.
incidentally i am in the throws of renegotiating my wages currently.
the nature of these small businesses tends to create “relationships” between employer and worker, which can make negotiating potentially fraught, tense or non-existant, especially for the younger workers.
none of this is a defence of greedy employers, just my 2 cents worth.
The National government in 1991 legislated against working people and their unions and for their business mates by introducing the Employment Contracts Act (ECA). The award structure was completely gutted and replaced with enterprise bargaining & individual employment contracts, which for many workers meant an offer of inferior terms & conditions of employment on a take it or leave basis. Compulsory unionism was abolished and in many industries and workplaces a collective approach to wage bargaining never took place again. Unions and unionism was decimated. Workers, especially the low & semi skilled, became increasingly reliant upon the benevolence of employers and government who set minimum requirements such as the minimum wage, annual leave and grievance procedures. The workplace power imbalance between employer and worker increased – and remains – heavily weighted in favour of the former. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living because working people no longer enjoy a collective voice in both the workplace and society.
Employers and their supportive governments love high unemployment numbers especially youth. The idea and ability to pick and choose is very appealing. They strongly advocate for and support 90 day trial periods for new employees. They don’t want assertive union officials supporting & promoting alternatives. That weakens their power & control.
Do you think this government would want their business buddies to be made to tell the workers the contact details of Andrew Littles mates?
gday atiawa,
i concur with every thing you have said.
in my experience there are few of mr littles’ mates in the workplace.
unfortunately i also have absolutely no faith in a little led labour regime making any difference to the status quo.
Chomsky Blasts ‘American Sniper’ and the Media that Glorifies It
by JANET ALLON, AlterNet, Jan. 26, 2015
http://www.alternet.org/watch-chomsky-blasts-american-sniper-and-media-glorifies-it
Noam Chomsky had some choice words about the popularity of “American Sniper,” its glowing New York Times review, and what the worship of a movie about a cold-blooded killer says about the American people.
It’s not good.
During a Cambridge, Massachusetts event hosted by The Baffler, Chomsky first read the glowing recent review the New York Times gave the movie. That review begins inauspiciously by insulting “America’s coastal intelligentsia, which has busied itself with chatter over little-seen art dramas while everyday Americans showed up en masse for a patriotic, pro-family picture which broke all attendance records in its opening days.”
So, Chomsky wonders aloud: “What was the patriotic, pro-family film that so entranced everyday Americans? It’s about the most deadly sniper in American history, a guy named Chris Kyle, who claims to have used his skills to have killed several hundred people in Iraq.”
Kyle’s first kill was a woman who apparently walked into the street with a grenade in her hand as the Marines attacked her village.
“‘I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting,’” Chomsky said, quoting Kyle. “‘Savage, despicable, evil — that’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy savages. There was really no other way to describe what we encountered there.’”
Chomsky also pointed out that The New Yorker loved the film, saying, “it was great, kept to the cinematic values, said it was well done.” On the other hand, Newsweek‘s Jeff Stein, a former US intelligence officer, called it appalling. In that review, Chomsky says, Stein remembered a visit he had made to a “clubhouse for snipers, where to quote him, ‘the barroom walls featured white-on-black Nazi SS insignia, and other Wehrmacht regalia. The Marine shooters clearly identified with the marksmen of the world’s most infamous killing machine, rather than regular troops.”
“Getting back to Chris Kyle,” Chomsky said, arriving at his larger point. “He regarded his first kill as a terrorist — this woman who walked in the street — but we can’t really attribute that to the mentality of a psychopathic killer, because we’re all tarred by the same brush insofar as we tolerate or keep silent about official policy. Now, that mentality helps explain why it’s so easy to ignore what is most clearly the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever — Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us.”
Chomsky recommends reading some of the transcripts with drone operators, calling them “harrowing” in their dehumanizing treatment of people who are targeted.
The implication is clear and chilling. Are we all, at least tacitly, American snipers?
Here’s Chomsky via WGBH below….
Rich people around the world buying boltholes in NZ to escape to when the shit they have been taking advantage of to enrich themselves backfires in their faces. Been suggesting such since the Rothschilds bought a large coastal farm on banks Peninsula about 10 or so years ago….. boat access, airstrips, etc…..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/65486615/nz-farms-eyed-as-boltholes-for-worlds-super-rich
Dirty bastards
With Mr small beer in charge the doors wide open for them to
And the handout mentality never stops from the hypocritical right wing National-voting farmers ……..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/65482711/irrigation-lobbyists-seek-easier-cash
Why don’t these people go to the private market for support rather than ask the taxpayer? It is not as if the projects are any larger than countless other private projects in the country….
Aren’t they free market supporters? Why would they push through a project that the free market doesn’t support?
Why do they ask for the taxpayer to start it? Then later ask the taxpayer to support them when the waters run dry? Then ask the taxpayers to pay to clean up the shit afterwards?
Unbelievable.
Bludgers.
No credibility.
I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms
Yeah nah – those ‘for the greater good’ arguments have little credibility these days. Unfortunately no time to go into it… though ….
We would get short shrift if we went to government for loans for our business (which is similar scale to some of these irrigation projects) – and the exact same ‘greater good’ arguments apply. Why should farming business be treated differently to any other business mr waghorn ?
Trickle down has been laughed out of town.
Huge amounts of money is spent on Auckland s roads because businesses say it costs them to have workers stuck in traffic.
“I think the angle they are running is that it is for the greater good, if the farmers make money the community benifits which will be hard to argue with in dollars and cents terms”
Pretty sure if you did a cost/benefit analysis that took all costs and benefits and downsides into account, it wouldn’t look so good. The theory is based on the idea that it brings jobs and supports businesses and that those can’t happen in any other way so it’s ok to ruin the environment. That theory is wrong.
From a green perspective is irrigation always bad?
define irrigation (not being smart, it means different things to different people).
Irrigation for commercial gain be it crops , wine or milk and meat.
It needs to be looked at on a case by case basis. I’d say the irrigation of the Canterbury Plains for Fonterra is bad. Trickle irrigation of a kumara garden in Te Tai Tokerau, probably quite reasonable.
+1
Is irrigation on the Canterbury plains to grow crops or fatten sheep and beef bad
I can’t see that the huge scale automated irrigation of large areas of flat grassland is good at all. It’s extremely wasteful of water, which is not well absorbed by pasture where shelter belts have been removed. I think there are less harmful uses of the Canterbury Plains, but I’m no expert. I grew up in Te Tai Tokerau, where the land is hilly and there was usually plenty of water. It was good country for dairy on the smaller scale that it was done in those days.
I think there are crops that could be grown that would need far less irrigation than dairy. I think irrigation of the Canterbury Plains to fatten Tory voters is extremely bad.
Is Key’s speech text also available ahead of schedule?
herald online is putting the soon to be heard Key speech into ten points.
Interestingly they use this stat, presumably because Key does?
“There are almost 5000 people on a social housing waiting list (as at the end of December). That’s down from just over 11,000 in 2002, but the true level of unmet housing need is estimated to be in the region of 43,000-55,000.”
The use of 2002 as a point of reference piques my interest… Isn’t the number on the waiting list from the end of 2008 to december most relevant?
In 2008 the then Labour Minister stated there were
“as at 29 February 2008 the number of applicants on the waiting list was 9,875. This figure includes 2,435 applicants already living in Housing New Zealand houses who are seeking a transfer.”
In a 2013 Briefing for the Minister HNZ noted the following
“As New Zealand’s largest landlord, Housing New Zealand owns or leases nearly 70,000 rental properties, housing over 200,000 people. This portfolio is worth $15.1 billion and is the Government’s second largest asset. There are also 2,100 families – about 6,000 people – on the waiting list with a serious need for a state house.”
It appears that when National entered parliament in late 2008 there were about 7440 people in serious need of a state house. At the end of 2013 this had dropped to 6000. Why not use the real figures, they seem to still show a decline?
Phil Twyford said this in April 2014
“The figures show that in March 5,204 priority applicants were on the waiting list. In January this year the number was 4,197.”
By December 2014 they were
4964
Ordinarily I take conspiracy theories with a grain of salt, but the timing plus the fact that these guys were responsible for many of the “disappeared” in Argentina during the junta…
Lawyer about to testify against government officials turns up dead, so Kirchner finally disbands Argentina’s intelligence service and will work on a decent replacement.
Hmmm, I don’t understand your approach to humans acting in a conspiracy…. you seem to suggest that only those supporting facts which make it into the public arena are determinative of whether or not people have conspired….
Have you conspired today McFlock? Over the last week? I know I have, I know my family members have, I know John Key and Andrew Little have, I know virtually anyone in business has ……. it is what humans do. They conspire together to achieve ends.
this prevailing idea that humans don’t conspire ……. just makes absolutely no sense, flies in the face of reality and is as silly as some person thinking that a lone gunman killed JFK
🙄
Even if we were to ignore the negative connotations of the word “conspiracy”, just because humans conspire does not mean that every conspiracy theory is true.
So yeah, I demand evidence before I determine the probability of any particular conspiracy theory being true.
edit: comma inserted
So unless the evidence in the public arena is in your view supportive then you dismiss the notion that some event may be the result of a conspiracy….
kinda misses the notion of how conspiracies are attended to i.e. in secret
You know, another way to make an assessment about an event is to use the well tried and proved method of following the money… or looking at who has benefitted …..
There are ways to assess things other than your own narrow method. Proven ones.
never mind, on you go
For years, the US Government used this approach to discredit people in court who were claiming that they were being subject to illegal surveillance.
The US Government would say – well you have no evidence of this surveillance, the kind of spying you are talking about is illegal, and we would never do it any way – so you have no standing and no merits in this court.
And then, Snowden…
The moon landings were faked.
Aircraft release chemtrails for geoengineering.
Nasa covered up its photos of martians.
The Earth is hollow and run by Tibetans from Atlantis.
Stealth bombers were made with alien tech from the Roswell crash.
There is a teacup orbiting the sun somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.
All without evidence, so all must be credible /sarc
sure, go and ruin a perfectly good discussion point with sarcasm and derogatory comment.
you were doing fine until that point silly
You’re the one who took this:
to mean this:
BTW, CR’s “perfectly good discussion point” seemed to be that one particular conspiracy theory was largely true. That stunning observation’s relevance to the discussion about how we discern a true conspiracy theory from a false one is somewhat thin – although in that case it did rely on evidence being made public. But then we don’t know whether the specific individuals “in open court” were indeed subjected to illegal surveillance.
Not “dismiss”. Not take a position until I have evidence. This can be evidence for the popular theory, evidence of a conspiracy, or evidence of the doubtful reliability of conspiracy theorists.
Oh, we can look at who benefitted, but that merely means that if there actually had been a conspiracy, all the conspirators have to do is benefit slightly less than someone else.
The flipside is that I arbitrarily accept as true conflicting conspiracy theories in the absence of any evidence whatsoever.
E.g. that LHO shot JFK alone, or that the Cubans assassinated JFK,
and that the CIA/military assassinated JFK and used Oswald as a patsy,
and that the mafia assassinated JFK because of Bobby Kennedy going after them as AG,
and all convoluted combinations of any and/or all of the above
Oh, and that Oswald acted alone.
Please remember, a conspiracy theory is simply where people have shared their considered views and ideas when attempting to understand an event or situation. When used as a derogatory label or as an attempt to demean and diminish the validity of another’s viewpoint, it is nothing but taking a short cut away from critical thought. Critical thinking is not a threat to knowledge, it is how humanity uses knowledge to survive. At least it used to be.
Language mutates and adapts, freedom. Conspiracy theory still has a literal meaning, but it also now has a pejorative meaning, due mostly to the rise of sites on the interwebs who propagate mindless nonsense but insist we all take it very seriously indeed.
My favourite form of madness is the ‘right of reply’ or ‘balance’ argument, where the deluded demand that their theory should be given equal weight to actual, proven knowledge. The master of this approach is the self aggrandising climate change denier, and fake Lord, Christopher Monckton.
I am eternally grateful that language mutates and adapts. If you accept what you wrote, you also must accept the absurdity of our present condition. By simply speaking two little words in conjunction, many rational brains are triggered to the ‘ignore’ position, predominately without any rationality applied. Behaviour like that does not happen by accident. It is learned and it is learned largely through the use of language. That is where personal responsibility comes into play.
We are the language we let ourselves use. We are the questions that we ask.
The situation today is so absurd that if a person is over-heard to have read a book about JFK, they are immediately assumed to be converts to the writings of David Icke. The short cut away from critical thinking I mentioned earlier? That is well and truly sprinted every time “conspiracy theories” from different fields of research are compared. Do you discuss mainsail maintenance of a racing yacht when talking Bathurst tyre wear?
We both would agree that this world is in a ridiculous position. There is too much fear, not enough love, a boogyman behind every doorway. The true horror though, is the apparent disdain for facts. This of course is where 9/11 is the mother lode of nonsensical discussion. As you know I do not enter into 9/11 discussion here although I might throw a few breadcrumbs on occasion. But disdain for facts is at the core of the 9/11 issue. People go to extraordinary lengths to defend the Official Story, mostly with little to no knowledge of its immense failings, yet decide that all 9/11 Truth is a falsehood because… albatross.
Take The New Pearl Harbour. An amazing achievement by any standard of research, if somewhat lacking in production values. I will repeat what I have said since it first arrived on the scene.
“I am not aware of any person who having claimed to believe the Official Story, after seeing this documentary, still claims that position.” Not one!
To be honest I still have my doubts that you yourself have actually viewed it at all, let alone its entire five hours. Only you can know the truth of your answer. Facts matter. Science matters. Lies just hurt people and the bigger the lies, the more hurt they create. Is that what you want? A simpering humanity, cowering under the baton of ignorance and fear as the totality of knowledge is decided for you by people who most certainly do not have your best interests at heart?
Too afraid to open a window for air, because you are told the window is locked.
Is that not the locking mechanism, laying broken at your feet? Language will mutate, language will adapt, but only you can know the truth of your answer.
He’s not a fake lord – he’s a hereditary peer inheriting the title from his father in 2006 (he’s the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley).
What he did do is falsely (or at least misleadingly) claim in a letter to US Senators to be a member of the House of Lords which he has never been (since the hereditary peers lost the right to automatically be in the Lords in 1999 and he is not one of the 92 elected hereditaries). The lords even issued a cease and desist to refute his claims in 2011.
As an aside he’s stood 4 times for when a seat for the hereditary peers has fallen vacant in the Lords since 2006 and at least 3 times received no votes.
Definitely a crank though. (Now plowing his furrow with UKIP when not climate denying).
Cheers for the correction, GJ. And I didn’t know he was standing for UKIP! Not sure what that does for the nutter quotient there, but from what I’ve seen of the rest, Monckton might be a civilising influence.
I’d say that’s par for the course in Latin America. The mistake Dilma and Kirchner make is to leave the same state apparatus that served the dictatorships in place. Labour does it here as well. They should realise by now that the SIS is a branch of the Tories, but will they change anything if they ever get voted back in? They could all do with reading ‘State and Revolution” again.
By the way, I don’t see this as a conspiracy theory at all. It’s a reasonable explanation of the facts.
rankin is someone I don’t like or respect
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/religion-and-beliefs/news/article.cfm?c_id=301&objectid=11392913
he says, “Islam’s direct threat to our rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and our culture”. But I don’t hear him saying anything about Christianity which imo has done and will continue to be more of a direct threat than Islam ever could. Ban crosses? yeah right.
It is clearly the very notion of religion that is the problem… and has been for a very long time.
The sooner it disappears as an idea the better – pretty much like some religions which used to think the sun was a higher being have evaporated in the heat of reality, so too should all religions which think there is a higher being. Dolly the cloned sheep put paid to these ideas some years ago.
there will come a time when this will happen anyway so lets do it now ….
do you think people would run with this ?
Well no I don’t agree with you.
The sun is a higher being* for all intensive purposes. Whether some entreaty from this planet cuts through the solar flares and stuff and impacts upon the sun causing ‘it’ to ‘hear’ and ‘react’ to those calls is debatable for sure based upon whichever belief system we believe in.
*
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/higher_being
But back to your point – I don’t think people will run with it.
Belief systems aren’t the problem – rather trying to fit square pegs into round holes is.
Nice point about the sun.
People have a need for faith and a need to believe in something. Get rid of religion if you like, ban it if you like, it will merely be replaced with faith in the free markets, faith in nationalism, faith in exceptionalism, faith in scientism and infinite technological progress.
Tautoko. He’s not worthy of your respect. He doesn’t have mine either.
I’ve had a bit of odd behaviour with the Replies tab in the last few days. Normally, the tab only appears when I’ve posted that day (it disappears some time after midnight each night), so I usually don’t see replies if I haven’t posted for several days.
Today, I had replies listed only for Raided of the Last Shark, and that was after reloading because I had replies listed for Micky Savage.
The Replies Tab has been misbehaving for several days now.
I’m going to have to put the aircond on to figure out what it is doing wrong. Mind is fuzzy after I get home through the beautiful warm mind-numbing weather (after being in a fridge all day).
Sean Plunket is a vile, whining piece of shit who sounds like a ten year old reading lines written by Whalespew. His calling Eleanor Catton an ungrateful hua on the basis that she works at a public university makes me sick. FJK is paid by the state, yet he spends whatever time is left after working on his golf handicap on attacking the working class. Why doesn’t Plunket call him a traitor?
Nah, bugger it. Why doesn’t Plunket just go for a long walk off a short pier? I’d never listened to him before, but he obviously bases himself on Alan Jones, speaking slowly and in short sentences so as to not get too far ahead of his audience.
[lprent: Do not go down to far on that avocation of self-harm path yourself, unless you want to discover the limits to moderator tolerance. ]
Just far enough for him to have a nice swim. Do you really think “take a long walk off a short pier” is a hobby involving violent self harm? How about “go jump in the lake?” I see both as dismissive, rather than being any sort of hobby at all. I think I’ve missed what you meant by avocation.
I once inherited a cellfone from someone whose occupation was that of a ‘publicist’ (you know – someone whose job it is to promote). Sean Plonker (among others) contact numbers remained in its contact list. I refrained from making bothersome calls, and from calling them out on their bullshit. There were some very intersting numbers in that little gem that I retain to this day.
Thankfully, the publicist saw sense and left the country, but not before using me (and others as her confidant) – including one of her boyfriends (an electrical engineer). He/they’d actually taken the long walk along the Pike River Mine entrance – according to he: “an accident waiting to happen”. As for Plunket …. I can only relate her comment – he’d be a thoroughly useless fuck.
Funny ole wurl aye.
I imagine tho’ that in future times, that publicist will be ready and anxious to testify.
I fear that might be a little longer than my lifetime will allow.
Oh…. btw – Chris Finalyson fiigured heavily in her daily commentary – it kind of reinforced my impressions of just what a bitter old queen he’s become. And I say that ONLY because had he not been subjugated by the Jonky phenomenon, there’d have been a different outcome.
Common fucking sense anyone? (Not for the foreseeable future it seems) – EVEN in here judging by some comments above
ThugMouthPlunket’s contribution ? Having NZ’ers look like hectoring, spittling, backwoodsmen.
Catton’s contribution ? Having NZ’ers stand proud. And having ThugMouth exemplify her point.
The dog here is…….?
Idiot ! So got himself owned.
Reply to LPrent’s comments on Little’s State of the nation address thread
”
Martyn Bradbury seemed to be quite close to David Cunliffe and Hone Harawira. However that is beside the point. You are making a guilt by association argument. That is usually bad form.
[lprent: Why? Have you looked at the side of this site at John Key’s face recently – that accurately expresses my opinion of his ethics of getting involved with Slater’s garbage diving. As far as I can see John Key has been politically profiting from having his head stuffed firmly in Slater’s faecal bacteria for the last 7 years. I can’t see any justification for having a dirty politician to not be called for what he is.
For the record, I have a number of politician’s numbers. I don’t use them unless I have to. They are mainly there for caller id when they (rarely) call me so that I pick up the phone. The only phone numbers that I ever call cold were those of Helen Clark. That was because I was part of the Mt Albert campaign team and I sometimes needed direct information about targeting.
As much as I think that Martyn is a bit of a dork, I don’t think that he is trying to blackmail journalists with prostitutes or any of the other crap that Slater did. I suspect Martyn mainly contacts them when he was organising events or pitching for work.
Answer in OpenMike, but I suspect that I am going to be completely unsympathetic to your theory of disassociation of a dirty politician and his dirty operatives. ]”
I’m not discussing how you you can be associated with the behaviour of an individual. I would agree you can argue that being in contact with someone who is overtly behaving in a particular manner does suggest a degree of tacit support.
What I am meaning is that if someone I know and associate with holds a particular view (say on the benefits or otherwise of collectivisation) that it does not hold that the view is held by myself as well. For example just because you are majorly involved in this blog does not mean you agree with the views expressed by the authors who post articles here. I am sure you would come down hard on anyone trying to state that you did.
And what if you gave them your cellphone number, and contacted them frequently, which was the original comparison?
That at least suggests that the beliefs they espouse are not contrary to one’s ethical standards. For example, I don’t socialise with any white supremacists AFAIK.
John Key is a good example of a “mainstream” (your relocated goalpost, I remind you) tory, no?
Cameron Slater has a number of views that I suspect the PM does not hold. Key’s reasons for contacting him has been well publicised. You may disagree with it but even if it was some insidious plot to subvert democracy in NZ it doesn’t mean that they share the same views.
Anyway I suspect Slater is not anti-collective as you suggest. He may well be anti-Union but that is a different matter.
Birds of a feather flock together aye goosey.
Always defending the indefensable!
Your like a cheap little wind up doll repeating the same old lies!
you make mathew hootton look good.
always having to have the last word never admitting when your wrong!
Men who are into selfies are more likely to be Narcissistic Nutjobs .
Key Slater.and you are both narcissistic Nutjobs Goosy birds of a feather
Key’s willing association with slater certainly means that slater’s attitudes and practises are not incompatible with his own. Otherwise key would not willingly associate with him.
Trade me and Harmoney. Money lenders operating through Trade me – not sure what I think about this. It is being promoted as peer to peer lending.
So what’s peer-to-peer lending?
It’s a new way of lending and borrowing that has proved very successful in Australia, the USA and the UK and is just getting started here in New Zealand. Investors loan money directly to borrowers anonymously via an online platform, without having to go through a financial institution like a bank.
It’s simple. By missing out the middleman, Harmoney can provide lower interest rates for borrowers and higher returns for lenders – a win-win for everyone.
A new way of getting into financial strife? I don’t know what to make of it.
I know it in the context of an alternative source of business funding and I was about to spout on about that, and how useful it can be as a more flexible way to raise venture capital or early stage funding for a good business idea. And I’ve seen that work really well overseas. The crowd funding idea in the US is great because it disintermediates the whole formal financing business and people with relatively small amounts of money can get into deals they’d otherwise never see, and spread their risk (which is essential for venture capital type deals).
However, looking at the Harmoney website, first thing I see is:
Borrow
Debt Consolidation
Car Loans
Home Improvements
Holiday Loans
What the farque? This is not really peer to peer lending or crowd funding. This is your neighbourhood predatory lender dressed up in fancy internet clothes. The good thing is that it is very transparent and simple, but does NZ really need this? I guess we will see.
On old maps from ancient times, areas outside the known were labelled “There be Dragons” as a warning of possible perils and pitfalls. In NZ citizens should be aware that this situation applies in their own fair land if, while travelling at the other end of an island or the country, they fall ill.
The story I heard was that a couple were on holiday and one got really ill and was said to need an operation. But the DHB was reluctant to carry it out and stated they should go back to their own hospital board and have it done there. Insistence and threats of negative publicity resulted in agreement to attend to the op at the holiday location.
This is the result of the lack of adequate funding to DHBs. They have had financial sinking lids for some time. Also their budgets are population-based for the locals only and even that may be scant, not providing much for those at the fringes of the areas, and isolated farming settlements. The technology costs for a modern hospital are high also, not only capital costs, but maintenance, and security measures.
The surgeons may have been on holiday, there may have been pressures from car crashes and drunken mayhem incidents in the case I was given. But it is an example of the difficulties the gummint is causing to the public service provision we thought we had provided as a permanent public good.
So beware of the dragons that might pop up when you are away from home. You may need to buy health insurance to get you home within the country’s borders if health provisioning isn’t funded appropriately. If the governnment is running NZ without oil, sooner or later the mechanism will seize up and stop.
News out of Greece is interesting……
Yesterday, Greece canceled the privatisation of the biggest port yesterday, which was a key component of the their existing bailout.
Merkel quoted along the lines of astonished Greece is looking for a debt cut, the new ggovenmnet has to show they are committed to the EU aid program, and the ball is in Greece’s court.
Greek bank equities -11% yesterday.
But the real test comes today. The EU is voting on whether to add to sanctions on Russia. This has to be unanimous and given Greece was reported to say yesterday “we don’t consent”, this vote will be interesting. If Greece does veto the sanctions I guess that signals a really hardball approach to negotiations.
I spoke earlier to a few people in London – a European political analyst at a bank, an economist and a debt trader- were all of the view that the Germans will be happy to say no to any Greek haircut demands, perhaps ease the repayment schedule, but ultimately play hardball. And if the Greeks threaten to leave the Euro, ask them not to let the door hit their bum on the way out.
Personally I don’t know, though I do believe the best thing for Greece would be to negotiate a departure form the Euro, stay in the EU and get transitional support as they go back to controlling their own policy settings. As long as their productivity lags so far behind northern Europe they will never make a go of being in the Euro. They need a weaker currency in order to compete.
@ nadis
That sounds doable. I wonder how long the Greeks will take to come to that approach.