Another article where the focus is how important Key is. He’s mentioned by Obama and the press quiver like schoolgirls getting to see their latest boy popstar.
“Obama personally invited Key to the first nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010, because of New Zealand’s staunch anti-nuclear position…
ANDREA VANCE IN SEOUL – Is she one of these Journalism graduates on her first assignment? Is she aware that National have just got into bed with an ACT party whose leader wants the policy gone by lunchtime, and that the core of the cabinet believe that our “proud-position-on-nuclear-issues” has been hindering trade talks with Obama’s and earlier administrations?
.
Brash isn’t ACT’s leader any more, I believe Banks is, and I don’t think he wants the nuclear free policy “gone by lunchtime”, or at least, not publicly. Really it’s actually a non-issue: even if we did repeal that policy, the US isn’t going to send warships here anyway. There’s really nothing to gain by repealing it.
“It is a compliment as Obama mentioned only one other leader in the address – Italy’s Mario Monti. ”
LOL – What a shocker, Key being mentioned along with another Goldman Sachs Gang member. Surprised that Papademous, and Draghi do not rate a mention too…
Triples from a low basis when it should never have dropped in the first place.
Ellis plundered millions on failed digital strategies, Tivo and a cultutre of overpaid out of control personalities like Henry/Vietch etc including himself.
How much content that can be resold/rerun do TVNZ produce James ? That’s the real measure as that’s repeat revenue for a once off production cost.
Any monkey can slash costs and get a profit with their advertsising revenue…where’s the sustainable model that Ellis got nearly $1m p.a. for eh.
goes to show that james III has no idea about “costs” or “management” or in fact, what a well run organisation looks like. James only knows about a few financial figures, and even then sweet fuck all.
Noticed this appalling comment in Minister Bennett press release re: benefit reforms:
“We have women consigned to a life of welfare because over thirty years ago society said women couldn’t support themselves without a man.”
Apart from being historically incorrect what an abysmal statement.
Violence, abuse, rape, poverty, concern for children – nope none of these things were factors.
Your choices should be man or work. That’s it.
Paying you a benefit was a punishment because you can’t get by, by yourself.
WTF were you doing leaving your husband. The one who beat and raped you. The one who took all the money and you had to feed the kids on family benefit. The one who you had to go out and work because he sat at home drunk.
And when he walked out on you and left you with the kids, traded you in for a younger model, had only married you to cover up the fact that he was gay cause society didn’t like gay people either, that left cause he couldn’t handle that his sperm had produced a disabled kid (you must have slept with someone else), that just didn’t come home one day, that left you in the bush with your kids (Barry Crump) you should have just got on with it and worked. You lazy, indolent person.
And apparently we society sent you there. Consciously. We consigned you – deliberately.
Made you the non-person you are today. We apologise for doing this to you – I can’t believe we thought it was a good thing.
We are much wiser now and we know that paying a benefit was just another form of abuse. We’re sorry for perpetuating this abuse on you. I know we thought we were helping you but we weren’t.
And also if you managed to get pregnant by yourself (i.e. unmarried) your would have to abandon your child to indifferent and overworked adoption services, due to no ability to afford to raise it unsupported. Prospective adopters were able to “choose” from about five to six assorted babies of either sex and even specify what colouring.
That is the problem with NZ, and when I mean “NZ”, I mean that often implied powerful mass of imbalanced animalistic reactions that do no good, that makes no improvement; is inexplicably unable to recognise itself when faced with its own reflection; the source of which is “somewhere out there”; and of which no one wants to take the credit.
As a commenter posted yesterday, NZ doesn’t have any collective moral or social philosophy, and they’re right. Often a set of beliefs is called a philosophy, but that isn’t a true definition – it’s just another one of the failings of a self-referencing, post-modern, pop-culture, age. To have a philosophy you’d need to actively seek out the truth about life. You’d have to have seen and acknowledged the stuff that proved you were wrong, not just once, but as many times as it took. What we hold dear, it seems, and what is promoted by politicians and businessmen at large, is a collection of beliefs, values and manifesto that place the ego of the person holding the beliefs at the centre of the universe and distorts and limits the interpretation of what they see in relation to their own beliefs. Or as yesterday’s quote named it “the economy”.
I think we get this way by being taught that our identity as people is only on what we want to be – what we “act as”, imitate or aspire to being. When you believe you can be anything you want, you are saying that your mind, the part that thinks thoughts is all there is to you and that this “you” is your god, you are your own creator, that there are no immutable laws to life, that you can hold back nature with your own short-lived human will. Everywhere people try to hold back nature; they get boob-jobs to stop sagging, face lifts and laser treatments to stop wrinkles and actively scorn anything old; anything to maintain the grossest illusion of youth, that man is invincible. Few people know how to age and die.
The problem in parliament is the thinking that what is good for us is good for another, that we are all the same, in every way – or can be made to be. We believe time is linear, that context does not matter, that “the future” and “the past” are concrete places and forget they were really just moments like right now – innumerable present moments, most of them apparently full of nothing. We believe that experience or some variation on experience can predict the future; that “success” – the manifestation of our ego desires – is an emotion and a measure of truth; even after reality continually proves us wrong with its insolent co-incidental “chance” and “accidents”.
The people in parliament got where they are by believing they could influence ancient human natures, with money. Understanding isn’t on the check list for entry. Their attitude is adolescent. Voting is now a game of one ego addressing another. The sooner our parliamentary system comes to its inevitable end the better. While we can’t be rid of the chaos of unchecked childish minds, perhaps soon they won’t be elevated to positions of power over others.
Just heard the interview with the Finnish comedian commenting on Brownlee’s performance. One thing that stood out was that his English was near perfect – not a bad education system then is it Gerry? Now how is your Finnish, or Maori, or French, or German, Latin … nah, you even struggle with your mother tongue don’t you given the “misunderstandings” over this issue?
Technically yes but contextually we all know this is the first stage of legislation to doing this – unless you are confident that changes will be made via the select committee process to remove this.
You will note that the Minister press releases make reference to the other future changes as well e.g. widows benefit.
Perhaps you might like to let her know her press release was incorrect as well.
Complaining about what will never happen is a bit stupid too don’t you think?
(that’s not a “favourite of the right” or the left, it’s a favourite of the stupid and the sky will fallers.)
A householder who insures his house isn’t really complaining about the fire that is going to happen. He is just taking precautions. Though I have to admit I don’t know what this argument is all about.
But the discussion wasn’t about your semantics. It was about deliberately or ignorantly misrepresenting what “we all know” about what is actually in the bill.
No one is forced to work. And no one is forced to remain on a benefit either.
It is a sad day for New Zealand with the passage of a shameful welfare bill which will force sole parents with babies as young as one year out to work.
The Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill passed its first reading today with the support of National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party.
The MPs supporting this legislation should hang their heads in shame says Auckland Action Against Poverty spokesperson Sue Bradford.
There is nothing in the bill that will force anyone out to work. Bradford is either ignorant of basic facts or is deliberately misrepresenting the stated aims of the act.
No, are you acting ignorant, or do you not know anything about the act?
There are requirements in the act to look for work, not to be in work, because obviously if there aren’t enough jobs then not everyone can take on jobs.
According to that comment, the issue is with the distinction between “working” and “looking for work”, is that correct? Or is there another way to interpret your comment?
Assuming the above, if Sue had said “force sole parents with babies as young as one year out to look for work” you’d be ok with that.
So Pete, are you saying that the intent of the legislation is only to look for work? That if a job is available and offered the ‘job-seeker’ can turn it down and remain of the DPB? It’ll be good if you can clear that up. Ta.
That happens now so I don’t see that it will change. It’s not even necessary to turn down a job, it’s quite easy to apply for a job and ensure that you aren’t offered one. Happens now.
Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.
This trying to get a balance between carrots and sticks is nothing new, different governments have been trying to find a reasonable but effective approach for a long time.
“Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.”
So just what I said, above, which you got all sensitive about.
So women on the DPB are currently required to take up a job if one is offered? Without losing benefit if they turn it down?
Paula Bennett says
the bill would mean they would have to be available for work when their children were at a younger age – five for part time work and 14 for full time work.
Note – not ‘look for work’ as you said, but be ‘available for work’. Is she wrong? and you don’t think this is different from current conditions of the DPB?
And you also think being able to manipulate a CV to avoid being chosen for a job you’ve applied for is good legislation?
Also, Pete, I’d point out that in a tough labour market, looking for a job can itself be very time consuming and can easily amount to the equivalent of a part-time job.
Yes, fair comment. And it can be very demoralising. Difficult when jobs are scarce.
But if you want to be self sufficient and do better for your family you have to find ways of doing that and it can cost – in the past I’ve shifted town/city with a family to get work, the initial cost is significant in the hope that the longer term benefits make it worth it.
There’s more unemployment now, but also more assistance to help people through difficult times.
It’s known that self supporting families generally have better outcomes for their children than families on benefits, so parents wanting the best for their kids (and themselves) should be striving to be as self supporting as possible. Shouldn’t they?
I didn’t insist nothing would change. A new act is obviously going to change things.
All the Government parties think it should change. Labour thinks it should change (albeit different degrees and methods). It has always been tweaked and changed, and it always will keep being changed. We live in a changing world.
It’s about degree of change. The act proposes a bit more encouragement/coercion (pick which word suits your side of the argument). It’s another tweak of the existing system. It isn’t a complete switch to a new draconian regime as some seem to be suggesting.
I don’t know what the new bill will do, it’s only been voted to first reading. But I haven’t seen anything yet that will force mothers to work. Have you?
Do you think mothers should have a free choice as to whether they work or get the DPB? If so to what age of children?
Your morning troll started with accusing Sue of being ignorant of the bill or lying about the bill.
Specifically you were upset that she said people will be forced into work/forced to look for work/forced to accept work depending which of your comments you pick.
You have insisted that she was wrong about this and that nothing in the new bill will change anything with regard to being forced to do these things.
It has since been shown by rosy, DoS, and others that your opinion is based on a misunderstanding of the current act and how it is implemented.
And now you’re trying to change the subject to ‘never mind all that, what should happen?’ because you can’t admit that you were wrong to accuse Sue of not knowing her stuff.
Turns out you don’t know what you’re talking about as usual, and Sue does, as usual.
And as usual Pete will think he’s done nothing wrong and you’re just nit-picking for no purpose.
But really this is modus operandi for Pete: say something imprecise, then defend-to-the-death that that wasn’t what he meant, despite it being what he said, and then when conclusively being shown he is wrong, he simply runs away from the thread and doesn’t post again.
So PiG, where are the jobs for these self supporting types? What has your buddy the cretinous Dunne (seller of state assets) done to create any work by way of voting with the inNACTion party?
I’m happy for we just to mean you and me. Just us two. The royal we. I feel so close to you now.
I’d have to say that as I talking colloquially I didn’t need to worry about pedantry.
Of course it could mean those that have read the ministers and this governments press releases and other comments that there are two stages to this legislation and only the first is going through parliament now. The second will be introduced later in the year.
This includes a fair chunk of the population and of the readership of these forums.
I’m sure you do actually know that.
To simplify:
Technically you are correct there is nothing in the current bill about this – anything about this will be in the next bill to be introduced later in the year.
The legislation is being introduced in two stages.
We know this to be a fact.
Of course you then apply similar language to that you are so disingenuously critical of by saying:
“It’s known that” without any qualifier – known by who Pete?
It’s not known by me, in fact I know many individuals for whom respite from looking for work when a relationship breaks up, the payment of DPB to help them get back on their feet without any pressure to conform to some other (white middle class male?) persons expectations of what and how they should do has been an absolute godsend.
And how come self supporting doesn’t include paying my taxes so that when something goes wrong I can get a benefit without being made to justify my existence, the reason for my breakup or my choices – and by extension paying my taxes so if my children are in that situation nor do they.
The morality arguments all break down when you start to look at individual cases and individual circumstances. But for the grace of god go I.
You lack of compassion for individuals by hiding behind applying the ( real and supposed) excesses of a minority to a majority is breathtaking for someone who purports to want to do things in a better, more caring and thinking way.
Just glanced at yesterdays Lying Liar caught lying again….unclean unclean…really foul. Why the F*** did anybody engage with the Mental Health Act duet?
I was wondering about that post and debate for some of today. On the one hand it was hilarious watching two small-minded and bitter fools disgracing themselves, but it got a bit much. It reminds me of the original serious of The Office. It was a brilliant portrayal of a dysfunctional environment, but I usually found it impossible to watch it until the end – the last five minutes in particular were just too painful, and not in a shocked laughter way. Same with this thread – they laid on so much idiocy, bile and ignorance that I just couldn’t get into it.
Normally I quite like that sort of thing, but too much vicious stupid, it hurted.
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this ‘Judith Collins’ or her sitting next to me with a knife in my ribs.
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this so-called ‘tea-pot tape.’
I know Nuz-ZINK! about Finland either…
That’s funny?
Late last night I spotted Audrey Young’s piece 8pm 27 March, on the “National refuses to answer questions about the Key Questions” in Parliament. This morning the item had disappeared but an Audrey search found it. (Getting better at this Search business.)
Wonder why it seemed to have been buried? http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794958
Of course methyl iodide based products are still being sold here in New Zealand. Politicians and ERMA will do their best to ignore the fact that it’s been removed from U.S. shelves, not because it wasn’t making a profit, but because it’s a highly dangerous carcinogen that was initially misclassified…
And he has moved into a ‘modest’ Remuera Townhouse… is that RWNJ-Former Minister-Snout in the Trough with a tasty Super and Perks modest, or Joe Public modest?
Use of the word progress, has allowed the sheep to be lulled into many false senses of security, which have and will contribute to current and future economic and social disasters, and mostly likely worse!
Progress is what ever the sheep want to believe it is, as long as it maintains an illusion , of which they are not aware exists!
One scam in London was a auction, the marks would be brought into a room and the auction would not start until they’d shut the doors and created a buzz for buying, the marks would spend more and not notice the quality was shite. A classic switch and bait, switch even the rules of the auction from open to closed, and then change the value the mark was expecting.
The teapot switch and bait, invited journalists into a open press room, then switched the rules, that it was illegal to take voice recordings while taking video, that somehow the organizer of the event had a right to suddenly declare a meeting private.
Sorry but my understanding of what is legal (from a non-lawyer) is the reasonableness standard of a jury trial. Would a jury feel it was fair that the rules suddenly changed, the expectation of a full open press conference. That ministers are also aware of the buy beware notion, that if their mouths are moving and they consent to a video camera being on, then inevitably they consent to a lip reading them.
We cannot have a free democracy when the government press organize thinks they can decide how journalists use material they legally obtain. Ambrose had the consent to take video, photos, and voice not because there were two men talking privately in a coffee shop, but because two men invited him there, and did not have a right to switch the rules from FULLY open to PARTIALLY open without informed consent of Ambrose.
Puddleglum’s latest on the Smith/Pullar saga; “The banality of corruption” is well worth reading. I’ll leave a teaser:
…Writing a reference for his friend Bronwyn Pullar was the crucial ‘error of judgment’ committed by Dr Smith. At least that’s what almost all commentators appear to agree upon despite John Key claiming that it was the second unearthed letter (actually written and signed earlier than the ‘first’ (reference) letter) that tripped the switch of Smith’s resignation.
But discussion of Dr Smith’s ‘errors of judgment’ and whether or not they amounted to ‘corruption’ or ‘cronyism’ seems to me to have missed a point so obvious, so banal – and so likely – that I think that omission says something significant about just how ‘corrupt’ our everyday responses have become…
Worth every minute it took to read; the recipe for corruption is an insightful moment; reads like a person about flick over the first in a long line of cultural dominoes.
Years ago, after the Second World War, my family was living in a prefabricated house (‘prefab’) in the north of England (lined with sheets of asbestos as it happens – my sister still remembers rubbing her finger up and down her bedroom wall as all the dust came off it). They were meant to be used for just a few years but they were still there in the mid-60s. Compared to brick houses, they weren’t well-made or as warm in winter.
Dad got politically active, giving speeches off the back of a lorry, hassling the (Tory) council. One by one, he (and those supporting him) fought for individual families and got them rehoused on various grounds.
But there was one fight he wouldn’t fight.
Mum got onto him about the fact that, here he was, getting everyone else into better houses and we were still living in ours.
He gave her a quick run through of Corruption 101: He couldn’t do it for us, otherwise his opponents would say that, all the time, it was just about him trying to help himself and there was no matter of principle involved. More importantly, that could then derail what he was trying to do for others. We would have to be last in the queue.
It would have been easy for him to justify it to himself. After all, we were a family, like all the rest; he had three children (I was pre-school age). He could have used what little political power and influence he had to get us a new home. (And the councillors would have probably seen it as a cheap way of getting him off their backs.) Where’s the harm?
He saw, I think, that the judgment about who should get rehoused next wasn’t his to make. The Council should have held to its promise (and plan) to replace the housing. It was a political issue, not an issue simply for him and his family. That wasn’t the point.
Corruption is pretty easy to see, really. It’s like when we say that a file on a computer is ‘corrupt’. All it means is that it can’t do what it’s meant to do. Same goes for political corruption – it means our political and bureaucratic processes can’t do what they’re meant to do. Dad would have corrupted his activism – and the political process it set in train – if he’d put his energies into getting us rehoused.
I think corruption is not so much about individuals becoming corrupted. It’s really about our society (or culture) becoming corrupted. We all have an interest in stopping that from happening.
The problem is, when we all look at life individualistically – as I think we increasingly do, today – each one of us then has an (self-)interest in just being a little bit corrupt, just this once … others will understand. After all, they do it too, don’t they? And we’re all human, so let’s not be so hard on small ‘errors of judgment’, yadda, yadda, yadda.
It’s like the tragedy of the commons. We less and less have a sense of the importance – the ‘sacrosanct’ nature – of the collective processes we’ve supposedly set up to regulate how we do things, together.
Slippery-slope arguments aren’t always valid, but I think corruption has to be a paradigmatic exemplar of when it is. Once it starts not only do we, individually, start to ‘normalise’ it, but also others start to feel the pressure to join in – or miss out. It gains its own momentum.
Ultimately, everything that happens in the public realm becomes a sham – nothing actually happens how it’s supposedly meant to happen.
In one of my past lives I was involved in training delivery.
It was always interesting to see who would cheat on team exercises. At one level the exercises are often no more than puffery but at another what became clear over years of doing this was that the people who would cheat the exercise were almost without exception the same staff who would cheat the important things at work.
The ones who openly said it’s not OK and maintained a high level of integrity were invariably the ones who did so at work.
While on the surface they were team building exercises they actually became quite valuable in managing risk.
The thing was that for most of those people it was a learned, ingrained habit to cheat – they couldn’t help themselves as they were so accustomed to doing this.
For them it definitely wasn’t a slippery slope – it was how they behaved. Where it was a slippery slope however was in the influence they could have ( and on some occasions did have) on other staff.
Yes, well described mr puddleglum. As rl says, ti explains one hell of a lot, such as why there seems to be far less of the public service element to, well, public service, today. Evidenced by comparisons of public to private enterprise over salaries for just one example.
Is there a way to resurrect things do you think? Or must the current norms run their course? Or perhaps it is probably a combination of the two – small changes here and there to push and guide the “good” way. For crude example, prohibit ex-Ministers from entering conflicted private enterprise roles, such as Simon Power going to his new role at Westpac.
Today, 3 News reported that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright will be undertaking an official investigation into Fracking.
I read this one earlier, and was initially pleased. Will have to see what comes out the other side, and see if it contradicts the findings abroad already carried out!
or do they simply want to produce a report saying their are some potential health issues that need legislative attention and whammo they end up introducing laws like this one??
an amendment to Title 52 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, requires that companies provide to a state-maintained registry the names of chemicals and gases used in fracking. Physicians and others who work with citizen health issues may request specific information, but the company doesn’t have to provide that information if it claims it is a trade secret or proprietary information, nor does it have to reveal how the chemicals and gases used in fracking interact with natural compounds. If a company does release information about what is used, health care professionals are bound by a non-disclosure agreement that not only forbids them from warning the community of water and air pollution that may be caused by fracking, but which also forbids them from telling their own patients what the physician believes may have led to their health problems. A strict interpretation of the law would also forbid general practitioners and family practice physicians who sign the non-disclosure agreement and learn the contents of the “trade secrets” from notifying a specialist about the chemicals or compounds, thus delaying medical treatment.
This is footage of Israeli soldiers raiding a home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on the night of March 20th, 2012. This video captures a raid on the home of imprisoned Palestinian nonviolent leader Bassem Tamimi. His wife, children, and likely his mother, can be seen in the video reacting in horror to the ransacking of their home, albeit it rather common across the West Bank and in Nabi Saleh itself.
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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 ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
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 ...
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 ...
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. ...
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 ...
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http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6648578/PM-tells-leaders-to-take-nuclear-threat-seriously
Another article where the focus is how important Key is. He’s mentioned by Obama and the press quiver like schoolgirls getting to see their latest boy popstar.
“Obama personally invited Key to the first nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010, because of New Zealand’s staunch anti-nuclear position…
ANDREA VANCE IN SEOUL – Is she one of these Journalism graduates on her first assignment? Is she aware that National have just got into bed with an ACT party whose leader wants the policy gone by lunchtime, and that the core of the cabinet believe that our “proud-position-on-nuclear-issues” has been hindering trade talks with Obama’s and earlier administrations?
.
Might be my imagination but I felt that Andrea was slightly tongue in cheek. A slightly satirical breathlessness perhaps.
Brash isn’t ACT’s leader any more, I believe Banks is, and I don’t think he wants the nuclear free policy “gone by lunchtime”, or at least, not publicly. Really it’s actually a non-issue: even if we did repeal that policy, the US isn’t going to send warships here anyway. There’s really nothing to gain by repealing it.
“It is a compliment as Obama mentioned only one other leader in the address – Italy’s Mario Monti. ”
LOL – What a shocker, Key being mentioned along with another Goldman Sachs Gang member. Surprised that Papademous, and Draghi do not rate a mention too…
Felt a bit dirty after reading that article!
“It is a compliment as Obama mentioned only one other leader in the address – Italy’s Mario Monti. ”
Oh yes, seconded!
Good to see for TVNZ just goes to show what can do if you keep a focus on costs ,and management.
http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/tvnz-1h-profit-more-triples-
Triples from a low basis when it should never have dropped in the first place.
Ellis plundered millions on failed digital strategies, Tivo and a cultutre of overpaid out of control personalities like Henry/Vietch etc including himself.
How much content that can be resold/rerun do TVNZ produce James ? That’s the real measure as that’s repeat revenue for a once off production cost.
Any monkey can slash costs and get a profit with their advertsising revenue…where’s the sustainable model that Ellis got nearly $1m p.a. for eh.
goes to show that james III has no idea about “costs” or “management” or in fact, what a well run organisation looks like. James only knows about a few financial figures, and even then sweet fuck all.
Noticed this appalling comment in Minister Bennett press release re: benefit reforms:
“We have women consigned to a life of welfare because over thirty years ago society said women couldn’t support themselves without a man.”
Apart from being historically incorrect what an abysmal statement.
Violence, abuse, rape, poverty, concern for children – nope none of these things were factors.
Your choices should be man or work. That’s it.
Paying you a benefit was a punishment because you can’t get by, by yourself.
WTF were you doing leaving your husband. The one who beat and raped you. The one who took all the money and you had to feed the kids on family benefit. The one who you had to go out and work because he sat at home drunk.
And when he walked out on you and left you with the kids, traded you in for a younger model, had only married you to cover up the fact that he was gay cause society didn’t like gay people either, that left cause he couldn’t handle that his sperm had produced a disabled kid (you must have slept with someone else), that just didn’t come home one day, that left you in the bush with your kids (Barry Crump) you should have just got on with it and worked. You lazy, indolent person.
And apparently we society sent you there. Consciously. We consigned you – deliberately.
Made you the non-person you are today. We apologise for doing this to you – I can’t believe we thought it was a good thing.
We are much wiser now and we know that paying a benefit was just another form of abuse. We’re sorry for perpetuating this abuse on you. I know we thought we were helping you but we weren’t.
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/welfare-reform-1
And also if you managed to get pregnant by yourself (i.e. unmarried) your would have to abandon your child to indifferent and overworked adoption services, due to no ability to afford to raise it unsupported. Prospective adopters were able to “choose” from about five to six assorted babies of either sex and even specify what colouring.
Selective amnesia from Paula the Rotund about the “benefit” she has had from her Benefit.
Not amnesia – she’s just never accepted the truth. Ot, to put it another way, she only accepts her fantasies as truth (which is true of all RWNJs).
+1
That is the problem with NZ, and when I mean “NZ”, I mean that often implied powerful mass of imbalanced animalistic reactions that do no good, that makes no improvement; is inexplicably unable to recognise itself when faced with its own reflection; the source of which is “somewhere out there”; and of which no one wants to take the credit.
As a commenter posted yesterday, NZ doesn’t have any collective moral or social philosophy, and they’re right. Often a set of beliefs is called a philosophy, but that isn’t a true definition – it’s just another one of the failings of a self-referencing, post-modern, pop-culture, age. To have a philosophy you’d need to actively seek out the truth about life. You’d have to have seen and acknowledged the stuff that proved you were wrong, not just once, but as many times as it took. What we hold dear, it seems, and what is promoted by politicians and businessmen at large, is a collection of beliefs, values and manifesto that place the ego of the person holding the beliefs at the centre of the universe and distorts and limits the interpretation of what they see in relation to their own beliefs. Or as yesterday’s quote named it “the economy”.
I think we get this way by being taught that our identity as people is only on what we want to be – what we “act as”, imitate or aspire to being. When you believe you can be anything you want, you are saying that your mind, the part that thinks thoughts is all there is to you and that this “you” is your god, you are your own creator, that there are no immutable laws to life, that you can hold back nature with your own short-lived human will. Everywhere people try to hold back nature; they get boob-jobs to stop sagging, face lifts and laser treatments to stop wrinkles and actively scorn anything old; anything to maintain the grossest illusion of youth, that man is invincible. Few people know how to age and die.
The problem in parliament is the thinking that what is good for us is good for another, that we are all the same, in every way – or can be made to be. We believe time is linear, that context does not matter, that “the future” and “the past” are concrete places and forget they were really just moments like right now – innumerable present moments, most of them apparently full of nothing. We believe that experience or some variation on experience can predict the future; that “success” – the manifestation of our ego desires – is an emotion and a measure of truth; even after reality continually proves us wrong with its insolent co-incidental “chance” and “accidents”.
The people in parliament got where they are by believing they could influence ancient human natures, with money. Understanding isn’t on the check list for entry. Their attitude is adolescent. Voting is now a game of one ego addressing another. The sooner our parliamentary system comes to its inevitable end the better. While we can’t be rid of the chaos of unchecked childish minds, perhaps soon they won’t be elevated to positions of power over others.
This most definitely deserves a +1. Well said.
Just heard the interview with the Finnish comedian commenting on Brownlee’s performance. One thing that stood out was that his English was near perfect – not a bad education system then is it Gerry? Now how is your Finnish, or Maori, or French, or German, Latin … nah, you even struggle with your mother tongue don’t you given the “misunderstandings” over this issue?
(can’t delete so editing out duplicate post)
Technically yes but contextually we all know this is the first stage of legislation to doing this – unless you are confident that changes will be made via the select committee process to remove this.
You will note that the Minister press releases make reference to the other future changes as well e.g. widows benefit.
Perhaps you might like to let her know her press release was incorrect as well.
(response to your now removed duplicate post)
‘You can’t complain about things that haven’t happened yet’ is a trusty old favourite of the right.
To be followed at a later date with a ‘You can’t complain about things that have already happened’.
Complaining about what will never happen is a bit stupid too don’t you think?
(that’s not a “favourite of the right” or the left, it’s a favourite of the stupid and the sky will fallers.)
A householder who insures his house isn’t really complaining about the fire that is going to happen. He is just taking precautions. Though I have to admit I don’t know what this argument is all about.
I think it’s a pretty good analogy.
And the reason for insuring is that we’ve seen for ourselves what fires can do.
Petey just wants to pretend we don’t know an arsonist when we see one.
Nah, the stupid insist that things outside of their control “will never happen”.
The solipsistic insist that things that won’t happen to them “will never happen” to anyone else.
And the deceitful pretend that nothing has ever happened before .
But the discussion wasn’t about your semantics. It was about deliberately or ignorantly misrepresenting what “we all know” about what is actually in the bill.
No one is forced to work. And no one is forced to remain on a benefit either.
Nah, it wasn’t about what we all know is in the bill.
DoS was talking about what we all know is coming next.
Whatever you think of the “we all know” bit, (and I see why you do) you’ve still misrepresented him/her quite badly there Petey.
They are if they can’t find a job! (And if they don’t want to starve).
A lack of basic facts don’t help promoting a view.
There is nothing in the bill that will force anyone out to work. Bradford is either ignorant of basic facts or is deliberately misrepresenting the stated aims of the act.
You mean because they always have the option of forfeiting their benefit? Is that where you’re going?
No, are you acting ignorant, or do you not know anything about the act?
There are requirements in the act to look for work, not to be in work, because obviously if there aren’t enough jobs then not everyone can take on jobs.
According to that comment, the issue is with the distinction between “working” and “looking for work”, is that correct? Or is there another way to interpret your comment?
Assuming the above, if Sue had said “force sole parents with babies as young as one year out to look for work” you’d be ok with that.
Right?
So Pete, are you saying that the intent of the legislation is only to look for work? That if a job is available and offered the ‘job-seeker’ can turn it down and remain of the DPB? It’ll be good if you can clear that up. Ta.
That happens now so I don’t see that it will change. It’s not even necessary to turn down a job, it’s quite easy to apply for a job and ensure that you aren’t offered one. Happens now.
Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.
This trying to get a balance between carrots and sticks is nothing new, different governments have been trying to find a reasonable but effective approach for a long time.
“Some do turn down jobs that are offered but there are systems already to try to stop this, some additional benefits can be lost if jobs are turned down.”
So just what I said, above, which you got all sensitive about.
So women on the DPB are currently required to take up a job if one is offered? Without losing benefit if they turn it down?
Paula Bennett says
Note – not ‘look for work’ as you said, but be ‘available for work’. Is she wrong? and you don’t think this is different from current conditions of the DPB?
And you also think being able to manipulate a CV to avoid being chosen for a job you’ve applied for is good legislation?
Also, Pete, I’d point out that in a tough labour market, looking for a job can itself be very time consuming and can easily amount to the equivalent of a part-time job.
Time consuming and very expensive. Printing, posting, travelling, new clothes and haircuts, mobile phone costs, etc.
Yes, fair comment. And it can be very demoralising. Difficult when jobs are scarce.
But if you want to be self sufficient and do better for your family you have to find ways of doing that and it can cost – in the past I’ve shifted town/city with a family to get work, the initial cost is significant in the hope that the longer term benefits make it worth it.
There’s more unemployment now, but also more assistance to help people through difficult times.
Nobody is self-sufficient. That’s why we live in a community.
Lolwut! 😀 No, there’s not.
but contextually we all know this is the first stage of legislation to doing this
“we all know”? I’m sure you can’t substantiate that, so not point in asking.
Who are you speaking on behalf of? The misinformed or the misinformers?
So Petey
Solo mums will be forced to look for work but not take a job if one is offered?
You really need to get out more.
Currently solo mums do not have to take a job that is offered and can even leave their job consciously and deliberately to go on DPB.
Are you saying this won’t change Pete?
I think it should change.
It’s known that self supporting families generally have better outcomes for their children than families on benefits, so parents wanting the best for their kids (and themselves) should be striving to be as self supporting as possible. Shouldn’t they?
Hang on Pete.
This is the very thing that you’ve been insisting wouldn’t be changing.
Is it or not?
I didn’t insist nothing would change. A new act is obviously going to change things.
All the Government parties think it should change. Labour thinks it should change (albeit different degrees and methods). It has always been tweaked and changed, and it always will keep being changed. We live in a changing world.
It’s about degree of change. The act proposes a bit more encouragement/coercion (pick which word suits your side of the argument). It’s another tweak of the existing system. It isn’t a complete switch to a new draconian regime as some seem to be suggesting.
“I didn’t insist nothing would change.”
I didn’t say you did.
But you said the new bill wouldn’t change this specific aspect.
Will it or not?
You’re getting very vague.
I don’t know what the new bill will do, it’s only been voted to first reading. But I haven’t seen anything yet that will force mothers to work. Have you?
Do you think mothers should have a free choice as to whether they work or get the DPB? If so to what age of children?
No, I’m being quite specific.
Your morning troll started with accusing Sue of being ignorant of the bill or lying about the bill.
Specifically you were upset that she said people will be forced into work/forced to look for work/forced to accept work depending which of your comments you pick.
You have insisted that she was wrong about this and that nothing in the new bill will change anything with regard to being forced to do these things.
It has since been shown by rosy, DoS, and others that your opinion is based on a misunderstanding of the current act and how it is implemented.
And now you’re trying to change the subject to ‘never mind all that, what should happen?’ because you can’t admit that you were wrong to accuse Sue of not knowing her stuff.
Turns out you don’t know what you’re talking about as usual, and Sue does, as usual.
And as usual Pete will think he’s done nothing wrong and you’re just nit-picking for no purpose.
But really this is modus operandi for Pete: say something imprecise, then defend-to-the-death that that wasn’t what he meant, despite it being what he said, and then when conclusively being shown he is wrong, he simply runs away from the thread and doesn’t post again.
So PiG, where are the jobs for these self supporting types? What has your buddy the cretinous Dunne (seller of state assets) done to create any work by way of voting with the inNACTion party?
hmmm – Nia Glassie’s mother was striving to be as self supporting as possible.
Maybe Paula should be passing legislation to ensure childcare is freely available for working parents…. there’s a thought. /sarc
I’m happy for we just to mean you and me. Just us two. The royal we. I feel so close to you now.
I’d have to say that as I talking colloquially I didn’t need to worry about pedantry.
Of course it could mean those that have read the ministers and this governments press releases and other comments that there are two stages to this legislation and only the first is going through parliament now. The second will be introduced later in the year.
This includes a fair chunk of the population and of the readership of these forums.
I’m sure you do actually know that.
To simplify:
Technically you are correct there is nothing in the current bill about this – anything about this will be in the next bill to be introduced later in the year.
The legislation is being introduced in two stages.
We know this to be a fact.
Of course you then apply similar language to that you are so disingenuously critical of by saying:
“It’s known that” without any qualifier – known by who Pete?
It’s not known by me, in fact I know many individuals for whom respite from looking for work when a relationship breaks up, the payment of DPB to help them get back on their feet without any pressure to conform to some other (white middle class male?) persons expectations of what and how they should do has been an absolute godsend.
And how come self supporting doesn’t include paying my taxes so that when something goes wrong I can get a benefit without being made to justify my existence, the reason for my breakup or my choices – and by extension paying my taxes so if my children are in that situation nor do they.
The morality arguments all break down when you start to look at individual cases and individual circumstances. But for the grace of god go I.
You lack of compassion for individuals by hiding behind applying the ( real and supposed) excesses of a minority to a majority is breathtaking for someone who purports to want to do things in a better, more caring and thinking way.
pete, your showing that while the act does say what it does, you have no idea of how this works in practice.
how this is applied is where the force and coercion comes in.
Just glanced at yesterdays Lying Liar caught lying again….unclean unclean…really foul. Why the F*** did anybody engage with the Mental Health Act duet?
I was wondering about that post and debate for some of today. On the one hand it was hilarious watching two small-minded and bitter fools disgracing themselves, but it got a bit much. It reminds me of the original serious of The Office. It was a brilliant portrayal of a dysfunctional environment, but I usually found it impossible to watch it until the end – the last five minutes in particular were just too painful, and not in a shocked laughter way. Same with this thread – they laid on so much idiocy, bile and ignorance that I just couldn’t get into it.
Normally I quite like that sort of thing, but too much vicious stupid, it hurted.
Brownlee: I Know Nuz-ZINK!
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this ‘Judith Collins’ or her sitting next to me with a knife in my ribs.
I know Nuz-ZINK! about this so-called ‘tea-pot tape.’
I know Nuz-ZINK! about Finland either…
Yep if they ever do a remake of Hogans Hero’s ol’ Jabba would be perfect for SGT Shultze.
But who would they get to play Col Klink ?
John Key, obvs.
That’s funny?
Late last night I spotted Audrey Young’s piece 8pm 27 March, on the “National refuses to answer questions about the Key Questions” in Parliament. This morning the item had disappeared but an Audrey search found it. (Getting better at this Search business.)
Wonder why it seemed to have been buried?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794958
Jane Clifton’s piece on Stuff on the same subject is good for a laugh – http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/6648574/The-obfuscutory-art-of-knowing-nothing
should be ‘obfuscatory’ – though obfuscutory does sound worse
don’t know if this helps, but here are the full transcripts for questions for oral answer from yesterdays question time.
http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/CE0696D1-9F83-4147-8FCE-F6BE28CFFFE9/212011/50HansQ_20120327_00000005_3.pdf
Dangerous chemical recalled but not in NZ
Of course methyl iodide based products are still being sold here in New Zealand. Politicians and ERMA will do their best to ignore the fact that it’s been removed from U.S. shelves, not because it wasn’t making a profit, but because it’s a highly dangerous carcinogen that was initially misclassified…
Remorse?
One thing struck me
Graham said his only income was
His parlimentary pension of 26k
That seems rather low for a minister, can any one shed light on how much he should be getting.
AND
as he was born in 42, he would be entitled to nat super as well
26k income does not stack up?
No holdings, no rental income, no trusts, no interest bearing accounts etc etc…
26K sounds a little low in its own right!
$26K after tax, in hand? Suggests an income of around $32K p.a. Still light for a Ministerial pension + NZ super.
are you suggesting he might have made an untrue statement?
And he has moved into a ‘modest’ Remuera Townhouse… is that RWNJ-Former Minister-Snout in the Trough with a tasty Super and Perks modest, or Joe Public modest?
On $26k p.a…
In Remuera…
I smell a porkie.
OH! So it might just be a “me so poor, me porsche is owned by a family trust”.
“”We don’t disclose the amount of stores [allowed by] the agreement but it’s all based on population and demand,” Roberts said. “We want to be wherever we can sell burgers.”
Who could have guessed it would turn out like that….
it’s called progress apparently.
although there seems to be absolutely no indication as to how it is such.
does anyone know?
Use of the word progress, has allowed the sheep to be lulled into many false senses of security, which have and will contribute to current and future economic and social disasters, and mostly likely worse!
Progress is what ever the sheep want to believe it is, as long as it maintains an illusion , of which they are not aware exists!
“disclose the number of stores …”
I feel like the grammar police, but I just had to.
After the summit, Mr Key said New Zealand had given about $6 million towards disposal of nuclear material in other countries since 2006.
Wow thats great, because its not like we contibute to the problem, but we should contribute to the clean up of it….righto!
One scam in London was a auction, the marks would be brought into a room and the auction would not start until they’d shut the doors and created a buzz for buying, the marks would spend more and not notice the quality was shite. A classic switch and bait, switch even the rules of the auction from open to closed, and then change the value the mark was expecting.
The teapot switch and bait, invited journalists into a open press room, then switched the rules, that it was illegal to take voice recordings while taking video, that somehow the organizer of the event had a right to suddenly declare a meeting private.
Sorry but my understanding of what is legal (from a non-lawyer) is the reasonableness standard of a jury trial. Would a jury feel it was fair that the rules suddenly changed, the expectation of a full open press conference. That ministers are also aware of the buy beware notion, that if their mouths are moving and they consent to a video camera being on, then inevitably they consent to a lip reading them.
We cannot have a free democracy when the government press organize thinks they can decide how journalists use material they legally obtain. Ambrose had the consent to take video, photos, and voice not because there were two men talking privately in a coffee shop, but because two men invited him there, and did not have a right to switch the rules from FULLY open to PARTIALLY open without informed consent of Ambrose.
Solid Energy’s daft logic exposed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/solid-energy-and-tobacco-industry.html
http://www.thepoliticalscientist.org/?p=744#more-744
Puddleglum’s latest on the Smith/Pullar saga; “The banality of corruption” is well worth reading. I’ll leave a teaser:
…Writing a reference for his friend Bronwyn Pullar was the crucial ‘error of judgment’ committed by Dr Smith. At least that’s what almost all commentators appear to agree upon despite John Key claiming that it was the second unearthed letter (actually written and signed earlier than the ‘first’ (reference) letter) that tripped the switch of Smith’s resignation.
But discussion of Dr Smith’s ‘errors of judgment’ and whether or not they amounted to ‘corruption’ or ‘cronyism’ seems to me to have missed a point so obvious, so banal – and so likely – that I think that omission says something significant about just how ‘corrupt’ our everyday responses have become…
Worth every minute it took to read; the recipe for corruption is an insightful moment; reads like a person about flick over the first in a long line of cultural dominoes.
Thanks for the comments just saying and Uturn.
When I wrote it I was thinking of my Dad.
Years ago, after the Second World War, my family was living in a prefabricated house (‘prefab’) in the north of England (lined with sheets of asbestos as it happens – my sister still remembers rubbing her finger up and down her bedroom wall as all the dust came off it). They were meant to be used for just a few years but they were still there in the mid-60s. Compared to brick houses, they weren’t well-made or as warm in winter.
Dad got politically active, giving speeches off the back of a lorry, hassling the (Tory) council. One by one, he (and those supporting him) fought for individual families and got them rehoused on various grounds.
But there was one fight he wouldn’t fight.
Mum got onto him about the fact that, here he was, getting everyone else into better houses and we were still living in ours.
He gave her a quick run through of Corruption 101: He couldn’t do it for us, otherwise his opponents would say that, all the time, it was just about him trying to help himself and there was no matter of principle involved. More importantly, that could then derail what he was trying to do for others. We would have to be last in the queue.
It would have been easy for him to justify it to himself. After all, we were a family, like all the rest; he had three children (I was pre-school age). He could have used what little political power and influence he had to get us a new home. (And the councillors would have probably seen it as a cheap way of getting him off their backs.) Where’s the harm?
He saw, I think, that the judgment about who should get rehoused next wasn’t his to make. The Council should have held to its promise (and plan) to replace the housing. It was a political issue, not an issue simply for him and his family. That wasn’t the point.
Corruption is pretty easy to see, really. It’s like when we say that a file on a computer is ‘corrupt’. All it means is that it can’t do what it’s meant to do. Same goes for political corruption – it means our political and bureaucratic processes can’t do what they’re meant to do. Dad would have corrupted his activism – and the political process it set in train – if he’d put his energies into getting us rehoused.
I think corruption is not so much about individuals becoming corrupted. It’s really about our society (or culture) becoming corrupted. We all have an interest in stopping that from happening.
The problem is, when we all look at life individualistically – as I think we increasingly do, today – each one of us then has an (self-)interest in just being a little bit corrupt, just this once … others will understand. After all, they do it too, don’t they? And we’re all human, so let’s not be so hard on small ‘errors of judgment’, yadda, yadda, yadda.
It’s like the tragedy of the commons. We less and less have a sense of the importance – the ‘sacrosanct’ nature – of the collective processes we’ve supposedly set up to regulate how we do things, together.
Slippery-slope arguments aren’t always valid, but I think corruption has to be a paradigmatic exemplar of when it is. Once it starts not only do we, individually, start to ‘normalise’ it, but also others start to feel the pressure to join in – or miss out. It gains its own momentum.
Ultimately, everything that happens in the public realm becomes a sham – nothing actually happens how it’s supposedly meant to happen.
That explains one hell of a lot. Thanks.
Couldn’t agree more.
In one of my past lives I was involved in training delivery.
It was always interesting to see who would cheat on team exercises. At one level the exercises are often no more than puffery but at another what became clear over years of doing this was that the people who would cheat the exercise were almost without exception the same staff who would cheat the important things at work.
The ones who openly said it’s not OK and maintained a high level of integrity were invariably the ones who did so at work.
While on the surface they were team building exercises they actually became quite valuable in managing risk.
The thing was that for most of those people it was a learned, ingrained habit to cheat – they couldn’t help themselves as they were so accustomed to doing this.
For them it definitely wasn’t a slippery slope – it was how they behaved. Where it was a slippery slope however was in the influence they could have ( and on some occasions did have) on other staff.
Ah that explains a few things I have been seeing recently too.
Yes, well described mr puddleglum. As rl says, ti explains one hell of a lot, such as why there seems to be far less of the public service element to, well, public service, today. Evidenced by comparisons of public to private enterprise over salaries for just one example.
Is there a way to resurrect things do you think? Or must the current norms run their course? Or perhaps it is probably a combination of the two – small changes here and there to push and guide the “good” way. For crude example, prohibit ex-Ministers from entering conflicted private enterprise roles, such as Simon Power going to his new role at Westpac.
Today, 3 News reported that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright will be undertaking an official investigation into Fracking.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6652401/Probe-into-fracking-announced
I read this one earlier, and was initially pleased. Will have to see what comes out the other side, and see if it contradicts the findings abroad already carried out!
Most likely it’ll turn out like the Government’s report on peak oil did. Don’t hold your breath.
or do they simply want to produce a report saying their are some potential health issues that need legislative attention and whammo they end up introducing laws like this one??
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/walter-brasch/42038/fracking-pennsylvania-gags-physicians
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/US/HTM/2012/0/0013..HTM
Thanks freedom that’s startling reading.
Found while surfing – Key’s threeway handshakes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7sH0vFg6eU&feature=player_embedded
Under the Iron Heel
This is footage of Israeli soldiers raiding a home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on the night of March 20th, 2012. This video captures a raid on the home of imprisoned Palestinian nonviolent leader Bassem Tamimi. His wife, children, and likely his mother, can be seen in the video reacting in horror to the ransacking of their home, albeit it rather common across the West Bank and in Nabi Saleh itself.