A good follow up to Nigel Latta’s expose of the sugar industry in NZ.
Katherine Rich ( ex Nat MP ) is the hired gun for the sugar industry.
I think they used Slater to attack people who questioned the sugar industry.
Lewis Road Creamery Chocolate Milk, with queues of customers waiting for delivery every day. Each bottle contains 22 pieces of (delicious) Whittakers chocolate (half a chocolate slab).
Twenty two pieces …….. Glug glug glug.
A second drink, perhaps? Or a glass of coke to ‘wash it down’?
Could I please have a side order of diabetes?
The research referred to was some blind taste testing with dinner guests, that I carried out . Nothing to do with Mars. I was trying to understand if the queues could really be justified on the basis of taste, and also highlight the foolishness of the queues on the basis of health.
Yep he was floored by the question by Espiner about whether it was moral for NZ to enter the war. I thought he had difficulties understanding the concept of morality.
I have looked in vain for six years for any suggestions that Mr Key has a moral base. Right now the National Party is a convenient vehicle to satisfy his personal interests. Hopefully somone can explain why my view has no substance, as I would like to think better of him?
I think he has said himself that he is not an “ideology” type of person. The only thing I recall he has said he that believes in are asset sales. Is there another living NZer that cannot recall what they thought about the Springbok tour? When he first came out with this I thought he was lying. Now I actually believe it.
Yep one of his answers to ‘is it moral’ was “It is if we agree to that.” So what is moral is what we agree is moral.
That might be an interesting philosophical stance on ethics al la David Hume, but I for one would like a stance less cynical from our leader that doesn’t smack of focus group analysis on this issue. Higher standards anyone?
I don’t think he has any idea. He is totally amoral. I can recognise it because I was like that until I grew up a bit in my late 20s. As far as his philosophy goes, it’s a weird mix of Aleister Crowley and Nietsche, mixed with a desire for acceptance from those he worships. As a human being, he is hugely dysfunctional.
Why is that such a surprise, the ‘terror’ narrative arrived within a week of the election duely pushed by the MSM muppets so top diversionary tactic whilst the RMA, employment, exploration and sell offs etc etc continue.
kiwi soldiers bodies being returned home will be another unwanted legacy of key as he marches them off and increases our risk once we engage.
this govt has no moral compass just a monetary one.
This morning on the news about David cameron the journalist said all western leaders were on high alert since the canadian parliament incident.
I was at dinner sunday evening when the Pm arrived. There was no pre dinner sweep of the restaurant, he arrived with his wife and son, alone. NO guards, none of his special big boys. They were not discreetly outside they were nowhere…
So, NOT on high alert here.
BUT maybe he was dining as John Key the man, and not PM. The terrorists will probably respect that distinction aye?
He needs to be truthful. This isn’t about NZers, it is that he believes we should play a part alongside our allies. There are many who agree with that thinking so why not just say it, Honest John?
I’ve said before, how many of the jingoistic types will send their own children. I note, John Keys daughter the right age to fight – should she not be running off to basic?
i didnt see him… heads turned, conversations lowered and my right wing dad and his wife said he had arrived. he sat at a table behind me. i had eaten so it was just a question of keeping it down.
when i stood to leave, i was so tempted to say lousd enough
“i see the terror threat is very low tonight”… but didnt
he has good taste in restaurants. hes come in before when i was there…
But Tracey did you notice the casually dressed but awkward bloke who came in a few minutes before maybe with a companion, who could have been man or a woman, and the lone diner who came in a bit later or who stayed hanging around the door or feigned interest in the shop windows in the vicinity.
Key is paranoid, but increasingly aware that more NZers think the whole “entourage” thing is preposterous posing
The entourage thing is US-style politics invading New Zealand. Have you seen the motorcades that travel with the likes of Eric Holder? Not even the President.
I bet Steven Joyce et al. are frothing at the mouth for a personal security detail.
I wonder whether David Parker has demanded a team from the Diplomatic Protection Squad to travel with him all the time now he is the (acting) leader of the party? Cunliffe wanted them around all the time. Perhaps he thought it made him seem important.
Actually perhaps Cunliffe was worried about the other members of his caucus. It would seem justified wouldn’t it? http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10470344/Campaign-Diary-Monday-September-8
“Dirty Journalism” post by Bat Bean Beam is a must read. Asks all the right questions about journalists in NZ and the failure to change anything substantial since the release of Hager’s Dirty Politics book:
And while Nicky Hager is constantly questioned about the ethics of his working with stolen correspondence, none of the reporters who have collaborated with Slater have had to defend the public interest value of their stories against the danger of exposing others to Whaleoil. Yet that is also where the naivety defence falls apart: for nobody can claim not to have known what that blog was about. There is no excuse.
“We are always told that wages shouldn’t rise unless productivity rises. Well, productivity rose 48% from 1990 to 2010 – but after inflation, the average wage rose only 18%. This is a fundamentally unfair wages system, caused in large part by the lack of bargaining power that working people – wage and salary earners – have suffered.”
For a lot of people, those in the lower decile, as productivity has risen their wages have actually gone down.
It’s a simple fact that, if everything else remains the same, as productivity increases wages must decline. This government and all governments going back to the 4th Labour government have been working to keep everything else the same in the name of stability and with that has come the inevitable decrease in bargaining power and remuneration.
Oh, look, IT just increased productivity, had nothing to do with employees!
I must be due a bonus, and my banker can leverage the new ongoing wealth to sustain even higher valuations.
It must be great to live in a world when citizens are widgets, expendable moveable parts, where discourse about finance is all about how wealth is mismeasird and allotted to a shrinking class of super rich and their hanger on-ers.
Key screws us all, locking away choice.
Help Shut Down the Illegal and extremely cruel Dog Meat Trade in Thailand. Watch the video to understand what is happening there.
Please act immediately to stop thousands of dogs from being tortured and butchered for their meat.
Every aspect of the dog meat trade in Southeast Asia is horrifically cruel.
You can save thousands of dogs from unspeakable pain by adding your name to Soi Dog’s global petition. It calls on Thailand’s leaders to crack down hard on the criminals who profit from the agony of animals.
The modern equivalent of slavery is slavery. It’s pretty gross to exploit the utter dehumanisation of actual humans in order to make a cheap shock-value attack on people who eat things you don’t like.
Even conservative John Armstrong has something bad to say about National’s housing ‘reform’ (read: sell off all the shit to our corporate funders for pennies on the dollar). Armstrong refers to the policy as ideological for ideology’s sake.
National is continuing its policy of strip mining all the assets of the state, thus breaking a promise it made that there would be no more selling. They are behaving like a mafia that has taken over a business to squeeze every last dollar out of it before they send it into bankruptcy.
History tells us that the invisible hand is NOT the best solution to social problems. One of the main jobs of Government is dealing with the negative externalities the invisible hand creates in the first place, which is in essence what state housing is an example of – Providing where the market can’t, or won’t without the introduction of overbearing regulation.
Isis will “rain carnage on the world”, Prime Minister John Key tells us today … but he has yet to make a decision on whether NZ troops will go.
What sort of apocalyptic theology does he subscribe to these days ? Revelations ?
Will a NZ SAS haka have any effect on the Saudis and Qataris who used Chlorine at Kobane ? Is he referring to ballistic mass destruction ?
He may wish retire to a professorship in strategic decision making at Auckland University.
Isn’t this phrase indicative of the breathtaking level of arrogance of our current PM – given the carnage unremittedly being dropped from the sky creating vast civilian casualties is primarily and immorally being committed by his US “allies”?
The carnage being rained is a direct result of the insane invasion of Iraq which Key wanted NZ to be part of. So we could sell more butter to the yanks. Still need to shift more of it…
He’s just making sure that when we send our troops over, we know we’re doing A Good Thing, because otherwise we might have some public pressure to the contrary.
Last time I looked, it was nation states with developed economies, and strong military forces that were capable of raining carnage on the world, not a bunch of Koran waving teenagers with a couple of stolen MiGs.
Millsy, we are very selective about which people who are doing harm in the world that we should visit with our strong military forces, that as you say are capable of raining carnage on the world. Let us not forget that Vietnam received triple the bombing that took place in all of WWII !
In relationship to all this, I wonder what certain elements of society today would have called the men who went as volunteers to Spain to fight Franco’s fascists. Is that similar to the young men fighting with the Islamic State? Were those Spanish War volunteers idealists and defenders of freedom or were they brainwashed, radicalised terrorists?
Would our present Government have considered a military intervention into Republican Spain then?
It is the remuneration packages of bank CEOs that have been out of control. They are the ones who are left unchecked and will rain carnage on the world.
Well, well, I never knew that. George Key. My use of the Spanish Civil War analogy was entirely outside of that information. (And that’s no John Key-style memory lapse. His techniques for avoidance of issues are well criticised in tonight’s Marlborough Express editorial, by the way).
Remember that those who fought against Franco were reviled by the establishment, who thought that fascism, which got rid of those “pesky communist trade unions”, was a good idea.
Right up until Poland was invaded, and their skills were needed.
[lprent: I have no real objections to you placing these links here (all about ISIS, chemical weapons, and Kurds). However I do have a strong objection to you link-whoring them on our site for promoting google links. You haven’t provided a reason in the form of a paragraph or two for the people on this site why they should click into them.
This site values the opinions of those who comment here. We don’t value straight linking with no explanations. ]
Strange thing though, I imagine that there are many more young people willing to take up arms against IS than the few odd entrails that media manage to find have signed for IS.
Re. “link-whoring them on our site for promoting google links.”
.. they all linked to newspaper media sources, as I remember it, not google. A link is just an economical way of doing it ..
Putting raw links in a comment is most commonly used by bots and spam artists to increase google scores. When I look at a list of raw links that is what I presume.
There are many other search and meta-search engines out there besides google. I find google very limited, predictable, and constricting these days and try to broaden my sources. In this case I used
Moral is a word beloved of the Hasbara Zionists. The IDF is a moral army, Israel acts morally, etc….. Key is on the same side, so it’s no surprise to see the word being misused here as well. It’s a favourite term of immoral liars.
Good point. Plenty of more conservative lefties and left leaning intellectuals will nod sagely with the PM though. What could be more worthy than a ‘just’ war?
He won’t have read Dirty Politics
He will ignore all evidence on any subject which counters his limited self interested and parochial viewpoint.
He will rely on anecdotes to support his points.
He will aim tok provoke.
He’s unlikely to admit the only reason he voted for the Tories is naked self interest.
In short, he is not worth debating with.
I believe very much in democracy especially the last election where the people of NZ (well enough of them anyway) told you exactly what they think of so-called dirty politics and voted National back in
If you think an elected dictator every 3 years is cool and nobody should ask questions and the media should just be a propaganda tool,
then you are a f*cken tool as well mate.
Far be it for me to agree with a curmudgeon, but check out Gavin Ellis? (Elice?) on the regular gal’s NinetoNoon today. Completely on the mark – and couple that with the recent TVNZ decision.
When I get around to it, it may form a question on another post re what the fuck are prospective Labour Party candidates going to do about our media, and in particular PSB.
I’m hopeful I’ll hear that there will be some sort of bipartisan mechanism that protects our 4th Estate (not that we have one), and our public sphere. AND such a mechanism that bypasses old hacks and self-interested old boy/gal networks.
Personally, I believe there is such a mechanism, and one that not only recognises individuals’ true worth, and one that puts back a citizenry’s RIGHT.
(Might take one or two ex-pats to return home, and they can be convinced – AND one which is somewhat more ambitious than a CBB – which I have to support, but regard as JUST a little namby pamby – otherwise known as a co-alascence of a 3rd Way)
EDIT: What the fuck ever happened to protest, and journalistic integrity?
“America used to be a country that built for the future,” Krugman opens, somewhat mournfully. “Sometimes the government built directly: Public projects, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, provided the backbone for economic growth. Sometimes it provided incentives to the private sector, like land grants to spur railroad construction. Either way, there was broad support for spending that would make us richer.”
Not any more. These days, our government steadfastly refuses to invest in the country’s future.
It isn’t as if there’s no cash to do so. Seven years after the housing bubble burst, “the country is awash in savings,” Krugman writes, “with nowhere to go.” Corporations and banks are holding on to trillions in excess reserves that are simply sitting idle. State governments are strapped, yes, but the federal government, with its ability to borrow money cheaply, could easily help them out.
(if watching replays of q-time..i wouldn’t bother much past question five..if i were you..
..norman under-performed/delivered..
..king got follow-up question of the day..(referencing/comparing collins/key..vis a vis ‘ministerial-responsibility’..
..and this:..
(excerpt..)
‘..and english slam-dunks him/labour by noting labour signed up to the social-accord in 2013..which detailed this dismantling/devolution of the state houses asset..(!)
..(ed:..i didn’t know that..did you..?..that labour signed up to this..?..whoar..!..)..’
John Robertson, Professor of Media Politics at the University of West Scotland, on media bias in the Scottish Independence Referendum …..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajd4R-9BEIw
Some of his arguments towards the end of the clip (on the Establishment Media’s demonization of Opposition Leaders) has particular relevance for New Zealand.
A couple of minor corrections and additions to your report.
1. Oceana Gold is not a NZ company. It is just another foreign owned company making money out of NZ.
2. It is poisoning El Salvador’s water.
3. It is using a free trade agreement to sue the El Salvador government.
“Oceana Gold is claiming that under the US-central America free trade agreement, it has a “right” to compel mining or be compensated for loss of profits. In response, the company will today be handed a petition signed by 200,000 opponents to its attempt to force gold mining in El Salvador.”
But who cares. Some selfish shareholders are making heaps of money out of polluting the earth and screwing over a people.
Simply put yes, yes it does…except for the little issue of its not a case of me doing well therefore no one else can do well instead its a case of I’m doing well and everyone else can do well if they so choose
The problem with the left in general is you all think that for someone to do well (whatever the definition of doing well is) it has to be at the expense of someone else
Whereas the inconvenient truth of the matter is that everyone can do well if they choose to but most choose not to
actually, if you bought power shares you are doing well at the expense of everyone else, in the form of increased overseas debt the government pays because of the reduced dividend take.
“Restaurant Brands is a fast food company based in New Zealand and is listed on the NZ Stock Exchange as RBD. It operates most of New Zealand’s KFC, Pizza Hut, Carl’s Jr. and Starbucks stores and provides management and support services to New Zealand’s independent KFC franchisees. It holds the New Zealand franchise for KFC and Pizza Hut from Yum Restaurants and Starbucks from Starbucks USA.”
So just a subsidiary and a franchise of a massive US company owned by large multinational banks.
“Yum! Brands, Inc. or Yum! is an American fast food company. A Fortune 500 corporation, Yum operates the licensed brands Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Wing Street worldwide. Prior to 2011, Yum! also owned Long John Silver’s and A&W Restaurants.”
Nope sorry they weren’t, they were offered at a fair price and the controlling majority were kept by the government and there been two elections thus far that have returned National to be power
James Shaw, the new Green Party MP’s maiden speech in parliament,
When we’re presented with this conflict between the environment and the economy and it is almost always a false choice. There’s almost always a solution that delivers both.
Problems and conflicts that seem unsolvable have solutions, and the hard part is getting the different parties to work together to find them
Yes, Shaw is in the section of the Green Party that see a future working with National. They are still in a minority but do have influence. Julie-Ann Genter and Russel Norman are in this group also, but are not quite as right as Shaw.
I am still appalled that Norman said in the minor leader’s debate that the politician he most admired in another party was Bill (sell off state houses) English.
I’ve always had some criticisms of Norman’s values.
Actually. In the speech, Shaw doesn’t say he’s a fan of “market forces”. He says he’s a fan of “the market”; that the cause of destructive climate change is economic, but the solution is political. He said the market is not sentient, and we need to tell it what to do.
I have heard before that people generally rate him as pretty right wing.
So, he’s into regulated markets. He cites the abolition of slavery (having outlined the various strand of his whakapapa, which includes a female slave in the US).
He also talked of his mother raising him and his siblings on her teacher’s salary, as well as saying he was raised by his mother and her female partner. He spoke in praise of suffragettes and stroppy activist women.
Even those Greens who have rightish economic views are still a lot smarter and more socially enlightened than the right of the Labour Party (Cosgrove, O’Connor etc).
I’m just listening now. He’s saying some prettty radical stuff eg that nature has inherent rights. His stuff about the expansion of rights is very good (how they are feared but the fears prove unfounded in time).
and yeah, interesting re his statement that he likes the market, which he follows by saying that the market needs to be controlled. He says that for setting prices and allocating scarce resources it’s better than the alternatives. It would be good to see him do actual comparisons with the alternatives.
I know that presently we are stuck. To get unstuck, we will all need to let go of some things, and to be more committed to finding the answers than to being right or to others being wrong
The guy has serious problem solving intelligence and skills, I can see why the GP have promoted him. Very good speech.
I was also appalled at Russel Norman’s snuggling up to the Nats. Because of that I changed my vote from Greens to Labour and wonder if that comment lost them many votes at the election. Politics is in a woeful state at the moment.
I will probably vote reluctantly for Andrew Little in the Labour Leader contest, dont like any of the others in the running but is a worry when I cant even say to myself that I will vote for Greens if the outcome isn’t what I prefer.
Well, it’s the likes of Metiria Turei, Catherine Delahunty, and Jan Logie in the Greens that keep me voting Green. i’d also like to see Jack McDonald and Marama Davidson in the House.
But it is hard to decide who to vote for when I have criticisms of every party on the “left”.
“..I am still appalled that Norman said in the minor leader’s debate that the politician he most admired in another party was Bill (sell off state houses) English…”
yeah..that one is still echoing/bedding-in…
..and yeah..macdonald and davidson have both impressed..
“There’s a lot of chatter on twitter about Shaw being into market force. A bit worrying.”
I think it is inevitable with the Greens. Unless the left organises a progressive movement pretty damn quick, the party will work with whatever it can, including market forces. Norman of course is also into using the market to effect change.
It will be an interesting dilemma for the Greens. There is this idea that they’re neither left nor right (I think Lynn once used the imagery of them being vertical to the horizontal axis of the traditional left/right spectrum). I tend to see them as trying to move beyond the left/right gulf (which is why the whole ‘we can work with anyone on policy’ thing is so important to them). I have some sympathy for this because the left appears to be failing to stop neoliberalism and proto-fascism. Not that I think the left is necessarily at fault, but that we may need other things as well.
I’ll try and download Shaw’s speech later so I can see what all the fuss is about.
i also empathise. i think they are trying to go beyond left right dichotomy and are saying that whoever is in power and wants to advance policies the green party advocate they will work with.
that is not the same as being “right”
it seems to me that there is no single solution to many of our big problems but amalgams which most of our parties dont want a bar of.
It’s the same as doing what the Maori Party does, without the cabinet posts. It’s hugely dangerous, but then again, I also consider any collaboration with Labour since 1984 as working with the right.
the greens memorandum with national has resulted in over 400,000 homes being more insulated.
there has been a pilot scheme for a building wof
both things done by parties not around the cabinet table and with no outside cabinet baubles either.
far too little credit, and too many brickbats, get thrown for this. insulating homes is a step toward homes affects health improvements for the poorer amongst us
I don’t buy that line about moving beyond left and right. The MO of working for consensus and collaborative rather than being into competitive game-playing is to me a left wing value.
I think people like Shaw =, saying they are beyond political partisanship, and being into working with whoever for solutions to the big problems, are deluded.
They ignore that there are those out to maintain their power and privilege, and will resists any changes that challenge that – even if it damages the whole planet.
Slavery, for instance, never really went away, the capitalists used the market for exploit people in new ways.
i am not even sure it is a left wing value given the labour caucus consider itself left wing.
it is possible that people can believe they are moving beyond left and right in an attempt to place the value or ethic pursued above any exterior label. they may or may not achieve that but it doesnt change the intent. intent is often more key than outcome whether that outcome is negative or positive. the greens appear to be trying to place their policies, the intent above traditional labels. i admire the attempts given the people and process they are surrounded by
Well, I don’t see the current Labour caucus as being into consensus building and collaborative approaches.
There’s a strong element within that caucus that are into approaching politics as combative game playing. Very different from the approach of the Greens.
oh i agree but many behaving that way will consider themselves left wing.
i hesitate to say this but collaborative and consensus, imo, is a feminine trait rather than left or right wing… and before anyone leaps on that by feminine i mean as opposed to masculine not women versus men.
I see a collaborative approach as being more dominant on the left. I also see it as being more common among women. But, there are also some pretty competitive, combative, individualistic and right wing women: Judith Collins, for example.
For me, traditional human communities have always functioned with both conservative and liberal elements. While I also see the intent to shift beyone game playing and power-over structures as being more naturally left, I think that conservatives can also work collaboratively (I’m not talking about neoliberals or fundamentalists). The GP moving beyond left/right doesn’t mean they leave left wing values or skills behind.
“I think people like Shaw =, saying they are beyond political partisanship, and being into working with whoever for solutions to the big problems, are deluded.”
That’s a somewhat different thing than what I was talking about. I think that in principle we could have multi-party accords on some things (across the left/right divide), and to an extent this already happens within MMP. But in practice it won’t happen much because NACT’s agenda is so extreme and because we live in an MMP age where taking out opponents is part of the process (aka cutting off one’s nose to spite’s one face).
A question for any IT geeks around. Is there a technical reason for not having platforms that allow multiple logins at the same time on the same computer/browser (eg gmail, twitter etc)? Or is it that developpers don’t see the need?
yes I know how to use different browsers, my question is if there is a technical reason why it can’t be done on the same app.
How do you login to two different gmail accounts in the same browser? When I do that, gmail just logs me out of the first one, once I’m in the second one.
in gmail using a web browser, click on the person-shaped icon (top right) and click “add account”. Each account is opened in a different tab in firefox.
I suspect it involves cookies that link each session on the website to the specific tab, so on the flipside it might not work so well for sites whose users like to open the browser, go to the site and straight into their account with no further clicks.
Of course, all of the above are security workarounds that mean anyone using your machine can open your accounts, so you might not want to do it with any emails you conduct business on.
It’s by design, for security and convenience (in most use cases – not yours though!).
The Gmail login page creates an “authentication” cookie, so when you open a new tab Google knows you are logged in already. And when you open your other Gmail account, a new Gmail cookie is created which supersedes the previous one.
You may wonder why opening a different browser does what you want. It’s because they don’t share cookies among one another. Each browser (Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari, etc.) has a separate set of cookies.
Email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird should make it easier to collect your email from different accounts.
Thanks. I understand why using different browsers works (cookies).
I’m still not clear if there is a technical reason multiple logins can’t be used on one platform. How is it a security issue? And in this day and age, how is it a convenience issue?
“Clients like Outlook or Thunderbird should make it easier to collect your email from different accounts.”
Can I send from the different gmail accounts using Outlook?
It’s not about making it easier to collect email. It’s about being able to work in two or more different logins at once. eg working with googledocs, I’ve been logged in on a community group account and my own account, which requires me currently to use two browsers.
Cookies are per-website not per-account. If you had 2 cookies for the same website there’s a good chance the browser will mix up the account details when sending email.
Outlook is able to send & receive from different accounts no probs.
‘Canadian Green MP warns against harsh anti-terror measures’
By Keith Locke / October 28, 2014
“Canada’s Green Party has provided a welcome counterpoint to Prime Minister Harper’s call for tougher anti-terrorism laws in the wake of a soldier outside the Canadian Parliament…
How many times does it need to be said that it was not terrorism.
It was an act of war in a country that has been at war for 13 years. Unless can someone prove otherwise. Or just silly gormless soundbites for te news. probably
The latest news I’ve heard on Canada is that Toronto heavyweight Rob Ford was going to stand again for Mayor? but became ill, and at the last minute his brother stepped into his place. So how will Toronto vote?
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It looks like the government has won over the public on its vehicle feebate scheme:A feebate scheme that would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from buyers of higher-emission cars into the pockets of people buying EVs and other more fuel-efficient vehicles has been winning favour with submitters, the Government ...
When people suggest lowering the voting age, others argue that the young are too uneducated or silly to exercise the duties of citizenship. Australian John Quiggin has just blown that argument out of the water:Looking at the array of ignorant and vindictive old men attacking Greta Thunberg and other young ...
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...
Back in May, Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki launched another political party. Despite consisting entirely of followers of their religion, they grandly called it "Coalition New Zealand", in a vain effort to suggest it was something broader. But when they applied for registration, submitters opposed the name, as ...
The following article is excerpted and translated from two articles in recent issues of Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the revolutionary workers group active in France. We don’t necessarily agree with everything in it – for instance, the 1956-62 war for independence involved rather more revolutionary forces than ...
The Pacific is on the front line of climate change, and if we don't cut emissions quickly, some countries are literally going to be underwater. Because of this, small Pacific states had tried to use this week's Pacific Islands Forum meeting to get Pacific countries to agree to ending coal ...
To Limit Another's Rights Is To Limit One's Own: Is it too much to expect senior members of our Government to be capable of explaining that we protect the rights of human-beings precisely because not even the most depraved act can cancel-out the fact that its perpetrator is also a ...
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...
This section builds on Part 1 of this series to provide a theoretical basis for the final instalment (part 3 – to come). Self-determination: law or resurgence — or both? International law promotes the principal of equal treatment and self-determination, which includes peoples’ rights to freely pursue their social, cultural and ...
Everyone was outraged yesterday to learn that the Christchurch shooting accused had been able to send mail from prison to his Nazi fans, apparently pushing more hate. "How could this possibly happen", people asked. Simple: because New Zealand is a civilised country, and so we let prisoners send and receive ...
If we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, we need to rapidly decarbonise our transport fleet. The good news: its starting to happen:The number of electric vehicles on New Zealand's roads have nearly tripled in the past two years. There are currently 15,453 registered electric vehicles (EVs), up ...
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
‘Original Sin’ of Land Confiscation at Ihumātao is a wrong that can be put right by Government says Justice & Peace Commission of Catholic Diocese of Auckland ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference on August 19 that her government is likely to impose new restrictions on prisoners’ rights to send letters. She said the law could be changed in “weeks.” ...
Heart-warming images of House Speaker Trevor Mallard cradling a baby in Parliament have been welcomed around New Zealand, but the Public Service Association warns most families can only dream of such support in the workplace. ...
Applying New Zealand’s international human rights commitments, particularly those in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, can help in resolving the situation at Ihumātao, Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt says. ...
Climate campaigners impersonating bank staff have taken to the streets this week to expose ANZ Bank’s sponsorship of the fossil fuel industry. In the series of satirical actions in Wellington, Dunedin, and Auckland, the ‘bank staff’ promoted ...
Auckland Action Against Poverty joins the Children’s Commissioner , The Green Party , The New Zealand Drugs Foundation , Child Poverty Action Group and other organisations in the calls for an immediate end to the drug testing benefit sanctions. ...
Negotiations between Port Otago workers represented by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) and the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) and management failed today and the unions have issued notice of an overtime ban from Saturday 7th September. ...
Queenstown Lakes District Council’s comments that it has applied for a consent to pollute waterways to avoid 'prosecutions by the Otago Regional Council' are unacceptable,’ Fish & Game New Zealand Chief Executive Martin Taylor says. ...
On March 15, the real world impact of online hate became abundantly, horrifically clear. As a shooter opened fire at two Christchurch mosques, the online image board 8chan anticipated, celebrated and amplified his killing spree. ...
Friday, 23 August: Government delegates from around the world, including New Zealand, are meeting in New York for the third of four meetings at the United Nations to agree a Global Oceans Treaty that could help to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030. Greenpeace ...
The excuses about a reportedly unwanted $57,000 payrise for Dunedin City Council CEO Sue Bidrose are laughable, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance has launched the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” committing to no more than 2% annual rate hikes over the next Council term, and has written to all Mayoral and Council candidates asking them to sign. The pledge will ...
This Saturday, Pakuranga Hunt Day at the Ellerslie Racecourse will see anti-horse racing protesters demonstrating at the corner of Ascot Avenue and Greenlane East. ...
Mayoral candidate John Tamihere will meet with Pacific Island leaders and community elders today at Puhunui Reserve in South Auckland to commit to a Pasefika Cultural Centre. ...
Cruel and invalid Forced Swim Tests carried out at Victoria University of Wellington, will be exposed at the University Open Day today, so prospective students can be warned about the flawed and unethical research being conducted at the institute. ...
The organiser of the annual YWCA Equal Pay Awards has expressed her disappointment with the latest Gender Pay Gap figure for New Zealand workers. The figure rose slightly from 9.2% in 2018 to 9.3% for the quarter ended 30 June 2019. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to pass on information to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques now that the period for submissions has been extended to 27 September. ...
An application was filed in the Employment Relations Authority in Wellington today, seeking an injunction to prevent the Board of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation from removing the President from office. ...
The Government’s commitment to support literacy and numeracy training in the workplace is a strong signal from Government on recognising the importance of upskilling, reskilling and increasing productivity alongside their commitment to address the challenges ...
“The infrastructure sector sees a major role for the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga in lifting the nation’s sagging infrastructure performance,” says Paul Blair, incoming CEO of Infrastructure NZ. ...
The AA is calling on the Government to bring forward critical highway projects while time is spent properly developing the plans for a rapid transit system in Auckland. ...
Between 2015/16 and 2017/18, DHBs spent $280 million treating patients due to adverse drug reactions, reveals the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union in its latest briefing paper on health productivity . ...
The Pay Equity Coalition Auckland (PECA) is pleased the gender pay gap has decreased slightly. Statistics released today show the gap is now 11.9%, nearly 2 percent less than last year. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to make sure they pass on any information they have to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques before submissions close tomorrow (Friday). ...
The big electricity companies consider solar energy “disruptive” and want pricing to suppress it. In contrast, advocates of local energy say that solar, energy efficiency, and other local energy solutions are the cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions. ...
The Earthquake Commission and Shine Lawyers are delighted to announce that EQC has reached an agreement with the Gibling family, agreeing to cover the cost of repairs of remaining earthquake damage on their property. ...
Four months into the inquiry, the Royal Commission is gathering significant information and continues to receive valuable submissions from the public, from current and former State servants, experts and community groups. ...
While Fish & Game New Zealand is pleased to see Federated Farmers Environment Spokesperson Chris Allen say that 'we all want good, fresh water', he conveniently overlooks some key facts. ...
What: Wellington demo “Save the Amazon Forest/Salve a Amazônia!” When: Friday, 6 September 2019 from 12:30-13:30 Where: Embassy of Brazil in Wellingtona ...
Rt Hon Trevor Mallard, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, welcomes the visit of His Excellency Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, President of the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal. ...
A cross political Mental Health and Addictions Wellbeing group will be launched on Wednesday 28 August hosted by Sir John Kirwan and Moe Milne (ONZM) who have both been at the forefront of our country’s often difficult conversations about mental ...
Confirmation that the government will be progressing an independent Parliamentary Budget Office is great news for democracy and transparency, Federated Farmers says. ...
At first glance, Simon Bridges’ strident opposition to the government’s proposal to establish an independent office to cost political parties’ election spending plans looks childish and petty. ...
Euthanasia-Free NZ is appalled that Parliament spent so little time debating Part 2 of the End of Life Choice Bill and voted to leave it full of holes. ...
Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance and its nationwide sister group the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Auckland Mayor Phil Goff for his comments today that John Tamihere would need the Government’s support to ...
A ‘one size fits all’, inflexible and punitive regulatory regime for water quality just gets backs - and costs - up and most importantly will not work, Federated Farmers says. ...
Mediation yesterday between secondary principals and the government has resulted in a deal that the principals' negotiating team is recommending to its members. ...
Clubs New Zealand welcomes the decision of Justice Minister Andrew Little to put forward a bill amending the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to allow all licensed premises to remain open for Rugby World Cup matches. ...
The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has ordered a review looking at labelling of added sugars in food and drinks. An option under investigation is ‘a pictorial approach applied to sugary beverages / sugar-sweetened beverages’ ...
Labour market data released by Statistics New Zealand today indicates that a gender pay gap persists in New Zealand, despite improvement in some areas. ...
In the midst of the 6th Great Extinction Event the coalition, STOP Trashing Our Planet is urging voters to take full responsibility for the legacy we are leaving our children. ...
LGNZ will carefully consider the proposed National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) to assess if it meets the Government’s aim of enabling urban development or simply adds more red tape to the planning process. ...
At school camp, the children are banned from having phones, laptops, lollies, chocolate, money, cotton clothing or independent thoughts. They, are, however, allowed home baking – but it’s gotta be hearty. How hearty are you? We are packing for a school camp. If you’re thinking that the middle of winter is ...
Phil Goff’s rival has already pledged an 0800-Jacinda homeless hotline and an 18-lane harbour bridge. What’s next? The two most important people in the 2019 campaign for the Auckland mayoralty faced each other down on Wednesday night across the desk in the NZME debate: Bernard Orsman and Simon Wilson. Correction: it ...
Split Level View Finder: Theo Schoon and New Zealand Art is the exhibition that sparked a protest over issues of cultural appropriation and institutional representation. Theo Schoon is a divisive historical figure. But is his art any good? Martin Patrick reviews.British novelist L.P. Hartley once wrote that “the past is ...
Ahead of debuting her solo show at New Zealand Fashion Week, Korean-NZ couture designer Cecilia Kang talks about growing up ‘feminine’, being influenced by the LGBTQ+ community, and why an ‘administrative error’ at Fashion Week left her so shaken up. ‘I like something big,” says Cecilia Kang, gesturing to the giant ...
The Labour Party is distancing itself from one of its members who is strongly pro-Beijing and has caused controversy in the Chinese community by standing for local office in Auckland. ...
Faced with staff shortages, equipment failures, cancer risks, and a jump in critical calls that can leave them traumatised, some firefighters are wondering if it’s time to hang up the hose. Gareth Shute reports on the dissatisfaction inside Fire and Emergency New Zealand.The state of our nation’s fire service is ...
“She comes over. You’re my mother, she says. Yes, I say. I don’t know you, she says”: a mother and child seaside story by Wellington author Jan Pryor. Photo by Peter Black. ...
On Monday the government announced its new five-year strategy to reduce the Māori prison population. Emilie Rākete looks at another ‘kaupapa Māori’ prison initiative that degrades prisoners and asks if Corrections are capable of seeing it through.On August 19th, the Department of Corrections announced Hōkai Rangi, its new strategy intended ...
By Michael Andrew The Indonesian media is contributing to resentment and racism toward Papuans, according to a human rights researcher and former journalist. Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch Jakarta told Pacific Media Watch many Indonesian journalists either view Papuans as enemy “separatists” or deviants and their reporting tends to convey these ...
Analysis - The prime minister puts a stake in the ground over petrol prices, National balks at having its election promises costed and the government puts millions into helping the homeless. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danilo Ignacio de Urzedo, PhD candidate, University of Sydney Record fires are raging in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, with more than 2,500 fires currently burning. They are collectively emitting huge amounts of carbon, with smoke plumes visible thousands of kilometres away. Fires in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sean Docking, Post-doctoral researcher, La Trobe University Basketball fans around the world were recently sickened by the footage of NBA star Kevin Durant’s Achilles tendon rupturing during a game. But while many think it’s only elite athletes who suffer from Achilles tendon ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University The possibility of blackouts affecting half of Victoria has attracted plenty of attention to a document once read only by industry insiders and policy wonks: the Electricity Statement of Opportunities. The Statement, updated ...
George Clooney sold his tequila company for a billion dollars – but is the stuff any good? The Spinoff finds out. Imagine being so stupidly sexy you sneeze and sell a billion-dollar booze company. That’s what George Clooney did last year, flicking off the tequila business he started accidentally with an ...
The departure of "two Pākehā men" from the government's justice reform group will not hurt the quality of its final report, another member of the team says. ...
Combatting internet-related harm is being stymied by inter-industry disagreement and a lack of information about the extent and nature of the problem, a new report says. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, J.W. Nevile Fellow in Economics and host of The Airport Economist, UNSW Amid the tributes to former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer and the stories of his authenticity, courage and quirky interests – like trains and military history – what ...
Current leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges.Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Is Simon Bridges really trying to channel Donald Trump? Or is he taking his cue from Scott Morrison? Or is he looking to emulate Boris Johnson? Whatever the inspiration, there’s been a clear change in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]Michelle Grattan talks about the sad news of the passing of former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer with University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Deep Saini. They also discuss Scott Morrison’s recent announcement about joining ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriel Crowley, Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, James Cook University In February, about 600,000 cattle were killed by catastrophic flooding across north Queensland’s Carpentaria Gulf plains. The flood waters rose suddenly, forming a wall of water up to 70km wide. Record depths were ...
Simon Day dined alone at Monique Fiso’s Wellington restaurant Hiakai, and discovered it was the perfect way to appreciate the meaning of this special food. “Would you like a few more minutes with your phone?” the waitress at Hiakai asked sympathetically as I mashed a final goodbye text to my wife ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Willamson, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Monash University Australia’s gender pay gap is diminishing, says a new report, but some contributors to it seem harder to overcome than others. For me, the finding hit close to home. The report, by KPMG for ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Te Tiriti o Waitangi: The Treaty of Waitangi by Toby Morris with Ross Calman, Mark Derby, and ...
Honey producer Comvita has confirmed a full year net loss of $27.7m with China market access restrictions and tougher regulations locally affecting the company's sales. ...
James Elliott realises John Tamihere's uncosted bridge proposal wasn't actually a metaphor, but a fine example of 'folks is mighty generous with money what they ain’t got'. ...
A new poem by Oamaru-born poet Nick Ascroft.SupermanHalfway up the ascent zigzagging from Royal Terrace to upper Stuart Street carrying four too-heavy grocery bags I begin to understand that I will not make it. My huffing personage – from the fingers, white with the strain, to a face the colour of rhubarb – will ooze into the pavement and roll slowly ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.Sound the alarm, because it’s time for another absolute chaos pod. We’re talking haunted dolls in Waipu, we’re talking giant hands taking over Wellington, we’re talking soft serve cones dipped in powdered Milo. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Press, Adjunct Professor, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania This week, the ABC revealed that the Australian Defence Force wants to roll out military technology in Antarctica. The article raises the issue of what is, or is not, ...
New Zealand teacher aides say their pay reflects an outdated idea of what they do. Elizabeth McLeod hears from four TAs, and one parent, about the classroom realities they face every dayCleaning up poo, defusing violent situations, copping physical and verbal abuse: these are the realities of a teacher aide’s ...
The lanky sidekick from Jono and Ben journeys around New Zealand trying to solve small town problems. Does he succeed?Guy Williams, hardly a shy, retiring type, has been screaming out for his own vehicle for years. A loud, lanky, fearless comic, he’s spent nearly a decade in MediaWorks purgatory, sat ...
Ballot Box.Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – The nature of New Zealand general election campaigns could be significantly changed with the proposed establishment of an “umpire” to adjudicate over political party manifesto policies. A suggestion has been put forward by the Government for the establishment of a parliamentary watchdog ...
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.Ihumātao Delphine Herbert and Dan Satherley (Newshub): Tainui to buy Ihumātao land – sources Danielle ...
Extinction Rebellion takes a tour of downtown Wellington to point out the coal industry stalwarts and ask why they’re still there in the face of a climate emergency. “There are coal companies in Wellington??”That’s the incredulous response every single time we mention taking the public on a tour of the biggest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel A. Ankeny, Professor of History and Philosophy, and Deputy Dean Research (Faculty of Arts), University of Adelaide The South Australian government recently announced its intention to lift the long-standing statewide moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops, following a statutory six-week consultation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW Being strip searched by the police can be intrusive, humiliating and harmful. Typically, strip searches involve being required to strip naked in front of police officers, who often give the direction to “squat and cough”, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Remond, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Hi, I was just wondering if something’s wrong with me because I’m never happy and never want to do anything and I’m getting really lazy and I really hate school. Thanks – Anonymous ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project; and Online Teacher at Education Queensland’s IMPACT Centre, The University of Queensland From as early as Grade 3 teachers start teaching children how to put across their own points of view. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW It’s four years since then Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned Australia had been heading to “a Greek-style economic future”. He was referring to what he said had been happening under the previous Labor government. When Labor ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samia Khatun, Senior Lecturer, SOAS, University of London Some 1,000 kilometres inland from Sydney, over the Blue Mountains, past the trees that drink the tributaries of the Darling River, there stands a little, red mosque. It marks where the desert begins. The ...
Online gambling is growing fast in New Zealand, but critics say new government ideas for regulating websites focus on what's good for the industry, rather than protecting people from harm. ...
Open mike 28/10/2014 
Open mike is your post.
. . Former Police, Corrections, and Justice Minister in the previous John Key government, Judith Collins, has been ridiculed on social media after posting a comment on Twitter that was patently untrue; . Wrong!! National did not remove Prisoners’ ability to vote. Parliament voted through a Private Member’s Bill ...7 hours ago
Speaker Trevor Mallard was left to look after Jones, while his usual caretaker, Winston Peters, underwent surgery. A truly adorable scene from Parliament yesterday has gone viral, after Speaker Trevor Mallard cradled an extremely drunk Shane Jones in his arms while the House was in session. Loud “awwww”s could be ...21 hours ago
Western media have defended their decision not to cover the fires so as not to give them any oxygen. Social media outrage continues to grow around the sentiment that mainstream western media is devoting too little coverage to an ongoing series of fires in the Amazon rainforest, and in doing ...22 hours ago
A Long Time Ago, In A Parallel Universe Far, Far Away: The political journalist scratched his head in confusion. Only then did he notice the name of the building: ‘The Jacinda Ardern Presidential Library and Public Resource Centre’. Making his way inside to the information desk, he asked the librarian ...1 day ago
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Nothing from me tody - I'm off to Christchurch to pretend to be other people for a weekend. Normal bloggage should resume on Tuesday. ...1 day ago
Spark is bracing for a customer backlash as rugby fans all across the country struggle to get a picture on their wireless router. With the Rugby World Cup fast approaching, an elderly Taranaki couple are furious after being told that they still won’t be able to watch the tournament, even ...2 days ago
Several explosions have been reported across Auckland, as well-meaning environmentalists have already begun purchasing too much petrol Starting from next week, customers will no longer need a car to purchase petrol directly from the pump, a development that two major fuel providers are billing as an opportunity to help fight ...2 days ago
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“..John Oliver Calls Out Sugar Industry..
..How much sugar are you eating?
Odds are you don’t know – and as John Oliver pointed out Sunday on ‘Last Week Tonight’ –
-it’s because food makers are doing their best to make sure you never find out..”
(cont..)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/john-oliver-sugar-peanuts_n_6052298.html
A good follow up to Nigel Latta’s expose of the sugar industry in NZ.
Katherine Rich ( ex Nat MP ) is the hired gun for the sugar industry.
I think they used Slater to attack people who questioned the sugar industry.
http://tvnz.co.nz/nigel-latta/index-group-6006369
rich pimps for the sugar-pushers..
..and other rightwinger/actite heather roy now pimps for big-pharma..
..classy..!..
..both of them earning their dirty-money by/for essentially..selling us out..
(and funny story..!..i had forgotten roys’ name..so i googled ‘act mp big-pharma’..)
..first link/hit..?..bingo..!..heather roy…)
Lewis Road Creamery Chocolate Milk, with queues of customers waiting for delivery every day. Each bottle contains 22 pieces of (delicious) Whittakers chocolate (half a chocolate slab).
Twenty two pieces …….. Glug glug glug.
A second drink, perhaps? Or a glass of coke to ‘wash it down’?
Could I please have a side order of diabetes?
Thanks Katherine.
Chocolate Milk comparison
(personal experiment)
it’s also measured as 82 grams..3+ ounces..or 21 teaspoons of sugar..
..it is like the crack of sugar..
..that’s what those idiots/fools/suckers are queuing to pay top-dollar for..
..’there’s one (a sucker) born every minute’..eh..?
..and today we can know them by their chosen/favoured brand of chocolate milk..
..eh..?
..(do we have sugar-lift-off..?..)
..(and those rushing out to buy/stock up on milk chocolate on the back of that research (funded by mars bars..(!)..)
..that chocolate is good for aging-minds/memories..
..should know those results were found after using almost pure cocao..
..which is sure as hell not what you get in the sugary-delights offered by..i dunno.!…milk-chocolate/the mars company..?..)
@ phillip ure (1.1.2.1)
The research referred to was some blind taste testing with dinner guests, that I carried out . Nothing to do with Mars. I was trying to understand if the queues could really be justified on the basis of taste, and also highlight the foolishness of the queues on the basis of health.
Keep on the good work talking about sugar.
Good one phillip. Sugar is a bad bad word. And thanks to Nigel Latta for his more detailed program.
Did anyone hear Key’s interview with Espiner on RNZ this morning?
It sounded to me like he was positioning us for military action.
Oh dear.
Yep he was floored by the question by Espiner about whether it was moral for NZ to enter the war. I thought he had difficulties understanding the concept of morality.
I have looked in vain for six years for any suggestions that Mr Key has a moral base. Right now the National Party is a convenient vehicle to satisfy his personal interests. Hopefully somone can explain why my view has no substance, as I would like to think better of him?
Made a career in currency trading. Made 50m in the financial sector. You have to have very selective morality to get as far as he did…
There are no flawlessly ethical guys at the top of banking or money market trading… they are loophole boys, rationalisers of untruths.
He’s no doubt worth far, far more than $50M now.
To get that far in finance you pretty much have to have no morality.
I think he has said himself that he is not an “ideology” type of person. The only thing I recall he has said he that believes in are asset sales. Is there another living NZer that cannot recall what they thought about the Springbok tour? When he first came out with this I thought he was lying. Now I actually believe it.
is pursuit of money at any cost an ideology?
A common trait in psychopaths.
Yep one of his answers to ‘is it moral’ was “It is if we agree to that.” So what is moral is what we agree is moral.
That might be an interesting philosophical stance on ethics al la David Hume, but I for one would like a stance less cynical from our leader that doesn’t smack of focus group analysis on this issue. Higher standards anyone?
“Higher standards anyone?”
Bahahaha that’s a fucking myth.
not quite… it is in the cabinet manual so it is real.
I don’t think he has any idea. He is totally amoral. I can recognise it because I was like that until I grew up a bit in my late 20s. As far as his philosophy goes, it’s a weird mix of Aleister Crowley and Nietsche, mixed with a desire for acceptance from those he worships. As a human being, he is hugely dysfunctional.
Of course he is Paul.
And to make matters worse Key knew he would be doing this if re-elected yet he deceitfully declined to raise the matter during the election.
Key is going to bring war and death into our country.
Why is that such a surprise, the ‘terror’ narrative arrived within a week of the election duely pushed by the MSM muppets so top diversionary tactic whilst the RMA, employment, exploration and sell offs etc etc continue.
kiwi soldiers bodies being returned home will be another unwanted legacy of key as he marches them off and increases our risk once we engage.
this govt has no moral compass just a monetary one.
when key was saying earlier this year that he ‘had no intention of taking nz into another middle-east war’..
..i was writing/calling ‘bullshit!’ on that..
..and that if re-elected..that five minutes later key would morph into spear-carrier/war-monger for america..
..to me at the time..it seemed the bleeding obvious..
..i am actually surprised people are surprised that this is how it has turned out..
..as key now marches us into yet another intractable sectarian/religious-war..as americas’ mercenaries..
..killing more arabs..for america..again..
..and of course..in the process..painting a big fucken bulls-eye on nz..
..as a soft-target for retaliatory-attacks..(!)
(of course key also lied until the un seat was secured..playing the peacemaker up until then..did anyone else also notice that..?..)
..and 21,000 civilians were killed by the invading/occupying forces in afghanistan..
..i wonder how many were killed in our name..?
If the gummint has a monetary compass I wish they would set up an expedition, go and find it and pay the workers better!!
This morning on the news about David cameron the journalist said all western leaders were on high alert since the canadian parliament incident.
I was at dinner sunday evening when the Pm arrived. There was no pre dinner sweep of the restaurant, he arrived with his wife and son, alone. NO guards, none of his special big boys. They were not discreetly outside they were nowhere…
So, NOT on high alert here.
BUT maybe he was dining as John Key the man, and not PM. The terrorists will probably respect that distinction aye?
He needs to be truthful. This isn’t about NZers, it is that he believes we should play a part alongside our allies. There are many who agree with that thinking so why not just say it, Honest John?
Perhaps Tracey, Key was having a last meal before sending his son off to fight war against ISIS …….
I’ve said before, how many of the jingoistic types will send their own children. I note, John Keys daughter the right age to fight – should she not be running off to basic?
no – no – no – no..!
..armchair-warriors always send other peoples’ children to war..
..and funny story..!..they are usually the children of the poor..
..those children who are sent to war..
..no parnell boys there..
Seeing Key would have spoilt my meal. In fact, it would have spoilt my whole evening.
i didnt see him… heads turned, conversations lowered and my right wing dad and his wife said he had arrived. he sat at a table behind me. i had eaten so it was just a question of keeping it down.
when i stood to leave, i was so tempted to say lousd enough
“i see the terror threat is very low tonight”… but didnt
he has good taste in restaurants. hes come in before when i was there…
not suggesting he is stalking me
“he sat at a table behind me”
I would have farted loudly. Would have been the “morally right” thing to do.
and you cd tell him that fart did not come from you as you..
..(i am sure he would understand..)
lol
But Tracey did you notice the casually dressed but awkward bloke who came in a few minutes before maybe with a companion, who could have been man or a woman, and the lone diner who came in a bit later or who stayed hanging around the door or feigned interest in the shop windows in the vicinity.
Key is paranoid, but increasingly aware that more NZers think the whole “entourage” thing is preposterous posing
hmmmm….i hang around the minties bowl myself
The entourage thing is US-style politics invading New Zealand. Have you seen the motorcades that travel with the likes of Eric Holder? Not even the President.
I bet Steven Joyce et al. are frothing at the mouth for a personal security detail.
I wonder whether David Parker has demanded a team from the Diplomatic Protection Squad to travel with him all the time now he is the (acting) leader of the party? Cunliffe wanted them around all the time. Perhaps he thought it made him seem important.
Actually perhaps Cunliffe was worried about the other members of his caucus. It would seem justified wouldn’t it?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10470344/Campaign-Diary-Monday-September-8
maybe but key is the one saying we are under threat from terrorists while standing down his security
“Dirty Journalism” post by Bat Bean Beam is a must read. Asks all the right questions about journalists in NZ and the failure to change anything substantial since the release of Hager’s Dirty Politics book:
hooton prounounced hager NOT a journalist today. so i guess tgat ends the argument
An Unfair Wages System
For a lot of people, those in the lower decile, as productivity has risen their wages have actually gone down.
It’s a simple fact that, if everything else remains the same, as productivity increases wages must decline. This government and all governments going back to the 4th Labour government have been working to keep everything else the same in the name of stability and with that has come the inevitable decrease in bargaining power and remuneration.
Oh, look, IT just increased productivity, had nothing to do with employees!
I must be due a bonus, and my banker can leverage the new ongoing wealth to sustain even higher valuations.
It must be great to live in a world when citizens are widgets, expendable moveable parts, where discourse about finance is all about how wealth is mismeasird and allotted to a shrinking class of super rich and their hanger on-ers.
Key screws us all, locking away choice.
Help Shut Down the Illegal and extremely cruel Dog Meat Trade in Thailand. Watch the video to understand what is happening there.
Please act immediately to stop thousands of dogs from being tortured and butchered for their meat.
Every aspect of the dog meat trade in Southeast Asia is horrifically cruel.
You can save thousands of dogs from unspeakable pain by adding your name to Soi Dog’s global petition. It calls on Thailand’s leaders to crack down hard on the criminals who profit from the agony of animals.
https://savedogs.soidog.org/petition
@ clem..
..a slight amendment/edit could be needed there..
“..Every aspect of the meat trade is horrifically cruel..”
..there ya go..!
..fixed now..!
..we wouldn’t want selective/speciesist-outrage to break out..would we now..?
..i mean..!..people might choke on their bacon..
..so..”..Please act immediately to stop thousands of dogs(pigs/calves/chooks etc.) from being tortured and butchered for their meat..”
..we should try for consistancy..eh..?
I just ate a bacon sandwich. It was delicious.
What can you say to a response like that.
You could say “Now I want some bacon too”?
No thanks. I would hate to think I would be as insensitive and lacking in empathy as you are.
You got that from a bacon sandwich?
yep..!
Amazing
no ‘amazing’..you are the modern equivalent of the slave-owner..
..thinking animals are just there for you to do whatever you like to them..
..that they have no ‘rights’ as sentient-beings..
..to be treated with respect/humanely..
..much the same way slave-owners scoffed at the very idea of their human-slaves having any ‘rights’..
..what do you find so hard to understand about that..?
..are you really that unthinking/dull..?
Slavery now? Of course, it is just like slavery dear.
The modern equivalent of slavery is slavery. It’s pretty gross to exploit the utter dehumanisation of actual humans in order to make a cheap shock-value attack on people who eat things you don’t like.
it’s a shame the power-imbalance prevents me from replying to you..
“it’s a shame the power-imbalance prevents me from replying to you..”
Don’t you mean your yellow streak and insipid fortitude?
I got a desire to eat a bacon sandwich…
Fuck. Now I’m really hungry.
nom nom
Even conservative John Armstrong has something bad to say about National’s housing ‘reform’ (read: sell off all the shit to our corporate funders for pennies on the dollar). Armstrong refers to the policy as ideological for ideology’s sake.
National is continuing its policy of strip mining all the assets of the state, thus breaking a promise it made that there would be no more selling. They are behaving like a mafia that has taken over a business to squeeze every last dollar out of it before they send it into bankruptcy.
History tells us that the invisible hand is NOT the best solution to social problems. One of the main jobs of Government is dealing with the negative externalities the invisible hand creates in the first place, which is in essence what state housing is an example of – Providing where the market can’t, or won’t without the introduction of overbearing regulation.
Interesting read:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/john-armstrong/news/article.cfm?a_id=3&objectid=11347878
only cos we are past the election and he is getting his balance reporting in now to refer back to nearer the next election
Money Wars, A Race To The Bottom And Massive Wealth Transfer Or Why The $ 523 Billion Printed In August 2012 Is Bad News For New Zealanders
They sold $521 million in August this year. Only a thousand times less, and 2 years later.
Isis will “rain carnage on the world”, Prime Minister John Key tells us today … but he has yet to make a decision on whether NZ troops will go.
What sort of apocalyptic theology does he subscribe to these days ? Revelations ?
Will a NZ SAS haka have any effect on the Saudis and Qataris who used Chlorine at Kobane ? Is he referring to ballistic mass destruction ?
He may wish retire to a professorship in strategic decision making at Auckland University.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11349273&ref=rss
“Rain carnage on the world”?
Isn’t this phrase indicative of the breathtaking level of arrogance of our current PM – given the carnage unremittedly being dropped from the sky creating vast civilian casualties is primarily and immorally being committed by his US “allies”?
The carnage being rained is a direct result of the insane invasion of Iraq which Key wanted NZ to be part of. So we could sell more butter to the yanks. Still need to shift more of it…
Did he himself actually come up with that turn of phrase? Seriously?
He’s just making sure that when we send our troops over, we know we’re doing A Good Thing, because otherwise we might have some public pressure to the contrary.
Last time I looked, it was nation states with developed economies, and strong military forces that were capable of raining carnage on the world, not a bunch of Koran waving teenagers with a couple of stolen MiGs.
Millsy, we are very selective about which people who are doing harm in the world that we should visit with our strong military forces, that as you say are capable of raining carnage on the world. Let us not forget that Vietnam received triple the bombing that took place in all of WWII !
In relationship to all this, I wonder what certain elements of society today would have called the men who went as volunteers to Spain to fight Franco’s fascists. Is that similar to the young men fighting with the Islamic State? Were those Spanish War volunteers idealists and defenders of freedom or were they brainwashed, radicalised terrorists?
Would our present Government have considered a military intervention into Republican Spain then?
It is the remuneration packages of bank CEOs that have been out of control. They are the ones who are left unchecked and will rain carnage on the world.
I read on wikipedia that John Key’s Dad went to fight in the Spanish civil war
Well, well, I never knew that. George Key. My use of the Spanish Civil War analogy was entirely outside of that information. (And that’s no John Key-style memory lapse. His techniques for avoidance of issues are well criticised in tonight’s Marlborough Express editorial, by the way).
“Fight for the filthy commo’s, no way”.
Remember that those who fought against Franco were reviled by the establishment, who thought that fascism, which got rid of those “pesky communist trade unions”, was a good idea.
Right up until Poland was invaded, and their skills were needed.
[deleted]
[lprent: I have no real objections to you placing these links here (all about ISIS, chemical weapons, and Kurds). However I do have a strong objection to you link-whoring them on our site for promoting google links. You haven’t provided a reason in the form of a paragraph or two for the people on this site why they should click into them.
This site values the opinions of those who comment here. We don’t value straight linking with no explanations. ]
Strange thing though, I imagine that there are many more young people willing to take up arms against IS than the few odd entrails that media manage to find have signed for IS.
Re. “link-whoring them on our site for promoting google links.”
.. they all linked to newspaper media sources, as I remember it, not google. A link is just an economical way of doing it ..
Putting raw links in a comment is most commonly used by bots and spam artists to increase google scores. When I look at a list of raw links that is what I presume.
There are many other search and meta-search engines out there besides google. I find google very limited, predictable, and constricting these days and try to broaden my sources. In this case I used
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/World+News/Middle+East/Syria?JavaScript=1&searchheadlines=&search=Aleppo
.. but because it is continually updating it seems to use a lot of bandwidth.
Key: Action against IS ‘morally right’
http://www.3news.co.nz/politics/key-action-against-is-morally-right-2014102810
Odd statement coming from a compulsive liar.
Not at all, brazenly claiming the moral high ground is standard practice for compulsive liars.
And Key gets away with it too.
Moral is a word beloved of the Hasbara Zionists. The IDF is a moral army, Israel acts morally, etc….. Key is on the same side, so it’s no surprise to see the word being misused here as well. It’s a favourite term of immoral liars.
Good point. Plenty of more conservative lefties and left leaning intellectuals will nod sagely with the PM though. What could be more worthy than a ‘just’ war?
Not strictly politics, but good comedic analysis – and it’s just so damn funny. Key and Peele alien imposters
Questions for oral answer today:
More questions to the PM on his communications with Slater – aimed at Key doing this in his role as PM.
Questions on workplace safety; state and social housing; TVNZ outsourcing it’s Māori & Pacific content.
*Yawn*
Oh sorry are we still talking about the thing that the opposition parties complained about stealing all oxygen during the election?
Jolly good then, carry on.
Are you from North Korea? Prefer licking the boots of the Great Leader?
In this country some still believe in this quaint notion called ‘democracy’, where the government is accountable to the people.
He won’t have read Dirty Politics
He will ignore all evidence on any subject which counters his limited self interested and parochial viewpoint.
He will rely on anecdotes to support his points.
He will aim tok provoke.
He’s unlikely to admit the only reason he voted for the Tories is naked self interest.
In short, he is not worth debating with.
I believe very much in democracy especially the last election where the people of NZ (well enough of them anyway) told you exactly what they think of so-called dirty politics and voted National back in
1 million people did not vote.
here’s who voted for National. It’s democracy as borderline failure. Funny you should like that so much chris.
If you think an elected dictator every 3 years is cool and nobody should ask questions and the media should just be a propaganda tool,
then you are a f*cken tool as well mate.
+1 ropata.
There is a little bit of Slater in everybody…my conclusion from that result.
Far be it for me to agree with a curmudgeon, but check out Gavin Ellis? (Elice?) on the regular gal’s NinetoNoon today. Completely on the mark – and couple that with the recent TVNZ decision.
When I get around to it, it may form a question on another post re what the fuck are prospective Labour Party candidates going to do about our media, and in particular PSB.
I’m hopeful I’ll hear that there will be some sort of bipartisan mechanism that protects our 4th Estate (not that we have one), and our public sphere. AND such a mechanism that bypasses old hacks and self-interested old boy/gal networks.
Personally, I believe there is such a mechanism, and one that not only recognises individuals’ true worth, and one that puts back a citizenry’s RIGHT.
(Might take one or two ex-pats to return home, and they can be convinced – AND one which is somewhat more ambitious than a CBB – which I have to support, but regard as JUST a little namby pamby – otherwise known as a co-alascence of a 3rd Way)
EDIT: What the fuck ever happened to protest, and journalistic integrity?
Rock stars do really die much younger than the general population.
So what about a so-called rock star economy when compared with other economies?
Good quip from a listener on Raionz yesterday.
NZ has a rock star economy because as usual the managers have run off with the money.
DTB put up a link on housing in the USA on Alternet. Very good reporting with anecdotes and background. http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/turning-public-housing-over-private-developers-has-unfortunate-consequences?page=0%2C2
While I was there I saw this piece by Paul Krugman on the USA decline into stasis and ‘starvation in the midst of plenty’.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/paul-krugman-how-gops-ideology-destroying-americas-future
“America used to be a country that built for the future,” Krugman opens, somewhat mournfully. “Sometimes the government built directly: Public projects, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, provided the backbone for economic growth. Sometimes it provided incentives to the private sector, like land grants to spur railroad construction. Either way, there was broad support for spending that would make us richer.”
Not any more. These days, our government steadfastly refuses to invest in the country’s future.
It isn’t as if there’s no cash to do so. Seven years after the housing bubble burst, “the country is awash in savings,” Krugman writes, “with nowhere to go.” Corporations and banks are holding on to trillions in excess reserves that are simply sitting idle. State governments are strapped, yes, but the federal government, with its ability to borrow money cheaply, could easily help them out.
(if watching replays of q-time..i wouldn’t bother much past question five..if i were you..
..norman under-performed/delivered..
..king got follow-up question of the day..(referencing/comparing collins/key..vis a vis ‘ministerial-responsibility’..
..and this:..
(excerpt..)
‘..and english slam-dunks him/labour by noting labour signed up to the social-accord in 2013..which detailed this dismantling/devolution of the state houses asset..(!)
..(ed:..i didn’t know that..did you..?..that labour signed up to this..?..whoar..!..)..’
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/new-zealand-parliament-list-of-questions-for-oral-answer-tuesday-28-october-2014/
laugh-out-loud appearance on panel from rodeo-pimp..
..quote:..’rodeo are leaders in animal welfare’…
..when in fact..they are ritualised animal-abuse/torture..
..and the rodeo-pimp made a real horses’-arse of trying to defend what they do..
..making farcical-claims that the animals ‘like it’..(!)..
John Robertson, Professor of Media Politics at the University of West Scotland, on media bias in the Scottish Independence Referendum …..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajd4R-9BEIw
Some of his arguments towards the end of the clip (on the Establishment Media’s demonization of Opposition Leaders) has particular relevance for New Zealand.
here..the greens and labour just seemed relieved that harawira was ‘it’..
..and not them..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11349388
– Woohoo! Good to see NZ companies doing well
As far as OceanaGold is concerned, I’m happier to go with the Guardian and call it Australian. It’s not particularly good to see any company threatening a sovereign country, especially one which has been kept dirt poor by corruption and foreign business.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/03/australian-mining-is-poisoning-el-salvador-it-could-soon-send-it-broke-too
A couple of minor corrections and additions to your report.
1. Oceana Gold is not a NZ company. It is just another foreign owned company making money out of NZ.
2. It is poisoning El Salvador’s water.
3. It is using a free trade agreement to sue the El Salvador government.
“Oceana Gold is claiming that under the US-central America free trade agreement, it has a “right” to compel mining or be compensated for loss of profits. In response, the company will today be handed a petition signed by 200,000 opponents to its attempt to force gold mining in El Salvador.”
But who cares. Some selfish shareholders are making heaps of money out of polluting the earth and screwing over a people.
Woohoo, as you put it so intelligently chris 73.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/03/australian-mining-is-poisoning-el-salvador-it-could-soon-send-it-broke-too
And Mighty River Power and Meridian were stolen from us.
All that chart demonstrates is the level of the theft.
Stolen? No I think you’ll find NZ still has majority shareholding but if it makes you feel better I’m doing better out of it
As long as you are ok.
That’s all that matters, isn’t it.
Simply put yes, yes it does…except for the little issue of its not a case of me doing well therefore no one else can do well instead its a case of I’m doing well and everyone else can do well if they so choose
The problem with the left in general is you all think that for someone to do well (whatever the definition of doing well is) it has to be at the expense of someone else
Whereas the inconvenient truth of the matter is that everyone can do well if they choose to but most choose not to
actually, if you bought power shares you are doing well at the expense of everyone else, in the form of increased overseas debt the government pays because of the reduced dividend take.
Ah, the old myth of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. Works pretty well when you can afford a Harvard education, or you went to school with the PM, or your brother is the Speaker of the House…
It also works pretty well if you’re the son of a cleaner and a sickness bene, who went to a state school
Utter nonsense.
“Restaurant Brands is a fast food company based in New Zealand and is listed on the NZ Stock Exchange as RBD. It operates most of New Zealand’s KFC, Pizza Hut, Carl’s Jr. and Starbucks stores and provides management and support services to New Zealand’s independent KFC franchisees. It holds the New Zealand franchise for KFC and Pizza Hut from Yum Restaurants and Starbucks from Starbucks USA.”
So just a subsidiary and a franchise of a massive US company owned by large multinational banks.
“Yum! Brands, Inc. or Yum! is an American fast food company. A Fortune 500 corporation, Yum operates the licensed brands Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Wing Street worldwide. Prior to 2011, Yum! also owned Long John Silver’s and A&W Restaurants.”
You can always look up Starbucks Shareholders ….
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/sbux/institutional-holdings#ixzz3HQ11PYg1
Looks really NZ owned, chris 73.
Do you understand how capitalism works nowadays?
In your defence, Liam Dann, who wrote the article comes out looking like a fool too.
Or a puppet.
It’s just you should know by now not to believe what you read in the Herald.
The shares I have are in the power companies so your points are moot
They were stolen from ordinary New Zealanders.
Nope sorry they weren’t, they were offered at a fair price and the controlling majority were kept by the government and there been two elections thus far that have returned National to be power
The people have spoken, deal with it.
James Shaw, the new Green Party MP’s maiden speech in parliament,
ahem, you listening Labour? (and Russel Norman).
There’s a lot of chatter on twitter about Shaw being into market force. A bit worrying.
yeah..he’s a rightwinger..
..(support a national gummint..?..you betcha..!..)
Yes, Shaw is in the section of the Green Party that see a future working with National. They are still in a minority but do have influence. Julie-Ann Genter and Russel Norman are in this group also, but are not quite as right as Shaw.
I am still appalled that Norman said in the minor leader’s debate that the politician he most admired in another party was Bill (sell off state houses) English.
I’ve always had some criticisms of Norman’s values.
Actually. In the speech, Shaw doesn’t say he’s a fan of “market forces”. He says he’s a fan of “the market”; that the cause of destructive climate change is economic, but the solution is political. He said the market is not sentient, and we need to tell it what to do.
I have heard before that people generally rate him as pretty right wing.
So, he’s into regulated markets. He cites the abolition of slavery (having outlined the various strand of his whakapapa, which includes a female slave in the US).
He also talked of his mother raising him and his siblings on her teacher’s salary, as well as saying he was raised by his mother and her female partner. He spoke in praise of suffragettes and stroppy activist women.
Even those Greens who have rightish economic views are still a lot smarter and more socially enlightened than the right of the Labour Party (Cosgrove, O’Connor etc).
I’m just listening now. He’s saying some prettty radical stuff eg that nature has inherent rights. His stuff about the expansion of rights is very good (how they are feared but the fears prove unfounded in time).
and yeah, interesting re his statement that he likes the market, which he follows by saying that the market needs to be controlled. He says that for setting prices and allocating scarce resources it’s better than the alternatives. It would be good to see him do actual comparisons with the alternatives.
The guy has serious problem solving intelligence and skills, I can see why the GP have promoted him. Very good speech.
I was also appalled at Russel Norman’s snuggling up to the Nats. Because of that I changed my vote from Greens to Labour and wonder if that comment lost them many votes at the election. Politics is in a woeful state at the moment.
I will probably vote reluctantly for Andrew Little in the Labour Leader contest, dont like any of the others in the running but is a worry when I cant even say to myself that I will vote for Greens if the outcome isn’t what I prefer.
Well, it’s the likes of Metiria Turei, Catherine Delahunty, and Jan Logie in the Greens that keep me voting Green. i’d also like to see Jack McDonald and Marama Davidson in the House.
But it is hard to decide who to vote for when I have criticisms of every party on the “left”.
@ karen..
“..I am still appalled that Norman said in the minor leader’s debate that the politician he most admired in another party was Bill (sell off state houses) English…”
yeah..that one is still echoing/bedding-in…
..and yeah..macdonald and davidson have both impressed..
“There’s a lot of chatter on twitter about Shaw being into market force. A bit worrying.”
I think it is inevitable with the Greens. Unless the left organises a progressive movement pretty damn quick, the party will work with whatever it can, including market forces. Norman of course is also into using the market to effect change.
It will be an interesting dilemma for the Greens. There is this idea that they’re neither left nor right (I think Lynn once used the imagery of them being vertical to the horizontal axis of the traditional left/right spectrum). I tend to see them as trying to move beyond the left/right gulf (which is why the whole ‘we can work with anyone on policy’ thing is so important to them). I have some sympathy for this because the left appears to be failing to stop neoliberalism and proto-fascism. Not that I think the left is necessarily at fault, but that we may need other things as well.
I’ll try and download Shaw’s speech later so I can see what all the fuss is about.
i also empathise. i think they are trying to go beyond left right dichotomy and are saying that whoever is in power and wants to advance policies the green party advocate they will work with.
that is not the same as being “right”
it seems to me that there is no single solution to many of our big problems but amalgams which most of our parties dont want a bar of.
It’s the same as doing what the Maori Party does, without the cabinet posts. It’s hugely dangerous, but then again, I also consider any collaboration with Labour since 1984 as working with the right.
@ murray..
“..I also consider any collaboration with Labour since 1984 as working with the right…”
..aye..!
the greens memorandum with national has resulted in over 400,000 homes being more insulated.
there has been a pilot scheme for a building wof
both things done by parties not around the cabinet table and with no outside cabinet baubles either.
far too little credit, and too many brickbats, get thrown for this. insulating homes is a step toward homes affects health improvements for the poorer amongst us
“It’s the same as doing what the Maori Party does,”
Except the Māori party is actually right wing.
I don’t buy that line about moving beyond left and right. The MO of working for consensus and collaborative rather than being into competitive game-playing is to me a left wing value.
I think people like Shaw =, saying they are beyond political partisanship, and being into working with whoever for solutions to the big problems, are deluded.
They ignore that there are those out to maintain their power and privilege, and will resists any changes that challenge that – even if it damages the whole planet.
Slavery, for instance, never really went away, the capitalists used the market for exploit people in new ways.
i am not even sure it is a left wing value given the labour caucus consider itself left wing.
it is possible that people can believe they are moving beyond left and right in an attempt to place the value or ethic pursued above any exterior label. they may or may not achieve that but it doesnt change the intent. intent is often more key than outcome whether that outcome is negative or positive. the greens appear to be trying to place their policies, the intent above traditional labels. i admire the attempts given the people and process they are surrounded by
Well, I don’t see the current Labour caucus as being into consensus building and collaborative approaches.
There’s a strong element within that caucus that are into approaching politics as combative game playing. Very different from the approach of the Greens.
oh i agree but many behaving that way will consider themselves left wing.
i hesitate to say this but collaborative and consensus, imo, is a feminine trait rather than left or right wing… and before anyone leaps on that by feminine i mean as opposed to masculine not women versus men.
I see a collaborative approach as being more dominant on the left. I also see it as being more common among women. But, there are also some pretty competitive, combative, individualistic and right wing women: Judith Collins, for example.
yup, she uses some masculine characteristics as part of her methodology.
we are none of us, in my opinion all masculine or all feminine.
Well, i think it’s a cultural thing. And I think many upperclass or upper middleclass women are used to tell others what to do.
For me, traditional human communities have always functioned with both conservative and liberal elements. While I also see the intent to shift beyone game playing and power-over structures as being more naturally left, I think that conservatives can also work collaboratively (I’m not talking about neoliberals or fundamentalists). The GP moving beyond left/right doesn’t mean they leave left wing values or skills behind.
“I think people like Shaw =, saying they are beyond political partisanship, and being into working with whoever for solutions to the big problems, are deluded.”
That’s a somewhat different thing than what I was talking about. I think that in principle we could have multi-party accords on some things (across the left/right divide), and to an extent this already happens within MMP. But in practice it won’t happen much because NACT’s agenda is so extreme and because we live in an MMP age where taking out opponents is part of the process (aka cutting off one’s nose to spite’s one face).
and we now have labour talking about 50% of the vote… FPP thinking
has that been said recently?
in the recesses of my memory i think it was parker… am happy to be corrected
How Pinkwashing is Creating More Cancer
Komen is supposed to be curing breast cancer. So why is its pink ribbon on so many carcinogenic products?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/21/komen-is-supposed-to-be-curing-breast-cancer-so-why-is-its-pink-ribbon-on-so-many-carcinogenic-products/?hpid=z11
Good link, and great to see the Washington Post covering this.
A question for any IT geeks around. Is there a technical reason for not having platforms that allow multiple logins at the same time on the same computer/browser (eg gmail, twitter etc)? Or is it that developpers don’t see the need?
MS Outlook 2013
what?
I can do it. However, there is something that happens with gmail that it locks into one gmail account from my computer some times.
It can be undone – forget how – maybe clear cache, start again, and untick something -“stay logged in”?
Google pisses me off. It tries to link everything I do, under diverse identities, to each other.
Oh, and to use different logins simultaneously – try using different browsers for each log in.
yes I know how to use different browsers, my question is if there is a technical reason why it can’t be done on the same app.
How do you login to two different gmail accounts in the same browser? When I do that, gmail just logs me out of the first one, once I’m in the second one.
in gmail using a web browser, click on the person-shaped icon (top right) and click “add account”. Each account is opened in a different tab in firefox.
Brilliant! thanks. Interestingly, that doesn’t work if I open a new tab manually, go to the login page, and then add another account that way.
So that answers the question. There appears to be no technical reason to not design for this. ie it could be done on other platforms too.
I suspect it involves cookies that link each session on the website to the specific tab, so on the flipside it might not work so well for sites whose users like to open the browser, go to the site and straight into their account with no further clicks.
Of course, all of the above are security workarounds that mean anyone using your machine can open your accounts, so you might not want to do it with any emails you conduct business on.
It’s by design, for security and convenience (in most use cases – not yours though!).
The Gmail login page creates an “authentication” cookie, so when you open a new tab Google knows you are logged in already. And when you open your other Gmail account, a new Gmail cookie is created which supersedes the previous one.
You may wonder why opening a different browser does what you want. It’s because they don’t share cookies among one another. Each browser (Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari, etc.) has a separate set of cookies.
Email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird should make it easier to collect your email from different accounts.
More details here.
Thanks. I understand why using different browsers works (cookies).
I’m still not clear if there is a technical reason multiple logins can’t be used on one platform. How is it a security issue? And in this day and age, how is it a convenience issue?
“Clients like Outlook or Thunderbird should make it easier to collect your email from different accounts.”
Can I send from the different gmail accounts using Outlook?
It’s not about making it easier to collect email. It’s about being able to work in two or more different logins at once. eg working with googledocs, I’ve been logged in on a community group account and my own account, which requires me currently to use two browsers.
Cookies are per-website not per-account. If you had 2 cookies for the same website there’s a good chance the browser will mix up the account details when sending email.
Outlook is able to send & receive from different accounts no probs.
“Outlook is able to send & receive from different accounts no probs.”
Different gmail accounts?
“So that’s why websites don’t do it”
Except the others just demonstrated it’s possible in gmail (above) 😉
I hear what you are saying abotu cookies, just not sure why some other system can’t be used.
Bloody McFlock showed me up! 😮
A cookie is just a simple little text file stored on your computer, not having to log in everywhere you go is part of the convenience they offer.
Something like LastPass (browser addon) is a possible alternative
cheers 🙂
Technically: multiple sessions in one browser are possible, but almost always a bad idea! So that’s why websites don’t do it 😛
‘Canadian Green MP warns against harsh anti-terror measures’
By Keith Locke / October 28, 2014
“Canada’s Green Party has provided a welcome counterpoint to Prime Minister Harper’s call for tougher anti-terrorism laws in the wake of a soldier outside the Canadian Parliament…
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/10/28/canadian-green-mp-warns-against-harsh-anti-terror-measures/#sthash.Weky26Uy.dpuf
How many times does it need to be said that it was not terrorism.
It was an act of war in a country that has been at war for 13 years. Unless can someone prove otherwise. Or just silly gormless soundbites for te news. probably
The latest news I’ve heard on Canada is that Toronto heavyweight Rob Ford was going to stand again for Mayor? but became ill, and at the last minute his brother stepped into his place. So how will Toronto vote?