Leftists around the world have been attacking the Arab spring and the overthrow of bloodthirsty dictators by the Arab peoples of the Middle East.
To justify their support for butchers and torturers they have engaged in personal attacks slander and character assassination. But their main line of attack is to try and characterise the people’s revolts in the Middle East, as a “US and Western backed invasion”.
It is well documented that during the cold war the US on a number of occasions on three continents supplied forces they supported, with the the ‘Stinger’ the highly effective shoulder launched anti-aircraft weapon. Ronald Reagan for instance supplied them to anti-communist Unita rebels in Angola.
However, the first and best documented occasion was the war in Afghanistan.
From Wikipedia:
According to Crile, who includes information from Alexander Prokhanov, the Stinger was a “turning point”.[6] Milt Bearden saw it as a “force multiplier” and morale booster.[6] Charlie Wilson, the congressman behind US Operation Cyclone, described the first StingerMi-24 shootdowns in 1986 as one of the three crucial moments of his experience in the war, saying “we never really won a set piece battle before September 26, and then we never lost one afterwards”.[13][14] He was given the first spent Stinger tube as a gift and kept it on his office wall.
Faster than any military jet with a speed of mach 5, heat seeking stinger missiles that zero in on jet and helicopter exhausts would clear the skies of Syria.
The battlefield leveling effect of the stinger was the main reason for the investment in expensive counter measures like the stealth fighters and bombers.
To back their claims that the US is behind the rebels, supporters of the Bashar Assad regime claim against all evidence, that the US through Turkey has also supplied the Free Syrian Army with stingers.
If the above report carried by Scoop.co.nz wasn’t a lie, Then – As in the war against the Soviets in Aghanistan Western supplied ‘Stingers’ would be a game changer, allowing the rebels to shoot down jets and helicopters turning the tide of the war.
It is only the regime’s air superiority that has kept their forces in the field allowing them to massacre at will even in the liberated areas.
Quite possibly, just knowing that these very effective shoulder fired anti- aircraft weapons were in the hands of the rebels could ground the Syrian regime’s airforce.
With the removal of air superiority the war would be over and the suffering of the Syrian people would be alleviated.
Unfortunately this story carried on a major left website was a complete fabrication.
Not a single Stinger has been delivered to the rebels leaving the civilian population vulnerable to merciless bombardment from the air and the rebels powerless to defend them.
Hey, I’ve got to say your comments often leave me feeling baffled and I usually don’t respond. However your sense of outrage on Open Mike on Saturday regarding Anders Breivik being deemed not psychologically unwell was quite upsetting as you automatically assumed that monsters like him must be mentally unwell, therefore demonising all people who are suffering from mental illness. I don’t know if you read my responses. I hope you did because its important you learn about the reality of mental illness (in a clinical and social sense) Vs violent criminal activity.
Now you are saying that lefties ‘have been attacking the Arab Spring and the overthrow of dictators………’ Are you familiar with the Occupy movement? The Arab Spring was the entire inspriration for the movement. It was the courage of the Arab people to stand up to dictators that encouraged people in NY and later all around the world to stand up against our western capitalist system, albeit different from systems in the East but damaging non the less. As the movement progressed the people of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt stood with the Occupy movement and gave talks about reclaiming democracy. There was a strong sense of solidarity between the Arab community and the entire Occupy Movement.
Thats just one example but even so, how can you say Leftists would attack freedom form oppression when thats an aim that is close to many lefties hearts?
+1 You’ll note that Jenny won’t be able to supply any references to back up her grossly incorrect generalizations regarding leftists attacking the Arab spring. She/he is also likely wrong about the Syrian rebels having ground to air missiles.
Actually, from recollection of my uni foreign policy papers, the issue with the stingers was that it was a tacit admission of direct and strong US support against the soviets (stingers at the time being state of the art restricted weapons), a decision that went to Reagan. The stinger decision was basically a statement of “our wallet vs yours”.
…..You’ll note that Jenny won’t be able to supply any references to back up her grossly incorrect generalizations regarding leftists attacking the Arab spring. She/he is also likely wrong about the Syrian rebels having ground to air missiles.
Jackal
According to a Reuters report carried by Stuff.co.nz, the helicopter was brought down after hovering above the city for over an hour.
“It was flying over the eastern part of the city and firing all morning,” an activist calling himself Abu Bakr told Reuters from near where the helicopter came down in the suburb of Qaboun. “The rebels had been trying to hit for about an hour,” he said. “Finally they did.”……
Although rebel commanders have asked foreign allies for anti-aircraft missiles, Western nations are unwilling to supply such weapons for fear of them falling into hostile hands. There was no indication fighters in Damascus had used any missiles.
Helicopters being relatively slow moving and flying at low altitudes are vulnerable to sustained small arms fire, and can be brought down if a bullet strikes a vulnerable spot.
There has been more than just one helicopter shot down Jenny, and multiple reports of the Syrian rebels having surface to air missiles. As far as I can tell, there’s no reason for them to lie about such a thing?
Out of spite? Don’t be silly! Try using google search Jenny… And while you’re at it give us an example of “Leftists around the world attacking the Arab spring” if you can?
Are you familiar with the Occupy movement? The Arab Spring was the entire inspriration for the movement. It was the courage of the Arab people to stand up to dictators that encouraged people in NY and later all around the world to stand up against our western capitalist system, albeit different from systems in the East but damaging non the less. As the movement progressed the people of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt stood with the Occupy movement…..
Rosie
Hi Rosie, I notice that you didn’t include Syria in your list of countries involved in the Arab Spring. Would you like to explain why?
You ask why Syria wasn’t included in my list of countries involved in the Arab spring.
Ok. I was talking about the Occupy movement and their solidarity with the Arab communitites inside America and in the middle east. I wasn’t talking about Syria as such. I was going by memory of the talks I listened to, live online and I remember speakers respresenting Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. My memory is going back to September, October 2011. Given that the civil uprising in Syria gained steam around mid March 2011 it is quite possible that there were Syrian people represented at the Occupy camp and actions. Amazingly, I can’t remember every detail from that time. I wasn’t watching the livestream 24 – 7 either. I was trying to illustrate to you that the Left is about freedom from oppression, using the Occupy movement as one recent example of left solidarity with the Arab spring. And I certianly don’t want a fight with you.
However you are welcome to trawl through archive footage here if you want to find out if Occupy stood alongside Syria.
Hi Rosie, I think we may be talking at cross purposes here.
I see that you agree that the occupy movement is modeled on the Arab Spring. Which is the case.
From this I take it that you agree that the Arab spring was one of the greatest popular democratic social movements in history.
But do you agree that the Syrian people’s initially peaceful protests were an extension of the Arab Spring?
Do you know that the protesters initial demands were for democratic reforms not for the overthrow of the regime?
Do you agree that Bashar Assad cognisant at what had happened to the dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya decided very early on to try and drown this movement in blood?
Do you agree that to defend themselves against mass detention and torture and mass murder that the Syrian people had no choice but to rise up and attempt to overthrow the dictator?
Rosie, imagine if you can, that instead of just arresting and fining the Occupy protesters, the New Zealand government had ordered the police and the army to shoot them down. Detaining and torturing and murdering the families of soldiers and police who refused to carry out these orders and instead deserted.
Who would you support? The protesters and the deserters or the government?
When people are being killed there is no middle ground.
Bit difficult to understand exactly what you are saying through your discussion of stingers. Are you saying that the US is right to interfere in all of those middle east countries? That the US invasions and incursions are justified? That the British, Italian and Frenh invasions are justified?
That the US is justified in killing more people every year than any other nation, but that others are bloodthirsty?
Bit difficult to understand exactly what you are saying through your discussion of stingers.
vto
Hi vto. What I am saying is that Western leftists who support Bashar Assad are not above lying to back up their treacherous depiction of the people’s revolt in Syria as a Western/US backed “invasion”.
Rami al-Said was reporting from the Syrian city of Homs – which as most of us know by now – is being pounded to rubble by a mad dictator’s army. Rami al-Said refused to leave, and instead chose to report on the genocide that was taking place.
One of Rami al-Said’s last posts on his Facebook page stated,
”Baba Amro [a suburb of Homs] is being wiped out now, complete genocide, I don’t want you to tell us our hearts are with you because I know that, I want projects everywhere inside and outside I want everyone to go out in front of the embassies in al…l countries everywhere because we are soon to be nothing, there will be no more Baba Amr – I expect this is a final letter to you and we will not forgive you.”
Civilian correspondents with no diplomatic immunity, armed with nothing more than cameras are bravely trying to document what is happening in Syria.
While the UN observers with State of the art body armour and diplomatic status, with access to the authorities and entitled to carry arms for personal protection, ans presumably, with far more freedom of movement than any civilian correspondent, have left Syria. Leaving the regime to it’s own devices.
So much for Western support for the rebels.
Immediately after the UN and our New Zealand troops departure, the regime began staging a nazi style pogrom in Damascus. Conducting house to house raids, dragging men and boys out of their homes and executing them in the street.
In tactics reminiscent of the Nazi assault on the Warsaw ghetto, columns of soldiers hiding behind tanks entered Damascus suburbs raiding houses and summarily executing those they capture.
If the the UN observers had remained they could demand the right to investigate this war crime, instead, they have high tailed it.
Unconfirmed reports claim a prominent Syrian journalist Mohamad Saeed al Odeh who had expressed sympathy for the anti-Assad revolt has been executed in the round up.
Journalists are a particular threat to the regime because they expose the false narrative that the revolt is Western and/or Al Qaida plot.
A Reuters report directly links the latest attacks to the exit of the UN observer mission.
The army has this week used tanks and helicopter gunships in an offensive around Damascus that coincided with the departure of U.N. military observers….
Activists in the southwestern Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya said Assad’s forces had killed 86 people there since Monday, half of them by execution. It was not possible to verify that report….
….One of the dead was named as Mohammad Saeed al Odeh, a journalist employed at a state-run newspaper who was sympathetic to the anti-Assad revolt. Activists said he had been executed in Nahr Eisha….
While the UN observers and our troops, have scuttled off…..
Civilian correspondents with no diplomatic immunity, armed with nothing more than cameras, have remained, to bravely document what is happening in Syria.
Before they left the United Nations had estimated that;
…more than 18,000 people have been killed in what has become a civil war after the state’s violent response to peaceful street protests triggered an armed rebellion in the pivotal Arab country.
If apologists for the Assad regime like Colonial Viper had their way this latest massacre would be carried out right across Syria and not just the small area that Assad controls at present.
Well away from the extra judicial killings and torture and mass murder and detention that characterise this regime, Assad apologist Colonial Viper attacks McNaught.
In making excuses for torturers and mass murder Colonial Viper, goes to great lengths to discredit Anita McNaught’s reporting of events. Trying to throw mud on her reputation, Colonial Viper ganging up with another Assad apologist Bad 12 suggests that McNaught could have remotely set off a bomb to make it appear that she was in danger.
bad12…
7 August 2012 at 1:14 am
the fact tho that the propagandarists can arrange a huge explosion as the punctuation to McNaughts emotive bullshit, shows they do have some organizational ability,
Since when is such emotive bullshit Journalism???…
Reply
Jenny…
7 August 2012 at 1:46 am
I might remind you bad, that, that was a real tank shell that landed near McNaught.
If you think something like that can be scripted, then you are deeply into the conspiracy theory alternate nut-job universe.
Reply
Colonial Viper…
7 August 2012 at 1:52 am
place a shell 200m away and when you need it, set it off with a small charge.
Indulging in character assassination, Colonial Viper also suggests that McNaught has surrendered her journalistic integrity to her employers.
Kiwi reporter Anita McNaught interview of captured Syrian Secret Police officers responsible for the shooting of unarmed protesters and responsible for over a hundred ‘disappeared’ civilian detainees.
Reply
Colonial Viper1.3.1.1
6 August 2012 at 11:22 pm
Frak off Jenny. You’re a pro-war activist.
Reply
Jenny1.3.1.1.1
7 August 2012 at 1:29 am
And you are a supporter of mass murder and torturer, terribly offended that those long victimised by your hero are hitting back.
Reply
Colonial Viper1.3.2
6 August 2012 at 11:26 pm
Al Jazeera is owned and funded by Qatari royalty. Who happen to be major American allies in the region, as well as hosting a major US military base on their soil.
Reply
Jenny1.3.2.1
6 August 2012 at 11:45 pm
CV, does your smear that Al Jazeera is bought and sold, also apply to Anita McNaught?
Reply
Colonial Viper1.3.2.1.1
6 August 2012 at 11:47 pm
is she being paid by them?
Who do you believe the people of Syria as interviewed by Anita McNaught or the dictator of Syria and his Western apologists like Colonial Viper?
Who do you believe an aggressive foul mouthed anonymous nobody with no experience of Syria or the Middle East, or Anita McNaught risking her life to uncover the truth?
Today the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group (EAG) report will be released, apparently. In anticipation of this Tim Watkin and Bomber have posts on the poverty issue:
Figures released on Thursday show 21% of children now living in poverty, median household incomes fell 3% while the richest amongst us had their salaries soar leading us to having the highest levels of inequality on record.
How much did the wealthy gain? The average increase in 2011 for executives was $28, 311. That pay rise is more than a minimum wage worker earns in a year, and it get’s better for CEO’s. In 2011 our richest bosses earned on average 22.5 times more than the workers working for them.
…
Borrowed tax cuts for the wealthy, forcing beneficiaries back to work when there are no jobs, higher unemployment, weaker unions, cut backs to public services and higher GST all have social consequences and we are now seeing the terrible harvest from those social consequences.
This indicates the scale of the problem and the raft of changes that need to be made to provide any significant improvement for NZ’s children.
Watkin offers some possible actions that he guesses might be in the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group report.
First, the group will call for a Warrant of Fitness for landlords.
…
Second, it’ll call for meals to be provided more widely in schools.
…Third, the EAG is expected to call for some form of long-term and universal state assistance for kids – maybe a Universal Child Benefit, or some money every week for every child born. Until 1991 we had such a thing – a Family Benefit. That went in the Bolger/Richardson years.
I think the first (rental property WOFs) would be hardest to implement. But this and the other two would go some way to alleviating the immediate dire situation. The UCB would have the longest, most far reaching impact, followed by the meals at school.
But, until the vast levels of inequality are reduced,Watkin’s steps will just be a life raft, not a sustainable destination.
Maybe not for everyone at a political blog, a book review from Giovani Tiso:
…
David Peace, James Kelman, Kerstin Hensel, Pat Barker, Maurice Gee: these are the authors in Dougal’s meticulous catalogue, whose works allow him to explore what Raymond Williams has called the ‘working class fiction of fully developed class relations’; the challenges of representing the neoliberal city; the new guise of the realist historical novel; and finally what realism in the age of globalisation might mean and look like. The picture that emerges throughout these close readings is by necessity not one of a hegemonic genre, as realism was when the bourgeoisie went through its revolutionary phase, or by fiat under Stalinism; but rather of an ‘embattled, residual-emergent, ‘minor’ oppositional form.’ A realism that lurks through the fissures and cracks of late capitalism and yet is capable of producing useful, working models for thought and political action…
Hell, I’m a bit of a Pat Barker and a Maurice Gee groupie. Will definitely read the book when it reaches the library!
Thank-you. That interests me, js, although I am more interested in realism in screen fiction, and global-local dynamics. I see the author of the review is also more interested in digital media than in print fiction.
It’s an interesting attempt at gritty TV realism, in the crime genre. It got some pretty good critical reviews, but has struggled to get new seasons in the US primetime TV culture of glossy entertainment.
It is back on cloudflare (now that the moving is finished). Seems to be alternating between loading from sydney and from somewhere near wichita kansas.
But I’m not getting any particular* problems on any of my linux systems using Chrome and firefox, on my ipad using chrome and safari, on my laptop reluctantly booted into vista using IE8, safari, firefox and chrome, and sneaking a peek on Lyn’s mac laptop for safari.
* The one intermittent problem I am getting has been with the page loading “stopping” before displaying the Comments/Opinions/Online sidebar on the odd occasion. So the page is present except for the sidebar, but the page displays as if it is still loading. On chrome it shows on the bottom left that ones of the ad servers isn’t responding. I’m going to reorder the loading so that our site content comes first or set the ad code so it is async..
Yes. It’s reply was that the cloud IS Oz and that tracking it was tantamount to trying to kill it with collapsing it into Kansas when it could have been on bondi beach (ie Schroedinger’s cat).
hmm, for some reason my posts are going into moderation.
Anyway, just found out that command +shift +R in Safari doesn’t refresh, but on TS it opens a slide up window with a very nice text only version of the post for that page (no comments or headers or sidebars) and the option to increase/decrease text size, or email or print the post. Cool.
It’s great that Richard Long has buggered off from the Opinion peice in the Dominion Post for the time being. Deborah Russell, in his place, has written another interesting peice. This time regarding abortion law in NZ:
I’m glad to see Deborah writing in the DomPost too. However this made me cringe:
Bizarrely, we have decided that if a person needs to get a moral signoff for a decision, then the people who are capable of giving it are medical doctors.
That might have been appropriate in the 1970s when doctors were often the most highly educated people in a community. But our levels of education have increased dramatically, and more people have the training to think through difficult decisions for themselves, and to help other people make decisions.
Not sure what she means by educated there, but the implication is that you need some kind of academic education to be able to think and make moral decisions. Which is a ridiculous notion.
You’re right Weka that intelligence and brains are two different things. They overlap a great deal of course but so often they get confused. Methinks the confusion arises more often with those with intelligence as they find their logic and thinking processes so convincing to themselves, and they are clearly more intelligent than others, that they must be right. They cannot understand how someone with less intelligence could have a different and possibly superior conclusion.
Those with mere brains often do themselves the opposite injustice whereby they will think through something and then doubt their conclusion due to their acknowledged lack of intelligence, and then fail to follow through with their concluded necessary action. A real shame.
On the other hand however, academic training of certain types without doubt assists in evaluating situations and providing ways in which to think through things and come up with answers. There is definitely a pratice of evaluation and consideration that imo assists with decisions.
Taxpayer funded (!), this is potentially the most dangerous thing Key could change in NZ …. and the Monsantos of the world will be covered under the secrets of TPP .. BEWARE please, this has the worst possible consequences for us all … GMO agricultural conference upcoming …
Why hold it at all unless you were intent upon changing GMO status in this protected little land ?? And I bet in conjunction with it, they choose to release the secret study on what it supposedly costs NZ not to be growing GMO crops …
Guvmint by Crosby Textor …. oh dear, oh dear. What is become of us ?
Yes be very afraid of what Monsanto etc are up to here, they’ve got form already in the US.
Shows how Shonkey etc don’t give a F about anything other than their own bank accounts, to spanner our argriculture by allowing the likes of Monsanto to GM the industry and not allow us to have that ‘clean green’ point of difference with some genetic diversity, which the world would pay for, shows just how hollow that ‘Brighter future’ slogan was.
yeshe 7 and Rosie 8
More on government action that affects our precious and highly celebrated (by government particularly) food production capacity and earnings. I have been looking into Federated Farmers recently and one of their reports in the arable section which brings up a biosecurity risk. It says that the government has lowered standards for importing grains which the Fed Farmers would have vetoed if they had been given a look-in. There are certain weeds that must be kept out because of other more scrupulous countries firm decision to exclude them.
Every day our products feed 6 million dairy cows and 30 million sheep. Currently, a Southland farmer holds the world record for wheat production and we also have the highest maize yields in the world.
One of arable farmers’ key concerns is biosecurity. The fact we are able to be world leaders in seed multiplication is mainly due to our weed, pest and disease free status. It is of paramount importance we maintain a biosecurity system that ensures harmful pests and diseases are kept out of New Zealand.
A biosecurity breach of significant magnitude in the arable industry would seriously impede our ability to remain a productive part of the New Zealand economy. Market access could be lost if just one significant weed is found in our seed exports. The recent change to the Importation of Grains/Seeds for Consumption, Feed or Processing Import Health Standard,allowing a tolerance level for contaminant grains/seeds of up to 0.1 percent in weight is something we did not support and do not want repeated.
We have been overtaken by a jelly like consistency that plays with possibilities of damage on an acceptable risk basis. Our standard of living is being gambled with by these money-mercenary creeps. http://www.fedfarm.org.nz/n3228.html
Prism. yes, its curious that we’ve been lowering our biosecurity standards in a time of increasing threat from evolving organisms and globe trotting organisms. The PSA virus in kiwifruit was one example.
Will there come a time again when a farmer drives his/her tractor up the steps of parliament – but this time in protest against being exposed to biosecurity risks?
Rosie
Oh yes. Shane Ardern, what a funny guy. We will have to have a serious clean out of smug dickheads and ideologues before we get anything eminently appropriate.
That IS freaking frightening yeshe. Gone are the days of the vision of the 2020 organic nation. There was a movement back in the 90’s that correctly predicted world food shortages being upon us soon and the idea was not only for NZ to be completely self sufficient in food production for local consumption but to be a world class exporter of organically produced food, to countries eagar for clean GE free food. Perfect idea for an island nation like ours.
But like other great visions it died when it was trampled over by the influence of Agri business. Our path could have been so different. GE isn’t about feeding the poor, its about lining the pockets of multi nationals.
Rosie, frightening as it sounds it fits in as a central concepts of industrial agriculture, based upon petro chem energy and fertilisers, massive mechanisation, huge economies of scale…ownership of entire supply chains etc. The environment, in particular the ecosystemic biology comes a distant second to corporate dollars. Our nice cosy picture of the farmer on his plot is a distant memory.
Yes, sad but true Bored. Just the last two decades in NZ we have seen quite alarming increases in industrial dairying, (within the agri business sector) and the resulting harmful consequences for our environment, mainly our waterways. We have a population of 6 million dairy cows now and Fonterror want to more than triple that amount over the next few years. I don’t know how our islands, and our environment can sustain that level of mono culture. Once again, only one example of industrial farming. Cropping is another issue……
There has been a great public response in reclaiming ownership of food production in the form of community gardens, local produce markets, fair trading and if you have flash cash, artisan farmers markets. But these actions are a drop in the ocean compared to the actions of Fonterror, dow, monsanto and all their cronies. Our rights to life’s essentials bought and sold.
And I was looking for the date when new tolerances for imported grain came in and it appears to be sometime in October 2011, reported in Fed Farmers periodical 1 November 2011 as being recent. It appears that it is hard to obtain historical information on this biosecurity government website which just updates the information as it changes. I didn;t see a notice about the change and details and reasons. Though they may have been there. This Federated Farmers comment shows the difficulties we are having in running the country’s agricultural policy with out-of-control policies and change agents, private or government- appointed bureaucrats.
The recent change to the Importation of Grains/Seeds for Consumption, Feed or Processing Import Health Standard,allowing a tolerance level for contaminant grains/seeds of up to 0.1 percent in weightis something we did not support and do not want repeated.
Rosie above reading the Dom commented upon a better commentary than is provided by Richard Long…thank bejasus is all I can say.
For my sins I read the Listener last night (I used to subscribe but fired them when they became the voice of neo liberalism, courtesy of their owners, promoting lots of middle class angst stories to guide us all to the Right). Two stories stood out:
First the loathsome Pagani lady had a column in which (reading between the lines) she justified the Shearer position on welfare by stating the Left were not hard enough on those on welfare, and that it came with a “responsibility”. All I could hear (between the lines) was “kill the poor if it gets me middle class votes”..
Josie then went on to take a swipe at greater luminaries than her (Tariq Ali, Naomi Wolf etc) for their support of the Assange position (read to me like “he’s a rapist until proven otherwise, and the Empire is so benign he is not at risk”)…then a further swipe at the good folks of Whanganui for their opposition to the presence of the Beast…her argument on justice was very sound BUT she certainly did not connect with the local fears.
I was left with no illusions of the position of Labour under the influence of these neo lib apologists.
Then further reading…has Guyon Espiner had a Damascene moment? He interviewed Das, a Sydney based economist on the end of “growth”….appeared he was listening but was probably dumbstruck in the manner of a rabbit in the headlights…recommended reading for the benighted denizens of middle NZ, seismic shock material for the uninitiated. Let the middle classes worry, more angst.
Bored. You said it. Middle class angst sums up the Listener these days. I have read it occasionally over the last couple of years, just to give it a go and I often find myself having a “Are you serious?” moment.
Interesting what you say about the Pagani column. (and others) Just confirms it doesn’t it, as if we needed convincing that Labours stance is in the middle. It’s funny because Republican Presidential hopeful, Mittens Romney has this slogan “Romney – for a better middle class”. So now our once working persons party and architects of our welfare system really is no different to the American nutty right wing Republican party?
*Mittens: John Stewarts’ nick name for Mitt Romney. I like it.
Yes Rosie, Labour a la Pagani / Shearer is very middle class…if you flick through NZ House and Garden this month (another middle class keeping up with the Jones mag) you will find lovely pictures of David Shearer at home, very bourgeois in Point Chev.
The only upside is that he does not reside in a multi million dollar Parnell security complex with electric gates.
I suspect the article was very carefully placed by Labour (Pagani?)for maximum middle class impact, got to win the centre you know, and the lovely brown faces in Otara don’t read this mag……
‘Cos to spend $8.95 to buy and read that wannabee mag’ means that at least three of their kids are sent from the table tonight. “No dinner for yous guys sorry, unless you share with your brothers.”
“Don’t cry now……..being ‘aspirational’ will pay off in the end. And Mr Key/Shearer is coming to school tomorrow. Isn’t that exciting ?”
Then Key/Shearer (politicians) use those same kids for bastard photo ops. Key more relentlessly than any of them.
Rosie
Re the Listener. Is it surprising that Joanne Black their previous Features Editor with her own page on middle class angst, has gone to work for Bill English.
There was a report on 9tonoon this morning about the Correspondence School’s woes with their new computer. It started to be worked on in 2009. This year the students have not been receiving their work, or the wrong work. It is not compatible with the old system and there is a lack of confidence that all the records have been transferred correctly. The children and their supervisors have waited for ten weeks for their initial work, so will have to try and make up that time if they are to succeed. The teachers have had to source from somewhere some material to keep them going. This is a great way to bring up our achievement standards in education. http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon – Audio will go up soon.
09:20 Computer botch up at the Correspondence School
A computer botch up at the country’s biggest school – the Correspondence School – has seen its 24,000 students unable to receive school work for up to 10 weeks.
And this reliance on technology, the promise of it to be so quick, so reliable, so all-embracing.
So costly and bloody when it doesn’t work or does but intermittently and partially. We have poured money into computer systems in NZ. Remember the grand and expensive police INCIS, which fell over in the end because more and more requirements had been added onto the original specification.
We have the poorest people in the most difficult circumstances being dumped on by Housing NZ. Unable to get help direct face to face at some designated spot, but having to have a phone and pay more than a bus fare to keep it in credit and so have access. The service they get may be slow, or vague, and the credit can run out before they have got a reliable response. The trend is to faceless inhuman government. I don’t like it. Kafkaesque.
And the bad news about Australia’s treatment of us over there. An in depth piece talking to supporters and charity workers there, residents, and a NZ living there who is trying to fight this discrimination against us. Introduced in 2001.
Sunday, 26 August 2012: NZers in Oz – the trouble with jumping the ditch
Listen to this programme Insight for 26 August 2012 – New Zealanders in Australia
duration: 27′54″ Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/insight
The flow of New Zealanders moving to Australia is showing no sign of slowing down, with latest figures revealing a record equalling 54 thousand left in the last year.
But some New Zealanders claim they are being discriminated against as the list of federal and state payments they are excluded from grows.
Some would now like a visa introduced so that those planning to live in Australia understand the support on offer isn’t the same as that available at home.
Scottish education system better than Tory goves mess.
Scotland is keeping education out of the free market aproach.
with very good results .Guardian!
Hik town pariahna.Take note!
The usual problem is with people wanting to write bespoke systems from the ground up whilst letting feature creep into the system before the version 1.0 framework is running.
I’m of the general opinion that these days that for any net based system you just get an off the shelf-system (preferably open-source) written in a widespread language like php, python, or even ruby and put that in immediately.
Adapt the organisation to it and after that then look at smaller bespoke modules written by different organisations, contractors or even your staff for parts of the system that actually need adaptation.
If you can’t do that, then just use what someone else is doing. In this case grab the system that works used by a local university as it already exists.
Most of the problem with software and organisations is the common delusion that what they are doing is unique and requires special software. Virtually all of the time that is incorrect when you are looking at sourcing the software from anywhere in the world. Even where there isn’t something that is unique in the business process, it is usually such a small part of the system that they’d be better off putting in an off-the-shelf and getting the ‘unique’ bit written and integrated as a data source/sink. The past masters of this approach are banks who typically have amazing kludges of software accumulated over generations and whose only compatibility appears that they share a monitor.
But you can just about guarantee that they got sucked into having someone to write them a integrated system from ground up or had lots and lots of those “special” requirements that corporate bespoke provider coders like so much (it is like having your own bank when you get to maintain “special” code).
As a programmer, the process tends to be repetitive, as boring as hell and is why I try not to work for companies focused internally. I have been export focused since 1995 and I really don’t bother keeping track of local coding any more.
lprent
That’s interesting. There seems to be a lot of money available that isn’t spent wisely on tech.
And people who don’t know what they want, what they are getting, and whether the software firm has done its job. One job I heard of had a specific request for something that the software firm didn’t put in. The managers at each end should have been spanked but probably got a wage rise.
When you’re a cleaner and you don’t empty out someone’s paper bin you get spoken to. But expensive confusing systems designers and users can get away with their faults. Cleaning bins is something simple and obvious that anybody can understand. And the blame lies here?
Insys….who got sacked from within NZ police over that ?
KR has spent 4 years integrating 2 very expensive off the shelf products and still not live.
Ah the consultants spell you are feeling very very satisfied, just sign off this bill, everything will be all right, we have the connections, the kids, the schtick and mates in all the right places.
tc 10 2 1 1 On Incis –
Here’s interesting stuff about one of the police guys from wikipedia.
Barry Matthews (born 1946)…. He has a Masters Degree in Business Administration, Law Professional examinations, a Bachelor of Laws Degree and a Diploma of Criminology.[1]
Matthews was in the New Zealand Police from 1965 to 1999. He was District Commander, Auckland Services District from 1992 to 1993, then Assistant Commissioner Planning and Finance, Police National Headquarters from 1993 to 1995.[1] In 1995 he became the Deputy Commissioner of Police. He was the project manager of the INCIS computer system when it was abandoned in 1999.[2] Four years later he left to take up appointment as Commissioner of the Western Australia Police.[1]
Department of Corrections
Matthews replaced Mark G. Byers as chief executive of the New Zealand Department of Corrections in February 2005. He served in the role until December 2010 when he resigned and was replaced by Ray Smith.
On his resignation, he listed the installation of cell phone blocking technology at prisons throughout the country as one of his three greatest achievements as head of the Department. The system was budgeted to cost $6 million and another $200,000 a year to maintain. But in the two years it has been operating, repairs and upgrades have blown the budget to nearly $11 million. An investigation by the Dominion Post newspaper found it will cost another $2 million just “to fully jam Rimutaka”
So a pretty comfortable fast moving life from one well paid job to another. And technology has used up a lot of our country’s capital for a non-cost benefit finish. And it’s not his fault he is Midas’ poor brother who turns everything to dross.
Two other people who were involved – Police Commissioner Peter Doone and IT manager Jeffrey Soar. Police Commissioner took a sideways promotion and worked within Helen Clark’s Prime Minister;s Department if my memory serves me.
For a really good view of how to install a computer system that’s only going to cost X you will only have to wait a while until the new Inland Revenue one gets going,
X is bound to blow out big time to XXX, should be a jolly little laugh to watch,(something to take our minds of child poverty reports)…
I remember there was a book written about early days in Labour in NZ called I think
‘Keep left – no right turn’. If anyone knows of this, even the right title or author, it would be a help. It was written by someone well known in NZ.
Thanks PB
I thought this one was written in the 1950-70s and is possibly out of print. But it’s just a nagging memory which I can’t pin down. Will read Chris Trotter though and another on I must is Tony Simpson’s The Sugarbag Years.
Its quite rare to get literature among’st our recent crop of “creative writing course grads” that reflects our social and political history. I have read Trotter and Simpsons nonfiction tomes, but to make a personal impact I reckon fiction like Maurice Gees Plumb trilogy is far more powerful. As is Lee’s autobiographicals (Children of the Poor, Simple on a Soap Box), or Mulgans portrayal of depression NZ in Man Alone. Makes it more visceral. Only Duff has got that raw in recent years.
I often wonder how many of our recent politicians ever read these works?
Remember, when asked about his reading material during the 08 campaign John key said (with that goofy grin that was wider than it is now days) “Aw, I don’t know. I just read the odd John Grisham (sp?) at Christmas time”………..Not a reader then………..he probably doesn’t get much further than reading menu’s.
One book he should read is “The Night Book” by Charlotte Grimshaw. The joke is on him! Well, he’s not the main character but he is central to the story, as is his house in Parnell, his lifestyle and the characters (both real and imagined) and fundraisers behind the 08 campaign. It is a fiction book and Grimshaw has simply given the political characters in the story fictional names but its clear who they are. It ‘s not written as a comment on the political situation in NZ at that time, it is a story about the main character. Non the less, Grimshaws observations of Key and the National party machine are spot on. Quite funny too.
Rosie 11 1 1 1 1
and Bored
Did you read the trilogy of John Mortimer on the political progress of a working class boy to conservative wheeler and dealer, Leslie Titmuss? Paradise Postponed, etc.
For a days read there is “The Denial of Democracy” by Robin Gwynn
Love to see this updated to cover the last 12 years. As the decline appears to have quickened.
Herodotus
I hadn’t heard of The Denial of Democracy 1998. Not available on Trademe and hasn’t been for some time. google advises about his Massey lecture – A valedictory lecture by a departing history professor, by Robin Gwynn. Christchurch City Libraries list the book as being at Store2. As it’s some years old now that might be what other libraries call the Stack.
I thought the David Cuncliffe interview on Sunday’s Nation was excellent and indicated a move towards Scandinavian Social Democracy. for the Labour Party. This should be compulsory viewing for all the political Left
The secret diary of David Shearer – for the real story of the roof painting beneficiary and a good laugh!
A teaser:
…I’d waited till it was dark, went to his house, crept up the ladder, tipped him out of his wheelchair, and gave him the bash. By the time I finished with him he was lying in a bloody, coughing heap, legless.
But there he was today, sitting in his wheelchair, painting his roof as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
The neighbour came out to the letterbox.
“Would you look at that,” he said, and spat at the ground.
I said, “I still don’t know how he manages to get up the ladder in his wheelchair.”
He said, “No, not him. Him.” He pointed at a man walking along the street.
I said, “Is he a sickness beneficiary, too?” He said, “Probably. The point is that he’s a Maori youth. What are you going to do about it?”
On the same European tour that saw her impressed by the Finnish education system, Diane Ravitch went to an international education conference in Germany.
She wrote that researchers from Europe, Asia and Latin America were alarmed by the education “reform” movement in the US, and were “fearful that the same trends — the same overemphasis of standardized testing, the same push for privatization and markets, and the same pressure to lower standards for entry into teaching — might come to their own countries”.
While National MPs and business lobby groups may ardently believe that a few higher standard highways are worth $12 billion (75% of the spending on new infrastructure over the next decade), the international evidence from transport planning suggests that new motorways are the least effective way (PDF) to achieve the critical aim of moving more people and freight at lower cost. There are steeply diminishing returns from duplicating or replacing an existing link in a road network.
But when has NACT ever considered facts when considering policy that they want to put in place?
the complete book on keys modus operandi is contained in a nifty thesis set out by Anne Wilson Shaeff in ” When Society Becomes An Addict”, where all the tricks used to isolate and trash people are exposed.
q.e.d.
I’m just watching The Walrus Everyman Sainsbury joshing with Mr Once Again In Cabinet Heatley about healthy houses.
For Christ’s Sake ! What have we come to ?
Now Walrus is saying “sorry gotta go, run out of time blah blah blah”.
And him and Heatley and the well remunerated lady guest (not Rebstock Thank Christ) are all chortling on about Heatley having the Prime Minister’s ear.
What’s the PM doing with the other ear ?
Getting the feed from Wall Street/City of London I guess.
Seems the SST has now infiltrated TVNZ and is influencing the editorial slant of the news .
Wendy advised us tonight “…we have exclusive footage of Dixon’s last moments alive in his prison cell.” I suppose TVNZ, at least, gave us warning of what was to follow so we could switch channels.
Welcome to Redneck NZ folks – the closest thing to those halcyon days of watching public humiliation and executions.
(oh and why would you ask McVicar’s views on the marriage equality bill?
Israel court rules that Rachel Corrie was accidentally killed by Israeli Army bulldozer.
Apparently it was her fault for being in a terrorist zone. Perhaps she should have been at home cooking some “damn eggs woman”.
William Joyce 22
I didn’t realise that Rachel Corrie was wearing a high visibility red jacket very obvious in daylight. And she had been standing away from the bulldozer’s path so her presence was visible to the driver and she had a loudspeaker, which presumably was operating properly. I understand that the bulldozer paused when she was in front, but the driver was under orders no doubt, and moved forward and ran her over.
I think Israel lost its soul some time ago after getting to its land, after its trauma, its terrible distress. The military have taken over since and those who want a real democracy are small voices, but the large voice large voice is in the fertile religious fundamentalist group whose cause I think aligns with those of the military. Poor Israel, never free, never honestly willing to negotiate a peace with their neighbours, in a prison of their own making.
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
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A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
Leftists around the world have been attacking the Arab spring and the overthrow of bloodthirsty dictators by the Arab peoples of the Middle East.
To justify their support for butchers and torturers they have engaged in personal attacks slander and character assassination. But their main line of attack is to try and characterise the people’s revolts in the Middle East, as a “US and Western backed invasion”.
It is well documented that during the cold war the US on a number of occasions on three continents supplied forces they supported, with the the ‘Stinger’ the highly effective shoulder launched anti-aircraft weapon. Ronald Reagan for instance supplied them to anti-communist Unita rebels in Angola.
However, the first and best documented occasion was the war in Afghanistan.
From Wikipedia:
Faster than any military jet with a speed of mach 5, heat seeking stinger missiles that zero in on jet and helicopter exhausts would clear the skies of Syria.
The battlefield leveling effect of the stinger was the main reason for the investment in expensive counter measures like the stealth fighters and bombers.
To back their claims that the US is behind the rebels, supporters of the Bashar Assad regime claim against all evidence, that the US through Turkey has also supplied the Free Syrian Army with stingers.
http://www.scoopit.co.nz/story.php?title=syrian-opposition-gets-first-stingers
If the above report carried by Scoop.co.nz wasn’t a lie, Then – As in the war against the Soviets in Aghanistan Western supplied ‘Stingers’ would be a game changer, allowing the rebels to shoot down jets and helicopters turning the tide of the war.
It is only the regime’s air superiority that has kept their forces in the field allowing them to massacre at will even in the liberated areas.
Quite possibly, just knowing that these very effective shoulder fired anti- aircraft weapons were in the hands of the rebels could ground the Syrian regime’s airforce.
With the removal of air superiority the war would be over and the suffering of the Syrian people would be alleviated.
Unfortunately this story carried on a major left website was a complete fabrication.
Not a single Stinger has been delivered to the rebels leaving the civilian population vulnerable to merciless bombardment from the air and the rebels powerless to defend them.
“civilian population vulnerable to merciless bombardment from the air and the rebels powerless to defend them”
If only you understood how damaging your well intentioned, yet badly directed energy is for those you purport to be “defending”!
Agree muzza. Dogma over reality.
Here is the Dogma:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1208/S00052/anglo-american-1957-plan-to-assassinate-the-syrian-president.htm
Here is the reality:
Assad regime hits back with merciless bombardments
Hi Jenny,
Hey, I’ve got to say your comments often leave me feeling baffled and I usually don’t respond. However your sense of outrage on Open Mike on Saturday regarding Anders Breivik being deemed not psychologically unwell was quite upsetting as you automatically assumed that monsters like him must be mentally unwell, therefore demonising all people who are suffering from mental illness. I don’t know if you read my responses. I hope you did because its important you learn about the reality of mental illness (in a clinical and social sense) Vs violent criminal activity.
Now you are saying that lefties ‘have been attacking the Arab Spring and the overthrow of dictators………’ Are you familiar with the Occupy movement? The Arab Spring was the entire inspriration for the movement. It was the courage of the Arab people to stand up to dictators that encouraged people in NY and later all around the world to stand up against our western capitalist system, albeit different from systems in the East but damaging non the less. As the movement progressed the people of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt stood with the Occupy movement and gave talks about reclaiming democracy. There was a strong sense of solidarity between the Arab community and the entire Occupy Movement.
Thats just one example but even so, how can you say Leftists would attack freedom form oppression when thats an aim that is close to many lefties hearts?
+1 You’ll note that Jenny won’t be able to supply any references to back up her grossly incorrect generalizations regarding leftists attacking the Arab spring. She/he is also likely wrong about the Syrian rebels having ground to air missiles.
Correct on both points.
Actually, from recollection of my uni foreign policy papers, the issue with the stingers was that it was a tacit admission of direct and strong US support against the soviets (stingers at the time being state of the art restricted weapons), a decision that went to Reagan. The stinger decision was basically a statement of “our wallet vs yours”.
According to a Reuters report carried by Stuff.co.nz, the helicopter was brought down after hovering above the city for over an hour.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/7559188/Syrian-helicopter-shot-down-in-Damascus
Helicopters being relatively slow moving and flying at low altitudes are vulnerable to sustained small arms fire, and can be brought down if a bullet strikes a vulnerable spot.
Which is probably what happened here.
There has been more than just one helicopter shot down Jenny, and multiple reports of the Syrian rebels having surface to air missiles. As far as I can tell, there’s no reason for them to lie about such a thing?
According to news reports sryrian rebels have adapted a long range artillary gun into an anti aircraft gun.
There has been more than just one helicopter shot down Jenny, and multiple reports of the Syrian rebels having surface to air missiles.
Jackal
I call you on this bullshit, Jackal. How about some evidence? Do you have any, or do you just make this stuff up out of spite.
Out of spite? Don’t be silly! Try using google search Jenny… And while you’re at it give us an example of “Leftists around the world attacking the Arab spring” if you can?
Hi Rosie, I notice that you didn’t include Syria in your list of countries involved in the Arab Spring. Would you like to explain why?
Lordy Jenny, this is really getting out of hand.
You ask why Syria wasn’t included in my list of countries involved in the Arab spring.
Ok. I was talking about the Occupy movement and their solidarity with the Arab communitites inside America and in the middle east. I wasn’t talking about Syria as such. I was going by memory of the talks I listened to, live online and I remember speakers respresenting Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. My memory is going back to September, October 2011. Given that the civil uprising in Syria gained steam around mid March 2011 it is quite possible that there were Syrian people represented at the Occupy camp and actions. Amazingly, I can’t remember every detail from that time. I wasn’t watching the livestream 24 – 7 either. I was trying to illustrate to you that the Left is about freedom from oppression, using the Occupy movement as one recent example of left solidarity with the Arab spring. And I certianly don’t want a fight with you.
However you are welcome to trawl through archive footage here if you want to find out if Occupy stood alongside Syria.
http://occupywallst.org/
“Lordy Jenny, this is really getting out of hand.”
You can say that again.
Hi Rosie, I think we may be talking at cross purposes here.
I see that you agree that the occupy movement is modeled on the Arab Spring. Which is the case.
From this I take it that you agree that the Arab spring was one of the greatest popular democratic social movements in history.
But do you agree that the Syrian people’s initially peaceful protests were an extension of the Arab Spring?
Do you know that the protesters initial demands were for democratic reforms not for the overthrow of the regime?
Do you agree that Bashar Assad cognisant at what had happened to the dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya decided very early on to try and drown this movement in blood?
Do you agree that to defend themselves against mass detention and torture and mass murder that the Syrian people had no choice but to rise up and attempt to overthrow the dictator?
Rosie, imagine if you can, that instead of just arresting and fining the Occupy protesters, the New Zealand government had ordered the police and the army to shoot them down. Detaining and torturing and murdering the families of soldiers and police who refused to carry out these orders and instead deserted.
Who would you support? The protesters and the deserters or the government?
When people are being killed there is no middle ground.
Bit difficult to understand exactly what you are saying through your discussion of stingers. Are you saying that the US is right to interfere in all of those middle east countries? That the US invasions and incursions are justified? That the British, Italian and Frenh invasions are justified?
That the US is justified in killing more people every year than any other nation, but that others are bloodthirsty?
Hi vto. What I am saying is that Western leftists who support Bashar Assad are not above lying to back up their treacherous depiction of the people’s revolt in Syria as a Western/US backed “invasion”.
The success of the rebels in Syria would only begin a new round of “suffering” for the Syrian people.
“Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
One’s right and one’s wrong
Which side are you on?
Blogger dies calling for world wide protests against the regime
Blogger Rami al-Saidr pays the ultimate price for Freedom
http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/bloggers-lament-the-ultimate-sacrifice-for-freedom/
Rami al-Said was reporting from the Syrian city of Homs – which as most of us know by now – is being pounded to rubble by a mad dictator’s army. Rami al-Said refused to leave, and instead chose to report on the genocide that was taking place.
One of Rami al-Said’s last posts on his Facebook page stated,
Civilian correspondents with no diplomatic immunity, armed with nothing more than cameras are bravely trying to document what is happening in Syria.
While the UN observers with State of the art body armour and diplomatic status, with access to the authorities and entitled to carry arms for personal protection, ans presumably, with far more freedom of movement than any civilian correspondent, have left Syria. Leaving the regime to it’s own devices.
So much for Western support for the rebels.
Immediately after the UN and our New Zealand troops departure, the regime began staging a nazi style pogrom in Damascus. Conducting house to house raids, dragging men and boys out of their homes and executing them in the street.
http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-army-batters-parts-damascus-40-killed-115056556.html
In tactics reminiscent of the Nazi assault on the Warsaw ghetto, columns of soldiers hiding behind tanks entered Damascus suburbs raiding houses and summarily executing those they capture.
If the the UN observers had remained they could demand the right to investigate this war crime, instead, they have high tailed it.
Unconfirmed reports claim a prominent Syrian journalist Mohamad Saeed al Odeh who had expressed sympathy for the anti-Assad revolt has been executed in the round up.
Journalists are a particular threat to the regime because they expose the false narrative that the revolt is Western and/or Al Qaida plot.
A Reuters report directly links the latest attacks to the exit of the UN observer mission.
While the UN observers and our troops, have scuttled off…..
Civilian correspondents with no diplomatic immunity, armed with nothing more than cameras, have remained, to bravely document what is happening in Syria.
Before they left the United Nations had estimated that;
If apologists for the Assad regime like Colonial Viper had their way this latest massacre would be carried out right across Syria and not just the small area that Assad controls at present.
From a country listed as the most dangerous place on earth for reporters, with more than 13 reporters killed by the regime.
More reports from indominatable Kiwi reporter Anita McNaught risking her life inside Syria.
http://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/aleppo-rebels-retreat-from-the-bigger-bombs-dropped-by-jets/
Well away from the extra judicial killings and torture and mass murder and detention that characterise this regime, Assad apologist Colonial Viper attacks McNaught.
In making excuses for torturers and mass murder Colonial Viper, goes to great lengths to discredit Anita McNaught’s reporting of events. Trying to throw mud on her reputation, Colonial Viper ganging up with another Assad apologist Bad 12 suggests that McNaught could have remotely set off a bomb to make it appear that she was in danger.
Indulging in character assassination, Colonial Viper also suggests that McNaught has surrendered her journalistic integrity to her employers.
Who do you believe the people of Syria as interviewed by Anita McNaught or the dictator of Syria and his Western apologists like Colonial Viper?
Who do you believe an aggressive foul mouthed anonymous nobody with no experience of Syria or the Middle East, or Anita McNaught risking her life to uncover the truth?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7558720/Chinese-fugitive-could-be-stripped-of-NZ-citizenship
http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/60-Minutes-Citizen-Yan/tabid/59/articleID/7772/Default.aspx
(Said in the voice of Desi Arnaz) “Shaney you got some ‘splaining to do!”
Today the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group (EAG) report will be released, apparently. In anticipation of this Tim Watkin and Bomber have posts on the poverty issue:
http://www.tumeke.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/the-death-of-nz-egalitarianism.html
This indicates the scale of the problem and the raft of changes that need to be made to provide any significant improvement for NZ’s children.
Watkin offers some possible actions that he guesses might be in the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group report.
http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/solutions-to-child-poverty-easy-as-123#comments
I think the first (rental property WOFs) would be hardest to implement. But this and the other two would go some way to alleviating the immediate dire situation. The UCB would have the longest, most far reaching impact, followed by the meals at school.
But, until the vast levels of inequality are reduced,Watkin’s steps will just be a life raft, not a sustainable destination.
Can I put that comment up as a guest post?
Yes, you can, Anthony. Thanks.
No – thank you…
http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.co.nz/
Maybe not for everyone at a political blog, a book review from Giovani Tiso:
…
Hell, I’m a bit of a Pat Barker and a Maurice Gee groupie. Will definitely read the book when it reaches the library!
.
Thank-you. That interests me, js, although I am more interested in realism in screen fiction, and global-local dynamics. I see the author of the review is also more interested in digital media than in print fiction.
As a slight tangent, I think Southland,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southland_%28TV_series%29#Critical_reception
currently showing on TV One quite late at night.
http://tvnz.co.nz/southland/index-group-4557769
It’s an interesting attempt at gritty TV realism, in the crime genre. It got some pretty good critical reviews, but has struggled to get new seasons in the US primetime TV culture of glossy entertainment.
FICTION Literary Theory: YAWN
Is anyone else having trouble getting TS to load? Could be my crappy broadband but I’m not having trouble with other websites.
I’ve had spotty problems, often in the evenings, for the last week or so.
Try clearasil
It is back on cloudflare (now that the moving is finished). Seems to be alternating between loading from sydney and from somewhere near wichita kansas.
But I’m not getting any particular* problems on any of my linux systems using Chrome and firefox, on my ipad using chrome and safari, on my laptop reluctantly booted into vista using IE8, safari, firefox and chrome, and sneaking a peek on Lyn’s mac laptop for safari.
Try clearing the cache (fastest way for any page is to hold the Shift key down while pressing Refresh http://lifehacker.com/5574852/shift%252Brefresh-is-like-the-restart-button-for-web-sites) first because you may have some of the junk CSS/javascript cached from when the site was having problems.
* The one intermittent problem I am getting has been with the page loading “stopping” before displaying the Comments/Opinions/Online sidebar on the odd occasion. So the page is present except for the sidebar, but the page displays as if it is still loading. On chrome it shows on the bottom left that ones of the ad servers isn’t responding. I’m going to reorder the loading so that our site content comes first or set the ad code so it is async..
“Seems to be alternating between loading from sydney and from somewhere near wichita kansas. “
Does that make you the Wichita lineman? 😀
Nope. Why would I want Glen Campbell droning on about my love life?
Have you tried sternly telling the server that it’s not in Kansas anymore?
Yes. It’s reply was that the cloud IS Oz and that tracking it was tantamount to trying to kill it with collapsing it into Kansas when it could have been on bondi beach (ie Schroedinger’s cat).
Does that make you the Man Behind the Curtain?
Thanks Lynn. I’ve switched from Firefox to Safari and that seems better.
I have had other slow loading webpages today, although there does seem to be something particular about TS.
hmm, for some reason my posts are going into moderation.
Anyway, just found out that command +shift +R in Safari doesn’t refresh, but on TS it opens a slide up window with a very nice text only version of the post for that page (no comments or headers or sidebars) and the option to increase/decrease text size, or email or print the post. Cool.
That appears to be specific to WordPress (so far, doesn’t work on blogger, or general websites)
It’s great that Richard Long has buggered off from the Opinion peice in the Dominion Post for the time being. Deborah Russell, in his place, has written another interesting peice. This time regarding abortion law in NZ:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/7557998/Abortion-a-womans-moral-choice-not-a-crime
I’m glad to see Deborah writing in the DomPost too. However this made me cringe:
Not sure what she means by educated there, but the implication is that you need some kind of academic education to be able to think and make moral decisions. Which is a ridiculous notion.
Nice summary Weka, education and wisdom are disparate bedfellows.
You’re right Weka that intelligence and brains are two different things. They overlap a great deal of course but so often they get confused. Methinks the confusion arises more often with those with intelligence as they find their logic and thinking processes so convincing to themselves, and they are clearly more intelligent than others, that they must be right. They cannot understand how someone with less intelligence could have a different and possibly superior conclusion.
Those with mere brains often do themselves the opposite injustice whereby they will think through something and then doubt their conclusion due to their acknowledged lack of intelligence, and then fail to follow through with their concluded necessary action. A real shame.
On the other hand however, academic training of certain types without doubt assists in evaluating situations and providing ways in which to think through things and come up with answers. There is definitely a pratice of evaluation and consideration that imo assists with decisions.
Taxpayer funded (!), this is potentially the most dangerous thing Key could change in NZ …. and the Monsantos of the world will be covered under the secrets of TPP .. BEWARE please, this has the worst possible consequences for us all … GMO agricultural conference upcoming …
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10829898
Why hold it at all unless you were intent upon changing GMO status in this protected little land ?? And I bet in conjunction with it, they choose to release the secret study on what it supposedly costs NZ not to be growing GMO crops …
Guvmint by Crosby Textor …. oh dear, oh dear. What is become of us ?
Yes be very afraid of what Monsanto etc are up to here, they’ve got form already in the US.
Shows how Shonkey etc don’t give a F about anything other than their own bank accounts, to spanner our argriculture by allowing the likes of Monsanto to GM the industry and not allow us to have that ‘clean green’ point of difference with some genetic diversity, which the world would pay for, shows just how hollow that ‘Brighter future’ slogan was.
yeshe 7 and Rosie 8
More on government action that affects our precious and highly celebrated (by government particularly) food production capacity and earnings. I have been looking into Federated Farmers recently and one of their reports in the arable section which brings up a biosecurity risk. It says that the government has lowered standards for importing grains which the Fed Farmers would have vetoed if they had been given a look-in. There are certain weeds that must be kept out because of other more scrupulous countries firm decision to exclude them.
We have been overtaken by a jelly like consistency that plays with possibilities of damage on an acceptable risk basis. Our standard of living is being gambled with by these money-mercenary creeps. http://www.fedfarm.org.nz/n3228.html
Prism. yes, its curious that we’ve been lowering our biosecurity standards in a time of increasing threat from evolving organisms and globe trotting organisms. The PSA virus in kiwifruit was one example.
Will there come a time again when a farmer drives his/her tractor up the steps of parliament – but this time in protest against being exposed to biosecurity risks?
Rosie
Oh yes. Shane Ardern, what a funny guy. We will have to have a serious clean out of smug dickheads and ideologues before we get anything eminently appropriate.
That IS freaking frightening yeshe. Gone are the days of the vision of the 2020 organic nation. There was a movement back in the 90’s that correctly predicted world food shortages being upon us soon and the idea was not only for NZ to be completely self sufficient in food production for local consumption but to be a world class exporter of organically produced food, to countries eagar for clean GE free food. Perfect idea for an island nation like ours.
But like other great visions it died when it was trampled over by the influence of Agri business. Our path could have been so different. GE isn’t about feeding the poor, its about lining the pockets of multi nationals.
Rosie, frightening as it sounds it fits in as a central concepts of industrial agriculture, based upon petro chem energy and fertilisers, massive mechanisation, huge economies of scale…ownership of entire supply chains etc. The environment, in particular the ecosystemic biology comes a distant second to corporate dollars. Our nice cosy picture of the farmer on his plot is a distant memory.
Yes, sad but true Bored. Just the last two decades in NZ we have seen quite alarming increases in industrial dairying, (within the agri business sector) and the resulting harmful consequences for our environment, mainly our waterways. We have a population of 6 million dairy cows now and Fonterror want to more than triple that amount over the next few years. I don’t know how our islands, and our environment can sustain that level of mono culture. Once again, only one example of industrial farming. Cropping is another issue……
There has been a great public response in reclaiming ownership of food production in the form of community gardens, local produce markets, fair trading and if you have flash cash, artisan farmers markets. But these actions are a drop in the ocean compared to the actions of Fonterror, dow, monsanto and all their cronies. Our rights to life’s essentials bought and sold.
For anyone keen to know more about GMOs and nz biosecurity approach here is a FAQ link which might offer something new. http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/node/1479/related_faqs?page=2&expand=3396
And I was looking for the date when new tolerances for imported grain came in and it appears to be sometime in October 2011, reported in Fed Farmers periodical 1 November 2011 as being recent. It appears that it is hard to obtain historical information on this biosecurity government website which just updates the information as it changes. I didn;t see a notice about the change and details and reasons. Though they may have been there. This Federated Farmers comment shows the difficulties we are having in running the country’s agricultural policy with out-of-control policies and change agents, private or government- appointed bureaucrats.
Rosie above reading the Dom commented upon a better commentary than is provided by Richard Long…thank bejasus is all I can say.
For my sins I read the Listener last night (I used to subscribe but fired them when they became the voice of neo liberalism, courtesy of their owners, promoting lots of middle class angst stories to guide us all to the Right). Two stories stood out:
First the loathsome Pagani lady had a column in which (reading between the lines) she justified the Shearer position on welfare by stating the Left were not hard enough on those on welfare, and that it came with a “responsibility”. All I could hear (between the lines) was “kill the poor if it gets me middle class votes”..
Josie then went on to take a swipe at greater luminaries than her (Tariq Ali, Naomi Wolf etc) for their support of the Assange position (read to me like “he’s a rapist until proven otherwise, and the Empire is so benign he is not at risk”)…then a further swipe at the good folks of Whanganui for their opposition to the presence of the Beast…her argument on justice was very sound BUT she certainly did not connect with the local fears.
I was left with no illusions of the position of Labour under the influence of these neo lib apologists.
Then further reading…has Guyon Espiner had a Damascene moment? He interviewed Das, a Sydney based economist on the end of “growth”….appeared he was listening but was probably dumbstruck in the manner of a rabbit in the headlights…recommended reading for the benighted denizens of middle NZ, seismic shock material for the uninitiated. Let the middle classes worry, more angst.
Bored. You said it. Middle class angst sums up the Listener these days. I have read it occasionally over the last couple of years, just to give it a go and I often find myself having a “Are you serious?” moment.
Interesting what you say about the Pagani column. (and others) Just confirms it doesn’t it, as if we needed convincing that Labours stance is in the middle. It’s funny because Republican Presidential hopeful, Mittens Romney has this slogan “Romney – for a better middle class”. So now our once working persons party and architects of our welfare system really is no different to the American nutty right wing Republican party?
*Mittens: John Stewarts’ nick name for Mitt Romney. I like it.
Yes Rosie, Labour a la Pagani / Shearer is very middle class…if you flick through NZ House and Garden this month (another middle class keeping up with the Jones mag) you will find lovely pictures of David Shearer at home, very bourgeois in Point Chev.
The only upside is that he does not reside in a multi million dollar Parnell security complex with electric gates.
I suspect the article was very carefully placed by Labour (Pagani?)for maximum middle class impact, got to win the centre you know, and the lovely brown faces in Otara don’t read this mag……
‘Cos to spend $8.95 to buy and read that wannabee mag’ means that at least three of their kids are sent from the table tonight. “No dinner for yous guys sorry, unless you share with your brothers.”
“Don’t cry now……..being ‘aspirational’ will pay off in the end. And Mr Key/Shearer is coming to school tomorrow. Isn’t that exciting ?”
Then Key/Shearer (politicians) use those same kids for bastard photo ops. Key more relentlessly than any of them.
MSM wanks and I puke.
How far away is uprising ?
Rosie
Re the Listener. Is it surprising that Joanne Black their previous Features Editor with her own page on middle class angst, has gone to work for Bill English.
Joanne Black did my head in. She is on another planet. Planet Thordon I think.. No wonder she has gone to work for Bill English.. Lol.
There was a report on 9tonoon this morning about the Correspondence School’s woes with their new computer. It started to be worked on in 2009. This year the students have not been receiving their work, or the wrong work. It is not compatible with the old system and there is a lack of confidence that all the records have been transferred correctly. The children and their supervisors have waited for ten weeks for their initial work, so will have to try and make up that time if they are to succeed. The teachers have had to source from somewhere some material to keep them going. This is a great way to bring up our achievement standards in education.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon – Audio will go up soon.
09:20 Computer botch up at the Correspondence School
A computer botch up at the country’s biggest school – the Correspondence School – has seen its 24,000 students unable to receive school work for up to 10 weeks.
And this reliance on technology, the promise of it to be so quick, so reliable, so all-embracing.
So costly and bloody when it doesn’t work or does but intermittently and partially. We have poured money into computer systems in NZ. Remember the grand and expensive police INCIS, which fell over in the end because more and more requirements had been added onto the original specification.
We have the poorest people in the most difficult circumstances being dumped on by Housing NZ. Unable to get help direct face to face at some designated spot, but having to have a phone and pay more than a bus fare to keep it in credit and so have access. The service they get may be slow, or vague, and the credit can run out before they have got a reliable response. The trend is to faceless inhuman government. I don’t like it. Kafkaesque.
And the bad news about Australia’s treatment of us over there. An in depth piece talking to supporters and charity workers there, residents, and a NZ living there who is trying to fight this discrimination against us. Introduced in 2001.
Sunday, 26 August 2012: NZers in Oz – the trouble with jumping the ditch
Listen to this programme Insight for 26 August 2012 – New Zealanders in Australia
duration: 27′54″ Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/insight
The flow of New Zealanders moving to Australia is showing no sign of slowing down, with latest figures revealing a record equalling 54 thousand left in the last year.
But some New Zealanders claim they are being discriminated against as the list of federal and state payments they are excluded from grows.
Some would now like a visa introduced so that those planning to live in Australia understand the support on offer isn’t the same as that available at home.
Scottish education system better than Tory goves mess.
Scotland is keeping education out of the free market aproach.
with very good results .Guardian!
Hik town pariahna.Take note!
The usual problem is with people wanting to write bespoke systems from the ground up whilst letting feature creep into the system before the version 1.0 framework is running.
I’m of the general opinion that these days that for any net based system you just get an off the shelf-system (preferably open-source) written in a widespread language like php, python, or even ruby and put that in immediately.
Adapt the organisation to it and after that then look at smaller bespoke modules written by different organisations, contractors or even your staff for parts of the system that actually need adaptation.
If you can’t do that, then just use what someone else is doing. In this case grab the system that works used by a local university as it already exists.
Most of the problem with software and organisations is the common delusion that what they are doing is unique and requires special software. Virtually all of the time that is incorrect when you are looking at sourcing the software from anywhere in the world. Even where there isn’t something that is unique in the business process, it is usually such a small part of the system that they’d be better off putting in an off-the-shelf and getting the ‘unique’ bit written and integrated as a data source/sink. The past masters of this approach are banks who typically have amazing kludges of software accumulated over generations and whose only compatibility appears that they share a monitor.
But you can just about guarantee that they got sucked into having someone to write them a integrated system from ground up or had lots and lots of those “special” requirements that corporate bespoke provider coders like so much (it is like having your own bank when you get to maintain “special” code).
As a programmer, the process tends to be repetitive, as boring as hell and is why I try not to work for companies focused internally. I have been export focused since 1995 and I really don’t bother keeping track of local coding any more.
lprent
That’s interesting. There seems to be a lot of money available that isn’t spent wisely on tech.
And people who don’t know what they want, what they are getting, and whether the software firm has done its job. One job I heard of had a specific request for something that the software firm didn’t put in. The managers at each end should have been spanked but probably got a wage rise.
When you’re a cleaner and you don’t empty out someone’s paper bin you get spoken to. But expensive confusing systems designers and users can get away with their faults. Cleaning bins is something simple and obvious that anybody can understand. And the blame lies here?
Insys….who got sacked from within NZ police over that ?
KR has spent 4 years integrating 2 very expensive off the shelf products and still not live.
Ah the consultants spell you are feeling very very satisfied, just sign off this bill, everything will be all right, we have the connections, the kids, the schtick and mates in all the right places.
tc 10 2 1 1 On Incis –
Here’s interesting stuff about one of the police guys from wikipedia.
Barry Matthews (born 1946)…. He has a Masters Degree in Business Administration, Law Professional examinations, a Bachelor of Laws Degree and a Diploma of Criminology.[1]
Matthews was in the New Zealand Police from 1965 to 1999. He was District Commander, Auckland Services District from 1992 to 1993, then Assistant Commissioner Planning and Finance, Police National Headquarters from 1993 to 1995.[1] In 1995 he became the Deputy Commissioner of Police. He was the project manager of the INCIS computer system when it was abandoned in 1999.[2] Four years later he left to take up appointment as Commissioner of the Western Australia Police.[1]
Department of Corrections
Matthews replaced Mark G. Byers as chief executive of the New Zealand Department of Corrections in February 2005. He served in the role until December 2010 when he resigned and was replaced by Ray Smith.
On his resignation, he listed the installation of cell phone blocking technology at prisons throughout the country as one of his three greatest achievements as head of the Department. The system was budgeted to cost $6 million and another $200,000 a year to maintain. But in the two years it has been operating, repairs and upgrades have blown the budget to nearly $11 million. An investigation by the Dominion Post newspaper found it will cost another $2 million just “to fully jam Rimutaka”
So a pretty comfortable fast moving life from one well paid job to another. And technology has used up a lot of our country’s capital for a non-cost benefit finish. And it’s not his fault he is Midas’ poor brother who turns everything to dross.
More detailed information on the problems, the tech methods and Te Money in this link.
http://www.adventurer.org.nz/?page=writing/mis/1999-06-01_Incis.html
Two other people who were involved – Police Commissioner Peter Doone and IT manager Jeffrey Soar. Police Commissioner took a sideways promotion and worked within Helen Clark’s Prime Minister;s Department if my memory serves me.
For a really good view of how to install a computer system that’s only going to cost X you will only have to wait a while until the new Inland Revenue one gets going,
X is bound to blow out big time to XXX, should be a jolly little laugh to watch,(something to take our minds of child poverty reports)…
I remember there was a book written about early days in Labour in NZ called I think
‘Keep left – no right turn’. If anyone knows of this, even the right title or author, it would be a help. It was written by someone well known in NZ.
Could be “No Left Turn” by Chris Trotter?
Nicky Hager reviews it here:
http://www.nickyhager.info/no-left-turn-by-chris-trotter/
Thanks PB
I thought this one was written in the 1950-70s and is possibly out of print. But it’s just a nagging memory which I can’t pin down. Will read Chris Trotter though and another on I must is Tony Simpson’s The Sugarbag Years.
Its quite rare to get literature among’st our recent crop of “creative writing course grads” that reflects our social and political history. I have read Trotter and Simpsons nonfiction tomes, but to make a personal impact I reckon fiction like Maurice Gees Plumb trilogy is far more powerful. As is Lee’s autobiographicals (Children of the Poor, Simple on a Soap Box), or Mulgans portrayal of depression NZ in Man Alone. Makes it more visceral. Only Duff has got that raw in recent years.
I often wonder how many of our recent politicians ever read these works?
Remember, when asked about his reading material during the 08 campaign John key said (with that goofy grin that was wider than it is now days) “Aw, I don’t know. I just read the odd John Grisham (sp?) at Christmas time”………..Not a reader then………..he probably doesn’t get much further than reading menu’s.
One book he should read is “The Night Book” by Charlotte Grimshaw. The joke is on him! Well, he’s not the main character but he is central to the story, as is his house in Parnell, his lifestyle and the characters (both real and imagined) and fundraisers behind the 08 campaign. It is a fiction book and Grimshaw has simply given the political characters in the story fictional names but its clear who they are. It ‘s not written as a comment on the political situation in NZ at that time, it is a story about the main character. Non the less, Grimshaws observations of Key and the National party machine are spot on. Quite funny too.
Rosie 11 1 1 1 1
and Bored
Did you read the trilogy of John Mortimer on the political progress of a working class boy to conservative wheeler and dealer, Leslie Titmuss? Paradise Postponed, etc.
“Plumb” is a great novel (imo)
For a days read there is “The Denial of Democracy” by Robin Gwynn
Love to see this updated to cover the last 12 years. As the decline appears to have quickened.
Herodotus
I hadn’t heard of The Denial of Democracy 1998. Not available on Trademe and hasn’t been for some time. google advises about his Massey lecture – A valedictory lecture by a departing history professor, by Robin Gwynn. Christchurch City Libraries list the book as being at Store2. As it’s some years old now that might be what other libraries call the Stack.
He stood in 2010 local elections for Napier. They had 6 Councillors at Large of which he nearly was elected, also a number of wards. See http://www.elections2010.co.nz/2010/candidates/robin-gwynn Sounds like a man with integrity.
National’s economic mismanagement and favoring of the rich has seen some terrible social consequences: http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/shocking-unemployment-figures-revealed.html
I thought the David Cuncliffe interview on Sunday’s Nation was excellent and indicated a move towards Scandinavian Social Democracy. for the Labour Party. This should be compulsory viewing for all the political Left
http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/opinion/steve-braunias/7543036/The-Secret-Diary-of-David-Shearer
The secret diary of David Shearer – for the real story of the roof painting beneficiary and a good laugh!
A teaser:
Finnsih Lessons
This government is doing it all wrong.
What Greece’s motorways mean for NZ
But when has NACT ever considered facts when considering policy that they want to put in place?
In parliament today:
Metiria Turei asks Key what money he will make available for kids in poverty.
Key answers telling her it’s a “dopey idea” to pay money to children not in poverty. (??????)
Give that answer to a bunch of hard-out Ngapuhi ladies of my acquaintance up here in the North.
Just try it punk. Check out what you’d get.
It wouldn’t be “Usain”. It’d be “Ooooh…….pain.” They’d smack you in your punk mouth.
Suck it up New Zealand.
Key doesn’t give a fuck !
the complete book on keys modus operandi is contained in a nifty thesis set out by Anne Wilson Shaeff in ” When Society Becomes An Addict”, where all the tricks used to isolate and trash people are exposed.
q.e.d.
Addict/s?
SLAVES Slaves slaves sl
I’m just watching The Walrus Everyman Sainsbury joshing with Mr Once Again In Cabinet Heatley about healthy houses.
For Christ’s Sake ! What have we come to ?
Now Walrus is saying “sorry gotta go, run out of time blah blah blah”.
And him and Heatley and the well remunerated lady guest (not Rebstock Thank Christ) are all chortling on about Heatley having the Prime Minister’s ear.
What’s the PM doing with the other ear ?
Getting the feed from Wall Street/City of London I guess.
Seems the SST has now infiltrated TVNZ and is influencing the editorial slant of the news .
Wendy advised us tonight “…we have exclusive footage of Dixon’s last moments alive in his prison cell.” I suppose TVNZ, at least, gave us warning of what was to follow so we could switch channels.
Welcome to Redneck NZ folks – the closest thing to those halcyon days of watching public humiliation and executions.
(oh and why would you ask McVicar’s views on the marriage equality bill?
I take it that he opposes?
(The re-criminalization of homosexuality is a goal of the SST)
I now have in possesion of a list of hospital closures over the past 25 years, broken down by the period that each major party was in power.
It will be published on ‘The Standard’ shortly.
We shall then see the effect of tax cuts on public services.
Israel court rules that Rachel Corrie was accidentally killed by Israeli Army bulldozer.
Apparently it was her fault for being in a terrorist zone. Perhaps she should have been at home cooking some “damn eggs woman”.
William Joyce 22
I didn’t realise that Rachel Corrie was wearing a high visibility red jacket very obvious in daylight. And she had been standing away from the bulldozer’s path so her presence was visible to the driver and she had a loudspeaker, which presumably was operating properly. I understand that the bulldozer paused when she was in front, but the driver was under orders no doubt, and moved forward and ran her over.
I think Israel lost its soul some time ago after getting to its land, after its trauma, its terrible distress. The military have taken over since and those who want a real democracy are small voices, but the large voice large voice is in the fertile religious fundamentalist group whose cause I think aligns with those of the military. Poor Israel, never free, never honestly willing to negotiate a peace with their neighbours, in a prison of their own making.
A low carbon future for Southland is achievable and economically sensible.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/a-view-to-south-berl-report.html