Another kiwi dead in afghan land, pike river, etc etc but RNZ onto bigger issues this morning……TVNZ replacing coro st with chef show…..I feel informed now.
Yeah but to his credit Joky Hen has one success. He can claim to have converted a mad butcher. And he also appears to have more clarity on what he thinks about rugby now that he is in his 50s.
Mostly to give idiot tories a straw to grasp at and incessantly repeat, as opposed to the multitude of examples that frustrated, vicious, selfish, incompetent small-minded tories give the left each and every day,
“Hooten, the butcher is “world famous in New Zealand” as the expression goes.”
Shift the comma.
“Hooten the butcher, is “world famous in New Zealand” as the expression goes.”
… my comment of 07:47 and yours of 07:56 – what are you insinuating?
Sir Edmund Hillary was a Knight of the Order of the Garter and recipient of many other international and national honours.
154000. The number who don’t have a job despite the relentless focus on jobs from John Key.
170000. The number of extra workers BHP Australia says it will hire over the next 5 years, half of whom will be construction workers.
So if you know one end of hammer from the other, where would you rather be? Rebuilding Chch or repairing leaky homes in Auckland for fuck all, or pulling in 100k plus super in Queensland for a 37 hour working week?
Yes but the retards in NZ (and that’s all of parliament) have so frightened the public that we can’t go down the track of mining – because it’s evil…… evil I tells ya !
You’ll notice that in Australia, all the major coastal cities are experiencing economic slow downs, while it is the mining towns which remain booming.
In other words, without widespread and varied high value industry, all mining will do (as dairy does) is focus wealth in specific communities, with only trickles down at the margin.
BTW increased mining in NZ would not have been an issue if Key and Brownlee hadn’t completely misjudged the public and decided that they needed to try and fuck over schedule 4 land.
i.e. some of the blame for the backlash against mining belongs to those two. (rereading your comment I see you think so as well).
lower standard their resources will run out sooner than later . The cost of retrieving minerals in this country is much higher 29 deaths for a start.Minerals are far more inaccessible, here Australia is a big ugly country and no one will notice a few holes in the ground while New Zealand is far more beautiful , and we don’t need idiots like you to stuff it up.It would be far better for our economy to add value through R&D to what we do well sustainable agriculture.However Nact have cut and re branded R&D and reduced the gains possible through consistent investment.
I think you missed my point, HS. I’m not bothered about the mining jobs, particularly, it’s the construction work that is going to knacker NZ. We already have many thousand less construction workers than are going to be needed for Chch and Ak in the next few years and very little work for those that are still here. We need to be training apprentices now and looking to both upskill and upgrade the pay and conditions of workers for the future or the rebuilds just won’t happen in a reasonable time frame.
Troll on, you can’t compare Oz’s mining industry which occupies desert wilderness with NZ who have no such areas to hid away the toxic lakes, sprawling worker camps etc and to play your game name some economically viable ore bodies we should be mining HS? just one will do, now’s good.
Which is utterly crap without extensive and expensive processing, fuck, for the price of processing it, you’d be better off importing mid quality coal for the same job.
Its not the mining mate, its the fact that people like you want it done in the Southern Alps, Mt Taranaki/Egmont (I have seen oil ooze out of the ground there..).
Anyway, go to Central Otago, etc and look at all the ghost towns there. My point being is when the gold (or silver, platimum or whatever) runs out, the boom ends and it all falls over.
Key says often that they have created 45,000 jobs in NZ. Has anyone contested that figure?
A bit like the claims of increasing the number of nurses by 1000 and teachers by 15000. Huh?
Looks at both the geological and economic and it’s effects on price. I’d have liked to have seen more on the price tipping points to other tech. But it was a brief ( for economics ) article.
A group of economists is being taken on a tour of an underground gold mine when there is a terrible accident, sealing them all underground.
They are not likely to be rescued for weeks, but luckily, there is an ample store of air and water down in the mine. But no food. All the economists become really quite anxious.
One brightens considerably when he realises that he has two BLT sandwiches packed away in his briefcase. Looking at all the gold around, a cheer goes up from the economists who realise that they are all now saved.
With no regulations, plenty of liquidity on hand, and keen buying interest, a busy market in BLT sandwiches was surely only moments away.
Well, when the market price of a BLT sandwich increases sufficiently due to sandwich scarcity, market forces will guarantee additional investment in BLT sandwich production because of the massive ROI present in that market.
This means that the more BLT sandwich prices increase, the more BLT sandwich supply will also increase = problem solved, everyone can wait happily at the bottom of the mine for rescue.
CV, I hate to say this, but the logic of the market would still hold.
It would very soon become obvious (information would be accurate and flow pretty rapidly, after all) that making BLT sandwiches was not the kind of production for which available resources could be switched to meet demand.
That would mean another demand (e.g., ways of getting out of the mine) would become the focus of resources, and production would shift that way. The market may not last very long (as the last BLT nibble – which would probably become the ‘currency’ – goes gutwards) but a market may well make sure the last food went to the person with the best chance of providing the exit strategy for all – e.g., a chemistry hobbyist or economist turned garden shed engineer. But that doesn’t mean anyone will get out of the mine.
As I understand it, markets don’t guarantee outcomes – they just respond to the greatest demand for resources and supposedly provide the ‘best bet’ for the desired (short term) outcomes.
Where the analogy does work, however, is that the market can very well lead us merrily into the closed off mine in the first place – but its principles would continue to work efficiently right till the last smug breath was drawn by the last surviving economist.
Schelling’s ‘Micromotives and Macrobehavior‘ makes a good case for the possibility of outcomes at the macro level – that no individual might actually desire – arising from the micro-level motives of people (especially acting in markets – e.g., resulting in racially segregated neighbourhoods).
He got the Nobel prize in Economics for that kind of insight yet, for me, it’s like a big, flashing sign saying ‘beware of markets – they can give you what you don’t wish for’ – like being stuck in a goldmine with nothing to eat (a bit like today’s world for a significant number of people).
It’s true and anyone who actually applies logic to it must realise that it is so. The market works at the micro level but fails at the macro level and yet our economists and politicians continue to try to apply it at the macro level and then become surprised when it fails.
so i have to tell my neighbor of my camera pointing into their backyard,
under the privacy act, but the state soesn’t need a warrent to do the
exact same thing, go figure?
Top ten google searches for New Zealand in the past seven days.
Take that NZRFU, go the Warriors. http://www.google.com/insights/search/#geo=NZ&date=today+7-d&cmpt=q&q=%22google+plus%22
1 nrl grand final +1,000%
2. google plus +400%
3. x factor +400%
4. grabaseat +150%
5. nz time +150%
6. daylight savings +120%
7. nrl +100%
8. warriors +100%
9. companies office +90%
10. grab a seat
Will the viewing figures top the Opening Night of the RWC. Thats the test Brett.
I think it is great that Kiwi’s have two teams to support at the moment. There seems to be a bounce around town. We call forget about the economic gloom for a change.
Top ten google searches for New Zealand in the past seven days.
How deeply depressing… It just confirms the idea I have had for many years (first shown by a useless ex-husband) that New Zealanders are generally rugby boofhead morons! Thankfully, I know that’s not true of all of them.)
Comparisons with 1956 are apt here. Go and find an old timer and ask him what the atmosphere was like during the 1956 tour. He’ll pretty much tell you it was the same as it is during RWC 2011, but with a bit more sophistication in terms of the bar and eatery scene.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 8
“Were you part of the molotov throwing, semiautomatic firing group, or not? You cannot purport to be an anti war activist when you are throwing molotov cocktails.”
You may not be aware that we even have a Minister of Communications. It wouldn’t help much if you happen to use networking programs either… as the minister doesn’t have any online presence…
It get worse in the HCC. Not content with cutting funding for community groups and NGO’s, it plans to take an axe to parks and reserves, and hike rents at its pensioner housing by 70% (or flog the unit off to the highest bidder).
Its offical. Julie Hardaker is New Zealand’s Michelle Bachmann.
Scotty,
The time of each collapse was indeed 14-16 seconds. 180 floors collapsed in 15 seconds. Do you believe it pancaked? Here is a law of physics which can not be broken. It’s called the conservation of energy.
If you watch the video you see these big black lumps shooting out from the building. Those are tons of steel who for no apparent reason decide to fly sideways at 70 miles per hour. That energy has to come from somewhere. Gravity does not explain the energy required for these huge beams to go flying of horizontally.
Here is another video with some strange movements of flying objects which can not be explained away by planes and gravity.
By the way NIST has deserted the pancake theory. Molten aluminum and water does not explode and most certainly does not cause a building to explode nor does it generate the force needed to separate tons of steel into truck sized lots and buildings do not explode outwards in 15 seconds just because of a plane impact. The fuel was mostly burned off within seconds and people were shown as standing in the hole the plane made while not being burned and holding on to the steel frame. So where did the energy come from to explode huge beams outward with the speed of 70 miles per hour?
Newton’s 4th law is “and for any public tragedy, the reliability or accuracy of internet analyses of the first three laws is inversely proportional to the scale of the tragedy”
Rev,cheers for that, How much energy do you reckon was generated from 300,000 T accelerating to 160 kph in 15 seconds.? what happened to that energy?
Are not large elements of the buildings’ construction being blown laterally,just travelling the path of less resistance.?
In itself making and throwing molotov cocktails into an old oven is not illegal I would have thought. (Years ago my brother tried putting lumps of carbide in a sealed bottle of water and watched it explode. He is a very peaceful chap.)
Firing semi-automatic guns would be akin to the sort of people who enjoy paintball wars.
On the face of the information given there is still not proof of crime (unless those guns are illegal.)
Not making excuses and would hate to live near anyone who carried out those activities, but……
Mine was depth charges and rockets. Had quite a lot of fun making explosives. Of course after you get to play with plastic explosives you suddenly realize how ‘messy’ my home made stuff was. I really loved being able to carve my initials into Armour of an old bren gun carrier.
Indeed it is interesting, HS. I quite like Pagani’s blog, even though I don’t always agree with him. This time he has got it spot on, though.
What a bunch of dreamers and tossers it turns out these people are. Reminds me of the sort of macho ‘defence of the homeland’ fantasies we normally associate with the likes of KKKyle Chapman. It’s a damn shame the coppers stuffed this up, because this lot should be explaining themselves in court, not excusing themselves on blogs.
I dunno. There goes a chap who never had fun with things that go “bang”, even if the police “evidence” is as clear cut as they would have us believe.
As a girl, with bad eyesight and only one brother (much younger) I never was a fan of things that go bang. My Dad who suffered from what I know now was PTSD, had an arsenal in the house, and was obsessed with the fear of invasion (he’d ‘fought all through t’second world war, and so taught we girls to fire guns – or tried to.)
So, my feeling is with Pagani on this. My Dad was prosecuted for his arsenal, and ended up in dire straits (I won’t go into it all, just to say that the authorities were less than understanding!). So I am not sympathetic, which is not to say that I support prosecution on illegally gained evidence…
I have no real problem with persecuting based on actual unequivocal evidence about acts and intent.
What I have a problem with is the police charging on what looks like quite circumstantial equivocal evidence (like similar clothing) for actions that are not in themselves unlawful, on the basis of a criminal intent that they have no actual proof of beyond what looks like people blatting the breeze. I really get irritated that it has taken more than 4 years to not get to trial because the police were so damn sloppy that they relied on unlawfully gathered evidence.
Quite simply I think that the police who brought caused this travesty of a misuse of their powers should be kicked out of the force and a severe look taken at how in the hell their superiors allowed it to happen.
Incidentally I know exactly how you feel. There was a family friend who always kind of got me giving him second looks. It was the arsenal of obsolete military hardware like missile launcher outside his house. But he was mostly legal…
My Dad who suffered from what I know now was PTSD…
Yeah, so did mine, but he didn’t have an arsenal – he took us boating instead. My father had a love planes (which is why he joined the RAF when war started) and a love of boats.
Yeah, so did mine, but he didn’t have an arsenal – he took us boating instead
That would have been a lot better! My Dad was convinced that WW3 would happen in his lifetime, and we’d have to fight off invaders… Hence the self-sufficient lifestyle (growing all our own food, candles and gas stoves etc) and the shooting lessons.)
I still loathe guns to this day as a result. If by some bizarre chance, we were invaded, I could never shoot anyone…
What really pisses me off about all this is that the cops are continually speculating on things without much evidence and some of the evidence they do have was illegally obtained. The entire case is farcical!
I have had the misfortune of dealing with incompetent cops for 35 years. I was dragged into a situation due to a CIB inquisition in 1979 which pertained to an inquiry involving a politician in 1976. I was silenced and bullied by the police.
In order for me to RECEIVE any justice by the police an inquiry would need to be held and only Key or Marshall have the power for this to occur. I would expose the police for misleading the last three ministers of police, for not adequately investigating my concerns, for making defamatory remarks on many occasions and for the loss of police documentation/files as well as with holding the full police evidence concerning the politician who was denied legal representation.
Basically the politician gave four reasons for the incident with the cop. But the cop has given three different reasons for why he had me silenced and bullied because he told me of the incident with the politician before the incident was raised in parliament. Issues with the cop having name suppression which I did not know about for sometime and the CIB inquisition triggering historical sexual offending. The inquiry was about whether police breached the incident.
My observation yesterday regarding a 10 second view on the news with Marshall, Drew and Hide was this:
Drew was area commander in the Wairarapa, we have not heard back yet from the IPCA on whether or not Drew is responsible for child sexual violation cases languishing. (At some point Marshall was involved in the back log of the Wairarapa cases and has fobbed off being directly responsible). Police say they need more tools but appear to not be able to organise something as important as legally using video surveillance and then they cry and say we want to prevent crime. Hide got it right when he implied that the police knew what they were doing was illegal.
About time that a Police Commissioner grows some balls and takes responsibility for MAJOR WEAKNESS within the police because Broad’s legacy was bad enough with C.R Rickards, sexual assaults on children (Wairarapa) and adults (by sworn police officers) and people like Patrick O’ Brien languishing concerning wanting to expose the police and to hold them to account. I predicted prior to Marshall taking up the post as commissioner of police that Marshall would be drawn into the Urewera raids. Even I did not foresee how compromised Marshall would be due to bozo Broad.
I am a lone voice in the wilderness but I have balls of steel. I have had first class teachers (been a student for 35 years regarding devious cops). When I hear about major stuff ups by the police it only intensifies and prolongs the complex form of PTSD I have.
I sometimes wonder if the Police give a damn at all about what the public thinks… They stumble along from one PR disaster to another showing very little thought for the consequences of their actions…
I like the Burroughs quote, Jackal. Mind you I like all Old Bill Lee’s quotes, including the one about society hating functioning junkies because it spoils the argument for the war on drugs.
I also find this line interesting:
“People simply don’t accept that because Abbott wasn’t convicted, he isn’t guilty”
Do you also apply that reasoning to the wannabes running around the Ureweras with guns?
Do you mean all those hunters who are after some grub and don’t have gun licenses? I can’t think why the cases are similar… the Urewera 18 haven’t killed anybody.
Not going to be much left of that grub after you’ve shot it with a semi-automatic and molotov cocktailed it.
I suppose it’s a method for simultaneous cook and kill though – perhaps that’s what Valeri Morse was is practicing when she torches the NZ flag each ANZAC day.
I thought they had a CD of gun shot sounds – I once had an album of BBC sound effects; can I charge the person in charge of making hoof sounds with coconut shells?
Oh dear you sound like you were more of a nerd (didn’t think it possible) than me in your younger days….. although my younger days predate CDs somewhat.
What’s up with editing the sounds anyway… perhaps the cops are attempting to get the gunshots closer together so they sound like a semi? Either way it proves nothing!
Firebomb game HS? There’s still no clear proof that they were even using Molotov cocktails, which isn’t a crime I might add.
Feck it really is quite amusing to see you trying to defend this lot.
S’pose it comes down to whether you think this is a reasonable thing for ‘adults” to be up to and if it is reasonable and it was merely a harmless get together for a bit of hunting practice why the need to withhold the videos – surely the defendants would be more than happy for the video footage to be made public or the very least be made available in court to vindicate their jolly japes.
Oh Jackal the police give a dam about being caught, but they know that 99 % of individuals do not have the resources or influence to take out a civil case. This is why the government has to order an independent inquiry.
If the commissioner of police gave a dam about what the public think about crooked cop practices he would order an inquiry.
In Open Mike yesterday I commented on a talk by Dick Smith and gave the basic link for it.. It was from May this year but not outdated. I have remembered that he referred to Oz news media being about 70% controlled by Rupert Murdoch who he said, is growth oriented and so dos not want to follow any other thinking or viewpoints. He criticises capitalism which DTB would affirm.
What about TVNZ changing Coro Street to children’s tv time, and sanitising it.
Forget the Uruweras crap, Rugby World Cup, BLT sandwiches and other insignificant irrelevances.
Who wants more Masterchief at prime time. Will the overpaid PHD’s at TVNZ ever learn it’s the customer, not what they want. The Helen Clark era is dead – but mummy still knows best it appears.
What about TVNZ changing Coro Street to children’s tv time, and sanitising it.
It’s not that I am serious Coro fan (I do watch it, but not fanatically), but what irked me, was the programmers’ comments – that the olds who watch Coro could watch at 5.30, or watch the omnibus on Saturday. What about Coro fans who are not olds? I like to work, and can’t get home by 5.30, and who on earth watches TV on a Saturday morning?
The passing of the VSM bill is great news for those interested in freedom and social justice, as the bill in line with UN’s Declaration on Human Rights, which guarantees rights of association and non-association.
‘Free at last, free at last
Thank God almighty
We are free at last’
Yesterday is a day that will be seen on a par with emancipation and women’s suffrage, and those who opposed this bill will be looked on as the oppressors of freedom that they are.
Yep – Roger Douglas is NZ’s very own Nelson Mandela. /sarc
“Oppressors”? You merely demonstrate, yet again, that ACToids have no sense of perspective at all. E.g: everyone in a students’ association got a vote, and all stdents got to vote on membership rules. This is not the same as half the population not having the vote. Actually, a better analogy would be saying that everyone in NZ should choose whether they get all the benefits of NZ citizenship/residency, or whether they get pretty much all the benefits of NZ citizenship/residency but pay no tax – regardless of the wishes of the rest of NZ.
Yesterday was a great day for dictatorship and propoganda, but a shit day for students and freedom in general.
Just in case it doesn’t survive there. I put this on Pagani’s site on his rather stupid post about the operation 8 court documents.
Hey John – as a lefty I think you simply had a rather sheltered and unadventurous upbringing.
I used semi automatics on the farm when I was a kid (and bolt-actions and shotguns). Making molotov cocktails would have been too easy. I used to make explosives for rocketry and for the sheer hell of making things explode. Not to mention building electric detonators to find out how it was done.
I did all that before I went into the army at 18 and started using military grade weapons and explosives. Then I did a science degree where I had even more fun.
When I looked at these reports I thought that they were too unremarkable to get wound up about. I guess you wasted your youth if you think that anything revealed was terrorism.
If they’d started accumulating ammunition stockpiles or large quantities of seed chemicals for explosives or war gases then I’d have been interested.
But feel free to make a even bigger dickhead of yourself.
“Anonymous comments don’t add much to the Internet.
You can leave comments, but I moderate them hard.
I use this blog to write about things that interest me. If comments aren’t interesting, they are not going on my blog.
I encourage intelligent dispute and argument. If you feel like insulting me, there are a large number of places on the Internet where you can go to do that. If you want to insult others, than I encourage you to be funny, at least.
Also, ‘x said y so therefore x is a bad person’ may be the standard for commenting elsewhere, but not here.
You can send an email to post@posterous, and the machine will start a blog for you just like that, where you can say what you like. If you are interesting I might link to you.”
Jeez, Lprent, you’re way off the beam on this. These sad fucks were practising at being guerillas and some, at least, were apparently trying to learn how to kill people by throwing bombs through windows. They should be in jail. There is no excuse for this immature behaviour and it is now pretty clear that the raids were entirely justified, even if the cops cannot now use all the evidence gathered. What a bunch of gutless, whining cowards and thank fuck they were stopped before they killed someone.
A bunch of boys playing at being soldier in the bush! Terrorists??? Training to ‘kill people’, as you imply????
You must have had a sad childhood indeed. Not so long ago, we used to buy sparklers from the Warehouse, tape them together and blow up rubbish bins along the Wellington waterfront and out the suburbs.
Should we be in jail for being young and immature, but essentially harmless? Those bombs were definitely classed as dangerous, and restrictions were put in place on them.
I have serious problems with people like you trying to turn this country into a police state and stifling people and punishing thousands disproportionately with no discretion.
It will alienate people and result in more discontent.
It’s pretty Orwellian to punish for something you think they ‘might’ do. It’s a bit like invading Afghanistan to defend NZ…a sane, rational person doesn’t see the link.
I suggest you reassess this and think about whether it’s your paranoia or deluded thinking, or whether these people were planning an all out guerrilla war. Think of it as you think of 9/11 ‘truthers’, come on, which is the more likely?
I didn’t use the word terrorist, Clandistino. I said guerillas. But these twats only have Che’s Tshirt, not his nous. I don’t care whether they were planning an all out war or just being muppets, but their immaturity has cost us all a right and a freedom. As a result of their stupidity, the police are soon going to able film us all whenever and however they feel like it. And I’m really pissed off about this because they have consistently said that there was nothing of substance to the police claims, but now it turns out the cops were right all along and the Urewera loons were lying to us all.
As I said above, I’m just pleased there was an intervention before someone got killed, though I suppose there was more likelihood of them shooting themselves than mounting a credible attack on some poor sod whose politics they didn’t like. Hmmm, anyone seen Four Lions?
It kind of fucks your argument that you agree they were not a credible threat, don’t ya think??
Don’t believe the bullshit they come out with about how they have ‘evidence’ of plans to attack anyone. It’s called fucking BANTER and we are (mostly) all guilty of it every blimmin day!
TVOR: I have been on management ‘team’ exercises that, from the evidence I have seen, went further into the required training than what went on in the targets of Operation 8. I don’t see those camps being shut down – do you?
For that matter, Gilchrist – the police spy who was rocky’s partner and whom she exposed, was running management training camps that did exactly this type of military style camp quite legally for those managers.
Now I’ve done military training, management training, know a lot about the law (I had to suffer through my ex’s law) and I read a hell of a lot of material that is military history including insurgencies. I also know a lot of activists and most of them are to my mind extremely legal. There are a few bullshitters, but most of them appear to try to keep on the right side of the legal system.
As far as I’m concerned, the really dangerous people in operation 8 appear to be the paranoids in the police building in Otahuhu. Stupid acts like this exercise appear to be more driven by creating dangerous activism than preventing it.
Been away and I see there is another related post now, so I guess I might have more to say there.
However, yes, I have seen military style camps shut down. You’ll recall the NZ Army was snapped running shoot ’em up days on the side a couple of years ago and they got shut down pronto. Sometimes it’s just not appropriate, eh.
And I bet that flea Gilchrist did not teach the suits how to chuck molotov’s on those courses either. But that’s not the point. This was military training for a political purpose. And have we forgotten where arming politically motivated people can take us?
Were you part of the molotov throwing, semiautomatic firing group, or not? You cannot purport to be an anti war activist when you are throwing molotov cocktails.
Jesus! What a plonker! When I was younger, we used to make bombs out of fireworks and let them off down at the beach. We used to make our own guns etc for something to do. We also used real guns with adult supervision… and shock horror non of us kids had licenses. That’s how I learnt to hunt at the age of seven. People like Pagani must have grown up mollycoddled in cotton wool to not realize that thousands of New Zealand kids do this sort of thing.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 22.4.1
When I was younger, we used to make bombs out of fireworks and let them off down at the beach. We used to make our own guns etc for something to do. We also used real guns with adult supervision…
OK. Your misanthropic streak is starting to make sense.
I enquire because thejackal made something of the fact that he was “younger”, presumably to explain his love of blowing things up as youthful exuberance, or something.
Valerie Morse is a 36 year old librarian.
Bit old to be blowing things up for fun, don’t you think?
That’s right, McFlock. Running around in the bush lobbing molotov cocktails left, right and centre is just like setting off a catherine wheel for the kids.
I think the woman’s reluctance to offer an innocent explanation speaks volumes about her motives.
Ummm, from the police evidence it looks like the alleged molotov cocktails were done in a single place. Lemme see what is online – I seem to have seen something..
Det Sgt Pascoe was to give evidence that he believed she threw the Molotov cocktail into an outdoor oven, where police later found remnants of Molotov cocktails.
It doesn’t look like you are being even a teeny bit accurate. In fact reading what the the police have said (rather than your levels of fiction) it seems like the range area was not dangerous.
She will have been advised by her lawyers not to say anything. Apart from anything else if I was her, I’d be in the midst of preparing a civil case against the police and against some individual police.
lprent, you are right of course, this whole thing turns on how widely the molotov cocktails (yes, molotov cocktails) were thrown. If she was throwing them in a narrow area everything is just peachy because she was clearly throwing them for the amusement of small children whose love of violent explosions and firearms is both legendary and to be encouraged.
Let’s see, the article lprent linked to above said […]”holding an object believed to be a Molotov cocktail.
Det Sgt Pascoe was to give evidence that he believed she threw the Molotov cocktail into an outdoor oven, where police later found remnants of Molotov cocktails. ”
So – they have a burned out oven with glass in it. They have a photo of someone who might or might not be Morse holding a molotov bottle. Maybe even throwing it in the direction of the oven (but no explosion etc on camera).
Not really. The biggest issue for the police would have been to prove that she was doing it – something that they clearly had little direct evidence for since they were relying on evidence of similar clothing.
The second would have been to prove that the activity was unlawful. Now that isn’t as easy as you’d probably like to guess because I don’t think that there are any that many laws against lighting fires on private land in a old fridge (regardless of the means). In much the same way as there aren’t that many laws against having old fridges, burning old fence posts, or indeed most activities.
As I was pointing out in the post the police would have to prove a criminal intent. So far they have singularly failed to even get close to it outside of the fevered imagination of Aaron Pascoe and the presumptive judgement of Pagani.
BTW, I seem to recall Bomber Bradbury (remind me why the only the right are called out for using violent language?) having a lot to say about how shocking the actions of these delightful people were at the time of the raids. Has he resiled from that or does lprent need to give him a slap?
She are you saying that she has confirmed it? Point to where she does…
She is under no obligation to confirm or deny that except in court if and only if she takes the stand and sits under oath. Doing it for your prurient interest is probably no high on her list of things to do.
But lets start with you under the same basis. I hereby say that you are a wanker – do you wish to confirm or deny that? And I have about 50 more questions of an increasingly severe nature that you remaining silent on will just confirm your guilt.
Basically that is not an argument by you. It is an excuse for your gormless foolish behavior
I would have thought she would have had an absolute defense if she was not in the Urewera’s – I s’pose she could have decided not to mount a defense to get as much to moan and bitch about for her ongoing campaign against ‘the man’.
Personally I find it disappointing no one knobbled the silly bint during her ANZAC day flag burning.
But you mean the flag burning that the court decided was not unlawful and not dangerous (as I seem to remember that was the decision) ? The decision that really brings into question the silliness of the police in bringing forward a case that they were unlikely to convict on?
She probably was somewhere, there or elsewhere. The question in that case is probably proving it absolutely.
I really couldn’t prove where I am absolutely anytime when I’m not at work. I’m always amused when people look at electronic records as proof because after doing work for the payments industry and thinking about how others could spoof our systems, it all becomes a matter of cost and effort.
But the question for the police even with the unlawfully obtained evidence would have been to prove that their accusations were correct.
Standing rule for any activist usually is that if the police wish to charge you, then they should have to prove their accusation. Typically they are unable to convict.
In rocky’s case she has literally had dozens of charges against her. She has defended them all, and they only managed to convict her without being overturned on appeal once because the police kept postponing the trial until she was unable to keep having defense witnesses or herself attending court. For the same reason she was unable to take it to appeal.
That is the standard that some of these police descend to….. Some of the charges were about as useful as the flag burning. “Intimidation by loitering”, “using a megaphone” is a favorite, etc etc
I think that you have assaulted someone…. and primary school and kindergarten count (since you don’t seem to be bothered about if a conviction is possible).
Wasn’t the court decision not to convict due to no-one in the vicinity causing a disturbance – i’e if someone had been pissed off enough to clout her she would have been convicted for causing a disturbance ……. I may be wrong…… old age memory failing .. wine with dinner etc .
The moral high ground Paganai is using when it comes to being anti war and molotov cocktails reminds me of how a woman may be made to feel in a rape trial. Her sexual history is bared for all to examine, she then is on trial for her sexual history and being raped is considered as being probable or not probable even though consent was absent.
Focus must be on the charge and not using moral high ground. Paganai needs to apologise for using a person’s personal beliefs and linking them to being charged with an alleged offence which is before the court.
22.5 “… which is before the court.” I over looked that Bailey (another female) is to stand trial and not Morse, however Morse could appear as a witness or could take out a civil case against the police.
From my understanding they were found with about 200 rounds of ammunition and about half a dozen firearms in various stages of useability. Knowing the socio-economic status of Māori, as I do, it probably took them over 10 years to amass this horde of weaponry, and from Trademe.
Your paranoia is fed by ignorance of the world outside of the bubble you occupy. Pop that cherry and explore the real New Zealand.
From my understanding they were found with about 200 rounds of ammunition and about half a dozen firearms in various stages of useability.
Anyone who has been farming for longer than 2 seconds typically has anywhere between 10-20 serviceable firearms (from .22’s all the way through to various shotguns) and a thousand plus rounds of ammo for said firearms.
From my understanding they were found with about 200 rounds of ammunition and about half a dozen firearms in various stages of useability. Knowing the socio-economic status of Māori, as I do, it probably took them over 10 years to amass this horde of weaponry, and from Trademe.
Your paranoia is fed by ignorance of the world outside of the bubble you occupy. Why don’t you pop that cherry and explore the real New Zealand.
Oh, yeah, the police. Whose charges have been thrown out again and again.
What interests me is how the Police are now denying the remaining accused a fair trial by leaking this stuff to the media. They must know what they’re doing. Seems like pure vengeance. And an admission they have no case.
Insider I was being specific about Morse. The Supreme Court has ruled that video camera surveillance is not admissable where she is concerned.
Go and Google what Ross Meurant says about cops and the forest. I learnt at age 16 about how cops were. I worked at a police barracks and accommodation was supplied due to the three split shifts.
Can’t supply a link but try Deep in the forest: Ross Meurant – Sunday Star – Times
Meurant is honest about how cops are conditioned to tow the line when it comes to them and us.
I have a general distrust where cops are concerned but there are some honest ones. The longer service or the higher rank are usually the worst. A lot of the good ones get out due to knowing that they cover for their mates, have assaulted people they apprehend and know that they are there to serve and protect the public and not themselves.
A few days ago the Otago Daily Times reported that the Department of Conservation will receive $100,000 from gold-miner Oceana Gold in return for taking a neutral stance on an application to expand the East Otago gold mine. This is a blatant bribe as DOC had already made its position known…
First he tries to buy his popularity and get his name up in lights, now he’s going to try and buy up NZ starting with the top sporting teams. Key and Glenn make a good pair of sociopaths!
Anne, wakey, wakey, that was covered at 6.2 above.
However just in case you missed it … applying Fenton’s First Law, can we expect Labour to call for a total boycott on watching the Warriors, if the sale to Owen Glenn goes ahead?
Speaking of Gormless Fools – no personal reflections TGFKAO – when will Charles Chauvel withdraw his crap press release:
A report showing air pollution in Auckland is double that of Sydney’s and on a par with Tokyo’s is another blot on National’s ever-expanding not very environmental copybook, Labour’s Environment spokesperson Charles Chauvel says.
World Health Organisation data out today reveals New Zealand cities trail all major Australian cities in terms of air quality, with Auckland the worst.
“Our largest city is just now getting a glimpse of the real cost of Steven Joyce’s anti-rail, more roads-at-all-cost policies – increased air pollution,” Charles Chauvel said.
Turns out the WHO report is almost as full of hot air as Labour’s policy cupboard. The report’s been pulled and a new set of numbers posted that show all main centres are within WHO safety guidelines.
Look’s like the real cost of Joyces anti-rail, more-roads-at-all-costs policies is – clean air!
Now, does that actually undermine the ACC report that indicates that 700 people per year are dying to air pollution in Auckland? No, it doesn’t. Nor does it excuse Nationals drive to increase that pollution and death by putting in roads most of Auckland don’t want.
Well only four years ago it was 900 deaths for the whole country and pollution levels have remained static if not dropped since then. The acc report is based on 2006 data. That to me undermines it a tad…
Still doesn’t undermine the report considering that the conclusion would be based on probabilities defined by years of research around the world, ie, population thus, pollution thus, estimated level of premature deaths caused by pollution approximately this. It’ll be fairly close even if it was based on 2006 data. Pollution levels may have remained static but population hasn’t, especially Auckland, and the estimates probably have probably changed as well.
Oh, an MP that admits a mistake, now there’s a thing; still waiting for Key to admit his stuff ups; I anticipate a long wait as he has yet to retract any of his lies.
Of course Charles won’t recant – it’s not in his nature and it’s not in the nature of the party he represents. Much easier to blame the whole thing on some dastardly right wing plot.
To be fair to chauvel, he was using data from a reputable source that he had no reason to doubt. Who have admitted the flaw so it’s a bit pointless doing a retraction now
Intermittent signal September 2011/7 (last 15/9)
There was a great interview today about helping parents with their onerous tasks, something I
believe is vital and needs to happen. So there are positives coming through the fog of unpleasant news that we shouldn’t overlook.
On 9 to Noon today – Parenting with Matthew Sanders
Professor of parenting studies at the University of Auckland and University of Queensland. He was co-investigator of a major study carried out in South Carolina which found that there were lower rates of confirmed abuse cases, child out-of-home placements, and hospitalisations and emergency room visits for child injuries in countries where parenting support was implemented. (17′30″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2499133/parenting-with-matthew-sanders.asx
And it sounds as if its being done with no patronising or authoritarian attitudes to parents either.
“The Herald is just now catching up with the online outrage against such a shallow and nasty attack against a Kiwi icon.” – Campbell Slater
How can Slater look at himself in the mirror at night. “Shallow and Nasty” attacks are all he fucking does. He’s a clinical depressive who seems to think the only way he can be happy is have his daddy bankroll his unemployment by having a blog that is set up for him to tell the world how fucking much he hates it. “Shallow and Nasty” and Salter are the same thing.
The Mad Butcher can fuck off, he knows what he was doing, stop licking Nationals balls , it makes your workingman brand look a joke. He plays in the media, that’s all he does, his butcheries went broke a long time ago and he doesn’t run them. He’s just the briscoe lady of cheap meat. Don’t play innocence. Leitch is just one of a long line of businessman who have opened butcheries in Auckland and like him, most fail and are bought out.
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
“It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April to meet the Prime Minister’s ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
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A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
As a young gymnast, Aimee Didierjean was always conscious of making sure her underwear wasn’t showing on the competition floor. A peek of a bra strap, or briefs if a leotard rode up, would cost a gymnast points in her routines. “When I was growing and going through puberty, it ...
Jubi/West Papua Daily Repeated cases of Indonesian military (TNI) soldiers torturing civilians in Papua have been evident, as seen in the viral video depicting the torture of civilians in the Puncak Regency allegedly done by soldiers of Raider 300/Brajawijaya Infantry Battalion. There is a pressing need for stringent law enforcement ...
Another kiwi dead in afghan land, pike river, etc etc but RNZ onto bigger issues this morning……TVNZ replacing coro st with chef show…..I feel informed now.
Its just so fekkin predictable, us and our children as collateral damage, the media just dealing to the trivia we are brainwashed to accept.
Meanwhile a family with a son to bury must be wondering why, what for. My sympathy is with them.
Great speech by David Cunliffe in general debate yesterday:
Some highlights:
Key complained that New Zealand did not have a debt problem in 2008, it had a growth problem. Thirty seven billion dollars later it has both.
We have a personality cult of a Prime Minister.
They said that they would close the gap with Australia. It is now 35% and was 30%.
“Key runs like a rabbit from the hard problems.”
National is betting its next three years “on a smile and a vacuous waft”.
Under Labour unemployment was 3.4%, it is now 6.5%.
“The rich have got richer with windfall tax cuts and the poor can’t feed their children.”
Yeah but to his credit Joky Hen has one success. He can claim to have converted a mad butcher. And he also appears to have more clarity on what he thinks about rugby now that he is in his 50s.
… and Hooten has the gaul to talk about a butcher in a similar league to Sir Edmund Hilary.
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19092011/#comment-379105
Hooten, the butcher is “world famous in New Zealand” as the expression goes.
“Hooten, the butcher is “world famous in New Zealand” as the expression goes.”
Indeed but why would anyone ‘wish he would hurry up and die’ ?
HS you are the last one to complain about standards of behavior on the internet.
Indeed Greg but do tell why would anyone wish that the mad butcher ‘… would hurry up and die’ ?
Nice attempt at distraction hs. Now let’s get back to discussing the economy.
Mostly to give idiot tories a straw to grasp at and incessantly repeat, as opposed to the multitude of examples that frustrated, vicious, selfish, incompetent small-minded tories give the left each and every day,
“Hooten, the butcher is “world famous in New Zealand” as the expression goes.”
Shift the comma.
“Hooten the butcher, is “world famous in New Zealand” as the expression goes.”
Warning troll alert!
W.T.F. hs???
Have you been away for the last few days ?
… my comment of 07:47 and yours of 07:56 – what are you insinuating?
Sir Edmund Hillary was a Knight of the Order of the Garter and recipient of many other international and national honours.
Some number crunching:
154000. The number who don’t have a job despite the relentless focus on jobs from John Key.
170000. The number of extra workers BHP Australia says it will hire over the next 5 years, half of whom will be construction workers.
So if you know one end of hammer from the other, where would you rather be? Rebuilding Chch or repairing leaky homes in Auckland for fuck all, or pulling in 100k plus super in Queensland for a 37 hour working week?
Yes but the retards in NZ (and that’s all of parliament) have so frightened the public that we can’t go down the track of mining – because it’s evil…… evil I tells ya !
You’ll notice that in Australia, all the major coastal cities are experiencing economic slow downs, while it is the mining towns which remain booming.
In other words, without widespread and varied high value industry, all mining will do (as dairy does) is focus wealth in specific communities, with only trickles down at the margin.
BTW increased mining in NZ would not have been an issue if Key and Brownlee hadn’t completely misjudged the public and decided that they needed to try and fuck over schedule 4 land.
i.e. some of the blame for the backlash against mining belongs to those two. (rereading your comment I see you think so as well).
lower standard their resources will run out sooner than later . The cost of retrieving minerals in this country is much higher 29 deaths for a start.Minerals are far more inaccessible, here Australia is a big ugly country and no one will notice a few holes in the ground while New Zealand is far more beautiful , and we don’t need idiots like you to stuff it up.It would be far better for our economy to add value through R&D to what we do well sustainable agriculture.However Nact have cut and re branded R&D and reduced the gains possible through consistent investment.
I think you missed my point, HS. I’m not bothered about the mining jobs, particularly, it’s the construction work that is going to knacker NZ. We already have many thousand less construction workers than are going to be needed for Chch and Ak in the next few years and very little work for those that are still here. We need to be training apprentices now and looking to both upskill and upgrade the pay and conditions of workers for the future or the rebuilds just won’t happen in a reasonable time frame.
Yep I agree with you 100% on that point VOR.
Troll on, you can’t compare Oz’s mining industry which occupies desert wilderness with NZ who have no such areas to hid away the toxic lakes, sprawling worker camps etc and to play your game name some economically viable ore bodies we should be mining HS? just one will do, now’s good.
Lignite in southland
Which is utterly crap without extensive and expensive processing, fuck, for the price of processing it, you’d be better off importing mid quality coal for the same job.
I wasn’t aware of that I was relying on the information from MED
http://www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/pdf-library/coal-1/coal-resource-si-lignite.pdf
lol – another summary of the issue is here. Southland lignite seems to be raised more easily on the interwebz than in real life 🙂
Its not the mining mate, its the fact that people like you want it done in the Southern Alps, Mt Taranaki/Egmont (I have seen oil ooze out of the ground there..).
Anyway, go to Central Otago, etc and look at all the ghost towns there. My point being is when the gold (or silver, platimum or whatever) runs out, the boom ends and it all falls over.
Key says often that they have created 45,000 jobs in NZ. Has anyone contested that figure?
A bit like the claims of increasing the number of nurses by 1000 and teachers by 15000. Huh?
New grad nurses are struggling to get jobs, except where? Australia
Oil Drum has a good reprint of an article on peak oil..
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8410
Looks at both the geological and economic and it’s effects on price. I’d have liked to have seen more on the price tipping points to other tech. But it was a brief ( for economics ) article.
A group of economists is being taken on a tour of an underground gold mine when there is a terrible accident, sealing them all underground.
They are not likely to be rescued for weeks, but luckily, there is an ample store of air and water down in the mine. But no food. All the economists become really quite anxious.
One brightens considerably when he realises that he has two BLT sandwiches packed away in his briefcase. Looking at all the gold around, a cheer goes up from the economists who realise that they are all now saved.
With no regulations, plenty of liquidity on hand, and keen buying interest, a busy market in BLT sandwiches was surely only moments away.
Haah, a speluncean hypothetical!
The big question also is what happens next after the BLT gets swallowed down.
Might the spelunkers be eyeing each other or stare down the most vulnerable-looking one and smack their lips?
Well, when the market price of a BLT sandwich increases sufficiently due to sandwich scarcity, market forces will guarantee additional investment in BLT sandwich production because of the massive ROI present in that market.
This means that the more BLT sandwich prices increase, the more BLT sandwich supply will also increase = problem solved, everyone can wait happily at the bottom of the mine for rescue.
I bring you the miracle of the free market 🙂
ColoNial Viper:
BLT sansdwiches are going up in price? GRRRRR
CV, I hate to say this, but the logic of the market would still hold.
It would very soon become obvious (information would be accurate and flow pretty rapidly, after all) that making BLT sandwiches was not the kind of production for which available resources could be switched to meet demand.
That would mean another demand (e.g., ways of getting out of the mine) would become the focus of resources, and production would shift that way. The market may not last very long (as the last BLT nibble – which would probably become the ‘currency’ – goes gutwards) but a market may well make sure the last food went to the person with the best chance of providing the exit strategy for all – e.g., a chemistry hobbyist or economist turned garden shed engineer. But that doesn’t mean anyone will get out of the mine.
As I understand it, markets don’t guarantee outcomes – they just respond to the greatest demand for resources and supposedly provide the ‘best bet’ for the desired (short term) outcomes.
Where the analogy does work, however, is that the market can very well lead us merrily into the closed off mine in the first place – but its principles would continue to work efficiently right till the last smug breath was drawn by the last surviving economist.
Schelling’s ‘Micromotives and Macrobehavior‘ makes a good case for the possibility of outcomes at the macro level – that no individual might actually desire – arising from the micro-level motives of people (especially acting in markets – e.g., resulting in racially segregated neighbourhoods).
He got the Nobel prize in Economics for that kind of insight yet, for me, it’s like a big, flashing sign saying ‘beware of markets – they can give you what you don’t wish for’ – like being stuck in a goldmine with nothing to eat (a bit like today’s world for a significant number of people).
Irrationality of the free-market
It’s true and anyone who actually applies logic to it must realise that it is so. The market works at the micro level but fails at the macro level and yet our economists and politicians continue to try to apply it at the macro level and then become surprised when it fails.
😀 Colonial Viper…
so i have to tell my neighbor of my camera pointing into their backyard,
under the privacy act, but the state soesn’t need a warrent to do the
exact same thing, go figure?
Top ten google searches for New Zealand in the past seven days.
Take that NZRFU, go the Warriors.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#geo=NZ&date=today+7-d&cmpt=q&q=%22google+plus%22
1 nrl grand final +1,000%
2. google plus +400%
3. x factor +400%
4. grabaseat +150%
5. nz time +150%
6. daylight savings +120%
7. nrl +100%
8. warriors +100%
9. companies office +90%
10. grab a seat
Will the viewing figures top the Opening Night of the RWC. Thats the test Brett.
I think it is great that Kiwi’s have two teams to support at the moment. There seems to be a bounce around town. We call forget about the economic gloom for a change.
I see Owen Glenn’s been doing due diligence on the Warriors.
Applying Fenton’s First Law, can we expect Labour to call for a total boycott on watching the Warriors, if the sale to Owen Glenn goes ahead?
Classic!
JB We can expect Glenn to be bankrupt in no time at all given other high flying sports club owners in New Zealand!
How deeply depressing… It just confirms the idea I have had for many years (first shown by a useless ex-husband) that New Zealanders are generally rugby boofhead morons! Thankfully, I know that’s not true of all of them.)
Brett Dale – yes go the mighty Warriors and go the All Blacks – this is a fantastic Rugby World Cup
Comparisons with 1956 are apt here. Go and find an old timer and ask him what the atmosphere was like during the 1956 tour. He’ll pretty much tell you it was the same as it is during RWC 2011, but with a bit more sophistication in terms of the bar and eatery scene.
Pagani on the Urewera thing:
http://johnpagani.posterous.com/call-of-duty
“Were you part of the molotov throwing, semiautomatic firing group, or not? You cannot purport to be an anti war activist when you are throwing molotov cocktails.”
Yup I’m calling Pagani out on this.
Sucking up to the police. Big time. I’m never going near him again.
He’s gone way out on a limb. It’s all about consumer choice. We don’t need sycophants like that…I’ll be buying my meat from another butcher now
Steven Joyce… Failure!
You may not be aware that we even have a Minister of Communications. It wouldn’t help much if you happen to use networking programs either… as the minister doesn’t have any online presence…
It get worse in the HCC. Not content with cutting funding for community groups and NGO’s, it plans to take an axe to parks and reserves, and hike rents at its pensioner housing by 70% (or flog the unit off to the highest bidder).
Its offical. Julie Hardaker is New Zealand’s Michelle Bachmann.
Yep, this really looks like pancaking to me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0tzmGgWggg&feature=player_embedded
Rev ,to me it looks like approx 20,000,000 cubic meters of air, being forced out of the building by approx 300,000 T of concrete and steel in 15 secs.
But Scotty, you cannae break the laws of physics!
Scotty,
The time of each collapse was indeed 14-16 seconds. 180 floors collapsed in 15 seconds. Do you believe it pancaked? Here is a law of physics which can not be broken. It’s called the conservation of energy.
If you watch the video you see these big black lumps shooting out from the building. Those are tons of steel who for no apparent reason decide to fly sideways at 70 miles per hour. That energy has to come from somewhere. Gravity does not explain the energy required for these huge beams to go flying of horizontally.
Here is another video with some strange movements of flying objects which can not be explained away by planes and gravity.
By the way NIST has deserted the pancake theory. Molten aluminum and water does not explode and most certainly does not cause a building to explode nor does it generate the force needed to separate tons of steel into truck sized lots and buildings do not explode outwards in 15 seconds just because of a plane impact. The fuel was mostly burned off within seconds and people were shown as standing in the hole the plane made while not being burned and holding on to the steel frame. So where did the energy come from to explode huge beams outward with the speed of 70 miles per hour?
Newton’s 4th law is “and for any public tragedy, the reliability or accuracy of internet analyses of the first three laws is inversely proportional to the scale of the tragedy”
I appreciate what Al Qaeda’s motives may be, but it’s a bit of a laugh…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/28/al-qaida-ahmadinejad-911-conspiracy?CMP=twt_gu
Real life far funnier than fiction.
Rev,cheers for that, How much energy do you reckon was generated from 300,000 T accelerating to 160 kph in 15 seconds.? what happened to that energy?
Are not large elements of the buildings’ construction being blown laterally,just travelling the path of less resistance.?
Interesting piece from John Pagani.
http://johnpagani.posterous.com/call-of-duty
In itself making and throwing molotov cocktails into an old oven is not illegal I would have thought. (Years ago my brother tried putting lumps of carbide in a sealed bottle of water and watched it explode. He is a very peaceful chap.)
Firing semi-automatic guns would be akin to the sort of people who enjoy paintball wars.
On the face of the information given there is still not proof of crime (unless those guns are illegal.)
Not making excuses and would hate to live near anyone who carried out those activities, but……
Years ago a (then) teenage brother along with a mate tried to blow up a bridge in Milford, North Shore. He became a successful businessman.
Mine was depth charges and rockets. Had quite a lot of fun making explosives. Of course after you get to play with plastic explosives you suddenly realize how ‘messy’ my home made stuff was. I really loved being able to carve my initials into Armour of an old bren gun carrier.
I never graduated from the home made stuff that went pop. After meeting a guy who had blown his arm off, I kind of lost interest in the hobby.
sharp observation IM – I particularly like the way that your logic reduces the whole Middle East conflict thingy to a large paint-ball war
None of the 18 had a “E” endorsement so all of the semi autos were illegal to possess.
Indeed it is interesting, HS. I quite like Pagani’s blog, even though I don’t always agree with him. This time he has got it spot on, though.
What a bunch of dreamers and tossers it turns out these people are. Reminds me of the sort of macho ‘defence of the homeland’ fantasies we normally associate with the likes of KKKyle Chapman. It’s a damn shame the coppers stuffed this up, because this lot should be explaining themselves in court, not excusing themselves on blogs.
ps I see OOBB beat us to it, comment 8 above.
I dunno. There goes a chap who never had fun with things that go “bang”, even if the police “evidence” is as clear cut as they would have us believe.
As a girl, with bad eyesight and only one brother (much younger) I never was a fan of things that go bang. My Dad who suffered from what I know now was PTSD, had an arsenal in the house, and was obsessed with the fear of invasion (he’d ‘fought all through t’second world war, and so taught we girls to fire guns – or tried to.)
So, my feeling is with Pagani on this. My Dad was prosecuted for his arsenal, and ended up in dire straits (I won’t go into it all, just to say that the authorities were less than understanding!). So I am not sympathetic, which is not to say that I support prosecution on illegally gained evidence…
I have no real problem with persecuting based on actual unequivocal evidence about acts and intent.
What I have a problem with is the police charging on what looks like quite circumstantial equivocal evidence (like similar clothing) for actions that are not in themselves unlawful, on the basis of a criminal intent that they have no actual proof of beyond what looks like people blatting the breeze. I really get irritated that it has taken more than 4 years to not get to trial because the police were so damn sloppy that they relied on unlawfully gathered evidence.
Quite simply I think that the police who brought caused this travesty of a misuse of their powers should be kicked out of the force and a severe look taken at how in the hell their superiors allowed it to happen.
Incidentally I know exactly how you feel. There was a family friend who always kind of got me giving him second looks. It was the arsenal of obsolete military hardware like missile launcher outside his house. But he was mostly legal…
Yeah, so did mine, but he didn’t have an arsenal – he took us boating instead. My father had a love planes (which is why he joined the RAF when war started) and a love of boats.
That would have been a lot better! My Dad was convinced that WW3 would happen in his lifetime, and we’d have to fight off invaders… Hence the self-sufficient lifestyle (growing all our own food, candles and gas stoves etc) and the shooting lessons.)
I still loathe guns to this day as a result. If by some bizarre chance, we were invaded, I could never shoot anyone…
Being a peacenik means that you can’t learn to defend yourself from those who aren’t?
A compelling fullsome report on the idiocy of the Surveillance Bill. A must read.
“The Law Society has attacked the government’s plan to pass extraordinary and objectionable surveillance legislation.”
http://www.imperatorfish.com/2011/09/law-society-slams-police-spying-bill.html?showComment=1317249849178#c5726233854666049514
NZ Herald Complaint
What really pisses me off about all this is that the cops are continually speculating on things without much evidence and some of the evidence they do have was illegally obtained. The entire case is farcical!
Oh please, Jackal, it’s not like the police have an active media management / pr section – oh, wait…
I have had the misfortune of dealing with incompetent cops for 35 years. I was dragged into a situation due to a CIB inquisition in 1979 which pertained to an inquiry involving a politician in 1976. I was silenced and bullied by the police.
In order for me to RECEIVE any justice by the police an inquiry would need to be held and only Key or Marshall have the power for this to occur. I would expose the police for misleading the last three ministers of police, for not adequately investigating my concerns, for making defamatory remarks on many occasions and for the loss of police documentation/files as well as with holding the full police evidence concerning the politician who was denied legal representation.
Basically the politician gave four reasons for the incident with the cop. But the cop has given three different reasons for why he had me silenced and bullied because he told me of the incident with the politician before the incident was raised in parliament. Issues with the cop having name suppression which I did not know about for sometime and the CIB inquisition triggering historical sexual offending. The inquiry was about whether police breached the incident.
My observation yesterday regarding a 10 second view on the news with Marshall, Drew and Hide was this:
Drew was area commander in the Wairarapa, we have not heard back yet from the IPCA on whether or not Drew is responsible for child sexual violation cases languishing. (At some point Marshall was involved in the back log of the Wairarapa cases and has fobbed off being directly responsible). Police say they need more tools but appear to not be able to organise something as important as legally using video surveillance and then they cry and say we want to prevent crime. Hide got it right when he implied that the police knew what they were doing was illegal.
About time that a Police Commissioner grows some balls and takes responsibility for MAJOR WEAKNESS within the police because Broad’s legacy was bad enough with C.R Rickards, sexual assaults on children (Wairarapa) and adults (by sworn police officers) and people like Patrick O’ Brien languishing concerning wanting to expose the police and to hold them to account. I predicted prior to Marshall taking up the post as commissioner of police that Marshall would be drawn into the Urewera raids. Even I did not foresee how compromised Marshall would be due to bozo Broad.
I am a lone voice in the wilderness but I have balls of steel. I have had first class teachers (been a student for 35 years regarding devious cops). When I hear about major stuff ups by the police it only intensifies and prolongs the complex form of PTSD I have.
Asshole of the Week Award – Keith Abbott
I sometimes wonder if the Police give a damn at all about what the public thinks… They stumble along from one PR disaster to another showing very little thought for the consequences of their actions…
I like the Burroughs quote, Jackal. Mind you I like all Old Bill Lee’s quotes, including the one about society hating functioning junkies because it spoils the argument for the war on drugs.
I also find this line interesting:
“People simply don’t accept that because Abbott wasn’t convicted, he isn’t guilty”
Do you also apply that reasoning to the wannabes running around the Ureweras with guns?
lol
Should read many people… have fixed it.
Do you mean all those hunters who are after some grub and don’t have gun licenses? I can’t think why the cases are similar… the Urewera 18 haven’t killed anybody.
Not going to be much left of that grub after you’ve shot it with a semi-automatic and molotov cocktailed it.
I suppose it’s a method for simultaneous cook and kill though – perhaps that’s what Valeri Morse was is practicing when she torches the NZ flag each ANZAC day.
My word, this issue really gets people on edge. What Molotov’s and what semi-automatic weapons? Do you know what a semi-automatic weapon is?
Don’t tell me you actually believe that NZ Herald article HS… I thought you had a bit more nous than that?
Well it would be nice to see the footage of what was going on.
Anyhoo must I still admit to finding it odd that one needs to firebomb game.
And as for nous shouldn’t you be directing that slur to the good Mr Pagani ?
I thought they had a CD of gun shot sounds – I once had an album of BBC sound effects; can I charge the person in charge of making hoof sounds with coconut shells?
“I once had an album of BBC sound effects; ”
Oh dear you sound like you were more of a nerd (didn’t think it possible) than me in your younger days….. although my younger days predate CDs somewhat.
I still have a tape with BBC sound effects.
What’s up with editing the sounds anyway… perhaps the cops are attempting to get the gunshots closer together so they sound like a semi? Either way it proves nothing!
Firebomb game HS? There’s still no clear proof that they were even using Molotov cocktails, which isn’t a crime I might add.
Feck it really is quite amusing to see you trying to defend this lot.
S’pose it comes down to whether you think this is a reasonable thing for ‘adults” to be up to and if it is reasonable and it was merely a harmless get together for a bit of hunting practice why the need to withhold the videos – surely the defendants would be more than happy for the video footage to be made public or the very least be made available in court to vindicate their jolly japes.
HS78s
Yikes. I had that album too or one in the series. Lots of horror sounds from memory. Squelching and twisting necks
Basically they do not. The police are thoroughly independent of any significant oversight
Interesting…
Oh Jackal the police give a dam about being caught, but they know that 99 % of individuals do not have the resources or influence to take out a civil case. This is why the government has to order an independent inquiry.
If the commissioner of police gave a dam about what the public think about crooked cop practices he would order an inquiry.
In Open Mike yesterday I commented on a talk by Dick Smith and gave the basic link for it.. It was from May this year but not outdated. I have remembered that he referred to Oz news media being about 70% controlled by Rupert Murdoch who he said, is growth oriented and so dos not want to follow any other thinking or viewpoints. He criticises capitalism which DTB would affirm.
Don’t know about that one, but there is this one http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/08/17/buffett-slams-super-rich-tax-rates-but-what-about-australia/
What about TVNZ changing Coro Street to children’s tv time, and sanitising it.
Forget the Uruweras crap, Rugby World Cup, BLT sandwiches and other insignificant irrelevances.
Who wants more Masterchief at prime time. Will the overpaid PHD’s at TVNZ ever learn it’s the customer, not what they want. The Helen Clark era is dead – but mummy still knows best it appears.
It’s not that I am serious Coro fan (I do watch it, but not fanatically), but what irked me, was the programmers’ comments – that the olds who watch Coro could watch at 5.30, or watch the omnibus on Saturday. What about Coro fans who are not olds? I like to work, and can’t get home by 5.30, and who on earth watches TV on a Saturday morning?
The passing of the VSM bill is great news for those interested in freedom and social justice, as the bill in line with UN’s Declaration on Human Rights, which guarantees rights of association and non-association.
‘Free at last, free at last
Thank God almighty
We are free at last’
Yesterday is a day that will be seen on a par with emancipation and women’s suffrage, and those who opposed this bill will be looked on as the oppressors of freedom that they are.
Yep – Roger Douglas is NZ’s very own Nelson Mandela. /sarc
“Oppressors”? You merely demonstrate, yet again, that ACToids have no sense of perspective at all. E.g: everyone in a students’ association got a vote, and all stdents got to vote on membership rules. This is not the same as half the population not having the vote. Actually, a better analogy would be saying that everyone in NZ should choose whether they get all the benefits of NZ citizenship/residency, or whether they get pretty much all the benefits of NZ citizenship/residency but pay no tax – regardless of the wishes of the rest of NZ.
Yesterday was a great day for dictatorship and propoganda, but a shit day for students and freedom in general.
Just in case it doesn’t survive there. I put this on Pagani’s site on his rather stupid post about the operation 8 court documents.
Ummm can’t see it now. It is either moderated out or trashed…..
If it doesn’t come back, then I may extend it into a post.
Perhaps you ran foul of his comments policy.
“Anonymous comments don’t add much to the Internet.
You can leave comments, but I moderate them hard.
I use this blog to write about things that interest me. If comments aren’t interesting, they are not going on my blog.
I encourage intelligent dispute and argument. If you feel like insulting me, there are a large number of places on the Internet where you can go to do that. If you want to insult others, than I encourage you to be funny, at least.
Also, ‘x said y so therefore x is a bad person’ may be the standard for commenting elsewhere, but not here.
You can send an email to post@posterous, and the machine will start a blog for you just like that, where you can say what you like. If you are interesting I might link to you.”
Yep looks like you ticked most of those boxes.
Nope. Wasn’t anonymous, and I only called him a “dickhead” – which is as you know is rather mild for me, and I think it was in context…
He did e-mail back. But since he’d asked for posts on the subject, I gave him one. Of course it wasn’t exactly what he was probably after…
As I said
“Yep looks like you ticked MOST of those boxes.”
Well since he’d asked for left comment, I gave him one….. Since he didn’t like it, I published it here as a post.
Jeez, Lprent, you’re way off the beam on this. These sad fucks were practising at being guerillas and some, at least, were apparently trying to learn how to kill people by throwing bombs through windows. They should be in jail. There is no excuse for this immature behaviour and it is now pretty clear that the raids were entirely justified, even if the cops cannot now use all the evidence gathered. What a bunch of gutless, whining cowards and thank fuck they were stopped before they killed someone.
Eh??!?!!?
A bunch of boys playing at being soldier in the bush! Terrorists??? Training to ‘kill people’, as you imply????
You must have had a sad childhood indeed. Not so long ago, we used to buy sparklers from the Warehouse, tape them together and blow up rubbish bins along the Wellington waterfront and out the suburbs.
Should we be in jail for being young and immature, but essentially harmless? Those bombs were definitely classed as dangerous, and restrictions were put in place on them.
I have serious problems with people like you trying to turn this country into a police state and stifling people and punishing thousands disproportionately with no discretion.
It will alienate people and result in more discontent.
It’s pretty Orwellian to punish for something you think they ‘might’ do. It’s a bit like invading Afghanistan to defend NZ…a sane, rational person doesn’t see the link.
I suggest you reassess this and think about whether it’s your paranoia or deluded thinking, or whether these people were planning an all out guerrilla war. Think of it as you think of 9/11 ‘truthers’, come on, which is the more likely?
I didn’t use the word terrorist, Clandistino. I said guerillas. But these twats only have Che’s Tshirt, not his nous. I don’t care whether they were planning an all out war or just being muppets, but their immaturity has cost us all a right and a freedom. As a result of their stupidity, the police are soon going to able film us all whenever and however they feel like it. And I’m really pissed off about this because they have consistently said that there was nothing of substance to the police claims, but now it turns out the cops were right all along and the Urewera loons were lying to us all.
As I said above, I’m just pleased there was an intervention before someone got killed, though I suppose there was more likelihood of them shooting themselves than mounting a credible attack on some poor sod whose politics they didn’t like. Hmmm, anyone seen Four Lions?
It kind of fucks your argument that you agree they were not a credible threat, don’t ya think??
Don’t believe the bullshit they come out with about how they have ‘evidence’ of plans to attack anyone. It’s called fucking BANTER and we are (mostly) all guilty of it every blimmin day!
TVOR: I have been on management ‘team’ exercises that, from the evidence I have seen, went further into the required training than what went on in the targets of Operation 8. I don’t see those camps being shut down – do you?
For that matter, Gilchrist – the police spy who was rocky’s partner and whom she exposed, was running management training camps that did exactly this type of military style camp quite legally for those managers.
Now I’ve done military training, management training, know a lot about the law (I had to suffer through my ex’s law) and I read a hell of a lot of material that is military history including insurgencies. I also know a lot of activists and most of them are to my mind extremely legal. There are a few bullshitters, but most of them appear to try to keep on the right side of the legal system.
As far as I’m concerned, the really dangerous people in operation 8 appear to be the paranoids in the police building in Otahuhu. Stupid acts like this exercise appear to be more driven by creating dangerous activism than preventing it.
Been away and I see there is another related post now, so I guess I might have more to say there.
However, yes, I have seen military style camps shut down. You’ll recall the NZ Army was snapped running shoot ’em up days on the side a couple of years ago and they got shut down pronto. Sometimes it’s just not appropriate, eh.
And I bet that flea Gilchrist did not teach the suits how to chuck molotov’s on those courses either. But that’s not the point. This was military training for a political purpose. And have we forgotten where arming politically motivated people can take us?
Were you part of the molotov throwing, semiautomatic firing group, or not? You cannot purport to be an anti war activist when you are throwing molotov cocktails.
Jesus! What a plonker! When I was younger, we used to make bombs out of fireworks and let them off down at the beach. We used to make our own guns etc for something to do. We also used real guns with adult supervision… and shock horror non of us kids had licenses. That’s how I learnt to hunt at the age of seven. People like Pagani must have grown up mollycoddled in cotton wool to not realize that thousands of New Zealand kids do this sort of thing.
When I was younger, we used to make bombs out of fireworks and let them off down at the beach. We used to make our own guns etc for something to do. We also used real guns with adult supervision…
OK. Your misanthropic streak is starting to make sense.
FFS! I wasn’t doing it to prepare to hurt anybody gormless!
How old were you?
What has that got to do with anything?
Next they’ll be raiding capoeira classes because everyone there is “learning how to kill”.
I enquire because thejackal made something of the fact that he was “younger”, presumably to explain his love of blowing things up as youthful exuberance, or something.
Valerie Morse is a 36 year old librarian.
Bit old to be blowing things up for fun, don’t you think?
Why? Ever been to a fireworks display? It’s not just kids in the audience.
Again, I know martial artists older than that. Should they all be illegally filmed and held at gunpoint?
That’s right, McFlock. Running around in the bush lobbing molotov cocktails left, right and centre is just like setting off a catherine wheel for the kids.
I think the woman’s reluctance to offer an innocent explanation speaks volumes about her motives.
Ummm, from the police evidence it looks like the alleged molotov cocktails were done in a single place. Lemme see what is online – I seem to have seen something..
It doesn’t look like you are being even a teeny bit accurate. In fact reading what the the police have said (rather than your levels of fiction) it seems like the range area was not dangerous.
Tell me again why I called you a gormless fool?
I think that your insistence people should prove their innocence just shows the totalitarianism that lurks beneath the tory surface.
She will have been advised by her lawyers not to say anything. Apart from anything else if I was her, I’d be in the midst of preparing a civil case against the police and against some individual police.
Pretty sure half the SAS soldiers we have in Afghanistan are around that age or older.
lprent, you are right of course, this whole thing turns on how widely the molotov cocktails (yes, molotov cocktails) were thrown. If she was throwing them in a narrow area everything is just peachy because she was clearly throwing them for the amusement of small children whose love of violent explosions and firearms is both legendary and to be encouraged.
Let’s see, the article lprent linked to above said […]”holding an object believed to be a Molotov cocktail.
Det Sgt Pascoe was to give evidence that he believed she threw the Molotov cocktail into an outdoor oven, where police later found remnants of Molotov cocktails. ”
So – they have a burned out oven with glass in it. They have a photo of someone who might or might not be Morse holding a
molotovbottle. Maybe even throwing it in the direction of the oven (but no explosion etc on camera).Yep, let’s lock away the key.
Not really. The biggest issue for the police would have been to prove that she was doing it – something that they clearly had little direct evidence for since they were relying on evidence of similar clothing.
The second would have been to prove that the activity was unlawful. Now that isn’t as easy as you’d probably like to guess because I don’t think that there are any that many laws against lighting fires on private land in a old fridge (regardless of the means). In much the same way as there aren’t that many laws against having old fridges, burning old fence posts, or indeed most activities.
As I was pointing out in the post the police would have to prove a criminal intent. So far they have singularly failed to even get close to it outside of the fevered imagination of Aaron Pascoe and the presumptive judgement of Pagani.
Judging by his blog he must have been playing with guns as a foetus because no-one over the age of three could write the shite that he does.
Either that or it’s all puff and bluster like his delusions of being a bit of a ladies man.
What are you talking about? Calling HS… Come back to planet earth.
Except, Lprent, she does not even deny it.
BTW, I seem to recall Bomber Bradbury (remind me why the only the right are called out for using violent language?) having a lot to say about how shocking the actions of these delightful people were at the time of the raids. Has he resiled from that or does lprent need to give him a slap?
Superb, OBB taking silence as an indication of guilt.
Who’d you study law from, Dick Cheney?
There’s silence and then there’s going out of your way not to try to offer a rational explanation for throwing molotov cocktails around.
She are you saying that she has confirmed it? Point to where she does…
She is under no obligation to confirm or deny that except in court if and only if she takes the stand and sits under oath. Doing it for your prurient interest is probably no high on her list of things to do.
But lets start with you under the same basis. I hereby say that you are a wanker – do you wish to confirm or deny that? And I have about 50 more questions of an increasingly severe nature that you remaining silent on will just confirm your guilt.
Basically that is not an argument by you. It is an excuse for your gormless foolish behavior
I would have thought she would have had an absolute defense if she was not in the Urewera’s – I s’pose she could have decided not to mount a defense to get as much to moan and bitch about for her ongoing campaign against ‘the man’.
Personally I find it disappointing no one knobbled the silly bint during her ANZAC day flag burning.
Talk about a side-issue.
But you mean the flag burning that the court decided was not unlawful and not dangerous (as I seem to remember that was the decision) ? The decision that really brings into question the silliness of the police in bringing forward a case that they were unlikely to convict on?
In fact just like the current case.
She probably was somewhere, there or elsewhere. The question in that case is probably proving it absolutely.
I really couldn’t prove where I am absolutely anytime when I’m not at work. I’m always amused when people look at electronic records as proof because after doing work for the payments industry and thinking about how others could spoof our systems, it all becomes a matter of cost and effort.
But the question for the police even with the unlawfully obtained evidence would have been to prove that their accusations were correct.
Standing rule for any activist usually is that if the police wish to charge you, then they should have to prove their accusation. Typically they are unable to convict.
In rocky’s case she has literally had dozens of charges against her. She has defended them all, and they only managed to convict her without being overturned on appeal once because the police kept postponing the trial until she was unable to keep having defense witnesses or herself attending court. For the same reason she was unable to take it to appeal.
That is the standard that some of these police descend to….. Some of the charges were about as useful as the flag burning. “Intimidation by loitering”, “using a megaphone” is a favorite, etc etc
I hereby say that you are a wanker – do you wish to confirm or deny that.
I confirm it. It is a beautiful act of love.
When will you start asking me about the violence I have committed?
I think that you have assaulted someone…. and primary school and kindergarten count (since you don’t seem to be bothered about if a conviction is possible).
Wasn’t the court decision not to convict due to no-one in the vicinity causing a disturbance – i’e if someone had been pissed off enough to clout her she would have been convicted for causing a disturbance ……. I may be wrong…… old age memory failing .. wine with dinner etc .
The moral high ground Paganai is using when it comes to being anti war and molotov cocktails reminds me of how a woman may be made to feel in a rape trial. Her sexual history is bared for all to examine, she then is on trial for her sexual history and being raped is considered as being probable or not probable even though consent was absent.
Focus must be on the charge and not using moral high ground. Paganai needs to apologise for using a person’s personal beliefs and linking them to being charged with an alleged offence which is before the court.
22.5 “… which is before the court.” I over looked that Bailey (another female) is to stand trial and not Morse, however Morse could appear as a witness or could take out a civil case against the police.
Re stockpiling ammunition, apparantly they were
From my understanding they were found with about 200 rounds of ammunition and about half a dozen firearms in various stages of useability. Knowing the socio-economic status of Māori, as I do, it probably took them over 10 years to amass this horde of weaponry, and from Trademe.
Your paranoia is fed by ignorance of the world outside of the bubble you occupy. Pop that cherry and explore the real New Zealand.
Anyone who has been farming for longer than 2 seconds typically has anywhere between 10-20 serviceable firearms (from .22’s all the way through to various shotguns) and a thousand plus rounds of ammo for said firearms.
Insider
From my understanding they were found with about 200 rounds of ammunition and about half a dozen firearms in various stages of useability. Knowing the socio-economic status of Māori, as I do, it probably took them over 10 years to amass this horde of weaponry, and from Trademe.
Your paranoia is fed by ignorance of the world outside of the bubble you occupy. Why don’t you pop that cherry and explore the real New Zealand.
yeah, right.
Who said that?
Oh, yeah, the police. Whose charges have been thrown out again and again.
What interests me is how the Police are now denying the remaining accused a fair trial by leaking this stuff to the media. They must know what they’re doing. Seems like pure vengeance. And an admission they have no case.
It was in the affidavit that was apparantly released by one of the accused
Insider I was being specific about Morse. The Supreme Court has ruled that video camera surveillance is not admissable where she is concerned.
Go and Google what Ross Meurant says about cops and the forest. I learnt at age 16 about how cops were. I worked at a police barracks and accommodation was supplied due to the three split shifts.
Can’t supply a link but try Deep in the forest: Ross Meurant – Sunday Star – Times
Meurant is honest about how cops are conditioned to tow the line when it comes to them and us.
I have a general distrust where cops are concerned but there are some honest ones. The longer service or the higher rank are usually the worst. A lot of the good ones get out due to knowing that they cover for their mates, have assaulted people they apprehend and know that they are there to serve and protect the public and not themselves.
DOC was Bribed
A few days ago the Otago Daily Times reported that the Department of Conservation will receive $100,000 from gold-miner Oceana Gold in return for taking a neutral stance on an application to expand the East Otago gold mine. This is a blatant bribe as DOC had already made its position known…
Do the Nats need to bother with asset sales to foreign owned companies with this goon around?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/league/5704264/Owen-Glenn-linked-with-Warriors-buyout
First he tries to buy his popularity and get his name up in lights, now he’s going to try and buy up NZ starting with the top sporting teams. Key and Glenn make a good pair of sociopaths!
Why is he a goon Anne ?
Is it just because he dared tell the truth about Winnie and put your beloved Labour party in an embarrassing position ?
Is it because of his charitable donations and philanthropy ?
Do tell.
I think Anne believes that the Warriors is presently an SOE.
Anne, wakey, wakey, that was covered at 6.2 above.
However just in case you missed it … applying Fenton’s First Law, can we expect Labour to call for a total boycott on watching the Warriors, if the sale to Owen Glenn goes ahead?
Speaking of Gormless Fools – no personal reflections TGFKAO – when will Charles Chauvel withdraw his crap press release:
A report showing air pollution in Auckland is double that of Sydney’s and on a par with Tokyo’s is another blot on National’s ever-expanding not very environmental copybook, Labour’s Environment spokesperson Charles Chauvel says.
World Health Organisation data out today reveals New Zealand cities trail all major Australian cities in terms of air quality, with Auckland the worst.
“Our largest city is just now getting a glimpse of the real cost of Steven Joyce’s anti-rail, more roads-at-all-cost policies – increased air pollution,” Charles Chauvel said.
Epic fail Charles Chauvel says!
Turns out the WHO report is almost as full of hot air as Labour’s policy cupboard. The report’s been pulled and a new set of numbers posted that show all main centres are within WHO safety guidelines.
Look’s like the real cost of Joyces anti-rail, more-roads-at-all-costs policies is – clean air!
Charles Chauvel says? A PR disaster!
Oh noes, the WHO made a mistake.
Now, does that actually undermine the ACC report that indicates that 700 people per year are dying to air pollution in Auckland? No, it doesn’t. Nor does it excuse Nationals drive to increase that pollution and death by putting in roads most of Auckland don’t want.
Well only four years ago it was 900 deaths for the whole country and pollution levels have remained static if not dropped since then. The acc report is based on 2006 data. That to me undermines it a tad…
Still doesn’t undermine the report considering that the conclusion would be based on probabilities defined by years of research around the world, ie, population thus, pollution thus, estimated level of premature deaths caused by pollution approximately this. It’ll be fairly close even if it was based on 2006 data. Pollution levels may have remained static but population hasn’t, especially Auckland, and the estimates probably have probably changed as well.
Oh, an MP that admits a mistake, now there’s a thing; still waiting for Key to admit his stuff ups; I anticipate a long wait as he has yet to retract any of his lies.
Yeah it is a rare thing indeed was perhaps one of Helen’s greatest weaknesses.
I reckon the public warm to politicians who admit they f’up and I’m surprised they don’t do mea culpas more often.
So you want to play dodgeball, huh, Ian?
Of course Charles won’t recant – it’s not in his nature and it’s not in the nature of the party he represents. Much easier to blame the whole thing on some dastardly right wing plot.
To be fair to chauvel, he was using data from a reputable source that he had no reason to doubt. Who have admitted the flaw so it’s a bit pointless doing a retraction now
[lprent: Dumping identical comments across posts just pisses off moderators. ]
Intermittent signal September 2011/7 (last 15/9)
There was a great interview today about helping parents with their onerous tasks, something I
believe is vital and needs to happen. So there are positives coming through the fog of unpleasant news that we shouldn’t overlook.
On 9 to Noon today – Parenting with Matthew Sanders
Professor of parenting studies at the University of Auckland and University of Queensland. He was co-investigator of a major study carried out in South Carolina which found that there were lower rates of confirmed abuse cases, child out-of-home placements, and hospitalisations and emergency room visits for child injuries in countries where parenting support was implemented. (17′30″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2499133/parenting-with-matthew-sanders.asx
And it sounds as if its being done with no patronising or authoritarian attitudes to parents either.
There is a Telecom roadshow at lunchtime tomorrow — supposedly the biggest thing goin on in our market right now – which means this market sucks!!!!
…… although there are some really good yields out there
Ok – here are some NZ div yields
Hallensteins 12%
Telecom 12%
Restaurant Brands 11.5%
Methven 10%
Not bad – assuming they don’t cut the divy
Damn fine yields actually. Whether they survive the GFC Mk II is another question.
“The Herald is just now catching up with the online outrage against such a shallow and nasty attack against a Kiwi icon.” – Campbell Slater
How can Slater look at himself in the mirror at night. “Shallow and Nasty” attacks are all he fucking does. He’s a clinical depressive who seems to think the only way he can be happy is have his daddy bankroll his unemployment by having a blog that is set up for him to tell the world how fucking much he hates it. “Shallow and Nasty” and Salter are the same thing.
The Mad Butcher can fuck off, he knows what he was doing, stop licking Nationals balls , it makes your workingman brand look a joke. He plays in the media, that’s all he does, his butcheries went broke a long time ago and he doesn’t run them. He’s just the briscoe lady of cheap meat. Don’t play innocence. Leitch is just one of a long line of businessman who have opened butcheries in Auckland and like him, most fail and are bought out.