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.
As Brexit comes to a grisly conclusion (perhaps) people on all sides are saying intemperate and uwise things. Some, like the Daly Mail, have been doing it for years.People as normally level headed as Jon Lansman are calling for automatic deselection of MPs who vote against a (likely) Labour three ...
I've got one source saying more Labour MPs than expected are mulling whether to vote for the deal - including names who were not on the letter to Juncker and Tusk— Emilio Casalicchio (@e_casalicchio) 17 October 2019 I've compiled a list of possible reasons why Labour ...
On Wednesday, the government was loudly telling us that it needed to legislate to allow it to impose "control orders" - effectively a parole regime, but imposed without charge, prosecution, conviction or real evidence - on suspected terrorists because they couldn't be prosecuted for their supposed crimes. Today, it turns ...
On Monday, the Hit and Run inquiry heard from NZDF's former director of special operations, who claimed that the defence Minister knew everything about the Operation Burnham raid. Today, the inquiry heard from that (former) Minister - and it turns out that he didn't know nearly as much as NZDF ...
Yoga gurus and cult leaders – I’ve seen a few. Two weeks ago, I unknowingly joined an alleged new-age cult at the Kāpiti coast, together with a giant kraken and some neatly dressed pensioners who would make any book club proud.They were among the two hundred people of all ages ...
The last decade has seen a trend of increasing weapons availability to police. Assault rifles. Tasers on every hip. Guns in cars. And following the march 15 massacre, pistols on every hip, all over the country. At the same time, its also seen an increase in the abuse of force: ...
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy preparing for our summer paper on Science Communication. Looking for something amusing about ‘risk’ in science, I came across this neat xkcd.com cartoon about why so many people come knocking on my door (or phoning me, or emailing me) desperately wanting ...
by John Edmundson The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) have recently reposted a February article, by Romany Tasker-Poland, explaining ISO’s position in the “trans rights” debate. It is available on their website and on their Facebook Page. The article sets out to explain why “socialists support trans rights”. It reads more ...
"Auckland City Mission: 10% of Kiwis experiencing food insecurity", RNZ, 16 October 2019:About half a million people are experiencing food insecurity, according to new research from the Auckland City Mission. Food insecurity, or food poverty, is defined as not having enough appropriate food. The City Mission said over the last ...
Media Statement for Immediate Release 16th October 2019 “Fake News” from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th–there is very little evidence ...
Would You Buy A Used Propaganda Video From This Man? Bridges and the National Party’s strategists have discovered that the ideas and attitudes considered acceptable by today’s editors and journalists are no longer enforceable. The rise and rise of the Internet and the social media platforms it spawned means that ...
There is plenty of evidence of the way the business mentality has permeated every level of society since the recrudescence of market liberalism 35 years ago. You only need to think of how citizens in need of help from their government, their state, their country, are now routinely described as ...
John MacCormickOver the last 40 years, New Zealanders – and people in other countries – have experienced big changes in the jobs they do and where they live and work. These changes include: a decline in manufacturing jobs an increase in jobs in ‘information-intensive’ industries (which are better paid ...
Nick Wilson, Leah Grout, Mereana Wilson, Anja Mizdrak, Phil Shoemack, Michael BakerProtecting waterways has the benefits of: (1) protecting water from hazardous microbes; (2) minimising cancer risk and other problems from nitrates in water; (3) avoiding algal blooms that are hazardous to health; (4) protecting mahinga kai uses (cultural ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In a press release today Massey University announced it has decided to rebrand and reorientate after struggling to be a University for grown-ups. For some time the University has wanted to be a safe play space for wee-woke-misogynists who have been really badly triggered ...
After a brief dalliance with 'hard Revoke' it looks like the Lib Dems are changing ground on on Brexit, with leader Jo Swinson reverting to calling for a second referendum on Johnson's deal.The party has tabled an amendment to the Queen’s speech requesting that any deal brought back from Brussels ...
The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof. If ...
So, Judith Collins has done a Facebook rant about climate change, peddling the same shit National has been shovelling for the past twenty years: the impacts are overstated, there's no need to do anything about it, and its too hard anyway (oh, and its so unfair that people who peddle ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThere is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...
I came across this song quite by accident. If it isn't one of Greta Thunberg's favourites - it should be.Video courtesy of YouTube.This post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...
Last month, NZDF's shoddy coverup of what it knew about civilian casualties in Operation Burnham began to fall apart, with the revelation that a report on the matter, which NZDF claimed not to have, had been sitting in an NZDF safe for the past nine years. Yesterday, the man responsible ...
While many imagine that countries like the USA and Europe dominate space activities, in fact India is now a major player on this stage. It launches satellites for its own purposes and also commercially, and has constellations orbiting our planet and returning data of vital importance to that nation in ...
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...
For the past week, Extinction Rebellion has been peacefully protesting in London to demand action on climate change. The British government's response? Ban their protests:Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s ...
An essay by Judith Collins MP reported on Carbon News yesterday seems to show an alarming shift in attitude within the National Party. Collins argues against the Zero Carbon Bill, the Paris Agreement, and downplays the magnitude of climate impacts. The Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015 and ratified ...
When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
A list of indicators of bad science – many of these are found in articles promoted by anti-fluoride activists. Anti-fluoride activists have been pouring money into a scaremongering campaign warning pregnant women not to drink fluoridated water. They claim fluoride will lower the IQ of their future child. Fluoride ...
Nothing Left To Say: Labour's pollster, Stephen Mills, remains swaddled-up in the comforting myths of the 1980s. As if the experience of Roger Douglas’s genuinely radical post-Muldoon policy agenda was literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing – as much as the party could possibly absorb for at least the next 50 years.MEMO ...
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
How could government evolve over the next decades? Reports of democracy’s imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. However, satisfaction with political systems in many countries is low, so there is much to do for governments of all political stripes to improve relevance and trust. Digital technologies are seen as one ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
What is language? We generally assume that it a facility unique to humans, allowing us to share what’s in and on our minds. We can tell of our plans, our past exploits, our knowledge. It also allows us to lie. And yet there are vast numbers of people we can’t ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni has welcomed the first reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill. “Every New Zealander has a stake in New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension,” says Carmel Sepuloni. “They are our most common form of social assistance – nearly 800,000 New ...
Babies in Auckland aged six months and over can receive a free vaccination and children will all have access to vaccines, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced today at Papatoetoe High School. The move comes as part of Government efforts to step up the fight against measles. ...
***Check against delivery*** Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here, and to have the honour of opening this important conference on behalf of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Let us take the opportunity to acknowledge all the people who have helped make today possible, including our special ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash says the safety of frontline officers and members of the public will be the focus of a new trial of specialist Police response teams in three of our largest urban centres. Police have this morning released details of an initiative to be trialled in Counties Manukau, ...
The Minister of Fisheries is calling for entries for a new public award to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector. “I have established the Seafood Sustainability Awards to recognise and celebrate those throughout industry, tangata whenua and communities who demonstrate outstanding dedication and innovation towards the sustainability of New Zealand’s ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter welcomes leaders in the private sector taking action on closing their gender pay gaps to ensure a fairer workplace for all New Zealanders. Ms Genter today launched a new report, Addressing the gender pay gap and driving women’s representation in senior leadership, from the Champions for ...
Government Ministers today welcomed the release of a marine environment report highlighting the four key issues affecting our oceans, estuaries and coastlines. The release underlines the importance of government proposals to combat climate pollution, ensure clean freshwater, protect biodiversity, make land use more sustainable, and reduce waste and plastic. Environment ...
The Government has approved funding for a new acute mental health facility for Waikato which will provide better care and support to people with mental health and addiction issues. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark announced the $100 million project to replace the aging Henry Rongomau ...
The Government is making progress on its goal to integrate te reo Māori into education by 2025, with over 500 teachers and support staff already graduating from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis made the announcement at an awards ceremony in Waikanae today, for ...
Statistics Minister James Shaw has welcomed the first release of 2018 Census data. The first release of data today, 23 September, includes key data on population, regional growth, the number of homes and the size of different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Data from the 2018 Census will support the ...
Minister for Statistics James Shaw today announced a public consultation on a proposed algorithm charter for government agencies. The charter has been developed by the Government Chief Data Steward in response to growing calls for more transparency in government use of data. Computer algorithms – procedures or formulas for solving ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte co-hosted a business roundtable in Auckland this morning focused on working together to address climate change. “The Netherlands is an important partner for New Zealand. We share a strong agricultural history. Sustainable agribusiness and ...
The Government is taking action to build an inclusive economy where more of us receive our fair share at work and businesses can compete on great products and services, not undercutting wages and conditions, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. Two consultations launched today seek feedback ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Feedback sought– Lyttelton commercial zone parking The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to remove on-site car parking requirements for new developments in the Lyttelton commercial zone. The proposal, by Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section 71 of the Greater ...
Hon Minister Poto Williams Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration MEDIA STATEMENT Tuesday 15 October 2019 Feedback sought – Hagley Oval The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal about Hagley Oval. The proposal was developed by Regenerate Christchurch ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
New Zealand First members will vote on a policy today that would allow businesses of all sizes to enforce 90-day trials when they employ people straight out of prison. ...
"Each time she held her lighter underneath the pipe and sucked the smoke into the back of her throat, the promise was there": a New Zealand tragedy by Alice Tawhai. ...
With the future of Mediaworks’ TV business hanging in the balance, Al Jazeera news presenter Kamahl Santamaria reflects on what the imperilled channel meant, and continues to mean, to him.I always liked the logo. The fresh bright colours, the nod to a koru in its shape, and just the fact ...
There are still many barriers preventing people from voting in local elections. Laura O’Connell Rapira proposes some social solutions.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.To vote in the local elections, I cast ...
What’s really stood out for me being back in Tokyo is the unique qualities of Japan’s spectators, writes Richard Light, professor of sport coaching at the University of Canterbury.The Rugby World Cup has thrown a global spotlight on Japan over recent weeks. Not just the rugby: the distinctive culture and ...
As the New Zealand First Party gathers for its annual conference, the question swirling in the year is how it can carve out a path to avoid electoral defeat in 2020, writes Jo Moir for RNZ. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s a familiar break up excuse that’s used ...
To the early intervention therapists, to the teachers, to the speech therapists, the occupational therapists, music therapists, diabetes nurses and all: you change the world.When I was married almost a decade ago we had the following reading at our wedding:You are holding up a ceilingwith both arms. It is very ...
The faces said it all. The smiles of the European leaders crowded round Boris after the Brexit deal was struck. The deal his opponents – no, pretty much everyone – said was impossible.So what’s in it? The detail is still opaque, but subject to gremlins in the fine print, ...
Iran attracts an onslaught of negative media in New Zealand and Western media. But is it fair or deserved? David Robie has spent several weeks travelling in the country on sabbatical and finds the media negativity far from the reality of the “most friendly” country he has ever visited ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Leigh Sullivan discusses the week in politics with Michelle Grattan. They talk about Alan Jones accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of failing the immediate needs of drought-striken farmers, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anita Parbhakar-Fox, Senior Research Fellow in Geometallurgy/Applied Geochemistry, The University of Queensland Last month, scientists uncovered a mineral called Edscottite. Minerals are solid, naturally occurring substances that are not living, such as quartz or haematite. This new mineral was discovered after an ...
The Auckland-based collective talk origins, ambitions and making the rave accessible to everybody.Friendly Potential is an outfit that defies easy summary. They’re among the country’s most ambitious and prolific club promoters. In their almost five-years of operation, they’ve been responsible for the local debuts of electronic music icons including Detroit ...
Analysis: Two polls show support for Labour sliding, the government is accused of breaking another promise and the Greens's refusal to back a bill forces Labour to rely on National to get it through. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kiera Lindsey, University of Technology Sydney One spring morning in 1850, over 8,000 Sydneysiders marched through town to protest the resumption of transportation – the act of sending British criminals to Australia. It was the largest protest in Australia thus far, an ...
Two shareholders of failed insurance firm company CBL are leading a class action against the firm's former directors seeking compensation for financial losses. ...
Sam Brooks recaps the third episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and wonders why some of these queens don’t know how to sew.This episode asks, and sort of answers the main question that millions of people across the world: why would you come on Drag Race and not know how to sew?!There ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John M Clarke, Team Leader, Regional Projections, CSIRO Last month we lost Dr Penny Whetton – one of the world’s most respected climate scientists and a brilliant mentor to the next generation of researchers. Penny will also be remembered as a passionate ...
Ten moose were upended into the Dusky Sounds in 1910. Now, their descendants are getting their day in the sun.The climate crisis is affecting wildlife all over the country: rockhopper penguin populations are in drastic decline, tuatara eggs aren’t hatching females, and the ice walls keeping predators away from kea ...
Security footage of NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell being thrown out of a Tauranga bar looks unlikely to ever be aired - despite his leader Winston Peters promising a screening. ...
Amnesty International is concerned that Justice Minister Andrew Little's Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill could have the potential to undermine human rights in New Zealand. The Bill would give the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to ...
Expect the old campaigner Winston Peters to be at his belligerent best as he gears up for another election. He’s kept his party alive for 27 years and he shows no sign of quitting. The omens may be bleak—polls this week showed his party below the 5% threshold– but Peters ...
The National Party has agreed to take down any videos breaching the current rules around the use of parliamentary TV footage, as all parties try to reach consensus. ...
Recently the Health Promotion Agency released a report into hazardous drinking in New Zealand. The report shows that Māori who drink alcohol and live in deprived circumstances are less likely to have a harmful relationship with alcohol if they ...
Turkey-US joint-statement on military ops within Syria’s territory.The Turkish Embassy in New Zealand issued Evening Report this unabridged United States of America-Republic of Turkey joint-statement detailing what both sides agreed to regarding Turkey’s military operations within the so-called security zone within Syrian territory near Turkey’s southern border. It is ...
Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash didn’t mention what winners will receive, when he proudly called for entries for a new public award “to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector”. Nor did he mention the cost to taxpayers of this initiative. Point of Order’s checks with the website where more details have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona R Martin, Senior Lecturer in Convergent and Online Media, University of Sydney One of the basic tenets of the ABC Act is independence from government. Yet once again, in contravention to that principle, the federal government is trying to push through ...
A new poem by Auckland poet Lily Holloway.modernity to globalisationwhen I get there as still life and landscape and also portraitureseeking the cacti in small pots who dot the globeslices of pie offer up the vision after the sermonexpressing emotions without coherent narrative supportbecause no artist responded to this callemploying ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi to rule out any taxpayer-funded purchase or bailout for Mediaworks’s channel Three. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “For the last few months Mediaworks ...
The Police Commissioner's announcement that squadcars of officers with automatic rifles will patrol New Zealand's streets is dangerous and unnecessary, according to the criminal justice community organisation People Against Prisons Aotearoa. The ...
News broke this morning that Mediaworks is seeking to sell off, and even contemplating closing, its TV division. What might that mean for journalism?For journalism in New Zealand, the loss of Three’s TV division is a devastating blow. It is not yet known whether any of the news properties will ...
In our defence of our coalition Government policy on climate change, we fully support Government plan to use rail funding for rail infrastructure upgrades to promote use rail infrastructure for freight around NZ. ...
The billions of tonnes of plastic in our oceans isn’t going away any time soon, but innovative companies here and abroad are working together to find silver linings to this daunting problem.Fishing boats head out to sea and set their nets. They go back to shore. They head back out, ...
An EveningReport.nz investigation by Kevin ListKiwibank services. Image by Kevin List.Evening Report looks into the separation of Kiwibank from New Zealand Post, and considers the impact on the public’s access to banking services in their communities.Kiwibank. What’s going on? Kiwibank and New Zealand Post are in the ...
Local Government New Zealand today confirmed what many local election commentators have observed; that more of the voting public cast their ballots in favour of women candidates than ever before. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington (this week we totted up the data a day early, on Wednesday, to let our books ed. ...
New Zealand's mineral manufacturing sector is expected to face some testing times, with softer prices, tighter margins and sluggish export markets. ...
Portugal has been painted by pro-cannabis legalisation groups as a model to follow. Yet just last month, the mayor of Porto contradicted his previous pro-harm reduction position and endorsed reintroducing criminal penalties for drug use in public spaces. ...
Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short announced today the inclusion of six Cook Island First World War soldiers in the New Zealand and Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s official rolls of honour. ...
The latest statistics released by the Health Promotion Agency showing a dramatic fall in the numbers of cigarettes being sold in supermarkets, service stations, and liquor stores are being welcomed by the Vaping Trade Association of New Zealand (VTANZ). ...
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 content by Dr Bryce Edwards.NZ First Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Where to from here? How NZ First will win in ...
Aotearoa Climate Emergency (ACE), a climate change network, will host a conference in Wellington on 11 November (Armistice Day) to promote holding a Citizens Assembly in 2020, as a way of breaking the current political deadlock on treating climate ...
MediaWorks’ owners have called time after years of losses from its TV division. Sources say the company will announce it is for sale – if no buyers emerge, it will close within months.Three is facing the biggest crisis in its three decade history today, as its ownership will soon announce ...
Sam Brooks reviews Amazon Prime’s Modern Love, an anthology series based on the New York Times column dedicated to ‘love in all its forms’. A first date that ends up in the emergency room. A flagging marriage that finds new energy through tennis. The founder of a dating app who doesn’t ...
If we want to grow support for New Zealand’s aid, we need to get better at partnering with the ‘unlike-minded’ as well as the ‘like-minded’, and much better at telling people what we do with the money they give, says Josie Pagani, Executive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Orsola De Marco, Astrophysicist , Macquarie University If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.How are stars made? –Zali, age 8, Karkoo, South Australia. How are stars made? Well, stars are not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gita Mishra, Professor of Life Course Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland All women know to expect the time in life when their periods finish and they reach menopause. Many might even look forward to it. What many women don’t ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGreevy, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Science, University of Sydney Since ancient times, horse behaviour, and the bond between horses and humans, has been a source of intrigue and fascination. The horse-lore that has accumulated over the centuries is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Wallis, Lecturer and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland A move to the country is often presented in popular culture as an idyllic life, a place where you can escape the pressures of the city. It’s in television shows such ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW The just-announced inquiry into Australia’s retirement income system ought to be anything but run-of-the-mill. Taking place 25 years after the introduction of compulsory superannuation, it provides an opportunity to either fix a broken system, or discard ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allan McCay, Law Lecturer, University of Sydney The rise of artificial intelligence has led to widespread concern about the role of humans in the workplaces of the future. Indeed, Israeli historian, futurist and publishing sensation Yuval Noah Harari warns in his most ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Saunders, Phd candidate, University of Wollongong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people. You leave Sydney and head for holidays on the South Coast. You plan to catch a quick surf, ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Clayton Mitchell denies accusations around a night out, food insecurity on the rise, and UK PM Boris Johnson secures deal with dubious prospects.NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell has got himself in a spot of late night bother in a Tauranga ...
As the rugby world wrestles with the new reality that players can, and will, be dismissed for accidental contact with an opponent’s head it's worth pondering the fate of three All Blacks not selected for the Ireland quarterfinal. ...
A measles outbreak in Samoa suspected to be responsible for the death of a one-year-old was “inevitable”, according to an expert who thinks NZ could have prevented it. ...
A new exhibition in Raetihi offers a rare opportunity to see early, colonialism-focused works by Wellington artist Barbara Strathdee, writes Pat Baskett. ...
Italy's Ambassador to New Zealand Fabrizio Marcelli responds to Newsroom stories - and The Detail podcasts - questioning the price of imported tinned tomatoes in light of reports of slave labour in the industry in his home country. ...
The big shock of the results in the weekend’s local elections was the unseating of Justin Lester as Wellington mayor. We invited him to pen a sort-of-valedictory.My three years as the mayor of Wellington ended on Sunday and I will forever remain grateful for the experience.I’m also acutely aware of ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, Alex Braae reviews a night spent on the Intercity overnight sleeper bus getting from Wellington to Auckland.The most important thing to understand about long haul bus travel is that it’s all about getting exactly ...
Britain and the EU have agreed new terms for divorce. But with the Conservatives’ Northern Irish support party unimpressed, can the British prime minister at last put an end to the interminable shitstorm?At last, a deal! A palpable deal! A path out of the endless brain-melt!“Where there is a will, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Government sources insist shock jock Alan Jones didn’t drive Thursday’s announcement of a cash payment to drought-striken farmers about to be turfed off their household support because they’d reached the four year time limit. They ...
The proposition that global warming driven by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a risk that needs to be dealt with has achieved a large measure of agreement among policymakers. The proposition that it has to be dealt with right now and at great cost has no such consensus.One point ...
Open mike 28/08/2016 
Open mike is your post.
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Yoga gurus and cult leaders – I’ve seen a few. Two weeks ago, I unknowingly joined an alleged new-age cult at the Kāpiti coast, together with a giant kraken and some neatly dressed pensioners who would make any book club proud.They were among the two hundred people of all ages ...1 day ago
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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