Just been watching something about the Aus refugee camps in Nauru on Al Jazeera. It’ so depressing to hear as Australia and NZ having a special relationship when they are so fundamentally racist and abusive.
We should be applying more pressure. Sadly we seem to lack political will
Please tell us. What pressure do you really think we can apply to make Australia change its ways? Remember when you propose ideas that the Australian Government actions are supported by all the major political parties there and are popular with the Australian public.
Should we declare war on them? Expel all Australian-national residents in New Zealand? Seize all Australian owned property and businesses?
And if you choose to do any of those things what would you do if they retaliate?
No we should publicaly call out their actions on the world stage. Whether it makes a difference or not is irrelevant. We should stand for human rights for all.
But right wing scum like yourself probably don’t give a shit about human rights unless a buck can be made from it.
“But right wing scum like yourself probably don’t give a shit about human rights unless a buck can be made from it.”
You have no reason whatsoever to such a remark. But then evidence for something is never required in your dirty little world view is it?
A**hole.
“Calling out their actions on the world stage” isn’t going to apply any “pressure” at all to the Australian Government. Their actions are popular with their own population and they really don’t give a damn about what anyone else thinks of the matter.
It would be about as successful as simply saying what vile people Iranians are for all the executions they carry out and for wanting to build nuclear weapons.
It wasn’t those statements that had any effect. It was the sanctions that supplied the pressure. The only pressure we can apply to Australia would be something similar. There isn’t really anything effective we can do though is there?
Of course it is not.
What is a “dirty little world view” is accusing someone who asks how you hope to achieve your aim, ie “to apply pressure on Australia” how you expect to achieve.
Your second paragraph abusing me is the crappy composition of an idiot.
How can you possibly think that my question makes me someone who is in favour of human rights abuses?
You want to “apply pressure”. What can you propose that might have any such effect?
I think we would have to ban all their MPs. Both the Government and the Opposition (at least most of them) are thoroughly in favour of the policy.
On the other hand I doubt it would really inconvenience them unless, just possibly, they were going to pass through Auckland on the way to the US.
“Go to Nauru and arrest them”. I’m not sure we would be able to. They probably have more military there than we could deliver to the island.
Would that be an act of war I wonder?
. I admire your disgust at the bastardry of the Australians and their gulags dotted around the pacific ocean and indian ocean. A truly objectionable Mr John Howard got these established.
He was extremely proud of his excruciating punishment of any people his redneck followers disliked.
However if New Zealand were to complain too loudly Australia would simply say go and fix up your own problems. You’ve got 40,000 homeless people living in shitty conditions and you don’ t do a damn thing about it.
The Kettle tries to avoid calling the pot black.
.
South Africa really cared about rugby – while whites only counted, it was their major winter sport, like here. Rugby is only minor 3rd winter sport in Oz, so forget it.
Not just rugby, all sport. Netball, league – the lot, and encourage other countries to do it. Aussies love all sport and the relationship NZ has with Aussie makes the context very different to South Africa. The real problem is that nobody’s got the guts. If they did it it’d work.
Tony Veitch (not the partner-bashing 3rd rate broadcaster) 2
“What we have undergone is a coup d’etat in slow motion, and we’ve lost. They’ve won.”
Chris Hedges, author of ‘Death of the Liberal Class,’ in a lecture delivered at the University of Toronto, November 4th, 2010.
Well, they [the corporates] may have won a battle or two, but the war is still raging. We, the activists are the front-line troops who will/must ultimately triumph. Literally, the survival of the human race is at stake.
But we need to ‘self-ask’: what am I doing to bring about a favourable conclusion in this epic fight?
The Day of Action is a protest, but also an affirmation of reclaiming democracy. We will highlight and celebrate the positive alternatives in communities in Aotearoa – through organics, permaculture, community gardens; local renewable energy, EVs, divestment from fossil fuels; campaigns for better public transport and cycling; UBI, community finance, time banking; refugee support groups; etc.
Chris Hedges is correct, particularly for the US situation. A corporate coup d’etat took over government for the people of the people, sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s.
A corporate coup d’etat took over government for the people of the people, sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s.
5th August 1981, to be precise.
On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who’d defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.
It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?
[…]
And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:
The AFL-CIO.
The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that’s just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers — they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.
Apart from supporting Reagan here, the AFL CIO have of course also been long time collaborators of the crony capitalists on the other side of the chamber.
Mr Rolleston said the cattle were downstream from the Havelock North Bores – what sort of pathetic excuse is that, for what shouldn’t be happening ever in NZ. He said its a huge job to get on top of for farmers and there will be lapses from time to time – does that mean he can find it comfortable to allow 4000 people to get sick and just get over it. because of the odd lapse. Disgraceful conduct from Fed. Farmers.
On easy ground such as one finds next to most bigger rivers , one man could easily put up 200mtrs of single wire electric fence in a day, two men with a tractor mounted post rammer could probably do close to a km. It’s not a big job ,it’s just some farmers are ignorant fools.
I’ve just commented below about the need to talk about regenerative practices. So fencing off waterways is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff response (still necessary, we need ambulances). Beyond that is riparian plantings. But even that is not regenerative if we are still overstocking, over fertilising etc. There is still excess nitrogen in that system, still too much soil degradation, too much compaction etc.
My point is that I think we need to get past this idea of we have to protect the waterways, esp now our drinking water is making us sick, and think about the whole system. Because fencing off the waterways so the e coli doesn’t get in the bore won’t stop the other problems and we will have another set of crises to manage next time, some of them much worse and harder to solve eg 20 years of campylobacter filtered through the ground (nicely fenced off) to the aquifer that will take 20 years to clear.
“what sort of pathetic excuse is that, for what shouldn’t be happening ever in NZ.”
Many farms in NZ have waterways which stock have access to. That’s normal and for 150 years that wasn’t the kind of problem we have now. Not saying it was no problem, just that what we are dealing with now is intensitification, overstocking and dairying, and it’s those modern things that create problems for town water supplies. I don’t think it’s realistic to think that all waterways in NZ will be fenced off from all stock at all times. Rather than expecting that, I’d like to see us moving towards regenerative land use, where farming practices increase the health of land, and that may or may not include stock with access to water.
I agree with you that Rolleston’s response was disgraceful, and it had all the hallmarks of PR spin. Rachel Stewart has been pointing out that the pro-dairy people will use the word ‘cattle’ instead of ‘dairy cows’ as a way to obfuscate.
I do not agree with you Weka although you are of course entitled to your own opinion. Livestock should never be allowed to drink or wade in our waterways defecating and peeing in the water and polluting it. It is realistic to expect farmers to keep their stock within fencing parameters, if it had been legislated years ago then it would be just second nature to fit it into their budgets just like any other legislation that other companies have to adhere to. This is an animal sewage problem and should be contained and dealt with.
National have had a love affair with Federated Farmers for too long and needs to get tough with them but I fear intensification has become too much of a problem and the accompanying technology which should have been keeping up with it to manage it hasn’t eventuated to keep the sewage problem under control.
“Livestock should never be allowed to drink or wade in our waterways defecating and peeing in the water and polluting it”
Why?
Animals pee and poo in water all the time. Nature has ways of dealing with that. Animal waste in water is not inherently polluting. It becomes pollution when the number of animals exceeds the natural systems’ abilities to process that waste (which is dependent on things like river flow). That’s basic ecology and basic sustainable land management. There are additional problems with issues like deforestation and other processes that alter the functioning of the ecosystem. But animal pee and poo is not itself pathogenic or necessarily a problem. Not all animal waste is ‘sewerage’. It’s what the humans (farmers) are doing that is the problem. Humans create the sewerage or not.
All dairy farms should be fenced and have riparian strips as a basic minimum, because that kind of farming comes with high stocking rates and a lot of effluent. But in other situations eg large SI sheep and cattle stations, I think the bigger problems are from the foot traffic and from grazing out all the biodiversity along the water way, as well as the related problems from fertiliser use and general land management. The ratios of sheep poo to water flow are such that you don’t necessarily get ‘polluted’ water in all situations.
Are those waterways in pristine condition? No. But if all land in NZ that has stock on it was mandated to be fenced, we’d still have a lot of the problems that come with farming. I’d much rather see those resources go into supporting farms to shift to regenerative agrictulture with riparian planting and fencing where appropriate to the design of that particular land but without being fixated on fence everything regardless.
What I’m arguing here is approach. If we reduce it down to all animal shit is bad and all waterways must be fenced, I think we are going to created a different set of problems and avoid dealing with some of the more urgent ones.
The fear that many farmers have around river fencing in the sheep and beef sector is that they are going to be forced to fence water off in places that are hugely expensive that will require a lot of up keep and or mean fencing out large chunks of productive land, this is why i believe they are being so stubborn about it.
Stock would still need to cross the waterways when being moved right? So there is the extra cost of gate systems presumably.
It’s a tricky one, especially for smaller rivers and streams. They really need riparian planting too, but it’s easy to see how much land would be lost. Probably the riparian planting needs to be productive somehow.
If your talking gate to get cattle trough a 1 or 2 wire electric it’s a $60 set up and an hour or so to build .
It’s going to be about having a policy that forces cattle to be excluded with out having some dipstick with a letter or two behind his name pissing everyone of with unworkable ideas.
(Unitary plan and developers doing as was expected and deciding not to even develop 10% of affordable houses and instead to use the more developer friendly unitary plan rules. With the SHA, only 26 out of 154 managed to complete some houses, but many made a killing out of the zoning changes. Great to see developers and land owners making money while delivering few houses, just as the government ordered (sarc.).
“A nation’s prosperity isn’t measured in exports and show and false fronts, it’s in the way people live and how much sun they get, and where the kids grow up and how the sanitation works.”
“40,000 families living in houses that should have been pulled down, living in rooms and flats, wherever they could find a roof over their heads, sometimes several families in one house. 40,000 families in 1935.”
Thanks so much Paul, appreciated. It’s an excellent glimpse of our history that is just as relevant today, as it was back then. Given what is happening today, we really have gone backwards, haven’t we? The struggle is still the same, nothing has changed except the dates.
Any noticeable difference between the RM and the media ones (eg CB)? Just wondering of the TV networks are moving away from polling as part of the shift to infotainment.
Bad times for the Nats. And maybe AG’s got some bad news coming about Saudi sheep and Mr McCully? Holding fire until Nat spin machine swings into action?
RM had originally stated on their web page that their Aug poll was due on the 19th. Then they changed the date on their web page to the 26th. It is still hasn’t materialised.
It may be something as simple as them prioritising contact centre resources to their more commercial polls this month.
“Well Roy Morgan only polls once a month, instead of every 2 weeks, as I’m sure you know … So that change by itself results in far fewer polls taking place.”
True. But that was already the case last year … and yet look at the comparison – 18 by late Aug 2015 / just 12 this year.
And (naturally enough) Polls are usually fewest in number during the first year after the election. This is the first time in quite a while that the “middle” year of the electoral cycle (2016) has had fewer polls (Jan-Aug) than the “first” year (2015) (as you can see … 12 compared to 18).
Colmar Brunton always release on a Sunday. The gap between each poll has always (well, for a very long time now) been 6 – 8 weeks (excepting the New Year/Summer Recess). It’s now an absolutely bloody astounding 12 weeks (to the day) since their last poll was released. All down, of course, to decisions made by One News.
There hasn’t been much significant, sustained movement in the polls (beyond the notorious bounciness of the Roy Morgan) since 2014. So one possible explanation is that news editors got bored of printing stories saying “National still has whopping majority, Labour+Greens still kind of neck-and-neck with National, Winston still probably going to make the final decision”.
Yeah, but Lab+Green and the Oppo Bloc are well up on their 36% (L+G) and 46% (Oppo) share at the Sep 2014 Election. And the Broad Right (Govt parties + Cons) are well down on their 53% share. (Luckily for National, a broad Nat-to-Lab swing has been largely disguised by the collapse of Colin Craig’s Conservatives).
So the polls haven’t been static. It’s possible to discern a broad swing to the Left (and the wider Opposition) through the middle of last year, then a swing back towards the Right over the Summer months and more recently a move back to the Left and NZF.
And that’s reflected in the National-to-Lab+Green aggregate comparisons.
National’s pollsters struggling to spin it in the Nats favour anymore?
I think the Nats are in trouble Swordfish, and they don’t want any bad publicity of opinion polling to show it.
I agree with your point that Trump is desperate for campaign donations.
Yes, I also agree that Trump is raising far less money than Clinton and is having to push the boundaries harder.
The real problem for Trump’s campaign financing is huge. Simply put, he cannot get the big donations from Wall St hedge funds, bankers and K street lobbyists that Clinton is able to solicit.
That means that Clinton has been able to outspend Trump in TV and other media ads by more than 3 to 1.
The million people who protested in Sana’a against the Saudi invasion were not even mentioned in MSM.
Surprise, surprise…..the BBC, Guardian and the rest are just mouthpieces of the neo-liberal globalist establishment.
It’s funny you say “hysteria”, a word with its roots in assumptions about women’s anatomy and intelligence, when the most notoriously obnoxious Bernie Sanders fans were dudes.
Clinton hasn’t beaten Trump yet. I expect she will – but the US system (voter suppression/Tuesday elections/electoral college etc) is such a clusterfuck I don’t think anyone should crow about it until the votes are counted (and the lawsuits are settled).
Centrist isn’t out of touch, and extra holidays are an extra cost to business. Perhaps we could replace Labour Day with it – society has given up on it anyway.
Primarily the socially progressive left leaning, top economic quintile (that is the top 20%) of NZers.
The bottom 50% of NZers who earn less than $30,000 p.a. are talked about by Labour, but they are never prioritised above the interests of higher earning groups.
Utter crap CV…… for your unhappy wherever you’re at in your deepest being CV…… a bunch of yuppies university degrees etc lucrative public service positions…….that’s the 20%s for Labour ? Stop it ! Stop it right now ! You’re acting like a troubled child shrieking all sorts of shit that no one takes seriously. Grief counseling maybe CV ? Grief about what I don’t know but fuck CV……!
Geeezus, talking about giving up on the principles of Labour Day, now you’re saying that we can’t afford to load business with any more labour costs like holidays???
I’ll tell you what, I think that we need to go to a four day working week, and that penalty rates need to be brought back.
What do you think about that for extra costs on business?
I fully agree. 4 day, 30 hour week, double time for more than either of those, triple time if both, and also triple time on public holidays, 6 weeks annual leave.
Anybody here disappointed with the National government’s anti Kiwi/worker legislation and National’s sycophantic supporters?
Lets face it, in National’s ideal draconian and feudal world, workers would be enslaved to serve it’s elites on no pay at all and there would be no public holidays to give workers break either.
No public holiday for New Zealand Land Wars
The Government has made it very clear: The Land Wars commemoration day will not be a public holiday.
A commemorative day was announced last week after pressure from local communities and a school-led petition asked for a day of recognition.
However, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English said some people have misunderstood what has been agreed.
“We’ve taken a view that there’s no need for a public holiday and in any case, there isn’t yet agreement about a date even just for a commemoration.”
The decision had come out of discussion with the Maori Party, and English was “pretty sure” it had approved by Cabinet. Yet, Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox called for a public holiday and believed it was “still up for debate”.
English also said any commemorations on the day should be locally-led.
“The Government provides some resource, but this has to be something that people want to own, not something that’s pushed on them,” English said.
“It’s up to the people who want to see a commemoration occur. There was a bit of a ceremony last week with the handover of one of the pa sites to Tainui where a significant battle occurred in the Waikato. There may be more of that. That’ll unfold as we go.”
Prime Minister John Key said no progress had been made yet on choosing a date: “We are saying it’s likely there might be agreement at some point that that commemoration date can be set, but it would be also subject, I think, to iwi agreeing.”
SWAP EXISTING HOLIDAYS FOR LAND WARS?
A current public holiday could possibly we swapped out, says Labour leader Andrew Little – suggesting provincial holidays could be scrapped in lieu of a national New Zealand Wars commemoration day.
“I don’t understand why we continue to celebrate provincial holidays when we haven’t had provincial government since 1863.”
He agreed the Queen’s Birthday holiday could be another option.
“There is a case to be made for an observance by way of a day off,” he said.
However, Peeni Henare, Labour MP for Tamaki Makaurau, didn’t think it should be made a holiday.
“It was made clear in the first consultation that happened a number of months ago that it would not be made a public holiday, but simply a day for commemoration,” Henare said.
“There are some costs involved, there are already a number of public holidays … I’m quite clear as the Chairperson of the Ruapekapeka Pa Trust that it shouldn’t be a holiday.”
Little supported the Government setting aside a day in principle: “We ought to be observing our own internal land wars in the way that we observe conflicts and casualties in other wars that we’ve participated in.”
Little also believed more needed to be taught at schools about the New Zealand wars.
“We shouldn’t be embarrassed by it, we should accept that it’s happened in the past, and we should learn from it and embrace what we have now, which is a set of legal arrangements that ensure that the Treaty of Waitangi is starting now to be observed – not only in the law but in the spirit.”
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said a public holiday during winter should be part of consideration by the Government.
Lovely day here in Auckland – Friday nights storms are over except that Vector have cut power for hot water here on parts of the North Shore. Seems to be the poorer parts too, again.
Now 36 hours and counting.
This has been a persistent problem for a decade – a bit of rough weather in the north or west and no hot water for a day or more. According to Vector’s fault-line it is due to an ‘architectural issue’ in the old United Networks system acquired by Vector in 2002.
In 2015 Vector paid 8 cents per share in dividends. Total share issue according to NZX is 995m shares.
So it looks like that is $80m in 2015 alone paid out as unearned income for shareholders? I wonder how much it might cost to fix that ‘architectural issue’?
Seems to me that all the 1990’s privatisation of these utilities was a scam, allowing some NZers (the ones well off enough to buy shares) to parasitise other NZers through high electricity charges and in this case poor service and reduced quality of life.
Cutting the hot water circuits is a quick and dirty way (ahem) of reducing load on power distribution components that are near to failing, until something can be done to patch the system up.
Over the next few years, as storm intensity increases, this ‘strategy of fragility’ is going to leave Auckland with bigger and bigger disruptions.
I’m pretty sure large parts of Auckland use pilot wire rather than ripple controlled hot water switching and in my experience restoring supply is paramount with pilot wires a secondary task.
So CV how was Labour responsible for that and how will your darling Drumpf fix that and do you promise ? Egg carried away with your bitterness and a plague on EVERYTHING accordingly. You didn’t used to be like this CV. What’s happened to you ?
And ended up Trump-eting. Like actually supporting the presently ascertainble greater evil. Don’t you understand how fucking ugly that is to people like me, and you CV. And you ! ???
AB, cutting power to hot water systems during bad weather has been going on for decades, if memory serves a sparky once told me some years back, it started in the 1950’s. I thought it was just a West Auckland thing too until he told me it occurs throughout Auckland. If you have the know how it’s an extremely simple and quick procedure to trip and bypass it in your fuse box and then you will never lose hot water again.
“privatisation of these utilities was a scam”.
Given that 75.1% of Vector is owned by the AECT, which is a trust owned by the people of Auckland and with a publicly elected board, it hardly seems that you can blame “Privatisation” for its failings. It wasn’t privatised, was it?
You might do a great deal better if it really was privatised. Thank God Vector sold the lines company here in Wellington. We don’t have anything like the problems that Auckland seems to.
Vector is still 75% owned by the AECT Trust. This Trust is governed by a democratically elected Board.
The AECT is scheduled to be returned to the Council in about 60 years.
Unless a government can be persuaded to accelerate that a whole lot faster.
That would give Auckland Council a fairly large money-printing machine.
Plus comprehensive control of all major utilities, like when we had coherent government.
The kind of people supporting Trump, and the kind of people Trump supports (refusing to denounce endorsements from the bedsheets and brown shirts types, appointing Breibart’s Bannon as campaign manager) :
This review of the film The Childhood of a Leader by Kim Newman is quite apposite:
The adult actors are all excellent, though required to be stooges for Sweet. It takes three parents, several servants, a world war, a corrupt church (Prescott yells “I don’t believe in praying any more” like a mantra) to shape this monster. The failures of these adults and their institutions create the vacuum that allows his eventual rise. This may be the story of the childhood of a leader, but we have to look at the grown-ups who fail to solve or resolve anything – from a dinner menu to an equitable peace – for a sketch of the mass abdication of responsibility that might make a great many people want to be led by a dangerous maniac. This is also the story of those who will be led.
Whoever it is it had better not be one of the “light rail” fanatics. Rather than just accept it is far to expensive for a town like Wellington a group of them have arbitrarily decided that it can be done for half the price. These are the highly qualified engineering consultants like Laidlaw and Kedgley.
Jo Coughlan seems by far the best.
And it had better not be one of the “let’s concrete everything in sight and dig up the basin reserve and put 4 lanes of motorway through to the airport with the $300 million proposed ratepayer subsidy” all of which makes light rail look like petty cash.
Not Jo Coughlan
Rubbish, Coughlan wants to spend $1 billion on roading, including duplicating the Vic and Terrace tunnels, and flyovers and whatever else. That is just crazy in a world that’s already hitting its limits and with fluctuating oil prices.
Laying rails and wires down Campbridge Terrace, Adelaide Rd, Constable St and to the airport will be a shitload cheaper and much less work. Not hard to see that.
It is what happens when I start editing something at 0300.
In this case there was a function I wanted to remove in the trash as part of internal security review. It was hooked into the AEC (Ajax Edit Comments) which hadn’t been updated in 3 years and which provided our re-edit and which had a pile of extra functions that we didn’t use any more. So I hunted for something that just did the re-edit function.
The guy who wrote the AEC originally had done one called Simple Comment Edit (SCE) which after I tested it, turned out to be much better for our needs.
It was on my list last night. But I wound up working on several other issues first.
Coffee and I will try to merge the code bases together again.
In the meantime while I wait for the coffee to take effect, I’m purging 36 thousand revisions of the authors posts that are no longer required. That should save some backup bandwidth.
hehe that makes me feel important , but i’m not involved in nor do i know anyone who is involved with the running of the standard , just a random commenter is who i am.
I was having a chat outside the supermarket in my town with a District Court judge and I advanced the lament that we don’t have any strong moral leadership in NZ anymore……judge obviously understood me and responded – “Well yes, I agree John Key’s a little bit ‘relaxed’ maybe, but……. ”
Like it’s fucking OK overall ? And on the following Monday morning District Court judge went back to dispensing, ahem, justice ??? Yes he did. But none of the subjects of this dispensed ‘justice’ were fucking relaxed……and neither was ‘Mother Justice’. Rich people way up there are always fucking ‘relaxed’. Cos’ they don’t get hit with the unrelaxing shit that ordinary people have to suffer. So I don’t listen to them anymore. District Court judge et al……they’re wanking !
To persuade themselves, their own insides, that they’re selflessly making a difference. No…..!
Yep. Couldn’t agree more. You remind me of an incident that happened years and years ago. I was up before a district court judge on a speeding charge. Before I was called several others were up on the same charge and she dished out $50 fines. I came up before her… never spoke a word (my court appointed lawyer did the talking) and she lumbered me with a $100 fine. There was an audible gasp around the room. I was the only woman up on charges and I have to assume she did it because I was a young – a hell of a lot younger than her.
If I’d had the courage and confidence experience has since taught me, I would have called her out for what she was… a nasty bitch.
Just watch the BBC interviewer’s prejudice in favour of the establishment.
Can you imagine Sakkur treating a spokeperson from the banks in the same condescending manner?
I thought that was good Paul, Keen put his case forward very well while been challenged all the way, that’s what you want and guess why they call it hard talk To be fair to this interviewer he is pretty tough on all his interviews and prepared which is refreshing
For the first time since the Cold War the German government is advising citizens to stockpile food and water for use in a national emergency.
Some opposition MPs said the new civil defence concept, to go before ministers on Wednesday, was scaremongering.
Citizens are advised to store enough food to last them 10 days, because initially a disaster might put national emergency services beyond reach.
Five days’ water – two litres (half a gallon) per person daily – is advised.
I lived in Germany for nearly 2 years. I was impressed – they generally do much less stupid than we do. They discussed economic matters seriously, and conquered inflation long before we did. They also prevented the ridiculous house price problem we have. They are far more heavily populated, and have done far more than we have to counter pollution. And kept a truly successful economy, despite taking on the burden of an impoverished East Germany 26 years ago.
Not a known earthquake zone, but … I would listen if I were there.
But here in NZ we need fear nothing in these Golden Times with our Rocket Economy.
And our PM can find another expert to contradict anyone who points out a threat like filthy waterways…
And Germany has introduced debt-free tertiary education.
Yep – they are way ahead of us.
I expect they will under their small government masters want to normalise classes being held in libraries, staff rooms, resource rooms, and storage sheds in the same way the current government has normalised poverty, homelessness, and crime. After all, according to John Key’s men, this is what happens in tough economic times.
I would really love to see someone in the media track the progress of these “230 new classrooms”, and “six new schools”.
there’s empty classrooms all over the country but hey what the fuck lets all pile into the big cities so we can enjoy all the pleasures of traffic jams and overcrowding.
Dirty fucking cop…….what’re all those (certainly looked like essentially tidy) young fullas gonna think next time…….you humiliated me last time areshole cop……here, feast on this. Whack ! You can see it a mile off. All because of one Rambo Little Dick Cock. That kid on the bike was more a man by a mile than that thick bully fuck cop.
This should be the subject of a criminal charge of assault laid against the doggish bully cop. Won’t happen of course. Assaults BY police are ten fold of assaults AGAINST police. And judges know it but ‘politically’ they close their ears and then they end up believing their own closed ears.
Paul Connet, head of the anti-fluoride propaganda group, Fluoride Action Network, claims that the IQ of children bottle-fed in fluoridated areas drops by 9 points. But he misrepresented the research. There is no observable effect. For earlier articles in this series see: Part 1: Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only ...
The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she ...
Back in February, the Marlborough District Council increased the mount it charges for LGOIMA requests. I used the LGOIMA to poke into this, and it seems the case for increased charges is unjustified: the supposed increase in request volumes it rests on is an artefact of the Council suddenly deciding ...
. . April 6: Day 12 of living in lock-down… Another day of a near-empty Park N Ride carpark; . . And another day of near-empty Wellington streets; . . . Light traffic on the motorway. No apparent increase in volume. Commercial vehicles sighted; a gravel-hauling truck; McAuley’s Transport; a ...
Imagination By-Pass: Had the Communications Minister, Kris Faafoi (above) taken a firm stand with Bauer, reminding them of their obligations to both their staff and the wider New Zealand public, then a much more favourable outcome may well have ensued. He should have made it clear to the Bauer board ...
We all know that Simon Bridges has, at the best of times, an intermittent relationship with the truth. However you would think that during a pandemic and economic crisis the current opposition leader would pull his head in and start to do the right thing.Obviously leading by example should be ...
Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action ...
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...
Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians)In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...
Maybe you’ve seen the graph that says those countries where everyone wears a mask are the ones that have managed to keep Covid-19 under control? The first thing to say about that claim is that those countries also did lots of other things, too – they acted fast, with intense ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggestsResearch into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...
The Treaty on Open Skies is one of the most effective mechanisms for preventing war curently in force. By letting countries make surveillance flights over each others' territory, it eliminates fears that they are secretly preparing for war. So naturally, the US is planning to withdraw from it: The Trump ...
. . April 5: Day eleven of living in lock-down… My one day of rest for the week, and an opportunity to mow my lawns – which I’d been delaying for about three weeks. (On the plus side, the damp micro-climate in my back yard yielded three lovely fresh mushrooms ...
As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...
The vast majority of tributes to the Listener hearken back to its glory days, with little reflection on the magazine as it was at its end.I wrote for it, for half the Listener’s life; I have known personally all the editors except the first (mythical) three. From 1978 to 2014 ...
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ...
. . April 4: Day 10 of living in lock-down… I wake up to a fine Saturday morning which normally would be like an early Christmas. But it’s Day 10 of Level 4 Lock Down. What will my fellow New Zealanders be doing on a day like this – staying ...
Some time during the night we went over the 850,000 views mark. We might have had our millionth view by the end of this year – certainly by early next year. Most of the people involved in Redline spent years and years producing various small left-wing papers and selling them ...
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...
One of the key voices in this extraordinary time in which we live is that of University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Philip Matthews did an an excellent job this weekend of capturing the way he became the man for this moment in a profile for The Press.But one ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...
Redline received this article from the KOE a Marxist party in Greece Our friends in the KOE describe here the mounting crisis in Greece and tensions on the Turkish border. As desperate people flee from their homelands which have been ruined after decades of imperialist wars and interventions the people ...
As the first week of Level Four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was (and was not) allowed under its “rules”. Partly these were driven by some apparently contradictory messagesfrom different authority figures and explanations carried in the media. Partly they reflected a somewhat sketchy legal basis ...
. . April 3: Day 9 of living in lock-down… Another late-start to my work day. Everything is temporarily upended as clients are shuffled around so we can minimise our “bubble” by reducing the number of people we help. One of my colleagues has been removed from his clients; his ...
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 2: Day eight of living in lock-down… Today, my work day starts late. Our rosters and clients have been dramatically changed, lessening (theoretically) the number of people in our work “bubble”. If just one of us catches covid19 the impact could be considerable as Grey Base Hospital ...
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin Don’t we all know that feeling now.
Prospect Magazine alerted me to this particularly apt quote. It is a much more evocative quote than Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly” which is also doing ...
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...
Brian Williamson1, Prof Nick Wilson2 (1Economic consultant, UK; 2University of Otago Wellington)In this blog, we outline how a win-win social contract could be forged to address the major dimensions of response to the COVID-19 pandemic when using a mitigation strategy: the particular need to protect older people from high ...
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...
No Free Society Without A Free And Functioning News Media: If we are to surrender our civil rights to the broader cause of defeating Covid-19, then foreign corporations must, likewise, surrender their right to inflict immense economic and cultural harm on New Zealanders simply because it improves their bottom line.I’M ...
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...
The swan politicians may be gliding on the water, occasionally snapping at one another. Meanwhile, as the Covid19 crisis illustrates, the officials are desperately paddling below providing the real locomotion. One of the most fatuous recent grandstanding comments (of about a week ago), adding to the public’s anxieties, was ...
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...
Today has felt surreal. I was all set to touch base online with my science communication students when a colleague shared the news that Bauer Media would be shutting down its publications immediately. The first link I saw implied it was Woman’s Weekly affected, and even that shocked me. But ...
Bogeymen, Real And Imagined: Is the number of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals in any given society truly as vanishingly small as we like to tell ourselves? Isn’t it more likely that the mass-shooters and serial-killers filling the headlines represent only the tip of a much, much larger iceberg of frightfulness? ...
Outgoing Police Commissioner Mike Bush appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee today, who asked him for the rules police are using to enforce the lockdown. He refused:Police Commissioner Mike Bush has admitted the advice given to Kiwis about what they're able to do during the lockdown hasn't been clear enough. ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of my cat, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a pretty flower. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 1: Day seven of living in lock-down… This morning I had a brief chat with one of my neighbours, “D” (social distance between us, a good three or four metres). I learned he had resigned from his previous job and had been hired by another company – ...
Funnily enough, my thought as I start this post is whether it will be well written enough. Or should that be well enough written? Because so much of what I know about good writing came from my two stints at The Listener, which this morning was shut down due to ...
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will enter into transit arrangements with a range of countries to make it easier for each other’s citizens to get home. “There are millions of people around the world stranded ...
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
More New Zealanders are taking up the chance to work in horticulture as the sector keeps New Zealanders fed and in jobs during the COVID-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown. “Our horticulture sector has long been one of New Zealand’s export star performers, contributing around $6 billion a year to our ...
The Provincial Development Unit is working through applications and projects to see where Provincial Growth Fund money can be repurposed for initiatives deemed more critical to fighting the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “We need to be throwing everything we have at ...
The Government’s wage subsidy to protect jobs and keep workers and businesses connected during the lockdown has now supported over a million New Zealanders, with $6.6 billion already paid out. “We’re supporting businesses to pay wages, and stay connected with their workers so that we are all in a better ...
The Government is stepping up efforts to help protect New Zealand’s Pacific communities in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet has agreed that $17 million will be allocated to support a COVID-19 Pacific Response Package, which will: Support Pacific health and disability services facing increased demand; Ramp up public health messaging ...
“Yesterday evening the Health Minister advised me of his trip to a beach during the lockdown and offered his resignation,” Jacinda Ardern said. “Under normal conditions I would sack the Minister of Health. What he did was wrong, and there are no excuses. “But right now, my priority is our ...
Last night as part of my preparation for the Epidemic Response Committee, I provided the Prime Minister with a complete picture of my activity outside my home during Alert Level 4. That included the fact that on the first weekend of the Alert Level 4 lockdown I drove my family ...
A range of support is being rolled out across New Zealand to help people look after their mental health during COVID-19 Health Minister David Clark said this morning. “COVID-19 has brought a lot of uncertainty into our lives and many of us will be feeling some level of distress or ...
The New Zealand Government has made arrangements to charter a flight for New Zealanders stranded in Peru to depart the country, following agreement with the Chilean government to allow the necessary transit through Chile, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. “Like many travellers around the world at the moment, ...
Hospital preparations for COVID-19 are well advanced says Health Minister David Clark. “Hospitals across New Zealand are repurposing buildings and training staff to get ready for COVID-19 patients. This gives me confidence that we are well prepared for any potential increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospital level care,” said David ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
The National Party leader intends to continue commuting between Tauranga and Wellington so he can do his job effectively in an unprecedented situation. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentPublic health strategy, exiting lockdown Thomas Manch (Stuff): A path out of lockdown is being charted, but experts say ...
US death toll catching Italy's fast; Johnson on oxygen in ICU, but not intubated; US threatens India, Canada over mask and drugs; Germany accuses America of 'piracy' as China, Russia send supplies to New YorkUS cases spiral: The United States leads the world in total cases, but not yet ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meead Saberi, Senior lecturer, UNSW Traffic jams may have disappeared from our roads as people stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we can be confident they will be back. Scientists have studied traffic and congestion for decades. We know a lot ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, University of Melbourne Almost no one thinks Indonesia is handling the COVID-19 pandemic well. Until early March, the government claimed it had no ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rod Lamberts, Deputy Director, Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University Good news: COVID-19 is not the only thing going on right now! Bad news: while we’ve all been deep in the corona-hole, the climate crisis has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Waters-Lynch, Lecturer Entrepreneurship and Innovation, RMIT University If you’re working from home for the first time, you might be asking yourself why you didn’t get to do this years ago. The benefits of remote work have been discussed for nearly half ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roslyn Petelin, Course coordinator, The University of Queensland When a literary luminary such as Thomas Kenneally declares so early in 2020 that he is certain a “more original” novel “will not be published this year”, the reviewer faces a challenge. The book ...
NZIER says confidence survey suggests 100 percent of businesses now have negative outlooks; 596 kiwi pilots laid off by Air NZ and Virgin; RBNZ confirms will buy $3b of council bondsGloomy outlook: The March quarter survey of business opinion from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) made for ...
Op-Ed by Armida Salsiah AlisjahbanaArmida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP. The unprecedented public health emergency triggered by the COVID -19 pandemic and its multi-faceted impact on people’s lives around the world is taking a heavy toll on Asia and the Pacific. ...
Kiwi Wealth’s Customer Services Manager Matt Beach zooms in from his home in Whitby to talk to Bernard Hickey about how his team worked remotely to answer questions from Kiwi Saver customers Matt Beach has been in tricky situations before, but reconfiguring Kiwi Wealth’s call centre to work remotely and ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Dire warnings about water levels, tentative good news on Covid-19 case numbers, and local government struggles for funding.The seriousness of this issue has largely gone unnoticed amid everything else, but if we don’t address it now things could get pretty ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
As new restrictions affecting people’s ability to work are put in place, there's a growing segment of workers we must ensure aren't left out in the cold, writes Victoria University of Wellington's Stephen Blumenfeld The Covid-19 outbreak and nationwide lockdown should not create an opening for employers to treat the ...
With shearing gangs mostly stood down under the level 4 lockdown, farmers face the prospect of having to shear their own sheep, reports Jill Herron. Shearers and wool-handlers across the country are “very keen” to get back to work once Covid 19 restrictions ease – and farmers will be pretty ...
As learning shifts online at pace, the key will be for educators will be to keep it simple, coordinated and normal, write Stephen Dobson and Edward Schofield of Victoria University of Wellington Things have moved quickly in the global scramble to move everything online. We are reminded of how it ...
In a bid to keep the netball community engaged and active in lockdown, Netball NZ are beaming a free fitness programme into Kiwi homes. In these strange and unsettling times, Laura Langman feels just a little funny having others inside her Sunshine Coast home.Just to make it clear, the Silver Ferns captain ...
As life in lockdown becomes our new normal, you may be asking how you can maintain your wellbeing and relationships under these conditions. Here are some tips based on psychological research that will help you cope, get in routine, and make the best of the lockdown experience. Tips to help ...
A surfer photographed raising his middle finger says it was clearly aimed at the photographer, not the police, and wants the online threats against him to stop, reports Bonnie Sumner. A west Auckland surfer says threats have been made against him and his family after the Stuff news site published ...
A new Wattie's cookbook has four recipes of things to make with all that flour and all those cans of Wattie's that you panic-bought.CURRIED LAMB SAUSAGE ROLLS Prep time: 20 minutes. Cook time: 20–25 minutes. 1 small onion, finely diced2 tsp Gregg’s Curry Powder400g lamb mince ...
There is a trade-off: how many lives will be taken by Covid-19 and how many lives will be lost due to our attempts to prevent loss of lives from Covid-19, writes Professor Ananish Chaudhuri of the University of Auckland In his book “Risk Savvy”, the behavioural scientist Gerg Gigerenzer notes that, ...
Like countless local events and businesses, the Vineyard Half in Blenheim is about so much more than money. It’s about the often hidden ties that bind communities together, writes Allan Ramsay. Week two of lockdown and now the layers of what holds all our rural communities together are slowly being ...
Times are tough, tempers are short but memories are long. How can businesses preserve their good reputations? Andrew Patterson reports. There’s an old saying “when times are tough you discover who your true friends are.” The same might be said of business relationships. As businesses fight for survival there’s one ...
A bank tells its customers they're following the lead of their counterparts across the ditch in trying to make thousands more transactions contactless More keypad-free transactions might be coming as part of a measure to raise the paywave threshold to $200. The announcement was made a little early by an eager ...
A new life has been put on hold for people in the Auckland resettlement centre, writes Greta Yeoman.For the 135 refugees based at the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland, plans to resettle in towns across New Zealand towards the end of April are up in the air with the ...
Amid the seemingly endless bad news at the moment, a new initiative is trying to get people to think positively. While the world may seem like it’s slowed to a crawl, there are still people out there creating and innovating. The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically altered how we’re living, but ...
From the reemerging debate around capital gains tax to the increasing reach of tax authorities, Terry Baucher, writing for interest.co.nz, looks at a number of implications the coronavirus pandemic could have on the tax system. “There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen,” Lenin is said ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison has made clear his view that any attempt to eliminate COVID-19 entirely in Australia would carry too high an economic cost, while Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy says such an aim would require ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stanley Shanapinda, Research Fellow, La Trobe University A conspiracy theory claiming 5G can spread the coronavirus is making the rounds on social media. The myth supposedly gained traction when a Belgian doctor linked the “dangers” of 5G technology to the virus during ...
As governments around the world prepare to spend billions of dollars to stimulate their economies, climate activists see these investments as the last chance for big spending on climate change, Marc Daalder reports "We're out of time." That's the alarm that Climate Change Minister James Shaw has been raising for anyone ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Even regional distribution, though South Island is worse. Chart by Keith Rankin. New Zealand now has sufficient case data to get a sense of its regional distribution of Covid19. Surprisingly, Auckland is not dominant, unlike the main business cities in other countries such as London, ...
Analysis by Bryce Edwards.Minister of Health, David Clark. Is David Clark the best possible Minister of Health to be leading New Zealand through the Coronavirus crisis? Confidence in Clark has plummeted with today’s revelation that the Health minister made another recreational trip during the lockdown that appears to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia The High Court today quashed the conviction of Cardinal George Pell, who had originally been found guilty on a number of charges by a jury of 12 people. His ...
NZNO urgently needs the Government and all health employers to commit to a comprehensive ‘He Kete Tapuhi Ora response package’ to assist all nurses, midwives, health care assistants and kai mahi hauora in this exceptional fight against the COVID-19 ...
The government is exploring taking legal action regarding the Ruby Princess cruise ship which has proven to be a hotbed of Covid-19 infection in Australia. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Climie, Exercise Physiologist and Research Fellow, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute Fitbit recently released data showing a global decrease in physical activity levels among users of its activity trackers compared to the same time last year. As we navigate the coronavirus ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Indigo Holcombe-James, Sessional academic, School of Media and Communications, RMIT University Museums, galleries and artist collectives around the world are shutting their doors and moving online in response to coronavirus. But engaging with audiences online requires access, skills and investment. My research ...
Two hundred merchants are trialling an online contactless payment method in store, using just mobile phones and no EFTPOS terminal. The technology - devised by Paymark - has been designed in response to Covid-19, allowing customers to purchase items without having to physically touch the terminal. The transaction uses the ...
A report on the NZ Farmer segment of Stuff caught the eye of Point of Order. It led off with a quote from respected economist Cameron Bagrie. “Thank God for farmers….They’ve felt beaten up over the past couple of years, well, thank God agriculture is still the backbone of NZ.The story ...
The introduction of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) now is totally unaffordable and wrong says Peter Malcolm spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc. A UBI or Universal Basic Income is a Government payout to all adults and some say for children ...
Unite Union says SkyCity has broken the law by sacking 200 salaried workers without consultation or discussion. It said SkyCity's letter of notice stated that the decision had already been made and it was not seeking the employees' views to the extent that it would do under normal circumstances. Unite ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hamilton, Visiting Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University No Australian government has ever spent A$130 billion so quickly. Last Tuesday, when the Prime Minister announced the government would subsidise six million jobs for ...
By Anita Roberts in Port Vila While the Vanuatu government is investing its resources in tackling the coronavirus pandemic threat, it is now stretching its resources to tackle other natural disasters posing threats to the lives of the people – Cyclone Harold still moving over the country after lashing ...
New Zealand has 54 new confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases to 1160, the Health Ministry has confirmed. Today’s new figure is down from the 67 new cases reported yesterday. With 65 people recovering in the past day, today is also the first ...
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersThese posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early ...
Misinformation about adrenochrome and its supposed links to Covid-19 has gone into overdrive. But what is it? We separate the substance’s literary history from its real-world functions.If you’ve spent much time online lately, like everyone else in lockdown, you’ve probably fallen down some strange Covid-19 rabbit holes. One word you ...
ANALYSIS:By Sally Young of the University of Melbourne Many newspapers betrayed their readers during the Great Depression and now some are doing so again during the coronavirus pandemic. During the Depression, Australia’s major daily newspapers loudly resisted calls for economic stimulus to revive the economy. Even the tabloids ...
The locked-down residents of a Wellington rest home – including her mum – are treated to a live gig courtesy of historian and author Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Ātiawa).Ever since I was Dorothy in the New Plymouth Operatic Society’s production of The Wizard of Oz, I have wanted an international ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Perkiss, Senior Lecturer, University of Wollongong The coronavirus might make Easter celebrations a little subdued this year, but that doesn’t mean going without chocolate eggs. In fact, South Australia’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier reportedly said people should partake in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne The centerpiece of the Commonwealth government’s COVID-19 economic stimulus program is JobKeeper. Priced at A$130 billion, it will pay eligible employers $1,500 per fortnight for each eligible employee for up to six months. ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the latest weak business confidence figures and they hear from Oliver Hartwich about the Euro's dire prospects Bernard Hickey talks with Jarrod Kerr about the latest Covid-19 figures showing New Zealand's hard and early lockdown appears to be controlling ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology The High Court today granted Cardinal George Pell special leave to appeal, and unanimously allowed the appeal. In other words, Pell won. His convictions were quashed and he will be released from ...
The number of new Covid-19 cases reported on Tuesday was the lowest it has been in two weeks, Marc Daalder reports There were just 54 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand as of Tuesday morning, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said. This is the lowest figure in two weeks, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh, Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Monash University The unfolding COVID-19 situation has brought many changes to school education. NAPLAN tests have been cancelled for 2020 and most children are learning online. Education minister Dan Tehan is meeting with the states on ...
The way we buy our food has changed hugely since the lockdown began. Small New Zealand producers have taken a massive hit, closing stores and struggling with online demand. Here are some ways shoppers can help these businesses.In the first week of lockdown, shoppers panicked. It was a perfectly natural ...
Wellington, 7 April - The Government’s current wage subsidy scheme may insufficiently protect Kiwis from the worst effects of the Covid-19 crisis, according to a new report from the New Zealand Initiative. Comparing New Zealand with Australia and Canada, ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...
New Zealand is seeking reciprocal transit arrangements with other nations after a decision to allow foreign nationals to use country's airports to get home. ...
After a second revelation of a lockdown breach in as many weeks, David Clark's political career is on life support. But in truth he has never really seemed a good fit as health minister, Sam Sachdeva writes. Appearing before Parliament’s epidemic response committee hours after his latest public shaming, Health ...
Powerplay - Health Minister David Clark stays in Cabinet after he breaches lockdown rules, but this could compromise the government's Covid-19 response and cause distractions for the prime minister at a crucial time, writes Jane Patterson. ...
After offering up his resignation, Health Minister David Clark answered questions along with Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield and Otago University Professor and epidemiologist Sir David Skegg. ...
The Sensible Sentencing Trust is calling on the Government to postpone the report due date for Minister Andrew Little’s Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. This Bill would allow prisoners with a sentence of three years or ...
Reverend Scottie Reeve on the meaning of Easter during the Covid-19 pandemic, and why we need to embark on a journey of collective repentance. On Wednesday while I was going for a walk, I came across a friend on the Wellington waterfront. We’ll call him David. David had no idea what ...
Our essential workers deserve more than a round of applause, but danger pay is not the answer, writes Kerry Davies from the Public Service Association.Did you shower this morning? Is the kitchen clean? Have you changed your sheets since we went into lockdown? Have you vacuumed? Are you taking that ...
The local government sector has banded together to open a helpline for all council drinking and waste water technicians, providing an accessible source of advice for small suppliers across New Zealand to lean on. While drinking and waste water infrastructure ...
This story first appeared in The Mercury Bay Informer and is republished here with permission. Roadblocks could be in place at entry points to the Coromandel this week as the local Civil Defence Controller moves to prevent unlawful travel to the Peninsula during the Covid-19 lockdown. Speaking to The Informer last ...
He Waka Eke Noa – We are all in this together, according to the Prime Minister. Except that we’re not…………………….. After pressure from employees, Fletcher Building executives have shown the way with their decision to take a 30 ...
New Zealanders in need during the COVID-19 lockdown are set to further benefit from a food charity’s distribution programme. KiwiHarvest, a national food rescue charity which collects food from retailers before it goes to waste and distributes it to ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is slamming ATEED as completely out of touch with the economic reality of Aucklanders after the agency posted a job advertisement for a newly created role: a “Digital Content Specialist” . “ATEED should be ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentHealth minister demoted, Bridges defends commute 1News: ‘I got it wrong’ – David Clark says he’ll continue as Health ...
The Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA) will challenge Parliament’s Health Select Committee tomorrow morning, saying the Government’s vaping bill in its current form runs the risk of protecting Big Tobacco. Director of AVCA, Nancy Loucas, says ...
Open mike 28/08/2016 
Open mike is your post.
Paul Connet, head of the anti-fluoride propaganda group, Fluoride Action Network, claims that the IQ of children bottle-fed in fluoridated areas drops by 9 points. But he misrepresented the research. There is no observable effect. For earlier articles in this series see: Part 1: Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only ...1 hour ago
The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she ...2 hours ago
Back in February, the Marlborough District Council increased the mount it charges for LGOIMA requests. I used the LGOIMA to poke into this, and it seems the case for increased charges is unjustified: the supposed increase in request volumes it rests on is an artefact of the Council suddenly deciding ...18 hours ago
. . April 6: Day 12 of living in lock-down… Another day of a near-empty Park N Ride carpark; . . And another day of near-empty Wellington streets; . . . Light traffic on the motorway. No apparent increase in volume. Commercial vehicles sighted; a gravel-hauling truck; McAuley’s Transport; a ...22 hours ago
Imagination By-Pass: Had the Communications Minister, Kris Faafoi (above) taken a firm stand with Bauer, reminding them of their obligations to both their staff and the wider New Zealand public, then a much more favourable outcome may well have ensued. He should have made it clear to the Bauer board ...22 hours ago
We all know that Simon Bridges has, at the best of times, an intermittent relationship with the truth. However you would think that during a pandemic and economic crisis the current opposition leader would pull his head in and start to do the right thing.Obviously leading by example should be ...23 hours ago
Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action ... 1 day ago
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...2 days ago
Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians) In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...2 days ago
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggests Research into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...2 days ago
As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...2 days ago
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...3 days ago
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ... 3 days ago
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...3 days ago
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...4 days ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...5 days ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...6 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 1 week ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...1 week ago
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will enter into transit arrangements with a range of countries to make it easier for each other’s citizens to get home. “There are millions of people around the world stranded ...21 hours ago
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...3 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...2 weeks ago
More New Zealanders are taking up the chance to work in horticulture as the sector keeps New Zealanders fed and in jobs during the COVID-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown. “Our horticulture sector has long been one of New Zealand’s export star performers, contributing around $6 billion a year to our ...5 hours ago
The National Party leader intends to continue commuting between Tauranga and Wellington so he can do his job effectively in an unprecedented situation. ...1 hour ago
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.
US death toll catching Italy's fast; Johnson on oxygen in ICU, but not intubated; US threatens India, Canada over mask and drugs; Germany accuses America of 'piracy' as China, Russia send supplies to New York US cases spiral: The United States leads the world in total cases, but not yet ...2 hours ago
NZIER says confidence survey suggests 100 percent of businesses now have negative outlooks; 596 kiwi pilots laid off by Air NZ and Virgin; RBNZ confirms will buy $3b of council bonds Gloomy outlook: The March quarter survey of business opinion from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) made for ...2 hours ago
Kiwi Wealth’s Customer Services Manager Matt Beach zooms in from his home in Whitby to talk to Bernard Hickey about how his team worked remotely to answer questions from Kiwi Saver customers Matt Beach has been in tricky situations before, but reconfiguring Kiwi Wealth’s call centre to work remotely and ...3 hours ago
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Dire warnings about water levels, tentative good news on Covid-19 case numbers, and local government struggles for funding.The seriousness of this issue has largely gone unnoticed amid everything else, but if we don’t address it now things could get pretty ...3 hours ago
As new restrictions affecting people’s ability to work are put in place, there's a growing segment of workers we must ensure aren't left out in the cold, writes Victoria University of Wellington's Stephen Blumenfeld The Covid-19 outbreak and nationwide lockdown should not create an opening for employers to treat the ...5 hours ago
With shearing gangs mostly stood down under the level 4 lockdown, farmers face the prospect of having to shear their own sheep, reports Jill Herron. Shearers and wool-handlers across the country are “very keen” to get back to work once Covid 19 restrictions ease – and farmers will be pretty ...5 hours ago
As learning shifts online at pace, the key will be for educators will be to keep it simple, coordinated and normal, write Stephen Dobson and Edward Schofield of Victoria University of Wellington Things have moved quickly in the global scramble to move everything online. We are reminded of how it ...5 hours ago
In a bid to keep the netball community engaged and active in lockdown, Netball NZ are beaming a free fitness programme into Kiwi homes. In these strange and unsettling times, Laura Langman feels just a little funny having others inside her Sunshine Coast home. Just to make it clear, the Silver Ferns captain ...5 hours ago
As life in lockdown becomes our new normal, you may be asking how you can maintain your wellbeing and relationships under these conditions. Here are some tips based on psychological research that will help you cope, get in routine, and make the best of the lockdown experience. Tips to help ...5 hours ago
A surfer photographed raising his middle finger says it was clearly aimed at the photographer, not the police, and wants the online threats against him to stop, reports Bonnie Sumner. A west Auckland surfer says threats have been made against him and his family after the Stuff news site published ...5 hours ago
A new Wattie's cookbook has four recipes of things to make with all that flour and all those cans of Wattie's that you panic-bought. CURRIED LAMB SAUSAGE ROLLS Prep time: 20 minutes. Cook time: 20–25 minutes. 1 small onion, finely diced 2 tsp Gregg’s Curry Powder 400g lamb mince ...5 hours ago
There is a trade-off: how many lives will be taken by Covid-19 and how many lives will be lost due to our attempts to prevent loss of lives from Covid-19, writes Professor Ananish Chaudhuri of the University of Auckland In his book “Risk Savvy”, the behavioural scientist Gerg Gigerenzer notes that, ...5 hours ago
Like countless local events and businesses, the Vineyard Half in Blenheim is about so much more than money. It’s about the often hidden ties that bind communities together, writes Allan Ramsay. Week two of lockdown and now the layers of what holds all our rural communities together are slowly being ...5 hours ago
Times are tough, tempers are short but memories are long. How can businesses preserve their good reputations? Andrew Patterson reports. There’s an old saying “when times are tough you discover who your true friends are.” The same might be said of business relationships. As businesses fight for survival there’s one ...5 hours ago
A bank tells its customers they're following the lead of their counterparts across the ditch in trying to make thousands more transactions contactless More keypad-free transactions might be coming as part of a measure to raise the paywave threshold to $200. The announcement was made a little early by an eager ...5 hours ago
As governments around the world prepare to spend billions of dollars to stimulate their economies, climate activists see these investments as the last chance for big spending on climate change, Marc Daalder reports "We're out of time." That's the alarm that Climate Change Minister James Shaw has been raising for anyone ...16 hours ago
NZNO urgently needs the Government and all health employers to commit to a comprehensive ‘He Kete Tapuhi Ora response package’ to assist all nurses, midwives, health care assistants and kai mahi hauora in this exceptional fight against the COVID-19 ...17 hours ago
Two hundred merchants are trialling an online contactless payment method in store, using just mobile phones and no EFTPOS terminal. The technology - devised by Paymark - has been designed in response to Covid-19, allowing customers to purchase items without having to physically touch the terminal. The transaction uses the ...17 hours ago
A report on the NZ Farmer segment of Stuff caught the eye of Point of Order. It led off with a quote from respected economist Cameron Bagrie. “Thank God for farmers….They’ve felt beaten up over the past couple of years, well, thank God agriculture is still the backbone of NZ.The story ...17 hours ago
Unite Union says SkyCity has broken the law by sacking 200 salaried workers without consultation or discussion. It said SkyCity's letter of notice stated that the decision had already been made and it was not seeking the employees' views to the extent that it would do under normal circumstances. Unite ...17 hours ago
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the latest weak business confidence figures and they hear from Oliver Hartwich about the Euro's dire prospects Bernard Hickey talks with Jarrod Kerr about the latest Covid-19 figures showing New Zealand's hard and early lockdown appears to be controlling ...19 hours ago
The number of new Covid-19 cases reported on Tuesday was the lowest it has been in two weeks, Marc Daalder reports There were just 54 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand as of Tuesday morning, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said. This is the lowest figure in two weeks, ...20 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...21 hours ago
After a second revelation of a lockdown breach in as many weeks, David Clark's political career is on life support. But in truth he has never really seemed a good fit as health minister, Sam Sachdeva writes. Appearing before Parliament’s epidemic response committee hours after his latest public shaming, Health ...21 hours ago
Up to 400 Air New Zealand pilots look set to lose their jobs as part of the airline's plan to slash one third of its workforce. ...21 hours ago
This story first appeared in The Mercury Bay Informer and is republished here with permission. Roadblocks could be in place at entry points to the Coromandel this week as the local Civil Defence Controller moves to prevent unlawful travel to the Peninsula during the Covid-19 lockdown. Speaking to The Informer last ...22 hours ago
Just been watching something about the Aus refugee camps in Nauru on Al Jazeera. It’ so depressing to hear as Australia and NZ having a special relationship when they are so fundamentally racist and abusive.
We should be applying more pressure. Sadly we seem to lack political will
Please tell us. What pressure do you really think we can apply to make Australia change its ways? Remember when you propose ideas that the Australian Government actions are supported by all the major political parties there and are popular with the Australian public.
Should we declare war on them? Expel all Australian-national residents in New Zealand? Seize all Australian owned property and businesses?
And if you choose to do any of those things what would you do if they retaliate?
No we should publicaly call out their actions on the world stage. Whether it makes a difference or not is irrelevant. We should stand for human rights for all.
But right wing scum like yourself probably don’t give a shit about human rights unless a buck can be made from it.
“But right wing scum like yourself probably don’t give a shit about human rights unless a buck can be made from it.”
You have no reason whatsoever to such a remark. But then evidence for something is never required in your dirty little world view is it?
A**hole.
“Calling out their actions on the world stage” isn’t going to apply any “pressure” at all to the Australian Government. Their actions are popular with their own population and they really don’t give a damn about what anyone else thinks of the matter.
It would be about as successful as simply saying what vile people Iranians are for all the executions they carry out and for wanting to build nuclear weapons.
It wasn’t those statements that had any effect. It was the sanctions that supplied the pressure. The only pressure we can apply to Australia would be something similar. There isn’t really anything effective we can do though is there?
Being opposed to human rights abuses is a “dirty little world view”?
Of course it is not.
What is a “dirty little world view” is accusing someone who asks how you hope to achieve your aim, ie “to apply pressure on Australia” how you expect to achieve.
Your second paragraph abusing me is the crappy composition of an idiot.
How can you possibly think that my question makes me someone who is in favour of human rights abuses?
You want to “apply pressure”. What can you propose that might have any such effect?
How dirty does a country have to be before a right winger will refuse to trade with them?
Apartheid South Africa? Nope: the right opposed trade sanctions at every turn.
Saudi Arabia? Nope.
Pinochet’s Chile? You copy his policies, for fucks sake!
Face it, at home you confiscate the proceeds of crime. If we applied that to your trade relationships the crown would be a whole lot richer.
Travel ban all the government MPs would be a good start. Also go to Nauru and arrest persons in charge of the facility there on human rights crimes.
I think we would have to ban all their MPs. Both the Government and the Opposition (at least most of them) are thoroughly in favour of the policy.
On the other hand I doubt it would really inconvenience them unless, just possibly, they were going to pass through Auckland on the way to the US.
“Go to Nauru and arrest them”. I’m not sure we would be able to. They probably have more military there than we could deliver to the island.
Would that be an act of war I wonder?
.
.Hi The Extremist
. I admire your disgust at the bastardry of the Australians and their gulags dotted around the pacific ocean and indian ocean. A truly objectionable Mr John Howard got these established.
He was extremely proud of his excruciating punishment of any people his redneck followers disliked.
However if New Zealand were to complain too loudly Australia would simply say go and fix up your own problems. You’ve got 40,000 homeless people living in shitty conditions and you don’ t do a damn thing about it.
The Kettle tries to avoid calling the pot black.
.
Well said OT.
How about we refuse to play sport against them? No rugby, just like South Africa. And get other countries to do the same.
South Africa really cared about rugby – while whites only counted, it was their major winter sport, like here. Rugby is only minor 3rd winter sport in Oz, so forget it.
Not just rugby, all sport. Netball, league – the lot, and encourage other countries to do it. Aussies love all sport and the relationship NZ has with Aussie makes the context very different to South Africa. The real problem is that nobody’s got the guts. If they did it it’d work.
“What we have undergone is a coup d’etat in slow motion, and we’ve lost. They’ve won.”
Chris Hedges, author of ‘Death of the Liberal Class,’ in a lecture delivered at the University of Toronto, November 4th, 2010.
Well, they [the corporates] may have won a battle or two, but the war is still raging. We, the activists are the front-line troops who will/must ultimately triumph. Literally, the survival of the human race is at stake.
But we need to ‘self-ask’: what am I doing to bring about a favourable conclusion in this epic fight?
Talk is never enough!
March for democracy, 10th September.
What March?
Day of Action Aotearoa – check out It’s Our Future NZ.
thanks.
https://itsourfuture.org.nz/event/day-action-across-aotearoa/
I liked this,
The Day of Action is a protest, but also an affirmation of reclaiming democracy. We will highlight and celebrate the positive alternatives in communities in Aotearoa – through organics, permaculture, community gardens; local renewable energy, EVs, divestment from fossil fuels; campaigns for better public transport and cycling; UBI, community finance, time banking; refugee support groups; etc.
What March?
Day of Action Aotearoa – check out It’s Our Future NZ.
You ask twice … you get answered twice 🙂
Lol, it wasn’t me, it was the other weka messing with you ;-p
Chris Hedges is correct, particularly for the US situation. A corporate coup d’etat took over government for the people of the people, sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s.
5th August 1981, to be precise.
On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who’d defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.
It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?
[…]
And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:
The AFL-CIO.
The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that’s just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers — they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110908045727/http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/30-years-ago-today
Ahhhh, thanks for the history brief, joe90.
Apart from supporting Reagan here, the AFL CIO have of course also been long time collaborators of the crony capitalists on the other side of the chamber.
A corporate coup d’etat took over government in NZ in 1984, led by Roger Douglas.
Fed Farmers: We reserve the right to poison New Zealand’s water ways.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/environmentalists-exploited-river-cattle-saga—farmers-2016082806
He reminds me of a tobacco company shill.
Mr Rolleston said the cattle were downstream from the Havelock North Bores – what sort of pathetic excuse is that, for what shouldn’t be happening ever in NZ. He said its a huge job to get on top of for farmers and there will be lapses from time to time – does that mean he can find it comfortable to allow 4000 people to get sick and just get over it. because of the odd lapse. Disgraceful conduct from Fed. Farmers.
On easy ground such as one finds next to most bigger rivers , one man could easily put up 200mtrs of single wire electric fence in a day, two men with a tractor mounted post rammer could probably do close to a km. It’s not a big job ,it’s just some farmers are ignorant fools.
I’ve just commented below about the need to talk about regenerative practices. So fencing off waterways is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff response (still necessary, we need ambulances). Beyond that is riparian plantings. But even that is not regenerative if we are still overstocking, over fertilising etc. There is still excess nitrogen in that system, still too much soil degradation, too much compaction etc.
My point is that I think we need to get past this idea of we have to protect the waterways, esp now our drinking water is making us sick, and think about the whole system. Because fencing off the waterways so the e coli doesn’t get in the bore won’t stop the other problems and we will have another set of crises to manage next time, some of them much worse and harder to solve eg 20 years of campylobacter filtered through the ground (nicely fenced off) to the aquifer that will take 20 years to clear.
“what sort of pathetic excuse is that, for what shouldn’t be happening ever in NZ.”
Many farms in NZ have waterways which stock have access to. That’s normal and for 150 years that wasn’t the kind of problem we have now. Not saying it was no problem, just that what we are dealing with now is intensitification, overstocking and dairying, and it’s those modern things that create problems for town water supplies. I don’t think it’s realistic to think that all waterways in NZ will be fenced off from all stock at all times. Rather than expecting that, I’d like to see us moving towards regenerative land use, where farming practices increase the health of land, and that may or may not include stock with access to water.
I agree with you that Rolleston’s response was disgraceful, and it had all the hallmarks of PR spin. Rachel Stewart has been pointing out that the pro-dairy people will use the word ‘cattle’ instead of ‘dairy cows’ as a way to obfuscate.
I do not agree with you Weka although you are of course entitled to your own opinion. Livestock should never be allowed to drink or wade in our waterways defecating and peeing in the water and polluting it. It is realistic to expect farmers to keep their stock within fencing parameters, if it had been legislated years ago then it would be just second nature to fit it into their budgets just like any other legislation that other companies have to adhere to. This is an animal sewage problem and should be contained and dealt with.
National have had a love affair with Federated Farmers for too long and needs to get tough with them but I fear intensification has become too much of a problem and the accompanying technology which should have been keeping up with it to manage it hasn’t eventuated to keep the sewage problem under control.
“Livestock should never be allowed to drink or wade in our waterways defecating and peeing in the water and polluting it”
Why?
Animals pee and poo in water all the time. Nature has ways of dealing with that. Animal waste in water is not inherently polluting. It becomes pollution when the number of animals exceeds the natural systems’ abilities to process that waste (which is dependent on things like river flow). That’s basic ecology and basic sustainable land management. There are additional problems with issues like deforestation and other processes that alter the functioning of the ecosystem. But animal pee and poo is not itself pathogenic or necessarily a problem. Not all animal waste is ‘sewerage’. It’s what the humans (farmers) are doing that is the problem. Humans create the sewerage or not.
All dairy farms should be fenced and have riparian strips as a basic minimum, because that kind of farming comes with high stocking rates and a lot of effluent. But in other situations eg large SI sheep and cattle stations, I think the bigger problems are from the foot traffic and from grazing out all the biodiversity along the water way, as well as the related problems from fertiliser use and general land management. The ratios of sheep poo to water flow are such that you don’t necessarily get ‘polluted’ water in all situations.
Are those waterways in pristine condition? No. But if all land in NZ that has stock on it was mandated to be fenced, we’d still have a lot of the problems that come with farming. I’d much rather see those resources go into supporting farms to shift to regenerative agrictulture with riparian planting and fencing where appropriate to the design of that particular land but without being fixated on fence everything regardless.
What I’m arguing here is approach. If we reduce it down to all animal shit is bad and all waterways must be fenced, I think we are going to created a different set of problems and avoid dealing with some of the more urgent ones.
The fear that many farmers have around river fencing in the sheep and beef sector is that they are going to be forced to fence water off in places that are hugely expensive that will require a lot of up keep and or mean fencing out large chunks of productive land, this is why i believe they are being so stubborn about it.
Stock would still need to cross the waterways when being moved right? So there is the extra cost of gate systems presumably.
It’s a tricky one, especially for smaller rivers and streams. They really need riparian planting too, but it’s easy to see how much land would be lost. Probably the riparian planting needs to be productive somehow.
If your talking gate to get cattle trough a 1 or 2 wire electric it’s a $60 set up and an hour or so to build .
It’s going to be about having a policy that forces cattle to be excluded with out having some dipstick with a letter or two behind his name pissing everyone of with unworkable ideas.
That’s why the blanket thing doesn’t seem right.
I was thinking about sheep, re the gates.
Developers walk away from fast-track process as Auckland house prices top $1m
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11701098
(Unitary plan and developers doing as was expected and deciding not to even develop 10% of affordable houses and instead to use the more developer friendly unitary plan rules. With the SHA, only 26 out of 154 managed to complete some houses, but many made a killing out of the zoning changes. Great to see developers and land owners making money while delivering few houses, just as the government ordered (sarc.).
The solution.
A government that governs and builds houses for its citizens.
Thanks, Paul.
Two quotes from the film:
“A nation’s prosperity isn’t measured in exports and show and false fronts, it’s in the way people live and how much sun they get, and where the kids grow up and how the sanitation works.”
“40,000 families living in houses that should have been pulled down, living in rooms and flats, wherever they could find a roof over their heads, sometimes several families in one house. 40,000 families in 1935.”
Ain’t progress wonderful!
I have watched this Labour party doco in it’s entirety, and it’s good, can you upload the second part too please Paul?
Thanks so much Paul, appreciated. It’s an excellent glimpse of our history that is just as relevant today, as it was back then. Given what is happening today, we really have gone backwards, haven’t we? The struggle is still the same, nothing has changed except the dates.
Poll Drought
Number of Opinion Polls carried out Jan – late Aug:
(* = middle years comparable to 2016)
2016 12 *
2015 18
2014 45
2013 30 *
2012 28
2011 33
2010 24 *
2009 22
2008 43
Next Roy Morgan already overdue, next Colmar Brunton waayyyyy overdue. I mean, what the flying hell’s going on here ???
No landlines left to ring?
Any noticeable difference between the RM and the media ones (eg CB)? Just wondering of the TV networks are moving away from polling as part of the shift to infotainment.
Bad times for the Nats. And maybe AG’s got some bad news coming about Saudi sheep and Mr McCully? Holding fire until Nat spin machine swings into action?
Well Roy Morgan only polls once a month, instead of every 2 weeks, as I’m sure you know.
So that change by itself results in far fewer polls taking place.
Also, the fact that Parliament was on recess for like 6 weeks also means pollsters would have actively avoided polling during that time, I think.
RM had originally stated on their web page that their Aug poll was due on the 19th. Then they changed the date on their web page to the 26th. It is still hasn’t materialised.
It may be something as simple as them prioritising contact centre resources to their more commercial polls this month.
“Well Roy Morgan only polls once a month, instead of every 2 weeks, as I’m sure you know … So that change by itself results in far fewer polls taking place.”
True. But that was already the case last year … and yet look at the comparison – 18 by late Aug 2015 / just 12 this year.
And (naturally enough) Polls are usually fewest in number during the first year after the election. This is the first time in quite a while that the “middle” year of the electoral cycle (2016) has had fewer polls (Jan-Aug) than the “first” year (2015) (as you can see … 12 compared to 18).
Colmar Brunton always release on a Sunday. The gap between each poll has always (well, for a very long time now) been 6 – 8 weeks (excepting the New Year/Summer Recess). It’s now an absolutely bloody astounding 12 weeks (to the day) since their last poll was released. All down, of course, to decisions made by One News.
For Roy Morgan – see CV’s comment.
There hasn’t been much significant, sustained movement in the polls (beyond the notorious bounciness of the Roy Morgan) since 2014. So one possible explanation is that news editors got bored of printing stories saying “National still has whopping majority, Labour+Greens still kind of neck-and-neck with National, Winston still probably going to make the final decision”.
Yeah, but Lab+Green and the Oppo Bloc are well up on their 36% (L+G) and 46% (Oppo) share at the Sep 2014 Election. And the Broad Right (Govt parties + Cons) are well down on their 53% share. (Luckily for National, a broad Nat-to-Lab swing has been largely disguised by the collapse of Colin Craig’s Conservatives).
So the polls haven’t been static. It’s possible to discern a broad swing to the Left (and the wider Opposition) through the middle of last year, then a swing back towards the Right over the Summer months and more recently a move back to the Left and NZF.
And that’s reflected in the National-to-Lab+Green aggregate comparisons.
Take the Roy Morgans as an example:
Nat percentage point lead over L+G:
2014 Election: 11 points
Roy Morgan Quarterly Averages
2014 (4/4) 7 points
2015 (1/4) 9 points
2015 (2/4) 11 points
2015 (3/4) 3 points
2015 (4/4) 8 points
2016 (1/4) 6 points
2016 (2/4) 2 points
National’s pollsters struggling to spin it in the Nats favour anymore?
I think the Nats are in trouble Swordfish, and they don’t want any bad publicity of opinion polling to show it.
Illegal and desperate…
http://www.fastcompany.com/3063185/trump-campaign-continues-to-send-illegal-solicitations-to-foreigners-despite-warnings
Why did the woman hating Saudi Regime and other head chopping Gulf Tyrannies donate tens of millions to the Clintons?
And why did the Clintons accept these millions?
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/25/why-did-the-saudi-regime-and-other-gulf-tyrannies-donate-millions-to-the-clinton-foundation/
I don’t know but that’s not relevant to what I posted.
Why don’t address the topic? After all, you were moaning about foreign donations the other day.
I agree with your point that Trump is desperate for campaign donations.
Yes, I also agree that Trump is raising far less money than Clinton and is having to push the boundaries harder.
The real problem for Trump’s campaign financing is huge. Simply put, he cannot get the big donations from Wall St hedge funds, bankers and K street lobbyists that Clinton is able to solicit.
That means that Clinton has been able to outspend Trump in TV and other media ads by more than 3 to 1.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/clinton-vastly-outspending-trump-ads-hurting/
You know CV it would be fucking like horrific if you CV REALLY put your ahua behind Drumpf so why you been talking like that ?
The million people who protested in Sana’a against the Saudi invasion were not even mentioned in MSM.
Surprise, surprise…..the BBC, Guardian and the rest are just mouthpieces of the neo-liberal globalist establishment.
RT also has a piece on how Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against 3rd world Yemen has now killed almost 4,000 civilians and displaced 3M people.
But somehow, both the US and UK are happy to keep rearming the Saudis with billions in new weapon systems and munitions.
I guess all that hysteria about how Bernie would beat Trump, but Clinton wouldn’t, was all for naught, eh?
Let me check my calendar…did November already come and go, Lanth? 😛
No, it’s just Trump’s lead in the polls that came and went. And is very unlikely to ever return.
It’s funny you say “hysteria”, a word with its roots in assumptions about women’s anatomy and intelligence, when the most notoriously obnoxious Bernie Sanders fans were dudes.
Clinton hasn’t beaten Trump yet. I expect she will – but the US system (voter suppression/Tuesday elections/electoral college etc) is such a clusterfuck I don’t think anyone should crow about it until the votes are counted (and the lawsuits are settled).
Ah yes the pejorative “Bernie Bros” term that Clinton campaign supporters kept using.
it’s funny you say “hysteria”
With the Clintons Hysteresis is a better noun, as it describes the time dependent selection and inbreeding of their past advisors and big business,
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cq4_SO7UIAAv3VX.jpg
Speaking of who has whose ear…..
Anybody here disappointed with Labour’s failure to advocate for the NZ Land Wars commemoration day being a new public holiday?
Is it another telling sign Labour is still to centrist and out of touch?
Thoughts?
NZ Labour is the same as Clinton’s Democrats and the Blairite UK Labour party.
Just another mouthpiece of the neo-liberal globalist establishment.
Centrist isn’t out of touch, and extra holidays are an extra cost to business. Perhaps we could replace Labour Day with it – society has given up on it anyway.
“Centrist isn’t out of touch”
It is today, considering the whole political spectrum has moved so far right the Greens are now often deemed far left.
“Extra holidays are an extra cost to business”
Indeed. And I’m sure a number of employers oppose them. Just as a good number of employees would greatly welcome another holiday.
It’s interesting to see who Labour now represent.
Primarily the socially progressive left leaning, top economic quintile (that is the top 20%) of NZers.
The bottom 50% of NZers who earn less than $30,000 p.a. are talked about by Labour, but they are never prioritised above the interests of higher earning groups.
Utter crap CV…… for your unhappy wherever you’re at in your deepest being CV…… a bunch of yuppies university degrees etc lucrative public service positions…….that’s the 20%s for Labour ? Stop it ! Stop it right now ! You’re acting like a troubled child shrieking all sorts of shit that no one takes seriously. Grief counseling maybe CV ? Grief about what I don’t know but fuck CV……!
Geeezus, talking about giving up on the principles of Labour Day, now you’re saying that we can’t afford to load business with any more labour costs like holidays???
I’ll tell you what, I think that we need to go to a four day working week, and that penalty rates need to be brought back.
What do you think about that for extra costs on business?
I fully agree. 4 day, 30 hour week, double time for more than either of those, triple time if both, and also triple time on public holidays, 6 weeks annual leave.
Anybody here disappointed with the National government’s anti Kiwi/worker legislation and National’s sycophantic supporters?
Lets face it, in National’s ideal draconian and feudal world, workers would be enslaved to serve it’s elites on no pay at all and there would be no public holidays to give workers break either.
No public holiday for New Zealand Land Wars
The Government has made it very clear: The Land Wars commemoration day will not be a public holiday.
A commemorative day was announced last week after pressure from local communities and a school-led petition asked for a day of recognition.
However, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English said some people have misunderstood what has been agreed.
“We’ve taken a view that there’s no need for a public holiday and in any case, there isn’t yet agreement about a date even just for a commemoration.”
The decision had come out of discussion with the Maori Party, and English was “pretty sure” it had approved by Cabinet. Yet, Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox called for a public holiday and believed it was “still up for debate”.
English also said any commemorations on the day should be locally-led.
“The Government provides some resource, but this has to be something that people want to own, not something that’s pushed on them,” English said.
“It’s up to the people who want to see a commemoration occur. There was a bit of a ceremony last week with the handover of one of the pa sites to Tainui where a significant battle occurred in the Waikato. There may be more of that. That’ll unfold as we go.”
Prime Minister John Key said no progress had been made yet on choosing a date: “We are saying it’s likely there might be agreement at some point that that commemoration date can be set, but it would be also subject, I think, to iwi agreeing.”
SWAP EXISTING HOLIDAYS FOR LAND WARS?
A current public holiday could possibly we swapped out, says Labour leader Andrew Little – suggesting provincial holidays could be scrapped in lieu of a national New Zealand Wars commemoration day.
“I don’t understand why we continue to celebrate provincial holidays when we haven’t had provincial government since 1863.”
He agreed the Queen’s Birthday holiday could be another option.
“There is a case to be made for an observance by way of a day off,” he said.
However, Peeni Henare, Labour MP for Tamaki Makaurau, didn’t think it should be made a holiday.
“It was made clear in the first consultation that happened a number of months ago that it would not be made a public holiday, but simply a day for commemoration,” Henare said.
“There are some costs involved, there are already a number of public holidays … I’m quite clear as the Chairperson of the Ruapekapeka Pa Trust that it shouldn’t be a holiday.”
Little supported the Government setting aside a day in principle: “We ought to be observing our own internal land wars in the way that we observe conflicts and casualties in other wars that we’ve participated in.”
Little also believed more needed to be taught at schools about the New Zealand wars.
“We shouldn’t be embarrassed by it, we should accept that it’s happened in the past, and we should learn from it and embrace what we have now, which is a set of legal arrangements that ensure that the Treaty of Waitangi is starting now to be observed – not only in the law but in the spirit.”
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said a public holiday during winter should be part of consideration by the Government.
<a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/83459046/no-public-holiday-for-new-zealand-land-wars
Disappointment doesn’t capture these situations anymore. Par for the course is more apt a description these days.
They don’t see the value of celebrating a one-sided victory.
Discuss.
Lovely day here in Auckland – Friday nights storms are over except that Vector have cut power for hot water here on parts of the North Shore. Seems to be the poorer parts too, again.
Now 36 hours and counting.
This has been a persistent problem for a decade – a bit of rough weather in the north or west and no hot water for a day or more. According to Vector’s fault-line it is due to an ‘architectural issue’ in the old United Networks system acquired by Vector in 2002.
In 2015 Vector paid 8 cents per share in dividends. Total share issue according to NZX is 995m shares.
So it looks like that is $80m in 2015 alone paid out as unearned income for shareholders? I wonder how much it might cost to fix that ‘architectural issue’?
Seems to me that all the 1990’s privatisation of these utilities was a scam, allowing some NZers (the ones well off enough to buy shares) to parasitise other NZers through high electricity charges and in this case poor service and reduced quality of life.
Cutting the hot water circuits is a quick and dirty way (ahem) of reducing load on power distribution components that are near to failing, until something can be done to patch the system up.
Over the next few years, as storm intensity increases, this ‘strategy of fragility’ is going to leave Auckland with bigger and bigger disruptions.
I’m pretty sure large parts of Auckland use pilot wire rather than ripple controlled hot water switching and in my experience restoring supply is paramount with pilot wires a secondary task.
OK that does make sense then, I didn’t know that about the system in Auckland, cheers.
So CV how was Labour responsible for that and how will your darling Drumpf fix that and do you promise ? Egg carried away with your bitterness and a plague on EVERYTHING accordingly. You didn’t used to be like this CV. What’s happened to you ?
I gave up on supporting both the greater evil and the lesser evil
And ended up Trump-eting. Like actually supporting the presently ascertainble greater evil. Don’t you understand how fucking ugly that is to people like me, and you CV. And you ! ???
I’m not asking you to vote for Trump; neither am I asking for your approval of my political preferences.
AB, cutting power to hot water systems during bad weather has been going on for decades, if memory serves a sparky once told me some years back, it started in the 1950’s. I thought it was just a West Auckland thing too until he told me it occurs throughout Auckland. If you have the know how it’s an extremely simple and quick procedure to trip and bypass it in your fuse box and then you will never lose hot water again.
“privatisation of these utilities was a scam”.
Given that 75.1% of Vector is owned by the AECT, which is a trust owned by the people of Auckland and with a publicly elected board, it hardly seems that you can blame “Privatisation” for its failings. It wasn’t privatised, was it?
You might do a great deal better if it really was privatised. Thank God Vector sold the lines company here in Wellington. We don’t have anything like the problems that Auckland seems to.
Vector is still 75% owned by the AECT Trust. This Trust is governed by a democratically elected Board.
The AECT is scheduled to be returned to the Council in about 60 years.
Unless a government can be persuaded to accelerate that a whole lot faster.
That would give Auckland Council a fairly large money-printing machine.
Plus comprehensive control of all major utilities, like when we had coherent government.
Calling it a scam is generous.
It was theft, pure and simple.
Elites betray the people, considering themselves as gods
The kind of people supporting Trump, and the kind of people Trump supports (refusing to denounce endorsements from the bedsheets and brown shirts types, appointing Breibart’s Bannon as campaign manager) :
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/25/what-alt-right-guide-white-nationalist-movement-now-leading-conservative-media/212643
This review of the film The Childhood of a Leader by Kim Newman is quite apposite:
The adult actors are all excellent, though required to be stooges for Sweet. It takes three parents, several servants, a world war, a corrupt church (Prescott yells “I don’t believe in praying any more” like a mantra) to shape this monster. The failures of these adults and their institutions create the vacuum that allows his eventual rise. This may be the story of the childhood of a leader, but we have to look at the grown-ups who fail to solve or resolve anything – from a dinner menu to an equitable peace – for a sketch of the mass abdication of responsibility that might make a great many people want to be led by a dangerous maniac. This is also the story of those who will be led.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/film-week-childhood-leader
Out of the candidates standing, who would you like to see become Wellington Mayor?
Johnny Overton, the rest are living in an endless growth/debt extreme political world. That applied to Wade-Brown too.
Whoever it is it had better not be one of the “light rail” fanatics. Rather than just accept it is far to expensive for a town like Wellington a group of them have arbitrarily decided that it can be done for half the price. These are the highly qualified engineering consultants like Laidlaw and Kedgley.
Jo Coughlan seems by far the best.
And it had better not be one of the “let’s concrete everything in sight and dig up the basin reserve and put 4 lanes of motorway through to the airport with the $300 million proposed ratepayer subsidy” all of which makes light rail look like petty cash.
Not Jo Coughlan
Rubbish, Coughlan wants to spend $1 billion on roading, including duplicating the Vic and Terrace tunnels, and flyovers and whatever else. That is just crazy in a world that’s already hitting its limits and with fluctuating oil prices.
Laying rails and wires down Campbridge Terrace, Adelaide Rd, Constable St and to the airport will be a shitload cheaper and much less work. Not hard to see that.
Using what is still there ( pirie street) is a more logical option,then linking it through Hataitai park and down to cobham drive.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/files/p-22518-pc.jpg
Bernard Hickey: Land is for living, not savings
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11701100
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/83585857/eugene-bingham-the-spectre-of-ghost-crimes-should-have-come-back-to-haunt-police
If you have any info on the police fiddling stats around burglary the chap who wrote this article would like to hear from you.
Holy shit batman the new edit function is the business.
Was that something Lynn did? I thought something had changed from my browser update yesterday.
It seems faster though. And cleaner to use.
Lol yeah, it took me by surprise too!!!
It is what happens when I start editing something at 0300.
In this case there was a function I wanted to remove in the trash as part of internal security review. It was hooked into the AEC (Ajax Edit Comments) which hadn’t been updated in 3 years and which provided our re-edit and which had a pile of extra functions that we didn’t use any more. So I hunted for something that just did the re-edit function.
The guy who wrote the AEC originally had done one called Simple Comment Edit (SCE) which after I tested it, turned out to be much better for our needs.
Oh and it even works in the mobile version of the site with a few quirks 🙂
Do you know whether he plans to provide the “search” function’s capabilities? It no longer abends for me but it doesn’t find any results either.
It was on my list last night. But I wound up working on several other issues first.
Coffee and I will try to merge the code bases together again.
In the meantime while I wait for the coffee to take effect, I’m purging 36 thousand revisions of the authors posts that are no longer required. That should save some backup bandwidth.
My misspellings hitting the dust – thank you
hehe that makes me feel important , but i’m not involved in nor do i know anyone who is involved with the running of the standard , just a random commenter is who i am.
Good news for us Lefties ,Labour has a land slide victory in Northen
Territory .
@PP
I expect our one man band will be relaxed and confortable about it.
I was having a chat outside the supermarket in my town with a District Court judge and I advanced the lament that we don’t have any strong moral leadership in NZ anymore……judge obviously understood me and responded – “Well yes, I agree John Key’s a little bit ‘relaxed’ maybe, but……. ”
Like it’s fucking OK overall ? And on the following Monday morning District Court judge went back to dispensing, ahem, justice ??? Yes he did. But none of the subjects of this dispensed ‘justice’ were fucking relaxed……and neither was ‘Mother Justice’. Rich people way up there are always fucking ‘relaxed’. Cos’ they don’t get hit with the unrelaxing shit that ordinary people have to suffer. So I don’t listen to them anymore. District Court judge et al……they’re wanking !
To persuade themselves, their own insides, that they’re selflessly making a difference. No…..!
Yep. Couldn’t agree more. You remind me of an incident that happened years and years ago. I was up before a district court judge on a speeding charge. Before I was called several others were up on the same charge and she dished out $50 fines. I came up before her… never spoke a word (my court appointed lawyer did the talking) and she lumbered me with a $100 fine. There was an audible gasp around the room. I was the only woman up on charges and I have to assume she did it because I was a young – a hell of a lot younger than her.
If I’d had the courage and confidence experience has since taught me, I would have called her out for what she was… a nasty bitch.
Just watch the BBC interviewer’s prejudice in favour of the establishment.
Can you imagine Sakkur treating a spokeperson from the banks in the same condescending manner?
The media is a large part of the problem.
Steve Keen interview on BBC HardTalk
I thought that was good Paul, Keen put his case forward very well while been challenged all the way, that’s what you want and guess why they call it hard talk To be fair to this interviewer he is pretty tough on all his interviews and prepared which is refreshing
New Zealanders should heed this message.
Australia headed for recession next year, Professor Steve Keen says.
Self funding – exploiting the fuck out of everyone and everything to break even or perhaps turn a tidy wee profit.
Have you looked at who is funding Clinton?
The usual culprits…..
Germans told to stockpile food and water for civil defence
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37155060
For the first time since the Cold War the German government is advising citizens to stockpile food and water for use in a national emergency.
Some opposition MPs said the new civil defence concept, to go before ministers on Wednesday, was scaremongering.
Citizens are advised to store enough food to last them 10 days, because initially a disaster might put national emergency services beyond reach.
Five days’ water – two litres (half a gallon) per person daily – is advised.
I lived in Germany for nearly 2 years. I was impressed – they generally do much less stupid than we do. They discussed economic matters seriously, and conquered inflation long before we did. They also prevented the ridiculous house price problem we have. They are far more heavily populated, and have done far more than we have to counter pollution. And kept a truly successful economy, despite taking on the burden of an impoverished East Germany 26 years ago.
Not a known earthquake zone, but … I would listen if I were there.
But here in NZ we need fear nothing in these Golden Times with our Rocket Economy.
And our PM can find another expert to contradict anyone who points out a threat like filthy waterways…
And Germany has introduced debt-free tertiary education.
Yep – they are way ahead of us.
Fascinating method of determining school needs here from the National government ministry of education.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/311981/'overall'-more-space-than-students-ministry
I expect they will under their small government masters want to normalise classes being held in libraries, staff rooms, resource rooms, and storage sheds in the same way the current government has normalised poverty, homelessness, and crime. After all, according to John Key’s men, this is what happens in tough economic times.
I would really love to see someone in the media track the progress of these “230 new classrooms”, and “six new schools”.
there’s empty classrooms all over the country but hey what the fuck lets all pile into the big cities so we can enjoy all the pleasures of traffic jams and overcrowding.
I’d rather a child sex offender living next door than the corrections minister.
Far less dangerous…
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/311986/nobody-wants-a-child-sex-offender-living-next-door-minister
Dirty fucking cop…….what’re all those (certainly looked like essentially tidy) young fullas gonna think next time…….you humiliated me last time areshole cop……here, feast on this. Whack ! You can see it a mile off. All because of one Rambo Little Dick Cock. That kid on the bike was more a man by a mile than that thick bully fuck cop.
FFS.http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=164677
This should be the subject of a criminal charge of assault laid against the doggish bully cop. Won’t happen of course. Assaults BY police are ten fold of assaults AGAINST police. And judges know it but ‘politically’ they close their ears and then they end up believing their own closed ears.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=164677
Look at it again. Completely unprovoked !
FFS ! Despatch both those flakes. Amendment ?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11701284