Another day in lockdown, another day for all lefties to dream about socialist policies to be enacted, to agree with each other about all the policies that they want for NZ that have been rejected by far left voters in UK and USA (Corbin and Sanders), but feel free to dream….it's free after all, the actual policies not so much!
"… when the failure of the right wing, Neo-liberal policies of the last decades have been so blatantly highlighted …"
By what? By Covid? Are you serious? Look there are plenty of things wrong with neo-liberal policies, but there are countries with higher infection rates than the US that are hardly neo-liberal paradises. Norway and Denmark are two examples. Spain and Italy are two more telling examples.
Covid seems to be uninterested in differentitating on the basis of economic policy.
The country combines a completely socialized medical system that guarantees health care to all with impressive biotech innovations. A Cuban antiviral drug (Interferon Alfa-2B) has been used to combat the coronavirus both inside the country and in China. Cuba also boasts 8.2 doctors per 1,000 people — well over three times the rate in the United States (2.6) or South Korea (2.4), almost five times as many as China (1.8), and nearly twice as many as Italy (4.1).
On top of its impressive medical system, Cuba has a far better track record of protecting its citizens from emergencies than other poor nations
You mean the same Cuba that rations food? Where 15% of the population live in extreme poverty? Who ranks 118th in the world in health spending per capita, when the US ranks #1?
Compare 'response'? How? The only thing that matters are results. That's precisely what I was using for my comparisons. Our rate of infection is considerably higher than Hong Kong's. Based on your argument we should become more neoliberal.
We have done a hell of a job," Trump said, as he sent an ominous message to state and local leaders who have been urging the federal government to do more to help them save lives.
As US is rushing up to 120 000 cases. Most in the world, and increasing at just under 20k per day
trump was revolting during yesterdays presser, telling people they should be appreciative of what he has done… wow.
sonny perdue, their secretary of agriculture was in attendance, quietly sweating in the background, coughing when it was his turn to speak.
Reminded me of a similar presser in Iran a few weeks back, where their health spokesperson was sweating and coughing, later he was diagnosed with the virus.
Lets hope journalists don't get sick with it, right now the USA needs truth tellers more than ever.
If you value your sanity, don't even to try sort out exactly who is responsible for what. There's a byzantine structure with lots of overlaps and lots of gaps. It's a fkn wonder anything works at all.
tRump is thinking of November far more than the health and welfare of the American people – there are reports he wants his signature on all the cheques going out to all (?) Americans. What a campaigning ploy (as well, of course, as being completely immoral)!
USA is known for riots when the President is not listening. At some point people will riot. Now is not the time. Could be worse than the 1960s civil rights.
Neil Young can destroy a venue with a full-on electric attack he can mesmerize an audience with just an acoustic guitar, piano, harmonica, and casual banter, even while playing a suite of songs they’d never heard before. See him do so above in a 1971 concert live at the BBC’s Shepherds Bush Empire Theatre. Young plays four songs that would appear on Harvest: “Out on the Weekend,” “Old Man,” “Heart of Gold,” and “A Man Needs a Maid.” He also does “Journey Through the Past” and “Love in Mind,” which would appear two years later on the bleak 1973 Time Fades Away, and “Don’t Let it Bring You Down,” a song from 1970’s brilliant After the Gold Rush.
Full set list:
Out on the Weekend, Old Man, Journey Through the Past, Cowgirl in the Sand, Heart of Gold, Don't Let It Bring You Down, I Am a Child, There's a World, A Man Needs a Maid, The Needle and the Damage Done, Tell Me Why, Love in Mind, Dance, Dance, Dance
This is interesting out of Iceland and it's way to late for a lockdown to be effective unless it lasts months.
population has contracted the virus and that about half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic,” said [Iceland’s chief epidemiologist
If you look at that number you could say that we could double our number of known cases comfortably and then on top of that you will have another big number of people with mild symptoms.
I'm pretty confident given we haven't been testing at the airports until very recently Corona is well embedded in our population.
And those NZrs stuck in Peru, they were told they couldn't get on the charter flight to Australia because of the chance they could be stuck at the airport in Australia for more than 24 hours.
Nope. Australians are not a lot different to Kiwis, they're a little more direct in they way they express themselves, but for the most part they're the usual mix like everywhere else.
It's their govt that's the problem here; keep the focus on that.
There is an overall truth in that, but this was an unusual election. If we could magically erase QLD out of the equation it would have been a likely ALP victory.
When you have a number of electorates all swing one way on a single regional issue, perverse outcomes are always likely.
My point to tc is there is no need to resort to bigotry to explain what is happening here.
Seriously Weka? Have you already forgotten the Christchurch earthquake?
Basically the same financial and civil defence remedies applied by the previous govt in 2011, as the present govt has applied, except it was location specific. The big difference being the entire CBD was knocked flat and most roads and underground infrastructure completely destroyed. Which is why it ultimately cost $40 billion. And also daily press conferences back then, same as now.
In fact the current govt has had the big advantage of most of the emergency systems that are available to govt having been well tested in the previous 10 years. So just as NZ did way better than the US over a natural disaster (think Katrina) so are we doing way better with the pandemic.
Partly it is a function of size and partly a function of a unified central govt, as opposed to a federal system. Also we seem, both in 2011 and in 2020, to have a better govt than the US did in Katrina and the present.
Bridges' big turnaround from 'this government doesn't know what it's doing' and 'it's leading us into economic oblivion' to 'we're all in this together' would've probably been difficult for him to swallow but his comms people sensing the public mood would've demanded it. Just look at Australia, US and the UK. We wouldn't have been any different. The sheer magnitude of what's happening now would've meant Bridges looking like a complete idiot if he'd continued with his pathetic attack lines. He's already close to joining the scomo/bojo/trump club as it is – many would say he's already a fully-fledged member.
Your comparison with Christchurch assumes the government did a good job. FFS, there are people down there who still haven't got their houses sorted out, not to mention the thousands who were ripped off by the government putting them in the no-win situation of accepting woefully inadequate payouts for their properties; or the millions spent on idiot boards made up of people who knew nothing about what they were being paid to do, many of whom were your mates.
My view on Chch is that National dealt with the emergency *and prioritised the economy over people. eg the lack of mental health services. Obviously National weren't doing what the US and the UK are doing now, but I think a Labour led govt would have placed a different emphasis on Chch recovery, and National would certainly be placing a different emphasis if they were in power now.
Have to say it's been good to see the more traditional conservatives in National speaking out recently and aligning more with values. This bodes well.
Instead of telling anyone what to focus on, RL, what you need to remember is that the thinking of a nation is coloured, at least in part, by the policies of the prevailing government, and right wing governments have it easier than left wing governments in this regard. So, while you might say aussies are similar to kiwis, at the moment that's not quite the case. The average Australian's attitude towards NZ and NZers has changed a lot over the past decade, and not in a good way.
In about 2 weeks time this sleeper issue is going to hit many 10,000's of kiwis, just as Australia is going to be under a tsunami of COVID 19 deaths and SloMo's govt will be under maximum pressure.
Very bad timing. We need to act now.
Ardern needs to find a way to put some pressure on Morrison to act before it degenerates into something far worse. The best way I can think of is for the NZ govt to announce it will pay a generous UBI to all 650,000 kiwis in Australia. Then wait a few days and announce that it will tax all Australian banks in NZ at 100% until the bill is paid.
Most Aussies can appreciate a robust negotiation like that, and would take pleasure in seeing their banks get a kick in the nuts.
The idea is to embarrass Slo Mo into action. First of all the UBI needs to be generous, significantly more than what the Australian govt has been fumbling about with for the past week. It needs to convey a high clarity message of clean action and taking responsibility.
Then by taxing the banks you get pressure from the big end of town. If that doesn't work, extend it to all Australian owned commercial entities.
The other element that needs to be highlighted is that NZ is taking care of the 60,000 Australians in our country who need help. It may be a much smaller number in total terms, but per head of capita, it’s comparable between the two nations.
Give the issue high visibility profile and Slo Mo will eventually cave. The Australian public are not a lot different to NZ and can see the obvious need here.
Is that the same banks that are allowing kiwis 6 month mortgage holidays. In a game of who's got who by the short and curlier I'm afraid the aussie banks will win .
Those same banks might be quite capable of blocking our payments to Oz-Kiwis in the first place, and sure to block them if a tax were mentioned.. Scomo likely to support them in this, as well.
That would be flat out theft and solid grounds to arrest senior bank officers. It would also play very badly with the public on both sides of the Tasman.
A – human rights breach – yes. That is another way to put pressure on govt, Not that they will always respond. Once you've been there a couple of times and not been hit by lightning then…
Freeman said the Government does need to step in. "We think Government is a key part to help provide a solution."
The council is hearing about multiple scenarios, including hearing from many landlords who are working constructively with tenants in discussing rent relief, including postponements to outright cuts in rents, through to those refusing to pay.
"The biggest issue with this is that we need everybody to come out of this. We need businesses to survive and landlords need to survive," Freeman says.
The problem is this clause in the standard ADLS lease which covers most commercial leases,
No Access in Emergency (27.5)
If there is an emergency and the Tenant is unable to gain access to the premises to fully conduct the Tenant's business from the premises because of reasons of safety of the public or property or the need to prevent reduce or overcome any hazard, harm or loss that may be associated with the emergency including:
(a) prohibited or restricted access cordon applying to the premises; or
(b) prohibition on the use of the premises pending the completion of structural engineering or other reports and appropriate
(c ) restriction on occupation of the premises by any competent authority,
then a fair proportion of the rent and outgoings shall cease to be payable for the period commencing on the date when the Tenant became unable to gain access to the premises to fully conduct the Tenant's business from the premises until the inability ceases.
This clause came into the standard lease after the Christchurch earthquakes and applies to all emergencies, pandemics are included in the definition at the back of the lease.
As a commercial tenant I'm hearing a lot of different outcomes with this, from some landlords who offered their tenants lengthy rent holidays before any restrictions, to others that aren't even returning phone calls or emails. Pretty much the same range of behaviour landlords are reporting, but the other way around.
But both parties entered into the lease, presumably aware of the obligations contained and are bound by them. If a landlord is saying that the clause shouldn't apply, then what else in the lease doesn't apply any more? The whole lease?
The difficulty is working out what is fair. A strong argument can be made that no rent is payable as the tenant cannot conduct any business, but the tenant has the benefit of storage in the landlords premises.
Some sort of ruling is required on this before the end of business on Tuesday, so rent payments on 1 April can either be withheld or paid in part. I don't think and argument can be made that full payment in possible under that clause.
Either the Government does it, or the Property Council and Retail and other business associations get together in Court first thing tomorrow and thrash out a ruling.
It's looking very much that way, despite Robertson saying there wasn't much the Government could do in his stand up yesterday.
The problem goes a long way beyond clause 27.5 . There's also ratchet clauses in commercial leases, the rent cannot be less than the pre-ceeding rent on review. This will make it very hard for many tenants who won't have anything like past business levels as we come out of this, and will be trapped in leases that are killing them very quickly. But I know some here that won't be around if they have to pay the next 3 months rent with no income apart from the wage subsidy.
Then landlords won't have any tenants, or not at the same rental. Who's going to take on a lease at 2019 conditions now, unless you're in the essential group.
Tricky bit will be when one party is going down and becomes very inflexible and irrational. Leases are very enduring creatures that can exploit and be exploited. This would create a lot of un-neccessary pain and most likely a domino effect of landlords and tenant insolvencies.
Will probably come to a point where an exit procedure will have to be instituted where previously solvent parties can get out of contracts before they are sucked dry and become insolvent. This would apply to tenants obligations to their landlords, and landlords obligations further up the chain. Once we get to domino insolvencies there will be very few able to restart businesses to continue the economy.
Sort of. Rates are part of the outgoings, so the landlord pays them and hands the bill to the tenant. Same as the landlords insurance and any management fees, so if you have a dispute with the landlord through the property manager, you tend to pay for both sides of the argument.
If 27.5 applies, which it does in this situation the landlord will not be reimbursed for a proportion of the rates, and other outgoings through the lockdown period.
It's a matter of determining what that 'fair' proportion is. And 'fair' isn't really a thing in commercial negotiations, it's screw as much out of the other party as you can.
4,6,10 weeks time when we have extinguished this C19 from NZ, what then?
International travel (tourism) will be decimated. As we cannot allow a repeat of this to occur, otherwise we have placed NZ of hold for Nothing. As with international contact, the virus will reestablish itself.
Yes that is the crunchy part. NZ will have to revert to the kind of travel conditions that prevailed before the 60's; possible but only if you really need to.
As for how long … there are too many variables. If the CCP is to be believed and they've eliminated COVID 19 from China, then with a coordinated global effort it could be gone everywhere by June. But both believing the CCP and expecting effective global action are unlikely presuppositions.
It's likely by later this year most nations will start to respond more competently. We'll see a combination of universal testing, isolation, social distancing and good hygiene start to bring the numbers down dramatically.
Then it's highly likely we will soon see effective use of anti-retroviral drug treatments reduce the death toll substantially. (I'd personally like to see credible trials of IV-VitC as some Chinese hospitals report success with.)
The magic bullet of a vaccine is by no means certain. After all after decades of trying we still don't have a vaccine for HIV, but there is an enormous high tech effort being put into it by dozens of teams worldwide.
Plus of course we cannot rule out another black swan event emerging in the wake of all this instability. It's easy enough to point to some of the factors that may come into play, but predicting how they will actually weave together in real time is impossible.
It was a way more complex story than I was prepared to relate in a public forum; but essentially yes we're still stranded. Fortunately over the past three days we had a very welcome change for the better in our family position and we are no longer in panic mode thanks.
It's the CCP, they lie like we breath. You have to remember a few things about Chineses politics.
That saving face is a real issue. Lies by omission are not seen as being such a bad thing.
Local officials lie, for a lot of reasons, including for future job prospects.
That the Chineses population has been slowly losing trust in the CCP leadership for a long time. So any lie which helps keep trust – is going to fly in China.
I agree the numbers don't add up – but relax – like all government conspiracies, the truth comes out eventually.
So much work that needs to be done in NZ, I think we can replace tourism.
climate mitigation (forestry, regenerative agriculture, future proofing infrastructure, retro-fitting existing housing and commercial buildings for a CC world)
relocalising food production
new support and health systems
future (near and far) proofing supply lines by re-estabilishing some manufacturing here.
conservation
that's just off the top of my head and all of those require front line/on the ground staff as well as technical, management, design, construction and so on.
that would be some interesting maths but whether accurate or not IF we wish to import (and we do, more than we export) then we need to obtain foreign currency….rebuilding our economy solely with local activity will not facilitate that which leaves us with something of a difficult economic AND political challenge
Our "export" industries borrowings, are way in excess of anything justified by their earnings as an export business.
As too many are running as a speculative capital gains earner, rather than a business. And borrowing to do so.
Removing those will increase, not decrease, our total trade account.
Funnily, often the same people who oppose Government debt and spending, except if it is for them, of course.
Simply put we are paying back too much interests, profits and externalities, offshore.
we dont 'need' to import more than we export, indeed it would be advantageous to export more than we import or at least be balanced but we have imported more than we export for decades and consequently most of our manufactured items come from offshore as do pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, transport and heavy engineering (Wellington are awaiting a pipe from Germany to repair their sewerage system currently)….we make very little of that which is required to maintain our current lifestyles
consistently?…probably in the 1960s or 70s, there has been the odd surplus year since the 80s but we generally run deficits which require foreign borrowing…..it is the most obvious flaw with MMT
According to my MMT understanding if you run an export deficit the foreigners end up earning and holding more of your currency (e.g a bank record in NZ says Johonny foreigner has a bank balance of X). They may then invest that surplus into asset classes resulting in foreign debt (meaning an institution in NZ keeps a record we owe Johonny foreigner X for his loan/investment). So the flaw in that description is where?
again..you assume they desire to hold it (or spend it in NZ, or invest it in NZ)….we produce commonly available commodities and are (until recently) a relatively popular tourist destination….that is by no means a given, indeed they probably wish to buy an airliner. the latest tech, pharmaceuticals, oil, solar panels etc….all the things we want to buy as well and dont have for sale
Its not about assumptions at this point, those are the possible uses for the funds earned. As you suggest, no you wont be able to buy things not manufactured in NZ with your NZ currency, even if you really really wish you could.
Now you said there is a flaw with this description, but have identified no flaws.
lol…im glad you put simple because it is …and completely misses the point. If we desire to be a first world nation we will always have to import as there are very few economies in the world that can produce all that is needed….the U.S and the EU are about it….China at a pinch, but definitely getting close. The Soviet block tried but rapidly fell behind.
Thats isnt to say we couldnt be self sufficient but life would be unrecognisable….hence the political difficulty
we dont have to be all or nothing but you cant replace roughly a quarter of your export dollars with local currency and not expect an impact of what is able to be imported….which if you recall was the original suggestion
Given we're not talking about no imports, what's wrong with replacing 17%? Where's the line where replacing imports with a relocalised economy (where the $ stays in the local economy) becomes unviable for a decent standard of living. What %?
Tourism is New Zealand's largest export industry in terms of foreign exchange earnings. It directly employs one in eight New Zealanders.
Data and statistics
For the year ended March 2019:
Total tourism expenditure was $40.9 billion, an increase of 4 percent ($1.6 billion) from the previous year.
International tourism expenditure increased 5.2 percent ($843 million) to $17.2 billion, and contributed 20.4 percent to New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services.
The number of short-term arrivals to New Zealand increased 1.3 percent over the same period.
Tourism generated a direct contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) of $16.2 billion, or 5.8 percent of GDP.
Tourism is our biggest export industry, contributing 21% of foreign exchange earnings.
The indirect value added of industries supporting tourism generated an additional $11.2 billion, or 4.0 percent of GDP.
229,566 people were directly employed in tourism (8.4 percent of the total number of people employed in New Zealand), an increase of 3.9 percent from the previous year.
Tourists generated $3.8 billion in goods and services tax (GST) revenue, with $1.8 billion coming from international tourists
let's settle on 20% then. I still don't see what the problem is with replacing that with domestic economy. It's not like pre-80s we were a third world country .
which 20% of imports would you like drop then (remembering thats just the tourism industry, there are others impacted as well)?…or maybe a 20% cut across the board?…if we are going to accept that our FX earnings are to reduce then ipso facto what we can purchase offshore will decrease as well (sans deflation).
As stated the other night, whatever programme the Government implements to rebuild the economy is going to have to keep at least one eye on this fact…..straight out fiscal intervention is not going solve it, especially given our supply chain is predominantly offshore
What are the imports for tourists? Fuel, food, souvenirs (no loss there), linen, alcohol.
Pat, it's probably a useful exercise to ask ourselves what we could live without, or live with less frequently, in exchange for a values-based economy and lifestyle, and future proofing NZ.
Maybe we don't replace our consumer electronics so often. We start producing more clothing in NZ again (merino, hemp, harakeke are all industries waiting to grow). Apart from food grown in the tropics, why are we even importing food?
These are also of course climate change and ecology issues.
yes there will be a reduction in tourism related imports among other things but if the plan is to replace that activity with say an infrastructure upgrade or a electrification (decarbonising) of transport/industry then quite obviously they will require significant quantities of imports…our dollar has already dropped considerably and our other main export stream is already at capacity (some say over) and even if it wasnt its nature requires considerable time to ramp up…we have imported inflationary pressures and little ability to reap the benefit on the other side…..fortunately the Saudis are playing chicken with the Russians and the frackers, but for how long?….
Campervans, temporary visa workers, aircraft, helicopters, fuel, exotic foods, are just some things we import at a foreign exchange cost, for tourism.
Then, there are the internal costs of course. Which the tourist industry has passed on to the rest of us, while avoiding paying them, themselves. Pollution, accommodation, overcrowding, low wages, etc. Reducing those also means more resources for New Zealanders.
The really obvious example, at present, is all the air bnb's, that have been freed up for rental housing.
Yes there will be some positive impacts such as Air BRB rentals being freed up and the reduced carbon emissions for example and resources are freed up for local use….one the main resources that will be freed up is labour (post shut down) but as previously stated that dosnt necessarily increase our capability (certainly not in the near term) and while we may have unused capacity there is much we need that capacity cannot supply
That's not a bad idea. Will be interesting to see if cruises survive in their current form though. It's not like this is going to be our only pandemic.
What is domestic travel in NZ going to be like? AirNZ will still exist of course, but in a scaled back version for some time, and I can't see an immediate return to the cheap seats of the main trunk routes we're accustomed to in a hurry.
Already there's the subtle push going on to promote domestic tourism after this over, and fair enough. But there will also be the ongoing need for people to get from A to B for work and personal/family reasons, so how is that going to look?
I tend to view travel through a non-driver's lens out of necessity, and being in the low income bracket, from the cost perspective. My main travel has been Wgtn-Auck to visit family by way of cheap flights. But I'm old enough to remember the days of the Silver Fern/Silver Star Main trunk line being a passenger service, not a tourist one, and the predominant mode of transport for students and lower income people at a time that plans were the preserve of business and higher income travellers. And passenger trains ran the length of NZ from Auckland to Dunedin, complimented with a good railways-Intercity bus system.
NZ is of course, a country of car drivers, and we are so price sensitive so I can anticipate than on principle many will choose to drive rather than pay more for an airfare because it's faster and more convenient than the Intercity buses that have been scaled back to the bone (and are quite uncomfortable long distance). So would this be our opportunity to restart those mothballed main passenger lines, change the tourist ones back into affordable passenger, so Auck-Wgtn, Picton-Invercargill, Chch-Greymouth, Wgtn-Napier-Tauranga-Auckland? (With wifi of course)With a lot of people unable to affordable fares andstill needing to get places, this might be a great opportunity to get people back to the concept of overland travel.
It could also be part of the major infastructure projects needed to help kick start things economically, and perhaps there's a lot of ex-AirNZ staff whose skills might be transferable to a new type of transport?
Trains seem a no brainer because of CC too. I'm not sure we can rely on converting the whole NZ fleet to e-vehicles now, will be interesting to see what happens to the global economy and trade systems around that.
I suspect we are going to go through extended periods of time where some regions are able to have more travel than others. Possibly limited travel between regions.
Agreed. The idea of replacing our present vehicle fleet with electric has always been a silly pipe dream. Our present ~80% renewable electricity generation is already used for other purposes. We will need to drastically increase our generation to charge ev's as well.
I for one don't relish the idea of wind turbines & solar farms everywhere just so we can continue driving as we've become used to. Extensive public transport & revamping our towns so amenities and jobs are closer to where people live will be required. This also means walking & cycling will be feasible for the majority of journeys.
During the last election I was pleased when Jacinda referred to climate change as our nuclear free issue. I've come to realise that was not a good comparison. Going nuclear free didn't actually require us as individuals to change at all. Preventing climate change will require significant change in life styles.
quite agree. I think we will find we have some spare power generation once Tiwai Point closes, and with increase in solar on housing and commercial buildings. But I don't think we should be using that up on EVs, and the sooner we get to the idea of a steady state economy the better. People need to wake up to power generation from renewables still being a finite resource.
I would prefer to travel from Auckland to Wellington by train. I recently traveled both ways by bus for $44. Another time it was still below $50 return. Hard to compete with that.
This is what the $500,000 govt backed business loans are supposed to cover. Landlords giving say a 50% reduction for 3 months and the tenant paying 50% with the loan.
The other possibility is that it reflects a sudden increase in the number of properties available for rent, because the airbnb market has crashed due to tourism ceasing.
I haven't seen any local figures but it's reported Dublin has seen a 64% rise in listings since the beginning of the month.
Modi in India has a humanitarian crisis before a health emergency.
Some of my closest friends are from India. It is always interesting to hear their point of view on how differently they think from me. Their survival instincts are an example.
This virus may with luck go the way of other Sars virus and even Mers in that they disappeared after a number of months especially with the sort of containment regimes we have now. Mers almost mysteriously just faded out and it appears that this Covid pathogen is not exactly robust as soap and water breaks it down effectivly dissolving the fatty acid coating that binds the elements together. We can but hope. It may already be happening in Wuhan if their reports can be believed.
Interesting… There was a pretty distinct shift in demographics over the last couple of weeks. Admittedly there has been an increase in total unique users from 5800 odd to 6500 between the two weeks.
Week 1 of March
Week 4 of March
Good to see that google thinks we nearly have now gotten to almost an even split on the genders.
Remember when we talked about climate change and my response is we need to reduce the world population? That was met with horror on here along with 'the world has plenty of food'.
Well, you see the most affected places during covid19 are population dense places. One of the reasons why NZ may fair a bit better.
*sigh* You really are pretty damn ignorant about your own country aren't you?
Well, you see the most affected places during covid19 are population dense places. One of the reasons why NZ may fair a bit better.
As you point out it is the density of population in a country that is an issue in epidemics. But when you're describing 'density', you're probably doing something completely inane like people per square km.
Now that is dumb – it really doesn't matter for the purposes of any disease to count areas where are only cows, sheep or bush.
A good surrogate for that population density is to look at urbanisation measures. That is to say, looking at the areas where there are significiant number of neighbours close to you.
NZ is amongst the highest in the world – 86.54%. That puts up amongst the most urbanised countries in the world – 27th in the wikilist
To give you an idea just picking out OECD countries current and trying to join
Belgium 98%
Iceland 93.8%
Israel 92.4%
Japan 91.6%
Netherlands 91.5%
Luxemberg 91.0%
Denmark 87.5%
Sweden 87.4%
Brazil 86.6%
New Zealand 86.5%
… and some of the rest
Austrailia 86.0%
UK 83.0%
US 82.3%
Norway 82.2%
South Korea 81.5%
Canada 81.4%
France 80.4%
Germany 77.3%
On your other point
…climate change and my response is we need to reduce the world population…
If you ever look at the issues of climate change without your idiot blinkers on, then you'd be aware that concentrating people into cities is actually one of the best ways to reduce climate change.
The distances between people reduces virtually every climate change measure per person. Less transport emissions from routine travel and distribution through both reducing the transport web and allowing more use of communal public transport. More efficiency in the use of high green house gas emitting building materials especially concrete and road asphalt. Just eliminating unproductive paved roads in favour of rail would be a massive improvement.
Not to mention that if we eliminated the climate unproductive use of farmland for food, for instance stopping meat, wool and dairy production, that would massively reduce emissions of methane – a really significiant climate change gas. It'd also allow more room for forests and peat bogs which are pretty effective short-term (by my earth science standards) sinks of carbon. It'd also allow more plant based food to be grown if we needed it and as close to the urban centres as possible.
You have to remember that the cities are the driving force of all modern economies. Most rural economies are pretty peripheral to the real economy in most developed countries, and even in many of the developing countries. There isn't that much wealth in the rural world. There are mostly just a few relatively wealthy. That is because concentrations of people are very very good at generating wealth.
This whole concept of relying on the rural economy as the only productive part of the economy is something that I'd only expect to hear from damn fool 18th century aristocrat. One who likes consorting with bats, pigs, pangolins, birds, and apes. They appear to be mainly there to give urbanites disgusting diseases.
Fortunately I'm too polite to describe some of the disgusting methods of consorting… 😈
What on earth is happening in the US to explain this lift?
They're plagiarising Churchill speeches and making it sound like war pres tRump and the 5th Marine Division are going to storm Iwo Jima and fight Covid 19 on the beach.
It may be no more than a rally-around-the-flag-in-a-crisis thing that Americans are big on. In which case, it's a remarkably small bump in support considering the scale of the problem and likely to dissipate quickly as it sinks in just how venal and incompetent the Fifth Avenue Fraud's response has been.
Yes. They are into flags in a big way in Yankee land. Not content with one maybe two fluttering in the breeze like most other countries, they have to have rows of them all over the place. Jingoism at its worst.
When the body count starts to rise in the thousands I think they might have a little re-think – at least those who are capable of thinking at all.
And if you watch the 6pm news – no screaming 'buy buy buy' and 'sale must end Monday' ads from the likes of Harvey Norman, The Warehouse or Briscoes etc.
Now I don't bother muting the tv when the ads come on, lol.
Good news is, the population are seeing through it, and one of the accused has effectively turned on his ghoulish friends.
Gotta wonder if the Bank of England will give the money it stole back to the people of Venezuela after the person they stole it for, is about to be charged?
“There is no [protective gear] to be bought on the private market through vendors,” said Kevin Donovan, president of Lakes Regional HealthCare, which has two hospitals in central New Hampshire. “We order but don’t have any money to pay for it,” because companies manufacturing masks and other emergency gear are demanding cash payments on delivery. Donovan said his hospitals, like others, are low on cash because they have canceled the elective procedures that are their moneymakers.
“Unless we start getting material from the national stockpile,” Donovan said, “I don’t know where we are going to get it.”
maybe this event will teach us that public hospitals should not be run as 'for profit'.
World wide the issue is that hospitals are under equipped, under staffed, and that the staff is underpaid and burdened with huge student loans.
Castro with his fee education and his doctor/nurses program had it quite right. And instead of plastic crap Cuba exports doctors. Maybe that is the big big lesson to be learned from this.
I also hope that the doctors and nurses here on the frontline will have their student loans cancelled in full. That is the very least the country can do for them.
June the 1st Is gypsy day (the day the change farms)for dairy farmers. Might pay for the government to put their thinking caps on how this will go if we are still level 4 or 3
As kjt says it's the day farms change hands . It's always been this day so as most arnt milking atthat time and have time to get there systems set up before july /august calving.
South Korea flattened their curve around the 7th of March, but a quarter of all new cases occurred since then and despite the number of new cases dropping since the 12th of March, half of all deaths have occurred the over the past 12 days or so. But if they take the foot off restrictions they'll be in for a second round.
Say goodbye to the rest of 2020, we're in for a long, long haul.
"For Korea one of the big issues is starting school again. We’re expecting a decision from 6 April, and that will be based on where the outbreaks are happening, how they're being controlled and how comfortable the government feels about being able to get on top of new cases quickly."
Professor Gye Cheol Kwon said Korea’s success is down to a dedicated system of trace, test and treat.
"Testing, isolating, contact tracing and quarantine is the only way Koreans have outperformed others."
He added that it is difficult to predict how long the current restrictions will last.
But some experts don't believe life in Korea will truly return to normality until there is a viable vaccine that is proven to be effective against Covid-19.
Dr Kim, himself a vaccine specialist, said a vaccine is likely to be at least a year to 18 months away. Until then some restrictions are likely to remain in place.
"Really if you want to return to the way things were, going out at night, going to concerts, to pubs, or going out to dinner, you really need to have a vaccine," he said.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
Another day in lockdown, another day for all lefties to dream about socialist policies to be enacted, to agree with each other about all the policies that they want for NZ that have been rejected by far left voters in UK and USA (Corbin and Sanders), but feel free to dream….it's free after all, the actual policies not so much!
At a time when the failure of the right wing, Neo-liberal policies of the last decades have been so blatantly highlighted.
You would think the right wing shills, would have the brains to realise it.
The only thing wrong with socialism, is that it allows fools to survive to adulthood, to claim it doesn't work.
Don’t waste your breath on this brainless troll, as he won’t be replying.
"… when the failure of the right wing, Neo-liberal policies of the last decades have been so blatantly highlighted …"
By what? By Covid? Are you serious? Look there are plenty of things wrong with neo-liberal policies, but there are countries with higher infection rates than the US that are hardly neo-liberal paradises. Norway and Denmark are two examples. Spain and Italy are two more telling examples.
Covid seems to be uninterested in differentitating on the basis of economic policy.
Not when you allow for other factors, like land borders.
Or other factors, like population density.
Oslo's is 3,500. Copenhagen's is 18,000. Madrid's is 14,000. Rome's is 5781.
NYC's is 26,403.
BTW – Hungary is a totally landlocked (by no less than 7 countries), and yet has a far lower contraction rate than we do.
Just compare Australia's response, to South Korea. Or even, ours.
Not to mention what the Neo-liberal running down of our hospitals is causing, right now.
Or Cuba's response with it's extensive medical system.
Note. National pandemic stores in New Zealand since 2017!
You mean the same Cuba that rations food? Where 15% of the population live in extreme poverty? Who ranks 118th in the world in health spending per capita, when the US ranks #1?
Who have a longer life expectancy than in the USA.
The “only thing that matters is results” does it not?
By 1 year. And I wouldn't hold up the US citizens lifestyle as ideal for longevity. Food certainly isn't scarce in the US!
BTW…
Cuba, 60 Years On—Misery Is Communism’s Only Real Legacy
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=11690
Seems a bit harsh to be putting a ‘Jan. 2019 boot’ into Cuba now?
http://theconversation.com/by-sending-doctors-to-italy-cuba-continues-its-long-campaign-of-medical-diplomacy-134429
I've worked with Cubans. They don't appear to think so.
Certainly a lot less miserable than Appalachians.
Compare 'response'? How? The only thing that matters are results. That's precisely what I was using for my comparisons. Our rate of infection is considerably higher than Hong Kong's. Based on your argument we should become more neoliberal.
Or more communist. LOL.
Well HK is many things, communist it is not.
We have done a hell of a job," Trump said, as he sent an ominous message to state and local leaders who have been urging the federal government to do more to help them save lives.
As US is rushing up to 120 000 cases. Most in the world, and increasing at just under 20k per day
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/donald-trumps-america/120654446/coronavirus-donald-trump-mulls-quarantines-for-new-york-new-jersey-and-connecticut
trump was revolting during yesterdays presser, telling people they should be appreciative of what he has done… wow.
sonny perdue, their secretary of agriculture was in attendance, quietly sweating in the background, coughing when it was his turn to speak.
Reminded me of a similar presser in Iran a few weeks back, where their health spokesperson was sweating and coughing, later he was diagnosed with the virus.
Lets hope journalists don't get sick with it, right now the USA needs truth tellers more than ever.
Trump has had it. He put making money before the health of Americans. In New York the full impact is 5-7 days away.
The world is going to undergo a reset which will be evolutionary, economic, humanitarian, medical and self sufficiency will need to occur.
Yes, USA have over 120k cases, and will probably break 20k new cases today.
Cuomo Mayor of New York is not thinking how he needs to think either. Gone Burger as well.
New York
Cases 53,316 Today+7,054
Deaths 883 Today +277
Bill de Blasio is mayor of New York City. Andrew Cuomo is Governor of the state of New York.
Thanks for that. I apologise to the New York Mayor.
Who holds the power the Mayor of New York City or the Governor of the state of New York?
If you value your sanity, don't even to try sort out exactly who is responsible for what. There's a byzantine structure with lots of overlaps and lots of gaps. It's a fkn wonder anything works at all.
I value my sanity.
Trump didn't get elected in New York. As we know, Trump isn't interested in anyone who doesn't support him fully and without their brains engaged.
And their wallet open.
tRump is thinking of November far more than the health and welfare of the American people – there are reports he wants his signature on all the cheques going out to all (?) Americans. What a campaigning ploy (as well, of course, as being completely immoral)!
USA is known for riots when the President is not listening. At some point people will riot. Now is not the time. Could be worse than the 1960s civil rights.
Yes completely immoral.
Everyone on the planet should watch this right now. It's a masterpiece of visual mathematics that anyone can understand.
Thank you!
Compelling stuff there.
Informative and full of commonsense.
Full set list:
Out on the Weekend, Old Man, Journey Through the Past, Cowgirl in the Sand, Heart of Gold, Don't Let It Bring You Down, I Am a Child, There's a World, A Man Needs a Maid, The Needle and the Damage Done, Tell Me Why, Love in Mind, Dance, Dance, Dance
Young is a genius…seen him in 4 different countries, always superb.
I've never had the privilege.
This phenomenon is very interesting:
https://www.facebook.com/justinobrooks/videos/10157908556381142/
Cross-continental collaboration, individually isolated by bonded by circumstance, enabled by technology – nice combo.
Most recent live stream.
Lots more here.
https://www.youtube.com/user/PlayingForChange
This is interesting out of Iceland and it's way to late for a lockdown to be effective unless it lasts months.
population has contracted the virus and that about half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic,” said [Iceland’s chief epidemiologist
If you look at that number you could say that we could double our number of known cases comfortably and then on top of that you will have another big number of people with mild symptoms.
I'm pretty confident given we haven't been testing at the airports until very recently Corona is well embedded in our population.
For those Kiwi's stuck in Aussie with no income, no welfare, no way out…surely this is some kind of international human rights breach?
And those NZrs stuck in Peru, they were told they couldn't get on the charter flight to Australia because of the chance they could be stuck at the airport in Australia for more than 24 hours.
Sadly Oz is showing some true colors cobbah.
Nope. Australians are not a lot different to Kiwis, they're a little more direct in they way they express themselves, but for the most part they're the usual mix like everywhere else.
It's their govt that's the problem here; keep the focus on that.
While remembering who voted that government in, of course!
There is an overall truth in that, but this was an unusual election. If we could magically erase QLD out of the equation it would have been a likely ALP victory.
When you have a number of electorates all swing one way on a single regional issue, perverse outcomes are always likely.
My point to tc is there is no need to resort to bigotry to explain what is happening here.
It's simply a matter of luck and timing that we don't have a RW govt focused on protecting neoliberalism right now.
Seriously Weka? Have you already forgotten the Christchurch earthquake?
Basically the same financial and civil defence remedies applied by the previous govt in 2011, as the present govt has applied, except it was location specific. The big difference being the entire CBD was knocked flat and most roads and underground infrastructure completely destroyed. Which is why it ultimately cost $40 billion. And also daily press conferences back then, same as now.
In fact the current govt has had the big advantage of most of the emergency systems that are available to govt having been well tested in the previous 10 years. So just as NZ did way better than the US over a natural disaster (think Katrina) so are we doing way better with the pandemic.
Partly it is a function of size and partly a function of a unified central govt, as opposed to a federal system. Also we seem, both in 2011 and in 2020, to have a better govt than the US did in Katrina and the present.
Bridges' big turnaround from 'this government doesn't know what it's doing' and 'it's leading us into economic oblivion' to 'we're all in this together' would've probably been difficult for him to swallow but his comms people sensing the public mood would've demanded it. Just look at Australia, US and the UK. We wouldn't have been any different. The sheer magnitude of what's happening now would've meant Bridges looking like a complete idiot if he'd continued with his pathetic attack lines. He's already close to joining the scomo/bojo/trump club as it is – many would say he's already a fully-fledged member.
Your comparison with Christchurch assumes the government did a good job. FFS, there are people down there who still haven't got their houses sorted out, not to mention the thousands who were ripped off by the government putting them in the no-win situation of accepting woefully inadequate payouts for their properties; or the millions spent on idiot boards made up of people who knew nothing about what they were being paid to do, many of whom were your mates.
My view on Chch is that National dealt with the emergency *and prioritised the economy over people. eg the lack of mental health services. Obviously National weren't doing what the US and the UK are doing now, but I think a Labour led govt would have placed a different emphasis on Chch recovery, and National would certainly be placing a different emphasis if they were in power now.
Have to say it's been good to see the more traditional conservatives in National speaking out recently and aligning more with values. This bodes well.
Quick question. Who decided to pump up the pandemic reserves in 2017, which we are relying on now?
National, or this Government?
Instead of telling anyone what to focus on, RL, what you need to remember is that the thinking of a nation is coloured, at least in part, by the policies of the prevailing government, and right wing governments have it easier than left wing governments in this regard. So, while you might say aussies are similar to kiwis, at the moment that's not quite the case. The average Australian's attitude towards NZ and NZers has changed a lot over the past decade, and not in a good way.
The question that should challenge us all at this moment is … is what I am doing building trust or dismantling it?
Didn't Scomo refer to the ANZAC spirit a while back?
He needs to look at the word.
Scomofo would probably define ANZAC spirit rather differently from us.
As a matter of interest did Aussie pay us for the firefighters we sent across to the fire?
SComo = AnZAC = Another Zombie Aussie Critter?
Big brothers can be fuckwits
In about 2 weeks time this sleeper issue is going to hit many 10,000's of kiwis, just as Australia is going to be under a tsunami of COVID 19 deaths and SloMo's govt will be under maximum pressure.
Very bad timing. We need to act now.
Ardern needs to find a way to put some pressure on Morrison to act before it degenerates into something far worse. The best way I can think of is for the NZ govt to announce it will pay a generous UBI to all 650,000 kiwis in Australia. Then wait a few days and announce that it will tax all Australian banks in NZ at 100% until the bill is paid.
Most Aussies can appreciate a robust negotiation like that, and would take pleasure in seeing their banks get a kick in the nuts.
"Socialism" who would have thunk it!
The idea is to embarrass Slo Mo into action. First of all the UBI needs to be generous, significantly more than what the Australian govt has been fumbling about with for the past week. It needs to convey a high clarity message of clean action and taking responsibility.
Then by taxing the banks you get pressure from the big end of town. If that doesn't work, extend it to all Australian owned commercial entities.
The other element that needs to be highlighted is that NZ is taking care of the 60,000 Australians in our country who need help. It may be a much smaller number in total terms, but per head of capita, it’s comparable between the two nations.
Give the issue high visibility profile and Slo Mo will eventually cave. The Australian public are not a lot different to NZ and can see the obvious need here.
Or Scomofo will decide to send the seck ones back over.
Is that the same banks that are allowing kiwis 6 month mortgage holidays. In a game of who's got who by the short and curlier I'm afraid the aussie banks will win .
Govt is also providing the funding guarantees for these mortgage holidays … and in any game of curly grabbing they will always win.
Those same banks might be quite capable of blocking our payments to Oz-Kiwis in the first place, and sure to block them if a tax were mentioned.. Scomo likely to support them in this, as well.
That would be flat out theft and solid grounds to arrest senior bank officers. It would also play very badly with the public on both sides of the Tasman.
Think about the PR catastrophe that would result from the banks revoking those mortgage holidays. They'd be as popular as a scorching case of herpes.
Yep. Nothing less will get through that government's thick skull.
Brilliant. I'm all for that.
Morrison will not say no to NZ health workers in Australia.
CER (closer economic relations) nothing in CER when it comes to NZers living in Australia and paying tax being supported.
Put it on the reset list
I predict a flood of migration of expats returning from Australia.
A – human rights breach – yes. That is another way to put pressure on govt, Not that they will always respond. Once you've been there a couple of times and not been hit by lightning then…
Add it to their list. They don't care.
This could get messy, commercial landlords are shitting themselves
The problem is this clause in the standard ADLS lease which covers most commercial leases,
This clause came into the standard lease after the Christchurch earthquakes and applies to all emergencies, pandemics are included in the definition at the back of the lease.
As a commercial tenant I'm hearing a lot of different outcomes with this, from some landlords who offered their tenants lengthy rent holidays before any restrictions, to others that aren't even returning phone calls or emails. Pretty much the same range of behaviour landlords are reporting, but the other way around.
But both parties entered into the lease, presumably aware of the obligations contained and are bound by them. If a landlord is saying that the clause shouldn't apply, then what else in the lease doesn't apply any more? The whole lease?
The difficulty is working out what is fair. A strong argument can be made that no rent is payable as the tenant cannot conduct any business, but the tenant has the benefit of storage in the landlords premises.
Some sort of ruling is required on this before the end of business on Tuesday, so rent payments on 1 April can either be withheld or paid in part. I don't think and argument can be made that full payment in possible under that clause.
Either the Government does it, or the Property Council and Retail and other business associations get together in Court first thing tomorrow and thrash out a ruling.
Bob Jones and his illk will be getting testy, he might start a new polly party.
I suspect this issue is being examined as we speak….wouldnt be surprised if there is a directive within the next few days
It's looking very much that way, despite Robertson saying there wasn't much the Government could do in his stand up yesterday.
The problem goes a long way beyond clause 27.5 . There's also ratchet clauses in commercial leases, the rent cannot be less than the pre-ceeding rent on review. This will make it very hard for many tenants who won't have anything like past business levels as we come out of this, and will be trapped in leases that are killing them very quickly. But I know some here that won't be around if they have to pay the next 3 months rent with no income apart from the wage subsidy.
Then landlords won't have any tenants, or not at the same rental. Who's going to take on a lease at 2019 conditions now, unless you're in the essential group.
it will require a lot of flexibility from the banks as well as reduced expectations from landlords but the reality is they have Hobsons choice
Tricky bit will be when one party is going down and becomes very inflexible and irrational. Leases are very enduring creatures that can exploit and be exploited. This would create a lot of un-neccessary pain and most likely a domino effect of landlords and tenant insolvencies.
Will probably come to a point where an exit procedure will have to be instituted where previously solvent parties can get out of contracts before they are sucked dry and become insolvent. This would apply to tenants obligations to their landlords, and landlords obligations further up the chain. Once we get to domino insolvencies there will be very few able to restart businesses to continue the economy.
Is there a similar deal with commercial rates?
Sort of. Rates are part of the outgoings, so the landlord pays them and hands the bill to the tenant. Same as the landlords insurance and any management fees, so if you have a dispute with the landlord through the property manager, you tend to pay for both sides of the argument.
If 27.5 applies, which it does in this situation the landlord will not be reimbursed for a proportion of the rates, and other outgoings through the lockdown period.
It's a matter of determining what that 'fair' proportion is. And 'fair' isn't really a thing in commercial negotiations, it's screw as much out of the other party as you can.
4,6,10 weeks time when we have extinguished this C19 from NZ, what then?
International travel (tourism) will be decimated. As we cannot allow a repeat of this to occur, otherwise we have placed NZ of hold for Nothing. As with international contact, the virus will reestablish itself.
Yes that is the crunchy part. NZ will have to revert to the kind of travel conditions that prevailed before the 60's; possible but only if you really need to.
As for how long … there are too many variables. If the CCP is to be believed and they've eliminated COVID 19 from China, then with a coordinated global effort it could be gone everywhere by June. But both believing the CCP and expecting effective global action are unlikely presuppositions.
It's likely by later this year most nations will start to respond more competently. We'll see a combination of universal testing, isolation, social distancing and good hygiene start to bring the numbers down dramatically.
Then it's highly likely we will soon see effective use of anti-retroviral drug treatments reduce the death toll substantially. (I'd personally like to see credible trials of IV-VitC as some Chinese hospitals report success with.)
The magic bullet of a vaccine is by no means certain. After all after decades of trying we still don't have a vaccine for HIV, but there is an enormous high tech effort being put into it by dozens of teams worldwide.
Plus of course we cannot rule out another black swan event emerging in the wake of all this instability. It's easy enough to point to some of the factors that may come into play, but predicting how they will actually weave together in real time is impossible.
Are you still stranded?
It was a way more complex story than I was prepared to relate in a public forum; but essentially yes we're still stranded. Fortunately over the past three days we had a very welcome change for the better in our family position and we are no longer in panic mode thanks.
China is full of shit. How can China only have 80k cases with so little that have died. It's a sham.
I think the cellphone subscription decline has some truth to it (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/china-s-mobile-carriers-lose-15-million-users-as-virus-bites)
Just look at the US taking off now. We all know the US has been useless on this, specifically Trump, but China's stats don't stack up.
It's the CCP, they lie like we breath. You have to remember a few things about Chineses politics.
That saving face is a real issue. Lies by omission are not seen as being such a bad thing.
Local officials lie, for a lot of reasons, including for future job prospects.
That the Chineses population has been slowly losing trust in the CCP leadership for a long time. So any lie which helps keep trust – is going to fly in China.
I agree the numbers don't add up – but relax – like all government conspiracies, the truth comes out eventually.
It is slowly https://time.com/5811222/wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll/
Build a nice quarantine centre adjacent to every airport. Visitors welcome, but allow an additional 2 weeks.
So much work that needs to be done in NZ, I think we can replace tourism.
that's just off the top of my head and all of those require front line/on the ground staff as well as technical, management, design, construction and so on.
but none replace the lost foreign currency
Which we actually need mostly to repay debt. We do not need it for resources and human labour in New Zealand.
you arnt serious are you?
I did the sums some time ago. Many of our, so called, export industries, cost us at least as much as they earn.
that would be some interesting maths but whether accurate or not IF we wish to import (and we do, more than we export) then we need to obtain foreign currency….rebuilding our economy solely with local activity will not facilitate that which leaves us with something of a difficult economic AND political challenge
https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/overseas-goods-trade-2018-in-review
Why do we need to import more than we export?
Our "export" industries borrowings, are way in excess of anything justified by their earnings as an export business.
As too many are running as a speculative capital gains earner, rather than a business. And borrowing to do so.
Removing those will increase, not decrease, our total trade account.
Funnily, often the same people who oppose Government debt and spending, except if it is for them, of course.
Simply put we are paying back too much interests, profits and externalities, offshore.
we dont 'need' to import more than we export, indeed it would be advantageous to export more than we import or at least be balanced but we have imported more than we export for decades and consequently most of our manufactured items come from offshore as do pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, transport and heavy engineering (Wellington are awaiting a pipe from Germany to repair their sewerage system currently)….we make very little of that which is required to maintain our current lifestyles
The results of decades of destroying local manufacturing, and services, in support of the "Globalisation" religion.
Hopefully this will be a good lesson on that fallacy.
@pat, right. So the idea about future proofing is that we change that and don't end up so vulnerable.
When was the last time we exported more than we imported?
consistently?…probably in the 1960s or 70s, there has been the odd surplus year since the 80s but we generally run deficits which require foreign borrowing…..it is the most obvious flaw with MMT
According to my MMT understanding if you run an export deficit the foreigners end up earning and holding more of your currency (e.g a bank record in NZ says Johonny foreigner has a bank balance of X). They may then invest that surplus into asset classes resulting in foreign debt (meaning an institution in NZ keeps a record we owe Johonny foreigner X for his loan/investment). So the flaw in that description is where?
you assume they desire to hold our currency, that is by no means a given…..theres a reason the bulk of international trade is conducted in USD
No, i didnt assume that at all. They will have exactly 3 options 1) hold it 2) spend it (presumably in NZ) or 3) invest it (presumably in NZ).
What you didn't identify is where this description is inaccurate in any way, e.g what the alleged flaw is.
again..you assume they desire to hold it (or spend it in NZ, or invest it in NZ)….we produce commonly available commodities and are (until recently) a relatively popular tourist destination….that is by no means a given, indeed they probably wish to buy an airliner. the latest tech, pharmaceuticals, oil, solar panels etc….all the things we want to buy as well and dont have for sale
Its not about assumptions at this point, those are the possible uses for the funds earned. As you suggest, no you wont be able to buy things not manufactured in NZ with your NZ currency, even if you really really wish you could.
Now you said there is a flaw with this description, but have identified no flaws.
given the choice who would buy from "the Company Store"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store
Actually simple addition and subtraction on a spreadsheet. From publicly available information.
lol…im glad you put simple because it is …and completely misses the point. If we desire to be a first world nation we will always have to import as there are very few economies in the world that can produce all that is needed….the U.S and the EU are about it….China at a pinch, but definitely getting close. The Soviet block tried but rapidly fell behind.
Thats isnt to say we couldnt be self sufficient but life would be unrecognisable….hence the political difficulty
Who said we have to be totally self sufficient?
It is not an all or nothing.
There are proportions of our export industries we could well do without.
As well as many things, which we would be better off, if we produced locally.
we dont have to be all or nothing but you cant replace roughly a quarter of your export dollars with local currency and not expect an impact of what is able to be imported….which if you recall was the original suggestion
17% according to wikipedia.
Given we're not talking about no imports, what's wrong with replacing 17%? Where's the line where replacing imports with a relocalised economy (where the $ stays in the local economy) becomes unviable for a decent standard of living. What %?
17 Dec 2019
Tourism is New Zealand's largest export industry in terms of foreign exchange earnings. It directly employs one in eight New Zealanders.
Data and statistics
For the year ended March 2019:
(Source: Tourism Satellite Account 2019, Statistics New Zealand)
let's settle on 20% then. I still don't see what the problem is with replacing that with domestic economy. It's not like pre-80s we were a third world country .
Well. We are going to find out soon, how we get on without it.
Shit. We may even have to "produce things" like Germany.
which 20% of imports would you like drop then (remembering thats just the tourism industry, there are others impacted as well)?…or maybe a 20% cut across the board?…if we are going to accept that our FX earnings are to reduce then ipso facto what we can purchase offshore will decrease as well (sans deflation).
As stated the other night, whatever programme the Government implements to rebuild the economy is going to have to keep at least one eye on this fact…..straight out fiscal intervention is not going solve it, especially given our supply chain is predominantly offshore
You will find that the net benefit of the tourist industry is much less than stated.
It will also be much less than 20% of imports we have to cut.
In fact a lot of those imports were to supply, and pay for, the tourist industry.
Like many who try and enumerate economic benefits from exports, you forget a ledger has two columns.
You are also making apparent the obvious stupidity of abandoning almost all local production, in pursuit of illusory “free trade” benefits.
What are the imports for tourists? Fuel, food, souvenirs (no loss there), linen, alcohol.
Pat, it's probably a useful exercise to ask ourselves what we could live without, or live with less frequently, in exchange for a values-based economy and lifestyle, and future proofing NZ.
Maybe we don't replace our consumer electronics so often. We start producing more clothing in NZ again (merino, hemp, harakeke are all industries waiting to grow). Apart from food grown in the tropics, why are we even importing food?
These are also of course climate change and ecology issues.
yes there will be a reduction in tourism related imports among other things but if the plan is to replace that activity with say an infrastructure upgrade or a electrification (decarbonising) of transport/industry then quite obviously they will require significant quantities of imports…our dollar has already dropped considerably and our other main export stream is already at capacity (some say over) and even if it wasnt its nature requires considerable time to ramp up…we have imported inflationary pressures and little ability to reap the benefit on the other side…..fortunately the Saudis are playing chicken with the Russians and the frackers, but for how long?….
the ledger is looking pretty red
Increasing dairying for export would be extremely daft.
Cutting over 9 billion in oil exports in half would certainly help our balance of trade.
@ weka…yes it would be a useful exercise and we do import a lot of stuff we dont need to but try getting agreement on what that is
Quickly just off the top of my head.
Campervans, temporary visa workers, aircraft, helicopters, fuel, exotic foods, are just some things we import at a foreign exchange cost, for tourism.
Then, there are the internal costs of course. Which the tourist industry has passed on to the rest of us, while avoiding paying them, themselves. Pollution, accommodation, overcrowding, low wages, etc. Reducing those also means more resources for New Zealanders.
The really obvious example, at present, is all the air bnb's, that have been freed up for rental housing.
@ KJT
Yes there will be some positive impacts such as Air BRB rentals being freed up and the reduced carbon emissions for example and resources are freed up for local use….one the main resources that will be freed up is labour (post shut down) but as previously stated that dosnt necessarily increase our capability (certainly not in the near term) and while we may have unused capacity there is much we need that capacity cannot supply
Not all economic activity is interchangeable
Visit by cruise line only with more than 2 weeks sailing before they land
That's not a bad idea. Will be interesting to see if cruises survive in their current form though. It's not like this is going to be our only pandemic.
Thinking ahead to the future a bit here.
What is domestic travel in NZ going to be like? AirNZ will still exist of course, but in a scaled back version for some time, and I can't see an immediate return to the cheap seats of the main trunk routes we're accustomed to in a hurry.
Already there's the subtle push going on to promote domestic tourism after this over, and fair enough. But there will also be the ongoing need for people to get from A to B for work and personal/family reasons, so how is that going to look?
I tend to view travel through a non-driver's lens out of necessity, and being in the low income bracket, from the cost perspective. My main travel has been Wgtn-Auck to visit family by way of cheap flights. But I'm old enough to remember the days of the Silver Fern/Silver Star Main trunk line being a passenger service, not a tourist one, and the predominant mode of transport for students and lower income people at a time that plans were the preserve of business and higher income travellers. And passenger trains ran the length of NZ from Auckland to Dunedin, complimented with a good railways-Intercity bus system.
NZ is of course, a country of car drivers, and we are so price sensitive so I can anticipate than on principle many will choose to drive rather than pay more for an airfare because it's faster and more convenient than the Intercity buses that have been scaled back to the bone (and are quite uncomfortable long distance). So would this be our opportunity to restart those mothballed main passenger lines, change the tourist ones back into affordable passenger, so Auck-Wgtn, Picton-Invercargill, Chch-Greymouth, Wgtn-Napier-Tauranga-Auckland? (With wifi of course)With a lot of people unable to affordable fares andstill needing to get places, this might be a great opportunity to get people back to the concept of overland travel.
It could also be part of the major infastructure projects needed to help kick start things economically, and perhaps there's a lot of ex-AirNZ staff whose skills might be transferable to a new type of transport?
Trains seem a no brainer because of CC too. I'm not sure we can rely on converting the whole NZ fleet to e-vehicles now, will be interesting to see what happens to the global economy and trade systems around that.
I suspect we are going to go through extended periods of time where some regions are able to have more travel than others. Possibly limited travel between regions.
Agreed. The idea of replacing our present vehicle fleet with electric has always been a silly pipe dream. Our present ~80% renewable electricity generation is already used for other purposes. We will need to drastically increase our generation to charge ev's as well.
I for one don't relish the idea of wind turbines & solar farms everywhere just so we can continue driving as we've become used to. Extensive public transport & revamping our towns so amenities and jobs are closer to where people live will be required. This also means walking & cycling will be feasible for the majority of journeys.
During the last election I was pleased when Jacinda referred to climate change as our nuclear free issue. I've come to realise that was not a good comparison. Going nuclear free didn't actually require us as individuals to change at all. Preventing climate change will require significant change in life styles.
quite agree. I think we will find we have some spare power generation once Tiwai Point closes, and with increase in solar on housing and commercial buildings. But I don't think we should be using that up on EVs, and the sooner we get to the idea of a steady state economy the better. People need to wake up to power generation from renewables still being a finite resource.
Yes. People often assume new technology will simply replace the way it is done with older technology.
Better to look at the goal, rather than simply replacing what we had.
Golf cart type vehicles, rather than Teslas, for in city travel. Working at home rather than in an office?
Agree. Climate change is more like our WW2.
I would prefer to travel from Auckland to Wellington by train. I recently traveled both ways by bus for $44. Another time it was still below $50 return. Hard to compete with that.
This is what the $500,000 govt backed business loans are supposed to cover. Landlords giving say a 50% reduction for 3 months and the tenant paying 50% with the loan.
well the government should have put that clause in the bail out bill then.
Going forward the Govt should introduce a zero immigration policy.
All empty homes (without good reason)should be requisitioned.
Limit the number of residential properties an individual can own.
Interesting to note that the Press reports that all the homeless in Christchurch, bar two who demurred, have been housed.
Am I being cynical that the homeless matter when community safety is at stake?
The other possibility is that it reflects a sudden increase in the number of properties available for rent, because the airbnb market has crashed due to tourism ceasing.
I haven't seen any local figures but it's reported Dublin has seen a 64% rise in listings since the beginning of the month.
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/homes-for-rent-climb-as-airbnb-market-tumbles-39063281.html
Yes on the reset list.
No more land/house banking.
With a bit of luck they could sell their home to the government and actually provide a home to a needy person/family.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Modi in India has a humanitarian crisis before a health emergency.
Some of my closest friends are from India. It is always interesting to hear their point of view on how differently they think from me. Their survival instincts are an example.
I've been thinking about this too.
This looks interesting and another possible tool in monitoring the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community.
https://www.dutchwatersector.com/news/sewage-water-as-indicator-for-spreading-of-covid-19
Possums, pukekos, and hedgehogs should feel safer for four weeks.
and rabbits and cats.
Yup, pretty much all wildlife, and power poles too.
Not at my place. They're as fat as butter and great eating.
at least that way their death serves a good purpose.
They are stewing.
This virus may with luck go the way of other Sars virus and even Mers in that they disappeared after a number of months especially with the sort of containment regimes we have now. Mers almost mysteriously just faded out and it appears that this Covid pathogen is not exactly robust as soap and water breaks it down effectivly dissolving the fatty acid coating that binds the elements together. We can but hope. It may already be happening in Wuhan if their reports can be believed.
But meanwhile we must follow the best advice.
Interesting… There was a pretty distinct shift in demographics over the last couple of weeks. Admittedly there has been an increase in total unique users from 5800 odd to 6500 between the two weeks.
Week 1 of March
Week 4 of March
Good to see that google thinks we nearly have now gotten to almost an even split on the genders.
Remember when we talked about climate change and my response is we need to reduce the world population? That was met with horror on here along with 'the world has plenty of food'.
Well, you see the most affected places during covid19 are population dense places. One of the reasons why NZ may fair a bit better.
*sigh* You really are pretty damn ignorant about your own country aren't you?
As you point out it is the density of population in a country that is an issue in epidemics. But when you're describing 'density', you're probably doing something completely inane like people per square km.
Now that is dumb – it really doesn't matter for the purposes of any disease to count areas where are only cows, sheep or bush.
A good surrogate for that population density is to look at urbanisation measures. That is to say, looking at the areas where there are significiant number of neighbours close to you.
NZ is amongst the highest in the world – 86.54%. That puts up amongst the most urbanised countries in the world – 27th in the wikilist
To give you an idea just picking out OECD countries current and trying to join
Belgium 98%
Iceland 93.8%
Israel 92.4%
Japan 91.6%
Netherlands 91.5%
Luxemberg 91.0%
Denmark 87.5%
Sweden 87.4%
Brazil 86.6%
New Zealand 86.5%
… and some of the rest
Austrailia 86.0%
UK 83.0%
US 82.3%
Norway 82.2%
South Korea 81.5%
Canada 81.4%
France 80.4%
Germany 77.3%
On your other point
If you ever look at the issues of climate change without your idiot blinkers on, then you'd be aware that concentrating people into cities is actually one of the best ways to reduce climate change.
The distances between people reduces virtually every climate change measure per person. Less transport emissions from routine travel and distribution through both reducing the transport web and allowing more use of communal public transport. More efficiency in the use of high green house gas emitting building materials especially concrete and road asphalt. Just eliminating unproductive paved roads in favour of rail would be a massive improvement.
Not to mention that if we eliminated the climate unproductive use of farmland for food, for instance stopping meat, wool and dairy production, that would massively reduce emissions of methane – a really significiant climate change gas. It'd also allow more room for forests and peat bogs which are pretty effective short-term (by my earth science standards) sinks of carbon. It'd also allow more plant based food to be grown if we needed it and as close to the urban centres as possible.
You have to remember that the cities are the driving force of all modern economies. Most rural economies are pretty peripheral to the real economy in most developed countries, and even in many of the developing countries. There isn't that much wealth in the rural world. There are mostly just a few relatively wealthy. That is because concentrations of people are very very good at generating wealth.
This whole concept of relying on the rural economy as the only productive part of the economy is something that I'd only expect to hear from damn fool 18th century aristocrat. One who likes consorting with bats, pigs, pangolins, birds, and apes. They appear to be mainly there to give urbanites disgusting diseases.
Fortunately I'm too polite to describe some of the disgusting methods of consorting… 😈
Huge lift in Trump’s approval ratings, post Covid. See the graph at the Real Clear Politics website. An election winning four percent and rising.
What on earth is happening in the US to explain this lift?
I blame a ‘support the leader’ impulse, in the face of a mortal danger. Even when that leader’s actions make that danger worse. Lemmings, meet cliff.
They're plagiarising Churchill speeches and making it sound like war pres tRump and the 5th Marine Division are going to storm Iwo Jima and fight Covid 19 on the beach.
It may be no more than a rally-around-the-flag-in-a-crisis thing that Americans are big on. In which case, it's a remarkably small bump in support considering the scale of the problem and likely to dissipate quickly as it sinks in just how venal and incompetent the Fifth Avenue Fraud's response has been.
Yes. They are into flags in a big way in Yankee land. Not content with one maybe two fluttering in the breeze like most other countries, they have to have rows of them all over the place. Jingoism at its worst.
When the body count starts to rise in the thousands I think they might have a little re-think – at least those who are capable of thinking at all.
The US under Trump is well on it's way to becoming a fascist theocracy.
"Huge" is overstating it a bit.
Incumbents tend to benefit from crises….until the chickens come home to roost when the economy and Dow Jones crumble.
Real Clear Politics
Disaster capitalism.
https://twitter.com/mahtowin1/status/1243732462380949504
https://twitter.com/mtnycz/status/1243944070239617024
http://archive.li/AQuMm (wapo)
The words I thought I never never utter.
Britney Spears, I'm a fan.
Your newfound admiration for an elite multi-millionaire does show just how transportable your convictions are.
/
Hey! Leave Britney Alone!
I'm guessing you didn't watch the video.
But I'm guessing you think the russians did it.
IMO we need to comment on small positives of our situation:
Hit 100 teddy bears on walks
Rubbish day last Friday – Recycling was minimal – No Junk mail 😀, Gaia is smiling for small mercies
And if you watch the 6pm news – no screaming 'buy buy buy' and 'sale must end Monday' ads from the likes of Harvey Norman, The Warehouse or Briscoes etc.
Now I don't bother muting the tv when the ads come on, lol.
Midday news on Ch 1 that seniors funeral insurance ad has to go.
In the world of Covid-19 the USA still do the best dick moves.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/27/trump-bounty-maduro-guaido-plot/#more-22582
Good news is, the population are seeing through it, and one of the accused has effectively turned on his ghoulish friends.
Gotta wonder if the Bank of England will give the money it stole back to the people of Venezuela after the person they stole it for, is about to be charged?
A crime against humanity/
https://twitter.com/JesseLehrich/status/1244053944554401800
USA Today and the Washington Post reported U.S. virus deaths so far totaled more than 2,000 as of Saturday, doubling in less than 72 hours.
https://www.starherald.com/news/national/us-virus-deaths-top-doubling-in-two-days/article_576f112c-3af4-5862-9f8c-65c1ef8494d6.html
file this under
but her fucking emails.
The joys of for-profit health care.
“There is no [protective gear] to be bought on the private market through vendors,” said Kevin Donovan, president of Lakes Regional HealthCare, which has two hospitals in central New Hampshire. “We order but don’t have any money to pay for it,” because companies manufacturing masks and other emergency gear are demanding cash payments on delivery. Donovan said his hospitals, like others, are low on cash because they have canceled the elective procedures that are their moneymakers.
“Unless we start getting material from the national stockpile,” Donovan said, “I don’t know where we are going to get it.”
http://archive.li/6dAY2 (wapo)
maybe this event will teach us that public hospitals should not be run as 'for profit'.
World wide the issue is that hospitals are under equipped, under staffed, and that the staff is underpaid and burdened with huge student loans.
Castro with his fee education and his doctor/nurses program had it quite right. And instead of plastic crap Cuba exports doctors. Maybe that is the big big lesson to be learned from this.
I also hope that the doctors and nurses here on the frontline will have their student loans cancelled in full. That is the very least the country can do for them.
He appears to have written off his chances in Michigan, judging from his comments aimed at Whitmer. So he has to try extra hard not to lose Florida.
It looks plain and simple, quid pro quo. Vote for me, be a critical state, you won't die.
She called it.
https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/1202271057253687297
And California received 170 ventilators from the Federal Govt and none of them worked.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/live-coronavirus-updates-u-s-first-top-100-000-cases-n1171011/ncrd1171351#liveBlogHeader
June the 1st Is gypsy day (the day the change farms)for dairy farmers. Might pay for the government to put their thinking caps on how this will go if we are still level 4 or 3
what's gypsy day?
Farming contractors, sharemilkers, and farm workers renew contracts and move around.
As kjt says it's the day farms change hands . It's always been this day so as most arnt milking atthat time and have time to get there systems set up before july /august calving.
South Korea flattened their curve around the 7th of March, but a quarter of all new cases occurred since then and despite the number of new cases dropping since the 12th of March, half of all deaths have occurred the over the past 12 days or so. But if they take the foot off restrictions they'll be in for a second round.
Say goodbye to the rest of 2020, we're in for a long, long haul.
"For Korea one of the big issues is starting school again. We’re expecting a decision from 6 April, and that will be based on where the outbreaks are happening, how they're being controlled and how comfortable the government feels about being able to get on top of new cases quickly."
Professor Gye Cheol Kwon said Korea’s success is down to a dedicated system of trace, test and treat.
"Testing, isolating, contact tracing and quarantine is the only way Koreans have outperformed others."
He added that it is difficult to predict how long the current restrictions will last.
But some experts don't believe life in Korea will truly return to normality until there is a viable vaccine that is proven to be effective against Covid-19.
Dr Kim, himself a vaccine specialist, said a vaccine is likely to be at least a year to 18 months away. Until then some restrictions are likely to remain in place.
"Really if you want to return to the way things were, going out at night, going to concerts, to pubs, or going out to dinner, you really need to have a vaccine," he said.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0329/1127023-what-south-korea-can-teach-ireland/