Linda Clark senses a certain sensationalism creeping into some political commentary – possibly stemming from the “entertainment-ification”, to coin a neologism, of politics.
“The commentators that really grate for me are not the Matthew Hootons or the Neale Joneses – the people who are ‘in the game’.
“The commentators – and I think they are political commentators, even though they would deny it vehemently – are the Mike Hoskings, the Kate Hawkesbys. The people who know very little about the subjects they talk about.
“They take no responsibility for the damage they do on the way through … and that’s much more damaging."
As I call it, Majick Radio…and similar neo infotainment. For morons. fark, cant stand it…: )
I remember when sir Key started his messin' with NZ TV. And Julie "Reality" Christie rolled out the mindlessness….for the mindless. (as well as some Flag waving : )
Where is OUR PBS !? RNZ has lost something somehow…not quite sure about them now. I mean having Michelle Boag on as talking head? Well I spose that was before the Leak… but Ben Thomas ?! (described as Hootens mini-me by "someone") lol
Anyway I get a laugh out of Steve Braunias : The secret diary of the Collins gang. "Special Agent Hooten"..lmao : ) Pay at the Herald..Free In ODT : )
Bomber Bradbury sums up the wretched Christie perfectly in these two sentences:
Julie Christie was cultural herpes who used TV to distract and dumb down a country. She is the McDonalds of entertainment and is nothing to celebrate or support.
However, as Bradbury wrote that, he must surely have felt a pang of guilt at his own role in a thankfully almost completely forgotten Christie-level program called Stake-Out, which consisted of secretly filming electricians, decorators and other working stiffs as they committed heinous Shane Jones-type transgressions, and then confronting them in the most high-handed and humiliating manner. It was the sleaziest, nastiest and most spurious local television program since Brian Edwards' lamentable attempt at a comeback in 2003….
I went to check out the Green School yesterday, 12 mins driving from home to get there. They explained that the scheduled tour was booked out – due to pandemic rules they could only cater for 20 – which was why the register button on their website didn't work last night!
New Plymouth mayor, Neil Holdom, says he wholeheartedly supports the establishment of Green School New Zealand in Taranaki. “New Zealand has a long history of innovation and leadership and what the world needs now are more environmental entrepreneurs tackling the problems brought on by a rapidly growing population, unable or unwilling to mitigate its impact on our planet."
“As a parent of three children, married to a teacher with a Masters in Education, specialising in working with gifted and talented children, as well as those with special needs, it is my view that our current model of education will need to evolve significantly to effectively prepare our young people for the future.” Holdom says the Green School model has the potential to blaze a new trail in New Zealand’s education sector.
“Our government has set some ambitious goals for New Zealand’s future. New Plymouth District Council has set some ambitious goals for our district’s future, and these goals will not be achieved by sticking to traditional attitudes and approaches. We need to support the Green School NZ team and help them transform their vision into reality in Taranaki, as a gift to our children.”
We know state education has failed to respond to climate change. That's why kids need a positive alternative. The adapt to survive ethos is evident:
After a decade of educating change makers in Bali, we bring with us a new model of education… Beyond mastering mathematics and literacy, our students will learn to think like entrepreneurs through student-guided, hands-on projects.
Connected deeply and richly to the natural environment, students will learn Maori cultural values intertwined into the spirit of the school, grounding us in the whenua, the land. Most importantly, Green School students cultivate a love of learning as a lifelong pursuit in and of itself. https://gsnz.openapply.com/
"the Green School model has the potential to blaze a new trail in New Zealand’s education sector. "
Why on earth would anyone support the blazing of a new trail?? How terrifying that thought is!! Leaving the well-worn path – no thank you!!! Stick to the track, Tootle!
For every child. The learnings from these front-runners will be taken and applied in every school in New Zealand (best case scenario). Who else will trial these systems and approaches? Enviroschools has been operating in New Zealand, with Government funding, for years and years; an injection of funds into an already-ahead-of-the-play enviro-school like this one gives the whole country a boost in the green direction.
"We know state education has failed to respond to climate change. That's why kids need a positive alternative. The adapt to survive ethos is evident:"
Now why would state education have failed so miserably? Surely not because it has been under-resourced and deliberately run down compared to private education since the neo-liberal privatisation push that started in the 1980s?
Why was the phasing out of state funding for private education ever written into the Green Party Education Policy if it was just a bit of old baggage that should be swept aside when a situation like this arose?
Do you not fear that the moment a school like this gets such a boon, the whole profit-gouging Charter School crowd will be queuing up asking for the same preferential treatment? Under a possible future National govt, would the Greens not look ridiculous arguing against privatisers' Charter schools after this episode?
If you so strongly believe in the innocence and beauty of such élitist schools, please be honest and openly advocate altering the Green Party Education Policy so that people can see what the Greens really stand for.
I am getting tired of the 'My Party, Right or Wrong' cant.
That is how the privatisers always work. Schools were offered special temptations to suck them into Bulk Funding of salaries in the '90s, and the cant at the time was always, "What possible harm can there be in this innocent, benign gesture? How could you be so dogmatic and blind as to oppose something that is good for education?"
The four ‘shovel ready’ Ministers ‘bought it’ because it met the criteria of the CRRF.
The funding for this individual construction project is not some ideological Education policy such as Bulk Funding or Charter Schools; that is false equivalence.
The scholarships are real enough (see my comment @ 2.1.1.2.2.1).
I can’t possibly comment on the other parts in your comment but I did try to find out more about the scholarships.
But we do have a scholarship program already. We're committed that 50% of the school as we grow will be key, first of all, and the scholarships will be available for local learners first.
Green School aims to allocate 20% of its places to scholarship students from Bali and other Indonesian islands. These scholarships enable some of Indonesia’s brightest, most creative, and engaged students the chance to receive a world-class education.
I tend to ignore almost everything else when I’m searching for specific info; ads don’t bother me the slightest. Dare I say it, I am pretty good at finding things.
The columns that look suspiciously like paid content especially vex me, for some reason. At best it's shite journalism asking patsy questions, but usually it's simply a publication masquerading as honest when it's simply spouting any old bullshit for cash.
There was zero information in that first link. There was shit that looked like information, but there were few actual specifics. Even the number of people on scholarships didn't say full ride scholarships (zero dollars, zero transaction fees) vs partial discounts on the massive fees.
The more I read about it, the more this "school" looks like it will churn out a bunch of trust fund kids who will spend their 20s instagramming their world tours before walking into C-level jobs in their family's business.
I do not see it churning out a cadre of environmental heroes.
I have not looked to school programme or pedagogy behind it because the precipitating issue has nothing to do with education as such.
I do not see it churning out a cadre of environmental heroes.
That’s a shame because we obviously need more heroes. How about a hybrid between Zorro and the Green Lantern? You might well be correct with your sceptical (cynical?) view. However, in the interim, it will create jobs and stimulate the local economy.
It's not the programme, it's the vibe that comes through from their marketing.
Saying that someone who rocks up in a ferrari shouldn't be judged on their environmental impact because they might have made a huge effort and ditched the private jet… yeah, whatevs.
Yup, the Ferraris are abundant among the Green School alumni. So predictable, so true, no need to check, of course. Facts do not matter, opinions rule. Yeah, I know this is most likely a cherry-picked selection of their ‘success stories’ and I’m as ‘convinced’ as you are that all the other alumni are smiling assassins without any empathy for the poor and disenfranchised.
… looks like it will churn out a bunch of trust fund kids who will spend their 20s instagramming their world tours before walking into C-level jobs in their family's business. (All the while congratulating themselves how environmental they are.)
My reaction to rummaging around on their site and the rest of the webz was pretty much the same.
"Nobody is saying that this particular project won't create jobs. Just that it's a profit-driven industry contrary to Green Party policy."
I'm under the impression that the jobs are building industry jobs, and one of the covid priorities was to stop building firms from going under. i.e. keep existing jobs.
I agree that the funding model of the GS and international students is an issue, but am not sure how it's too different from the tertiary education sectors large reliance on international student fees.
"Now the worry is that, of the "shovel ready" projects, this one was maybe closest to Green Party ideals. And that's not on the Greens, that's on NZ."
I understand that Shaw got quite a lot of gains in selection process, which was pleasantly surprising. I wish they would release the details on this. Not all the business details, but show case the green gains better. Might be a conflict between Shaw's Ministerial role and the GP though, or they just don't have time.
was it hipkins or robertson saying this was a project the Greens specifically were supporting?
Sounds like they divvied up the applications between the party and it was largely political horse trading. But it's on NZ as a whole that there wasn't e.g. a tidal generator and other renewables close enough to submit applications that the Greens could get behind.
And yeah, I'm not completely fine with the tertiary education sector marketing over merit philosophy, either. But then the entire fees thing pisses me off, and it's slowly turning into a perception of some students that they're paying for the degree, not the education.
Agreed that this is on NZ. We have the green edge that NZ wants, not what we need by any means.
The impression I have is that the four budget Ministers (GR, Jones, Shaw, don't know who the fourth was) worked through the process of shortlisting, and in that process Shaw worked on getting the projects more green generally. This surprised me, that there was this degree of influence, but it's hard to tell specifically.
Hipkins, when pressed, said it was something the Greens wanted, but I don't think that is true (the caucus wasn't involved in the decision afaik), it was Shaw and his team. So Hipkins was too removed to have a good informed opinion, and/or there was an advantage to Labour in presenting it this way. But his first response was to say it wasn't Ed money and journos should ask the relevant Ministers about it.
I haven't listened to what GR said. But afaik Labour signed off on it and were ok with it too. It met the main criteria (jobs) so I expect all the parties were pretty happy.
did you ask him if the 'families of the international students that get to live with their children in NZ get a permanent and or work permit to live in NZ courtesy of the 48.000 school fee?
did you ask him how many kiwi kids can get access to his school for courtesy of 24.000 fee?
And is that really worth the career of a Green polititan who put his own likes above that of the party, and it is really a green school when you import people – whole families from overseas to live here, you now, the all vaunted carbon foot print – or is that only something we should worry about when it is a public venture rather then a private one.
I believe that no one in this country would care one bit if this amount of money would have been spend equally on the poorest schools in NZ for the same type of curriculum, but alas it is getting spend on a 250 kids and their f amily who are mainly from overseas.
This schools should have never been in the shovel ready programm, if they can't pay builders atm or pay them with the fees they collect already then the best the should get is the wage subsidy, maybe a government loan – free of interest and repayable from a years after the loan was issues, see the exact same conditions other private businesses (not AIRNZ of course) have given.
For both the Government and the Greens, this was a dumb move. And i don't watch any of the guys that are so often spoken about here cause they have nothing to say of interest, but i see people every day, and this yesterday was a point of discussion. Tone: I can't stand this government giving money willy nilly to everyone and their dog. Try counter that with your 'its green". Good luck with that.
This was the most tone deaf decision this year. It wins the golden toilet seat.
In the meantime our kids sit in cold, damp, leaky, totally non green – can't give a fuck type building – schools and are told to wait a few more years for something better.
” We know state education has failed to respond to climate change. That’s why kids need a positive alternative.”
yeah, because like right now , we don’t give a shit and shovel money up the arses of people who will do everything to keep kids from poor people out. 24.000 a year is not affordable for 90% of people in this country. That is why the state fails in anything regarding climate change. Because it can’t be bothered doing something. And besides, if the private businesses such as this, that serve the very few, very rich and very conntected don’t get money where would people like our beige suits in parliament get jobs once they are done giving taxpayers money to private businesses.
It was money from the Covid Recovery fund for shovel-ready, applied-for, criteria-meeting construction projects that would boost local economies. Education is provided-for (or not) in another budget. Shaw has worked hard to boost those as well.
So State schools which have outstripped their capacity because of roll growth and are now way overcrowded, or old schools which are just crappy for clearly observed reasons, have to wait years for Ministry funded expansion and improvement plans. Yet a private school with wealthy feepaying parents scores 11 million odd. Dressing this up with green virtue signalling doesn't cut it. It's bullshit.
It would be better for you to ask Jacinda those questions, Sabine. James told us he was approving budget recommendations, so it was a coalition funding initiative. If the concept of `Labour led' seems valid to you, give that a try with her.
Yes he was announcing with his Ministerial hat on (as Associate Minister of Finance) as I understood it, not as his leader of the Green party hat.
Seems that this fundamental constitutional point has been overlooked in the rush to condemn. I guess he could have said ‘I won't announce’ but then that would probably go against yet another constitutional expectation that the time for 'fighting/concerns' is before the decision is made while you are part of the team (ie coalition) making the decision.
In view of all the hoo-ha have I missed something here? Are people not able to see the nuances and difference between MPs/parties and Ministers in Govt?
In view of all the hoo-ha have I missed something here?
Not obviously. He apologised to GP members, but I didn't hear a specific reason for the apology, so I presume Green sectarianism required a ritualised formality – sufficiently general and bland to appease those into purity at the expense of coalition consensus.
Are people not able to see the nuances and difference between MPs/parties and Ministers in Govt?
Some commentators here qualify for that description. Those that went straight into shock-horror mode in response to his announcement, plus those for whom partisan ideology is meant to defeat the common good.
I've appreciated your stance on the situation during the past couple of days, btw. I felt the need to refrain due to lack of explanation for the announcement (in msm) so, like Weka, I held off forming an opinion until James briefed us.
Understood and appreciated. My opinion crystallised over the last few days too; the communication was lacking although Chlöe Swarbrick did a very good job of responding to questions in her daily Facebook sessions. It should have been handled better and not left to me having to go on FB and watch long videos in search of the scant answers.
did you not go to the school to speak to the people there? that is why i asked you if you also asked these questions as i personally would have asked. 🙂
Cause that is why i asked you :). As for labour, well, its the lesser evil, i don't really expect anything from them. Talk to Jacinda, she is kinder gentler then Judith, but it seems as happy as to sponsor private business that serves no one but the very rich.
Ideology embeds. Problem is, the world changes around it. Ongoing relevance of the ideology then comes into question. In times of rapid change (such as now) folks often attach limpet-like to some rock of ideology amongst the turbulence. Those going with the flow cruise on by, looking askance at the weirdos as they drift past…
oh if you can afford 48.000 a year for schooling a kid and get a permanent residence permit it sure is sound.
It just makes no sense what so ever for the tax payers whose kids sit in cold, damp, over crowed schools with leaky roofs, shotty internet connection and not enough ipads for all kids, nor student aids and free school lunches. These are nice to have projects and thus are not getting anything.
NZ banks are appalling at investing in anything beyond housing loans. If they were doing their jobs then yes, we would not require any public subsidies like this.
James Shaw apology last night has left a gaping hole in The Green Party as far as their own political credibility, and more importantly their values and principles as an alternative left leaning party to support goes.
Shaw has on the one hand confirmed what we already knew about him..that he is a liberal free market green politician ( with all the numerous contradictions and unseemly contortions that involves ) but on the other hand he has shown us something new about himself…that he is a straight out gutless bullshitter ( “We were thinking about it in terms of building and constructions, not education") and worse than that it turns out Shaw is actually one of, and represents the interests of, the elitist greens that the working classes have always suspected that greens were being constantly drawn toward ideologically…probably one of the most self serving, narcissistic, political groups operating today….yuk, the Greens should have made Shaw step down…..not only is he an elitist prick, he is a stupid one, imagine doing this just before an election..what a fucking dummy.
Adrian-Slight over-reaction there perhaps? Shaw realised he had made a dumb mistake and has now owned up.
Shaw is the man who saved the Green Party at the last election and has been largely instrumental in keeping it relevant during this term of government.
Adrian-perhaps you would like to compare the policies of the Greens to the other parties in order to justify your manic attack on the Party, rather than justify the attack on this relatively minor issue? For instance what do you think of their Wealth Tax?
The media climbed all over this comparatively small mistake in order to try to push the Greens below 5%.
For some reason half the people on this site don't seem to feel the need or believe it appropriate that citizens hold the politicians that they say represent them to any kind of account.
Lets just make it clear here what James Shaw just did…he knowingly and under the name of the NZ Green Party funded a private elite school to the tune of 12 million dollars..in direct contradiction to the stated aims of that party…why?,..seriously if that isn't plainly obvious to you and you really think he made a mistake, well then you are just being willingly stupid and there is no need for us to continue this conversation.
Your personal dislike for James Shaw is making you vitriolic and unreasonable. James Shaw is highly regarded in Parliament across the spectrum of politicians.
interesting. So you want the Green Party out of parliament. How would that work in terms of your politics? We'd then either have a Labour only govt, or a Lab/NZF one, or a Nat one. Please explain how this is an improvement on what we have now?
No what I want is just one political party in NZ that isn't headed by a liberal, free market elitist bullshit artist… I know that it is regarded as extremely unreasonable and almost radical around here to demand highly held values and principles from our selected political representatives… you and others here obviously don't and that's your prerogative, but I do, and sure as hell am not going to shift from that position or apologize for demanding that high bar from people whom I vote for.
Calling for the Greens co-leader to step down 8 weeks before an election IS a call for them to be out of parliament (I don't think you are naive enough to believe that such a move wouldn't drop the GP vote).
Under James Shaw's leadership, The Greens have been somewhere other than in Opposition; that is, at the levers of power, where we wanted them to be since forever and achieving as much as any small support party could ever hope to achieve, but, let's call for his head! Off with it!
I must have. What I do remember though is his ability to increase the Wellington Central party vote by 10% over two elections. I naively thought he could do something similar at a national level. The sooner we find out what Chloe can do instead, the better imo.
I would have thought a Green Party supporter would not be into cult-style political leadership heroism but I guess for some the symbolism of a pixie princess riding a snow white unicorn has a too strong a pull to resist. Chlöe Swarbrick is a more natural communicator than Jacinda Ardern who tends to come across as patronising and too polished at times, in my opinion. Mind you, I haven’t watched any of Jacinda Ardern’s Facebook videos (I avoid videos like Covid) so I cannot really compare 🙂
Burning something down in the hope that something closer to the ideal form will magically appear does not have a good track record of success in politics, especially democracy.
The trouble with most regulations bonfires that have been proposed is that they have been proposed in the transparent desire that nothing will grow to replace the incinerated regulations.
You'd have more credibility with that framing if you could prove that state schools are teaching the same curriculum as the Green School, eh?
Kids need to upskill to survive now. As long as state educators ignore this imperative private educators will be seen by the public as providing the only intelligent option.
"that he is a straight out gutless bullshitter ( “We were thinking about it in terms of building and constructions, not education") "
Having listened to the 30 min explanation by Shaw in the GP zoom last night, and then the 45min Q and A from members and the co-leaders, I think you are flat out wrong here. His indepth explanation of how government actually works, in this instance the process of development of the fund, how applications were received and dealt with, which people were involved (the four budget Ministers) and weren't involved (GP caucus), the speed at which massive decisions were being made during the first months of the pandemic, and the factors that affected his decision making. All of that was nuanced and real. I learned a lot and my guess is that I already knew more about how government works than you do.
Your comment appears to be based on nothing other than a large amount of antipathy towards Shaw because he wears a suit, and a desire to beat the Green Party with your anti-neolib stick despite the Greens having the most progressive set of left wing policies in parliament. Your position here is mind boggling.
For those that want to pay attention to what is happening, the Green Party education policy remains the same, and Shaw is completely behind that. The GP's other policies remain the same too.
How can we have any faith in a leader who does the opposite of Party policy.? This own goal is just so stupid at this time that it beggars belief. A guaranteed vote loser like this is more serious than you believe. I find it so disheartening that he did this when everything is at stake. Trying to sweep it under the carpet by making out it is trivial doesn’t work. Something miraculous needs to happen for us to get to 5%.
People make mistakes. He didn't intentionally go against party policy, he just failed to take it into account when looking at a project through an entirely different lens while under a lot of pressure.
I have more faith in Shaw now, because he immediately admitted the mistake and is making amends.
Shaw says it's not true to say the Greens have abandoned their policy to not publicly fund private schools.
"Well that is our policy and this money doesn't go into the operations."
Asked if he was being cute, Shaw replied, "there's a balance of objectives we're trying to achieve here – remember that we are going through an unprecedented time with Covid-19''.
It's just a building, he says.
"In terms of the infrastructure spend, it is in many ways just another construction project.''
He's only become contrite under a barrage of justified criticism.
This has been reported as being $43m a year, according to a report prepared by Green School International and peer reviewed by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.
However, GSNZ has refused to release a copy of the report to Stuff.
“It has gone through all of the traditional and official checks and measures required by the government criteria for the shovel ready funding and GS (Green School) doesn’t feel it is our responsibility to justify this document.”
…our elitist green educators don't feel they have to.
Legitimate general issue there about accountability and transparency (especially given Shane Jones' involvement) – but do the other businesses which receive investment from that fund have to release their business case details to the public, if the govt agencies involved don't as part of that process?
Businesses keep information that could benefit their competition confidential for the obvious reason that it could benefit their competition. There's no reason the government should require them to make that info public just to satisfy your curiosity.
NZ is a representative democracy, ie we elect people to represent us and then leave them to do that until the next election. They shouldn't keep information confidential unnecessarily, but neither should they publish info that should be confidential.
I hope their flash laminated beams pull apart.
The roof falling on them would teach those kids not to go to a private school, huh?
Its government money…I am so over this 'commercially sensitive' and 'legally privileged and confidential' shit. If they can't declare all…bugger off and find your putea from another trough.
Don't worry about the children, they'll have plenty of warning. And they can always slum it at the state school down the road for free while the problem's sorted…oh, that's right…that school hasn't even got it's $400,000 yet to fix the leaks.
You're entitled that opinion, and the businesses are entitled to the opinion that if the government's making a special offer to help them fund commercial infrastructure development, then commercial considerations apply.
It is a construction project, for buildings, not funding a Charter School from the Education Budget. People who cannot tell the legalistic difference or who cannot cope with it should sue the Government.
The more I think about, the more I appreciate that this happened because it highlights so many issues and reasons why political discourse in NZ sucks big time and why we make no meaningful progress and, in fact, seem to be going backwards.
It happened because Shaw's desire to promote Green gains during a campaign outweighed the predictable downside in this case. Neither he nor his staff caught the implications and managed expectations. Ongoing strategic comms failures in that machinery since Labour hired away some of their key people.
Not a snowball's chance in hell! Since the funding already had coalition support before James agreed, pissed-off Greens can't see Labour or NZF as better options. So you think they will refuse to vote at all?
Human nature will prevail. Few folk persist in resentment at others in their tribe for long periods. Greens are even more inclined to tribal solidarity than others. Sometimes pragmatism must prevail over principle in politics. This is one such occasion. The disgruntled will gradually figure that out.
They will stick to their values and principles and punish the Green Party into the lush wilderness of purity and moral virtue where unicorns graze and pixies flatter around unencumbered by Covid. That will teach them to betray their loyal followers once and forever.
The trouble is you're trying to look at the situation through a lens of reason without political bloodlust.
The political and electoral environment we live in is one of emotion and insanity not reason. Funny thing is how some who dislike the Greens intensely and have no truck with them at all are now telling them what and how they should be doing things.
The decision was indefensible by Shaw and he apologised for that.
The project is defensible and worthy of funding, in my opinion. The $11.7 million would not have gone to a public school but to another shovel ready project or nowhere.
The project is defensible and worthy of funding, in my opinion. The $11.7 million would not have gone to a public school but to another shovel ready project or nowhere.
then maybe the issue is really that the Labour led government could not be bothered to add schools iwth leaky roofs and not enough classrooms to the shovel ready jobs. Cause it appears that there are quite a few schools that would like to be considered shovel ready, but they are told to wait for a better day or something.
Now that takes me back to my secondary school days in the early 1960's. The school was opened in 1955, just in time for the first of the new surge in post war children. But it leaked like a sieve. The DP announced at morning assembly to a great outburst of laughter,
"When you are walking down the corridors, please don't kick the bucket, they are there to catch the drips."
Leaky buildings have been with us for a very long time, schools are given funding for maintenance and other operational expenses as part of the Budget.
There are different pots of money for that. Unless they’re private schools they wouldn’t be eligible for CRRF AFAIK but that seems to lead into a political cul-de-sac because of the Green Party.
A further $23m will be used for rightsizing Spotswood College in Taranaki, and replacing poor condition classrooms. Design work will start from the middle of 2021.
You got any idea off the top of your head how deeply Medsafe look into the manufacturing side of things before they approve a vaccine or drug?
My general impression is that some former soviet countries might even be ahead of the west in general virology and stuff like phage treatments, so I find it plausible they could have developed an innovative safe and effective vacccine. Provided it's also manufactured up to standard.
My experience with stuff manufactured in Russia is the quality control is appalling, particularly given the stuff I was involved in would very likely get used in safety critical applications. Then there's the apparent low value put on health and safety in russia generally. So I'd be awfully wary of a vaccine produced in Russia, but probably more comfortable with a vaccine developed in Russia but produced somewhere else more reliable.
Review of manufacturing is a critical part of Medsafe's review and approval process it would be unlikely to be approved without an on site audit by an approved agency such as the EMEA, MHRA, FDA etc
“It appears the agreement signed up to by the former government was loose and failed to protect taxpayers’ money. It seems to have been rushed through without the necessary due diligence being carried out.”
He said Wellingtonians and taxpayers “deserve to know exactly what has happened”.
“We want to make sure future governments aren’t left in the same predicament our Government has been.”
Step aside from your focus of the green school, take a minute and look at a bigger picture, because there are larger issues than that. Don't lose sight of the forest for the tree's and all that, excuse the pun
First up this morning: She predicted our second wave, and she’s reviewing the global response. Former Prime Minister
Now if I want to vote for a pro-environment party it looks like I'm faced with the charming choice between wasting my vote on the sub-5% Greens or the barely over 1% TOP.
The Greens are giving money to a private school, they are the devil incarnate. The world is going to end.
Simple solution: Vote for Judith Collins to be Prime Minister and Gerry Brownlee the Deputy. She is our saviour, he is or saviour. Everything, (well almost everything) will be wonderful with the world.
StoatsSome on the political left are so well adapted to negotiating tight spaces they actually have whiskers on their tails to help them reverse out of tight burrows.
When asked to define what his second-term agenda would be, Trump replied:
“But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing, we’d solidify what we’ve done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done.”
. Chinese New Zealanders not part of Major Party Support Re-alignment
A strong majority of Chinese New Zealanders say they still prefer National to Labour, even though they're pretty happy with the government's Covid response.
.
Ethnic Chinese voters
Party-Vote Intention .. 2020 …. 2017
National ………………. 62% ….. 71.1% ….. Down 9.1 Points
ACT ………………………. 8.8% …… 2.0% ……. Up 6.8 Points
Labour …………………. 21% ….. 21.6% ……. Down 0.6 Points
NZF ……………………… .1.2% …… 2.4% ……. Down 1.2 Points
Green …………………… 0.8% ….. No Data
.
Preferred PM
Collins ….. 52.2 …… English … 58.5% … Down 6.3
Ardern …. 26.5 …. Ardern ….. 20.1% ….. Up 6.4
.
Satisfied : with the government's response to Covid-19 …. 74.7%
What it indicates is to me is they are playing 'follow our local leader' and have little understanding of how politics works in NZ or what the various parties actually stand for. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the next couple of decades as their off-spring become eligible to vote.
Simpler: we have predominantly approved only the most wealthy migrants from that part of the world, so they back the party which supports the wealthy. Not the same as the 'support the current govt' thinking some commentators believe must apply. And certainly not ignorance of our political landscape.
Forget the Lincoln Project nonsense – the best ad around is from the latest cool old guy, Ed Markey, It's from his Democratic party Senate primary against the Pelosi-endorsed Joe Kennedy III. Effectively Markey is saying, "We should elect Biden, then pressure the crap out of him to do then right thing. You need me to help apply that pressure."
And speaking of the Lincoln Project ads, here Sam Seder convincingly elaborates on their real purpose. The ads are not aimed at converting Trump Republicans to voting Biden. Instead, they are aimed at persuading the left that Trump is merely an exceptionally atrocious individual – and not a natural outcome of Republicanism, or ideologically consistent with Republicanism. The correct response to the Lincoln Project ads is therefore, "thanks but no thanks."
The correct response to the Lincoln Project ads is therefore, "thanks but no thanks."
No. It's really not. The best response is pointing out that CovidCamacho is merely the embodiment of everything the Repugs have been working towards for decades.
I appreciate that. Seder is not the only one to try to shed some light. Your reference further back was on the mark when you mentioned 'remaining shreds of sanity.' The whole thing is insane. (America) Even the insane bits have grown side strains of insanity, and so on, and so on …
The only normal is that nothing is 'normal', anything goes.
Just one part of the total economic response is the " Summary of the Initiatives in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF) Foundational Package" that money has already been targeted for. The initiatives funded are extensive, swift and smart directing monies into areas not really given consideration before ( because of Covid19 impacts and a green influence).
The social well being investment is becoming more balanced imo and has begun to head into newer ways to distribute state spending. Non-profits also get a bite of the economic stimulus pie addressing issues at grassroots and have a future focus on sustainability and equality issues.
Along with the measures of Government response to Covid19 in February 2020 , Treasury have compiled this recent report on all post Budget monetary support across sectors including spending that is on top of the $50 billion CRRF package of which $ 14 billion remains.
National's quickly stitched together- old policy posing as new- is pitiful as their response in the wider context of issues facing people in even the near future.
The old neoliberalism is implicit in their released Business policy and Freshwater policy. Along with National resurrecting an " people can eat shit pie – social investment" approach to have social ills racially profiled then privatised, the overall picture signals the intent to bring back the abnormal normal.
Though, I'd be happy to see Judith take her own medicine, the 90 day trial and no lunches enacted on her, that would make her gone by lunchtime early October !
Or for choices on offer there's ACT spinning their new dogma to sell elitism as "The Final Solution".
Tim McCready 🇳🇿 (@Tim_McCready) Tweeted:
Got an unexpected laugh with this line from @HeatherRoyNZ! #nationnz
Thanks Sacha for that. Still having problems with reply buttons and working through mobile apps permissions , share buttons etc. Samsung did a 253 item update and has downed even logging into online websites.
I'm reminded of the American woman who attended a mass church rally a few months back. When asked by a reporter if she is concerned about the spread of the virus she said:
"I'm covered in Jesus' blood so I’m safe.
Selfish mad cow. Not concerned with anyone else but herself. Hope she caught it.
At level 2 regional travel will resume for Aucklanders. Apprehensive over the potential mobility of Covid19 across NZ next week given there's 25 new cases in last two days. Are alterations to crowd numbers a risk then in other regions, with risks like the first NZ wedding cluster ?
"Apprehensive over the potential mobility of Covid19 across NZ next week…"
Me too. Only way our Government wins on this is if the planned relaxation of restrictions doesn't result in current Covid ripples becoming waves – in the (IMHO likely) event of increased community transmission they will be castigated for easing up too soon.
Barclay, Ross, Bennett, Falloon, Walker, Boag, Woodhouse, Bridge(s), Muller, Collins, Brownlee, Mitchell, Nick Smith, etc. etc., and all right-footers.
Maybe the secret of political survival in NZ is to have no standards, no shame, and a raison d'être of self-enrichment- the secret of National's success (largest party in parliament no less).
Many NZers get a kick out of denigrating do-gooders. Where do the Green's get off, advocating for environmental and societal sustainability, when they make hypocritical mistakes like this time and time again – it's unconscionable.
Time to cut Marama, Shaw and co. down to size (< 5%), eh – definitely achievable.
Indeed, it is sad when a peaceful Green School in rural Taranaki is portrayed and treated as if it is the epicentre of Mordor and a fortress of evil capitalist parasites profiteering off the public purse.
It's remarkable to me that this one mistake could bring the Greens low (I really hope it doesn't) – FFS, tiny wee-brained lefties are now baying for Shaw's blood, and I'm sounding like Dennis Frank.
I can only hope that the standards some are holding the Greens to will be applied impartially to all other parties. This pandemic has many of us rattled and focussed on tomorrow's Covid numbers (cases and alert levels) at a time when Green party policies promoting long term sustainability and resilience are more crucial than ever, IMHO.
Rightly or wrongly, the Greens were on a pedestal, which carries a higher risk of tripping and causing injury. Some quarters [poll pun] have been trying to shoot the pixie princess off Cloud 9 and if/when that happens this Shaw shit show will be like a flea circus and pale in comparison.
Public resilience is wearing very thin, I agree. Just as well, the Election was postponed by only four weeks.
this is about the saddest indictment of these very rich people i can actually think of. Their kid did not do well in ordinary school NZ so instead of putting their considerable clout and money behind lobbying for better schools for all NZ kids, they went to Bali to study a 'green' school for the very rich kids like theirs. And then they came back and started building 'their own' schools for rich kids like theirs so that they don't have to go to the ordinary underfunded, crowded, leaky, cold, and standard schools of NZ, and our government gave them money for it.
Pathetic comes to mind, but i am sure that the kids of the Labour Party, NZFirst, the Green Party will be welcome at this school for a fee of course. And in order to pretend that they actually gave a shit about the country and the schools they gonna give a scholarship or three to one of the little poor urchins. How very very charitable of them.
Seriously i don't want to hear anything anymore about foreign students coming here for a few years of study. If we can open the borders for the kids of this school and their parents, then we can have the borders open of the fee paying kids of other people.
they could have done so much for the Schools of NZ , and instead its the parents of kids sitting in shitty schools for years on end that is going to finance their private little scheme.
btw, the owners of this schools are the HRV founders who sold for what i would guess many many millions their business and should thus be able to fund their own project.
Shame on Labour, NZFIRST and the Greens to allow this project to be funded by the public.
Green School New Zealand has a focus on sustainability, but it doesn't come cheap, with enrolment and tuition fees costing up to $40,000 for some overseas students.
now we can argue that they can't come here now, but if they get a residence permit the families can come here, be put up in a quarantine hotel for 2 weeks and bingo.
so yes, is it.
and i urge you to read the article below from a few years ago as to why the very rich owners of this school created this school in the first place, for their very rich son who was not doing well in NZ public school. And rather then change the schools of NZ for all kids they are now building one with public funds.
This project should never have been in the fund in the first place. Nothing good will come from it for the government from it. Nothing. What. So . Ever.
here read it yourself, and then ask yourself if this is what we want to fund.
They would have little chance of getting a place in the queue for non Kiwis (engineers, skilled workers will have priority), so they are will not be receiving foreigners/foreign students during the pandemic.
So your earlier foreign students dig was plain wrong.
And they invested millions setting up the school themselves (its already half built).
The fund is for business that creates on-going jobs (and in this case foreigners bring some of the revenues in) – economic growth. Which is why it qualified.
Whether I would have set up a $3B fund for such investment in pandemic impacted businesses when there were plenty of capital spending nned for HB's and schools is another matter.
The objection about money for the rich, also applies to the Americas Cup funding and subsidising film-making.
yes, they build a school for their son, and they should finish it, they have enough money, on which we can rest assured they paid as little in taxes as rich people as these get away with. But hey, money must be made and if we can get free money, even better. Just don't expect us to pay taxes or vote for Labour :).
And yes, they are actively trying to get rich people from overseas to send their kids there, they have it costed and are just now in a bit of a lurch cause there aren't enough rich people to pay for their'unschooling' green school.
And this fund does nothing to create jobs, as far as i am aware the only ones currently having work are the builders. At the very best they will be a trickle down – or rather a pissing down – on the locals that gett o be janitor, cook, cleaner, just like the locals in that fancy school in Bali. Who also are too poor to send their kids to this amazing school for primarily white people. 🙂
Nothing anyone here has said so far is anything else that any National or Act supporter here has said in defense of public money going to private enterprise. In fact all the Green supporters and their Labour allies currently sound like they are auditioning for Act.
It may have been intended and frankly i would not be surprised to hear again of this school and not in a good way,
And the very sad thing is that we have to vote for that. Cause its not as bad as Judith. Vote 2020 Labour /NZFirst/Green cause we are not as bad as National/Act.
Job advertisements for New Zealand's first Green School have finally gone online – and more than 400 applications have been received for the nine vacancies.
this is about the saddest indictment of these very rich people i can actually think of. Their kid did not do well in ordinary school NZ so instead of putting their considerable clout and money behind lobbying for better schools for all NZ kids, they went to Bali to study a 'green' school for the very rich kids like theirs. And then they came back and started building 'their own' schools for rich kids like theirs so that they don't have to go to the ordinary underfunded, crowded, leaky, cold, and standard schools of NZ, and our government gave them money for it.
You seem to be conflating things there. There will always be kids that do badly in mainstream schools. Nothing to do with the run down state of buildings thanks to National. It's about the core philosophy of state schools, what they think is important to teach, and how they teach it. The best lobbying in the world is unlikely to change that.
"Teachers were no longer hung up on his spelling, or whether his stories were shorter than the other kids', or whether he wrote on the lines. They cared about his ideas."
I have friends whose kids have been like this. Those kids did better in Steiner schools or being homeschooled. Low income households, before you go off on a rant about privilege.
I'm hoping that down the line schools like the Green School can be accommodated in the system that integrates private schools into the state system and thus influences the state system, or at least gives options for kids who need to be in alt education.
Our place is directly under the Green X23A flightpath into Auckland airport. Just now another Covid capsule quietly sneaked in delivering its masked occupants coughing and spluttering grim death.
11 community cases today and we are having to open up on Monday. This is an indication the country is going to have to live with it.
One of my Akl customers is going home tonight again. this is the second time she rode out lock down here in Rotorua. Ahh, to be wealthy in NZ, rules don't apply. In the meantime the poor sap in a bus with no face covering will get a 300 NZD fine.
Now this turns up – children can retain the virus (in the nose) for three weeks and so we have a perfect storm. Outbreaks through schools and into homes and then workplaces and then out of Auckland.
That would require an end to our elimination policy (permanent social distancing and masks in schools until there is a vaccine), or a resumed lockdown nationwide and delay of the election to November.
Given the likely cause, government policy on mask wearing will be cited and they will be blamed.
Children can carry coronavirus in their noses for up to three weeks, according to a study from South Korea.
Dr DeBiasi believes that while the "vast majority of infected children have mild or unrecognised disease," they may play an "important" role in enabling the spread of infection through communities.
The information about the three week carry duration should give the government pause about schools being open next week – or at least require mask use and social distancing.
One thing that i have observed here is people are using the app before coming in, they wait outside for the customers in the shop to leave first and quite a few wear masks. So at least here in Vegas people are trying to keep their community safe.
But i do expect the virus to travel from Sunday midnight on. No easy solutions here.
I thought that JLR took time out for quiet reflection. He must have spent the time looking in a mirror as he doesn't seem wiser after that remark about using the military. Actually JLR it is good that the forces can do some peacetime support work for their own country, they will feel good being able to help their own when needed.
And then who takes responsibility for the spread, the individual who overides risks to others and wants to leave Auckland for a wedding , or the Government?
Or the same evangelical group who have now admitted to carrying on hallelujah sessions together in secret?
And that's why all the residents of West and South Auckland have been advised to line up for a COVID test. If we all went to a testing site right now there would be insufficient testers / swabs etc. We are talking big numbers.
You already know that Belarus revolution is made by women. And I can’t stop admiring Nina Bahinskaja, 74, who doesn't give up through years and continues her fight despite intimidation. She is the conscience of the nation.
And that's why all the residents of West and South Auckland have been advised to line up for a COVID test. If we all presented at a testing site right now there would be insufficient testers / swabs etc. We are talking big numbers.
The spy sandflys could not touch Eco Maori so they setup my Tamariki an set the courts onto them the under underbelly Of New Zealand's is full of rotting people. They don't like Eco Maori showing the World their true colours hence the VENDETTA.
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Wayne Mapp (Photo: Tsmith.nz via Wikimedia) A former Minister of Defence says the government was too slow to involve the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) in New Zealand’s response to Covid-19. But Wayne Mapp, a National MP from 1996-2011 who served as Minister of Defence for three ...
Transport is our second biggest polluter after agriculture, making up 17% of our national emissions. Cars and trucks emit 15 million tons of CO2 every year. So, if we're serious about tackling climate change, we need to eliminate this entirely. Public transport and better urban design will be a key ...
Five things we’ve learnt 1. We know where the virus ultimately came from We know that the virus originally came from bats, and most probably a species of horseshoe bat in South East Asia. However, the spike protein in SARS-CoV-2, which allows the virus to attach to cells and infect ...
The Greens' greatest disappointment while in government this term has been the failure to implement a ban on mining on conservation land. Promised by Jacinda Ardern immediately after gaining power, it had long been assumed that the problem was NZ First (who have a long history of environmental vandalism). But ...
If they get into Parliament, everyone expects the Greens to form a coalition with Labour. But James Shaw has said that that might not be the case, and that they might instead choose to sit on the cross-benches: The Greens are prepared to forego a coalition or confidence and ...
Tonight was the first Leaders’ Debate, broadcast live on TVNZ 1. It was the first time New Zealanders have seen Jacinda Ardern side-by-side Opposition Leader Judith Collins this campaign. ...
Last updated 30 July 2020. The whole world is battling with COVID-19, and no country is immune. In New Zealand, our focus is getting the latest resurgence under control and making sure we put in place immediate financial supports to cushion the economic blow.As before, the best economic response is ...
Led by Jacinda Ardern, our strong, stable government has delivered results and put people first every step of the way. In health, housing, education and more, we've got a strong track record of delivering for New Zealanders. Now, we’re continuing to put people first with our decisive response to COVID-19. ...
Labour has a strong track record of making progress on the big issues facing our country. Now, as we recover and rebuild from COVID-19, we’re rolling out our plan to grow our economy, support businesses and communities, and keep New Zealand moving. If you’re still undecided ahead of this year’s ...
The Green Party is calling for Waka Kotahi the NZ Transport Agency to convert a lane over the Auckland Harbour Bridge to bus-only and make buses free to use across the bridge until all lanes are back in operation. ...
The Green Party has released its Thriving Oceans Plan, which would dramatically increase marine protected areas and ban bottom trawling on seamounts. ...
It was another busy week out on the campaign trail, with Labour focused on jobs, training, and supporting Kiwi workers. As we continue to roll out our five-point plan for recovery, we’re investing in our people, businesses, communities and vital services, so we can keep our economy moving as we ...
Our regions are a vital part of our economic recovery plan. They’re home to innovative and creative businesses, and the backbone of our export economy - which is why Labour will continue to support our regions to grow as together, we rebuild better. ...
National’s ‘alternative budget’ that includes huge cuts to the government’s operating allowance would risk gutting critical public services, and put health, education and nature at dire risk. ...
Data released this week shows that, while New Zealand is not immune to the economic impacts of the global pandemic, our strong health response has meant we’ve been able to get our economy going faster than many other countries. ...
This year’s election is on 17 October - and it’s coming up fast! With one month to go until Election Day, we’ve come up with 17 ways you, your friends and family can get involved in our campaign and help Labour keep New Zealand moving. ...
PREFU has given a good insight into what was required to ensure New Zealanders were largely supported to continue work and remain healthy during COVID-19, but it is clear we need additional revenue raising measures ongoing, Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said today. ...
The Green Party is disappointed with the Labour Party’s decision to reverse their three free years education policy and back down on their commitment to postgraduate student allowances. ...
In the first two years of our term in Government, we gave teachers record pay rises as a way of recognising the lack of adequate adjustments over the previous decade and the significant role they play in the lives of children and young people. We also increased the number of ...
Labour has a proud history of supporting working New Zealanders, whether through the implementation of the 40hr work week or the introduction of the Working for Families package. ...
The Green Party welcome Labour’s commitment to extend the living wage to Government contractors, but will push for Fair Pay Agreements across industries in the next Government so more New Zealanders can earn a dignified income. ...
The Green Party is urging the Government to act on its commitment to te reo Māori, by making it a core subject up to year 10, and including te reo courses in the Targeted Training and Apprenticeships scheme. ...
We're officially back to the campaign for the 2020 General Election. The campaign may look a little different this year, but our candidates are still getting out and about in their communities and spreading the word about how another term of Labour will keep New Zealand moving in the right ...
You might have heard a bit of discussion about Government debt lately, as experts weigh in on the COVID-19 economic recovery. If you’re wondering why it’s such a contested topic, or even if you’re unsure of what Government debt actually is, then read on - we’ve got you covered! ...
The Green Party has released its Farming for the Future Plan, including a $297m fund to support farmers and growers to transition to climate-friendly practices. ...
We believe every New Zealander deserves the chance to make an informed decision on Election Day. We’ve answered some of the most common questions on our 2020 tax policy, including how much money will be raised from our new top tax rate, and how this will be used to control ...
The Green Party says Labour’s energy policy is a step in the right direction, but the Greens would go further and faster to meaningfully tackle the climate crisis. ...
All this tax talk leaving you a bit dazed and confused? Read below to find out more about our progressive tax system and what Labour's policy means for you. ...
We’re committed to managing the Government’s books responsibly and keeping debt under control while supporting our people and our economy through the 1-in-100 year shock caused by COVID-19. ...
The Labour Party has moved towards more progressive income tax, but is not addressing the growing wealth gap and inequality in Aotearoa. Labour’s new revenue policy also doesn’t help pay for the necessary response to the COVID-19 crisis, Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said today. ...
As New Zealanders we are proud of who we are, what we stand for, and the way we weave together different worlds and cultures to create our unique national identity. ...
It is appalling and negligent that landlords are being encouraged to keep their properties cold and damp until after the election, as advised by the NZ Property Investors Federation, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
The expanded scheme will cover: People who have COVID-19 like symptoms and meet the Ministry of Health’s criteria, and need to self-isolate while awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test. People who are directed to self-isolate by a Medical Officer of Health or their delegate or on advice of their ...
The Government is putting in place a range of immigration policy changes to help fill labour shortages in key industries while ensuring New Zealanders, who have lost jobs due to COVID-19, have the chance to find new employment. “Two key sectors we are moving to help are horticulture and wine ...
The Government has established class exceptions for border entry for a limited number of veterinarians, deep sea fishing crew, as well as agricultural and horticultural machinery operators. “Tight border restrictions remain the backbone of the Government’s border strategy to protect New Zealand against COVID-19 and ensure New Zealand citizens and ...
The Crown will not appeal the Court of Appeal decision in the Dodds v Southern Response case, Grant Robertson announced today. “Southern Response will be paying the damages awarded by the Court to Mr and Mrs Dodds shortly. The Crown was already meeting their legal costs for this appeal. “The ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing nearly $30 million in a diverse range of projects that will create immediate and long-term jobs and lift economic and social outcomes for Northland and its people. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones made the announcement today in ...
The Coalition Government has committed to invest $27 million in COVID-19 vaccine development through the global COVAX Facility, Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced today. “The COVAX Facility is a key part of our COVID-19 Vaccine Strategy to obtain safe and effective vaccines. It allows us to invest in a high-quality, ...
The Government will provide up to $1.69 million through the One Billion Trees programme to Māori landowners to make their whenua more productive through the planting of forests, both native and exotic, and improve economic and environmental outcomes, Forestry Minister Shane Jones has announced. “Around 1.5 million ha of land ...
People planning to head outdoors now have a resource that lets them know how accessible an area is for people with varying levels of mobility, Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. The Halberg Foundation, Sensibel, and the Department of Conservation (DOC) have launched Accessibel, a new tool which helps ...
One of the most significant battle sites of the 1860s Land Wars will receive $2.96 million from the Provincial Growth Fund to improve the site and help tell the New Zealand story to visitors, Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. Nanaia Mahuta ...
The journey towards recognising Māori as an official language and taonga has been captured as a web series and launched today during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, announced Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni. “Te reo Māori is a living language, and understanding its significance, and pathways to ...
Today’s better-than-forecast GDP figures show the expected impact of the decision to act quickly to protect New Zealanders from the global COVID-19 pandemic. GDP fell 12.2% in the June quarter from March, reflecting decisions to close New Zealand’s borders and enter Alert Level 4. “This result was better than the ...
The Government is investing $39.7 Million over four years to support the educational needs of Pacific learners and families in the regions hardest hit by COVID-19, with Auckland getting an immediate boost, Associate Minister of Education Jenny Salesa says. “Like all New Zealanders Pacific families want learners to do well ...
New Zealand’s goal of 100,000 kiwi by 2030 is being helped by an extra $19.7 million in funding to accelerate iwi and community efforts to protect kiwi, Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced. “$19.7 million of Jobs for Nature funding is being invested in kiwi conservation activities including increased predator ...
Ensuring New Zealanders can get the best deal on their electricity takes a step in the right direction today with the South Island launch of the EnergyMate pilot run by the Electricity Retailers’ Association, says Minister of Energy and Resources, Dr Megan Woods. EnergyMate is an industry-led programme providing coaching ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter announced today that the Government has reached its target of 50 percent on women on state sector board and committees – setting a new record level of women on state sector boards. “This Government is committed to having more women in leadership roles - ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford released today the final Government Policy Statement on land transport (GPS) 2021 which outlines the planned $48 billion investment in services and infrastructure over the next decade. “The final GPS supports our Government’s five-point plan for economic recovery by confirming our record investments in transport infrastructure ...
Three ambitious and cutting-edge research programmes that will lift New Zealand’s advanced energy technology research capability over seven years, have been supported by Government today, says Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods. The projects will each receive a share of $40.7 million investment from the Strategic Science Investment Fund. ...
The critical area for forensic examination known as Pit Bottom in Stone has been reached in what is a major milestone for the Pike River re-entry project, Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little announced. “The infrastructure located in Pit Bottom in Stone is of very significant interest in ...
The Government is working on how New Zealand’s retirement income policies and settings can best support Kiwis in light of the COVID-19 economic recovery, with the help of the Retirement Commissioner’s latest review, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said. “The Retirement Commissioner’s three-yearly review into New Zealand’s retirement ...
A new digital hub and development centre in Murupara will be instrumental in growing the region’s productivity, said Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau at the official opening of two community initiatives today. “I’m pleased to be here celebrating a significant milestone for two projects set to make a ...
PREFU shows economy doing better than forecast Unemployment to peak at 7.8%, down from 9.8% forecast in the Budget Year-to-June accounts show tax revenue, debt and OBEGAL better than forecast Global forecast downgraded as COVID-19 second waves and uncertainty grows Balanced plan to support critical public services, manage debt and ...
The Kāpiti Coast town of Ōtaki will receive $1.4 million in Government funding for two projects providing scores of jobs for locals while improving community facilities, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Māoriland Charitable Trust will receive a $900,000 Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) grant to upgrade the ...
The Provincial Growth Fund will provide $11.88 million to fund fencing and waterway projects nationwide that will improve the environment and create jobs in their communities, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. “These projects will create more than 100 jobs nationwide with work starting within the next couple ...
As part of the COVID-19 recovery, the Government has strengthened its procurement rules to ensure its annual $42 billion spend creates more jobs, uses more sustainable construction practices and results in better outcomes for Māori and Pasifika, Government Ministers announced today. Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford says the $42 ...
The Government is supporting a major upgrade of Timaru’s iconic Theatre Royal and the construction of a new connected Heritage Facility museum and exhibition space with $11.6 million from the Government’s Infrastructure Fund, Jacinda Ardern announced today. “We heard the call from the community and the council. The Theatre Royal ...
Chrissy Montague (formerly Armstrong), barrister of Auckland has been appointed as a District Court Judge with Family Court jurisdiction to be based in Wellington, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Ms Montague commenced practice in Auckland in 1987 and went into general practice dealing with Wills, Estates, Trusts, Conveyancing, Relationship Property ...
A Proposal to provide for the development and operation of commercial film and video production facilities in areas of Christchurch has been given the go ahead. Hon Poto Williams, Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, has approved the Proposal, which was prepared and submitted by Regenerate Christchurch. Minister Williams ...
As part of the Government’s focus on building closer partnerships with Māori and enhancing the quality of, and access to, Māori medium education, a payment of $8 million will be made to Te Wānanga o Raukawa in partial recognition of its Waitangi Tribunal claim (WAI 2698), Associate Education Minister Kelvin ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage has announced a $19 million investment over four years in an important forest restoration project involving a partnership between the Department of Conservation, iwi/hapū, the Bay of Plenty and Waikato Regional Councils, community conservation groups and organisations such as Forest and Bird across the ...
New Zealand will be the first country in the world to require the financial sector to report on climate risks, the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw announced today. The changes build on the huge progress this Government has made to tackle the climate crisis. “Today is another step on ...
Economic activity across the Auckland region and the country bounced back to levels experienced under Alert Level 1 following Auckland’s move out of Alert Level 3, analysis in the Treasury’s latest Weekly Economic Update shows. The analysis of economic data since Auckland’s move out of Level 3 shows: Auckland card ...
Takiri mai te ata, ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea, tihei mauriora! Tātou katoa ngā iwi o Aotearoa, tēnā koutou! Tēnā tātou e whakanuia ana i te wiki nei, te wiki o te reo Māori Greeting to you all from Otepoti, Dunedin. This week is the Māori Language week and ...
More mental health and addiction services are available for young New Zealanders in Rotorua and Taupō, Wairarapa, South Canterbury, Dunedin and Southland from next month, Health Minister Chris Hipkins and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter say. “The Government is serious about making sure New Zealanders struggling with mental health ...
The Manuherekia catchment in Central Otago is the third exemplar catchment to be targeted as part of the Government’s plan to clean up waterways by supporting community-led programmes. Environment Minister David Parker said the Manuherekia catchment is vitally important to the people of Central Otago. “The Manuherekia rises in the ...
The Government has agreed on a preferred design for the new Dunedin Hospital featuring two separate buildings, and has provided funding for the next stages of work. Minister of Health Chris Hipkins says Cabinet has approved in principle the detailed business case for the new hospital, giving people in ...
New Zealanders across the country are set to mark history as part of the Māori Language Week commemorations led by Te Taura Whiri i te reo Māori this year. Māori Development Minister, Nanaia Mahuta says the initiative will mark history for all the right reasons including making te reo Māori ...
More than 1000 teachers, support staff and school leaders have graduated from a programme designed to grow their capability to use te reo Māori in their teaching practice, as part of the Government’s plan to integrate te reo Māori into education, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Being trialled ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, says the Toloa Tertiary Scholarships which aims to encourage more Pacific student numbers participating and pursuing STEM-related studies in 2021, are now open. “These tertiary scholarships are administrated by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples (MPP), and are part of MPP’s overall Toloa ...
Four Bay of Plenty timber businesses will receive investments totalling nearly $22 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to boost the local economy and create jobs, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Rotorua-based sawmill Red Stag Wood Solutions will receive a $15 million loan to develop an engineered ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand is exploring the viability of working with partners to conduct a search for the black box on the Gulf Livestock 1. “We know how much it would mean to the families of those on the ship to understand more about ...
The first leaders' debate lacked stand-out moments, but covered a wide range of topics plaguing the country as New Zealand feels the pain of the Covid recession. Laura Walters reports. Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins have gone head-to-head on inequality, infrastructure, jobs, environment and the Covid-19 border response in the first ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Associate Professor for the School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University Prime Minister and Labour leader Jacinda Ardern and National Party leader Judith Collins have met for the first televised debate of the 2020 election campaign. With the results ...
Analysis - Riding high on the back of a stellar public poll, ACT leader David Seymour was the standout performer at the finance debate in Queenstown tonight. ...
Who came out on top in tonight’s leaders’ debate? Here are our debate watchers’ verdicts. A bit knackeredGiven that most of the country, most of the Covid-battered world, is basically just knackered, is it any surprise that tonight’s opening debate felt a bit knackered, tooWhether it was in an attempt to ...
Labour leader Jacinda Ardern and National leader Judith Collins are facing off in their first televised election debate at 7pm, with a new poll out at 6pm. Follow live updates here. ...
The first leader debate begins at 7pm on TVNZ 1. Ready your pencils.Judith Collins, Jacinda Ardern and John Campbell all want you to have a good time during tonight’s first leader debate for election 2020. And so do we.That’s why we (well, Toby Morris mostly) have conjured up a bingo ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Harry Al-Wassiti, Bioengineer and Research Fellow, Monash University On Sunday, the Australian government announced it would put A$6 million towards the research and development of three local COVID-19 vaccine candidates, via the Medical Research Future Fund. The three candidates to share this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Larkins, Professor Emeritus and Former Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Melbourne Australian university research funding is made up of discretionary income that comes from various sources, including international student fees. This is additional to the funding, including government grants, specifically received ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Larkins, Professor Emeritus and Former Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Melbourne Australian university research funding is made up of discretionary income that comes from various sources, including international student fees. This is additional to the funding, including government grants, specifically received ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University Plot twists in the TikTok saga continue to emerge daily, with a proposed deal to secure the future of the video sharing platform in the United States now in doubt. Under the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Raymond, Lecturer, Australian National University Thousands of Thai students turned out over the weekend to protest in Bangkok — the latest gathering in a long-simmering movement against the power structures that hold sway in Thailand. The three core demands of students ...
Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods has spoken about the government's decision not to appeal a landmark court case against Southern Response. ...
Dunedin general election candidates will take part in a My Votes Count forum event on 29 September organised by the Dunedin and Districts Disabled Persons Assembly (DPA) alongside Disability Information Service, People First, Blind Citizens New ...
Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods has spoken about the government's decision not to appeal a landmark court case against Southern Response. ...
Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods is speaking to media after the government revealed it has decided not to appeal a landmark court case. ...
What happened to the bridge, when will it be fixed, are we ever getting another harbour crossing – and how long will it take to get home tonight?Few of us remember a time before the bridge. Its eight glorious lanes run from St Mary’s Bay across the Waitematā harbour to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology Google’s role in delivering audiences to news outlets has been under scrutiny of late. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s initiative to redirect advertising revenue from Google and Facebook to news publishers has ...
Discriminatory laws that place unreasonable hurdles to increased Māori participation in local government need to be urgently reformed, says Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese. In a Nelson City Council meeting held on Tuesday, 22 September, Council resolved ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vivienne Skinner, Industry/Professional Fellow, School of the Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney Australia’s six-month moratorium on evictions is due to end soon. Somestates have extended the moratorium, but when it ends that’s likely to force even more Australians into housing ...
On Thursday night the arts, culture and heritage spokespeople from Labour, National and the Greens will have a conversation on arts policy, facilitated by Miriama Kamo. We’ve got all their policies here, so you know who stands for what.Earlier this year, Ben Thomas wrote for The Spinoff about why politicians ...
Responding to reports that Cr Catherine Chu failed to attend over half of Christchurch City Council briefings since October , the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union says the revelation is proof elected local councillors must refuse their salaries while they ...
From next week, the scheme will cover people who have symptoms of the coronavirus and need to self-isolate while waiting for the results of a test. ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk The Tabernacle Bible Church of Indonesia’s congregation from the Intan Jaya regency in Papua has fled into the forests in fear after the killing of a pastor at the weekend, allegedly by the military, reports CNN Indonesia. The church (GKII) says it believes Rev Yeremia Zanambani ...
When we first checked the Beehive website for press statements this morning, we found just one announcement – from the Deputy PM – had been posted since September 19. His news was that the Coalition Government has committed to invest $27 million in Covid-19 vaccine development through the global COVAX ...
The government’s decision today to slightly loosen border entry restrictions to allow in certain specialised staff crucial to the agriculture and fishing industries is excellent news, Federated Farmers says. "Feds has been strongly advocating ...
We recently built our own members platform so that readers can donate to and support our journalism in a more direct way. If you’re a Spinoff Member, here’s how it affects you. At the end of last year, our team was fortunate to receive a grant that allowed us to ...
Keep New Zealand Beautiful are excited to announce that three New Zealand students have won awards at the 2020 Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) International competition. These three students were all winners from the national New Zealand ...
The government has announced more border exemptions and visa changes to help get specialised workers in the country and fill labour shortages in key sectors. ...
The National Party leader tells Duncan Greive what conviction means to her, and why she thinks she gets a different treatment to Jacinda Ardern.The first time I saw Judith Collins at close quarters, she was moving through what was inelegantly billed as the “National stakeholder party” held at parliament last ...
Being in the midst of a global pandemic does funny things to you, finds Michelle Langstone as she gives in to an overwhelming urge to return to the Auckland amusement park of her youth. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia working, but my husband and I had an overwhelming urge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blair Williams, Associate Lecturer, School of Political Science and International Relations, Australian National University The grand final of Plate of Origin will air on on Channel Seven tonight. Like other blockbuster cooking shows (think MasterChef, My Kitchen Rules), Plate of Origin is ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has released a list of questions that should be asked at tonight’s TVNZ leaders' debate – and at tonight’s separate finance debate in Queenstown. Questions for Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins: Is tax theft ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The conservative tax policies proposed by Labour and National ahead of next month’s election are hard to distinguish in substance, with each party offering no more than a ...
Judith Collins says she'll be pointing out a "lack of follow-through" by the Labour leader while for Jacinda Ardern it is less about "sparring" than "directly communicating". ...
National wants to boost the capacity of managed isolation facilities by allowing private accommodation providers to join the government-controlled network and charge what they like. ...
National wants to boost the capacity of managed isolation facilities by allowing private accommodation providers to join the government-controlled network and charge what they like. ...
Covid-19 will not be going away any time soon and the National Party says we should team up with the private sector to let more workers and tourists in safely National have announced that, if elected, they will ramp up the private provision of quarantine to allow workers and long-term tourists ...
A joint statement by the national leaders of most New Zealand church denominations We urge the people of Aotearoa New Zealand to vote very cautiously in the two Referendums, because both decisions carry the risk of inflicting serious long-term damage on our ...
A celebration of 35 years working with whānau in the Heretaunga community was celebrated with a short history lesson, waiata and the cutting of the cake this morning. Iwi chair Ngahiwi Tomoana provided the history of the kaupapa Māori organisation which ...
Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell says 2019/20 was a good year for the co-op, with profit up, debt down and a strong milk price. The result, a profit of $659m, may have brought a cheer from the co-op’s farmer-suppliers and Hurrell deserves a cheer, too, for succeeding in turning around the ...
Three weeks ago, the NZ Parliament enacted new Water Laws. The WHO says 1.1 levels Nitrogen for rivers is OK. We are already at 0.6. The new Law (The Greens) wants 0.1 Nitrogen, this is impossible and absolutely ridiculous! ...
Too much news? Welcome to the only round-up you need.The election was supposed to be over by now. We were all supposed to be free but instead we’re back talking about fiscal holes and house prices. Bit of housekeeping: there’ll be no more yes, no, huh? in this column as ...
In a time of growing ideological conformity within the New Zealand media, a backlash from the public has seen media outlets seeking to proclaim themselves as the arbiters of truth. The New Zealand media industry, once renowned for impartial journalism, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Wynn, Lead Economist, CSIRO Futures, CSIRO Over the next few years, science and technology will have a vital role in supporting Australia’s economy as it strives to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. At Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, we’ve identified opportunities ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yun Jiang, Senior Research Officer, Australian National University Last month, the University of New South Wales came under harsh criticism after its media team deleted an article and tweet in which Elaine Pearson, the Australia director of Human Rights Watch, expressed concern ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theodore E. (Ted) Zorn, Professor of Organisational Communication and Head of Massey Executive Development, Massey University When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was named the “world’s most eloquent leader” last month it raised the question of just how important eloquence is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle Coffee is regularly in the news for its potential health benefits and drawbacks. A review of the research found drinking a few cups of coffee a day was associated with a lower ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryan Fry, Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland Funnel webs are considered one of Australia’s most fearsome spiders, but their ability to kill humans is by accident rather than design, our new research shows. In findings published today, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Muir, Associate Professor in Mathematics Education, University of Tasmania Parents and carers were responsible for overseeing their children’s learning during the first wave of COVID restrictions in Australia. Many parents in Melbourne and some in regional Victoria will still be doing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn Lake, Professorial Fellow in History, University of Melbourne Review: Vida: A Woman for Our Time, published by Penguin (Viking imprint) Australian women were not the first to win the right to vote in national elections. That world-historic distinction belongs to New ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s Election Live for September 22, bringing you the latest on election 2020 and other NZ news. The essential campaign dates are here. For all you need to know about the cannabis referendum click here. For the assisted dying referendum click here. Explore the parties’ pledges at Policy. I’m ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Country outside Auckland now at level one, previewing the first major leader debate, and another error found in National’s costings.The alert levels will shift down around the country this week, with most of the country moving back into level one. Our live ...
Our Seas Our Future (OSOF) is encouraged by the Green Party’s marine policy to protect and restore our seas and oceans, as outlined in its Thriving Oceans Plan. OSOF representative, Noel Jhinku, says that the policy recognises the need to address ...
In an extraordinary exchange during a recent press conference our Finance Minister, when asked why the Reserve Bank does not write off the Covid19 debt, said “it isn’t the way we manage monetary and fiscal policy”. He did not say that it is not technically ...
“ACT has a plan to lift the restrictions holding back the tourism sector and give operators the tax relief they need after being hammered by Covid,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “I’ve travelled from Northland to Southland talking to tourism ...
With voting set to begin in under two weeks, the Howick Youth Council’s interactive candidate forums have been the first successful community meetings held virtually in the Botany and Pakuranga electorates for the 2020 general election. The youth-led ...
New Zealand is already taking risks allowing Kiwis to return, so why not rich Americans, ACT says. A Southland tourism operator says it's a bold move, but won't get the industry back on its feet. ...
Wealthy people’s money grows at a faster rate than the economy, like a dam hoarding water while the city below grows thirsty. To conserve our way of life, we need to ensure wealth flows between the top and the bottom, writes Tax Justice's Louise Delaney Now both major parties have ...
We continue our week-long series on an extraordinary book of essays by Ghazaleh Golbakhsh with a memoir of the author from Golriz Ghahrman My friend Ghazaleh Golbakhsh is a film-maker, a writer, actor, Iranian, Kiwi, woman of colour, citizen of the world, and wild dreamer. Her new book of essays ...
Angela Merkel’s response to the latest refugee crisis only makes sense in an ideal world - in the real world it is dividing the EU and encouraging human traffickers, says Oliver Hartwich ...
While Covid-19 put the airline’s passenger business into a steep dive the airline’s cargo business has been climbing. It is now referred to as Air New Zealand’s green shoot.Mark Jennings reports. Aside from a massive one day sale of low priced domestic seats there’s not been a lot of good ...
Stephen Hoadley provides some context around US President Donald Trump's claimed successes in the Middle East On September 15, 2020, President Trump hosted leaders from Israel, UAE, and Bahrain at the White House. The event was the signing of agreements in which UAE and Bahrain normalised diplomatic relations with Israel. Trump characterised this ...
Kanyon Paul will wear the Warriors jersey in next month's NRL women's championship with the blessing of her late grandfather - who helped her make the decision to cross the Tasman to play. Kanyon Paul wasn’t meant to play for the Warriors women’s team this season. But her league-loving grandfather ...
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Open mike 29/08/2020 
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Political "Insight"?…well, there is this. :
Linda Clark senses a certain sensationalism creeping into some political commentary – possibly stemming from the “entertainment-ification”, to coin a neologism, of politics.
“The commentators that really grate for me are not the Matthew Hootons or the Neale Joneses – the people who are ‘in the game’.
“The commentators – and I think they are political commentators, even though they would deny it vehemently – are the Mike Hoskings, the Kate Hawkesbys. The people who know very little about the subjects they talk about.
“They take no responsibility for the damage they do on the way through … and that’s much more damaging."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018761232/insight-spin-and-political-commentary
As I call it, Majick Radio…and similar neo infotainment. For morons. fark, cant stand it…: )
I remember when sir Key started his messin' with NZ TV. And Julie "Reality" Christie rolled out the mindlessness….for the mindless. (as well as some Flag waving : )
Heres a (pretty) brutal, but apt take on it…
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/07/duncan-grieves-unbelievable-blog-supporting-julie-christie-highlights-every-criticism-ever-made-about-his-cash-for-copy-blog-the-spinoff/
Absolutely the Dumbing Down of NZ TV.
Where is OUR PBS !? RNZ has lost something somehow…not quite sure about them now. I mean having Michelle Boag on as talking head? Well I spose that was before the Leak… but Ben Thomas ?! (described as Hootens mini-me by "someone") lol
Anyway I get a laugh out of Steve Braunias : The secret diary of the Collins gang. "Special Agent Hooten"..lmao : ) Pay at the Herald..Free In ODT : )
Thanks for that PLA. What is annoying is the knowledge that those partisans who spit it out is accepted by some as true news. What can we do about it?
Bomber Bradbury sums up the wretched Christie perfectly in these two sentences:
However, as Bradbury wrote that, he must surely have felt a pang of guilt at his own role in a thankfully almost completely forgotten Christie-level program called Stake-Out, which consisted of secretly filming electricians, decorators and other working stiffs as they committed heinous Shane Jones-type transgressions, and then confronting them in the most high-handed and humiliating manner. It was the sleaziest, nastiest and most spurious local television program since Brian Edwards' lamentable attempt at a comeback in 2003….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/edwards-at-large-excruciatingly.html
lol…luckily my Mind/Sanity Protector must have been working for the Bomber's Bomb : )
He's always been a loose canon…: ) and The good Dr Edwards…similar. Ah well…
Satire…sweet satire is at least still around.
I went to check out the Green School yesterday, 12 mins driving from home to get there. They explained that the scheduled tour was booked out – due to pandemic rules they could only cater for 20 – which was why the register button on their website didn't work last night!
Had a chat with the CEO (Chris Edwards), who was doing welcomes, then left after a brief scan of the site & buildings. See that in this report from last summer: https://educationcentral.co.nz/green-school-is-coming-to-new-zealand/
We know state education has failed to respond to climate change. That's why kids need a positive alternative. The adapt to survive ethos is evident:
"the Green School model has the potential to blaze a new trail in New Zealand’s education sector. "
Why on earth would anyone support the blazing of a new trail?? How terrifying that thought is!! Leaving the well-worn path – no thank you!!! Stick to the track, Tootle!
"the Green School model has the potential to blaze a new trail in New Zealand’s education sector. " …for the rich and wealthy.
For every child. The learnings from these front-runners will be taken and applied in every school in New Zealand (best case scenario). Who else will trial these systems and approaches? Enviroschools has been operating in New Zealand, with Government funding, for years and years; an injection of funds into an already-ahead-of-the-play enviro-school like this one gives the whole country a boost in the green direction.
From Dennis Frank comment 2:
"We know state education has failed to respond to climate change. That's why kids need a positive alternative. The adapt to survive ethos is evident:"
Now why would state education have failed so miserably? Surely not because it has been under-resourced and deliberately run down compared to private education since the neo-liberal privatisation push that started in the 1980s?
Why was the phasing out of state funding for private education ever written into the Green Party Education Policy if it was just a bit of old baggage that should be swept aside when a situation like this arose?
Do you not fear that the moment a school like this gets such a boon, the whole profit-gouging Charter School crowd will be queuing up asking for the same preferential treatment? Under a possible future National govt, would the Greens not look ridiculous arguing against privatisers' Charter schools after this episode?
If you so strongly believe in the innocence and beauty of such élitist schools, please be honest and openly advocate altering the Green Party Education Policy so that people can see what the Greens really stand for.
I am getting tired of the 'My Party, Right or Wrong' cant.
Learnings? What's wrong with good old normal lessons?
Learn is an active verb.
But could they unlearn and relearn ?
It depends on whether it is stored in your declarative or procedural memory on how easy it is to unlearn and relearn things.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/300094305/new-plymouth-mayor-explains-why-he-supported-private-schools-117m-government-funding
Don’t you hate it when things are not neatly B & W?
That is how the privatisers always work. Schools were offered special temptations to suck them into Bulk Funding of salaries in the '90s, and the cant at the time was always, "What possible harm can there be in this innocent, benign gesture? How could you be so dogmatic and blind as to oppose something that is good for education?"
Sorry, I don't buy it.
The four ‘shovel ready’ Ministers ‘bought it’ because it met the criteria of the CRRF.
The funding for this individual construction project is not some ideological Education policy such as Bulk Funding or Charter Schools; that is false equivalence.
The scholarships are real enough (see my comment @ 2.1.1.2.2.1).
lol
What percentage of students are/will be on full ride scholarships?
Nobody is saying that this particular project won't create jobs. Just that it's a profit-driven industry contrary to Green Party policy.
The mistake has been acknowledged, it still pisses me off but fair enough.
Now the worry is that, of the "shovel ready" projects, this one was maybe closest to Green Party ideals. And that's not on the Greens, that's on NZ.
I can’t possibly comment on the other parts in your comment but I did try to find out more about the scholarships.
https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/05/26/most-of-our-time-is-spent-outside-would-you-send-your-kids-to-a-green-school
https://www.greenschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Balinese-Scholarship-Program.pdf
https://infocus.wief.org/where-the-school-has-no-walls/
Not quite yet reached the target of 20%.
I also read that 11/55 students at the NZ Green School are not fee-paying because they are children of staff.
That first advert made my fists itch.
Maybe I'm just too cynical in me old age.
I tend to ignore almost everything else when I’m searching for specific info; ads don’t bother me the slightest. Dare I say it, I am pretty good at finding things.
The columns that look suspiciously like paid content especially vex me, for some reason. At best it's shite journalism asking patsy questions, but usually it's simply a publication masquerading as honest when it's simply spouting any old bullshit for cash.
There was zero information in that first link. There was shit that looked like information, but there were few actual specifics. Even the number of people on scholarships didn't say full ride scholarships (zero dollars, zero transaction fees) vs partial discounts on the massive fees.
The more I read about it, the more this "school" looks like it will churn out a bunch of trust fund kids who will spend their 20s instagramming their world tours before walking into C-level jobs in their family's business.
I do not see it churning out a cadre of environmental heroes.
I have not looked to school programme or pedagogy behind it because the precipitating issue has nothing to do with education as such.
That’s a shame because we obviously need more heroes. How about a hybrid between Zorro and the Green Lantern? You might well be correct with your sceptical (cynical?) view. However, in the interim, it will create jobs and stimulate the local economy.
It's not the programme, it's the vibe that comes through from their marketing.
Saying that someone who rocks up in a ferrari shouldn't be judged on their environmental impact because they might have made a huge effort and ditched the private jet… yeah, whatevs.
Yup, the Ferraris are abundant among the Green School alumni. So predictable, so true, no need to check, of course. Facts do not matter, opinions rule. Yeah, I know this is most likely a cherry-picked selection of their ‘success stories’ and I’m as ‘convinced’ as you are that all the other alumni are smiling assassins without any empathy for the poor and disenfranchised.
https://www.greenschool.org/bali/our-alumni/
… looks like it will churn out a bunch of trust fund kids who will spend their 20s instagramming their world tours before walking into C-level jobs in their family's business. (All the while congratulating themselves how environmental they are.)
My reaction to rummaging around on their site and the rest of the webz was pretty much the same.
"Nobody is saying that this particular project won't create jobs. Just that it's a profit-driven industry contrary to Green Party policy."
I'm under the impression that the jobs are building industry jobs, and one of the covid priorities was to stop building firms from going under. i.e. keep existing jobs.
I agree that the funding model of the GS and international students is an issue, but am not sure how it's too different from the tertiary education sectors large reliance on international student fees.
"Now the worry is that, of the "shovel ready" projects, this one was maybe closest to Green Party ideals. And that's not on the Greens, that's on NZ."
I understand that Shaw got quite a lot of gains in selection process, which was pleasantly surprising. I wish they would release the details on this. Not all the business details, but show case the green gains better. Might be a conflict between Shaw's Ministerial role and the GP though, or they just don't have time.
was it hipkins or robertson saying this was a project the Greens specifically were supporting?
Sounds like they divvied up the applications between the party and it was largely political horse trading. But it's on NZ as a whole that there wasn't e.g. a tidal generator and other renewables close enough to submit applications that the Greens could get behind.
And yeah, I'm not completely fine with the tertiary education sector marketing over merit philosophy, either. But then the entire fees thing pisses me off, and it's slowly turning into a perception of some students that they're paying for the degree, not the education.
Agreed that this is on NZ. We have the green edge that NZ wants, not what we need by any means.
The impression I have is that the four budget Ministers (GR, Jones, Shaw, don't know who the fourth was) worked through the process of shortlisting, and in that process Shaw worked on getting the projects more green generally. This surprised me, that there was this degree of influence, but it's hard to tell specifically.
Hipkins, when pressed, said it was something the Greens wanted, but I don't think that is true (the caucus wasn't involved in the decision afaik), it was Shaw and his team. So Hipkins was too removed to have a good informed opinion, and/or there was an advantage to Labour in presenting it this way. But his first response was to say it wasn't Ed money and journos should ask the relevant Ministers about it.
I haven't listened to what GR said. But afaik Labour signed off on it and were ok with it too. It met the main criteria (jobs) so I expect all the parties were pretty happy.
We get your point…
Aww that takes me back Robert. "Tootle" was my favourite book as a 4 year old! But Tootle was a little steam engine Robert – fossil fuelled on coal!
did you ask him if the 'families of the international students that get to live with their children in NZ get a permanent and or work permit to live in NZ courtesy of the 48.000 school fee?
did you ask him how many kiwi kids can get access to his school for courtesy of 24.000 fee?
And is that really worth the career of a Green polititan who put his own likes above that of the party, and it is really a green school when you import people – whole families from overseas to live here, you now, the all vaunted carbon foot print – or is that only something we should worry about when it is a public venture rather then a private one.
I believe that no one in this country would care one bit if this amount of money would have been spend equally on the poorest schools in NZ for the same type of curriculum, but alas it is getting spend on a 250 kids and their f amily who are mainly from overseas.
This schools should have never been in the shovel ready programm, if they can't pay builders atm or pay them with the fees they collect already then the best the should get is the wage subsidy, maybe a government loan – free of interest and repayable from a years after the loan was issues, see the exact same conditions other private businesses (not AIRNZ of course) have given.
For both the Government and the Greens, this was a dumb move. And i don't watch any of the guys that are so often spoken about here cause they have nothing to say of interest, but i see people every day, and this yesterday was a point of discussion. Tone: I can't stand this government giving money willy nilly to everyone and their dog. Try counter that with your 'its green". Good luck with that.
This was the most tone deaf decision this year. It wins the golden toilet seat.
In the meantime our kids sit in cold, damp, leaky, totally non green – can't give a fuck type building – schools and are told to wait a few more years for something better.
” We know state education has failed to respond to climate change. That’s why kids need a positive alternative.”
yeah, because like right now , we don’t give a shit and shovel money up the arses of people who will do everything to keep kids from poor people out. 24.000 a year is not affordable for 90% of people in this country. That is why the state fails in anything regarding climate change. Because it can’t be bothered doing something. And besides, if the private businesses such as this, that serve the very few, very rich and very conntected don’t get money where would people like our beige suits in parliament get jobs once they are done giving taxpayers money to private businesses.
It was money from the Covid Recovery fund for shovel-ready, applied-for, criteria-meeting construction projects that would boost local economies. Education is provided-for (or not) in another budget. Shaw has worked hard to boost those as well.
So State schools which have outstripped their capacity because of roll growth and are now way overcrowded, or old schools which are just crappy for clearly observed reasons, have to wait years for Ministry funded expansion and improvement plans. Yet a private school with wealthy feepaying parents scores 11 million odd. Dressing this up with green virtue signalling doesn't cut it. It's bullshit.
Labour set the rules whereby the money ($3B in a fund set up 1 April) was only available to business for projects impacted by the pandemic.
It's entirely separate from the PGF – that NZF got set up 3 years ago for provincial economic growth/community development spending.
As for the money spent on school buildings, a separate part of the education budget.
Integrated Schools are responsible for the upkeep of their buildings, as they own them.
It would be better for you to ask Jacinda those questions, Sabine. James told us he was approving budget recommendations, so it was a coalition funding initiative. If the concept of `Labour led' seems valid to you, give that a try with her.
Yes he was announcing with his Ministerial hat on (as Associate Minister of Finance) as I understood it, not as his leader of the Green party hat.
Seems that this fundamental constitutional point has been overlooked in the rush to condemn. I guess he could have said ‘I won't announce’ but then that would probably go against yet another constitutional expectation that the time for 'fighting/concerns' is before the decision is made while you are part of the team (ie coalition) making the decision.
In view of all the hoo-ha have I missed something here? Are people not able to see the nuances and difference between MPs/parties and Ministers in Govt?
In view of all the hoo-ha have I missed something here?
Not obviously. He apologised to GP members, but I didn't hear a specific reason for the apology, so I presume Green sectarianism required a ritualised formality – sufficiently general and bland to appease those into purity at the expense of coalition consensus.
Are people not able to see the nuances and difference between MPs/parties and Ministers in Govt?
Some commentators here qualify for that description. Those that went straight into shock-horror mode in response to his announcement, plus those for whom partisan ideology is meant to defeat the common good.
Well said.
I've appreciated your stance on the situation during the past couple of days, btw. I felt the need to refrain due to lack of explanation for the announcement (in msm) so, like Weka, I held off forming an opinion until James briefed us.
Understood and appreciated. My opinion crystallised over the last few days too; the communication was lacking although Chlöe Swarbrick did a very good job of responding to questions in her daily Facebook sessions. It should have been handled better and not left to me having to go on FB and watch long videos in search of the scant answers.
did you not go to the school to speak to the people there? that is why i asked you if you also asked these questions as i personally would have asked. 🙂
Cause that is why i asked you :). As for labour, well, its the lesser evil, i don't really expect anything from them. Talk to Jacinda, she is kinder gentler then Judith, but it seems as happy as to sponsor private business that serves no one but the very rich.
I'm beyond gutted with this. It's just a flash immigration hotel masquerading as a school.
Actually, it is a secure communication facility for Five Eyes and the 5G emissions will be high. \sarc
sorry no, it is a residence permit scam for the very wealthy and not much else.
And the government is funding it. But it has been 'green washed'.
O’kay
In other words, this Green School is a sound and valuable initiative …. but ideology.
Ideology embeds. Problem is, the world changes around it. Ongoing relevance of the ideology then comes into question. In times of rapid change (such as now) folks often attach limpet-like to some rock of ideology amongst the turbulence. Those going with the flow cruise on by, looking askance at the weirdos as they drift past…
oh if you can afford 48.000 a year for schooling a kid and get a permanent residence permit it sure is sound.
It just makes no sense what so ever for the tax payers whose kids sit in cold, damp, over crowed schools with leaky roofs, shotty internet connection and not enough ipads for all kids, nor student aids and free school lunches. These are nice to have projects and thus are not getting anything.
The owners will be able to pay for the work the government is doing in no time.
If it is a refundable loan and then they can write that loan of as a business expense, and they could have had that loan from a bank then too.
Their application was valid and sound and the process for selection was shared across parties.
I suspect one of the keys to becoming a millionaire is getting other folk to pay for your stuff.
that however is very very true.
These guys will be very busy voting National soon in order to not pay taxes. But hey, they are very rich so its understandable.
NZ banks are appalling at investing in anything beyond housing loans. If they were doing their jobs then yes, we would not require any public subsidies like this.
James Shaw apology last night has left a gaping hole in The Green Party as far as their own political credibility, and more importantly their values and principles as an alternative left leaning party to support goes.
Shaw has on the one hand confirmed what we already knew about him..that he is a liberal free market green politician ( with all the numerous contradictions and unseemly contortions that involves ) but on the other hand he has shown us something new about himself…that he is a straight out gutless bullshitter ( “We were thinking about it in terms of building and constructions, not education") and worse than that it turns out Shaw is actually one of, and represents the interests of, the elitist greens that the working classes have always suspected that greens were being constantly drawn toward ideologically…probably one of the most self serving, narcissistic, political groups operating today….yuk, the Greens should have made Shaw step down…..not only is he an elitist prick, he is a stupid one, imagine doing this just before an election..what a fucking dummy.
+1
Adrian-Slight over-reaction there perhaps? Shaw realised he had made a dumb mistake and has now owned up.
Shaw is the man who saved the Green Party at the last election and has been largely instrumental in keeping it relevant during this term of government.
Adrian-perhaps you would like to compare the policies of the Greens to the other parties in order to justify your manic attack on the Party, rather than justify the attack on this relatively minor issue? For instance what do you think of their Wealth Tax?
The media climbed all over this comparatively small mistake in order to try to push the Greens below 5%.
@ bearded git, Over reaction? not at all.
For some reason half the people on this site don't seem to feel the need or believe it appropriate that citizens hold the politicians that they say represent them to any kind of account.
Lets just make it clear here what James Shaw just did…he knowingly and under the name of the NZ Green Party funded a private elite school to the tune of 12 million dollars..in direct contradiction to the stated aims of that party…why?,..seriously if that isn't plainly obvious to you and you really think he made a mistake, well then you are just being willingly stupid and there is no need for us to continue this conversation.
I agree with the last 10 words….maybe you should read the thread on Micky's post today.
Your personal dislike for James Shaw is making you vitriolic and unreasonable. James Shaw is highly regarded in Parliament across the spectrum of politicians.
+100
+1000
" James Shaw is highly regarded in Parliament across the spectrum of politicians" that says it all, thanks.
interesting. So you want the Green Party out of parliament. How would that work in terms of your politics? We'd then either have a Labour only govt, or a Lab/NZF one, or a Nat one. Please explain how this is an improvement on what we have now?
Labour 44 National 39 Act 6 NZF 4 Greens 4.9 Wasted 2.1
Say hello to PM Crusher.
Never happen Nats 35 act 3 tops
No what I want is just one political party in NZ that isn't headed by a liberal, free market elitist bullshit artist… I know that it is regarded as extremely unreasonable and almost radical around here to demand highly held values and principles from our selected political representatives… you and others here obviously don't and that's your prerogative, but I do, and sure as hell am not going to shift from that position or apologize for demanding that high bar from people whom I vote for.
Calling for the Greens co-leader to step down 8 weeks before an election IS a call for them to be out of parliament (I don't think you are naive enough to believe that such a move wouldn't drop the GP vote).
5 years in the role…
Does he have a track record of raising the party vote?
Does he nail the limited TV appearances he gets?
Is he making massive cock ups?
Under James Shaw's leadership, The Greens have been somewhere other than in Opposition; that is, at the levers of power, where we wanted them to be since forever and achieving as much as any small support party could ever hope to achieve, but, let's call for his head! Off with it!
Did you miss the media stories after the last election reflecting how his dogged work was all that stood between them and dropping below 5%.
I must have. What I do remember though is his ability to increase the Wellington Central party vote by 10% over two elections. I naively thought he could do something similar at a national level. The sooner we find out what Chloe can do instead, the better imo.
I would have thought a Green Party supporter would not be into cult-style political leadership heroism but I guess for some the symbolism of a pixie princess riding a snow white unicorn has a too strong a pull to resist. Chlöe Swarbrick is a more natural communicator than Jacinda Ardern who tends to come across as patronising and too polished at times, in my opinion. Mind you, I haven’t watched any of Jacinda Ardern’s Facebook videos (I avoid videos like Covid) so I cannot really compare 🙂
"Does he have a track record of raising the party vote?"
Obviously yes. But it's not on *him. It's on the party.
There are two co-leaders for a start, and it's hugely disrespectful to Davidson to talk about the party as if it is led by one white man in a suit.
That might very well be, the issue here is tho that most of the time Marama seems to be invisible. Maybe it is time for her to raise her profile.
yes, maybe you should. Instead of spending all this time dissing the suit, put some time into talking about Davidson and what she is doing.
Burning something down in the hope that something closer to the ideal form will magically appear does not have a good track record of success in politics, especially democracy.
In politics, they tend to water rather than burn down. I reckon there should be more bonfires of regulations in politics 😉
The trouble with most regulations bonfires that have been proposed is that they have been proposed in the transparent desire that nothing will grow to replace the incinerated regulations.
You'd have more credibility with that framing if you could prove that state schools are teaching the same curriculum as the Green School, eh?
Kids need to upskill to survive now. As long as state educators ignore this imperative private educators will be seen by the public as providing the only intelligent option.
"that he is a straight out gutless bullshitter ( “We were thinking about it in terms of building and constructions, not education") "
Having listened to the 30 min explanation by Shaw in the GP zoom last night, and then the 45min Q and A from members and the co-leaders, I think you are flat out wrong here. His indepth explanation of how government actually works, in this instance the process of development of the fund, how applications were received and dealt with, which people were involved (the four budget Ministers) and weren't involved (GP caucus), the speed at which massive decisions were being made during the first months of the pandemic, and the factors that affected his decision making. All of that was nuanced and real. I learned a lot and my guess is that I already knew more about how government works than you do.
Your comment appears to be based on nothing other than a large amount of antipathy towards Shaw because he wears a suit, and a desire to beat the Green Party with your anti-neolib stick despite the Greens having the most progressive set of left wing policies in parliament. Your position here is mind boggling.
For those that want to pay attention to what is happening, the Green Party education policy remains the same, and Shaw is completely behind that. The GP's other policies remain the same too.
How can we have any faith in a leader who does the opposite of Party policy.? This own goal is just so stupid at this time that it beggars belief. A guaranteed vote loser like this is more serious than you believe. I find it so disheartening that he did this when everything is at stake. Trying to sweep it under the carpet by making out it is trivial doesn’t work. Something miraculous needs to happen for us to get to 5%.
People make mistakes. He didn't intentionally go against party policy, he just failed to take it into account when looking at a project through an entirely different lens while under a lot of pressure.
I have more faith in Shaw now, because he immediately admitted the mistake and is making amends.
…because he immediately admitted the mistake…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/122568117/new-zealands-first-private-green-school-gets-117-million-from-government-for-campus-expansion?rm=a
Shaw says it's not true to say the Greens have abandoned their policy to not publicly fund private schools.
"Well that is our policy and this money doesn't go into the operations."
Asked if he was being cute, Shaw replied, "there's a balance of objectives we're trying to achieve here – remember that we are going through an unprecedented time with Covid-19''.
It's just a building, he says.
"In terms of the infrastructure spend, it is in many ways just another construction project.''
He's only become contrite under a barrage of justified criticism.
And speaking of justifying shit…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/122568117/new-zealands-first-private-green-school-gets-117-million-from-government-for-campus-expansion?rm=a
Part of the argument for GSNZ being approved as a shovel ready project, was the economic benefits it would bring to the Taranaki economy.
This has been reported as being $43m a year, according to a report prepared by Green School International and peer reviewed by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.
However, GSNZ has refused to release a copy of the report to Stuff.
“It has gone through all of the traditional and official checks and measures required by the government criteria for the shovel ready funding and GS (Green School) doesn’t feel it is our responsibility to justify this document.”
…our elitist green educators don't feel they have to.
There's murk here.
Legitimate general issue there about accountability and transparency (especially given Shane Jones' involvement) – but do the other businesses which receive investment from that fund have to release their business case details to the public, if the govt agencies involved don't as part of that process?
..but do the other businesses which receive investment from that fund have to release their business case …
If they don't they damn well ought to.
I was just moving on from this whole saga until I read GSNZ's big 'Fuck you, taxpayer."
I hope their flash laminated beams pull apart.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Typical-failure-mode-of-a-glulam-beam-under-destructive-bending-test_fig6_265034172
You are too kind.
If they don't they damn well ought to.
Businesses keep information that could benefit their competition confidential for the obvious reason that it could benefit their competition. There's no reason the government should require them to make that info public just to satisfy your curiosity.
NZ is a representative democracy, ie we elect people to represent us and then leave them to do that until the next election. They shouldn't keep information confidential unnecessarily, but neither should they publish info that should be confidential.
I hope their flash laminated beams pull apart.
The roof falling on them would teach those kids not to go to a private school, huh?
Its government money…I am so over this 'commercially sensitive' and 'legally privileged and confidential' shit. If they can't declare all…bugger off and find your putea from another trough.
Don't worry about the children, they'll have plenty of warning. And they can always slum it at the state school down the road for free while the problem's sorted…oh, that's right…that school hasn't even got it's $400,000 yet to fix the leaks.
You're entitled that opinion, and the businesses are entitled to the opinion that if the government's making a special offer to help them fund commercial infrastructure development, then commercial considerations apply.
It is a construction project, for buildings, not funding a Charter School from the Education Budget. People who cannot tell the legalistic difference or who cannot cope with it should sue the Government.
The more I think about, the more I appreciate that this happened because it highlights so many issues and reasons why political discourse in NZ sucks big time and why we make no meaningful progress and, in fact, seem to be going backwards.
It happened because Shaw's desire to promote Green gains during a campaign outweighed the predictable downside in this case. Neither he nor his staff caught the implications and managed expectations. Ongoing strategic comms failures in that machinery since Labour hired away some of their key people.
That too.
watching Clint Smith slag off Menendez on twitter was something to behold. NZ is such a small place at times.
Some days reading comment threads on TS or Twitter is anti-climactic.
guaranteed vote loser
Not a snowball's chance in hell! Since the funding already had coalition support before James agreed, pissed-off Greens can't see Labour or NZF as better options. So you think they will refuse to vote at all?
Human nature will prevail. Few folk persist in resentment at others in their tribe for long periods. Greens are even more inclined to tribal solidarity than others. Sometimes pragmatism must prevail over principle in politics. This is one such occasion. The disgruntled will gradually figure that out.
They will stick to their values and principles and punish the Green Party into the lush wilderness of purity and moral virtue where unicorns graze and pixies flatter around unencumbered by Covid. That will teach them to betray their loyal followers once and forever.
Indeed.. facepalm moment of the year for the Greens.
The trouble is you're trying to look at the situation through a lens of reason without political bloodlust.
The political and electoral environment we live in is one of emotion and insanity not reason. Funny thing is how some who dislike the Greens intensely and have no truck with them at all are now telling them what and how they should be doing things.
The decision was indefensible by Shaw and he apologised for that.
The project is defensible and worthy of funding, in my opinion. The $11.7 million would not have gone to a public school but to another shovel ready project or nowhere.
Your character assassination of Shaw is telling.
Exactly
Actually, the money is not just ‘sitting’ in a jar somewhere as it all has to be borrowed and paid back in future.
then maybe the issue is really that the Labour led government could not be bothered to add schools iwth leaky roofs and not enough classrooms to the shovel ready jobs. Cause it appears that there are quite a few schools that would like to be considered shovel ready, but they are told to wait for a better day or something.
Now that takes me back to my secondary school days in the early 1960's. The school was opened in 1955, just in time for the first of the new surge in post war children. But it leaked like a sieve. The DP announced at morning assembly to a great outburst of laughter,
"When you are walking down the corridors, please don't kick the bucket, they are there to catch the drips."
Leaky buildings have been with us for a very long time, schools are given funding for maintenance and other operational expenses as part of the Budget.
There are different pots of money for that. Unless they’re private schools they wouldn’t be eligible for CRRF AFAIK but that seems to lead into a political cul-de-sac because of the Green Party.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/122025481/government-allocates-126m-for-four-new-projects-in-national-school-rebuild-programme
Deep
didn't used to be able to do that without at least a .
have also only just noticed that the big gaps in comments have gone!!!
You mean the white space because of the non-breaking spaces?
yep.
Thanks to Lprent.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300094032/coronavirus-kiwis-push-kremlin-to-import-unproven-covid19-vaccine
Can these clowns import this vaccine without government approval?
If it completes trials successfully, they'll do pretty well out of it. Bit of a gamble though.
Are they Otago farmers?
A qualified maybe… medicines can be imported without medsafe and government approval and supplied under section 29 of the medicines act.
However you will struggle to find any medical professional in NZ who would vaccinate with a vaccine which had not be formally approved by Medsafe.
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/Profs/riss/unapp.asp
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/consumers/educational-material/WhereCanIFindInfoAboutVaccines.asp
You got any idea off the top of your head how deeply Medsafe look into the manufacturing side of things before they approve a vaccine or drug?
My general impression is that some former soviet countries might even be ahead of the west in general virology and stuff like phage treatments, so I find it plausible they could have developed an innovative safe and effective vacccine. Provided it's also manufactured up to standard.
My experience with stuff manufactured in Russia is the quality control is appalling, particularly given the stuff I was involved in would very likely get used in safety critical applications. Then there's the apparent low value put on health and safety in russia generally. So I'd be awfully wary of a vaccine produced in Russia, but probably more comfortable with a vaccine developed in Russia but produced somewhere else more reliable.
Review of manufacturing is a critical part of Medsafe's review and approval process it would be unlikely to be approved without an on site audit by an approved agency such as the EMEA, MHRA, FDA etc
It is not repayable as a loan but is a a taxpayers donation as a good idea like Partnership Schools.
More like the Transmission Gully PPP, which is a construction project just as the Green School is.
…like the Transmission Gully PPP …
And hasn't that gone well.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122520140/transmission-gully-to-open-by-september-2021-after-lengthy-negotiations
“It appears the agreement signed up to by the former government was loose and failed to protect taxpayers’ money. It seems to have been rushed through without the necessary due diligence being carried out.”
He said Wellingtonians and taxpayers “deserve to know exactly what has happened”.
“We want to make sure future governments aren’t left in the same predicament our Government has been.”
The Green School is not a Partnership School as per Paul Murphy’s comment @ 6, it is a Private School.
The CRRF funding is for construction of buildings.
The CRRF funding is not a PPP.
Transmission Gully is a construction project and PPP that is not going well.
The only dots one can realistically connect here are the ones relating to construction.
Everything else is misleading false comparison or equivalence.
Step aside from your focus of the green school, take a minute and look at a bigger picture, because there are larger issues than that. Don't lose sight of the forest for the tree's and all that, excuse the pun
First up this morning: She predicted our second wave, and she’s reviewing the global response. Former Prime Minister
@HelenClarkNZ
on what’s next in the course of this pandemic #nationnz
https://www.threenow.co.nz/live-tv-guide/three
It's live now
Morena whanau 
You got to love the way the left can turn on itself.
The only winner here is Judith.
It's our Achilles' heel.
Yup. The monumental obduracy of the ideologically obsessed is on full display with this one.
If the Green Party really is full of such idiots then I'm honestly conflicted about voting for them again.
I'm not sure which term to use. Is it virtue signalling, or identity politics, or just plain stupidity to do it all so publicly.
Now if I want to vote for a pro-environment party it looks like I'm faced with the charming choice between wasting my vote on the sub-5% Greens or the barely over 1% TOP.
FFS.
Or you hold your nose, admit people are flawed and vote Green.
It's logical isn't it.
The Greens are giving money to a private school, they are the devil incarnate. The world is going to end.
Simple solution: Vote for Judith Collins to be Prime Minister and Gerry Brownlee the Deputy. She is our saviour, he is or saviour. Everything, (well almost everything) will be wonderful with the world.
From further down your link
StoatsSome on the political left are so well adapted to negotiating tight spaces they actually have whiskers on their tails to help them reverse out of tight burrows.😆
When asked to define what his second-term agenda would be, Trump replied:
Gotta go with that!
.
Chinese New Zealanders not part of Major Party Support Re-alignment
.
Ethnic Chinese voters
Party-Vote Intention .. 2020 …. 2017
National ………………. 62% ….. 71.1% ….. Down 9.1 Points
ACT ………………………. 8.8% …… 2.0% ……. Up 6.8 Points
Labour …………………. 21% ….. 21.6% ……. Down 0.6 Points
NZF ……………………… .1.2% …… 2.4% ……. Down 1.2 Points
Green …………………… 0.8% ….. No Data
.
Preferred PM
Collins ….. 52.2 …… English … 58.5% … Down 6.3
Ardern …. 26.5 …. Ardern ….. 20.1% ….. Up 6.4
.
Satisfied : with the government's response to Covid-19 …. 74.7%
.
Support for:
End of Life Choice Act ….. 83.9%
Cannabis Legalisation …. 17.7%
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/424544/poll-shows-large-majority-of-chinese-new-zealanders-still-favour-national-over-labour
(found additional info on previous poll from 2017 articles)
What it indicates is to me is they are playing 'follow our local leader' and have little understanding of how politics works in NZ or what the various parties actually stand for. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the next couple of decades as their off-spring become eligible to vote.
Simpler: we have predominantly approved only the most wealthy migrants from that part of the world, so they back the party which supports the wealthy. Not the same as the 'support the current govt' thinking some commentators believe must apply. And certainly not ignorance of our political landscape.
"End of Life Choice Act ….. 83.9%"
How the fuck does this mesh with 孝 ?
"the young are burdened and oppressed by the old;"
https://china-journal.org/2016/03/14/filial-piety-in-chinese-culture/
Forget the Lincoln Project nonsense – the best ad around is from the latest cool old guy, Ed Markey, It's from his Democratic party Senate primary against the Pelosi-endorsed Joe Kennedy III. Effectively Markey is saying, "We should elect Biden, then pressure the crap out of him to do then right thing. You need me to help apply that pressure."
And speaking of the Lincoln Project ads, here Sam Seder convincingly elaborates on their real purpose. The ads are not aimed at converting Trump Republicans to voting Biden. Instead, they are aimed at persuading the left that Trump is merely an exceptionally atrocious individual – and not a natural outcome of Republicanism, or ideologically consistent with Republicanism. The correct response to the Lincoln Project ads is therefore, "thanks but no thanks."
The correct response to the Lincoln Project ads is therefore, "thanks but no thanks."
No. It's really not. The best response is pointing out that CovidCamacho is merely the embodiment of everything the Repugs have been working towards for decades.
“is merely the embodiment of everything the Repugs have been working towards”
Which is pretty much what Seder said in that clip. I think I might hang on to my remaining shreds of sanity and shut up on this topic.
Either way, LP screws the repugs for this election, and it will take years to get rid of the ~adjacents and tinfoil brigade.
The LP exists because (to paraphrase the oompah loompah) they're out here and the covidians are in there.
The enemy of my enemy might not be my friend, but if they're not in a position to attack me any time soon I might slip them some assistance.
Maybe the best thing is for the Lincoln Project ads is therefore, "Thanks but no thanks, we know trump is the best for America and the world."
That's a very creative misreading of what I actually wrote and of the content of the links I provided. Oh well, never mind.
I appreciate that. Seder is not the only one to try to shed some light. Your reference further back was on the mark when you mentioned 'remaining shreds of sanity.' The whole thing is insane. (America) Even the insane bits have grown side strains of insanity, and so on, and so on …
The only normal is that nothing is 'normal', anything goes.
Great perspective on refocusing Cinny .@ 7.
COVID-19 economic response measures.
Just one part of the total economic response is the " Summary of the Initiatives in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF) Foundational Package" that money has already been targeted for. The initiatives funded are extensive, swift and smart directing monies into areas not really given consideration before ( because of Covid19 impacts and a green influence).
The social well being investment is becoming more balanced imo and has begun to head into newer ways to distribute state spending. Non-profits also get a bite of the economic stimulus pie addressing issues at grassroots and have a future focus on sustainability and equality issues.
https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/summary-intiatives/summary-initiatives-crrf-budget2020
Along with the measures of Government response to Covid19 in February 2020 , Treasury have compiled this recent report on all post Budget monetary support across sectors including spending that is on top of the $50 billion CRRF package of which $ 14 billion remains.
https://treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/new-zealand-economy/covid-19-economic-response/measures
National's quickly stitched together- old policy posing as new- is pitiful as their response in the wider context of issues facing people in even the near future.
The old neoliberalism is implicit in their released Business policy and Freshwater policy. Along with National resurrecting an " people can eat shit pie – social investment" approach to have social ills racially profiled then privatised, the overall picture signals the intent to bring back the abnormal normal.
Though, I'd be happy to see Judith take her own medicine, the 90 day trial and no lunches enacted on her, that would make her gone by lunchtime early October !
Or for choices on offer there's ACT spinning their new dogma to sell elitism as "The Final Solution".
Tim McCready 🇳🇿 (@Tim_McCready) Tweeted:
Got an unexpected laugh with this line from @HeatherRoyNZ! #nationnz
https://t.co/C6Q6TBwuuz
Paddy, if you paste the full rather than shortened Tweet link here on a line of its own, it shows up automatically like this:
No-one knows what National's going to do beyond transport? What?
No-one even knows what National's going to with transport. Are their transport plans at their all piss and wind Northland double lane bridges level?
Maybe I should I contact Judith and ask her if she's better at bridges than Simon!
It will involve promising roads lol
Judith is performing the Dance of the Seven Veils.
So one veil covers a Kauri logging digger, another covers a 30km detour for private business, another veil covers jokes about prison sexual assault…
You’re focussing on the veils; you have to watch those eye-brows.
An example of a private business working with public sector funding and expertise for environmental outcomes: https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/122595142/aerial-footage-shows-off-8km-private-ecocorridor-project
Thanks Sacha for that. Still having problems with reply buttons and working through mobile apps permissions , share buttons etc. Samsung did a 253 item update and has downed even logging into online websites.
Should all indoor gatherings outside of work environments be banned until further notice?
I should not be lost that the spread of the virus is largely due to Church gatherings. Those people need to find an inner God for the next few months.
Silent masked gatherings might be OK – it's the singing and animated chats that do the harm.
We're treating Monday as back to office but at Alert Level 2.5:
masks at all times in the office.
Everyone's taken the test.
I'm reminded of the American woman who attended a mass church rally a few months back. When asked by a reporter if she is concerned about the spread of the virus she said:
"I'm covered in Jesus' blood so I’m safe.
Selfish mad cow. Not concerned with anyone else but herself. Hope she caught it.
There are a lot of dead Preachers by now.
It must be God's will that covid spreads back through New Zealand
The Covid Chorus with apologies to Bob…” with God on our side “
At level 2 regional travel will resume for Aucklanders. Apprehensive over the potential mobility of Covid19 across NZ next week given there's 25 new cases in last two days. Are alterations to crowd numbers a risk then in other regions, with risks like the first NZ wedding cluster ?
Me too. Only way our Government wins on this is if the planned relaxation of restrictions doesn't result in current Covid ripples becoming waves – in the (IMHO likely) event of increased community transmission they will be castigated for easing up too soon.
Slow and steady wins the Covid 'race'…
Can already see the headlines DMK created from Judith's screeching parrot, " Aaark they f#ked up again! "
when the shoe fits, wear it.
Barclay, Ross, Bennett, Falloon, Walker, Boag, Woodhouse, Bridge(s), Muller, Collins, Brownlee, Mitchell, Nick Smith, etc. etc., and all right-footers.
Maybe the secret of political survival in NZ is to have no standards, no shame, and a raison d'être of self-enrichment- the secret of National's success (largest party in parliament no less).
Many NZers get a kick out of denigrating do-gooders. Where do the Green's get off, advocating for environmental and societal sustainability, when they make hypocritical mistakes like this time and time again – it's unconscionable.
Time to cut Marama, Shaw and co. down to size (< 5%), eh – definitely achievable.
https://www.change.org/p/james-shaw-reduce-the-green-school-funding
8200+ signatures in 1 day – so very sad. We get the Governments we deserve.
Indeed, it is sad when a peaceful Green School in rural Taranaki is portrayed and treated as if it is the epicentre of Mordor and a fortress of evil capitalist parasites profiteering off the public purse.
It's remarkable to me that this one mistake could bring the Greens low (I really hope it doesn't) – FFS, tiny wee-brained lefties are now baying for Shaw's blood, and I'm sounding like Dennis Frank.
I can only hope that the standards some are holding the Greens to will be applied impartially to all other parties. This pandemic has many of us rattled and focussed on tomorrow's Covid numbers (cases and alert levels) at a time when Green party policies promoting long term sustainability and resilience are more crucial than ever, IMHO.
Inequality, precarity and sustainable ecosystems as elements of urban resilience
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098020904594
Rightly or wrongly, the Greens were on a pedestal, which carries a higher risk of tripping and causing injury. Some quarters [poll pun] have been trying to shoot the pixie princess off Cloud 9 and if/when that happens this Shaw shit show will be like a flea circus and pale in comparison.
Public resilience is wearing very thin, I agree. Just as well, the Election was postponed by only four weeks.
Well a shop that gets its premises built for it is at a bit of an advantage.
Well the owners of the very Green School NZ ™ are sure happy to not have to use any of their private money to build the very Green School NZ.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/asia/98140587/green-school-bali-where-there-are-no-walls-no-algebra-classes-and-no-limits
this is about the saddest indictment of these very rich people i can actually think of. Their kid did not do well in ordinary school NZ so instead of putting their considerable clout and money behind lobbying for better schools for all NZ kids, they went to Bali to study a 'green' school for the very rich kids like theirs. And then they came back and started building 'their own' schools for rich kids like theirs so that they don't have to go to the ordinary underfunded, crowded, leaky, cold, and standard schools of NZ, and our government gave them money for it.
Pathetic comes to mind, but i am sure that the kids of the Labour Party, NZFirst, the Green Party will be welcome at this school for a fee of course. And in order to pretend that they actually gave a shit about the country and the schools they gonna give a scholarship or three to one of the little poor urchins. How very very charitable of them.
Seriously i don't want to hear anything anymore about foreign students coming here for a few years of study. If we can open the borders for the kids of this school and their parents, then we can have the borders open of the fee paying kids of other people.
they could have done so much for the Schools of NZ , and instead its the parents of kids sitting in shitty schools for years on end that is going to finance their private little scheme.
btw, the owners of this schools are the HRV founders who sold for what i would guess many many millions their business and should thus be able to fund their own project.
Shame on Labour, NZFIRST and the Greens to allow this project to be funded by the public.
One little fact check – no one is coming in to the school from overseas – which is why they qualified as a business impacted by the pandemic.
And a second – this is money from a fund set up on 1 April to fund business projects impacted by the pandemic.
don't take it up with me, but rather with them
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=12309056#:~:text=A%20groundbreaking%20school%20that%20puts,%2440%2C000%20for%20some%20overseas%20students.
Green School New Zealand has a focus on sustainability, but it doesn't come cheap, with enrolment and tuition fees costing up to $40,000 for some overseas students.
now we can argue that they can't come here now, but if they get a residence permit the families can come here, be put up in a quarantine hotel for 2 weeks and bingo.
so yes, is it.
and i urge you to read the article below from a few years ago as to why the very rich owners of this school created this school in the first place, for their very rich son who was not doing well in NZ public school. And rather then change the schools of NZ for all kids they are now building one with public funds.
This project should never have been in the fund in the first place. Nothing good will come from it for the government from it. Nothing. What. So . Ever.
here read it yourself, and then ask yourself if this is what we want to fund.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/asia/98140587/green-school-bali-where-there-are-no-walls-no-algebra-classes-and-no-limits
They would have little chance of getting a place in the queue for non Kiwis (engineers, skilled workers will have priority), so they are will not be receiving foreigners/foreign students during the pandemic.
So your earlier foreign students dig was plain wrong.
And they invested millions setting up the school themselves (its already half built).
The fund is for business that creates on-going jobs (and in this case foreigners bring some of the revenues in) – economic growth. Which is why it qualified.
Whether I would have set up a $3B fund for such investment in pandemic impacted businesses when there were plenty of capital spending nned for HB's and schools is another matter.
The objection about money for the rich, also applies to the Americas Cup funding and subsidising film-making.
yes, they build a school for their son, and they should finish it, they have enough money, on which we can rest assured they paid as little in taxes as rich people as these get away with. But hey, money must be made and if we can get free money, even better. Just don't expect us to pay taxes or vote for Labour :).
And yes, they are actively trying to get rich people from overseas to send their kids there, they have it costed and are just now in a bit of a lurch cause there aren't enough rich people to pay for their'unschooling' green school.
And this fund does nothing to create jobs, as far as i am aware the only ones currently having work are the builders. At the very best they will be a trickle down – or rather a pissing down – on the locals that gett o be janitor, cook, cleaner, just like the locals in that fancy school in Bali. Who also are too poor to send their kids to this amazing school for primarily white people. 🙂
Nothing anyone here has said so far is anything else that any National or Act supporter here has said in defense of public money going to private enterprise. In fact all the Green supporters and their Labour allies currently sound like they are auditioning for Act.
It may have been intended and frankly i would not be surprised to hear again of this school and not in a good way,
And the very sad thing is that we have to vote for that. Cause its not as bad as Judith. Vote 2020 Labour /NZFirst/Green cause we are not as bad as National/Act.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/121938943/the-taranaki-parents-out-to-change-how-we-school-our-kids
https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/115162629/hundreds-of-applicants-seek-nine-teaching-jobs-at-countrys-first-green-school
They will eventually, otherwise there's very little point in building it.
You seem to be conflating things there. There will always be kids that do badly in mainstream schools. Nothing to do with the run down state of buildings thanks to National. It's about the core philosophy of state schools, what they think is important to teach, and how they teach it. The best lobbying in the world is unlikely to change that.
"Teachers were no longer hung up on his spelling, or whether his stories were shorter than the other kids', or whether he wrote on the lines. They cared about his ideas."
I have friends whose kids have been like this. Those kids did better in Steiner schools or being homeschooled. Low income households, before you go off on a rant about privilege.
I'm hoping that down the line schools like the Green School can be accommodated in the system that integrates private schools into the state system and thus influences the state system, or at least gives options for kids who need to be in alt education.
Our place is directly under the Green X23A flightpath into Auckland airport. Just now another Covid capsule quietly sneaked in delivering its masked occupants coughing and spluttering grim death.
11 community cases today and we are having to open up on Monday. This is an indication the country is going to have to live with it.
Masks on, people.
One of my Akl customers is going home tonight again. this is the second time she rode out lock down here in Rotorua. Ahh, to be wealthy in NZ, rules don't apply. In the meantime the poor sap in a bus with no face covering will get a 300 NZD fine.
First WHO warns that children can spread, yet there is no requirement to use masks in schools next week in Auckland.
World evidence that children do spread the virus has led WHO to recommend the use of masks in schools for children.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12360273
Now this turns up – children can retain the virus (in the nose) for three weeks and so we have a perfect storm. Outbreaks through schools and into homes and then workplaces and then out of Auckland.
That would require an end to our elimination policy (permanent social distancing and masks in schools until there is a vaccine), or a resumed lockdown nationwide and delay of the election to November.
Given the likely cause, government policy on mask wearing will be cited and they will be blamed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53946420.
The information about the three week carry duration should give the government pause about schools being open next week – or at least require mask use and social distancing.
One thing that i have observed here is people are using the app before coming in, they wait outside for the customers in the shop to leave first and quite a few wear masks. So at least here in Vegas people are trying to keep their community safe.
But i do expect the virus to travel from Sunday midnight on. No easy solutions here.
Jamie-Lee Ross explains his reasons for marching in Auckland:
""This is not the country I grew up in, where [the] military are on checkpoints in and out of Auckland.”"
Might not have been a pandemic back then, Mr Ross!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300094774/coronavirus-police-disappointed-but-no-punishment-for-500-protesters-breaching-lockdown
I thought that JLR took time out for quiet reflection. He must have spent the time looking in a mirror as he doesn't seem wiser after that remark about using the military. Actually JLR it is good that the forces can do some peacetime support work for their own country, they will feel good being able to help their own when needed.
Funny how soldiers stand to attention then march. Ross is marching to get attention.
And then who takes responsibility for the spread, the individual who overides risks to others and wants to leave Auckland for a wedding , or the Government?
Or the same evangelical group who have now admitted to carrying on hallelujah sessions together in secret?
And that's why all the residents of West and South Auckland have been advised to line up for a COVID test. If we all went to a testing site right now there would be insufficient testers / swabs etc. We are talking big numbers.
Respect.
And that's why all the residents of West and South Auckland have been advised to line up for a COVID test. If we all presented at a testing site right now there would be insufficient testers / swabs etc. We are talking big numbers.
The spy sandflys could not touch Eco Maori so they setup my Tamariki an set the courts onto them the under underbelly Of New Zealand's is full of rotting people. They don't like Eco Maori showing the World their true colours hence the VENDETTA.
https://youtu.be/KSN7Nz4ECQM