As an unashamed righty – this was far from the result I was wanting. But Nation ran a terrible campaign – and lets face it Winston (Love or loath him) really does have that “X” factor.
Personally I hope that this does not impact the RMA reforms, but I can see that this is going to be an issue now.
Oh well, lets hope the cricket goes well. On that at least most of us will agree.
Why do you want the RMA reforms? The current system does not prevent development, provided it is environmentally sustainable. And conversely, the proposed reforms were simply a return to colonial times of greed, slash and burn and fuck the environment. The proposed reforms were indicative of Neanderthal thinking.
The beginning of the end of an evil dishonest RW era of Key. Well done Winston, Well done NZF, Well done Willow-Jean, Well done Labour, Well done Andrew Little, Well done all the Opposition of NAT/ACT, Well done Northland and Well done New Zealand!
Thanks especially to; Clendon and his Northland team, for convincing the Wellington GP strategists that contesting this byelection would be a waste of time and money. His 3639 voters from last election certainly helped make Peters’ victory an emphatic one.
+I
Actually I would credit both the Whangarei and Northland electorate teams who were very smart working together with Labour & NZF during the 2014 election campaign. The local Greens was never in doubt supportIng Peter’s for a collective win.
Now watch the crafty Peters slowly but surely lance the NACT abscess and let NZ see the pus ooze out over the remainder of this term. Payback for 2008 just begun.
So much material to work with, starting with the former member for northland.
‘Waaaahh they all ganged up on us’ probably, be good to see some real journos in Oz get in his face.
CT will have the lines are prepared however the fact remains they just lost one of the safest rural national seats after throwing the kitchen sink at it in terms if on the ground presence and pork barrelling.
This happened to me yesterday as well, Lynn. The edit link was available, but clicking on it said I didn’t have permission. This was when the timer was at about the 7 min mark. Refreshing the page, the edit link had vanished.
This has sporadically happened in the past, as well. I wonder if it’s related to moderator activity happening elsewhere in the comments?
My problem of late has been that my comments often just disappear until the 10 minute editing window has expired (at which point I notice some obvious typos I would have corrected). Yestereve, I just put that down to the elevated amount of site traffic, but it’s been happening sporadically for the past week.
Ah. That one is due to some kind of combination of server and client side caching.
Try doing a Shift+F5 or Shift+Refresh when you next see it. And get back to me if it doesn’t fix it.
What that does is force the local cache to be flushed and a new request to load to be sent to server. The problem is that there are several layers of caching going on.
The closest one is your browser cache that shows when you use the back button.
The next is the signature that your browser sends to the server based on its cache info. The server uses that to determine if it has a “new” copy of that page, if not it tells your browser to reload the existing copy on your system. Sometimes the page hasn’t ‘changed’ after you async save a comment because it hasn’t ‘stored’ that update yet.
In those cases it may tell your browser to reuse the stored copy of the page, or it may send you one that has been cached on the server side.
Then there is the database cache that keeps track of updates. That sometimes doesn’t update immediately after a change is made because the database is still async processing it.
Nett effect is that sometimes, usually under heavy load you won’t get the page displaying with your comment on it. Doing a forced refresh will usually get it for you.
I’ll have a review of the current cache settings. But they are optimized for readers rather than commenters for the obvious reason – more than 95% of the page loads are from pure site reads. What I am wondering is if the memcached signatures are set to clear when a comment is made, but are reloaded by something else while the comment is being saved.
That has happened to me quite often. Sometimes I have been away from the post or even to another blog and when I have returned and want to edit and improve? my comment I am not allowed back in though plenty of time is available still. And refreshing wipes out the time available.
And I did wonder if it relates to activity in other areas of the blog, big downloads, new posts, etc. It’s still possible to put a separate amending note – it’s not being locked out – just from your own original comment.
trying to correct a loaded one to edit it with 7min’s plus remaining on it and I’ve never seen this message before.
It was on a first gen iPad which is just about ready for the technology scrapheap….imac is fine but the android pad has always had issues with the site and while I’m on the subject the iPhone never shows a ‘reply’ button for any comments in safari.
I’m on the subject the iPhone never shows a ‘reply’ button for any comments in safari.
On the usual desktop site? Or the mobile one?
The mobile site doesn’t have a reply button per comment. It is a problem with the theme.
The desktop theme shouldn’t do that. I wonder what the Shift-F5 equivalent is on a tablet…
BTW: I just splashed out $120 and grabbed the “Agency” version of WPTouch so I could get the developer documentation so I can correct issue properly. Lyn in Vietnam for a few weeks so I should have some extra spare time.
BTW2: The Agency version of the mobile theme has a pile of speed enhancements. Seem to do great things on my android phone. What about others?
I have logged in using my Android phone looks like a good deal for your $$$ speed is way better. BUT.. Sorry to say no reply button in Android even after logging in.
“Has the current PM made any statements too his media puppies?”
……..you mean since he said Winston had “no chance”? is his radar malfunctioning? will he be having a serious think about his future after last night, like he did after the cup of tea debacle? I think he should.
As a Northland electorate voter, all I can do is give thanks as well – to Winston for standing, to Andrew Little and Willow-Jean for giving us “permission” (“approval” ?) to vote for Winston, and to the Nats for giving us almost six weeks of constant entertainment and amusement as evidenced by these cartoons –
Agree with your sentiments, except that the party organisations do not give permission to anyone to vote. The enlightened voters make that choice, and there were still over 1000 who do not understand first-past-the-post up there.
And as an aside, National took two on the chin yesterday. Hope Slater recovers from that headache quickly, andthat it may have knocked some sense into him. Wonder if he will change his attitude to “bullying”
It’s actually a shame to see you go this time. Twitter seems to have engendered more conciseness to your comments. I’ve only just caught up on last night’s conflageration and see why you feel that a boycott is required in this instance.
I don’t know what “quite literally” means. Something like “pretty legal”?
Meh, ban who you like. Bit rich though to ascribe a view to him that he quite definitely didn’t literally write, after warning him for ascribing views to other parties.
However, I think the Pigman has the best solution when he says:
Personally, I think it makes participating in discussions on her [Stephenie Rodgers’] posts a tense and unpleasant experience akin to walking on eggshells.
Of course, the easiest way to avoid it is simply not to comment on anything she posts, a practice I’ll be adopting forthwith.
(For the record, until her derailing on Bill’s Assange post, served with scattershot derision for ma[l]e commenters on ts generally, and subsequent excessively controlling discussions in another post this week, I regarded her as a good author whose views I often accorded with.)
It seems a shame to have lost the commentary of; yourself, marty mars, rawshark –
yeshe, & greywarshark, all over the needless banning of Murray Rawshark on a night when those opposed to NACT should have been celebrating their ability to work together. Especially since at the time he was banned, he had already announced:
I’m taking a holiday from here. I can’t handle the approach taken by a couple of authors in their moderation. It feels too much like abuse of power and suppression of debate to me. See you all sometime. Maybe.
Therefore until at least the 12th of next month, I will join the Pigman in not commenting on any of the posts of Stephenie Rodgers. I see no reason to boycott the Standard as a whole as other authors have shown no similar tendancies to abuse their powers of moderation. Perhaps those in voluntary exile might consider doing the same and not depriving TS of your viewpoints?
Let her speak only with; the trolls, and her own echos, for a while.
Yep, I’ll be boycotting Stephanie’s posts from now on. Her aggressive stance towards any sort of criticism is an on-going problem for The Standard. A mix of self-martyrdom and control-freakery. Needs to be confronted once and for all.
It’s true that Stephanie comes in for an unusual amount of flak. But I’d ask her defenders (like, for example, Weka) – those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender – to consider the stark contrast between reactions to Karol and Stephanie.
Karol is a woman and a feminist but received very little criticism. Why ? Because she dealt reasonably with anyone who took issue with her arguments. Typically, she’d reply with something like: “Show me the evidence”.
Stephanie, on the other hand, seems to regard any criticism or disagreement as some sort of vicious attack upon her person. It really is Hyper-sensitivity gone mad. Unlike Karol, Stephanie’s reply would usually be along the lines of either:
(1) Don’t you dare tell me what to think or say !
or
(2) Don’t you dare demonise me !
Trigger-happy aggression dressed-up as self-defence.
And she’ll never have to stand back and objectively scrutinise her own behaviour because, of course, she has “200 years of feminist scholarship” to reassure her that it’s all about “men not being able to deal with a strong, decisive woman” rather than her own deeply controlling personality.
All of which may cop me a lifetime ban, but, as I say, it’s a problem that needs to be confronted once and for all. The shame of it is that Stephanie does, in fact, contribute some very important and interesting posts.
“those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender”
I haven’t said it’s all about gender. Neither has Stephanie (and none of us know what Stephanie is thinking). The only person who has run that line is felix, and now yourself. Please don’t misrepresent what I say.
Myself, I think there is room on ts for a range of moderation styles. I could criticise every moderator here, or praise them. But I don’t because I believe that the moderation here is set to protect the site and the authors not to suit the ideals of the commenters. That keeps the place functional and vibrant.
Unfortunately the comparison with karol just buys into the whole women/feminists have to behave in certain ways thing. It’s ok for Lynn to be rude and abusive when he moderates, but Stephanie has to behave like a well behaved feminist.
I would also point out that Stephanie is in a completely different situation than karol with regards to being a feminist blogger and what that means, and that those things need to be taken into account (i.e. context has meaning).
I’m gobsmacked to see you psychoanalysing an author and moderator. I think your characterisation of Stephanie is off and it’s really disappointing to see people thinking they can use their own characterisations of her to criticise her moderation.
+100…and I feel that Murray Rawshark, Colonial Rawshark and others have also come in for some quite unwarranted, personal, distasteful and vicious attacks at times eg…”rape apologists” with extras ( check out the posts on Julian Assange issue)
…sexism in reverse?
… or disguised trolling ie their arguments (and in fact the whole initial Post) was illegitimately hijacked , overturned and twisted into something they never meant
Greens have gone from 1 seat to 4 seats in the NSW Lower House. They’ve taken the 2, formerly safe North Coast seats of Ballina and Lismore off the Nationals as the issue of Coal Seam Gas extraction became a major election issue. They held Balmain and gained the adjacent newly created inner Sydney seat of Newtown. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-28/nsw-election-greens-balmain-newtown-ballina-lismore/6356098
Where are all the headlines reporting this tremendous rout?
Where is John key putting in his usual two cents worthless worth?
Where is the pig?
Useless media!!
Great win and a fantastic nights celebration. Have shaken the hangover, helped by the shock of our little dog befriending a kiwi when I let her out for a pee. Taken her for a walk along the water front. The media are intviewing Peters now, ha some lady just yelled out go Winston you beauty! which really does sum things up nicely.
I’ve turned on Q & A late, so far seen an interview with Joyce, and now one with Marama Fox from the MP. First time I’ve seen Marama do anything, and she appears a very capable politician – I’d say better than some of the government ministers when it comes to explaining their position and interviews.
It’s still going on now on TV1, or you can catch it at 10am on 1 + 1.
In the latest ruling he has lost an estimated $67 million to the US. Im not sure if this means assets held in NZ and HK as yet. He seems to think that this wont be touched, but then again he has not been right for some time.
nice to see the slug hit the canvass so swiftly in his ‘fight’ with Ryder.Maybe the useless loudmouth should hand in his ‘man card’,he fought like a woman!
He keeps his Idiot Card for doing it at all. I don’t think he ever had a “man card” and trying to punch people in the head while wearing your undies is no way to get one.
physically it was an even match…Ryder is an over weight cricketer who is not toned or quick and I was expecting the slug,given his macho verbosity to actually fight.He did get up after being knocked over ,but offerred about as much resistant as a brightly coloured punching bag.
Agreed. I don’t want to open up any jokes about intelligence or whether he has a brain or not, even a few blows to the head can cause concussion and brain damage, which can have a lasting effect on your life.
Mind you, some people get brain damage and become better people for it. I’m not wishing brain damage on him, but maybe it’ll be for the better in the long term.
Those according him courage for self promoting himself in a boxing ring are the kind of people that mean we struggle to get justice for many vulnerable in this county, they perpetuate a dangerous and outdated definition of “man”. Being prepared to fight someone for personal gain (be it financial or publicity) is not manly.
Nah, the problem is: A couple of weeks back, Fisi suddenly changed his tune and covered his ass by predicting a Winnie win. (And I see he’s turned up today on another thread).
A leaked copy of the report, led by University of Auckland research fellow Dr Glenn Simmons, estimated that over 60 years, 40.4 million tonnes of catch was taken. That was roughly 2.9 times the 14 million tonnes reported officially during the period.
Government officials are braced for the impact of the report, acknowledging that New Zealand’s data on historic catch levels are poor.
Since the quota management system was introduced, Simmons “conservatively” estimated that the actual catch was 2.2 times official reported data.
Simmons, who could not be reached for comment on Friday, blamed the “vast majority” of the unreported catch on industrial catch and discards, in large part pointing the finger at foreign flagged vessels.
This is why we need better reporting and oversight of fishing. We need to know how much is being taken so that we can set quotas so that the fish in our seas get back to historic levels. We can’t do that if catches are being misreported.
Also note that the report was leaked by the fishing industry in what appears, IMO, to be an attempt to attack it before it’s official release.
Talking to both commercial and recreational fishermen the days of plenty are well in the past with some recreational outings yielding nothing.
We also need to factor in the non NZ fishing fleets who take advantage of our lack of enforcement and plunder what they can and the damage bottom trawling has done to the ecosystem.
Naturally our government introduced voluntary self-reporting for fishing vessels rather than having MAF inspectors on each one as previously. Though these figures suggest maybe that made little overall difference either.
This is effectively a black market twice the size of the official one. You’d think any state might want to do something about that in their own territory.
Anagrams from ‘one lout in that side of the house’.
Come to mind – tools, snide, hades, deus, nest, nose, tint, foist, nous, haste, lost, etc
and funny all have relevance to some or all of our parliamentarians.
Here is a link to making a submission to Parliamentary select committee on Inquiry into the 2014 general election
This is particularly essential for all those people – especially in the Northland electorate – who think they were unjustly turned away from voting in last year’s general election.
The closing date for submissions is Tuesday, 31 March 2015
By convention, a select committee inquiry is conducted following a general election into the legal and administrative aspects of that election. This process provides a multi-party approach to the review and any reform of the law and administration relating to Parliamentary elections.
The terms of reference for the inquiry are: “To examine the law and administrative procedures for the conduct of Parliamentary elections in light of the 2014 general election”.
The committee requires 2 copies of each submission if made in writing. Those wishing to include any information of a private or personal nature in a submission should first discuss this with the clerk of the committee, as submissions are usually released to the public by the committee. Those wishing to appear before the committee to speak to their submissions should state this clearly and provide a daytime telephone contact number. To assist with administration please supply your postcode and an email address if you have one.
And is there a business waiting to take off building furniture out of the pine they have planted in the past which I think is still abundant, and barging it south from Opua or a suitable port nearbuy to the big markets elsewhere in NZ though presumably mainly Auckland? The barges would also carry other produce. Another local business looking to the future when road making and vehicle costs are affected badly by high oil prices.
Juken wood treatment company has had a plant in Kaitaia for years connected with the MDF board industry. And there are a number of businesses working with this material but I don’t know how many are fully in NZ and NZowned. http://www.paneltec.co.nz/ (An Australian firm with sales office in Dargaville) http://www.applefurniture.co.nz/ (A NZ enterprise based in Kaiwaka)
Jim Anderton in 2005 launched this book on the growth of MDF board. http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/24157
Another site is hotfrog that is listing businesses and promoting them which gives an extra boost to small businesses.
It listed Make Enterprises Dargaville connected with Paneltec.
BBS Timbers NZ owned timber firm providing a range of species.
Juken have a big plant in Wairarapa and this item refers to the amount of wood available there. So perhaps Northland needs to keep up its plantings to get the right mass of wood to enable the local business to be ongoing.
Some comments in a stuff article on the business. http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/9411743/Juken-primed-for-growth-with-founders-added-value-strategies While over half the timber logged in New Zealand leaves the country in this “primary” form, Juken focuses on tertiary production, which is only around 15 per cent of the country’s timber output, he said.
“There’s enough wood in Wairarapa to have another 10 mills. We have the single largest ownership, 15,000ha – but that’s only 20 per cent of what’s available in Wairarapa.”
Volatile prices and exchange rates have sent many domestic mills to the wall, such as Rotorua’s Tachikawa Forest Products which went into receivership last month with the loss of 120 jobs.
But Juken has insulated itself against the worst impacts by buying its logs for milling from its own forests, at a long-term average price.
Juken appear to have brains and foresight. Perhaps we should just throw out our politicians and contract out much of the business side of NZ to them. That however sounds suspiciously like an ACT idea so there is bound to be a worm in the apple.
The spokesperson refers to volatile prices which NZ must adjust to, but this difficulty is worsened by the exchange rates affected by the mafia protection system we are locked
into. Something that a government for NZ with guts, and explanations to the citizens of our true economic state, needs to do something about. Particularly the volatility of casino-like overseas financial entities playing with our money as if it was casino chips.
I noticed that my fingers produced nearbuy for nearby. I am wondering if there isn’t something of a Freudian slip here. Maybe nearbuy is going to be a new useful word that indicates local trading and business?
Northland produces higher-density timber that is too valuable to be chipped into MDF. Making solid furniture from it locally would create skilled jobs and better export revenues.
Well well:
“NZ First leader Winston Peters says NZ First may decide not to bring an extra MP into Parliament after his Northland byelection win because his party supports a smaller Parliament.”
Interesting. Won’t make any difference to the Government power. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424888
@ianmac I’m sure Winston will resign his list seat and bring in another NZF member.
What people are missing here is the fact that the public of Northland knew this was going to happen if they elected Peters (or if they didn’t they don’t may attention-no excuse) yet they elected Peters with a stonking great majority.
People who whinge about this outcome need to accept that a democratic process has taken place where the electorate knew the consequences of their vote, rather than focusing on the effect on the result of an election 6 months ago.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that everyone who voted for Winston on Saturday fully expected him to resign his seat and that NZF would be up a seat afterwards. For him to now not do that would be against those expectations and thus against democracy.
This is a problem with our democracy in that our ‘representatives’ can go off and do what they like once they’ve been voted in no matter what their policies or the expectation of the populace was when they were voted in.
It is actually a very complicated legal situation, as no explicit legal provisions exist for the current situation. Too tired tonight to try to explain but suggest you read Graeme Edgeler’s latest post on Public Address; together with his earlier post there and Philip Lyth’s earlier post there today. Links are included in Edgeler’s latest post.
. Let us be quite definite about this. Any Democratic politician who thinks this is a bad situation — or, worse, will not stand by a Democratic colleague in this situation — is not worth the hankie to blow Joe Lieberman’s nose.
Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party’s tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week. Bank officials said the idea of withholding donations was not discussed at a meeting of the four banks in Washington but it has been raised in one-on-one conversations between representatives of some of them. However, there was no agreement on coordinating any action, and each bank is making its own decision, they said.
My god, what a prodigious bluff. Also, my god, what towering arrogance? These guys own half the world and have enough money to buy the other half, and they’re threatening the party still most likely to control the White House because they don’t like the Senator Professor’s tone?Her tone? Sherrod Brown’s tone? These are guys who should be worried about the tone of the guard who’s calling them down to breakfast at Danbury and they’re concerned about the tenderness of their Savile Row’d fee-fees? Honkies, please.
So now Yemen joins Syria, most of Iraq, northern Jordan, northern Lebanon, and northern Saudi Arabia into social chaos.
The United States is aligned alongside Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and against them in Yemen. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who have joined in the Saudi offensive in Yemen, are bombing factions in Libya backed by Turkey and Qatar, who also support the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The Syrian conflict has been fueled by competition among all regional powers to outmaneuver one another on battlefields far from home.
Neither the US nor Saudi Arabia have any consistency, and even Iran is beginning to look coherent in its positioning.
This is going to get broader and much, much worse before it gets better.
There was a well attended and very noisy protest outside Sky City this afternoon where the
“New Zealand’s premier annual upstream event- featuring the government’s launch of block offer 2015-the exclusive tender for exploration permits”, was taking place.
Topics include-expert speakers presenting with NZ context,
-insights into NZ regulatory system,
– best practice local community engagement.
I guess we were helping inform them about the last topic. All protesters had been invited to bring a drum and were entertained by Michael Franti before marching from Victoria Park to Sky City.
One major sponsor is Halliburton. Another is Fragomen which is a global corporate immigration law firm. This doesn’t indicate jobs for locals to me.
KiwiRail are saying that ‘no final decision has been made’, but when someone says that, it is pretty much always a done deal.
New Zealanders paid a lot of money for that electrification, plus interest, and it is madness for it to be ripped out only about 30 year later and sold for scrap. Fuel prices may be low, but that doesnt mean that they will be low forever…
When Lab VI bought Toll Rail back in 2008, it was supposed to be a new era for rail in NZ. Unfortunately since National won the election that year, their attacks on the rail system have been more savage than ever before.
Why don’t the nats go the whole hog and go back to steam trains , we could hire the unemployed on contracts to cut all those pesky trees down in the central north island to fuel them.
Where does Key get off?
The Northland-safe-as-houses seat for National was lost for no other reason than the usual die-hard Nat voters were actually not sure what sort of National Party is running the country – its complexion appears to have changed over the last couple of months and they couldn’t be convinced enough to get out and vote. I don’t think they are actually impressed by the likes of Bennett, Bridges, Woodhouse sitting on or near the front benches. They want stability and substance, not flash Harrys.
Perhaps the issues of the TPPA, RMA were not as important to them to motivate them to get out and vote. Surely they don’t need the presence of a campaign to get them to the polling booth.
They must have known that their government’s programme was under threat if Winston Peters rested the seat from them. That surely should have been motivation enough.
So Mr Key needs a bit deeper analysis than blaming the opposition for this defeat.
I’m happy for the nats to stay in denial with “the left and winnie ganged up on us” excuses.
The longer they take to lose their hubris, the better it’ll be for everyone else in 2017 (or earlier).
If dunnokeyo lives up to the form roughan confirmed, in a very short while our glorious pm will be reconsidering whether he wants to stay in the job. And mr didn’t-fix-it fucking up again leaves an opening for the minister for oravida, petulent bean, woodhead, mcshouty, and whoever else to battle for the iron throne…
If Saturdays 4,000 majority to Winston is combined with a National majority of 9,000 (last general election night) there is a loss of 13,000 to National.
How many National supporters chose not to vote last Saturday?
The spy agency probably has the answer to my question.
In 1994, I was the editor for an issue of Planet magazine focused on cannabis, its culture and the prospects for the end of its prohibition. Part of that issue was an interview with 'Ringo', an experienced cannabis dealer.I recently posted my essay from that issue, and I figured it ...
Dr Helen Waite, sports sociologist and former elite athlete, on the invasion of women’s sport by men and the anti-scientific and misogynist ideology used to rationalise it. ...
As Brexit comes to a grisly conclusion (perhaps) people on all sides are saying intemperate and uwise things. Some, like the Daly Mail, have been doing it for years.People as normally level headed as Jon Lansman are calling for automatic deselection of MPs who vote against a (likely) Labour three ...
I've got one source saying more Labour MPs than expected are mulling whether to vote for the deal - including names who were not on the letter to Juncker and Tusk— Emilio Casalicchio (@e_casalicchio) 17 October 2019 I've compiled a list of possible reasons why Labour ...
On Wednesday, the government was loudly telling us that it needed to legislate to allow it to impose "control orders" - effectively a parole regime, but imposed without charge, prosecution, conviction or real evidence - on suspected terrorists because they couldn't be prosecuted for their supposed crimes. Today, it turns ...
On Monday, the Hit and Run inquiry heard from NZDF's former director of special operations, who claimed that the defence Minister knew everything about the Operation Burnham raid. Today, the inquiry heard from that (former) Minister - and it turns out that he didn't know nearly as much as NZDF ...
Yoga gurus and cult leaders – I’ve seen a few. Two weeks ago, I unknowingly joined an alleged new-age cult at the Kāpiti coast, together with a giant kraken and some neatly dressed pensioners who would make any book club proud.They were among the two hundred people of all ages ...
The last decade has seen a trend of increasing weapons availability to police. Assault rifles. Tasers on every hip. Guns in cars. And following the march 15 massacre, pistols on every hip, all over the country. At the same time, its also seen an increase in the abuse of force: ...
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy preparing for our summer paper on Science Communication. Looking for something amusing about ‘risk’ in science, I came across this neat xkcd.com cartoon about why so many people come knocking on my door (or phoning me, or emailing me) desperately wanting ...
by John Edmundson The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) have recently reposted a February article, by Romany Tasker-Poland, explaining ISO’s position in the “trans rights” debate. It is available on their website and on their Facebook Page. The article sets out to explain why “socialists support trans rights”. It reads more ...
"Auckland City Mission: 10% of Kiwis experiencing food insecurity", RNZ, 16 October 2019:About half a million people are experiencing food insecurity, according to new research from the Auckland City Mission. Food insecurity, or food poverty, is defined as not having enough appropriate food. The City Mission said over the last ...
Media Statement for Immediate Release 16th October 2019 “Fake News” from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th–there is very little evidence ...
Would You Buy A Used Propaganda Video From This Man? Bridges and the National Party’s strategists have discovered that the ideas and attitudes considered acceptable by today’s editors and journalists are no longer enforceable. The rise and rise of the Internet and the social media platforms it spawned means that ...
There is plenty of evidence of the way the business mentality has permeated every level of society since the recrudescence of market liberalism 35 years ago. You only need to think of how citizens in need of help from their government, their state, their country, are now routinely described as ...
John MacCormickOver the last 40 years, New Zealanders – and people in other countries – have experienced big changes in the jobs they do and where they live and work. These changes include: a decline in manufacturing jobs an increase in jobs in ‘information-intensive’ industries (which are better paid ...
Nick Wilson, Leah Grout, Mereana Wilson, Anja Mizdrak, Phil Shoemack, Michael BakerProtecting waterways has the benefits of: (1) protecting water from hazardous microbes; (2) minimising cancer risk and other problems from nitrates in water; (3) avoiding algal blooms that are hazardous to health; (4) protecting mahinga kai uses (cultural ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In a press release today Massey University announced it has decided to rebrand and reorientate after struggling to be a University for grown-ups. For some time the University has wanted to be a safe play space for wee-woke-misogynists who have been really badly triggered ...
After a brief dalliance with 'hard Revoke' it looks like the Lib Dems are changing ground on on Brexit, with leader Jo Swinson reverting to calling for a second referendum on Johnson's deal.The party has tabled an amendment to the Queen’s speech requesting that any deal brought back from Brussels ...
The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof. If ...
So, Judith Collins has done a Facebook rant about climate change, peddling the same shit National has been shovelling for the past twenty years: the impacts are overstated, there's no need to do anything about it, and its too hard anyway (oh, and its so unfair that people who peddle ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThere is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...
I came across this song quite by accident. If it isn't one of Greta Thunberg's favourites - it should be.Video courtesy of YouTube.This post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...
Last month, NZDF's shoddy coverup of what it knew about civilian casualties in Operation Burnham began to fall apart, with the revelation that a report on the matter, which NZDF claimed not to have, had been sitting in an NZDF safe for the past nine years. Yesterday, the man responsible ...
While many imagine that countries like the USA and Europe dominate space activities, in fact India is now a major player on this stage. It launches satellites for its own purposes and also commercially, and has constellations orbiting our planet and returning data of vital importance to that nation in ...
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...
For the past week, Extinction Rebellion has been peacefully protesting in London to demand action on climate change. The British government's response? Ban their protests:Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s ...
An essay by Judith Collins MP reported on Carbon News yesterday seems to show an alarming shift in attitude within the National Party. Collins argues against the Zero Carbon Bill, the Paris Agreement, and downplays the magnitude of climate impacts. The Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015 and ratified ...
When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
A list of indicators of bad science – many of these are found in articles promoted by anti-fluoride activists. Anti-fluoride activists have been pouring money into a scaremongering campaign warning pregnant women not to drink fluoridated water. They claim fluoride will lower the IQ of their future child. Fluoride ...
Nothing Left To Say: Labour's pollster, Stephen Mills, remains swaddled-up in the comforting myths of the 1980s. As if the experience of Roger Douglas’s genuinely radical post-Muldoon policy agenda was literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing – as much as the party could possibly absorb for at least the next 50 years.MEMO ...
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
How could government evolve over the next decades? Reports of democracy’s imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. However, satisfaction with political systems in many countries is low, so there is much to do for governments of all political stripes to improve relevance and trust. Digital technologies are seen as one ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni has welcomed the first reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill. “Every New Zealander has a stake in New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension,” says Carmel Sepuloni. “They are our most common form of social assistance – nearly 800,000 New ...
Babies in Auckland aged six months and over can receive a free vaccination and children will all have access to vaccines, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced today at Papatoetoe High School. The move comes as part of Government efforts to step up the fight against measles. ...
***Check against delivery*** Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here, and to have the honour of opening this important conference on behalf of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Let us take the opportunity to acknowledge all the people who have helped make today possible, including our special ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash says the safety of frontline officers and members of the public will be the focus of a new trial of specialist Police response teams in three of our largest urban centres. Police have this morning released details of an initiative to be trialled in Counties Manukau, ...
The Minister of Fisheries is calling for entries for a new public award to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector. “I have established the Seafood Sustainability Awards to recognise and celebrate those throughout industry, tangata whenua and communities who demonstrate outstanding dedication and innovation towards the sustainability of New Zealand’s ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter welcomes leaders in the private sector taking action on closing their gender pay gaps to ensure a fairer workplace for all New Zealanders. Ms Genter today launched a new report, Addressing the gender pay gap and driving women’s representation in senior leadership, from the Champions for ...
Government Ministers today welcomed the release of a marine environment report highlighting the four key issues affecting our oceans, estuaries and coastlines. The release underlines the importance of government proposals to combat climate pollution, ensure clean freshwater, protect biodiversity, make land use more sustainable, and reduce waste and plastic. Environment ...
The Government has approved funding for a new acute mental health facility for Waikato which will provide better care and support to people with mental health and addiction issues. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark announced the $100 million project to replace the aging Henry Rongomau ...
The Government is making progress on its goal to integrate te reo Māori into education by 2025, with over 500 teachers and support staff already graduating from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis made the announcement at an awards ceremony in Waikanae today, for ...
Statistics Minister James Shaw has welcomed the first release of 2018 Census data. The first release of data today, 23 September, includes key data on population, regional growth, the number of homes and the size of different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Data from the 2018 Census will support the ...
Minister for Statistics James Shaw today announced a public consultation on a proposed algorithm charter for government agencies. The charter has been developed by the Government Chief Data Steward in response to growing calls for more transparency in government use of data. Computer algorithms – procedures or formulas for solving ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte co-hosted a business roundtable in Auckland this morning focused on working together to address climate change. “The Netherlands is an important partner for New Zealand. We share a strong agricultural history. Sustainable agribusiness and ...
The Government is taking action to build an inclusive economy where more of us receive our fair share at work and businesses can compete on great products and services, not undercutting wages and conditions, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. Two consultations launched today seek feedback ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Feedback sought– Lyttelton commercial zone parking The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to remove on-site car parking requirements for new developments in the Lyttelton commercial zone. The proposal, by Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section 71 of the Greater ...
Hon Minister Poto Williams Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration MEDIA STATEMENT Tuesday 15 October 2019 Feedback sought – Hagley Oval The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal about Hagley Oval. The proposal was developed by Regenerate Christchurch ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Winston Peters says his party is a handbrake on bad ideas and a "supercharged turbo" for good ones - but will it be in the driver's seat come 2020? ...
Our former prime minister secured a meeting with Chinese premier Xi Jinping outside all normal diplomatic channels. Interest’s Jenée Tibshraeny asks what it means for New Zealand’s evolving relationship with the superpower.Former prime minister John Key secured a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week without the involvement of ...
David Robiecontinues his three-part series about travelling in Iran. I stumbled on the scene by chance. Our host family in Iran’s second city Mashhad, a modern and beautiful metropolis that would comfortably fit in New Zealand’s entire population, was taking us on a drive to the outskirts to ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has lashed out at the media, in particular, MediaWorks, just a day after the company announced it was selling off its television arm. ...
About a hundred disgruntled licensed gun owners have descended on the New Zealand First conference to tell the party leader Winston Peters that they feel like victims. ...
New Zealand First members will vote on a policy today that would allow businesses of all sizes to enforce 90-day trials when they employ people straight out of prison. ...
"Each time she held her lighter underneath the pipe and sucked the smoke into the back of her throat, the promise was there": a New Zealand tragedy by Alice Tawhai. ...
With the future of Mediaworks’ TV business hanging in the balance, Al Jazeera news presenter Kamahl Santamaria reflects on what the imperilled channel meant, and continues to mean, to him.I always liked the logo. The fresh bright colours, the nod to a koru in its shape, and just the fact ...
There are still many barriers preventing people from voting in local elections. Laura O’Connell Rapira proposes some social solutions.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.To vote in the local elections, I cast ...
What’s really stood out for me being back in Tokyo is the unique qualities of Japan’s spectators, writes Richard Light, professor of sport coaching at the University of Canterbury.The Rugby World Cup has thrown a global spotlight on Japan over recent weeks. Not just the rugby: the distinctive culture and ...
As the New Zealand First Party gathers for its annual conference, the question swirling in the year is how it can carve out a path to avoid electoral defeat in 2020, writes Jo Moir for RNZ. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s a familiar break up excuse that’s used ...
To the early intervention therapists, to the teachers, to the speech therapists, the occupational therapists, music therapists, diabetes nurses and all: you change the world.When I was married almost a decade ago we had the following reading at our wedding:You are holding up a ceilingwith both arms. It is very ...
The faces said it all. The smiles of the European leaders crowded round Boris after the Brexit deal was struck. The deal his opponents – no, pretty much everyone – said was impossible.So what’s in it? The detail is still opaque, but subject to gremlins in the fine print, ...
Iran attracts an onslaught of negative media in New Zealand and Western media. But is it fair or deserved? David Robie has spent several weeks travelling in the country on sabbatical and finds the media negativity far from the reality of the “most friendly” country he has ever visited ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Leigh Sullivan discusses the week in politics with Michelle Grattan. They talk about Alan Jones accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of failing the immediate needs of drought-striken farmers, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anita Parbhakar-Fox, Senior Research Fellow in Geometallurgy/Applied Geochemistry, The University of Queensland Last month, scientists uncovered a mineral called Edscottite. Minerals are solid, naturally occurring substances that are not living, such as quartz or haematite. This new mineral was discovered after an ...
The Auckland-based collective talk origins, ambitions and making the rave accessible to everybody.Friendly Potential is an outfit that defies easy summary. They’re among the country’s most ambitious and prolific club promoters. In their almost five-years of operation, they’ve been responsible for the local debuts of electronic music icons including Detroit ...
Analysis: Two polls show support for Labour sliding, the government is accused of breaking another promise and the Greens's refusal to back a bill forces Labour to rely on National to get it through. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kiera Lindsey, University of Technology Sydney One spring morning in 1850, over 8,000 Sydneysiders marched through town to protest the resumption of transportation – the act of sending British criminals to Australia. It was the largest protest in Australia thus far, an ...
Two shareholders of failed insurance firm company CBL are leading a class action against the firm's former directors seeking compensation for financial losses. ...
Sam Brooks recaps the third episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and wonders why some of these queens don’t know how to sew.This episode asks, and sort of answers the main question that millions of people across the world: why would you come on Drag Race and not know how to sew?!There ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John M Clarke, Team Leader, Regional Projections, CSIRO Last month we lost Dr Penny Whetton – one of the world’s most respected climate scientists and a brilliant mentor to the next generation of researchers. Penny will also be remembered as a passionate ...
Ten moose were upended into the Dusky Sounds in 1910. Now, their descendants are getting their day in the sun.The climate crisis is affecting wildlife all over the country: rockhopper penguin populations are in drastic decline, tuatara eggs aren’t hatching females, and the ice walls keeping predators away from kea ...
Security footage of NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell being thrown out of a Tauranga bar looks unlikely to ever be aired - despite his leader Winston Peters promising a screening. ...
Amnesty International is concerned that Justice Minister Andrew Little's Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill could have the potential to undermine human rights in New Zealand. The Bill would give the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to ...
Expect the old campaigner Winston Peters to be at his belligerent best as he gears up for another election. He’s kept his party alive for 27 years and he shows no sign of quitting. The omens may be bleak—polls this week showed his party below the 5% threshold– but Peters ...
The National Party has agreed to take down any videos breaching the current rules around the use of parliamentary TV footage, as all parties try to reach consensus. ...
Recently the Health Promotion Agency released a report into hazardous drinking in New Zealand. The report shows that Māori who drink alcohol and live in deprived circumstances are less likely to have a harmful relationship with alcohol if they ...
Turkey-US joint-statement on military ops within Syria’s territory.The Turkish Embassy in New Zealand issued Evening Report this unabridged United States of America-Republic of Turkey joint-statement detailing what both sides agreed to regarding Turkey’s military operations within the so-called security zone within Syrian territory near Turkey’s southern border. It is ...
Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash didn’t mention what winners will receive, when he proudly called for entries for a new public award “to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector”. Nor did he mention the cost to taxpayers of this initiative. Point of Order’s checks with the website where more details have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona R Martin, Senior Lecturer in Convergent and Online Media, University of Sydney One of the basic tenets of the ABC Act is independence from government. Yet once again, in contravention to that principle, the federal government is trying to push through ...
A new poem by Auckland poet Lily Holloway.modernity to globalisationwhen I get there as still life and landscape and also portraitureseeking the cacti in small pots who dot the globeslices of pie offer up the vision after the sermonexpressing emotions without coherent narrative supportbecause no artist responded to this callemploying ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi to rule out any taxpayer-funded purchase or bailout for Mediaworks’s channel Three. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “For the last few months Mediaworks ...
The Police Commissioner's announcement that squadcars of officers with automatic rifles will patrol New Zealand's streets is dangerous and unnecessary, according to the criminal justice community organisation People Against Prisons Aotearoa. The ...
News broke this morning that Mediaworks is seeking to sell off, and even contemplating closing, its TV division. What might that mean for journalism?For journalism in New Zealand, the loss of Three’s TV division is a devastating blow. It is not yet known whether any of the news properties will ...
In our defence of our coalition Government policy on climate change, we fully support Government plan to use rail funding for rail infrastructure upgrades to promote use rail infrastructure for freight around NZ. ...
The billions of tonnes of plastic in our oceans isn’t going away any time soon, but innovative companies here and abroad are working together to find silver linings to this daunting problem.Fishing boats head out to sea and set their nets. They go back to shore. They head back out, ...
An EveningReport.nz investigation by Kevin ListKiwibank services. Image by Kevin List.Evening Report looks into the separation of Kiwibank from New Zealand Post, and considers the impact on the public’s access to banking services in their communities.Kiwibank. What’s going on? Kiwibank and New Zealand Post are in the ...
Local Government New Zealand today confirmed what many local election commentators have observed; that more of the voting public cast their ballots in favour of women candidates than ever before. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington (this week we totted up the data a day early, on Wednesday, to let our books ed. ...
New Zealand's mineral manufacturing sector is expected to face some testing times, with softer prices, tighter margins and sluggish export markets. ...
Portugal has been painted by pro-cannabis legalisation groups as a model to follow. Yet just last month, the mayor of Porto contradicted his previous pro-harm reduction position and endorsed reintroducing criminal penalties for drug use in public spaces. ...
Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short announced today the inclusion of six Cook Island First World War soldiers in the New Zealand and Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s official rolls of honour. ...
The latest statistics released by the Health Promotion Agency showing a dramatic fall in the numbers of cigarettes being sold in supermarkets, service stations, and liquor stores are being welcomed by the Vaping Trade Association of New Zealand (VTANZ). ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.NZ First Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Where to from here? How NZ First will win in ...
Aotearoa Climate Emergency (ACE), a climate change network, will host a conference in Wellington on 11 November (Armistice Day) to promote holding a Citizens Assembly in 2020, as a way of breaking the current political deadlock on treating climate ...
MediaWorks’ owners have called time after years of losses from its TV division. Sources say the company will announce it is for sale – if no buyers emerge, it will close within months.Three is facing the biggest crisis in its three decade history today, as its ownership will soon announce ...
Sam Brooks reviews Amazon Prime’s Modern Love, an anthology series based on the New York Times column dedicated to ‘love in all its forms’. A first date that ends up in the emergency room. A flagging marriage that finds new energy through tennis. The founder of a dating app who doesn’t ...
If we want to grow support for New Zealand’s aid, we need to get better at partnering with the ‘unlike-minded’ as well as the ‘like-minded’, and much better at telling people what we do with the money they give, says Josie Pagani, Executive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Orsola De Marco, Astrophysicist , Macquarie University If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.How are stars made? –Zali, age 8, Karkoo, South Australia. How are stars made? Well, stars are not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gita Mishra, Professor of Life Course Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland All women know to expect the time in life when their periods finish and they reach menopause. Many might even look forward to it. What many women don’t ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGreevy, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Science, University of Sydney Since ancient times, horse behaviour, and the bond between horses and humans, has been a source of intrigue and fascination. The horse-lore that has accumulated over the centuries is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Wallis, Lecturer and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland A move to the country is often presented in popular culture as an idyllic life, a place where you can escape the pressures of the city. It’s in television shows such ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW The just-announced inquiry into Australia’s retirement income system ought to be anything but run-of-the-mill. Taking place 25 years after the introduction of compulsory superannuation, it provides an opportunity to either fix a broken system, or discard ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allan McCay, Law Lecturer, University of Sydney The rise of artificial intelligence has led to widespread concern about the role of humans in the workplaces of the future. Indeed, Israeli historian, futurist and publishing sensation Yuval Noah Harari warns in his most ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Saunders, Phd candidate, University of Wollongong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people. You leave Sydney and head for holidays on the South Coast. You plan to catch a quick surf, ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Clayton Mitchell denies accusations around a night out, food insecurity on the rise, and UK PM Boris Johnson secures deal with dubious prospects.NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell has got himself in a spot of late night bother in a Tauranga ...
As the rugby world wrestles with the new reality that players can, and will, be dismissed for accidental contact with an opponent’s head it's worth pondering the fate of three All Blacks not selected for the Ireland quarterfinal. ...
A new exhibition in Raetihi offers a rare opportunity to see early, colonialism-focused works by Wellington artist Barbara Strathdee, writes Pat Baskett. ...
Italy's Ambassador to New Zealand Fabrizio Marcelli responds to Newsroom stories - and The Detail podcasts - questioning the price of imported tinned tomatoes in light of reports of slave labour in the industry in his home country. ...
A measles outbreak in Samoa suspected to be responsible for the death of a one-year-old was “inevitable”, according to an expert who thinks NZ could have prevented it. ...
The big shock of the results in the weekend’s local elections was the unseating of Justin Lester as Wellington mayor. We invited him to pen a sort-of-valedictory.My three years as the mayor of Wellington ended on Sunday and I will forever remain grateful for the experience.I’m also acutely aware of ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, Alex Braae reviews a night spent on the Intercity overnight sleeper bus getting from Wellington to Auckland.The most important thing to understand about long haul bus travel is that it’s all about getting exactly ...
Open mike 29/03/2015 
Open mike is your post.
In 1994, I was the editor for an issue of Planet magazine focused on cannabis, its culture and the prospects for the end of its prohibition. Part of that issue was an interview with 'Ringo', an experienced cannabis dealer.I recently posted my essay from that issue, and I figured it ...13 hours ago
As Brexit comes to a grisly conclusion (perhaps) people on all sides are saying intemperate and uwise things. Some, like the Daly Mail, have been doing it for years.People as normally level headed as Jon Lansman are calling for automatic deselection of MPs who vote against a (likely) Labour three ...16 hours ago
On Wednesday, the government was loudly telling us that it needed to legislate to allow it to impose "control orders" - effectively a parole regime, but imposed without charge, prosecution, conviction or real evidence - on suspected terrorists because they couldn't be prosecuted for their supposed crimes. Today, it turns ...2 days ago
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy preparing for our summer paper on Science Communication. Looking for something amusing about ‘risk’ in science, I came across this neat xkcd.com cartoon about why so many people come knocking on my door (or phoning me, or emailing me) desperately wanting ...2 days ago
Media Statement for Immediate Release 16th October 2019 “Fake News” from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th–there is very little evidence ...3 days ago
Would You Buy A Used Propaganda Video From This Man? Bridges and the National Party’s strategists have discovered that the ideas and attitudes considered acceptable by today’s editors and journalists are no longer enforceable. The rise and rise of the Internet and the social media platforms it spawned means that ...3 days ago
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz There is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...4 days ago
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...4 days ago
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...5 days ago
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...1 week ago
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...1 week ago
We're rebuilding our hospitals, protecting our oceans, and taking mental health seriously. ...1 day ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...4 days ago
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...2 days ago
Winston Peters says his party is a handbrake on bad ideas and a "supercharged turbo" for good ones - but will it be in the driver's seat come 2020? ...11 hours ago
Our former prime minister secured a meeting with Chinese premier Xi Jinping outside all normal diplomatic channels. Interest’s Jenée Tibshraeny asks what it means for New Zealand’s evolving relationship with the superpower.Former prime minister John Key secured a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week without the involvement of ...12 hours ago
David Robie continues his three-part series about travelling in Iran. I stumbled on the scene by chance. Our host family in Iran’s second city Mashhad, a modern and beautiful metropolis that would comfortably fit in New Zealand’s entire population, was taking us on a drive to the outskirts to ...12 hours ago
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has lashed out at the media, in particular, MediaWorks, just a day after the company announced it was selling off its television arm. ...13 hours ago
The prospect of ISIS fighters returning home to New Zealand is becoming more likely by the day. ...16 hours ago
"Each time she held her lighter underneath the pipe and sucked the smoke into the back of her throat, the promise was there": a New Zealand tragedy by Alice Tawhai. ...22 hours ago
A new law targeting potential returning terrorists like Mark Taylor raises questions about human rights and whether the bill is being rushed. ...1 day ago
Two shareholders of failed insurance firm company CBL are leading a class action against the firm's former directors seeking compensation for financial losses. ...2 days ago
Politicians come crawling back after the holidays to repair some 'bad optics'. James Elliott pulls no punches in his news of the week. ...2 days ago
New Zealand's mineral manufacturing sector is expected to face some testing times, with softer prices, tighter margins and sluggish export markets. ...2 days ago
Environmental groups are urging the government to crack down on commercial industries whose activities are harming the marine environment. ...2 days ago
Struggling media company MediaWorks is putting its TV business Three on the sale block, after axing and scaling back shows. ...2 days ago
As the rugby world wrestles with the new reality that players can, and will, be dismissed for accidental contact with an opponent’s head it's worth pondering the fate of three All Blacks not selected for the Ireland quarterfinal. ...2 days ago
This week's biggest-selling NZ books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan NZ bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias. ...2 days ago
A new exhibition in Raetihi offers a rare opportunity to see early, colonialism-focused works by Wellington artist Barbara Strathdee, writes Pat Baskett. ...2 days ago
Italy's Ambassador to New Zealand Fabrizio Marcelli responds to Newsroom stories - and The Detail podcasts - questioning the price of imported tinned tomatoes in light of reports of slave labour in the industry in his home country. ...2 days ago
A measles outbreak in Samoa suspected to be responsible for the death of a one-year-old was “inevitable”, according to an expert who thinks NZ could have prevented it. ...2 days ago
Plans for Facebook’s proposed “stablecoin”, Libra, appear to be unraveling as awareness about its adverse effects grows. ...2 days ago
Explosives were used to blast a millions-of-years-old rock overhang in a national park. ...2 days ago
Medical issues, party leaks and a surprise resignation have taken their toll - but Winston Peters argues his party is as strong as ever. ...2 days ago
Thank you Northland. 🙂
+100
As an unashamed righty – this was far from the result I was wanting. But Nation ran a terrible campaign – and lets face it Winston (Love or loath him) really does have that “X” factor.
Personally I hope that this does not impact the RMA reforms, but I can see that this is going to be an issue now.
Oh well, lets hope the cricket goes well. On that at least most of us will agree.
Why do you want the RMA reforms? The current system does not prevent development, provided it is environmentally sustainable. And conversely, the proposed reforms were simply a return to colonial times of greed, slash and burn and fuck the environment. The proposed reforms were indicative of Neanderthal thinking.
I’m glad you answered your own question because there was fuck all chance that James was going to.
The beginning of the end of an evil dishonest RW era of Key. Well done Winston, Well done NZF, Well done Willow-Jean, Well done Labour, Well done Andrew Little, Well done all the Opposition of NAT/ACT, Well done Northland and Well done New Zealand!
And so say all of us!
+100
Thanks especially to; Clendon and his Northland team, for convincing the Wellington GP strategists that contesting this byelection would be a waste of time and money. His 3639 voters from last election certainly helped make Peters’ victory an emphatic one.
+I
Actually I would credit both the Whangarei and Northland electorate teams who were very smart working together with Labour & NZF during the 2014 election campaign. The local Greens was never in doubt supportIng Peter’s for a collective win.
Well done Mora and the GT!
+100…great to hear the co-operation Skinny….
+1000
Now watch the crafty Peters slowly but surely lance the NACT abscess and let NZ see the pus ooze out over the remainder of this term. Payback for 2008 just begun.
So much material to work with, starting with the former member for northland.
Oh Doctor please do! Bring your healing fingers. Goodness gracious me.
+100 tc …yes I would love to see this…in fact I think most of New Zealand is waiting to see Winston play this…
Well done Winston,a real David and Goliath performance.Has the current PM made any statements too his media puppies?
‘Waaaahh they all ganged up on us’ probably, be good to see some real journos in Oz get in his face.
CT will have the lines are prepared however the fact remains they just lost one of the safest rural national seats after throwing the kitchen sink at it in terms if on the ground presence and pork barrelling.
Worm turning….tick.
Would like correct my dodgy typing but it says I have no permission to edit.
That is odd unless the time has expired. Is this when you save an edited comment?
This happened to me yesterday as well, Lynn. The edit link was available, but clicking on it said I didn’t have permission. This was when the timer was at about the 7 min mark. Refreshing the page, the edit link had vanished.
This has sporadically happened in the past, as well. I wonder if it’s related to moderator activity happening elsewhere in the comments?
My problem of late has been that my comments often just disappear until the 10 minute editing window has expired (at which point I notice some obvious typos I would have corrected). Yestereve, I just put that down to the elevated amount of site traffic, but it’s been happening sporadically for the past week.
Ah. That one is due to some kind of combination of server and client side caching.
Try doing a Shift+F5 or Shift+Refresh when you next see it. And get back to me if it doesn’t fix it.
What that does is force the local cache to be flushed and a new request to load to be sent to server. The problem is that there are several layers of caching going on.
The closest one is your browser cache that shows when you use the back button.
The next is the signature that your browser sends to the server based on its cache info. The server uses that to determine if it has a “new” copy of that page, if not it tells your browser to reload the existing copy on your system. Sometimes the page hasn’t ‘changed’ after you async save a comment because it hasn’t ‘stored’ that update yet.
In those cases it may tell your browser to reuse the stored copy of the page, or it may send you one that has been cached on the server side.
Then there is the database cache that keeps track of updates. That sometimes doesn’t update immediately after a change is made because the database is still async processing it.
Nett effect is that sometimes, usually under heavy load you won’t get the page displaying with your comment on it. Doing a forced refresh will usually get it for you.
I’ll have a review of the current cache settings. But they are optimized for readers rather than commenters for the obvious reason – more than 95% of the page loads are from pure site reads. What I am wondering is if the memcached signatures are set to clear when a comment is made, but are reloaded by something else while the comment is being saved.
That has happened to me quite often. Sometimes I have been away from the post or even to another blog and when I have returned and want to edit and improve? my comment I am not allowed back in though plenty of time is available still. And refreshing wipes out the time available.
And I did wonder if it relates to activity in other areas of the blog, big downloads, new posts, etc. It’s still possible to put a separate amending note – it’s not being locked out – just from your own original comment.
Nope. What I am wondering about is how it determines that time. Maybe there is a absolute UTC time transmitted as part of the Javascript.
trying to correct a loaded one to edit it with 7min’s plus remaining on it and I’ve never seen this message before.
It was on a first gen iPad which is just about ready for the technology scrapheap….imac is fine but the android pad has always had issues with the site and while I’m on the subject the iPhone never shows a ‘reply’ button for any comments in safari.
I get the missing reply button as well. I find that logging in solves the problem. but it is random.
Umm…
On the usual desktop site? Or the mobile one?
The mobile site doesn’t have a reply button per comment. It is a problem with the theme.
The desktop theme shouldn’t do that. I wonder what the Shift-F5 equivalent is on a tablet…
BTW: I just splashed out $120 and grabbed the “Agency” version of WPTouch so I could get the developer documentation so I can correct issue properly. Lyn in Vietnam for a few weeks so I should have some extra spare time.
BTW2: The Agency version of the mobile theme has a pile of speed enhancements. Seem to do great things on my android phone. What about others?
I usually use the desktop site, and can leave a couple or 3 computers logged at once maybe that’s it???
I have logged in using my Android phone looks like a good deal for your $$$ speed is way better. BUT.. Sorry to say no reply button in Android even after logging in.
I still have to write that. Part of the package was the documentation and the barebones framework.
Except Winston was the Goliath.
When Winston ran his first electorate campaign in the north, Mark Osborne was 3 years old.
He still is?
Shouldn’t say that.Sorry Mark.
“Has the current PM made any statements too his media puppies?”
……..you mean since he said Winston had “no chance”? is his radar malfunctioning? will he be having a serious think about his future after last night, like he did after the cup of tea debacle? I think he should.
The FBI used to recommend encryption. Now they want to ban it! What?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/28/the-fbi-used-to-recommend-encryption-now-they-want-to-ban-it
a p.s…before my two-week absence/protest in support of murray kicks off..
..see you all in a couple of weeks..
..but first i have to give thanks..
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/comment-whoar-those-we-need-to-thank-for-the-victory-in-northland/
As a Northland electorate voter, all I can do is give thanks as well – to Winston for standing, to Andrew Little and Willow-Jean for giving us “permission” (“approval” ?) to vote for Winston, and to the Nats for giving us almost six weeks of constant entertainment and amusement as evidenced by these cartoons –
http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2015/03/cartoons-about-the-northland-by-election.html
Agree with your sentiments, except that the party organisations do not give permission to anyone to vote. The enlightened voters make that choice, and there were still over 1000 who do not understand first-past-the-post up there.
And as an aside, National took two on the chin yesterday. Hope Slater recovers from that headache quickly, andthat it may have knocked some sense into him. Wonder if he will change his attitude to “bullying”
JK Thanks. Those cartoons are priceless. I think Emersons ‘morepork’ was no. 1.
And what will the cartoons be like when they find out why it was that there was a by-election, as Tremain’s cartoon refers ?
pu
I thought your thank qus were very well said. You summed it up pretty well.
phillip ure
It’s actually a shame to see you go this time. Twitter seems to have engendered more conciseness to your comments. I’ve only just caught up on last night’s conflageration and see why you feel that a boycott is required in this instance.
Comment 31 & associated replies on:
Comment 28 & associated replies on:
Felix’s responses are good:
However, I think the Pigman has the best solution when he says:
It seems a shame to have lost the commentary of; yourself, marty mars, rawshark –
yeshe, & greywarshark, all over the needless banning of Murray Rawshark on a night when those opposed to NACT should have been celebrating their ability to work together. Especially since at the time he was banned, he had already announced:
Therefore until at least the 12th of next month, I will join the Pigman in not commenting on any of the posts of Stephenie Rodgers. I see no reason to boycott the Standard as a whole as other authors have shown no similar tendancies to abuse their powers of moderation. Perhaps those in voluntary exile might consider doing the same and not depriving TS of your viewpoints?
Let her speak only with; the trolls, and her own echos, for a while.
Yep, I’ll be boycotting Stephanie’s posts from now on. Her aggressive stance towards any sort of criticism is an on-going problem for The Standard. A mix of self-martyrdom and control-freakery. Needs to be confronted once and for all.
It’s true that Stephanie comes in for an unusual amount of flak. But I’d ask her defenders (like, for example, Weka) – those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender – to consider the stark contrast between reactions to Karol and Stephanie.
Karol is a woman and a feminist but received very little criticism. Why ? Because she dealt reasonably with anyone who took issue with her arguments. Typically, she’d reply with something like: “Show me the evidence”.
Stephanie, on the other hand, seems to regard any criticism or disagreement as some sort of vicious attack upon her person. It really is Hyper-sensitivity gone mad. Unlike Karol, Stephanie’s reply would usually be along the lines of either:
(1) Don’t you dare tell me what to think or say !
or
(2) Don’t you dare demonise me !
Trigger-happy aggression dressed-up as self-defence.
And she’ll never have to stand back and objectively scrutinise her own behaviour because, of course, she has “200 years of feminist scholarship” to reassure her that it’s all about “men not being able to deal with a strong, decisive woman” rather than her own deeply controlling personality.
All of which may cop me a lifetime ban, but, as I say, it’s a problem that needs to be confronted once and for all. The shame of it is that Stephanie does, in fact, contribute some very important and interesting posts.
+100…yes come back karol!
“those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender”
I haven’t said it’s all about gender. Neither has Stephanie (and none of us know what Stephanie is thinking). The only person who has run that line is felix, and now yourself. Please don’t misrepresent what I say.
Myself, I think there is room on ts for a range of moderation styles. I could criticise every moderator here, or praise them. But I don’t because I believe that the moderation here is set to protect the site and the authors not to suit the ideals of the commenters. That keeps the place functional and vibrant.
Unfortunately the comparison with karol just buys into the whole women/feminists have to behave in certain ways thing. It’s ok for Lynn to be rude and abusive when he moderates, but Stephanie has to behave like a well behaved feminist.
I would also point out that Stephanie is in a completely different situation than karol with regards to being a feminist blogger and what that means, and that those things need to be taken into account (i.e. context has meaning).
I’m gobsmacked to see you psychoanalysing an author and moderator. I think your characterisation of Stephanie is off and it’s really disappointing to see people thinking they can use their own characterisations of her to criticise her moderation.
+1 Weka.
+100…and I feel that Murray Rawshark, Colonial Rawshark and others have also come in for some quite unwarranted, personal, distasteful and vicious attacks at times eg…”rape apologists” with extras ( check out the posts on Julian Assange issue)
…sexism in reverse?
… or disguised trolling ie their arguments (and in fact the whole initial Post) was illegitimately hijacked , overturned and twisted into something they never meant
Greens have gone from 1 seat to 4 seats in the NSW Lower House. They’ve taken the 2, formerly safe North Coast seats of Ballina and Lismore off the Nationals as the issue of Coal Seam Gas extraction became a major election issue. They held Balmain and gained the adjacent newly created inner Sydney seat of Newtown.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-28/nsw-election-greens-balmain-newtown-ballina-lismore/6356098
NSW still loses its power network tho.
Fark, those North Coast wins for the Greens are amazing. That’s true-blue territory. (Lismore in particular).
A massive 32% swing in Ballina and 26% in Lismore.
Where are all the headlines reporting this tremendous rout?
Where is John key putting in his usual two cents worthless worth?
Where is the pig?
Useless media!!
As expected, please John stay the F away from the black caps and keep your losing touch where it belongs….around Steven Joyce’s neck.
Great win and a fantastic nights celebration. Have shaken the hangover, helped by the shock of our little dog befriending a kiwi when I let her out for a pee. Taken her for a walk along the water front. The media are intviewing Peters now, ha some lady just yelled out go Winston you beauty! which really does sum things up nicely.
Hope you guys enjoyed my babbling last night 🙂
Yep glad your karma? gave you little hangover. Shane Jones with NZF next time ?
Commented on Jones under mickeys recent post, go there cobbah.
Thanks saw that
+100 ..yup…on the spot commentary …cant beat it!
I’ve turned on Q & A late, so far seen an interview with Joyce, and now one with Marama Fox from the MP. First time I’ve seen Marama do anything, and she appears a very capable politician – I’d say better than some of the government ministers when it comes to explaining their position and interviews.
It’s still going on now on TV1, or you can catch it at 10am on 1 + 1.
Apparently Peter Dunne has made an urgent appointment at the hairdressers and can’t take a call from John just now …
I see Dotcom has had another setback. Its been a while since he had any good news in the courts.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424752
In the latest ruling he has lost an estimated $67 million to the US. Im not sure if this means assets held in NZ and HK as yet. He seems to think that this wont be touched, but then again he has not been right for some time.
Maybe if he had gone there he could defend himself. Hopefully he will be gone soon.
nice to see the slug hit the canvass so swiftly in his ‘fight’ with Ryder.Maybe the useless loudmouth should hand in his ‘man card’,he fought like a woman!
He was outclassed, and out skilled. But he actually got in there. He keeps the “man card”. Anyone who has boxed would agree.
He keeps his Idiot Card for doing it at all. I don’t think he ever had a “man card” and trying to punch people in the head while wearing your undies is no way to get one.
physically it was an even match…Ryder is an over weight cricketer who is not toned or quick and I was expecting the slug,given his macho verbosity to actually fight.He did get up after being knocked over ,but offerred about as much resistant as a brightly coloured punching bag.
Doubt it. Cam looked like shit. He had shit cardio. He was puffed after 30s.
He was happy that he could now run 8km, when at the start of his training he couldn’t run at all.
I doubt Ryder would have much trouble running 16km.
the fat feral fucker got his head smashed into the ground…
how apt
what goes around comes around… every time
🙄
There is nothing man about Slater as it was for self promotion, if you think other wise you have been suckered by the biggest coward in NZ.
Not so tough without a laptop to hide behind…
WhaleOil – I know hes not the most liked here, but regardless takes stones to get into a boxing ring (More so on television).
So all credit for raising the $$$ for charity. But I wouldn’t think he will be stepping into the ring again. Simply seriously outclassed on the night.
I agree with tc (at cmnt 15 below); “slater is all about self promotion”. I fail to see why we should celebrate his macho posturings here.
+1
Not enjoying the confluence of politics and violence either. Boxing match, Peters giving National a bloody nose analogy etc.
“Man card”? “stones” ? “fought like a woman”?
Hey this is the 21st century.
+1
+1
Also boxing is stupid. If Slayer has to express himself through a violent one-on-one competition then why can’t the gun freak make it pistols at dawn?
Can you confirm that he didnt receive any recompense at all, with documented proof. Thanks.
A little Sunday humor, http://tvnz.co.nz/othersports-news/jesse-ryder-knocks-cameron-slater-video-6272354
Was that a left hook or a right one?
resplendent in red …knocked out by Ryder in the blue corner…says he may fight again…must like lying on the canvass!
Stones or stupidity either way the slater is all about self promotion and this was an opportunity to do so without expensive lawyers or govt MP’s.
Boxing is pure stupidity.
Agreed. I don’t want to open up any jokes about intelligence or whether he has a brain or not, even a few blows to the head can cause concussion and brain damage, which can have a lasting effect on your life.
Mind you, some people get brain damage and become better people for it. I’m not wishing brain damage on him, but maybe it’ll be for the better in the long term.
Those according him courage for self promoting himself in a boxing ring are the kind of people that mean we struggle to get justice for many vulnerable in this county, they perpetuate a dangerous and outdated definition of “man”. Being prepared to fight someone for personal gain (be it financial or publicity) is not manly.
where is the Key-sucker fisiani today I wonder?
Even Key is speechless and has gone into hiding! Winston had Zero chance of winning, he had said!
I think Key has gone to get his photo taken with Abbot at the cricket. They can share exit strategies together.
Abbott is not in Melbourne for the cricket. He is in Singapore for Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral – which is where Key should also be IMO.
+1
Nah, the problem is: A couple of weeks back, Fisi suddenly changed his tune and covered his ass by predicting a Winnie win. (And I see he’s turned up today on another thread).
NZ fishery catch may be three times more than reported
This is why we need better reporting and oversight of fishing. We need to know how much is being taken so that we can set quotas so that the fish in our seas get back to historic levels. We can’t do that if catches are being misreported.
Also note that the report was leaked by the fishing industry in what appears, IMO, to be an attempt to attack it before it’s official release.
the sea is rapidly being depleted of fish.
just like the kauri, the seals, the whales and now the rivers and waterways, the greed of primary sector takers has no limits.
we have idiots in government so what do we expect?
Talking to both commercial and recreational fishermen the days of plenty are well in the past with some recreational outings yielding nothing.
We also need to factor in the non NZ fishing fleets who take advantage of our lack of enforcement and plunder what they can and the damage bottom trawling has done to the ecosystem.
Naturally our government introduced voluntary self-reporting for fishing vessels rather than having MAF inspectors on each one as previously. Though these figures suggest maybe that made little overall difference either.
This is effectively a black market twice the size of the official one. You’d think any state might want to do something about that in their own territory.
Feeling a bit sorry for the hostage in Northland, there’s no way Joyce will release him now that his face has been all over the tv.
They’re going to have to kill him.
Hapless suitor of female reporters stirs up a hornet’s nest
Steven Joyce, the campaign manager from Hell, is not the only right wing politician suffering massive ridicule at the moment….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/67527214/Peter-Dunne-takes-on-New-Zealand-comedians
Oh god what a wally. What’s that old line about not getting into a war of words with anyone who buys ink by the barrel?
It also applies to “people who take the piss for a living”
never go into a war unarmed… and in a war of humour he is most definitely unarmed.
Would he rather be lightly roasted by Sandy Tosksvig? I don’t think so…
Which National MP is out?
Did you mean to write: “Which National MP is a lout?”
Answer:
Jonathan Coleman
There is more than one lout in that side of the house.
stout?
Anagrams from ‘one lout in that side of the house’.
Come to mind – tools, snide, hades, deus, nest, nose, tint, foist, nous, haste, lost, etc
and funny all have relevance to some or all of our parliamentarians.
The answer is no change since Sabin resigned.
Here is a link to making a submission to Parliamentary select committee on Inquiry into the 2014 general election
This is particularly essential for all those people – especially in the Northland electorate – who think they were unjustly turned away from voting in last year’s general election.
The closing date for submissions is Tuesday, 31 March 2015
By convention, a select committee inquiry is conducted following a general election into the legal and administrative aspects of that election. This process provides a multi-party approach to the review and any reform of the law and administration relating to Parliamentary elections.
The terms of reference for the inquiry are: “To examine the law and administrative procedures for the conduct of Parliamentary elections in light of the 2014 general election”.
The committee requires 2 copies of each submission if made in writing. Those wishing to include any information of a private or personal nature in a submission should first discuss this with the clerk of the committee, as submissions are usually released to the public by the committee. Those wishing to appear before the committee to speak to their submissions should state this clearly and provide a daytime telephone contact number. To assist with administration please supply your postcode and an email address if you have one.
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/business-summary/00DBSCH_INQ_59471_1/inquiry-into-the-2014-general-election
Thinking about Northland and one of its industries – timber. Does that work well for them? Does it create lots of permanent jobs? A bit of background around the MDF (medium density fibreboard or squashed bits of timber making large panels of uniform strength and size.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard
An alternative view of MDF. http://www.joshuakennon.com/why-i-avoid-mdf-and-furniture-built-with-mdf-and-think-you-should-too/
And is there a business waiting to take off building furniture out of the pine they have planted in the past which I think is still abundant, and barging it south from Opua or a suitable port nearbuy to the big markets elsewhere in NZ though presumably mainly Auckland? The barges would also carry other produce. Another local business looking to the future when road making and vehicle costs are affected badly by high oil prices.
Juken wood treatment company has had a plant in Kaitaia for years connected with the MDF board industry. And there are a number of businesses working with this material but I don’t know how many are fully in NZ and NZowned.
http://www.paneltec.co.nz/ (An Australian firm with sales office in Dargaville)
http://www.applefurniture.co.nz/ (A NZ enterprise based in Kaiwaka)
Jim Anderton in 2005 launched this book on the growth of MDF board.
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/24157
Another site is hotfrog that is listing businesses and promoting them which gives an extra boost to small businesses.
It listed Make Enterprises Dargaville connected with Paneltec.
BBS Timbers NZ owned timber firm providing a range of species.
Juken have a big plant in Wairarapa and this item refers to the amount of wood available there. So perhaps Northland needs to keep up its plantings to get the right mass of wood to enable the local business to be ongoing.
Some comments in a stuff article on the business.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/9411743/Juken-primed-for-growth-with-founders-added-value-strategies
While over half the timber logged in New Zealand leaves the country in this “primary” form, Juken focuses on tertiary production, which is only around 15 per cent of the country’s timber output, he said.
“There’s enough wood in Wairarapa to have another 10 mills. We have the single largest ownership, 15,000ha – but that’s only 20 per cent of what’s available in Wairarapa.”
Volatile prices and exchange rates have sent many domestic mills to the wall, such as Rotorua’s Tachikawa Forest Products which went into receivership last month with the loss of 120 jobs.
But Juken has insulated itself against the worst impacts by buying its logs for milling from its own forests, at a long-term average price.
Juken appear to have brains and foresight. Perhaps we should just throw out our politicians and contract out much of the business side of NZ to them. That however sounds suspiciously like an ACT idea so there is bound to be a worm in the apple.
The spokesperson refers to volatile prices which NZ must adjust to, but this difficulty is worsened by the exchange rates affected by the mafia protection system we are locked
into. Something that a government for NZ with guts, and explanations to the citizens of our true economic state, needs to do something about. Particularly the volatility of casino-like overseas financial entities playing with our money as if it was casino chips.
I noticed that my fingers produced nearbuy for nearby. I am wondering if there isn’t something of a Freudian slip here. Maybe nearbuy is going to be a new useful word that indicates local trading and business?
Northland produces higher-density timber that is too valuable to be chipped into MDF. Making solid furniture from it locally would create skilled jobs and better export revenues.
Well well:
“NZ First leader Winston Peters says NZ First may decide not to bring an extra MP into Parliament after his Northland byelection win because his party supports a smaller Parliament.”
Interesting. Won’t make any difference to the Government power.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424888
@ianmac I’m sure Winston will resign his list seat and bring in another NZF member.
What people are missing here is the fact that the public of Northland knew this was going to happen if they elected Peters (or if they didn’t they don’t may attention-no excuse) yet they elected Peters with a stonking great majority.
People who whinge about this outcome need to accept that a democratic process has taken place where the electorate knew the consequences of their vote, rather than focusing on the effect on the result of an election 6 months ago.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that everyone who voted for Winston on Saturday fully expected him to resign his seat and that NZF would be up a seat afterwards. For him to now not do that would be against those expectations and thus against democracy.
This is a problem with our democracy in that our ‘representatives’ can go off and do what they like once they’ve been voted in no matter what their policies or the expectation of the populace was when they were voted in.
It is actually a very complicated legal situation, as no explicit legal provisions exist for the current situation. Too tired tonight to try to explain but suggest you read Graeme Edgeler’s latest post on Public Address; together with his earlier post there and Philip Lyth’s earlier post there today. Links are included in Edgeler’s latest post.
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/what-next-for-winston/
Charles Pierce says what he really thinks.
.
Let us be quite definite about this. Any Democratic politician who thinks this is a bad situation — or, worse, will not stand by a Democratic colleague in this situation — is not worth the hankie to blow Joe Lieberman’s nose.
My god, what a prodigious bluff. Also, my god, what towering arrogance? These guys own half the world and have enough money to buy the other half, and they’re threatening the party still most likely to control the White House because they don’t like the Senator Professor’s tone? Her tone? Sherrod Brown’s tone? These are guys who should be worried about the tone of the guard who’s calling them down to breakfast at Danbury and they’re concerned about the tenderness of their Savile Row’d fee-fees? Honkies, please.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33971/the-senator-professor-has-some-interesting-enemies/
Hate fueled pricks can’t take a trick.
Sarah LeavittVerified account @sarahleavittcbc
Hard to estimate but 3-10 people identified themselves as being sympathetic to #Pegida #cbcmtl
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/pegida-cancels-anti-islam-demonstration-in-little-maghreb
The unforgettable photo of the winner and the vanquished:
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1823/821/original.jpg?w=600&h
The Herald is not even trying to hide its bias with a headline like this.
“Greenies say ‘frack off’ to drilling.”
Roughan on duty, I’d guess.
Unbelievable.
What an awful rag.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424932
Sharing economy gets shared.
http://gizmodo.com/stolen-uber-accounts-are-on-sale-for-a-dollar-on-a-dark-1694273240
So now Yemen joins Syria, most of Iraq, northern Jordan, northern Lebanon, and northern Saudi Arabia into social chaos.
The United States is aligned alongside Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and against them in Yemen. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who have joined in the Saudi offensive in Yemen, are bombing factions in Libya backed by Turkey and Qatar, who also support the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The Syrian conflict has been fueled by competition among all regional powers to outmaneuver one another on battlefields far from home.
Neither the US nor Saudi Arabia have any consistency, and even Iran is beginning to look coherent in its positioning.
This is going to get broader and much, much worse before it gets better.
Been following this bloke.
Tweets by AliAlAhmed_en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_al-Ahmed
There was a well attended and very noisy protest outside Sky City this afternoon where the
“New Zealand’s premier annual upstream event- featuring the government’s launch of block offer 2015-the exclusive tender for exploration permits”, was taking place.
Topics include-expert speakers presenting with NZ context,
-insights into NZ regulatory system,
– best practice local community engagement.
I guess we were helping inform them about the last topic. All protesters had been invited to bring a drum and were entertained by Michael Franti before marching from Victoria Park to Sky City.
One major sponsor is Halliburton. Another is Fragomen which is a global corporate immigration law firm. This doesn’t indicate jobs for locals to me.
Meanwhile, Kiwi Rail is going to chop the NIMT electrification
OMGWTF.
KiwiRail are saying that ‘no final decision has been made’, but when someone says that, it is pretty much always a done deal.
New Zealanders paid a lot of money for that electrification, plus interest, and it is madness for it to be ripped out only about 30 year later and sold for scrap. Fuel prices may be low, but that doesnt mean that they will be low forever…
When Lab VI bought Toll Rail back in 2008, it was supposed to be a new era for rail in NZ. Unfortunately since National won the election that year, their attacks on the rail system have been more savage than ever before.
Why don’t the nats go the whole hog and go back to steam trains , we could hire the unemployed on contracts to cut all those pesky trees down in the central north island to fuel them.
Where does Key get off?
The Northland-safe-as-houses seat for National was lost for no other reason than the usual die-hard Nat voters were actually not sure what sort of National Party is running the country – its complexion appears to have changed over the last couple of months and they couldn’t be convinced enough to get out and vote. I don’t think they are actually impressed by the likes of Bennett, Bridges, Woodhouse sitting on or near the front benches. They want stability and substance, not flash Harrys.
Perhaps the issues of the TPPA, RMA were not as important to them to motivate them to get out and vote. Surely they don’t need the presence of a campaign to get them to the polling booth.
They must have known that their government’s programme was under threat if Winston Peters rested the seat from them. That surely should have been motivation enough.
So Mr Key needs a bit deeper analysis than blaming the opposition for this defeat.
I’m happy for the nats to stay in denial with “the left and winnie ganged up on us” excuses.
The longer they take to lose their hubris, the better it’ll be for everyone else in 2017 (or earlier).
If dunnokeyo lives up to the form roughan confirmed, in a very short while our glorious pm will be reconsidering whether he wants to stay in the job. And mr didn’t-fix-it fucking up again leaves an opening for the minister for oravida, petulent bean, woodhead, mcshouty, and whoever else to battle for the iron throne…
I reckon that Collins is sorry that she did not have the Orivida Kauri milled.
If Saturdays 4,000 majority to Winston is combined with a National majority of 9,000 (last general election night) there is a loss of 13,000 to National.
How many National supporters chose not to vote last Saturday?
The spy agency probably has the answer to my question.