Toast to the ones here today Toast to the ones that we lost on the way 'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories And the memories bring back, memories bring back you
Respects Poli:
Born mid August 1980 –
Murdered some time between the last Friday night of April,
and the early hours of the following Saturday, 2021.
In the face of record high autumn deaths and the prospect of another surge in sickness, the Government appears to have no strategy whatsoever. Ministers have given up on handling Covid-19 and seem content just to plug their ears and pretend it isn't happening.
Hipkins didn't answer Newsroom's questions about whether the Government's current approach was likely to lead to no excess deaths.
When asked how he would describe New Zealand's current Covid-19 strategy, Hipkins effectively said it was only vaccination.
I'm surprised that Hipkins has abandoned mask-wearing as strategy! Even more surprised that cabinet has apparently made that official. I still wear mine in supermarkets & at public events.
As for his reliance on vaccination, how will that play to senior citizens? I went in to the local govt vaccination center on April 8th, to get my second booster, and was told the govt hadn't authorised it. Well, their own goddam website told me a while back that the first booster was only 50% effective after 3 months, and my first booster was exactly 3 months before April 8th. How many senior citizens in Aotearoa are only 50% protected now?
Being Labour, he'll dodge the question so no point asking. Commenters here who persist in defending Labour even when there's no reasonable basis for doing so, and who are senior citizens with 50% protection, ought to have a go at explaining govt policy, huh? See if it really is credible. Here's a clue:
Additional boosters are not currently part of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in New Zealand. We're currently considering who, if anyone, would be suitable for a second booster dose. Any decision to offer additional booster doses is likely to be made prior to winter 2022.
Well, we're already a month into autumn. Time for Hipkins to pull finger?? And Labour also has a minister for seniors, who does monthly emails to us. Why did she not foreshadow a roll-out of a the second booster in her most recent bulletin? Explain how the official vaccine reliance strategy, as declared above by Hipkins, fits in with this omission. Can you?
No Dennis, they’re just implementing Nationals well thought through Omicron Strategy of having everyone take personal responsibility for their own health. So Dennis rather than whining that you couldn’t get a second booster from our socialist free public health system you take personal responsibility and pay for your own shot rather than trying to jump the queue when and if the Goverment decide whether a second booster is desirable.
Well I did ask at the local medical center where my doctor works. They didn't offer me that option. If you believe it is available somewhere, why not post the details here? I checked a non-govt site too, since the option isn't presented on the govt covid site, but nothing there either…
To Dennis Frank at 2 : Surely you have seen and heard repeated advice from Chris Hipkins , other M.P.'s and epidemiologists that wearing of masks, distancing, good hygiene practice are advised, meaning that mature commonsense should prevail.
Don't see any evidence Labour does that! I agree that it ought to prevail, Heather. That's why mentioned that I still wear one for indoor public situations.
I notice that you didn't try to explain why Hipkins seems to have changed his policy. Does that mean you're a typical Labour supporter?
If the Government is giving out a personalised mask exemptions in May, your premise is wrong. Chris may not have mentioned mask wearing in close quarters but the PM and others still choose it, as it states when masks are mandatory under Orange setting.
WHO is still mulling 4th shot but want all nations to have two shots. So is Australia, our Dr. says no plan for a 2nd booster/ 4th shot as yet.
Getting used to Orange settings takes time. It has not abandoned masks. Read the site.
None of the commenters have addressed my point of concern: protection of seniors. I have no problem with encouraging as official stance. I just see the lack of addressing the follow-up to the booster as weird.
I mean, if they just want to allow the darwinian norm to prevail, can't they be honest and say so? If they felt discouraged by the mandate outcome, why not share their feelings with voters? It's human. We don't actually want robot politicians, do we??
I think seniors as a group are likely to know they have collective vulnerability and I expected those commenting here to comment on that basis. I'm puzzled by their aversion to doing so…
I missed that this was your particular point of concern. Frankly, how it "plays" to seniors (or at least those who are aware of the realities of endemic c19) is how it plays to everyone else who understands that one can't just stare down a virus.
The trouble is, we're not just in the "endemic" phase, we're in the phase where laziness-inspired optimism has taken over for a lot of folks. They might not be "sherrifs" or any of that bullshit, but they'll happily forget their masks and then ask if they should go back to their car to get it. Looking for a sanction for the easy way out.
Specifics of 4th shots or whatever are likely in the pipeline once the current situation has been assessed. Will we stay at daily-double-digit-deaths, or will it genuinely get down to flu/traffic levels. Are the deceased boosted, or are they barely-vaxxed? And so on.
Me, I'm liking the actual nano-tech US military vaccine that's being trialled at the moment (last I heard). But I guess we'll see what we see.
The people of Ukraine know why they cannot surrender to the Russian Federation.
War crimes and genocide committed by Putin's fascist ally Bashar Assad in Syria are an example what Ukraine will suffer under Russian occupation.
Already Russia is recruiting thousands of Assad's armed forces linked to war crimes and atrocities in Syria for the invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
Or we could wait until people here are desperate enough to protest.
Local shortages of edible oils has roiled Indonesia, leading to street protests over high food prices and the detention of a trade official in a corruption case. The turbulence has become a key political issue for President Joko Widodo as cooking oil costs could push other food prices higher ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which is usually marked with feasts and celebration.
Where we got ourselves in deep trouble is farm values and the amount that could be borrowed were based on high milk prices and ridiculous stock numbers supported by supplementary feed and irrigation. Bit of a ponzi scheme really with the real winners been the banks.
Quite frightening to go to a small beach settlement for the first time in 5 years recently, lots of irrigation and cows on sand. The creek feed from a small dune lake would just about dry up every summer now flows strongly even in drought. Basically we're emptying aquifers and running nutrient and shit rich water into the sea.
Difficult to see PKE being available (at anything like current levels) if the oil production is slashed….but perhaps Indonesia uses vast quantities of palm oil domestically, whether enough to supply 2 million tons PKE pa that NZ uses would seem unlikely.
We produce food oils here but current prices will make most blanche….imported canola at around 3-4 dollars a litre as opposed to NZ produced at around 12 dollars…..that'll hurt.
Have just looked up Indonesian consumption, and it looks like enough PKE would be available to meet NZ consumption assuming its not caught up in the export ban….and is also available from Malaysia.
This guy has a good information on the oil situation. As Weka points out we have plenty of butter but for many from Asia its use is a big part of cooking .
we will all have to adapt. People that rely on wheat bread might want to be thinking about this now. Not stockpiling, but learning how to eat local and more variety.
Just wanting the opinions of any Labour supporters here about the actions of Labour to block requests by Select committees to call government officials to answer questions on various topics. This is something that Labour has stopped for a range of political parties including The Greens. Surely you can see this is not good for open and transparent governance.
Nothing wrong with wanting them but you aint gonna get them. I went fishing for the same thing yesterday & got no response (OM #1).
Just the usual syndrome you get from Labour supporters is retreat into denial: this ain't happening. So they move on, hurriedly & nervously, hoping nobody will notice.
Well: Gosman & DF, maybe people are so accustomed to scrolling past your comments unread that they miss it when you do have something of substance to contribute? I was reading that Boy Who Cried Wolf story to my kids at bedtime the other day, perhaps you should re-read it yourself?
But then I am usually a Green Party supporter, if not member at the moment. I really should sign up once more to get a vote on the list rankings next year, but that means getting spammed with donations requests again. I do agree with Swarbrick and Willis on this; select committees are the workhorses of parliament (question time as a rodeo?), they need their feed of good quality information to be able to pull their weight.
But if it comes down to numbers, even all the opposition (and loosely aligned – with coleaders in the stable of cabinet eating fine oats, while the rest of the GP MPs shiver under horse-blankets out in the fields) parties combined couldn't pass a motion of no confidence over this. I generally support the actions of this Ardern government (with some reservations), but hopefully next election no party will be able to secure an absolute majority and will instead have to seek meaningful consensus with at least one other party, preferably several, in order to operate. Until then, they get to run rough-shod as they will, until they face the muster of the hustings (apologies for all the equine metaphors, not quite sure how I started galloping into that conceit).
Swarbrick said it made no sense for MPs to be that concerned about discussions or releasing information.
“There is definitely a long shadow of partisanship which means we are not able to get outcomes or access to information which improves democracy for all of us. In turn, that means the public trust politicians less – which is a bad thing.”
Willis and Swarbrick teamed up to try to get the briefing, with the deputy National leader saying Labour’s committee members needed to act in the public interest: “There shouldn’t be anything to hide here.”
Swarbrick said there had been agreement from the entire Opposition that Labour appeared to be getting in the way of the free flow of information.
Aversion to negative feedback tends to produce a failure to learn from what happens. It's why leftists tend to be chronic under-performers in politics…
People have limited time for online reading and commenting on the Social Media Platform that is The Standard. What many call; Cancelling, or; Aversion to Negative Feedback, is simply boredom with tiresome drivel. Freedom to express oneself is not a guarantee of an attentive audience.
I personally think we need to distinguish between malicious; Trashing, and disinterested removal of attention. But that is a topic for another discussion; which I have had before, and will no doubt have again in the future (plus I can't be bothered hunting out the links just now).
It is a poor author who disparages their audience for failing to bask in glow of their genius. The golden showers falling upon those upturned faces eager for illumination may feel like something other than sunlight to those below. In which case; who can blame them for turning elsewhere?
Gosman does long posts too? Hadn't noticed any. Anyway since the essays are usually twice or three times longer than my comments I commend your diligence in spending the inordinate amount of time it takes to work your way thro.
You reckon Labour's strategy is constitutionally correct? Interesting. If so, I'd change my tune on the topic. Let's assume you are right in that assessment. It would imply that the Greens/ACT/National are either ignorant of the relevant clause in our constitutional law or are being disingenuous.
Or perhaps it comes down to competing interpretations of the relevant section of constitutional law? In which case there is no correct answer until a court judges the issue, eh? I'm open to enlightenment if you want to elaborate…
These are MPs, not constitutional lawyers. Quite why you expect them to be aware of the limitation of their role is beyond me. That is why they have to get advice on what they can or cannot do. You'll notice the absence of any advice or legal basis for their blathering?
Or perhaps it comes down to competing interpretations of the relevant section of constitutional law?
Bloody unlikely. You'd have to find the 'section' first. Select committees are an internal convenience for Parliament. They are raised via the standing orders of parliament. Select committees have no constitutional standing at all – they are just a internal parliamentary tool to allow smaller groups to advise the whole of the house.
More a case of trying to find any part of the law that claims select committees to do anything unless parliament as a whole authorises it. Even then parliament itself is severely contained by how little direct power parliament itself has.
Parliaments direct power is strictly limited by what the crown allows them and little of that is present outside of taxation, funding and passing legislation – which has to be approved. The actual direct powers are held by the governor general or the executive council – both of whom 'advise' the crown.
In practice of course the 'crown', Executive Council and the GG all tend to defer to parliament for year to year operations within limits. That the Executive Council is almost entirely made up of ministers helps with that. But Parliament only really rules itself.
That is because anything that isn't explicitly stated in law of regulations derived from laws as being a requirement is simply not a requirement. This is how our legal system works.
Again, you'll notice the complete lack of any discussion of any detail of anything that would authorise select committees to compel testimony or attendance?
That is because even the bullshitting dickheads like Luxon are probably aware of this and are relying that most citizens of NZ aren't. The alternative is that we have a fool like Trump who can't distinguish between running a rorting company and being a more limited servant of the state.
Basically NZ and even its MPs could do to get a good education in civics.
One wonders what their induction course actually covers, eh? I'm inclined to suspect that you're right to suspect Luxon of grandstanding but I doubt Chloe would get sucked in on that basis – she must see a principled stand in the troika, which suggests the induction didn't cover select committee appearances by public servants sufficiently well.
I'm sure the way these select committees operate is the same as the way they have always operated, the difference being we have not had a one party government recently.
For that, opposition parties can only blame themselves.
1. If the information requested relevant to the particular select committee or whether National are trying to use the select committee processes to get access to information they would not normally be able to get i.e. they are abusing the select committee processes – call me cynical.
2. Why was it withheld? e.g. budget sensitive has been used in the past for instance.
I do take solace that their are select committees – National solved that issue by doing lots of things under urgency. Noting also that some Labour governments in my view have also done too many things under urgency as well.
Someone should ask Luxon though whether they are saying they would not block things if they were government. Are they saying if in government they would be releasing all and sundry?
I wasn't aware that there was a right for members of select committees to call them at all, ever.
Public servants are employed by the crown – not by parliament. Parliament merely provides the funding, laws and policy direction – all on behalf of the crown. Outside of the speakers control over Parliamentary services parliament has their most influence on the public services via ministers of the crown (usually MPs) and the funding and laws. They don't have direct operational control.
The Public Service Commission is the effective head of the Public Service employees. Ministers have some operational influence (but not control) over a lot of the public service. Except for course for things like military, police, probably customs and a few other branches which answer directly to the crown.
To me it just sounds like Luxon is just being a stupid wanker waving his dick in public.
Clearly has watched too much US TV. He really is a pathetic ignorant dipshit and appears profoundly unprepared to be a MP. He'd be useless as a minister.
Your awareness is flawed. A Select committee can call upon government officials to act as either a Witness or Advisor on various matters. Ultimately the officials responsibility is to the Minister in charge though so they have to defer to them but it is quite clear that the Select committee can request they appear before them.
You're an idiot… The select committee or members thereof can request or ask. So can anyone.
Hell I can ask as well in my capacity as person who wants to request an answer to something. I cannot demand or assert a right to compel. MPs and select committees have no rights more than anyone else outside of the public servants operational hierarchy, or the various rights of the justice system or some of te intelligence community.
The only avenue that I or an MP can demand with is via a OIA or by bringing a case in court or possibly appealing to the public services commission. The select committee as a body lacks the ability to do the OIA or the courts because they have little legal presence.
To demand a public servant to front up to a select committee is objectionable, ignorant, and unavailable. Luxon and you are complete dickheads if you think that is possible or even desirable.
Not even the Ministers can demand that. They can only request that of someone in the public service in a position of operational control of an employee.
I'd add that there are a couple of bits of legislation and regulation that compel some public servants to submit reports to parliament. For instance the auditor-general for instance. Parliament often passes perusing these tasks to select committees as a convention.
But the select committees themselves have no significant powers themselves outside of the responsibility to look at things that parliament chooses them to look at (just as they do with legislation), and expressing their opinions on those matters. They have no judicial powers what so ever.
Looks like you're right, but it would be clearer if both you & Gosman cited the actual bit of the pdf that made you each believe what you believe.
The Minister ultimately has the right to decide who should represent the Government before a select committee, whether or not a committee has requested attendance of a named official. In practice, the departmental chief executive or his or her delegate will normally judge when it is necessary to consult the Minister, in the absence of any direction from the Minister
That's #20 on the Officials and Select Committees – Guidelines pdf.
Not definitive, since it does not mention any right of refusal by the department which the request addressed. Can they refuse?
They can't refuse to appear before the Public Service Commission, maybe not the Executive Council, most of the Justice system, and probably parts of the Intelligence system. There are other situations like being a state of war or civil emergency that would give other bodies partial control as well.
The only ones that I would be sure of is the Public Service Commission for direct control and the Justice system for judicial control.
The minister themselves probably could only request. With more weight given to the Ministers of the crown on Executive Council.
..cited the actual bit of the pdf that made you each believe what you believe.
I didn’t read it, I only looked at it for the legal reasoning. There wasn’t any. So my basic background knowledge is what I presented.
That came out of the history, the army (very finicky on things like this), general law courses in undergraduate and graduate degrees, having to suffer with a partner doing her law degree, and general reading on history and law.
In other words this for me is general knowledge.
If you ask for a reference on a general topic, then wikipedia is your friend. I’ll be happy to dig references out – if I have spare time.
If you want something difficult – like how to crack into an embedded system on the other side of the world or how to do impossible things with code – then you’re clean out of luck. Other people already pay me to do those things.
You stated there was no right for members of Select committee to call for officials to appear before them. There is. What there isn't is an ability to OBLIGE them to appear before them. Language matters.
Its not good for democracy either, but we are told that we have to "tweak" that because democracy is changing. Well, just in this country though and I don't know to what.
Just as I posed I looked at Jimmy’s comment…..hmmmm
Contrary to some angry comments here, the MIQ case is not a win for expat Grounded Kiwis. I suspect they and some media are suggesting it is a win are trying to save face.
Obviously Grounded Kiwis is lauding this as a success for their side and the judge does say they have succeeded. However, if you look at the entirety of the 140-page judgment, the Government has won on all the major points. And in fact, the court rejected most of Grounded Kiwis' submissions.
The judge did not recommend abandoning the lottery system, rather making a few places available outside it, noting that this could create, "a whole new set of grievances".
Came to the conclusion that they had read a different decision – probably one that Ian Taylor fetched out of Cameron Slaters arse. It really was that delusional.
My opinion of their ability to understand anything dropped even lower.
The MIQ was going to be phased out in the first quarter of this year anyway. I guess the numbskulls of NZ don't actually listen to news and the explore the actual requirements about as well as they read legal decisions.
Covid-19 is endemic. We have put in about as much protection as is possible based on the available vaccines (although Dennis Frank is right, the second booster is due about now). The trick now is to let the un-vaccinated to vaccinated the traditional way while the vast majority of the vaccinated to still have a functioning hospital system.
Basically seems to say that next time we should have an "urgent" category as well, i.e. everyone gets evaluated as "emergency" (within 2 weeks), "Urgent" (priority place in a month or two, the Bellis situation), and the rest take their chances once the first two have been filled.
3 Waters. The "terra nullius" racists will scream – and so will thieves, opportunists and privatisers with their eyes on water as a monetisable commodity. The rest of us get to see if it actually works before it is sabotaged by some future Nat/ACT government seeking to enable the aforesaid groups.
Cabinet has agreed to the bulk of 47 working group recommendations for the planned overhaul of the country's three waters – drinking, waste, and storm water systems – which it hopes to complete by July 2024. The proposed co-governance of regional groups which will appoint the new entitys’ governance boards and provide public accountability for the entities is set to remain.
Good on them. I'm glad to be able to say something nice about Labour today! Will be fascinating to see the media analysis & commentary ensuing…
Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson have this morning laid out next steps. The reforms would move responsibility for the management of drinking, waste and stormwater from 67 local councils to four large, specialised water management organisations.
However, after months of deliberations, they confirmed councils would be given non-financial shareholding interests in the four water service entites, guaranteeing ownership – one of the key concerns raised over the government's initial model.
This would be allocated based on population – with one share per 50,000 people, rounded up to ensure at least one share per council – and would be reassessed to account for population changes every five years.
The co-governance provisions proposed – to have mana whenua and councils given equal number of seats on a representation group which sets the entites' strategic direction but has no say in operational matters – would remain, with the additional option of having co-chairs.
The separate boards of the entities themselves would be appointed by the regional representation group, based on competency requirements with a ban on conflicts of interest – including a prohibition for councillors to be on the entity boards. There will also be extra protections against privatisation which would require at least three quarters of Parliament to agree before any sale or merger could be done.
Professor Troy Baisden from the School of Environment at the University of Auckland stated that the number of failures should point to the reason for the change. "New Zealand’s performance on the Three Waters has been poor by the standards of peer nations: for every success that can be pointed to as a case to retain the status quo there are multiple failures,” Baisden said.
Continuing with the current status quo wasn’t an option, according to Lokesh Padhye from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland.
"The New Zealand water sector needs reforms, and there is not much debate in the science and engineering community that the status quo is not working when it comes to improving water quality and water management practices,” Padhye said. "The government-established Working Group has provided some excellent suggestions to the Government in that regard. It is good to see that the Government has taken most of the recommendations on board."
You can't read my mind. The policy change will influence politics more via the general view in the body politic, ultimately. I reckon those who want cleaner water will have an effective majority there easily. The science & engineering view are two bodies of expert opinion likely to influence most punters. Those doing turf-protection will struggle to catch up – probably only getting traction where councils have been traditionally competent…
New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson Jordan Williams has said Grant Robertson’s claim that “this co-governance model is supported by most councils is laughable”.
Given that neither produced stats to back up their competing views, their dumb & dumber routine is indeed entertaining.
Communities 4 Local Democracy labelled the Government’s move as a “worrying attack on property rights and community voice”.
“This is a dark day for local democracy as the Government has continued to force this reform through without the consent of its stakeholders or their communities,” said C4LD Chair and Manawatu District Mayor Helen Worboys.
No evidence from her either.
Local Government New Zealand President Stuart Crosby also welcomed the Government’s decisions on the Three Waters to provide certainty for ratepayers. “Councils face big future bills for water services given the new regulator, the unknown condition of many pipes and the impact of climate change. Without reform, ratepayers will be hit in the pocket,” Crosby said.
“Everyone in the local government sector is advocating for change to our water systems, even those opposed to the Government’s model. No one thinks the status quo is sustainable."
The relevant authority figure must believe the woman is from another planet.
“The current system is not up to scratch, but the Government’s Three Waters reforms are not the answer,” said ACT’s local government spokesperson Simon Court. “Taking control of water assets away from councils is wrong. Moving water assets from one government body to another is a recipe for more bureaucracy and less local input.”
I'll give him credit for acknowledging the status quo is shit. I even agree that Labour's penchant for padding bureaucrats into governance structures has had a legendary tendency to clog them up & make them dysfunctional. However, it is always possible for Labour to exhibit competence. We live in hope.
Russia may not be so concerned about reviving Russian glory and exterminating Nazis in its campaign in Ukraine. And Europe may have more tangible interests that may outweigh the humanitarian concerns and moral outrage at Russia's behaviour.
It turns out that Ukraine has huge untapped resources of a wide variety of minerals and commodities under its soil. So it starts to make sense why Europe is so enthusiastic about protecting Ukrainian sovereignty and why Russia is so keen to grab it.
Purely coincidental of course that most of Ukraine's fossil fuel resources sit under Luhansk, Donetsk, and Southern Ukraine. Funny how Moldov's Transnistria region is disputed territory, too.
Untapped Potential
Excluding Russia’s gas reserves in Asia, Ukraine today holds the second biggest known gas reserves in Europe. As of late 2019, known Ukrainian reserves amounted to 1.09 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, second only to Norway’s known resources of 1.53 trillion cubic meters. Yet, these enormous reserves of energy remain largely untapped. Today, Ukraine has a low annual reserve usage rate of about 2 percent. Moreover, more active exploration may yield previously undiscovered gas fields, which would further increase the overall volume of Ukraine’s deposits.
Yes, and I am sure that Europe would like to be customers to Ukraine who would likely be much more cooperative suppliers than Russia and its random tantrums.
Following the crackdown on anti-war protesters and independent news outlets, the Russian Federation further cracks down on free thought by targeting artists.
The government directive for the Arts and culture community, is War.
The Muses Are Silenced: Russian Arts Community Targeted As State Imposes Conformity Over Ukraine War
….Shortly after Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow adopted new laws and regulations aimed at stifling dissent over the war and preventing the spread of information other than that provided by the government….
….huge banners featuring the Z symbol have festooned theaters, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country, as the government has pushed the country's cultural communities to publicly express their support for the war, the military, and President Vladimir Putin.
….Sergei Levitsky, the former artistic director of the Russian Drama Theater in Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryatia region, who was fired on March 22 for speaking out against the war…..
…..Prominent Buryatia actress Svetlana Polyanskaya told RFE/RL that with Levitsky's dismissal, the theater has lost its "locomotive."
"The theater was pulsating, thoughtful, and compelled others to think," she said. "It fostered empathy and discussed some very important and necessary themes. It attracted a young generation of theatergoers. It was alive and now it is dead."
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 2 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has apologised in Parliament after National accused her of intimidating and attacking one of its ministers in the House. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met on Wednesday as the national cabinet to discuss a crisis gripping Australia – the horrific number of women murdered this year. The killings have shocked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Radhika Raghav, Teaching Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Otago Netflix Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for his big-budget Bollywood production, featuring grand sets, star casts, meticulously choreographed dance sequences and lavish costumes, jewellery and furnishings. ...
Sir Robert devoted his life to disability rights after living in institutions in his younger years, says Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga | Disability Rights Commissioner Prudence Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
Average ordinary time hourly earnings, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), increased 5.2 percent in the year to the March 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Annual wage cost inflation, as measured by the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau ...
As of the March 2024 quarter, we can now look back on 20 years of data related to youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), as collected by the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), according to figures released by Stats NZ today. "The ...
Thousands of workers attended public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today to celebrate International Workers’ Day (May Day), but union representatives are urging caution and vigilance over the Government’s blatantly "anti-worker" ...
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
The PSA is warning the Government that the sensitive information of New Zealanders held by various agencies will fall into the wrong hands if the latest round of proposed cuts goes ahead. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Talitha Best, Professor of Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Victoria Rodriguez/Unsplash How do sugar rushes work? – W.H, age nine, from Canberra What a terrific question W.H! Let’s explore this, starting with some of the basics. What is sugar? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karinna Saxby, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne MART PRODUCTION/Pexels Increasing income support could help keep women and children safe according to new work demonstrating strong links between financial insecurity and domestic violence. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University The telecommunications industry faces a major shakeup following the release of the post-incident report on last November’s 12-hour Optus outage. Telecommunications companies will have to share more information with customers during future ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Eden Denyer, bookseller at Unity Books Auckland.Weirdest question/request you’ve had on the shop floorA mother came in looking for anything we might have on Alaskan bison as that was her little boy’s ...
NZCTU Economist Craig Renney said new data released by Statistics New Zealand shows the need for Government to act now, with unemployment rising from 3.4% to 4.3%. ...
The outpouring of anger over Maiki Sherman’s hyperbolic presentation of this week’s ‘nightmare’ poll is itself an overreaction, argues Stewart Sowman-Lund. Politicians love nothing more than to pretend they don’t care about polls. This week, deputy prime minister Winston Peters said he didn’t give a “rat’s derriere” about a TVNZ ...
Asia Pacific Report Ngāti Kahungunu in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region has become the first indigenous Māori iwi (tribe) to sign a resolution calling for a “ceasefire in Palestine”, reports Te Ao Māori News. Reporter Te Aniwaniwa Paterson talked to Te Otāne Huata, who has been organising peace rallies ...
By Dale Luma in Port Moresby “We want grants and not concessional loans,” is the crisp message from Papua New Guinea businesses directly affected by the Black Wednesday looting four months ago. The businesses, which lost millions after the January 10 rioting and looting, say they need grants as part ...
Happy May Day. Join a union. Q: What’s worse than a staff break room where the only place to sit and have a cup of tea is on a teetering stack of old pornography magazines? A: Your boss replacing the magazine stacks with chairs that are “heartily encrusted with ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Former opposition leader Matthew Wale has been announced as the second prime ministerial candidate ahead of the election in Solomon Islands tomorrow. He will face off against former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele, who was announced by the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation ...
We get but one birthday a year – why not make it last as long as possible by scheduling as many meals with friends and family as you can? This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. How do you celebrate your birthday? Do you celebrate at ...
A Koi Tū discussion paper released today proposes sweeping changes to New Zealand’s media industry. The principal’s key author, Gavin Ellis, explains how journalists have a key role to play in making others value their role in society. This is an abridged version of a piece first published on knightlyviews.com ...
The Government’s spending cuts are again targeting support for Māori with proposed reform of the agency charged with advising on Māori wellbeing and development. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Douglas, Honorary Senior Lecturer, UNSW Aviation., UNSW Sydney The history of budget jet airlines in Australia is a long road littered with broken dreams. New entrants have consistently struggled to get a foothold. Low-cost carrier Bonza has just become the industry’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosalind Dixon, Director, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW Sydney Australia is finally having a sustained conversation about violence against women and what we can do about it. It is more than time. Australian women and girls continue to experience ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne stockfour/Shutterstock Preliminary bulk billing data released this week shows a 2.1% rise in bulk billing up to March. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Schulz, Senior Lecturer, University of Adelaide Australia is once again grappling with how we can stop gendered violence in our country. Protests over the weekend show there is enormous community anger over the number of women who are dying and National ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University AnastasiaDudka/Shutterstock What if the government was doing everything it could to stop thieves making off with our money, except the one thing that could really work? That’s how it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury The Conversation It seems to be a time of old favourites. This month our experts have recommended two new seasons – the second season of Alone Australia (although ...
Respects Poli:
Born mid August 1980 –
Murdered some time between the last Friday night of April,
and the early hours of the following Saturday, 2021.
But it is the life in-between that matters most &
He did the best he could with the time he had.
Newsroom's senior political reporter:
I'm surprised that Hipkins has abandoned mask-wearing as strategy! Even more surprised that cabinet has apparently made that official. I still wear mine in supermarkets & at public events.
As for his reliance on vaccination, how will that play to senior citizens? I went in to the local govt vaccination center on April 8th, to get my second booster, and was told the govt hadn't authorised it. Well, their own goddam website told me a while back that the first booster was only 50% effective after 3 months, and my first booster was exactly 3 months before April 8th. How many senior citizens in Aotearoa are only 50% protected now?
Being Labour, he'll dodge the question so no point asking. Commenters here who persist in defending Labour even when there's no reasonable basis for doing so, and who are senior citizens with 50% protection, ought to have a go at explaining govt policy, huh? See if it really is credible. Here's a clue:
Well, we're already a month into autumn. Time for Hipkins to pull finger?? And Labour also has a minister for seniors, who does monthly emails to us. Why did she not foreshadow a roll-out of a the second booster in her most recent bulletin? Explain how the official vaccine reliance strategy, as declared above by Hipkins, fits in with this omission. Can you?
My guess is this is why Bloomfield and other senior MOH bods resigned. Unconscionable and unnecessary.
(afaik, masks are still official policy)
No Dennis, they’re just implementing Nationals well thought through Omicron Strategy of having everyone take personal responsibility for their own health. So Dennis rather than whining that you couldn’t get a second booster from our socialist free public health system you take personal responsibility and pay for your own shot rather than trying to jump the queue when and if the Goverment decide whether a second booster is desirable.
Well I did ask at the local medical center where my doctor works. They didn't offer me that option. If you believe it is available somewhere, why not post the details here? I checked a non-govt site too, since the option isn't presented on the govt covid site, but nothing there either…
https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/medicines/c/covid-19-vaccine-booster/
To Dennis Frank at 2 : Surely you have seen and heard repeated advice from Chris Hipkins , other M.P.'s and epidemiologists that wearing of masks, distancing, good hygiene practice are advised, meaning that mature commonsense should prevail.
mature commonsense
Don't see any evidence Labour does that! I agree that it ought to prevail, Heather. That's why mentioned that I still wear one for indoor public situations.
I notice that you didn't try to explain why Hipkins seems to have changed his policy. Does that mean you're a typical Labour supporter?
Two experts strongly endorsed mask wearing on Morning Report this morning (RNZ).
If the Government is giving out a personalised mask exemptions in May, your premise is wrong. Chris may not have mentioned mask wearing in close quarters but the PM and others still choose it, as it states when masks are mandatory under Orange setting.
WHO is still mulling 4th shot but want all nations to have two shots. So is Australia, our Dr. says no plan for a 2nd booster/ 4th shot as yet.
Getting used to Orange settings takes time. It has not abandoned masks. Read the site.
I suspect the govt feel that any mandate measure has been effectively undermined by the fuckwits, so the next-least-bad is to "encourage".
Pisses me off, but at least we got to a position that saved thousands of lives before the wreckers succeeded.
None of the commenters have addressed my point of concern: protection of seniors. I have no problem with encouraging as official stance. I just see the lack of addressing the follow-up to the booster as weird.
I mean, if they just want to allow the darwinian norm to prevail, can't they be honest and say so? If they felt discouraged by the mandate outcome, why not share their feelings with voters? It's human. We don't actually want robot politicians, do we??
I think seniors as a group are likely to know they have collective vulnerability and I expected those commenting here to comment on that basis. I'm puzzled by their aversion to doing so…
I missed that this was your particular point of concern. Frankly, how it "plays" to seniors (or at least those who are aware of the realities of endemic c19) is how it plays to everyone else who understands that one can't just stare down a virus.
The trouble is, we're not just in the "endemic" phase, we're in the phase where laziness-inspired optimism has taken over for a lot of folks. They might not be "sherrifs" or any of that bullshit, but they'll happily forget their masks and then ask if they should go back to their car to get it. Looking for a sanction for the easy way out.
Specifics of 4th shots or whatever are likely in the pipeline once the current situation has been assessed. Will we stay at daily-double-digit-deaths, or will it genuinely get down to flu/traffic levels. Are the deceased boosted, or are they barely-vaxxed? And so on.
Me, I'm liking the actual nano-tech US military vaccine that's being trialled at the moment (last I heard). But I guess we'll see what we see.
Why don't you surrender already!
https://www.ft.com/content/8c235262-265e-4318-a925-bc167b83cc3e
The people of Ukraine know why they cannot surrender to the Russian Federation.
War crimes and genocide committed by Putin's fascist ally Bashar Assad in Syria are an example what Ukraine will suffer under Russian occupation.
Already Russia is recruiting thousands of Assad's armed forces linked to war crimes and atrocities in Syria for the invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/1/in-syria-moscow-leads-effort-to-recruit-fighters-for-ukraine
Everyone: time to stock up on your cooking oil, the shelves are going to get tight.
The world's largest producer of cooking oil, Indonesia, banning all exports – the Ukraine war has stuffed this market as well.
Indonesia widens export ban to include crude palm oil | Food News | Al Jazeera
But do our dairy farmers still get to import Palm Kernel Expeller for feed?
fortunately NZ is replete with butter.
and margarine.
$6 a block at New World and rising weekly.
Great for baking but not for an average family shop.
PaknSave have butter Tararua at $5.49.
neoliberal chickens. Time for a conversation about globalisation and why we produce so much dairy but it's so expensive to buy here*.
Indonesia just protected its people, maybe NZ should be thinking about how to do this as well.
*or maybe it's not, and this is the real cost of food.
Or we could wait until people here are desperate enough to protest.
Hope not. If they start whining, point them in the direction of organics and regenag and tell them to get with the programme.
And tell them to stock only the number of cattle/sheep that their farm can sustain.
Indeed!
Where we got ourselves in deep trouble is farm values and the amount that could be borrowed were based on high milk prices and ridiculous stock numbers supported by supplementary feed and irrigation. Bit of a ponzi scheme really with the real winners been the banks.
Quite frightening to go to a small beach settlement for the first time in 5 years recently, lots of irrigation and cows on sand. The creek feed from a small dune lake would just about dry up every summer now flows strongly even in drought. Basically we're emptying aquifers and running nutrient and shit rich water into the sea.
Difficult to see PKE being available (at anything like current levels) if the oil production is slashed….but perhaps Indonesia uses vast quantities of palm oil domestically, whether enough to supply 2 million tons PKE pa that NZ uses would seem unlikely.
We produce food oils here but current prices will make most blanche….imported canola at around 3-4 dollars a litre as opposed to NZ produced at around 12 dollars…..that'll hurt.
Have just looked up Indonesian consumption, and it looks like enough PKE would be available to meet NZ consumption assuming its not caught up in the export ban….and is also available from Malaysia.
This guy has a good information on the oil situation. As Weka points out we have plenty of butter but for many from Asia its use is a big part of cooking .
https://youtu.be/kyD4SauT5lE
we will all have to adapt. People that rely on wheat bread might want to be thinking about this now. Not stockpiling, but learning how to eat local and more variety.
I wasn't aware that Indonesia was a exporter of Olive oil?
Decided long ago that it was worth the price every 2-3 months. As the primary cook I don’t use much oil anyway.
Just wanting the opinions of any Labour supporters here about the actions of Labour to block requests by Select committees to call government officials to answer questions on various topics. This is something that Labour has stopped for a range of political parties including The Greens. Surely you can see this is not good for open and transparent governance.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300574267/opposition-mps-hit-out-at-labours-select-committee-gatekeeping
Nothing wrong with wanting them but you aint gonna get them. I went fishing for the same thing yesterday & got no response (OM #1).
Just the usual syndrome you get from Labour supporters is retreat into denial: this ain't happening. So they move on, hurriedly & nervously, hoping nobody will notice.
Well: Gosman & DF, maybe people are so accustomed to scrolling past your comments unread that they miss it when you do have something of substance to contribute? I was reading that Boy Who Cried Wolf story to my kids at bedtime the other day, perhaps you should re-read it yourself?
But then I am usually a Green Party supporter, if not member at the moment. I really should sign up once more to get a vote on the list rankings next year, but that means getting spammed with donations requests again. I do agree with Swarbrick and Willis on this; select committees are the workhorses of parliament (question time as a rodeo?), they need their feed of good quality information to be able to pull their weight.
But if it comes down to numbers, even all the opposition (and loosely aligned – with coleaders in the stable of cabinet eating fine oats, while the rest of the GP MPs shiver under horse-blankets out in the fields) parties combined couldn't pass a motion of no confidence over this. I generally support the actions of this Ardern government (with some reservations), but hopefully next election no party will be able to secure an absolute majority and will instead have to seek meaningful consensus with at least one other party, preferably several, in order to operate. Until then, they get to run rough-shod as they will, until they face the muster of the hustings (apologies for all the equine metaphors, not quite sure how I started galloping into that conceit).
Aversion to negative feedback tends to produce a failure to learn from what happens. It's why leftists tend to be chronic under-performers in politics…
DF
People have limited time for online reading and commenting on the Social Media Platform that is The Standard. What many call; Cancelling, or; Aversion to Negative Feedback, is simply boredom with tiresome drivel. Freedom to express oneself is not a guarantee of an attentive audience.
I personally think we need to distinguish between malicious; Trashing, and disinterested removal of attention. But that is a topic for another discussion; which I have had before, and will no doubt have again in the future (plus I can't be bothered hunting out the links just now).
It is a poor author who disparages their audience for failing to bask in glow of their genius. The golden showers falling upon those upturned faces eager for illumination may feel like something other than sunlight to those below. In which case; who can blame them for turning elsewhere?
Yeah but addiction to trivia is a poor excuse for coming onsite here & demonstrating an inability to get a grip on the issues discussed…
That’s rather presumptuous of you on a number of counts:
1) You presume that one can learn something from your copy & pasta comments with short ‘snappy’ yet verbose commentary.
2) You presume something negative about leftists in general.
3) You presume you are able to judge everything on which and everybody on whom you provide negative feedback.
4) You presume that negative feedback is similar or equivalent to constructive feedback.
5) You presume that ignoring your comments is their loss.
Well said Temp-too many meaningless posts and too many long posts from Gosman and DF means I often skim past.
Gosman does long posts too? Hadn't noticed any. Anyway since the essays are usually twice or three times longer than my comments I commend your diligence in spending the inordinate amount of time it takes to work your way thro.
Yep, regular DF, ALwyn, Gos etc scroller here, life's too short.
[Any reason why you changed your user name? – Incognito]
Mod note
To point out the constitutional aspects that they clearly know, and you appear to have missed.
You reckon Labour's strategy is constitutionally correct? Interesting. If so, I'd change my tune on the topic. Let's assume you are right in that assessment. It would imply that the Greens/ACT/National are either ignorant of the relevant clause in our constitutional law or are being disingenuous.
Or perhaps it comes down to competing interpretations of the relevant section of constitutional law? In which case there is no correct answer until a court judges the issue, eh? I'm open to enlightenment if you want to elaborate…
These are MPs, not constitutional lawyers. Quite why you expect them to be aware of the limitation of their role is beyond me. That is why they have to get advice on what they can or cannot do. You'll notice the absence of any advice or legal basis for their blathering?
Bloody unlikely. You'd have to find the 'section' first. Select committees are an internal convenience for Parliament. They are raised via the standing orders of parliament. Select committees have no constitutional standing at all – they are just a internal parliamentary tool to allow smaller groups to advise the whole of the house.
More a case of trying to find any part of the law that claims select committees to do anything unless parliament as a whole authorises it. Even then parliament itself is severely contained by how little direct power parliament itself has.
Parliaments direct power is strictly limited by what the crown allows them and little of that is present outside of taxation, funding and passing legislation – which has to be approved. The actual direct powers are held by the governor general or the executive council – both of whom 'advise' the crown.
In practice of course the 'crown', Executive Council and the GG all tend to defer to parliament for year to year operations within limits. That the Executive Council is almost entirely made up of ministers helps with that. But Parliament only really rules itself.
That is because anything that isn't explicitly stated in law of regulations derived from laws as being a requirement is simply not a requirement. This is how our legal system works.
Again, you'll notice the complete lack of any discussion of any detail of anything that would authorise select committees to compel testimony or attendance?
That is because even the bullshitting dickheads like Luxon are probably aware of this and are relying that most citizens of NZ aren't. The alternative is that we have a fool like Trump who can't distinguish between running a rorting company and being a more limited servant of the state.
Basically NZ and even its MPs could do to get a good education in civics.
MPs could do to get a good education in civics
One wonders what their induction course actually covers, eh? I'm inclined to suspect that you're right to suspect Luxon of grandstanding but I doubt Chloe would get sucked in on that basis – she must see a principled stand in the troika, which suggests the induction didn't cover select committee appearances by public servants sufficiently well.
They shouldn't be doing it, it makes a mockery of select committees.
Amazing that the Greens (Swarbrick) and Nats and Act all agreeing on something! Labour are not a transparent government.
These stories are months old now.
I'm sure the way these select committees operate is the same as the way they have always operated, the difference being we have not had a one party government recently.
For that, opposition parties can only blame themselves.
It is difficult to assess without more detail.
1. If the information requested relevant to the particular select committee or whether National are trying to use the select committee processes to get access to information they would not normally be able to get i.e. they are abusing the select committee processes – call me cynical.
2. Why was it withheld? e.g. budget sensitive has been used in the past for instance.
I do take solace that their are select committees – National solved that issue by doing lots of things under urgency. Noting also that some Labour governments in my view have also done too many things under urgency as well.
Someone should ask Luxon though whether they are saying they would not block things if they were government. Are they saying if in government they would be releasing all and sundry?
It isn't just the opposition parties that are complaining about this. The Greens are annoyed as well.
I wasn't aware that there was a right for members of select committees to call them at all, ever.
Public servants are employed by the crown – not by parliament. Parliament merely provides the funding, laws and policy direction – all on behalf of the crown. Outside of the speakers control over Parliamentary services parliament has their most influence on the public services via ministers of the crown (usually MPs) and the funding and laws. They don't have direct operational control.
The Public Service Commission is the effective head of the Public Service employees. Ministers have some operational influence (but not control) over a lot of the public service. Except for course for things like military, police, probably customs and a few other branches which answer directly to the crown.
To me it just sounds like Luxon is just being a stupid wanker waving his dick in public.
Clearly has watched too much US TV. He really is a pathetic ignorant dipshit and appears profoundly unprepared to be a MP. He'd be useless as a minister.
Your awareness is flawed. A Select committee can call upon government officials to act as either a Witness or Advisor on various matters. Ultimately the officials responsibility is to the Minister in charge though so they have to defer to them but it is quite clear that the Select committee can request they appear before them.
https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/assets/Legacy/resources/officials-selectcommittees-guidelines07-v2.pdf
You're an idiot… The select committee or members thereof can request or ask. So can anyone.
Hell I can ask as well in my capacity as person who wants to request an answer to something. I cannot demand or assert a right to compel. MPs and select committees have no rights more than anyone else outside of the public servants operational hierarchy, or the various rights of the justice system or some of te intelligence community.
The only avenue that I or an MP can demand with is via a OIA or by bringing a case in court or possibly appealing to the public services commission. The select committee as a body lacks the ability to do the OIA or the courts because they have little legal presence.
To demand a public servant to front up to a select committee is objectionable, ignorant, and unavailable. Luxon and you are complete dickheads if you think that is possible or even desirable.
Not even the Ministers can demand that. They can only request that of someone in the public service in a position of operational control of an employee.
I'd add that there are a couple of bits of legislation and regulation that compel some public servants to submit reports to parliament. For instance the auditor-general for instance. Parliament often passes perusing these tasks to select committees as a convention.
But the select committees themselves have no significant powers themselves outside of the responsibility to look at things that parliament chooses them to look at (just as they do with legislation), and expressing their opinions on those matters. They have no judicial powers what so ever.
Looks like you're right, but it would be clearer if both you & Gosman cited the actual bit of the pdf that made you each believe what you believe.
That's #20 on the Officials and Select Committees – Guidelines pdf.
Not definitive, since it does not mention any right of refusal by the department which the request addressed. Can they refuse?
They can't refuse to appear before the Public Service Commission, maybe not the Executive Council, most of the Justice system, and probably parts of the Intelligence system. There are other situations like being a state of war or civil emergency that would give other bodies partial control as well.
The only ones that I would be sure of is the Public Service Commission for direct control and the Justice system for judicial control.
The minister themselves probably could only request. With more weight given to the Ministers of the crown on Executive Council.
I didn’t read it, I only looked at it for the legal reasoning. There wasn’t any. So my basic background knowledge is what I presented.
That came out of the history, the army (very finicky on things like this), general law courses in undergraduate and graduate degrees, having to suffer with a partner doing her law degree, and general reading on history and law.
In other words this for me is general knowledge.
If you ask for a reference on a general topic, then wikipedia is your friend. I’ll be happy to dig references out – if I have spare time.
If you want something difficult – like how to crack into an embedded system on the other side of the world or how to do impossible things with code – then you’re clean out of luck. Other people already pay me to do those things.
Good stuff, thanks. Reminds us that a lot of what happens in governance is based on convention rather than law. And conventions evolve…
You stated there was no right for members of Select committee to call for officials to appear before them. There is. What there isn't is an ability to OBLIGE them to appear before them. Language matters.
Its not good for democracy either, but we are told that we have to "tweak" that because democracy is changing. Well, just in this country though and I don't know to what.
Just as I posed I looked at Jimmy’s comment…..hmmmm
You just know this was crap from the start, when even David Parker who is on your team doesn't like it!
Rotorua District Council agrees to pause its representation bill | Stuff.co.nz
Contrary to some angry comments here, the MIQ case is not a win for expat Grounded Kiwis. I suspect they and some media are suggesting it is a win are trying to save face.
The judge did not recommend abandoning the lottery system, rather making a few places available outside it, noting that this could create, "a whole new set of grievances".
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-front-page-constitutional-law-expert-on-why-the-miq-case-is-actually-a-win-for-the-government/IJ2G5V5RWFOVVGJQDSYWLBNRBI/
Still, Grounded Kiwis and other pandemic sceptics have what they wanted now, no MIQ.
And people are dying.
I read the decision.
I also read the grounded kiwis take on it.
Came to the conclusion that they had read a different decision – probably one that Ian Taylor fetched out of Cameron Slaters arse. It really was that delusional.
My opinion of their ability to understand anything dropped even lower.
The MIQ was going to be phased out in the first quarter of this year anyway. I guess the numbskulls of NZ don't actually listen to news and the explore the actual requirements about as well as they read legal decisions.
Covid-19 is endemic. We have put in about as much protection as is possible based on the available vaccines (although Dennis Frank is right, the second booster is due about now). The trick now is to let the un-vaccinated to vaccinated the traditional way while the vast majority of the vaccinated to still have a functioning hospital system.
Basically seems to say that next time we should have an "urgent" category as well, i.e. everyone gets evaluated as "emergency" (within 2 weeks), "Urgent" (priority place in a month or two, the Bellis situation), and the rest take their chances once the first two have been filled.
Robertson and Mahuta have just announced that they want Labour to lose the next election in a land slide, great work you guys.
Aw, you tease. You come here, dangle something like that, and provide no link – not even a quote. Do you hang out on K Rd in fishnet stockings too?
3 Waters. The "terra nullius" racists will scream – and so will thieves, opportunists and privatisers with their eyes on water as a monetisable commodity. The rest of us get to see if it actually works before it is sabotaged by some future Nat/ACT government seeking to enable the aforesaid groups.
And who is to say that all that 3 water work is not in preparation for precisely that: privatisation.
3 waters.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/128489597/government-accepts-three-waters-recommendations-councils-to-have-shareholding-aspects-of-cogovernance-to-remain
Good on them. I'm glad to be able to say something nice about Labour today! Will be fascinating to see the media analysis & commentary ensuing…
Here's the guts then:
Stuff has put up a compilation of verdicts: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300576023/three-waters-reaction-mayor-phil-goff-says-auckland-is-being-penalised-lgnz-welcomes-ratepayer-certainty
The science/engineering is not the issue Dennis, as you well know.
You can't read my mind. The policy change will influence politics more via the general view in the body politic, ultimately. I reckon those who want cleaner water will have an effective majority there easily. The science & engineering view are two bodies of expert opinion likely to influence most punters. Those doing turf-protection will struggle to catch up – probably only getting traction where councils have been traditionally competent…
"the majority", you say.
When it was one person, one vote, that concept worked well.
Under co- governance, well……….
"tweaking" democracy its called. Democracy is changing, maybe to autocracy?
Waiting waiting for the Right wing response…. Yeah/ Nah.
watch the Act response on the Herald web site.
For a laugh?
Given that neither produced stats to back up their competing views, their dumb & dumber routine is indeed entertaining.
No evidence from her either.
The relevant authority figure must believe the woman is from another planet.
I'll give him credit for acknowledging the status quo is shit. I even agree that Labour's penchant for padding bureaucrats into governance structures has had a legendary tendency to clog them up & make them dysfunctional. However, it is always possible for Labour to exhibit competence. We live in hope.
Starting to make sense now.
Russia may not be so concerned about reviving Russian glory and exterminating Nazis in its campaign in Ukraine. And Europe may have more tangible interests that may outweigh the humanitarian concerns and moral outrage at Russia's behaviour.
It turns out that Ukraine has huge untapped resources of a wide variety of minerals and commodities under its soil. So it starts to make sense why Europe is so enthusiastic about protecting Ukrainian sovereignty and why Russia is so keen to grab it.
Purely coincidental of course that most of Ukraine's fossil fuel resources sit under Luhansk, Donetsk, and Southern Ukraine. Funny how Moldov's Transnistria region is disputed territory, too.
Untapped Potential
Excluding Russia’s gas reserves in Asia, Ukraine today holds the second biggest known gas reserves in Europe. As of late 2019, known Ukrainian reserves amounted to 1.09 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, second only to Norway’s known resources of 1.53 trillion cubic meters. Yet, these enormous reserves of energy remain largely untapped. Today, Ukraine has a low annual reserve usage rate of about 2 percent. Moreover, more active exploration may yield previously undiscovered gas fields, which would further increase the overall volume of Ukraine’s deposits.
https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraine-energy-reserves/
Yes, and I am sure that Europe would like to be customers to Ukraine who would likely be much more cooperative suppliers than Russia and its random tantrums.
And you thought '1984' was just a book.
Following the crackdown on anti-war protesters and independent news outlets, the Russian Federation further cracks down on free thought by targeting artists.
The government directive for the Arts and culture community, is War.