It is pretty sickening to see the expansion of an authoritarian state in real time.
But here it is: China makes a move to fully suppress all anti-government dissent on Hong Kong 20 years before the treaty signed with the UK government runs out.
2. The withdrawal of the USA from global affairs is becoming increasingly obvious. US overseas troop deployments in total is now less than 100,000, lower than any time in the past century.
More chillingly for little old New Zealand, Australia for having the temerity to propose an investigation into the Covid-19 virus in China has been delivered hard counter-hits from China with major restrictions on imports of Australian beef and barley. The next step will be coal, and they've done that before.
It may well be all coincidence, but the intended chilling effect is that Australians believe clearly that it really is retaliation by China:
New Zealand is now in a state where we are totally reliant on the economic performance of Australia and China. The US's Mike Pompeo may well be standing up for Hong Kong, but the contest is far bigger already. And New Zealand is closer to the crosshairs of China than we have ever been.
And China's been playing silly buggers for years testing and pushing the boundaries to see if someone blinks 3 or 4 years ago when I was there, Chinese earth-moving equipment was discovered a kilometre inside Indian territory in Sikkim (adjacent to the border with Bhutan),
Xi Jinping, Trump, Bolsenaro, Netanyahu, Putin, Modi and a few others seem to want to expand their territory to accommodate the size of their egos.
In India they have sent troops beyond the area in dispute and the troops are taking up defensive positions.
The intent being to force India to agree to the border claimed by China.
In sych with the exercises to take islands by force, the message is clear. China in betraying the Hong Kong agreement has chosen to reveal it is prepared to seize by force what others do not concede in talks. It’s foreign policy is now fear and obey.
When globalism is replaced by nationalism, the wolves amongst nations soon prey on the weak.
"And New Zealand is closer to the crosshairs of China than we have ever been."
Impressive fearmongering. Extending your analogy, the CCP won't be ‘pulling the trigger‘ on NZ just yet IMHO, but (out of interest):
1. Do you think NZ recently became a little closer ora lot closer to 'China's crosshairs'?
2. With the ‘Red Menace‘ in abeyance, how best for NZ to keep the 'Yellow Peril' at bay?
Trade isn't a one-way street – in the interest of balance:
"There was a brief (4.5 minute) chat with Australian correspondent Bernard Keane on RNZ's nine-to-noon programme this morning [20 May 2020], including the "blame game" on China's recent imposition of tariffs on Australian barley. Interestingly, "Australia has been engaging in its own trade war on China for a very long time." Indeed, the opinions expressed by Keane seemed more balanced than many of the (anti-China) opinions expressed on The Standard." https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018747215/australia-correspondent-bernard-keane
Notwithsatanding your bizarre “little p.c. blankie” and “you’re clearly not built for any useful discussion” jibes, I do have concerns about the CCP’s military and (particularly for NZ) trade policies, but whipping up fear of the CCP is counterproductive, in my opinion.
Would it be a fair assessment to say that as the fallout from lockdown unfolds; recession or depression, wide-spread unemployment and shortages of all sorts; the National Party and its supporters will do everything it can to erode public confidence in the Government, attack it's leading figures and their plans to keep the country buoyant, use dishonest methods to turn voters against the 3 parties in Government and mislead New Zealanders as to their own ability to manage the coming difficulties? Would it not be prudent/wise/morally responsible to set aside such behaviour for the good of all New Zealanders, refrain from wasting the energy we'll need and perverting the plans that have till now, served us very well, simply because National's Politicians seek to be back in power?
My best bet for the current lot in government to secure their re-employement in government via the election is to do decent work, and maybe be a little less cynical and a bit more future minded rather then just throwing around band aids to some and a big fat nothing to others.
But National will do what National does – and it would be down right foolish to believe that would not do what they do. After all they too want to keep their well paying jobs in parliament, it sure beats working in private industry – or trying to find a job – at the current times. (btw, that applies to ALL of the suits in parliament)
This would be any governments worst nightmare. Years of health and unemployment costs, limited tourism and increased crime. A person needs to work out what is and is not important when it comes to who they vote for at the next election. I do not need the National Party to tell me that a deep recession or a depression is going to be next.
I know I shouldn't say it, but… If we have to live at Level Two for the forseeable future I think that would be a good thing
[fairyland hat on]
Limited tourism, increased local production and we're not treating people like sardines that can be packed into an economic can for profit. We'll not have the health costs with a cultural swing to physical distancing. Unemployment will take care of itself as business adjusts to an economic model that moves away from mass-consumerism and excess profit.
[hat off]
We need a coalition government that can work within the new parameters of infection control and bring the people along with it. That government is not National. Labour/Greens have some work to do.
"I know I shouldn't say it, but… If we have to live at Level Two for the forseeable future I think that would be a good thing"
I say it too .
and if we don,t have to live at Level 2 that is the way we should be going anyway, after a big conversation on what kind of a country we are aiming for; sustainable or not and that starts with a big nationwide discussion on what is a sustainable population level for NZ. I see us as a Norway of the Southern Hemisphere with our wilderness areas no longer being compromised and our manufacturing growth an extension of our agrarian production.
The law sets up the legal framework for future alert levels as there is no longer a State of Emergency. It effectively allows the Health Minister to issue an order that would make alert level rules legally enforceable.
That might include, for example, the ability for police or "enforcement officers" to close certain premises or roads, ban certain types of travel or congregations, or require people to be physically distant or to stay at home in their bubbles if necessary.
It also would allow warrant less searches of private property if there was a reasonable belief that the alert level rules were being broken.
Every Human Right organisation has voiced concern and while Hong Kong fights against state and police control, NZ seem to embrace it. Go figure.
Fair call. I shouldn't have generalised. I'd like some ofthe benefits of Level 2 to become normalised in our everyday life without requiring restrictive legislation for that to happen.
I'd like not for us to go back to the mass tourism, mass consumerism and businesss as usual with the exploitation of people and planet we have at Level 1. I like that we have practically ended people living on the streets at level 2.
Amen to that, but lets not get the focus away on any unintended consequences.
We certainly need to prioritize and I would say 2 issues need immediate attention: clean water and a stop of pumping the life (literally) out of aquifers and transport infrastructure including rail that gets diesel trucks off the road. It would provide plenty of work in that downturn and contribute to a better way of life that the next generation deserves.
Well shortly New Zealand will be covid-19 free- in a world where covid-19 is endemic NZ will be the most or one of the most popular places in the world for TV and Movie making – bring your staff do the quarantine and then you can do the work just like you used to – anywhere else not a shits show
NZ will be the most or one of the most popular places in the world for TV and Movie making
A friend was saying today, that a good mate of hers who works in the film industry, was telling her the same. And the flow on effect for the hospitality industry could be just the boost they need.
Enjoy and share and walk around with chorus in your head all day. 🤣
HRH* Nathleigh has produced this stan music video to recruit Australia's next Prime Minister. 😁😁😁 So please help to spread the word =) (*Human Resources Headhunter)
Public Enemy wasn't commenting on police brutality or racism.
They were complaining about representations of black people through Hollywood.
Burn Hollywood burn I smell a riot
Goin' on first they're guilty now they're gone
Yeah I'll check out a movie
But it'll take a black one to move me
Get me the hell away from this TV
All this news and views are beneath me
So all I hear about is shots ringin' out
About gangs puttin' each others head out
So I rather kick some slang out
All right fellas let's go hand out
Hollywood or would they not
Make us all look bad like I know they had
But some things I'll never forget yeah
So step and fetch this shit
For all the years we looked like clowns
The joke is over smell the smoke from all around
I was reading last night how quickly a person can get hypoxia (condition where not enough oxygen makes it to the cells and tissues in the body) during an anaesethic. When I saw the footage of the officer obstructing the airway of George and hearing George say he could not breath and the officer ignoring George and seeing George lose consciousness and the officer still not moving I realised that I was witnessing manslaughter.
I do hope that the officers are all put on trial and I know that this will not bring George back.
I am outraged and I suspect this occurs a lot and is covered up. There is a lot of ongoing tension in the USA with lives not mattering and due to the officers behaviour they have created further distrust and frustration in those who want change.
That having been said, it has long been recognised that restraining someone improperly can lead to their death. Shit, I was only a bouncer and I was explicitly taught to be exceptionally careful about it. Including warning signs like "I can't breathe" followed by "playing possum" [which isn't].
In an equitable society, I suggest that there would be some criminal issues for a court to consider.
If it can be argued one way, then it can be argued the other. That is what courts are for.
3rd degree murder is basically equivalent to manslaughter. If the cop intended him to die, that would be second-degree murder (plain murder in NZ). If the cop had planned in advance to kill him, that would be "first degree" murder.
It's not a “return to the ’90s”, it’s normal life there. This virulent and sinister racism, from Central Park in New York to San Francisco, is a constant in the United States.
MINNEAPOLIS—Calling for a more measured way to express opposition to police brutality, critics slammed demonstrators Thursday for recklessly looting businesses without forming a private equity firm first. “Look, we all have the right to protest, but that doesn’t mean you can just rush in and destroy any business without gathering a group of clandestine investors to purchase it at a severely reduced price and slowly bleed it to death,” said Facebook commenter Amy Mulrain, echoing the sentiments of detractors nationwide who blasted the demonstrators for not hiring a consultant group to take stock of a struggling company’s assets before plundering. “I understand that people are angry, but they shouldn’t just endanger businesses without even a thought to enriching themselves through leveraged buyouts and across-the-board terminations. It’s disgusting to put workers at risk by looting. You do it by chipping away at their health benefits and eventually laying them off. There’s a right way and wrong way to do this.” At press time, critics recommended that protestors hold law enforcement accountable by simply purchasing the Minneapolis police department from taxpayers.
A week ago Simon Bridges was still leader of the National party. Ah, the good old days.
Remember when making a silly comment about hair dye was enough to get the eyes rolling? That now seems like a pearl of wisdom. Under his successor (assassin) the eyes have been spinning so fast they've fallen out of their sockets. The gaffe-meter is broken.
His latest gem: "Most New Zealanders are unemployed, but they don't know it yet" (yesterday).
A week is a long time in politics. It can only get better from here onwards. But in all seriousness, the Opposition is in serious disarray, ERC has been disbanded, and the only flutter of an election contest is some predictable sparring between the PM and the Deputy PM.
That 23% of Nat MPs having any business experience is telling, given their constant call that they are the party of Business. And I think Muller being in big business management is a far cry from owning and running a butcher or hairdresser or a service station.
"Prominent freshwater expert Dr Mike Joy said the advice from scientists and Kahui Wai Māori (the Māori Freshwater Forum) had “fallen on deaf ears.” “Instead, it appears the Minister for the Environment has caved into political and industry pressure to further delay implementing the long overdue instream nutrient limits.” He added that “the limits proposed by the specialist panels were key to achieving real change, and far from being extreme, would have simply brought New Zealand into line with the rest of the world”."
Yeah, but he's an ecologist and there's never been a place for such people in the Labour universe. Can’t support the capitalist system by listening to eggheads.
translation: we can't rely on science and best practice using the precautionary principle because too many politicians are beholden to the corporate industrial dairy lobby who are going to fob everyone off for as long as they can in order to keep strip mining NZ. Let's take a few decades to sort things out as the science can't tell us how to run extractive industries without damaging the environment.
/spit
Joy nailed it. If you're quitting smoking, there's little point in dropping from 3 packs a day to 2.5 packs if you have your lung health in mind.
Yep, industrial farming is up there with the tobacco industry. Also, the climate deniers, who basically used the same tactics 'there's not enough science yet'.
If you think the policy is sound, then put it up against what Joy is saying.
The Greens are saying it's way better than before, of course it is, National basically said for nine years go ahead and treat rivers like sewers.
I trust the Greens and Sage in particular, and I assume that they've built in many useful things despite the limitations. But it's stupid to pretend that this is adequate and is not a trade off with the industrial farming economy. Are there going to be reductions in dairy farms? Conversions to regenag? I'm guessing not, that it's ambulance at the bottom of the cliff that people are still being allowed to push ecosystems off.
Servers belonging to the social-media platform Twitter burst into flames on Thursday, after the company attempted to fact-check all of Donald Trump’s tweets.
“We knew that fact-checking Trump’s tweets was going to put a strain on our system,” Jack Dorsey, the C.E.O. of Twitter, said. “We had no idea that it would result in columns of fire shooting forty feet into the air.”
Reportedly, an explosion in the server fact-checking Trump’s tweets about Joe Scarborough ignited a blaze that quickly spread to a server furiously vetting his tweets about Barack Obama.
Fire trucks rushed to Twitter headquarters to extinguish the inferno, which San Francisco officials called the largest fact-checking-related fire incident in the city’s history.
While no one was injured in the conflagration, Dorsey quietly shelved plans to fact-check all of Donald Trump, Jr.,’s tweets.
This morning an NZR journalist reported for Goldsmith that he couldn't get up to date numbers on the correctness of the Grants given to businesses. He was told that audits were ongoing and quarterly reports would be issued. So far no charges had been laid.
How is this important enough to lead the news? How can Goldsmith get such a non-story published?
Barking at imaginary passing cars isn't an attempt at accountability.
Auditing claims isn't a 5 min exercise, it requires time and effort. It is entirely logical to report on the auditing of claims on a longer time frame than benefit applications, or positive COVID-19 tests.
I'd actually like to see a full list of the claims made rather than that silly little box where you try to get a name to come up. It would be a lot easier to check.
If only because a lot of places have a trading name but a different legal name.
The proposed nutrient limits were key to achieving real change, and far from being extreme, would have brought New Zealand into line with the rest of the world.
For example, in China, the limit for nitrogen in rivers is 1 milligram per litre – the same limit as our technical advisory group recommended.
Instead, Minister for the Environment David Parker decided to postpone this discussion by another year – meaning New Zealand will continue to lag other nations in having clear, enforceable nutrient limits.
…
The other main policy the expert panels pushed for was a cap on the use of nitrogen fertiliser. This was indeed part of the announcement, which is a positive and important step forward.
But the cap is set at 190kg per hectare per year, which is too high. This is like telling someone they should reduce smoking from three to two and a half packets a day to be healthier.
Sam Ackerman is due to shed some unwarranted tears this morning RNZ National, Friday 29 May 2020, 10:20 a.m.
Right now, Lynn Freeman is interviewing Filipina filmmaker Ramona Diaz. One of the things she's talking about is the use of fake news and disinformation by the egregious President Rodrigo Duterte. Well worth a listen. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon
Unfortunately, at 11:30 Lynn will talk to sports reporter Sam Ackerman, who is apparently going to lament the loss of Radio Sport.
W T F ??!!??!? The death of Radio Sport was long overdue. If ever there was a source of fake news and bigotry, it was that joke of a station, with its dismal line-up of "talents" such as Tony Veitch, Martin Devlin, and Murray Deaker.
Here is Martin Devlin, beside himself after news of a British athlete being killed after being hit by a hammer-throw….
DEVLIN: He got killed with a HAMMER! Oh GOD, just imagine the MESS! Ha ha ha ha ha! STEVEN HUNTER AKA "SHUNTER" (PRODUCER): Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! DEVLIN: Ker-SQUISH! SHUNTER: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! DEVLIN: Splat!" SHUNTER: Ha ha ha ha ha! DEVLIN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/lest-we-forget-martin-devlin-jan-26-2011.html
And, of course, Murray "Deaks" Deaker…
CALLER PHIL: I want to talk about the All Black squad. Murray, I am very, very concerned. I think we will have a lack of intelligence, once the ball goes past Daniel Carter.
DEAKER: [long, thoughtful pause] Conrad Smith?
PHIL: Yes, but what if he’s injured, Murray?
DEAKER: [long, thoughtful pause] I know what you’re getting at, Phil.
PHIL: Yes, well, it needs to be said, Murray.
DEAKER: [with utmost gravitas] A lot of people talk about this in private, but are not prepared to talk about it in public. But I don’t give a TOSS about that! The problem is that in this country we have a lot of boys that are EARLY MATURERS.
PHIL: Yes, oh yes.
DEAKER: These guys haven’t got the slender build of, say, a Dan Carter, or a Jeff Wilson, or an Andrew Mehrtens.
PHIL: That’s right, Murray.
DEAKER: So they’ve never had to jink, or sidestep, or run around any opponents. They are so HUGE that all they have ever had to do is barge past them. They’ve never had to THINK! Because they’re early maturers!
PHIL: It’s a worry. Because these overseas teams, they’re THINKERS, Murray! They’re private school boys, and they’re thinkers.! The Australians, Murray, they’re just so EDUCATED! I remember once when the lowest-qualified player in the team was a chartered accountant, Murray!
DEAKER: Yes, but we’ll not see the likes of Nick Farr-Jones, David Kirk, Sir John Graham and Sir Wilson Whineray again. They were very bright guys!
PHIL: I’m so worried, Murray….
The links were to particularly grievous and stupid comments by commentators on the (blessedly) defunct Radio Sport. That's why I keep a record of these comments, which would otherwise disappear into the ether. It means that when I point out that a particular sports broadcaster in fact knows nothing about sports and is a brutal bigot to boot, I can provide evidence.
Dont worry, mate, I'm just having a laugh, but if you're that bothered, stick it in your data base and I'll have a look for your killer zinger comeback some time in 2034 lol
In 2034, by the way, Pres. Eric Trump will be midway through his second term, and down here Jacinda will be nearing the end of her seventh. Former President Obama will still have sixteen more years to live….
Unfortunately, Radio Sport didn't stick to that core business. Instead, it turned over the airwaves to the likes of Deaker, Devlin, Veitch, Doug Golightly, and Willy Lose….
…life is not worth living without cricket on the radio.
Sounds like a protracted torture in brain activity deprivation. It' is as tedious as listening to the Trump alternately blustering and whining without the moments of inadvertent ironic humour.
I gave up on sports when I stopped playing them. I can't quite understand people who waste time on listening to them or even attending sports grounds to watch them. Don't they have anything else to do?
Fair comment, Lynn. The problem with Radio Sport was that they had 18 hours to fill every day.* Even if they had been knowledgeable, eloquent, and witty broadcasters, that would have been an almost impossible task. They possessed, sadly, none of those qualities.
* Midnight to dawn they paid for infinitely superior American sports talk radio.
It's more about the community, if you're watching local sports. Otherwise, I find it hard to get excited about some weekly competition that drags on and on. World Cups and the Olympics are pretty cool tho
Second time – 3 hours apart – got a phony call with female USA accent from automated scam machine claiming that someone has been spending $1000 with Amazon on my credit card. Phoned the bank just to check out and they report a wave of it going on – FYI. Bank says if you follow their directions they give you two different buttons for choice and you will be directed to a person who will harvest your card number from you. Warmer job I imagine than fruit picking or cabbage cutting out in the fields.
Try this " I'm so glad you called, can we talk about Jesus ? " Works every time, but mostly if I've had a bad day or even only a semi-terrific one I'll purge with a diatribe of the most offensive shit imaginable, its quite cathartic.
Remember these arseholes know they are committing a crime.
@ greywarshark (14) I was with a friend during the week when she received the same message, however this time the caller had an Indian accent. Fortunately, she was on to the fact it was a scam. Yep, the scammers are out there. Caution is needed.
Allowing a home-grown scientific consensus to inform our Covid-19 response has safeguarded health – such a common sense approach, compared to the ‘balance‘ advocated by market forces. I’m enjoying retail shopping and restaurant dining now – what’s the rush?
That is pretty much the basis you have to use for this particular bug. Even the 2 week infection limit looks like it may have been optimistic as there are now examples of people getting infected and not displaying any virus shedding until weeks afterwards – but it looks like it is doing the job – so not worth changing.
I was just reading some wannabe guest post writer sending something in via email proclaiming the theory that covid-19 is just a hoax by the government. Feels like they cribbed it off some other site as clickbait (and that is what their reference site looks like as well). All assertions based on the idea that it is just influenza and that nothing the government did (like closing and controlling borders in this and previous outbreaks) made any difference.
I was tempted to put it up just so I could eviscerate the ‘author’. The increased total death rate above normal in the US, Brazil, UK, and now Russia of this ‘influenza’ even with the social distancing there being the obvious club to beat the dipshit with. But since it was, like almost of 30 odd similar propositions I get daily, just an excuse to provide links to other sites – I restrained myself. Besides the dipshit clickbaiter would never actually come and argue their point.
Reminds me, I need to write a explicit policy on asserting false facts in comments and providing links and/or not defending their usage. I don’t mind rapping people over the knuckles about it. But it is starting to get irksome. Plus the National party appears to be making using completely false facts their only strategy based on some of the social media I have seen.
One from Pugh used pre-covid data from debt levels in Greece against projected post-covid-19 debt levels in NZ which was a pretty egregious bit of lying. I was thinking that a immediate 6 month ban unless they justified their usage to me in email was the appropriate site response – with all correspondence published.
Yeah it was initially, as per the plan designed around an influenza pandemic. But we get a new influenza strain each year, and apparently covid might be a bit more stable. Days after we went into L4 specialists started suggesting we might be able to eliminate it, rather than just slow it.
There's been some kerfuffle about the semantics of "eliminate", but I guess it's generally the "plan A+" crowd that won, rather than the "plan B" dude lol
I can accept that, yet that is not what is being conveyed and what was the aim/measure to achieve before we progress down. What will happen in the future when there are a few cases diagnosed ? Do we progress up the levels again for eradication to mirror what has been achieved this time ?
For the foreseeable, we'll have border quarantine (and testing of improving sensitivity and timeliness). If a case shows up there, no worries it's doing its job. Although staff who contacted that person might be themselves quarantined.
If a case goes through quarantine then presents with covid a week later, we might see a national or regional alert escalation, or maybe a combination (e.g. the locality of know contacts goes to level 3/4, while the rest of the country goes back to level 2 to aid tracing if an unkown contact went out of town).
A random case popping up with no known travel association? That's when people will be probably looking at a nationwide L3/4 again, because it breaks the known behaviour of the disease.
But these are possible variations, not gospel. It's a judgement call at the time, based on many factors and inputs. But so far the govt's been pretty good at communicating what is happening, why, and what the risks are.
I'm not sure what you mean by "not what is being conveyed". The elimination goal has been pretty consistent for a couple of months now, which is actually pretty miraculous in this fast-changing situation.
Appreciate the wish for certainty now and in the future, but also understand the need to adjust responses and 'level details' as NZ gets on top of this pandemic threat, learning as we go.
Covid-19 is novel, with no proven treatment or vaccine (yet) – caution is (still) warranted, IMHO.
Covid-19 is novel, with no proven treatment or vaccine (yet)..
Personally I remain unconvinced that they will get a vaccine within 5 years. And that is only because they were getting close to trialling SARS and MERS viruses using new approaches before this particular coronavirus popped up.
The more that is revealed about covid-19, the more unconvinced I get. A 32k base pair virus from inside bat colonies – and one that appears (in my view) to have had about a decade adapting to humans. It looks both endemic, unlikely to get a widespread herd immunity, and vaccines are unlikely to have a long term effect. I see this hanging around and if a vaccine is achieved, is going to require boosters every few years.
Specific antiviral treatments to prevent slipping into a critical state seem more likely in the medium term.
Which of the Level 2 restrictions do you consider an unreasonable restriction?
About all I can see that's significantly different from Level 1 is limiting gatherings to 100 or less, ensuring physical distancing, and record-keeping of visitors.
That doesn't seem onerous, particularly since we are still in a time period where undetected presymptomatic or asymptomatic community transmission could still be occurring. It seems to me to be very low pain to maintain Level 2 for a few weeks longer to minimise the risk of the massive pain of having to go back up the levels.
I am fortunate and I gather from your comment that you to are also (I hope so), but ask that question to someone who has or is considering shutting down their business or has or could lose their job, and the consequence of that be it financial, health, relationship etc. The delay of progressing thru the stages by 1,2 or 3 weeks could make a difference to them.
What kind of business might be at serious risk of having to close because of another few weeks of limiting gatherings to 100 people, some physical distancing, and maintaining visitor logs?
I would guess it's very very few. The massive lockdown we have already had will have already culled the marginal businesses, and another few weeks of level 2 won't affect the vast majority of businesses that were robust enough to survive until now. It will affect a few weeks of profitability for sure, so the owners have an incentive to make as much noise as they can, which is where I think the push to go to Level 1 is coming from.
A few more weeks of Level 2 certainly won't change the outlook for the business sectors that have been wholesale obliterated such as tourism.
With no community sport until June 22nd there is 2-3 weeks where cafes, bakeries, mobile coffee etc miss out on that trade.( + the feel good factor of life returning to some resemblance to normal) Some of these businesses are next to parks that when there is no action there is no foot traffic that is 2/7 of their trade. Restaurants, pubs etc that to comply with distancing have limited what their business can cater for. Professional sports events that have eliminated crowds those industries that support these events. Whist these may not be large compared to already announced closures, tell that to those affected.
I would suggest to those affected that they ponder the consequences of having to go back into a Level 3 or 4 lockdown.
And that they also ponder that the team that made the decisions that appear to have us on track for a return to domestic normality much faster than our peer nations are the same team that see our best course is to maintain Level 2 for a few weeks longer. Their record of success so far is awfully hard to argue with.
NZ at level 2 is now less restrictive than Queensland which has similar (almost) zero new case rates and very few active cases. Queensland, like WA, NT, SA and Tas are keeping their borders closed to Vic and NSW where there is (admittedly low) community transmission. NZ is probably one of the very few advanced economies with such opportunites. Count your lucky stars you live where you live.
Well around my hood it's starting to look pretty normal apart from the distancing, the hand sanitiser and the signing in. I've also stuck my head into a number of the small local businesses that I would really hate to loose – $50 note in hand to donate if needed- to check that they are okay and found that they were fine with lots of work and any worries had vanished.
I still have more to check though. Stuff did take the donation but happy with that.
same here redbaron. in my small town and the neigbouring two I was in yesterday, shops were busy and car parks hard to find. the only closed shop in my local town is a pizza shop that closed three weeks prior to lockdown.
If only they kept it to musical items, it would be wonderful.
Television footage of street demonstrations following the Qu’ran burnings by U.S. troops. Major General Gawn has an answer ready: “There are a hundred thousand American troops in Afghanistan. There will always be a few bad apples.” Gen. John R. Allen tries to muster up every bit of gravitas he can as he assures the U.S. television audience that those responsible for the Qu’ran burnings “will be tracked down.”
If only they kept it to musical items, it would be wonderful.
+100
And also carried that approach forward to their police forces in USA to ours in NZ and Australia too. So sad to hear about this latest USA police outrage. Chris Trotter eviscerates it:
Chris Trotter? It will be interesting to see what he says if those cops are acquitted. I wonder if his views have evolved since the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013…
NOELLE McCARTHY: Now you have something about this Florida verdict, and Juror B-37?
…A long, rambling discussion ensues, with most of the participants clearly disgusted with the verdict. But not everyone….
CHRIS TROTTER:[very slowly, mustering all the pomp and gravitas he can] I think all this talk about the jury is most unfortunate. You have, even in this case I think, to trust the jury. In any trial, there are always items of evidence that we do not know about, even in this case I think.
….[Long, extremely uncomfortable pause]….
NOELLE McCARTHY:[doggedly positive] One thing the whole world is talking about, Zoe Ferguson, is the royal birth!
"Covid 19 coronavirus: $60 million funding boost for New Zealand's libraries"
"This is targeted funding over two years to keep librarians in jobs and upskill them to provide extra assistance to jobseekers and to people wanting to improve their reading and digital literacy skills."
..so, Librarians as unskilled Jobseeker assistants with no official title and code of conduct, has now just become the new normal.
Pity those poor deluded souls that visit libraries to, you know, borrow books….between the strict limit on titles held in each library, the aesthetic of half empty shelves (a policy in some library's..'safer' and more 'tidy looking' apparently)..and now the full and open morphing of libraries into Social Welfare offices the self fulfilling prophesy of 'no one reads books anymore' is well on its way.
I do believe that yesterday morning RNZ reported that people without computers could still access doctors on line via the libraries. Seriously.
If the powers that be wish to move the world on line..job seeking and Doctors visits and Education.. then they need to come up with specialised computer hubs, with specialised staff..computer lounges in winz for starters. Though I guess that would only work if winz offices could become 'customer friendly'.
Libraries have become a place where the poor may have cheap access to a computer for a while… Is there any other place?
I agree with you in that I want libraries to remain as they were, with this as a temporary addition, not see the destruction of the traditional library, which becomes just a Social Welfare Office.
"This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible."
With a local majority of over 8,000, why it was was necessary for the apparent alternative Ian Dunwoodie to white ant her out of town is completely beyond civil reason. Hell, ask around town – she's a lot easier to work with than Carmel Sepuloni.
Its good to see Tangata whenua O Aotearoa receiving houners the list looks to deserve there houners from what I have seen go down in the last few months.
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 ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
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As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
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Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
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It is pretty sickening to see the expansion of an authoritarian state in real time.
But here it is: China makes a move to fully suppress all anti-government dissent on Hong Kong 20 years before the treaty signed with the UK government runs out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/world/asia/china-hong-kong-crackdown.html
This sits well with the context provided by RedL yesterday concerning the growth of Chinese aggression recently:
"1. CV19 has done two things; one is that the exemplary Taiwanese response (they actually warned WHO of CV19 human to human transmission on Dec31) is a major loss of face for the CCP, and also obviously it has caused a major distraction in the USA.)
2. The withdrawal of the USA from global affairs is becoming increasingly obvious. US overseas troop deployments in total is now less than 100,000, lower than any time in the past century.
3. The Chinese military has dramatically expanded it's capacity in the past few years. In particular they may well believe their new hypersonic missile capacity gives them the ability to keep the US Navy aircraft carriers at a safe distance.
4. They keep on saying that they are preparing for war.
5. Their military are in the middle of major invasion landing exercises on Hainan Island. Also in their sights are an invasion of the Dongsha Island group ."
More chillingly for little old New Zealand, Australia for having the temerity to propose an investigation into the Covid-19 virus in China has been delivered hard counter-hits from China with major restrictions on imports of Australian beef and barley. The next step will be coal, and they've done that before.
It may well be all coincidence, but the intended chilling effect is that Australians believe clearly that it really is retaliation by China:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/chinas-trade-bans-are-retaliation-to-covid-19-inquiry-more-than-half-of-australians-say
This has had the intended effect of getting Australia's government to prepare for some lengthy backwards moonwalking:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/22/take-a-calm-breath-agriculture-minister-seeks-to-cool-escalating-trade-hostilities-with-china-over-coal
New Zealand is now in a state where we are totally reliant on the economic performance of Australia and China. The US's Mike Pompeo may well be standing up for Hong Kong, but the contest is far bigger already. And New Zealand is closer to the crosshairs of China than we have ever been.
China has also moved thousands of troops into territory claimed by India along the shared Himalayan border
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/china-and-india-move-troops-as-border-tensions-escalate
And China's been playing silly buggers for years testing and pushing the boundaries to see if someone blinks 3 or 4 years ago when I was there, Chinese earth-moving equipment was discovered a kilometre inside Indian territory in Sikkim (adjacent to the border with Bhutan),
Xi Jinping, Trump, Bolsenaro, Netanyahu, Putin, Modi and a few others seem to want to expand their territory to accommodate the size of their egos.
In India they have sent troops beyond the area in dispute and the troops are taking up defensive positions.
The intent being to force India to agree to the border claimed by China.
In sych with the exercises to take islands by force, the message is clear. China in betraying the Hong Kong agreement has chosen to reveal it is prepared to seize by force what others do not concede in talks. It’s foreign policy is now fear and obey.
When globalism is replaced by nationalism, the wolves amongst nations soon prey on the weak.
"And New Zealand is closer to the crosshairs of China than we have ever been."
Impressive fearmongering. Extending your analogy, the CCP won't be ‘pulling the trigger‘ on NZ just yet IMHO, but (out of interest):
1. Do you think NZ recently became a little closer or a lot closer to 'China's crosshairs'?
2. With the ‘Red Menace‘ in abeyance, how best for NZ to keep the 'Yellow Peril' at bay?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril
If you don't believe that the trade embargo has happened, go ask the Australian Embassy. Ask them if they feel targeted.
But since all you can do for discussion is withdraw into a corner with your little p.c. blankie, you're clearly not built for any useful discussion.
The full Five Eyes partners have come out against China's actions against Hong Kong.
All of the actions described above demonstrate increased Chinese aggression.
“Both countries [China and India] need to activate backchannel talks and ensure that it is handled delicately.”
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/very-volatile-china-sends-5000-troops-to-disputed-border-with-india/news-story/788d455620c2728bde6dbc9b197a76c5
Trade isn't a one-way street – in the interest of balance:
Notwithsatanding your bizarre “little p.c. blankie” and “you’re clearly not built for any useful discussion” jibes, I do have concerns about the CCP’s military and (particularly for NZ) trade policies, but whipping up fear of the CCP is counterproductive, in my opinion.
Back to my lovely soft, warm blankie.
Would it be a fair assessment to say that as the fallout from lockdown unfolds; recession or depression, wide-spread unemployment and shortages of all sorts; the National Party and its supporters will do everything it can to erode public confidence in the Government, attack it's leading figures and their plans to keep the country buoyant, use dishonest methods to turn voters against the 3 parties in Government and mislead New Zealanders as to their own ability to manage the coming difficulties? Would it not be prudent/wise/morally responsible to set aside such behaviour for the good of all New Zealanders, refrain from wasting the energy we'll need and perverting the plans that have till now, served us very well, simply because National's Politicians seek to be back in power?
My best bet for the current lot in government to secure their re-employement in government via the election is to do decent work, and maybe be a little less cynical and a bit more future minded rather then just throwing around band aids to some and a big fat nothing to others.
But National will do what National does – and it would be down right foolish to believe that would not do what they do. After all they too want to keep their well paying jobs in parliament, it sure beats working in private industry – or trying to find a job – at the current times. (btw, that applies to ALL of the suits in parliament)
That's a good point.
Jones throwing his lollies at raglan wharf when there are sewage issues and a single lane bridge WDC need to deal to.
Not a good look IMO as basic infrastructure should be numero uno priority.
Council's have failed across NZ in providing basics. Central leadership required.
Dirty Politics about to kick in.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/05/29/guest-blog-manu-caddie-dirty-politics-2-0/?fbclid=IwAR3BPi9WXIcfwHzGk5nCjJUmntSc9lQ0PdMI9ldZYWQNyiUsg51EmBdRxyk
Without the Facecloth tracking code: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/05/29/guest-blog-manu-caddie-dirty-politics-2-0/
Thanks for that I will be more careful next time
All good. Not a risk, just easier to handle without the cruft.
Yes.
ditto
What if Covid-19 becomes endemic?
This would be any governments worst nightmare. Years of health and unemployment costs, limited tourism and increased crime. A person needs to work out what is and is not important when it comes to who they vote for at the next election. I do not need the National Party to tell me that a deep recession or a depression is going to be next.
"What if Covid-19 becomes endemic?"
I know I shouldn't say it, but… If we have to live at Level Two for the forseeable future I think that would be a good thing
[fairyland hat on]
Limited tourism, increased local production and we're not treating people like sardines that can be packed into an economic can for profit. We'll not have the health costs with a cultural swing to physical distancing. Unemployment will take care of itself as business adjusts to an economic model that moves away from mass-consumerism and excess profit.
[hat off]
We need a coalition government that can work within the new parameters of infection control and bring the people along with it. That government is not National. Labour/Greens have some work to do.
Your vision is agreeable. I trust the current government the most to steer the country through the rapids.
"I know I shouldn't say it, but… If we have to live at Level Two for the forseeable future I think that would be a good thing"
I say it too .
and if we don,t have to live at Level 2 that is the way we should be going anyway, after a big conversation on what kind of a country we are aiming for; sustainable or not and that starts with a big nationwide discussion on what is a sustainable population level for NZ. I see us as a Norway of the Southern Hemisphere with our wilderness areas no longer being compromised and our manufacturing growth an extension of our agrarian production.
Miravox – No it wouldn't.
And I cite:
The law sets up the legal framework for future alert levels as there is no longer a State of Emergency. It effectively allows the Health Minister to issue an order that would make alert level rules legally enforceable.
That might include, for example, the ability for police or "enforcement officers" to close certain premises or roads, ban certain types of travel or congregations, or require people to be physically distant or to stay at home in their bubbles if necessary.
It also would allow warrant less searches of private property if there was a reasonable belief that the alert level rules were being broken.
Every Human Right organisation has voiced concern and while Hong Kong fights against state and police control, NZ seem to embrace it. Go figure.
Something about the prospect of drowning in your own lung fluid makes people support infectious disease control, eh.
Fair call. I shouldn't have generalised. I'd like some ofthe benefits of Level 2 to become normalised in our everyday life without requiring restrictive legislation for that to happen.
I'd like not for us to go back to the mass tourism, mass consumerism and businesss as usual with the exploitation of people and planet we have at Level 1. I like that we have practically ended people living on the streets at level 2.
Amen to that, but lets not get the focus away on any unintended consequences.
We certainly need to prioritize and I would say 2 issues need immediate attention: clean water and a stop of pumping the life (literally) out of aquifers and transport infrastructure including rail that gets diesel trucks off the road. It would provide plenty of work in that downturn and contribute to a better way of life that the next generation deserves.
Just a start and it is feasible.
"What if Covid-19 becomes endemic?"
Well shortly New Zealand will be covid-19 free- in a world where covid-19 is endemic NZ will be the most or one of the most popular places in the world for TV and Movie making – bring your staff do the quarantine and then you can do the work just like you used to – anywhere else not a shits show
A friend was saying today, that a good mate of hers who works in the film industry, was telling her the same. And the flow on effect for the hospitality industry could be just the boost they need.
Yes. The issue then becomes what is the best use of *our time and energy and creative powers? All of us.
Enjoy and share and walk around with chorus in your head all day. 🤣
HRH* Nathleigh has produced this stan music video to recruit Australia's next Prime Minister. 😁😁😁 So please help to spread the word =) (*Human Resources Headhunter)
https://t.co/i8CN0IBNiL
❤️😁
Haha, nice one Jess. Will try and put that up as a post later on.
Jess Nice one I shared that.
There is a return to the '90s in the US. Tensions are high just like the tinder box that was set off by the beating of Rodney King.
The police actions are bad enough, but the following inaction compounds the injustice.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/300023356/violence-looting-in-minneapolis-after-george-floyd-police-killing
Chuck D and Public Enemy called it before it kicked off.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k6MlwT1lBk0
Public Enemy wasn't commenting on police brutality or racism.
They were complaining about representations of black people through Hollywood.
Burn Hollywood burn I smell a riot
Goin' on first they're guilty now they're gone
Yeah I'll check out a movie
But it'll take a black one to move me
Get me the hell away from this TV
All this news and views are beneath me
So all I hear about is shots ringin' out
About gangs puttin' each others head out
So I rather kick some slang out
All right fellas let's go hand out
Hollywood or would they not
Make us all look bad like I know they had
But some things I'll never forget yeah
So step and fetch this shit
For all the years we looked like clowns
The joke is over smell the smoke from all around
Burn Hollywood burn
Yes, ostensibly the song was about racism and Hollywood.
Not everyone that was rioting was on the streets because of Rodney King.
In the same way folk that are upset now, isn't just because of Eric Garner and George Floyd.
Hollywood's profound influence also impacted on the woman who phoned police because a BLACK man was videoing her recently.
P.E. we're spot on, not bad for a bunch of 'rabble rousers'.
Edit oops, sorry mods, spotted the F in the name field too late…
Reinforcing prejudices
I was reading last night how quickly a person can get hypoxia (condition where not enough oxygen makes it to the cells and tissues in the body) during an anaesethic. When I saw the footage of the officer obstructing the airway of George and hearing George say he could not breath and the officer ignoring George and seeing George lose consciousness and the officer still not moving I realised that I was witnessing manslaughter.
I do hope that the officers are all put on trial and I know that this will not bring George back.
I am outraged and I suspect this occurs a lot and is covered up. There is a lot of ongoing tension in the USA with lives not mattering and due to the officers behaviour they have created further distrust and frustration in those who want change.
Murder, not manslaughter. Nice try.
I initially wrote murder and changed it as Floyd did not die at the scene.
So Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd without malice or forethought?
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1266134329870225409
https://twitter.com/DelilahBenson12/status/1266139481406689280
Paramedics worked on him for an hour at the scene but could not revive him. He was killed there.
An earlier report said he died in hospital, this is why I said "did not die at the scene." It is clear that Floyd was killed and who killed him.
Murder is if he intended the person to die.
That having been said, it has long been recognised that restraining someone improperly can lead to their death. Shit, I was only a bouncer and I was explicitly taught to be exceptionally careful about it. Including warning signs like "I can't breathe" followed by "playing possum" [which isn't].
In an equitable society, I suggest that there would be some criminal issues for a court to consider.
he might not intended,
but he sure as heck could not give two fucks if the guy did die.
so yeah, murder fits. Nothing accidental about having your knee on the windpipe of a man in handcuffs for nine minutes.
the only reason this guy is not in prison is because he wears the blue uniform. Anyone else would be in the box, and charges would be thrown at them.
Law's all about intent.
And it's a bit difficult to lean on a windpipe when they're face down.
I do agree with your last paragraph, though.
and one could argue that keeping your knee on the winpipe of a men who is restrained by handcuffs and two other officers is intend.
To bad if he lives, really. The intend was for him to die.
The cop intended to do no good, and it matter not one bit to him if the guy on the floor lives or dies. And that my friend is intend.
btw, he was charged with third degree murder.
Maybe they need a few new laws on cop who murder while in uniform.
If it can be argued one way, then it can be argued the other. That is what courts are for.
3rd degree murder is basically equivalent to manslaughter. If the cop intended him to die, that would be second-degree murder (plain murder in NZ). If the cop had planned in advance to kill him, that would be "first degree" murder.
It's not a “return to the ’90s”, it’s normal life there. This virulent and sinister racism, from Central Park in New York to San Francisco, is a constant in the United States.
Ice Cube probably said it best about the Rodney King riots:
https://youtu.be/C8V66bxvM2Q
"Riots"? You mean “rebellions.”
https://twitter.com/marclamonthill/status/1266018234073038851
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Nhu_uxRR2og&t=55&app=desktop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Lou_Hamer
Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without Forming Private Equity Firm First
That is some brilliant dark satire… I hope.
Nikki's shoulders.
https://www.facebook.com/tomsainsbury6/videos/3180121542027187/
😂
You are awful – but funny.
Lmao !!!
A week ago Simon Bridges was still leader of the National party. Ah, the good old days.
Remember when making a silly comment about hair dye was enough to get the eyes rolling? That now seems like a pearl of wisdom. Under his successor (assassin) the eyes have been spinning so fast they've fallen out of their sockets. The gaffe-meter is broken.
His latest gem: "Most New Zealanders are unemployed, but they don't know it yet" (yesterday).
Most.
Meh, he’s just projecting his own dire situation onto most New Zealanders. I feel a bout of solidarity with comrade Muller coming up.
Todd Muller mash-up/take-down.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1265645303748628485
A week is a long time in politics. It can only get better from here onwards. But in all seriousness, the Opposition is in serious disarray, ERC has been disbanded, and the only flutter of an election contest is some predictable sparring between the PM and the Deputy PM.
Atleast Winston v Arden is a fair fight, Ardern v muller will be like watching Shane Cameron v Dave Tua again .
Mike Tyson vs Stephen Hawking.
They’d still offer Tyson $20 million for a round of shadow boxing.
Boring Bill English did 3 rounds with a boxer for charity it showed him to be slow and out of touch like his political career.
Or Ryder v. Slater. (Muller, it hardly needs to be said, is the bloke in red.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUdYgBhF9-w
That 23% of Nat MPs having any business experience is telling, given their constant call that they are the party of Business. And I think Muller being in big business management is a far cry from owning and running a butcher or hairdresser or a service station.
National’s business experience during a pandemic is zero.
Much respect to the creator, that was epic
Labour bottling it again. Already sold out housing, beneficiaries, public transport and now fresh water standards. Next stop climate change…
Now now, stop beating on poor Labour, they're only on 59%. Peaking, so the only way forward is down. Show a little compassion!
And Marama says it's a win for the Greens, which means leftist solidarity hand-holding with Labour, right? https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/28-05-2020/te-mana-o-te-wai-whats-in-the-governments-new-freshwater-cleanup-package/
"Prominent freshwater expert Dr Mike Joy said the advice from scientists and Kahui Wai Māori (the Māori Freshwater Forum) had “fallen on deaf ears.” “Instead, it appears the Minister for the Environment has caved into political and industry pressure to further delay implementing the long overdue instream nutrient limits.” He added that “the limits proposed by the specialist panels were key to achieving real change, and far from being extreme, would have simply brought New Zealand into line with the rest of the world”."
Yeah, but he's an ecologist and there's never been a place for such people in the Labour universe. Can’t support the capitalist system by listening to eggheads.
Read all the scientific reports the government released as part of the government policy.
Has 100 times more weight.
translation: we can't rely on science and best practice using the precautionary principle because too many politicians are beholden to the corporate industrial dairy lobby who are going to fob everyone off for as long as they can in order to keep strip mining NZ. Let's take a few decades to sort things out as the science can't tell us how to run extractive industries without damaging the environment.
/spit
Joy nailed it. If you're quitting smoking, there's little point in dropping from 3 packs a day to 2.5 packs if you have your lung health in mind.
Yep, industrial farming is up there with the tobacco industry. Also, the climate deniers, who basically used the same tactics 'there's not enough science yet'.
All the other scientific and economic reports were published at the same time, in Scoop, if you dared to look. OR even read.
And instead of spitting, have a look at the Greens praising the policy to the gills.
None of them are climate deniers either. Not one.
Go on though, keep emoting. You haven't mentioned the Nazis yet.
Lol, but you did.
If you think the policy is sound, then put it up against what Joy is saying.
The Greens are saying it's way better than before, of course it is, National basically said for nine years go ahead and treat rivers like sewers.
I trust the Greens and Sage in particular, and I assume that they've built in many useful things despite the limitations. But it's stupid to pretend that this is adequate and is not a trade off with the industrial farming economy. Are there going to be reductions in dairy farms? Conversions to regenag? I'm guessing not, that it's ambulance at the bottom of the cliff that people are still being allowed to push ecosystems off.
Shame Trump didn't move so quickly (or at all) on the Virus problem.
Now cases are ca 20k per day and 1000+ deaths per day
With nearly 1,8m cases and over 103000 deaths
BUT BUT allow checking on the lies he tells GEEZ, that is a really serious affront!!!
This morning an NZR journalist reported for Goldsmith that he couldn't get up to date numbers on the correctness of the Grants given to businesses. He was told that audits were ongoing and quarterly reports would be issued. So far no charges had been laid.
How is this important enough to lead the news? How can Goldsmith get such a non-story published?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018748484
It is about accountability of government in extraordinary times, so quite fair. It's what we fund an Opposition for.
Barking at imaginary passing cars isn't an attempt at accountability.
Auditing claims isn't a 5 min exercise, it requires time and effort. It is entirely logical to report on the auditing of claims on a longer time frame than benefit applications, or positive COVID-19 tests.
Reasonable to ask.
Ok to ask. But they got an answer that the audits were ongoing so why the headlines?
Someone in govt has told Sepuloni to promptly reverse her resistance: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/417855/government-backtracks-on-wage-subsidy-audit-data-moves-to-weekly-reporting
I'd actually like to see a full list of the claims made rather than that silly little box where you try to get a name to come up. It would be a lot easier to check.
If only because a lot of places have a trading name but a different legal name.
Cuomo? No, no, NO.
His comedian brother at the 3:40 mark…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH7vOm_qA-A
Scientist Mike Joy in his own words about this government diluting water policy: https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-government-ignores-expert-advice-in-its-plan-to-improve-water-quality-in-rivers-and-lakes-139554
Jesse Mulligan said before he interviewed Mike Joy yesterday: "This is the first time I've had you on the programme for years."
Why would that be? He has on a propagandist for the farming lobby nearly every week.
or kicking the can just past the election?
Sam Ackerman is due to shed some unwarranted tears this morning RNZ National, Friday 29 May 2020, 10:20 a.m.
Right now, Lynn Freeman is interviewing Filipina filmmaker Ramona Diaz. One of the things she's talking about is the use of fake news and disinformation by the egregious President Rodrigo Duterte. Well worth a listen. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon
Unfortunately, at 11:30 Lynn will talk to sports reporter Sam Ackerman, who is apparently going to lament the loss of Radio Sport.
W T F ??!!??!? The death of Radio Sport was long overdue. If ever there was a source of fake news and bigotry, it was that joke of a station, with its dismal line-up of "talents" such as Tony Veitch, Martin Devlin, and Murray Deaker.
Tony Veitch…. https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/07/tony-veitch-newstalkzb-in-action-dec-28.html
Here is Martin Devlin, beside himself after news of a British athlete being killed after being hit by a hammer-throw….
DEVLIN: He got killed with a HAMMER! Oh GOD, just imagine the MESS! Ha ha ha ha ha!
STEVEN HUNTER AKA "SHUNTER" (PRODUCER): Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
DEVLIN: Ker-SQUISH!
SHUNTER: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
DEVLIN: Splat!" SHUNTER: Ha ha ha ha ha! DEVLIN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/lest-we-forget-martin-devlin-jan-26-2011.html
And, of course, Murray "Deaks" Deaker…
CALLER PHIL: I want to talk about the All Black squad. Murray, I am very, very concerned. I think we will have a lack of intelligence, once the ball goes past Daniel Carter.
DEAKER: [long, thoughtful pause] Conrad Smith?
PHIL: Yes, but what if he’s injured, Murray?
DEAKER: [long, thoughtful pause] I know what you’re getting at, Phil.
PHIL: Yes, well, it needs to be said, Murray.
DEAKER: [with utmost gravitas] A lot of people talk about this in private, but are not prepared to talk about it in public. But I don’t give a TOSS about that! The problem is that in this country we have a lot of boys that are EARLY MATURERS.
PHIL: Yes, oh yes.
DEAKER: These guys haven’t got the slender build of, say, a Dan Carter, or a Jeff Wilson, or an Andrew Mehrtens.
PHIL: That’s right, Murray.
DEAKER: So they’ve never had to jink, or sidestep, or run around any opponents. They are so HUGE that all they have ever had to do is barge past them. They’ve never had to THINK! Because they’re early maturers!
PHIL: It’s a worry. Because these overseas teams, they’re THINKERS, Murray! They’re private school boys, and they’re thinkers.! The Australians, Murray, they’re just so EDUCATED! I remember once when the lowest-qualified player in the team was a chartered accountant, Murray!
DEAKER: Yes, but we’ll not see the likes of Nick Farr-Jones, David Kirk, Sir John Graham and Sir Wilson Whineray again. They were very bright guys!
PHIL: I’m so worried, Murray….
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-21032012/#comment-449711
Ackerman is lamenting the loss of this garbage? In fact, the demise of Radio Sport is about as regrettable as the demise of Whaleoil Beef Hooked.
Why do I get the feeling you have a severe hatred of Radio Sport.
Funny thing about radios, some people may not understand.
You don't actually have to listen to them and you can switch channels.
It's gone, Chris. Thank God. The curse of Breen strikes again.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/aedf0a83eba45622947b6c988131ded1/tenor.gif?itemid=4731328
Anyone who links to themselves from 2011 and 2012 should probably provide all the answers you need to know.
The links were to particularly grievous and stupid comments by commentators on the (blessedly) defunct Radio Sport. That's why I keep a record of these comments, which would otherwise disappear into the ether. It means that when I point out that a particular sports broadcaster in fact knows nothing about sports and is a brutal bigot to boot, I can provide evidence.
What do you do, sir?
Dont worry, mate, I'm just having a laugh, but if you're that bothered, stick it in your data base and I'll have a look for your killer zinger comeback some time in 2034 lol
Killer zinger on the way, buddy.
In 2034, by the way, Pres. Eric Trump will be midway through his second term, and down here Jacinda will be nearing the end of her seventh. Former President Obama will still have sixteen more years to live….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/who-will-be-lead-mourner-at-obamas.html
But Morrissey, life is not worth living without cricket on the radio.
Fair comment, my bearded friend.
Unfortunately, Radio Sport didn't stick to that core business. Instead, it turned over the airwaves to the likes of Deaker, Devlin, Veitch, Doug Golightly, and Willy Lose….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/search?q=Willy+Lose
Agreed…I never listened to them.
Neither did anyone else. That's why NZME did what it had wanted to do for years, and got rid of it.
Sounds like a protracted torture in brain activity deprivation. It' is as tedious as listening to the Trump alternately blustering and whining without the moments of inadvertent ironic humour.
I gave up on sports when I stopped playing them. I can't quite understand people who waste time on listening to them or even attending sports grounds to watch them. Don't they have anything else to do?
Fair comment, Lynn. The problem with Radio Sport was that they had 18 hours to fill every day.* Even if they had been knowledgeable, eloquent, and witty broadcasters, that would have been an almost impossible task. They possessed, sadly, none of those qualities.
* Midnight to dawn they paid for infinitely superior American sports talk radio.
It's more about the community, if you're watching local sports. Otherwise, I find it hard to get excited about some weekly competition that drags on and on. World Cups and the Olympics are pretty cool tho
lprent….oh you are so wrong…..I remember listening to England v Pakistan on the BBC World Service while sleeping under the stars in Tibet in '82.
(This was before Thatcher removed funding for Test Match Special on the World Service-unforgivable.)
Second time – 3 hours apart – got a phony call with female USA accent from automated scam machine claiming that someone has been spending $1000 with Amazon on my credit card. Phoned the bank just to check out and they report a wave of it going on – FYI. Bank says if you follow their directions they give you two different buttons for choice and you will be directed to a person who will harvest your card number from you. Warmer job I imagine than fruit picking or cabbage cutting out in the fields.
Yes we have had several calls. 3 yesterday, None today yet!!
Hang up Don't respond.
Try this " I'm so glad you called, can we talk about Jesus ? " Works every time, but mostly if I've had a bad day or even only a semi-terrific one I'll purge with a diatribe of the most offensive shit imaginable, its quite cathartic.
Remember these arseholes know they are committing a crime.
The calls are machine recorded.
So not ta goer.
That's awesome, thanking you Adrian, I'm going to use that one day 🙂
@ greywarshark (14) I was with a friend during the week when she received the same message, however this time the caller had an Indian accent. Fortunately, she was on to the fact it was a scam. Yep, the scammers are out there. Caution is needed.
Feel like reading TheStandard.org.nz with new fonts and wider layout? (client side only)
Here's my custom CSS: 🤓 (work in progress)
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/roblogic/09d2bb93a67483f05158ccda0ae3fe53/raw/
It works with the Stylus browser extension.
Thank you. Look forward to delving over coming days.
Oh, Stylus needs the filename “stan.user.css” also. So install Stylus, then go to
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/roblogic/09d2bb93a67483f05158ccda0ae3fe53/raw/stan.user.css
and it should give TS a nice makeover 🙂
https://twitter.com/roblogic_/status/1266205469497896960?s=20
Nice use of css.
You can just add that directly to your browser as well…
Cheers, a bit of creativity and hacking is always a fun diversion
Ta. Hacking the layout appeals.. 🙂
how to win all the votes you want ONE active case in NZ
Excellent news.
https://www.twitter.com/radionz/status/1266177542647504896
It is, yet we are still at level 2, level 1 potentially 3 weeks away. It is easy (I grant you) to comment after the event.
I hope our govt. acts promptly to accelerate our move down the alert levels.
Allowing a home-grown scientific consensus to inform our Covid-19 response has safeguarded health – such a common sense approach, compared to the ‘balance‘ advocated by market forces. I’m enjoying retail shopping and restaurant dining now – what’s the rush?
A period of two infection cycles between easing restrictions is prudent.
We don't want to fuck it up at the end and have to redo two months of effort.
That is pretty much the basis you have to use for this particular bug. Even the 2 week infection limit looks like it may have been optimistic as there are now examples of people getting infected and not displaying any virus shedding until weeks afterwards – but it looks like it is doing the job – so not worth changing.
I was just reading some wannabe guest post writer sending something in via email proclaiming the theory that covid-19 is just a hoax by the government. Feels like they cribbed it off some other site as clickbait (and that is what their reference site looks like as well). All assertions based on the idea that it is just influenza and that nothing the government did (like closing and controlling borders in this and previous outbreaks) made any difference.
I was tempted to put it up just so I could eviscerate the ‘author’. The increased total death rate above normal in the US, Brazil, UK, and now Russia of this ‘influenza’ even with the social distancing there being the obvious club to beat the dipshit with. But since it was, like almost of 30 odd similar propositions I get daily, just an excuse to provide links to other sites – I restrained myself. Besides the dipshit clickbaiter would never actually come and argue their point.
Reminds me, I need to write a explicit policy on asserting false facts in comments and providing links and/or not defending their usage. I don’t mind rapping people over the knuckles about it. But it is starting to get irksome. Plus the National party appears to be making using completely false facts their only strategy based on some of the social media I have seen.
One from Pugh used pre-covid data from debt levels in Greece against projected post-covid-19 debt levels in NZ which was a pretty egregious bit of lying. I was thinking that a immediate 6 month ban unless they justified their usage to me in email was the appropriate site response – with all correspondence published.
Was it the same one as I mentioned in the back-end?
I thought that a driver for the shutdown was to protect our health system from being overrun – Not to have 0 cases
Level 2 – Reduce The disease is contained, but the risk of community transmission remains
Level 1 – Prepare The disease is contained in New Zealand
https://covid19.govt.nz/assets/resources/tables/COVID-19-alert-levels-summary.pdf
Yeah it was initially, as per the plan designed around an influenza pandemic. But we get a new influenza strain each year, and apparently covid might be a bit more stable. Days after we went into L4 specialists started suggesting we might be able to eliminate it, rather than just slow it.
There's been some kerfuffle about the semantics of "eliminate", but I guess it's generally the "plan A+" crowd that won, rather than the "plan B" dude lol
I can accept that, yet that is not what is being conveyed and what was the aim/measure to achieve before we progress down. What will happen in the future when there are a few cases diagnosed ? Do we progress up the levels again for eradication to mirror what has been achieved this time ?
Depends on the scenario of "new cases".
For the foreseeable, we'll have border quarantine (and testing of improving sensitivity and timeliness). If a case shows up there, no worries it's doing its job. Although staff who contacted that person might be themselves quarantined.
If a case goes through quarantine then presents with covid a week later, we might see a national or regional alert escalation, or maybe a combination (e.g. the locality of know contacts goes to level 3/4, while the rest of the country goes back to level 2 to aid tracing if an unkown contact went out of town).
A random case popping up with no known travel association? That's when people will be probably looking at a nationwide L3/4 again, because it breaks the known behaviour of the disease.
But these are possible variations, not gospel. It's a judgement call at the time, based on many factors and inputs. But so far the govt's been pretty good at communicating what is happening, why, and what the risks are.
I'm not sure what you mean by "not what is being conveyed". The elimination goal has been pretty consistent for a couple of months now, which is actually pretty miraculous in this fast-changing situation.
Appreciate the wish for certainty now and in the future, but also understand the need to adjust responses and 'level details' as NZ gets on top of this pandemic threat, learning as we go.
Covid-19 is novel, with no proven treatment or vaccine (yet) – caution is (still) warranted, IMHO.
Personally I remain unconvinced that they will get a vaccine within 5 years. And that is only because they were getting close to trialling SARS and MERS viruses using new approaches before this particular coronavirus popped up.
The more that is revealed about covid-19, the more unconvinced I get. A 32k base pair virus from inside bat colonies – and one that appears (in my view) to have had about a decade adapting to humans. It looks both endemic, unlikely to get a widespread herd immunity, and vaccines are unlikely to have a long term effect. I see this hanging around and if a vaccine is achieved, is going to require boosters every few years.
Specific antiviral treatments to prevent slipping into a critical state seem more likely in the medium term.
Which of the Level 2 restrictions do you consider an unreasonable restriction?
About all I can see that's significantly different from Level 1 is limiting gatherings to 100 or less, ensuring physical distancing, and record-keeping of visitors.
That doesn't seem onerous, particularly since we are still in a time period where undetected presymptomatic or asymptomatic community transmission could still be occurring. It seems to me to be very low pain to maintain Level 2 for a few weeks longer to minimise the risk of the massive pain of having to go back up the levels.
I am fortunate and I gather from your comment that you to are also (I hope so), but ask that question to someone who has or is considering shutting down their business or has or could lose their job, and the consequence of that be it financial, health, relationship etc. The delay of progressing thru the stages by 1,2 or 3 weeks could make a difference to them.
What kind of business might be at serious risk of having to close because of another few weeks of limiting gatherings to 100 people, some physical distancing, and maintaining visitor logs?
I would guess it's very very few. The massive lockdown we have already had will have already culled the marginal businesses, and another few weeks of level 2 won't affect the vast majority of businesses that were robust enough to survive until now. It will affect a few weeks of profitability for sure, so the owners have an incentive to make as much noise as they can, which is where I think the push to go to Level 1 is coming from.
A few more weeks of Level 2 certainly won't change the outlook for the business sectors that have been wholesale obliterated such as tourism.
With no community sport until June 22nd there is 2-3 weeks where cafes, bakeries, mobile coffee etc miss out on that trade.( + the feel good factor of life returning to some resemblance to normal) Some of these businesses are next to parks that when there is no action there is no foot traffic that is 2/7 of their trade. Restaurants, pubs etc that to comply with distancing have limited what their business can cater for. Professional sports events that have eliminated crowds those industries that support these events. Whist these may not be large compared to already announced closures, tell that to those affected.
I would suggest to those affected that they ponder the consequences of having to go back into a Level 3 or 4 lockdown.
And that they also ponder that the team that made the decisions that appear to have us on track for a return to domestic normality much faster than our peer nations are the same team that see our best course is to maintain Level 2 for a few weeks longer. Their record of success so far is awfully hard to argue with.
NZ at level 2 is now less restrictive than Queensland which has similar (almost) zero new case rates and very few active cases. Queensland, like WA, NT, SA and Tas are keeping their borders closed to Vic and NSW where there is (admittedly low) community transmission. NZ is probably one of the very few advanced economies with such opportunites. Count your lucky stars you live where you live.
Well around my hood it's starting to look pretty normal apart from the distancing, the hand sanitiser and the signing in. I've also stuck my head into a number of the small local businesses that I would really hate to loose – $50 note in hand to donate if needed- to check that they are okay and found that they were fine with lots of work and any worries had vanished.
I still have more to check though. Stuff did take the donation but happy with that.
same here redbaron. in my small town and the neigbouring two I was in yesterday, shops were busy and car parks hard to find. the only closed shop in my local town is a pizza shop that closed three weeks prior to lockdown.
Look up South Korea's second wave 54 cases overnight, and Australia has some community transmission. Safe rather than sorry. June 8 is not long now.
Great collaboration between NZ Defence Forces and US Defense Forces.
https://youtu.be/zUuOnl4f0rE
Ahhh Jingoism
If only they kept it to musical items, it would be wonderful.
If only they kept it to musical items, it would be wonderful.
+100
And also carried that approach forward to their police forces in USA to ours in NZ and Australia too. So sad to hear about this latest USA police outrage. Chris Trotter eviscerates it:
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/05/29/poisonous-legacy-why-george-floyd-could-be-choked-while-the-whole-world-watched/
I think Morrissey has covered this also further down.
Chris Trotter? It will be interesting to see what he says if those cops are acquitted. I wonder if his views have evolved since the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013…
Beautiful work both teams ka pai e kia ora.
Thanks Macro Good one.
..so, Librarians as unskilled Jobseeker assistants with no official title and code of conduct, has now just become the new normal.
Pity those poor deluded souls that visit libraries to, you know, borrow books….between the strict limit on titles held in each library, the aesthetic of half empty shelves (a policy in some library's..'safer' and more 'tidy looking' apparently)..and now the full and open morphing of libraries into Social Welfare offices the self fulfilling prophesy of 'no one reads books anymore' is well on its way.
I do believe that yesterday morning RNZ reported that people without computers could still access doctors on line via the libraries. Seriously.
If the powers that be wish to move the world on line..job seeking and Doctors visits and Education.. then they need to come up with specialised computer hubs, with specialised staff..computer lounges in winz for starters. Though I guess that would only work if winz offices could become 'customer friendly'.
Libraries have become a place where the poor may have cheap access to a computer for a while… Is there any other place?
I agree with you in that I want libraries to remain as they were, with this as a temporary addition, not see the destruction of the traditional library, which becomes just a Social Welfare Office.
They always dress up things like this as being about 'jobs'.
Libraries are community knowledge hubs already, not just places with books. I'd trust a librarian to help people more than a winz staffer.
Not great but it recognises the value of libraries and librarians and also the impact on rates which might otherwise lead to library funding cuts.
The Pride of Minneapolis. NOT.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12335764
Here's one of Minneapolis' finest working as agent provocateur….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU0fkDT4q4k&feature=emb_logo
"This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible."
https://www.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266231100780744704
Fork !!! It's going to be real ugly by the time we wake up tomorrow.
Best news all year:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/national-mps-say-law-change-lets-government-scrutinise-every-foreign-financial-transaction.html
So Louisa Wall has exited out of Manurewa. One hopes she will get a suitably high position on List. Politics sometimes is a hard place
With a local majority of over 8,000, why it was was necessary for the apparent alternative Ian Dunwoodie to white ant her out of town is completely beyond civil reason. Hell, ask around town – she's a lot easier to work with than Carmel Sepuloni.
Not sure It's it's going to run seat there's is someone else
[Fixed typo in user handle]
See Moderation note.
What the actual fork… the CNN team were just arrested while they were reporting on the riots..wow!
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1266315061221613569
Only the black CNN reporters, the white ones were fine…
'Murica…. go figure.
Not sure its Ian that is going to get the seat there is someone else
[Fixed typo in user handle]
See Moderation note.
Kia Ora Newshub.
The art plagiarism hiding behind A court??????.
People who stuff there recycling bins with rubbish are so short sighted wake up.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori News
Its good to see Maori coming out with online resources to support tangata mental health.
Ka kite Ano.
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora Newshub.
Opening Travel to the Pacific Islands is logical.
That's good to see People supporting Aotearoa business.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori News.
Planting a billion trees is awesome I hope all our Waterways edges are planted with trees to help keep them clean.
Find Your Fish helping Rangatahi find a great future is a good idea Kia Kaha.
Ka pai Te reo Maori in Te whare
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori News.
Yes it does exist here in Aotearoa.
Its good to see Tangata whenua O Aotearoa receiving houners the list looks to deserve there houners from what I have seen go down in the last few months.
Ka kite Ano.
The kawaii run is awesome at Te motu Te Kawaii run is awesome at Te Waiapu to it great to see a ruhui at Te Motu.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
The Am Show.
With that data on whare heat it good that the government has $50.00 a week winter heating payment for the tangata that need it the most..
In winter and we still have warm weather like this That's global warming.
Plant based plastic bottles is good news especially when it breaks down fast in the environment.
Ka kite Ano