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.
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.
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
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Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has apologised in Parliament after National accused her of intimidating and attacking one of its ministers in the House. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met on Wednesday as the national cabinet to discuss a crisis gripping Australia – the horrific number of women murdered this year. The killings have shocked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Radhika Raghav, Teaching Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Otago Netflix Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for his big-budget Bollywood production, featuring grand sets, star casts, meticulously choreographed dance sequences and lavish costumes, jewellery and furnishings. ...
Sir Robert devoted his life to disability rights after living in institutions in his younger years, says Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga | Disability Rights Commissioner Prudence Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
Average ordinary time hourly earnings, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), increased 5.2 percent in the year to the March 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Annual wage cost inflation, as measured by the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau ...
As of the March 2024 quarter, we can now look back on 20 years of data related to youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), as collected by the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), according to figures released by Stats NZ today. "The ...
Thousands of workers attended public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today to celebrate International Workers’ Day (May Day), but union representatives are urging caution and vigilance over the Government’s blatantly "anti-worker" ...
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
The PSA is warning the Government that the sensitive information of New Zealanders held by various agencies will fall into the wrong hands if the latest round of proposed cuts goes ahead. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Talitha Best, Professor of Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Victoria Rodriguez/Unsplash How do sugar rushes work? – W.H, age nine, from Canberra What a terrific question W.H! Let’s explore this, starting with some of the basics. What is sugar? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karinna Saxby, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne MART PRODUCTION/Pexels Increasing income support could help keep women and children safe according to new work demonstrating strong links between financial insecurity and domestic violence. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University The telecommunications industry faces a major shakeup following the release of the post-incident report on last November’s 12-hour Optus outage. Telecommunications companies will have to share more information with customers during future ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Eden Denyer, bookseller at Unity Books Auckland.Weirdest question/request you’ve had on the shop floorA mother came in looking for anything we might have on Alaskan bison as that was her little boy’s ...
NZCTU Economist Craig Renney said new data released by Statistics New Zealand shows the need for Government to act now, with unemployment rising from 3.4% to 4.3%. ...
The outpouring of anger over Maiki Sherman’s hyperbolic presentation of this week’s ‘nightmare’ poll is itself an overreaction, argues Stewart Sowman-Lund. Politicians love nothing more than to pretend they don’t care about polls. This week, deputy prime minister Winston Peters said he didn’t give a “rat’s derriere” about a TVNZ ...
Asia Pacific Report Ngāti Kahungunu in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region has become the first indigenous Māori iwi (tribe) to sign a resolution calling for a “ceasefire in Palestine”, reports Te Ao Māori News. Reporter Te Aniwaniwa Paterson talked to Te Otāne Huata, who has been organising peace rallies ...
By Dale Luma in Port Moresby “We want grants and not concessional loans,” is the crisp message from Papua New Guinea businesses directly affected by the Black Wednesday looting four months ago. The businesses, which lost millions after the January 10 rioting and looting, say they need grants as part ...
Happy May Day. Join a union. Q: What’s worse than a staff break room where the only place to sit and have a cup of tea is on a teetering stack of old pornography magazines? A: Your boss replacing the magazine stacks with chairs that are “heartily encrusted with ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Former opposition leader Matthew Wale has been announced as the second prime ministerial candidate ahead of the election in Solomon Islands tomorrow. He will face off against former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele, who was announced by the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation ...
We get but one birthday a year – why not make it last as long as possible by scheduling as many meals with friends and family as you can? This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. How do you celebrate your birthday? Do you celebrate at ...
A Koi Tū discussion paper released today proposes sweeping changes to New Zealand’s media industry. The principal’s key author, Gavin Ellis, explains how journalists have a key role to play in making others value their role in society. This is an abridged version of a piece first published on knightlyviews.com ...
The Government’s spending cuts are again targeting support for Māori with proposed reform of the agency charged with advising on Māori wellbeing and development. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Douglas, Honorary Senior Lecturer, UNSW Aviation., UNSW Sydney The history of budget jet airlines in Australia is a long road littered with broken dreams. New entrants have consistently struggled to get a foothold. Low-cost carrier Bonza has just become the industry’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosalind Dixon, Director, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW Sydney Australia is finally having a sustained conversation about violence against women and what we can do about it. It is more than time. Australian women and girls continue to experience ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne stockfour/Shutterstock Preliminary bulk billing data released this week shows a 2.1% rise in bulk billing up to March. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Schulz, Senior Lecturer, University of Adelaide Australia is once again grappling with how we can stop gendered violence in our country. Protests over the weekend show there is enormous community anger over the number of women who are dying and National ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University AnastasiaDudka/Shutterstock What if the government was doing everything it could to stop thieves making off with our money, except the one thing that could really work? That’s how it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury The Conversation It seems to be a time of old favourites. This month our experts have recommended two new seasons – the second season of Alone Australia (although ...
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!
https://youtu.be/ELfSThA6lPg
"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.
https://twitter.com/wekatweets/status/1299469527550369793
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:
https://twitter.com/Tim_McCready/status/1294398390864769025
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.
https://twitter.com/franakviacorka/status/1298921068128763905
https://twitter.com/Fbeyeee/status/1298686648423714816
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
https://youtu.be/Fp8E5TSl_V0