I have been doing a bit of number crunching on the election night results to see what happened in the cities.
In Auckland the swing against Labour was coincidentally the same as the swing to the Greens (3.15%). In South Auckland the swing was towards Labour. Mangere was the best with a 10% swing. The other Labour strongholds or marginals preformed reasonably well. The worst swings occurred in National strongholds.
IN Wellington the swing against Labour was 7.44%.
Christchurch was disastrous. I thought that the earthquake was responsible for the 10.63% swing.
But Dunedin was even worse. The swing against Labour was 11.4%.
These figures should improve on specials. But obviously some thought needs to go into what happened.
Dunedin feels politically neglected. Labour have had an automatic two electorates here and have taken them for granted. If Labour doesn’t listen too and work with and for Dunedin constituents far better it will lose another provincial area.
It would be interesting to analyse the reaction of the whole of South Island to Labour.
Things haven’t changed for UF in Dunedin. They have changed markedly for Labour. Who should be concerned? I’m not in denial and I’m not blaming everyone and everything else.
Maybe like Banks Labour wants to rename and rebrand. The South Auckland Party?
Meh. Dunedin North’s David Clark is a good guy but he’s not going to get Pete Hodgson’s 20 years worth of long built popularity overnight. To expect otherwise is not realistic.
This is not about you Pete George, nor is it about your stupid facile observations.
You sound a bit grumpy. Did your tolerance lose the election?
If you look at the Dunedin North electorate vote on it’s own you might have a point, but coupled with National closing right up on Labour’s party vote, National soundly beating Labour for the party vote in Dunedin South and Curran’s diminishing majority and then Labour’s problems here are obvious.
Frinstance in Auckland Labour’s loss was the Green’s gain. The net effect on support for National was neutral. If you add NZFirst’s late surge it appears that National went backward in Auckland. Got an explanation for that?
This is thankfully an MMP system. What matters is the support for each of the parties. Measuring one against another is artificial in the extreme.
And there is also the very low turnout and the effect this had.
“Analysis” might accidentally lead to a “conclusion”, which would then require a specific “action”.
That scares the shit out of pete.
And his opinion on dunedin counts for nothing – if he was at all in touch with his electorate, he would have received more than the second lowest candidate vote, coincidentally beating the candidate for national’s other coalition partner, ACT.
How about finding a way to get through to the Million who didn’t vote. They couldn’t be bothered or why should they vote for some old guy who will just ignore them. These are the ones we need to get motivated.
But Banks has to take the cake. Six months ago he was a Nat and joined ACT.
Within 36 hours of being elected he is talking about joining the Conservatives saying that ACT was “damaged goods” – and who was responsible for that?
One thing appears certain – living in Epsom there might be a lot of wealthy
professionals, but not much intelligence.
What sort of person have they elected to represent them?
We have to give the PM some credit.
He says he voted for the National candidate…
My impression, on hearing Banks talking on Checkpoint last night, was that Banks decided that Act needed a name change and re-branding after talking to Jonkey about confidence and supply arrangements.
This was followed by an interview with Act member (#3 on the list) who had not heard about a move to change the name, and wasn’t really in agreement with it. He was more for re-branding.
I can’t remember who raised the notion of joining with the Conservatives. It might have been the interviewer.
But really, this idea do waka jump and ditch Act smells of National Party manipulations.
From the Stuff article linked above:
National’s lack of viable coalition allies is understood to have been canvassed during a meeting of the caretaker cabinet yesterday morning and sources have noted how well-aligned Mr Banks is to the Conservatives’ more interventionist economic agenda.
After an hour-long meeting with Mr Key yesterday, Mr Banks said: “Given our result on Saturday, we need to talk to as many people as we can about our future, because I want to make sure we are alive and well in 2014.
“Colin Craig is a class New Zealander. His youthful enthusiasm is what the ACT Party needs going forward.”
I also recall that Winston Peters said on TV recently that he has done research and it is clear to him that the Conservative Party was set up by National.
With the return of a conservative government, why was the impending climate disaster, never properly addressed throughout the election campaign by any of the main political contenders?
(and barely touched on by the political minnows either?)
“CLIMATE CHANGE ISN’T THE ISSUE” , Chris Horner, Climate Denier and Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
“The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to their “free market” belief system.
When you challenge a person’s position on an issue core to his or her identity, facts and arguments are seen as attacks, and so are ignored or deflected often in a hostile manner:
“You can believe this is about the climate, and many people do, but it’s not a reasonable belief.”
“The issue isn’t the issue.” The issue, is that “no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires….
Chris Horner
(Chris Horner, is a professional climate change denier at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Horner’s job as a “Senior Fellow” at the Institute involves harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions.)
Environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather.
Marc Morano, editor of the denialists’ go-to website, ClimateDepot.com
Policies to combat global warming are “an attack on middle-class American capitalism.”
“To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?”
Richard Rothschild
And finally:
Climate change is “a stalking horse for National Socialism”
Harrison Schmitt Former Republican Senator
As the denialists say: “The issue.” In fact, it isn’t an issue at all.
Climate change is a message, one that is telling us that many of our culture’s most cherished ideas are no longer viable.
Responding to the climate threat requires strong government action at all levels.
Mainstream political parties like Labour and National (and even the Greens), When it comes to Climate Change, pose the question this way:
How can we reduce emissions while maintaining robust GDP growth?
But……. There is a growing body of economic research on the conflict between economic growth and sound climate policy:
Studies by ecological economist Herman Daly at the University of Maryland, Peter Victor at York University, Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey and environmental law and policy expert Gus Speth.
All raise serious questions about the feasibility of industrialized countries meeting the deep emissions cuts demanded by science (at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050) while continuing to grow their economies at even today’s sluggish rates.
Growth should be reserved only for parts of the world still pulling themselves out of poverty. Meanwhile, in the industrialized world, those sectors that are not governed by the drive for increased yearly profit (the public sector, co-ops, local businesses, nonprofits) should expand their share of overall economic activity, as should those sectors with minimal ecological impacts (such as the caregiving professions). A great many jobs could be created this way. But the role of the corporate sector, with its structural demand for increased sales and profits, has to contract and be rolled back.
When deniers react to evidence of human-induced climate change as if capitalism itself were coming under threat, it’s not because they are paranoid. It’s because they are paying attention.
Responding to climate change requires that we break every rule in the free-market playbook and that we do so with great urgency.
We will need to rebuild the public sphere, reverse privatizations, relocalize large parts of economies, scale back overconsumption, bring back long-term planning, heavily regulate and tax corporations, maybe even nationalize some of them, cut military spending and recognize our debts to the global South.
None of this has a hope in hell of happening unless it is accompanied by a massive, broad-based effort to radically reduce the influence that corporations have over the political process.
In short, climate change supercharges the pre-existing case for virtually every progressive demand on the books, binding them into a coherent agenda based on a clear scientific imperative.
It is not opposition to the scientific facts of climate change that drives denialists but rather opposition to the real-world implications of those facts.
There is simply no way to square a belief system that vilifies collective action and venerates total market freedom with a problem that demands collective action on an unprecedented scale and a dramatic reining in of the market forces that are creating and deepening the crisis.
This is the nub of the problem: Mainstream political parties that pay homage to the market economy continue to avoid it (if they can), even discussing climate change. Further in fear of the powerful defenders of the market our political leaders will not progress the concrete measures required to halt climate change.
The only wild card is whether some countervailing popular movement will step up to provide a viable alternative to this grim future.
That means not just an alternative set of policy proposals but an alternative worldview to rival the one at the heart of the ecological crisis—this time, embedded in interdependence rather than hyper-individualism, reciprocity rather than dominance and cooperation rather than hierarchy.
The only wild card is whether some countervailing popular movement will step up to provide a viable alternative to this grim future.
Yes, there needs to be the development of a new narrative that replaces TINA…. still largely underlying most people’s thinking. It’s not possible to introduce such a scary narrative into an election campaign. The narrative needs to be built up over a year or two, and I can’t see any mainstream political party doing this.
Most people come into contact with, even the lefties, seem oblivious to the global crises developing. They act as if life will go on the way it is indefinitely. So we get these disconnects: the people producing evidence of the collapsing environment, resources and global financial system, while many are talking with awe about the expected new electronic gadets and systems that will be on the market in the near future.
Too many people still have their eyes on the latest shiny consumerist stuff, and are avoiding focusing on reality.
Responding to climate change requires that we break every rule in the free-market playbook and that we do so with great urgency.
That just won’t cut it.
‘Every’ rule in the ‘free-market’ rule book could be broken, ie regulated to hell. And the spectre of a command economy arising from that suggestion aside – the dominating factors of profit motive allied with the ‘winner takes all’ competitive nature of the market would ensure that things didn’t drift too far from what we do now….or that they reasserted their dominance over time.
The market needs to be abolished and it’s ‘rule book’ trashed. In doing so, it’s absolutely crucial that we don’t create a command economy in its stead as that means an almost complete loss of political freedoms.
The only way forward that would protect our freedoms and our environment while allowing us to continue to produce and distribute goods and services to any meaningful degree is democracy. But the most basic (and all pervasive) structures that we presently use to organise ourselves and our activities are most assuredly anti-democratic – ie, they thwart and stymie democratic aspirations.
So two things (unless we accept either the prospect life under the dictatorship that would inevitably accompany a command economy, or simply diminishing in tandem with our environment) – abolish the market and act together to create genuinely democratic systems/structures of governance for our societies and the economy.
Well said. Not much I can add really. Our present socio-economic system (Capitalism) is failing badly and we have the evidence to show it and yet the rich and the corporates manage to stand in our way of doing something about it. It doesn’t help that the politicians listen to the rich and the corporates rather than the scientists.
We need to be watching sideshow and his dealing room very carefully over the next few months, the MSM have checked out and wasting time now on irrelevant shit.
the most important issues is our assets being flogged by a party with less than a third of the eligible vote calling it a mandate.
The MP are already showing their lack of morality with the ‘we want to be there but not support asset sales’ WTF it only works one way or the other so cross back to the dark side or be in opposition you chumps. Julian cut sharples up in native affairs on this, what a pathetic sell out he is and lucky to have his seat.
‘the most important issues is our assets being flogged by a party with less than a third of the eligible vote calling it a mandate’
That may superficially seem to be the most important issue but actually the most important issue is preparing for a reduced global oil supply, preparing for hyperinflation or collapse of fiat currencies, and doing something to keep the Earth habitable for humans 40 years from now… all the things politicians continually shy away from.
It’s not as if these are newly discovered predicaments. The warnings go back half a century.
1957 Admiral Rickover:
‘The earth is finite. Fossil fuels are not renewable. In this respect our energy base differs from that of all earlier civilizations. They could have maintained their energy supply by careful cultivation. We cannot. Fuel that has been burned is gone forever. Fuel is even more evanescent than metals. Metals, too, are non-renewable resources threatened with ultimate extinction, but something can be salvaged from scrap. Fuel leaves no scrap and there is nothing man can do to rebuild exhausted fossil fuel reserves. They were created by solar energy 500 million years ago and took eons to grow to their present volume.
In the face of the basic fact that fossil fuel reserves are finite, the exact length of time these reserves will last is important in only one respect: the longer they last, the more time do we have, to invent ways of living off renewable or substitute energy sources and to adjust our economy to the vast changes which we can expect from such a shift.
Fossil fuels resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent will use his capital sparingly in order to pass on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and care not one whit how his offspring will fare.’
So, how does half a century of near total irrelsponsibilty on behalf of politiclasn and business leaders sit with the next generation?
How impressed with disaster-as-usual politics will the children of this nation be 5 years from now, when it has ‘all turned to custard’?
That’s why we must preserve our sustainable hydro power generation and not let the bankers and investors profit from it…..most people don’t buy the peak oil/ climate change argument but they understand their power bill.
I think that a slight reframing of the argument helps. As soon as you say “peak oil” many people turn off because the thought and implications are too terrifying.
But if you say that Oil is going to go up in price considerably then you hit their pocket and it tends to get their attention.
And if you say that because of this hydro power is going to be more and more strategically important and we don’t want to have it controlled by Australia or Asia or America then they would have to be an idiot not to agree with you.
I appreciate AFKTT’s comments and agree with him but the framing will lose the argument every time with swing voters.
But unless the Left start to inform the populace about reality, and build a unified movement, however you frame it, the swing voters will side with the individualist case, cause they dominate the argument.
The Left needs to take very careful notice of the Occupy movement, because they are teaching and informing and building and will increasingly gain the support of those of us who see those who are engaged in the political “game” as being blinded by strategy and so prepared to neglect truth in fear of the focus group,
Lead! Teach! Be truthful! Capitalize on the platform this unrest is giving you!
My fear is the Left once again moving to the Right in order to try to capture territory from the Right, rather than seeing that there is massive support for a unified and modern Left that puts aside the Cold War narrative and captures the current issues of inequality, financial terrorism and the environment.
A message to Phil Goff.
Show New Zealand one further quality. Show them you can be flexible.
You have just suffered a humiliating defeat, but you also built an image across New Zealand that a lot of people actually liked. Do not resign your leadership, but build on what you have achieved.
(Your predecessor suffered two election defeats in that building process.)
if yur on facebook- leave Phil a message on his wall saying exactly this
I did. I come home from work to find that Phil has caved… I am shocked, and disappointed. Just yesterday, I was assuring my son that PG and AK would not do the predicted thing – but they have! I am very sad.
Hear hear I think Phil should stay. Key is scared of him and he now has the knowledge of how to intimidate him. Also has higher in telligence integrity,empathy and honesty. Everything that Key does not have Phil had a great campaign under extremely trying circumstances and came out strong. STAY! If he does not stay please do not inflict Cunliffe on us. He has already showed his absol lute lack of loyalty
What was a marginal seat that National only just managed to clinch from Harry ‘Do-nothing’ in 2008 is now firmly blue.
In view of all the flags and banners and billboards that were plastered all around the city it goes to show that people were not impressed by Little’s repeated failure to come up with the right answers when questioned. Some people were particularly irritated by his arrogance and talking down to them. New Plymouth has just fought a successful battle to get rid of fluoride in the water. Little’s suggestion that it could be re-imposed by central government if Labour got in went down like a lead balloon, as did his put down of those concerned about takeover of the natural food supply by global corporqations.
I was particualrly unimpressed by the local union representative who refused to accept anything that I said to him about the real world. Even as the Japanese economy continues to implode he told me that NZ needed to be ‘developed’ using funds derived from Japanese investors. There are just too many uninformed fuckwits and people who are ‘away with the fairies’ in the Labour movement at the moment.
Little’s task was made doubly hard by having a leader whom the right rejected on principle and the left remembered as being closely associated with corporate looting, free trade deals etc.
And Labour supporters should never forget that Key gained power in 2008 because so many people were thoroughly sick of the arrogantce of the hypocritical and dicatatorial government of Helen Clark.
My parents voted Labour all their lives, and I should be a Labour supporter. But I’m not because Labour stands for and promotes so much that is wrong with our society.
And I cannot possibly have any respect for anyone who was in power between 2000 and 2008 who IGNORED all the repeated warnings about peak oil and the dire consequences of doing nothing to prepare for it. The NZ economy is nearly 100% dependent on oil, most of which is imported. We are about to become completely ‘screwed’ because the last Labour government was DISHONEST. Had it come clean on the crucial issues of the time when it was firmly in power and commenced strategies to deal with them ‘the cat would be out of the bag’ and could not be put back in by any subsequent government. And we would not be in the mess we are in now.
Labour is presently paying the price for its history of failure to listen and failure to act appropriately, which go right back to the mid-1980s.
National, on the other hand, is just a ‘circus’ run by opportunists who know how ot manipulate the masses.
If I read you right, you are condemning Labour more harshly because Labour could’ve and should’ve known better, and acted more wisely.
While National are just a bunch of manipulative fuckwits who cause massive damage and harm but thats what they do anyways regardless of the decade or the situation.
Your proposition, if I have rendered it correctly, actually makes some kind of sickening sense.
However, we do live in a sick world which is geting sicker by the day. The crux of the problem is that rather than acknowledging that sickness, Labour just wants to perpetuate the system that is making us all sicker by the day. (As do the Greens, of course,)
Labour (for good or bad) has traditionally been a reforming party. They went some way towards this by fronting up with CGT.
However, it’s not enough. We need centrally planned, national initiatives to prepare NZ for the future – eg, no more oil & pubic transport, radically changing our money system (stop producing fiat money and use the issuing of currency to fund some future proofing projects).
(stop producing fiat money and use the issuing of currency to fund some future proofing projects)
fiat currency is money that is valid by government decree. Issuing of currency by government would still be fiat currency.
It’s not fiat currency that is the problem but the fractional reserve banking system which lets private banks print money essentially without limit – and then charge interest on it.
You win the game by playing to the paradigms that are in front of you no matter how tasteless or against your values they may be so if you wanna win learn style over substance Labour and master the catchy soundbite no more blah blah blah as the swingers aint listening.
“While National are just a bunch of manipulative fuckwits who cause massive damage and harm but thats what they do anyways regardless of the decade or the situation.”
Manipulative? In what sense? Cause massive damage and harm? Where and when? Colonial, at least take the time to back up your sweeping statements with some facts, else you’ll just appear to be a ranting nut job.
Manipulative? In what sense? Cause massive damage and harm?
Learn english, dickhead.
Although, rather humourously, nats did and do “cause massive damage and harm” to the unemployed, the poor, children, and every combination thereof via their policies. Not to mention the environment, what with the recent mining announcement and attitudes to “100% pure”..
Colonial, you are therefore arguing that by just saying a whole lot of stuff, much of it plucked from thin air with no basis of fact, Key and English will be removed? Goff and his people tried that, and copped a hiding, so you propose that by doing the same thing again, the result will be different?
This planet is run by money-lenders for the benefit of money-lenders. Acnowledging the reality of climate change (we are on track for a largely uninhabitbale Earth by mid-century) would ruin their financial Ponzi scheme, which is predicated on perpetual growth and perpetual increases in emissions.
Also, corporations have a huge say in how the world is managed (some would say a greater say that most governments). Corporations have few major imperitives, one of the most important being to maximise profits for shareholders. That can only be achieved by economic growth which requires ever increasing use of fossil fuels.
The fact that fossil fuels necessary for global economic growth are no longer available or that catastrophic climate change is on the way is of no interest to investment bankers, the vast majority of whom are scientifically illiterate (as are most elected representatives).
Right now the only imperitive is to prevent the house of cards economic system falling to pieces immediately by using any means possible; energetically that means by deep water drilling, fracking, tar sands, coal-to-liquid-fuels, starving millions of people to death via the use of food-to-fuel schems etc. and financially it means by bailouts, ‘quantitavie easing’, ‘special drawing rights’, ‘stabilty funds’ or whatever euphemism is in vogue this particular month to decsribe creating money out of thin air.
The fact that marlets have risen overnight is no indication that the system has a future. And every day the system continues te operate reduces the life expectancy and quality of life of children living now.
Practically everything you need to know to understand the big picture is here:
AFKTT – I think the earth will be OK mid-century. The climate is always changing. CO2 levels are already very low (if they go below 200 ppm, plants die) and the “greenhouse effect” is misnamed. Climate science is in a parlous state, based on lies and misinformation.
There are real problems to worry about – but so-called climate change is not one of them, neither is concern over a trace, beneficial gas in the atmosphere.
I don’t know how old you are but most under the age of 70 are going to face catastrophe within their natural lifespan. (The ones that won’t will have died.)
If that so-called article is the best you can come up with, we truly are ‘screwed’. Not only does the item simply pose a question but it also makes no mention of climate science! What else would we expect from a corporate source of ‘information’?
I suggest you thoroughly check the following, and related articles on the same site, if you actually want to become informed.
On the other hand, if you prefer to remain in your state of delusional ignorance and want to perish, don’t bother.
‘To borrow a line from Pete Seeger, “When will we ever learn?” If Karl Marx were alive today he would quickly see that television has become the opium of the people, dulling our senses and keeping our minds focused on trivial matters even as the world around us careens further out of control every day. What passes for national news media today is all corporate owned and dedicated to telling us as little as possible, placing virtually nothing in context, and talking to “experts” in thirty second sound bites. What they don’t tell us is often the stuff we really need to know.
Annette you said “I think the earth will be OK mid-century” your words seem sincere but i must ask if you are aware that there is a lot more to this topic than the very real although largely distractionary tactics of Oil consumption and Carbon emissions. Please remember the hard facts . . .
US State and Fedral funding is being funnelled into programmes that officially deny they have anything to do with weather manipulation despite State, Federal, Congessional and Senate documentation stating in plain english these programmes exist for the purpose of weather modification and climate adjustment.
It is a fact being hidden from the World in plain sight. There are seventeen sites known of globally, including one in Australia. Read the literature, watch the videos, chat with the large numbers of informed people working very hard to help everyday people like you and me to understand the implications of the sciences involved. If you prefer the FastFood media watch Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory show as a credible low impact introduction.
Most importantly look at the volumes of declassified and discovered documentation from the US Government that references the use of HAARP in the study and application of technology for weather manipulation, climate control and other purposes. It is out there, in black and white.
There are encampments of reality all over the place if you choose to read the tracks. I am not here to give co-ordinates to a grand view or dictate what constitues a landmark on your journey.
The walls may be high but here is a gate opened by others, for the first few steps of your journey
google: haarp study weather modification documents
Wow Annette, you are so going to get attacked! I dared to say something similar once, (along with expressing a pro-life view) and I am still be insulted, attacked and sworn at months later. It’s all about conformity here… 🙁
Are you sure the response wasn’t about your bigotry?
Climate change deniers like Annette rightly get flak on this site, just like every other self centred sub-species of rightie who turns up here. But, mainly, it will be her deluded ideas that get attacked, not her.
And, by the way, comments like this don’t help your rep, either. Garner’s not fat and even if he was, it does not alter his ability to do the job he is paid for. And being blonde is not an indicator of a woman’s capacity to do a similar job. It’s actually not about conformity, it’s about respect. If you don’t respect people, don’t expect to them to respect you.
Are you sure the response wasn’t about your bigotry?
Hilarious. My bigotry is in your head (it’s one of your obsessions.)
Climate change deniers like Annette rightly get flak on this site, just like every other self centred sub-species of rightie who turns up here. But, mainly, it will be her deluded ideas that get attacked, not her.
Not as far as I’ve seen so far…
Garner’s not fat and even if he was, it does not alter his ability to do the job he is paid for.
You do keep banging on testerically about my calling people fat, don’t you? Got weight issues yourself? He was bordering on obese when I last saw him (you don’t seem to get that I don’t see TV news, I hear it.)
And being blonde is not an indicator of a woman’s capacity to do a similar job.
No, it’s not. But what would you like me to have called her? A moron? I don’t even know if she’s blonde. She certainly sounds it. I’ll say it slowly for the hard-of-thinking – I used the term “dumb blonde” f-i-g-u-r-a-t-i-v-e- l-y…
It’s actually not about conformity, it’s about respect. If you don’t respect people, don’t expect to them to respect you.
Oh this is your best line yet! Considering the nice line in insults that has been dished out to me for alleged “bigotry” you have the chutzpah of an IDF colonel to bang on about respect! Respect has to be earned, man and I will never respect a hypocritical sneering slimeball like you.
Your bigotry is real, and you’ve confirmed it, remember? Teh gays? Ring any bells?
“He was bordering on obese when I last saw him (you don’t seem to get that I don’t see TV news, I hear it.”
What does the latter part of that sentence mean? Why would I ‘get’ anything about your viewing habits? And if you don’t ‘see’ TV, how do you know Garner is bordering on obese or that another journo is blonde?
Your bigotry is real, and you’ve confirmed it, remember? Teh gays? Ring any bells?
Give it up and accept that I am never going to love teh gays, or say that they’re perfect people. That makes me a bigot only to teh gays themselves. It does not mean that I want to oppress gays! Hang it all, I want to ignore them, not have their sexuality constantly brought up to me as the most important thing about them! I don’t care who has sex with whom, whereas teh gays themselves can’t seem to keep from telling everyone. “Wah, you only disagree with me because I am a poor oppressed gay boy.” My thought – no, I disagree with you, because you’re wrong! 😀 )
What does the latter part of that sentence mean? Why would I ‘get’ anything about your viewing habits? And if you don’t ‘see’ TV, how do you know Garner is bordering on obese or that another journo is blonde?
Do you not bother to read what I say? Do you, as another man admitted on another site only skim what I say? I’ve said often enough that I heard something on the TV news… That should have been a stonking great clue… You’re ignoring (quite deliberately) that I said right above that Garner was bordering on obese when I last saw him and also that I didn’t know whether the girl was blonde, I simply was using the term ‘dumb blonde’ f-i-g-u-r-a-t-i-v-e-l-y. Do learn to read.
Vicky, i would like to say if this site was all about conformity i would have been banned long ago.
IMHO The Standard is a fair, stable environment where information and ideas are shared in a balanced if not always passive manner. What I personally appreciate about the Standard is how when you say something that is fundamentally incorrect, there are usually helpful people who are more than willing to offer you alternatives to your point of view. I have been on both sides of that situation and I for one hope it never changes.
People today are so hungry for the self-assurance of their own beliefs being ‘more right’ than another’s, that full comprehension of any position is all too often sacrificed by attitudes that can only be ascribed to bigotry and ignorance. This is rarely the fault of the person presenting the view.
It is more likely to be the foundation of the information they were exposed to.
What I personally appreciate about the Standard is how when you say something that is fundamentally incorrect, there are usually helpful people who are more than willing to offer you alternatives to your point of view.
Dear Freedom, please don’t be so patronising. Thanks in advance… Obviously, I don’t want people “who are more than willing” offering me alternatives to my point of view, as I don’t agree with them that I am wrong! IMO, VoR is banging his usual drum about how much he hates and despises me, because of what he sees as bigotry, because I seriously don’t want to have to imagine S&M, cock rings and posing pouches before I know if it’s worth the risk of disagreeing with some people… who are so precious that their genitals hurt when they’re contradicted! 😀
This from the person who accuses almost everyone who disagrees with her of being misogynistic, homosexual, middle-aged males who fantasise that some young women possibly have sex for the fun of it (or some combination of a majority of the descriptors).
This from the person who accuses almost everyone who disagrees with her of being misogynistic, homosexual, middle-aged males who fantasise that some young women possibly have sex for the fun of it (or some combination of a majority of the descriptors).
I spend my working day trying to make sense of essays written by learners of English as a second language. The sentences they write generally make more sense than the above. Homosexual men are misogynists, it goes with the territory. That being said, what are you saying about young women – that I say they have sex for fun, or that other people do? It’s a fact that some young women have sex for fun – so what? Why does that bother you?
“Homosexual men are misogynists, it goes with the territory.”
Yep, that’s the stuff right there – a nice wee bit of bigotry from your stunningly planked worldview.
” It’s a fact that some young women have sex for fun – so what? Why does that bother you?”
I was referring to a previous discussion where you asserted that anyone who claimed that (any women enjoyed one night stands for the fun of one night stands) were simply middle-aged men indulging in a fantasy, or words to that effect. I would look it up, but I don’t give a flying fuck.
You’re about due to play the victim because people refuse to tolerate your own intolerance, so bye bye.
I was referring to a previous discussion where you asserted that anyone who claimed that (any women enjoyed one night stands for the fun of one night stands) were simply middle-aged men indulging in a fantasy, or words to that effect. I would look it up, but I don’t give a flying fuck.
You’re about due to play the victim because people refuse to tolerate your own intolerance, so bye bye.
????????????????????????????????????????????????
Obviously you do give a flying fuck, or you wouldn’t keep ranting! I suggest you do in fact look up the discussion you’re talking about, because I don’t remember any such thing!
As for your last sentence, I have no clue what you mean. I am not sure you do. But it would be very good if you’d stop clogging the thread with irrelevancies, ‘kay? Thanks. Bye! 🙂
Seriously? You were arguing [badly] with several individuals and being massively condescending withastonishingly little basis – no recollection? I guess it all just mixed in with the rest.
Not really, it is however pretty damn opinionated and you tend to get some robust argument with a considerable memory. But I seem to remember you held your end up well enough that I didn’t feel the need to intervene.
The only real conformity is that which I and the moderators apply. It concentrates on behavior, is very very heavy handed when I do it (sarcastic if the sprout does it, and very very sudden when Irish does it’ and the others are rather nice), and focuses on newbies to the site or people released from bans. Mostly that concentrates on making sure that people know exactly who runs the site (not them) and that we are intolerant to anything that we think makes the comment section worse (mostly stupid assertions, trolling, and pointless abuse).
There is quite a lot right now because I amnesty many people after the election, the news is about the left parties, and here are few stupid gloaters around – who I rather enjoy being a education to.
I see your point, but even so, you do have to admit that some sins are regarded as unforgiveable here – such as being witty at the expense of some people’s precious ideas about their sex lives! Or, advocating pro-life views – I remember a young woman called something like Bonnie being hounded away, because she dared to express pro-life opinions… That was just shameful! I’d like to point out to the attackers who will be lining up with acid to fling, that being pro-life for me, means opposing abortion, euthanasia, war and capital punishment as well! Which reminds me that when I submitted a guest post on capital punishment, it fell into the event horizon of a black hole. What, opposing capital punishment is not a left idea any more? 🙁
Depends who you wind up in an discussion with – for instance I have very strong views on the opposite side of the fence to you on abortion. But I can’t recall ever having ever expressed them here. I have quite strong views on the use of military force which would probably upset around two thirds of the commentators here. I can remember expressing them once or twice. What I am saying is that on most topics you only get a few people commenting, and they are frequently commenting strongly from several angles. Not worth getting wound up about whoever you are arguing with. Just concentrate on the much larger group of people watching because they will be the ones who are less committed and may be convinced.
We don’t tend to moderate discussions that are arguing about something even if it is getting heated. We’d just step in if we saw a behavioral problem like pointless abuse (which has quite a specific meaning the way that the moderators use it).
Guest posts get pulled and posted when a editor reads one that that they personally like and when the queue isn’t already chocka. Who is puts up the contributions depends on who has time to read it, likes it, copies it into a post, finds a graphic to add, writes an excerpt for the front page, and schedules it. On many days regardless of how good the writing is, no-one will have time. For instance today would be a good day for guest posts – but I haven’t looked at the mail since this morning because of the type of code I’m writing.
Putting up guest posts is quite labour intensive especially if you have to go through all of the steps (that is a broad hint to tell you that it is more likely to happen if most of those steps are done before we read the post). Personally my priority is the stability of the site and moderation. After I run through the moderation these days, answering or writing a few comments or notes, I’m usually on negative time for work. So I often don’t even read contributed posts – especially when I’m cracking through the end of a software project or involved in an election. I guess that others have similar time issues.
actaully plan A was economy crashed and burning would align the people with labour.
Plan B is the far to cunning Key / Joyce crew have abided there time and will now unleash their radical right agenda with there so called mandate…bennies bashed, state assets kissed good bye, more concession and opportunity to the wealthy to get wealthier, look to state sector getting knifed, unions and free worker burnt at the stake to raise company profits, freeing up of resources, selling infrastructure, water and anything not nailed down…3 year before the cycle runs out so the Tories must act and act fast and fuck the peasants, the slaves and anyone not of the elite class..
The Tories have bought out the MP, solidified the right voting block and have great organisation on the ground.
The Fight is not for the left votig block but of the middle voting block that has been captured by smile and wave and ‘trust me’ ‘trust me’ in these tough economic times.
Yeah I know what you are saying but imo screw the mythical middle.
We need to get people living on less than $40,000 pa to get off their asses and vote for Labour. And given that is some 60% of the country I fail to see what the problem for Labour is. Greens and NZ1 can have some of the aspirational middle class vote, fine.
Only 5% of the country earn $90K pa and over. They are the only people who should be voting National.
But how do you solve stupidity? Wellington residents know that massive public sector cuts are coming under National. But they swung to the NATs anyway.
If people really want to vote against their own interests, who are we to stop them?
wellington central went to grant by heaps, good old grant increased his majority but the party vote went westward due to what…poor campaign strategy on not going after the party vote.
you’re saying that people needed to be told to party vote Labour? And in the absence of that voters in Wellington Central conveniently forgot that National has been slashing and burning the public sector and that there is far more to come from the NATs?
Not likely. They liked Grant as an MP, they didn’t want back Labour to be in power, full stop.
My suggestion is to disengage as much as possible. Know where you can get drinkable water. Prepare to produce your own food or be prepared to adopt a hunter-gatherer lifesyle. Be psychologically prepared for the mayhem that will come when oil depletion reaches the critical point of demolishing the global economic system (2013-15?).
I see NWS has been hit hard again. There will soon come a time when the hits come harder and faster than repairs can be organised and the energy needed to carry out repairs won’t be available.
Personally I think the time to peacefully resist has come to an end. However I’m hopeful that I’m wrong and that the right wing will start to wake up before it’s too late. The signs aren’t looking all that good though.
Disengaging from supporting the defunct and destructive system is a good idea, but there needs to be more resistance politically.
This election win, Greens move to mainstream, Labours inevitable ratchet to the Right all lead to the conclusion that there are going to have to be bodies in front of bulldozers!
Two party Democracy, which is essentially where the majority mindset sits – even in our MMP environment – make Politics impotent. Citizens need to stand up or continue to watch the progress of Totalitarianism and Environmental collapse.
And don’t own a farm within 100km of a large population, lest it be ransacked and pillaged..
If this shit goes down (not so bad here cf the US) being stuck a 100km in the middle of nowhere with just a couple of people on a farm is NOT a good idea. You actually want a farm near a hamlet or small town dependent on it. (Your point on being away from very large population centres is valid however).
That way locals will help protect you and your property from marauders and bandits.
these governments should default. or rather, they should pull the same trick as the money printers and simply write new laws to allow them to repay when able to, subject to satisfying their citizens needs first.
the money printers / lenders can just wait in line. near the back.
“But in a way 2008 let the cat out of the bag. We realize now that if money is owed by really important players, even trillions in debts can be made to disappear or renegotiated away. Money is just a social arrangement, a set of promises or IOUs”
In this period debt has two special characteristics: first, sovereign debt from countries with a geopolitical privilege is not to be repaid, but to be continually rolled over;
That’s a realisation I had a few years back. Government debt isn’t there because it has to be but because it allows a permanent guaranteed income for a few from the many. A lot of rich people would have been very upset that NZ was paying down its debt from 2000 to 2008 but very happy that the present NAct government massively increased our deficits for no purpose.
The governments defaulting and writing off the external private debt is actually the only rational move. They won’t be allowed to do this by the banksters though. The only way to get it done would be a revolution by the people against the banks.
But the likes of David Graeber and Seteve Keen are suddenly all over the mainstream media debating the idea of Debt forgiveness and showing historical precedent for it, but we need the dialogue to broaden, we need to continue to educate and inform and learn and we need to push this outside of the closed loop of the blogosphere and out to the public.
Information / propaganda is where the real battle is fought, the Left need to unite, put aside the cold war narrative which weakens them, and inform a populace which will be increasingly looking for answers as the economic crisis deepens.
Superb decision by US judge.
Too many cases brought by government regulators against finance institutions have been resolved by way of settlement in which the finance institution pays a settlement on condition that they did not admit any wrong doing or accepting any liability. But here “come da judge”……
Judge Jed S. Rakoff threw out a $285 million settlement deal between the S.E.C. and Citigroup in which the bank would not admit nor deny wrongdoing in a mortgage derivatives deal.
Rakoff said he would not OK the settlement because he did not know the facts of the case and it was “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest” for him to do so. – NPR
The S.E.C.’s policy — “hallowed by history, but not by reason,” Judge Rakoff wrote — creates substantial potential for abuse, the judge said, because “it asks the court to employ its power and assert its authority when it does not know the facts.”
Judge Rakoff also refers at one point to Citigroup as “a recidivist,” or repeat offender, which has violated the antifraud provisions of the nation’s securities laws many times. The company knew that the S.E.C.’s proposed judgment – that it cease and desist from violating the antifraud laws – had not been enforced in at least 10 years, the judge wrote.
“An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous,” Judge Rakoff wrote in the case, S.E.C. v. Citigroup Global Markets. “In any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth.” – NY Times
It seems that we’ve been advancing technology despite capitalism rather than because of it.
Also in the late 1980s, we saw the complete flop of the Digital Audio Tape (DAT). A lot of this can be ascribed to the fact that the copyright industry had been allowed to put its politics into the design: the cassette, although technically superior to the analog Compact Cassette, was so deliberately unusable for copying music that people rejected it flat outright. This is an example of a technology that the copyright industry succeeded in killing, even though I doubt it was intentional: they just got their wishes as to how it should work to not disrupt the status quo.
DAT was widely used in the industry for years precisely because it was the best and easiest way to write and rewrite high quality digital audio. It only fell out of favour when powerful processors, large amounts of RAM and bigger hard drives rendered it obsolete as a recording medium in the late 90s.
Even then it was favoured by many as an archival medium and for reliable playback of backing tracks in live settings.
I see new Roundtable head Roger Partridge is spouting the same inanities as Kerr before him. These people don’t even seem to think. They just spout.
Partridge blithely kept stating, in a Press piece today, that regulation should be reduced. He gave no explanation as to why this is helpful to people, nor did he provide any evidence as to how this works, or has worked in the past. But here is some evidence for you Partridge…
Deregulation of the finance sector – led directly to people losing their life savings.
Deregulation of the building sector – led directly to people’s homes rotting and falling apart.
Deregulation of the mining safety sector – led directly to the killing of 29 men at Pike River.
Banks was saying the same thing yesterday. Yet, we are the third easiest country in the world in which to do business. How can that be if we are so bogged down by regulation? Could it be that when business isn’t thriving it’s time to blame the government? Could it be that they don’t know what else to say? They have no other answers!
Business lobbyists whinge like farmers. We could have the least regulated, lowest taxed nation on the planet and they’d still whinge.
I say fuck ’em. Farmers need to be regulated or we end up with cowshit in the drinking water, businesses need to be regulated or we end up as serfs, with lead in the toothpaste and arsenic in the underpants.
It is highly undemocratic to work to remove people’s right to vote and disincentives the poor from participating in politics. National know that the poor are more likely to disengage and actively work to exploit this dynamic…
I watched the two hours of Native Affairs on Maori TV last night. Brilliant. Format and Julian the reason that it runs circles around all other free to air TV. I think that it was the best review of the election I have seen or read or heard and it went well beyond the Maori perspective. Interviews with:
Peta Sharples: grumpy
Hone: Optimistic
Winston: emphatic and dangerous for National
Materia: Succinct and clever
Shane: Best appraisal of Labour now and future
Kelvin: Stiff upper lip
Simon Bridges: Believed to be a future National Leader.
Panel: Mike King surprisingly perceptive, Matt McCartney good points, Sandra Lee explores the angles.
Tried to get a link but can’t. Reruns on Sunday evening?
two little things that have bugged the hell out of me the last 24 hours
1: NZ Herald stating in its map that 100% of the vote has been counted,
2: “If this was First Past the Post and there were 100 MPs, there would be roughly 65 National seats and 35 Labour, ” Mr Key, we are not a two party state despite your wet dreams of being America’s President
Is it just me or does it seem a bit weird that the two parties with the least mandate to be in parliament are the ones Key will give ministerial portfolios to?
Yes Felix I had a little rant to myself this morning about this very issue. Banks speaks for 1% of the population yet he’s a Minister of the Crown?! There’s something not right about that.
or, if they insist on using them they must be obligated to publish the whole poll, including but not limited to;
: the methodology of the poll
: the number of people polled
: the numbers who hang up
: the numbers who choose not to answer a particular question
: the don’t knows for each question
: the areas polled
and most importantly,
: a full and specific list of questions asked
basically they should be regulated to publish the poll and not the spin
Yep have that in place for the entire of the regulated period, with a full ban on media polls and media polls discussion for the 24 hours before E-Day.
I actually think I preferred my suggestion yesterday. Have them poll the policies and not the party, candidates or preferred PM. Then have them link those policies back to the parties that way we might have an informed populace voting rather than a led populace voting.
“I actually think I preferred my suggestion yesterday. Have them poll the policies and not the party, ”
Draco, I would like to point out that my comment above in no way stipulates the poll’s subject
it simply asks for some legitimacy to the public dissemination of the results
Yes, I realised that. That’s why I responded to CV’s post of outright banning. Having it so that they poll on the policies they would then be forced to discuss the policies rather than the parties (hopefully, although I’m sure that they could find some way around it). Your suggestion would complement mine.
Unfortunately factual reporting has been declining worldwide over the last few years… and especially in New Zealand. The continued underreporting of many important issues just one indicator that New Zealand’s mainstream media and their watchdogs are biased.
and labour must invest in micropulse radio stations so that they can have their own broadcasting outlet.
relying on radio skwawkbak and the hair and teeth jobs on teeveennzzzz will never be enough when they are beholden to the money masters.
I heard Banks or Brash describe themselves as Centre Right. Is that right? What would Far Right look like? How far can you lean to the Right before you fall over?
Banks actually described himself and Paul Goldsmith as “Centre Right” telling the electorate of Epsom that a vote for himself would return “Two Centre Right MPs” to government.
He neglected to tell the people of Epsom, that the purpose of his standing was to return the extreme right leader of ACT to parliament.
94 yr old Stéphane Hessel on Occupy Wall Street, lessons from the French resistance, democracy, Middle East, Security: Find the Time for Outrage When Your Values Are Not Respected
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” – Winston Churchill
Exactly, just like ShonKey won’t dispatch what he called in parliament “communism by stealth” the in work tax credit, or Working For Families middle class welfare payment.
Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Nicola Vallance said the government was taking a closed-door approach with an open-cast coal mine at Denniston. “This will allow Australian-owned Bathurst Resources to dig up over 160 hectares of the Denniston Plateau without an opportunity for the public to have a say about conservation concerns. This would be the biggest open-cast coal mine on New Zealand’s conservation estate,” she said.
I’d imagine, Draco, that the miners would far rather have an open cast mine that go for say, a 2.5km tunnel that goes through a fault line, and cannot be used as an escape route should their be for argument’s sake, a methane explosion. You might recall this example, signed off by the Labour Party. It cost people their lives.
Big oil continues to betray its fundamental disregard for marine wildlife and the many holiday industries that rely on clean beaches and pristine oceanic shelves. Most recently, Chevron released more than 110,000 gallons of oil near Brazilian beaches.
And Brazil’s environmental secretary says the accident was completely avoidable. It seems Chevron “underestimated the pressure” of an underwater reservoir.
Only an accident of the current carried the oil slick away from Brazil’s famed vacation getaways instead of right smack into them. Many Brazilians are outraged.
Brazilian State Environmental Secretary Carlos Minc is saying Chevron should pay $28 million in fines, according to a recent article in the Houston Chronicle. Minc charges Chevron with failing to take appropriate action for nearly ten days after the leak was spotted.
Tell Chevron to pay up and to stop irresponsible drilling in Brazil and everywhere else!
So, Phil Goff and Annette King have in fact gone. A dumb blonde on TV3 (one Rebecca Wright) says “they’ve gotten (sic) the message loud and clear that their time is over”..
I am completely disgusted. Why did Phil satisfy the yapping media by this action? Why (for once) didn’t Labour do the right thing instead of the expected thing? Fatty Garner is as overjoyed as the Wright idiot is gormless, imagining bloodbaths etc. He’s so excited he’s gabbling like a race caller. Yet a another one of his nasty gittish predictions has come true. By contrast National’s bulging caucus room was all sweetness and light and joy he says. Shame.
Duncan Garner was going on like Labour is already having a fight… is he related to Cameron Slater by any chance? I mean both National hacks look similar… or is that just what happens when you talk too much shit?
Hi there. Not sure who you are Vicky32 but I can assure you that Rebecca Wright is no ‘dumb blonde’. Naturally blonde, yes, but so what? Misogynist insults like yours serve no purpose. Dumb? Definitely not. She went after Banks like a Rottweiler over the tea tapes.
And no, I’m not her. But I do know her wonderful family and I found your insults quite offensive.
I particularly liked it how Patrick Gower came to her rescue after Banks made a complete fool of himself going on about suppositions Rebecca Wright was fantasizing about. LOL I wonder how many woman voted for Act?
Hi there. Not sure who you are Vicky32 but I can assure you that Rebecca Wright is no ‘dumb blonde’. Naturally blonde, yes, but so what? Misogynist insults like yours serve no purpose. Dumb? Definitely not. She went after Banks like a Rottweiler over the tea tapes.
Frida, I apologise. I am sorry, I should not have said the things about her that I did.
Cheers for the apology Vicky. I totally get your feelings about the MSM. I share them, but let’s not get personal eh? We’re just lowering ourselves to their level. And Rebecca really isn’t one of the problematic ones 🙂
It’s worse than we thought. While the big boys of Wall Street, the ones we thought were not in danger (JP Morgan and others), were secretly borrowing $1.2 trillion from the Fed.
The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.
Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse……..
The U.S. jobless rate hasn’t dipped below 8.8 percent since March 2009, 3.6 million homes have been foreclosed since August 2007, according to data provider RealtyTrac Inc., and police have clashed with Occupy Wall Street protesters, who say government policies favor the wealthiest citizens, in New York, Boston, Seattle and Oakland, California.
– Bloomberg
Yes I heard Kathryn Ryan’s US correspondent detailing some of this story just before 10:00am this morning. I had seen some clues around this months ago, but this is now the official confirmation.
BTW the total sum involved is at least $7.7Trillion. .. almost 50% of the entire US annual GDP.
Let’s put this in a NZ context… it’s more or less the equivalent of the Reserve Bank giving NZ$100b to the four big Australian banks at an interest rate of 0.1%… and not telling anyone.
Jürgen Habermas has had enough. The philosopher is doing all he can these days to call attention to what he sees as the demise of the European ideal. He hopes he can help save it — from inept politicians and the dark forces of the market.
[—]
And then he’s really angry again: “I condemn the political parties. Our politicians have long been incapable of aspiring to anything whatsoever other than being re-elected. They have no political substance whatsoever, no convictions.”
The job market is constantly shifting…I would call it musical chairs, or a merry-go-round. People retire, move to a different job or role, new jobs are created, seasonal work becomes available, people leave for personal reaons etc. It is easy to point to the number of unemployed, and say “there are no jobs!” as if the job ‘market’ – for want of a better term – was a fixed and imovable position instead of endlessly fluid. The job market is not a solid concrete wall, it is porous and shifting.
The benefit system provides a safety net for people who find themselves unemployed; a safety net that ensures that they are covered until they can jump back on the carousel. It’s a bus stop until the next bus comes along. Often quite a lot of people will be at the bust stop at any one time, but they are always in preperation for the next bus, and then they catch and it’s someone else’s turn to wait at the bus stop….temporarily.
It is not meant to be a lifestyle choice. Anyone remaining on a benefit for a considerably lengthy period of time is going to suffer as a direct result because they are going to suffer an erosion of their self esteem. Which is why I don’t understand why long-term beneficiaries are seemingly unable to take their turn on the work carousel, but are content to milk the taxpayer while at the same time subsiding into a life missing (the) dignity (that work provides). Labour, as the party of work and workers, should understand this.
There was a question during one of the leaders debates from a person who (apparently) had a degree, but had been unemployed for 2 years, unable to find employment. If I was to be out of job next week, I would back myself to have another one within 2 weeks, and I don’t have a degree. I would take a vacant spot on the carousel. The reality is: there are people who can’t or won’t take a turn themselves – no matter what the disasterous consequences are for themselves. Either they don’t want to work, or there is something about them that ensures that they don’t get past the interview process, or they consider themselves above many different types of work.
What many cannot comprehend, yet try to, is the constant defence by the left of the dug-in, firmly entrenched long term beneficiary who dances down a path that leads eventually to inter-generational welfare depenendance and ‘rogue feral’ status. After all, Labour is the party of state intervention, yet they will not intervene to help those most in need get employed. A carrot and stick approach is needed to save lives, otherwise we are going to see an epedemic of Kahui type scenario’s – if we are not already. The days of 100% employment are gone, but so to should the days of “I can’t get a job, year upon year, decade upon decade”.
[lprent: out of context to the post and the surrounding comment. Moved to OpenMike. ]
There is no need for unemployment but having full employment degrades profits which is why John Key promised to lower wages and why Bill English said that you couldn’t have less than 6% unemployment.
What many cannot comprehend, yet try to, is the constant defence by the left of the dug-in, firmly entrenched long term beneficiary…
We don’t defend them, we try to help them to find their way and also accept that, no matter what we do, there will always be some who cannot be helped. NAct, on the other hand, just rant and rave at people and then punish them for things that aren’t their fault.
I’ll just add that I know a couple of people who “backed themselves” to be back in work within a couple of weeks after being laid off. It didn’t always work out that way, even though they were skilled workers with excellent references – but then the average tory seems to have an inflated sense of their own productive worth, whatever the economy is like.
All the while the right continue to profess their ignorant rhetoric like it’s a mantra that will stop National taking even more taxes from them and distributing it to their already wealthy mates… a position that most right wing supporters will never attain…
It is unlikely. The logistics of updating numerous systems wih spider updates will massively favor centralized hubs compared with dispersed ones. I’ve written and maintained both. In fact this site operates dispersed.
If garenr is pregnant its more likely to be the offspring of fatboy farrar.
you can see why parlaiament wont do anything about fatty foods when garner and farrar live on a diet of sausage rolls and rubber chickens.
Aucklands vote is blue because all these new aspirationals hanging on to plummeting mainstreet real estate prices. The banks aren’t lending to mainstreet.
Someone needs to get real on poor fools who bought rental property thinking that it would be their meal ticket after ten years of work. Housing prices needs to plummet to meet the real new couple/ family market, that’s life
Someone needs to get real on poor fools who bought rental property thinking that it would be their meal ticket after ten years of work. Housing prices needs to plummet to meet the real new couple/ family market, that’s life.
The poor can’t do modern mortgages. Working and non-working and we shaw as hell don’t want to make you and your kids fat paying off a dumb- ass high rent.
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Last night the government concluded a free trade agreement with the European Union. I'm pretty meh about FTAs, largely because they seem to be a backdoor for pro-corporate irregulation than actual trade now, so I wasn't enthusiastic to begin with (though on the plus side this one does at least ...
Completed reads for June: 4.50 from Paddington, by Agatha ChristieNarrations, by CononThe Vampire (poem), by Rudyard KiplingProgress and Poverty, by Henry GeorgeA Modest Proposal, by Jonathan SwiftThe Horla, by Guy de MaupassantSupernatural Horror in Literature, by H.P. LovecraftTowards Zero, by Agatha ChristieHickory Dickory Death, by Agatha ChristieThe Lady of ...
Looking into a distant mirror The academic publishing process is notoriously stately. Events in the rest of the world happen at their own swift pace as a given article makes its way through the publication pipeline. In the case of Russian climate scepticism: an understudied case, authors Teresa Ashe & Marianna Poberezhskaya submitted their work ...
A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill (Chlöe Swarbrick) Swarbrick's bill implements a number of past recommendations from government agencies and advisory bodies which for some reason (cough big booze ...
No Common Ground: The destructive and punitive impulses aroused by the abortion issue make a rational, let alone a civil, debate virtually impossible. Indeed, the very idea that those on both sides of the abortion issue might be decent and caring individuals, whose opposing positions are based on reasonable and ...
What Happened Next? After the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1954, overturned its earlier validation of “separate but equal” schools, hospitals, public washrooms, busses and trains for Blacks and Whites, and told the Topeka Board of Education that segregated education is in breach of the Fourteenth Amendment of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Neha Pathak When spring creeps around the corner, pediatrician Aaron Bernstein starts counseling his Boston-area patients and their families about extreme heat action plans. “The first heat wave of the year is routinely the most harmful,” says Bernstein, who also directs Harvard’s ...
On 7 December 1941, Imperial Japan launched a war on the American people. It would forever become a date of infamy, said then US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, eightyone years ago.On 24/25 June 2022, conservatives launched their war on 166.24 million American women. That date, also, will forever live on ...
Stuff has a story this morning about the police juking the domestic violence stats, downgrading family violence crimes to "incidents" so they don't have to be investigated (and so Bad Number doesn't Go Up). That's appalling in and of itself, for the human consequences, and for what it says about ...
Today is a Member's Day, and it looks like its back to local legislation for a while. First up is the committee stage of the highly controversial Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, which would allow unelected appointees (and a disproportionate number of them, at that) on ECan. This ...
Despite Christopher Luxon’s assurances to the contrary, there is no such thing as “settled law” in New Zealand. Apart from the six provisions that are constitutionally entrenched, legislation can always be amended or overturned by a simple majority vote within our single chamber of Parliament. Luxon’s repeated use of the ...
This is a re-post from the Thinking is Power website maintained by Melanie Trecek-King where she regularly writes about many aspects of critical thinking in an effort to provide accessible and engaging critical thinking information to the general public. Please see this overview to find links to other reposts from Thinking is Power. ...
What a week, month even of deplorable headlines and hysterics we’ve had as a country – and given 2023 is closing in on us (a mere 6 months until Parties shift some gears into election mode really, not that some of them haven’t started already of course), we need ...
Over the weekend, the US Supreme Court followed through on its threat, and overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively outlawing abortion in much of the United States. People were outraged, in America and around the world. And in Aotearoa, this meant a lot of sudden questions for the National Party, which ...
Nothing is evil in the beginning… #TheRingsOfPowerpic.twitter.com/XffZtqp8Yw— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) June 27, 2022 We have ourselves a new breadcrumb (not a leak!) out of The Rings of Power. It is a fifteen second collection of clips from the original teaser-trailer, together ...
The repeal of Roe vs Wade by the US Supreme Court is part of a broader “New Conservative” agenda financed by reactionary billionaires like Peter Thiel, Elon Mush, the Kochs and Murdochs (and others), organised by agitators like Steve Bannon and Rodger Stone and legally weaponised by Conservative (often Catholic) ...
A Dangerous Leap Backwards: A United States forced to live by the beliefs and values of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries cannot hope to go on leading the “Free World”, or compete economically with nations focused fearlessly on the future. The revocation of Roe v. Wade represents the American republic’s most ...
Now that the right of US women to abortion (formerly protected by Roe vWade) has been abolished, the important role of medication-induced abortion will come even more to the fore. Already, research by the Guttmacher Institute reproductive rights centre shows that over half of US abortions are obtained ...
The government is finally moving to improve transparency over party finances, lowering the donation disclosure threshold to $5,000. This is a good move, though it doesn't go as far as it should. And of course, there's a nasty twist: The rules for larger donations are also changing. Presently parties ...
A rare exposure in Western media of the fact that many residents of the Donbass prefer Russian rule to Ukrainian ultranationalist rule. I don’t know why anyone would take advice from UK’s lame duck Prime Minister and well-known buffoon Boris Johnson seriously, but he ...
Jacinda Ardern will need to deploy every aspect of her starpower if she is to have any hope of rescuing New Zealand’s faltering free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU). The Prime Minister has branded each of her four foreign trips so far this year as ‘trade missions’ – ...
It was sometime in the late 1990s that I first interviewed Alan Webster about New Zealand’s part in a global Values Study. It’s a fascinating snapshot of values in countries all over the world and I still remember seeing America grouped with many developing countries on a spectrum that had ...
Today marks Matariki, the first “new” New Zealand public holiday since Waitangi Day was added in 1974. Officially the start of the Maori New Year, this is one of those moveable beasties – much like Easter, the dates will vary from year to year, anywhere from mid-June to ...
The takeaways from the just released data are:1. Any estimate of GDP is subject to error.2. The 0.2 percent decrease in the March 2022 quarter is not precise and will be revised, with the mild likelihood that it will eventually be higher.3. New Zealand has no ‘official' definition of a ...
Guided By The Stars? This gift of Matariki, then, what will be made of it? Can a people spiritually unconnected to anything other than their digital devices truly appreciate the relentless progress of gods and heroes across the heavens? The elders of Maoridom must wonder. Can Te Ao Māori be ...
The internet is a wonderful thing sometimes. Yesterday, I ran across an AI program that generates images via prompt: https://huggingface.co/spaces/dalle-mini/dalle-mini So I have been doing the logical thing with it. Getting it to generate Silmarillion characters in bizarre situations. Morgoth playing golf, and so forth. But one thing I ...
Stashing renewable energy Do a little internet sleuthing on renewable energy via your favorite search engine and you'll find some honest critique and much more dishonest misinformation (aka disinformation) to the effect that photovoltaic and wind generation are fickle energy supplies, over-abundant in some periods and absent in others. There's ...
The current New Zealand First Foundation trial in the High Court continues to show why reform is required when it comes to money in politics. The juicy details coming out each day show private wealth being funnelled into some peculiar schemes in an attempt to circumvent the Electoral Act. Yet ...
As in so many other areas of public policy, attitudes towards overseas investment in New Zealand – and anywhere, for that matter – boil down in the end to ideology. For proponents of the “free market”, there is really no issue. The market, in their view, must never be second-guessed; ...
Selwyn Manning and I discussed the upcoming NATO Leader’s summit (to which NZ Prime Minister Ardern is invited), the rival BRICS Leader’s summit and what they could mean for the Ruso-Ukrainian Wa and beyond. ...
New Zealand’s Most Profitable“Friend” Dangerous “Threat”: This country’s “Five Eyes” partners, heedless of the economic consequences for New Zealand, have cajoled and bullied its political class into becoming Sinophobes. They simply do not care that close to 40 percent of this country’s trade is with China. As far as Washington, London, ...
I have seen some natter around about how The Rings of Power represents the undue and unholy corporatisation of J.R.R. Tolkien. I won’t point out examples, but anyone who has seen YouTube commentary has a pretty good grasp of what I am talking about – the sentiment that ...
2017’s Queenmaker: Five years ago, Winston Peters’ choice ran counter to New Zealand’s informal, No. 8 wire, post-MMP constitution, which, up until 2017, had decreed that the party with the most votes got to supply the next prime minister. Had National not been in power for the previous 9 years, it ...
I've read some bad stuff about long covid recently, and Marc Daalder's recent Newsroom piece about what endemic covid means for Aotearoa got me wondering about whether the government was thinking about it. Mass-disability due to long covid has obvious implications for health and welfare spending, as well as for ...
Last year, a stranded kiwi criticised the MIQ system. Covid Minister Chris Hipkins responded by doxxing and defaming her. Now, he's been forced to apologise for that: Minister Chris Hipkins has admitted he released incorrect and personal information about journalist Charlotte Bellis, after she criticised the managed isolation system. ...
Gil-galad is an Elven Chad Gil-galad is an Elven Chad But Celebrimbor makes them mad Digesting leaks from Amazon Of Isildur and Pharazôn. The hair is short? The knives are keen. The beardless face of Dwarven Queen? With meteor and man-not-named The fandom temper is inflamed. Of Annatar ...
From the desk of Keir "Patriotic Duty" Starmer:“We have robust lines. We do not want to see these strikes to go ahead with the resulting disruption to the public. The government have failed to engage in any negotiations.“However, we also must show leadership and to that end, please be reminded ...
Has swapping Scott Morrison for Anthony Albanese made any discernible difference to Australia’s relations with the US, China, the Pacific and New Zealand ? Not so far. For example: Albanese has asked for more time to “consider” his response to New Zealand’s long running complaints about the so called “501” ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The Biden administration in April 2021 dramatically ratcheted up the country’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions pledge under the Paris target, also known as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). The Obama administration in 2014 had announced a commitment to cut U.S. emissions 26-28% below 2005 levels ...
Something I missed: the Central African Republic has abolished the death penalty: The National Assembly of the Central African Republic (CAR) passed a law abolishing the death penalty in the CAR on May 27, 2022. Once CAR President Touadéra promulgates the bill, the CAR will become the 24th abolitionist ...
Walking On Sunshine: National’s Sam Uffindell cantered home in the Tauranga By-Election, but the Outdoors & Freedom Party’s Sue Grey attracted an ominous level of support.THE RIGHT’S gadfly commentator, Matthew Hooton, summed up the Tauranga by-election in his usual pithy fashion. “Tonight’s result is poor for the National Party, catastrophic for ...
Te reo Māori is Dr. Anaha Hiini’s life purpose. Raised by his grandparents, Kepa and Maata Hiini, Anaha of Ngāti Tarāwhai, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whakaue descent made a promise at the age of six to his late grandmother, Maata Hiini. “I’ve always had a passion for Māori culture. My first inspiration ...
Dr Carwyn Jones’ vision is to see Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the law given equal mana. Carwyn who holds a PhD in law and society and currently teaches Ahunga Tikanga (Māori Laws and Philosophy) at Te Wānanga o Raukawa after 15 years at Victoria University of Wellington has devoted ...
Jacinda Ardern’s decision to attend the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Spain – but to skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda – symbolises the changes she is making to New Zealand foreign policy. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) starts today in ...
The outlook does not look that promising. Forecasting an economy is a mug’s game. The database on which the forecasts are founded is incomplete, out-of-date, and subject to errors, some of which will be revised after the forecasts are published. (No wonder weather-forecasting is easier.) One often has to adopt ...
by Don Franks It seems that almost each day now another ram raid shatters someone’s shop front and loots the premises. Prestigious Queen street is not immune, while attacks on small dairies have long stopped being headline news. Those of us not directly affected are becoming numbed to this form ...
It’s hard to believe that when we created Sciblogs in 2009, the iPhone was only two years old, being a ‘Youtuber’ wasn’t really a thing and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok didn’t exist. But Science blogging was a big thing, particularly in the United States, where a number of scientists had ...
For 13 years, Sciblogs has been a staple in New Zealand’s science-writing landscape. Our bloggers have written about a vast variety of topics from climate change to covid, and from nanotechnology to household gadgets.But sadly, it’s time to close shop. Sciblogs will be shutting down on 30 June.When ...
Radical Options: By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Kiri Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of ...
A Delicate Juggler? The new Chief Censor, Ms Caroline Flora, owes New Zealand a comprehensive explanation of how she sees, and how she proposes to carry out, her role. Where, for example, is her duty to respect and protect the citizen’s right to freedom of expression positioned in relation to ...
Good grief. Has foreign policy commentary really devolved to the point where our diplomatic effort is being measured by how many overseas trips have been taken by our Foreign Minister? Weird, but apparently so. All this week, a series of media policy wonks have been invidiously comparing how many trips ...
Where we've been Time flies. This coming summer will mark 15 years of Skeptical Science focusing its effort on "traditional" climate science denial. Leaving aside frivolities, we've devoted most of our effort to combatting "serious" denial falling into a handful of broad categories of fairly crisp misconceptions: "radiative physics is wrong,""geophysics is ...
Mercenary army of bogus skeptics on parade Because they're both squarely centered in the Skeptical Science wheelhouse, this week we're highlighting two articles from our government and NGO section, where we collect high-quality articles not originating in academic research but featuring many of the important attributes of journal publications. Our mission ...
In the latest episode of AVFA Selwyn Manning and I discuss the evolution of Latin American politics and macroeconomic policy since the 1970s as well as US-Latin American relations during that time period. We use recent elections and the 2022 Summit of the Americas as anchor points. ...
The Green Party is calling for urgent government action to ensure safe staffing levels in aged residential care facilities, as a new report today shows a strained workforce is under increasing pressure. ...
The Green Party backs the unions and community groups and Human Rights Commission calling for an urgent change in legislation to make pay gap reporting mandatory. ...
We’re incredibly proud to be celebrating the launch of Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People. Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People will put disabled people, their whānau, carers, and supporters first, removing barriers that existed when there was no single agency. The Ministry will also be the first in Aotearoa to ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to scrap the Acceptable Standards of Health policy that discriminates against disabled migrants after former Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni acknowledged the policy “disadvantages” disabled migrants on TVNZ’s Q&A this morning. ...
We’ve secured a major free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) – a move that’s set to boost exports by $1.8 billion per annum, enhance our economic security, and enable New Zealand businesses to grow, by unlocking one of the world’s biggest and high value markets. The new ...
Our Government is committed to making sure that our health system works for all New Zealanders, no matter who you are or where you live. Transformation of our health system will take time, and the step we’re taking today – establishing Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority – ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to announce its support urgently for a moratorium on deep sea mining under the high seas, after Pacific nations joined forces this week to demand change. ...
We’re committed to ensuring that there is every opportunity for women and girls to succeed in Aotearoa New Zealand, with fewer barriers. Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to support women and girls, by improving services like healthcare and tackling issues like the gender pay gap. Here are just ...
Political pressure from the Green Party has pushed the Government to supply free masks to kids and teachers in schools across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and the European Greens have published a joint statement calling for the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement to support climate action, phase out fossil fuel subsidies, cut agriculture emissions, protect human rights, and uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to guarantee that it will complete light rail and improve walking, cycling, and bus journeys across Wellington before digging new high-carbon tunnels. ...
The Green Party is urging Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker to commit to stronger ocean protection around Aotearoa and on the high seas while at the United Nations Oceans Conference in Portugal this week. ...
A strong Green voice in Parliament has helped reduce the influence large secret money will have in future elections and finally ensured overseas New Zealanders will retain the right to vote even while stranded by the Pandemic. But, the Government needs to go further to ensure our democracy works for ...
A new poll shows that the majority of people back the Greens’ call on the Government to overhaul the country’s criminally punitive, anti-evidence drug law. ...
The US Supreme Court’s decision on abortion is a reminder that we must take nothing for granted in Aotearoa, the Green Party says. “Aotearoa should be a place where everyone, no matter where they are from, or who they love, can choose what is right for their body and their ...
We’re proud to have delivered on our election commitment to establish a public holiday to celebrate Matariki. For the first time this year, New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own. ...
Proposed new legislation to reduce the risk that timber imported into Aotearoa New Zealand is sourced from illegal logging is a positive first step but it should go further, the Green Party says. ...
On World Refugee Day, the Green Party is calling on the new Minister for Immigration, Michael Wood to make up for the support that was not provided to people forced to leave their home countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
This week, we’ve marked a major milestone in our school upgrade programme. We've supported 4,500 projects across the country for schools to upgrade classrooms, sports facilities, playgrounds and more, so Kiwi kids have the best possible environments to learn in. ...
We’ve delivered on our election commitment to make Matariki a public holiday. For the first time this year, all New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own with family and friends. Try our quiz below, then challenge your whānau! To celebrate, we’ve ...
The Green Party says the removal of pre-departure testing for arrivals into New Zealand means the Government must step up domestic measures to protect communities most at risk. ...
The long overdue resumption of the Pacific Access Category and Samoan Quota must be followed by an overhaul of the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme, says the Green Party. ...
Aotearoa New Zealand is sending a medical team and supplies to Niue to help it respond to new cases of COVID-19, following the opening of its border to quarantine-free travel last week. Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Defence Minister Peeni Henare have announced a Medical Assistance Team will head to ...
More than 30,000 small businesses have participated in Government-funded digital training, which supports businesses to take advantage of digital tools and new opportunities through e-commerce, Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash announced today. “Over the last two years, many business owners had no option but to move to digital platforms ...
The latest Crown Accounts show a solid result, despite challenging international conditions – reflecting the Government’s careful management of the books. For the eleven months to the end of May 2022 the Operating Balance before Gains and Losses (OBEGAL) deficit was $7.7 billion, $5.5 billion below that forecast in May’s ...
New legislation aimed at tackling delays in the family justice system, will help improve the wellbeing of thousands of children caught up in Family Court disputes every year, Justice Minister Kiri Allan says. The Family Court (Family Court Associate) Legislation Bill will see a number of Family Court Associates employed ...
New Associate Minister of Local Government Kieran McAnulty is today beginning a series of visits to all of the 55 rural and provincial councils across the motu. “Local government plays a crucial role in our democratic system, ensuring people have a voice in the leadership of their community,” Kieran McAnulty ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta and Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O’Connor have announced that Aotearoa New Zealand will ban the import of Russian gold. “Today’s decision further signals Aotearoa New Zealand’s condemnation of Russia’s flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Nanaia Mahuta said. “It underscores our intention of ensuring ...
The rollout of the new nationwide health system continued today with the launch of the country’s first national public health system to fight disease and promote healthy lives. The Public Health Agency will lead and co-ordinate population and public health policy, strategy and regulation, while the national Public Health ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will lead a trade mission including over 30 New Zealand businesses to Melbourne and Sydney this week as part of the Government’s reconnection strategy to support export growth and the return of tourists post COVID-19. While in Sydney, Jacinda Ardern will also give an address to ...
Final stage of Accredited Employer Work Visa goes live today Offshore migrants can apply to work in New Zealand for an accredited employer Partners and dependents of work visa applicants can also apply for visas from today New Zealand has taken another significant step forward in our Reconnecting plan ...
Raising eligibility thresholds will provide a helping hand to more than 90,000 New Zealanders currently denied access to legal aid, Justice Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Government is committed to driving through legislative changes to strengthen our legal aid system. “Enshrining changes in legislation and regulations is necessary to give ...
Mihi Manawa maiea te pūtanga o Matariki Manawa maiea te ariki o te rangi Manawa maiea te mātahi o te tau! Thank you for the invitation to join you today. Unfortunately I can’t be there in person but I'm pleased that this is an opportunity for young Māori and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London overnight, and together took a number of steps to strengthen the already close ties between our two countries, and promote our common interests in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. “The UK is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s oldest and closest friends and ...
Building a more secure, sustainable and prosperous future together: Joint Statement – Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Boris Johnson 1. New Zealand and the United Kingdom are old friends and close partners. Our relationship rests on a bedrock of history, shared values, and deep people-to-people links, extending across almost all ...
Director Sir Robin Niblett, distinguished guests. What an honour it is to be back in London, and to be here at Chatham house. This visit represents much for me. The reopening of borders and resumption of travel after a difficult few years. The chance to bring life to the UK ...
Manawa maiea te pūtanga o Matariki Manawa maiea te ariki o te rangi Manawa maiea te mātahi o te tau! Introduction I’m pleased to join you for my second address at the 56th Annual Otago Foreign Policy School. The topic for this year is Space. Given that we are in ...
New Ministry will officially be called Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People Public Service Commission have appointed Geraldine Woods as Interim Chief Executive Office for Disability Issues to be folded into the new Ministry In what is a milestone day, the Government has launched Aotearoa New Zealand’s first Whaikaha ...
Nine new He Poutama Rangatahi programmes have been approved funding. These programmes will provide work-readiness, training and employment initiatives for over 820 rangatahi NEETS (not in education, employment or training), across Aotearoa New Zealand. "He Poutama Rangatahi has proven to be a very successful initiative which supports rangatahi to overcome ...
Minister for Māori Development Willie Jackson today announced the appointment of Crown representatives, Dr Charlotte Severne and Mr Bernie O’Donnell, to the Steering Committee that will determine the future of the Ihumātao land. “I’m pleased to have made the Crown appointments. Both Dr Severne and Mr O’Donnell have extensive ...
I begin by thanking each of you for accepting appointment to these boards. You’ve each been on the Ministerial committee that established Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand and Te Aka Whai Ora - the Māori Health Authority and I express my appreciation for the enormous task you collectively ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has reiterated its concerns over the continued erosion of rights, freedom and autonomy in Hong Kong. On the second anniversary of the introduction of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta says developments in Hong Kong remain a cause for worry. “Two years ...
The Europol Agreement signed is a significant milestone for New Zealand and the European Union’s relationship, and reflects our shared principles of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. The Prime Minister attended a signature ceremony in Brussels, as part of ...
· New nationwide public health system · 20 district health boards disestablished and deficits wiped · 82,000 health employees directly employed by Health New Zealand · $24 billion health budget this year – up 43% since Labour took office in 2017 – in addition to separate funding for the new ...
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has announced appointments to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Board of Trustees of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura). “Robyn Baker ONZM has been appointed as the chair of the Teaching Council. She has considerable governance experience and is a ...
European Commission President von der Leyen and Prime Minister of New Zealand Ardern met in Brussels on 30 June 2022. The encounter provided an opportunity to reaffirm that the European Union and Aotearoa New Zealand are longstanding partners with shared democratic values and interests, aligned positions on key international and ...
Export revenue to the EU to grow by up to $1.8 billion annually on full implementation. Duty-free access on 97% of New Zealand’s current exports to the EU; with over 91% being removed the day the FTA comes into force. NZ exporters set to save approx. $110 million per annum ...
57,000 EVs and Hybrid registered in first year of clean car scheme, 56% increase on previous year EVs and Non Plug-in Hybrids made up 20% of new passenger car sales in March/April 2022 The Government’s Clean Car Discount Scheme has been a success, with more than 57,000 light-electric and ...
Police Minister Chris Hipkins congratulates the newest Police wing – wing 355 – which graduated today in Porirua. “These 70 new constables heading for the frontline bring the total number of new officers since Labour took office to 3,303 and is the latest mark of our commitment to the Police ...
Members with a range of governance, financial and technical skills have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Board as part of the shift to strengthen the Bank’s decision-making and accountability arrangements. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 2021 comes into force on 1 July 2022, with the establishment of ...
New Zealand to remain at Orange as case numbers start to creep up 50 child-size masks made available to every year 4-7 student in New Zealand 20,000-30,000 masks provided a week to all other students and school staff Extra funding to schools and early childhood services to supports better ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will join Ukraine’s case against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which challenges Russia’s spurious attempt to justify its invasion under international law. Ukraine filed a case at the ICJ in February arguing Russia has falsely claimed genocide had occurred in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, as ...
The Government has taken another step forward in its work to eliminate family violence and sexual violence with the announcement today of a new Tangata Whenua Ministerial Advisory Group. A team of 11 experts in whānau Māori wellbeing will provide the Government independent advice on shaping family violence and sexual ...
Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine: Women’s Employment Action Plan was launched today by Minister for Women Jan Tinetti – with the goal of ensuring New Zealand is a great place for women to work. “This Government is committed to improving women’s working lives. The current reality is that women have ...
The food and fibre sector acknowledged its people and leadership at last night’s 2022 Primary Industries Good Employer Awards, a time to celebrate their passion towards supporting employees by putting their health, welfare and wellbeing first,” Acting Minister of Agriculture Meka Whairiti said. “Award winners were selected from an extraordinary ...
Kia ora koutou katoa. It is a rare thing to have New Zealand represented at a NATO Summit. While we have worked together in theatres such as Afghanistan, and have been partners for just on a decade, today represents an important moment for our Pacific nation. New Zealand is ...
Te Arataki mō te Hauora Ngākau mō ngā Mōrehu a Tū me ō rātou Whānau, The Veteran, Family and Whānau Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy Framework “We ask a lot of those who serve in the military – and we ask a lot of the families and whānau who support ...
Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs Aupito William Sio has been appointed by the United Nations and Commonwealth as Aotearoa New Zealand’s advocacy champion for Small Island States. “Aotearoa New Zealand as a Pacific country is particularly focused on the interests of Pacific Small Island Developing States in our region. “This is a ...
An estimated 100,000 low income households will be eligible for increased support to pay their council rates, with changes to the rates rebate scheme taking effect from 1 July. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced increases to both the maximum value of the rates rebate, and the income threshold ...
A long-standing physical activity programme that focuses on outcomes for Maori has been expanded to four new regions with Government investment almost doubled to increase its reach. He Oranga Poutama is managed by a combination of hapū, iwi, hauora and regional providers. An increase in funding from $1.8 million ...
The Government is progressing a preferred option for LGWM which will see Wellington’s transport links strengthened with light rail from Wellington Station to Island Bay, a new tunnel through Mt Victoria for public transport, and walking and cycling, and upgrades to improve traffic flow at the Basin Reserve. “Where previous ...
To Provost Muniz, to the Organisers at the Instituto de Empresa buenas tardes and as we would say in New Zealand, kia ora kotou katoa. To colleagues from the State Department, from Academia, and Civil Society Groups, to all our distinguished guests - kia ora tatou katoa. It’s a pleasure ...
Inside PNG News Forty-Two Papua New Guinea Defence Force staff have arrived in Kavieng for the national general election operations. New Ireland Provincial Police Commander Chief Inspector Felix Nebanat said this brought the total number of joint security forces up to 400 in the province. Papua New Guinea’s general election ...
RNZ Pacific The president of New Caledonia’s Southern Province Sonia Backès has been given a post in France’s reshuffled and enlarged 42-member government. The prime minister Elisabeth Borne appointed her as the secretary of citizenship within the interior ministry, which has integrated the overseas ministry. The reshuffle means that the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University Shutterstock There was no suprise in the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia lifting interest rates at its July meeting. The only question was by how much. Would it be a “regular” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team. Michelle and Peter ...
The state-subsidised mainstream media have been found wanting in their coverage of Three Waters governance arrangements. In this post, reproduced from his blog, BARRIE SAUNDERS exposes failings in the business press’s coverage of the nationalisation and property rights issues and their implications… IF THE GOVERNMENT gets its way, around $100 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanessa Smith, Professor of English, University of Sydney Sydney Theatre Company/Prudence UptonReview: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, directed by Jessica Arthur for the Sydney Theatre Company “You know when it’s the autumn of 1827, and you’re sitting in a ...
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I have been doing a bit of number crunching on the election night results to see what happened in the cities.
In Auckland the swing against Labour was coincidentally the same as the swing to the Greens (3.15%). In South Auckland the swing was towards Labour. Mangere was the best with a 10% swing. The other Labour strongholds or marginals preformed reasonably well. The worst swings occurred in National strongholds.
IN Wellington the swing against Labour was 7.44%.
Christchurch was disastrous. I thought that the earthquake was responsible for the 10.63% swing.
But Dunedin was even worse. The swing against Labour was 11.4%.
These figures should improve on specials. But obviously some thought needs to go into what happened.
Dunedin feels politically neglected. Labour have had an automatic two electorates here and have taken them for granted. If Labour doesn’t listen too and work with and for Dunedin constituents far better it will lose another provincial area.
It would be interesting to analyse the reaction of the whole of South Island to Labour.
I thought you would comment Pete. I wondered if the UF surge in Dunedin may have been the cause but the party did not do so well there.
Things haven’t changed for UF in Dunedin. They have changed markedly for Labour. Who should be concerned? I’m not in denial and I’m not blaming everyone and everything else.
Maybe like Banks Labour wants to rename and rebrand. The South Auckland Party?
Meh. Dunedin North’s David Clark is a good guy but he’s not going to get Pete Hodgson’s 20 years worth of long built popularity overnight. To expect otherwise is not realistic.
This is not about you Pete George, nor is it about your stupid facile observations.
You sound a bit grumpy. Did your tolerance lose the election?
If you look at the Dunedin North electorate vote on it’s own you might have a point, but coupled with National closing right up on Labour’s party vote, National soundly beating Labour for the party vote in Dunedin South and Curran’s diminishing majority and then Labour’s problems here are obvious.
Um no it is not Pete.
Frinstance in Auckland Labour’s loss was the Green’s gain. The net effect on support for National was neutral. If you add NZFirst’s late surge it appears that National went backward in Auckland. Got an explanation for that?
This is thankfully an MMP system. What matters is the support for each of the parties. Measuring one against another is artificial in the extreme.
And there is also the very low turnout and the effect this had.
I’m not talking about Auckland, I’m talking about Dunedin, this isn’t excuse city.
If Labour were in as much denial here as you are they would be in real trouble.
Pete you keep throwing around “denial”. You should try something doing something else. It is called “analysis”.
“Analysis” might accidentally lead to a “conclusion”, which would then require a specific “action”.
That scares the shit out of pete.
And his opinion on dunedin counts for nothing – if he was at all in touch with his electorate, he would have received more than the second lowest candidate vote, coincidentally beating the candidate for national’s other coalition partner, ACT.
ouch.
Where are your 4 MP’s Pete? I think you need to look in the mirror.
Re-do your figures compared to 2005. The swings in South Auckland etc may just have been a correction to the low 2008 figures.
They probably are although I am sure the decline in the the turnout figure would be really disturbing.
How about finding a way to get through to the Million who didn’t vote. They couldn’t be bothered or why should they vote for some old guy who will just ignore them. These are the ones we need to get motivated.
Are we about to see a record for “Waka jumping”.
Henare made it an art-form. Dunne a close second.
But Banks has to take the cake. Six months ago he was a Nat and joined ACT.
Within 36 hours of being elected he is talking about joining the Conservatives saying that ACT was “damaged goods” – and who was responsible for that?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6051391/John-Banks-looks-to-Conservatives
One thing appears certain – living in Epsom there might be a lot of wealthy
professionals, but not much intelligence.
What sort of person have they elected to represent them?
We have to give the PM some credit.
He says he voted for the National candidate…
I don’t think even the Nats thought that they could wipe out Banks, ACT and now potentially the conservatives all with one cup of tea.
My impression, on hearing Banks talking on Checkpoint last night, was that Banks decided that Act needed a name change and re-branding after talking to Jonkey about confidence and supply arrangements.
This was followed by an interview with Act member (#3 on the list) who had not heard about a move to change the name, and wasn’t really in agreement with it. He was more for re-branding.
I can’t remember who raised the notion of joining with the Conservatives. It might have been the interviewer.
But really, this idea do waka jump and ditch Act smells of National Party manipulations.
From the Stuff article linked above:
I also recall that Winston Peters said on TV recently that he has done research and it is clear to him that the Conservative Party was set up by National.
I am worried.
With the return of a conservative government, why was the impending climate disaster, never properly addressed throughout the election campaign by any of the main political contenders?
(and barely touched on by the political minnows either?)
“CLIMATE CHANGE ISN’T THE ISSUE” , Chris Horner, Climate Denier and Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Naomi Klein: Capitalism vs. the Climate
Naomi Kline:
“The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to their “free market” belief system.
When you challenge a person’s position on an issue core to his or her identity, facts and arguments are seen as attacks, and so are ignored or deflected often in a hostile manner:
(Chris Horner, is a professional climate change denier at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Horner’s job as a “Senior Fellow” at the Institute involves harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions.)
And finally:
As the denialists say: “The issue.” In fact, it isn’t an issue at all.
Climate change is a message, one that is telling us that many of our culture’s most cherished ideas are no longer viable.
Responding to the climate threat requires strong government action at all levels.
Mainstream political parties like Labour and National (and even the Greens), When it comes to Climate Change, pose the question this way:
But……. There is a growing body of economic research on the conflict between economic growth and sound climate policy:
Studies by ecological economist Herman Daly at the University of Maryland, Peter Victor at York University, Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey and environmental law and policy expert Gus Speth.
All raise serious questions about the feasibility of industrialized countries meeting the deep emissions cuts demanded by science (at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050) while continuing to grow their economies at even today’s sluggish rates.
Growth should be reserved only for parts of the world still pulling themselves out of poverty. Meanwhile, in the industrialized world, those sectors that are not governed by the drive for increased yearly profit (the public sector, co-ops, local businesses, nonprofits) should expand their share of overall economic activity, as should those sectors with minimal ecological impacts (such as the caregiving professions). A great many jobs could be created this way. But the role of the corporate sector, with its structural demand for increased sales and profits, has to contract and be rolled back.
When deniers react to evidence of human-induced climate change as if capitalism itself were coming under threat, it’s not because they are paranoid. It’s because they are paying attention.
Responding to climate change requires that we break every rule in the free-market playbook and that we do so with great urgency.
We will need to rebuild the public sphere, reverse privatizations, relocalize large parts of economies, scale back overconsumption, bring back long-term planning, heavily regulate and tax corporations, maybe even nationalize some of them, cut military spending and recognize our debts to the global South.
None of this has a hope in hell of happening unless it is accompanied by a massive, broad-based effort to radically reduce the influence that corporations have over the political process.
In short, climate change supercharges the pre-existing case for virtually every progressive demand on the books, binding them into a coherent agenda based on a clear scientific imperative.
It is not opposition to the scientific facts of climate change that drives denialists but rather opposition to the real-world implications of those facts.
There is simply no way to square a belief system that vilifies collective action and venerates total market freedom with a problem that demands collective action on an unprecedented scale and a dramatic reining in of the market forces that are creating and deepening the crisis.
This is the nub of the problem: Mainstream political parties that pay homage to the market economy continue to avoid it (if they can), even discussing climate change. Further in fear of the powerful defenders of the market our political leaders will not progress the concrete measures required to halt climate change.
The only wild card is whether some countervailing popular movement will step up to provide a viable alternative to this grim future.
That means not just an alternative set of policy proposals but an alternative worldview to rival the one at the heart of the ecological crisis—this time, embedded in interdependence rather than hyper-individualism, reciprocity rather than dominance and cooperation rather than hierarchy.
Meanwhile:
Auckland Occupation under attack
The only wild card is whether some countervailing popular movement will step up to provide a viable alternative to this grim future.
Yes, there needs to be the development of a new narrative that replaces TINA…. still largely underlying most people’s thinking. It’s not possible to introduce such a scary narrative into an election campaign. The narrative needs to be built up over a year or two, and I can’t see any mainstream political party doing this.
Most people come into contact with, even the lefties, seem oblivious to the global crises developing. They act as if life will go on the way it is indefinitely. So we get these disconnects: the people producing evidence of the collapsing environment, resources and global financial system, while many are talking with awe about the expected new electronic gadets and systems that will be on the market in the near future.
Too many people still have their eyes on the latest shiny consumerist stuff, and are avoiding focusing on reality.
That just won’t cut it.
‘Every’ rule in the ‘free-market’ rule book could be broken, ie regulated to hell. And the spectre of a command economy arising from that suggestion aside – the dominating factors of profit motive allied with the ‘winner takes all’ competitive nature of the market would ensure that things didn’t drift too far from what we do now….or that they reasserted their dominance over time.
The market needs to be abolished and it’s ‘rule book’ trashed. In doing so, it’s absolutely crucial that we don’t create a command economy in its stead as that means an almost complete loss of political freedoms.
The only way forward that would protect our freedoms and our environment while allowing us to continue to produce and distribute goods and services to any meaningful degree is democracy. But the most basic (and all pervasive) structures that we presently use to organise ourselves and our activities are most assuredly anti-democratic – ie, they thwart and stymie democratic aspirations.
So two things (unless we accept either the prospect life under the dictatorship that would inevitably accompany a command economy, or simply diminishing in tandem with our environment) – abolish the market and act together to create genuinely democratic systems/structures of governance for our societies and the economy.
+1
Well said. Not much I can add really. Our present socio-economic system (Capitalism) is failing badly and we have the evidence to show it and yet the rich and the corporates manage to stand in our way of doing something about it. It doesn’t help that the politicians listen to the rich and the corporates rather than the scientists.
We need to be watching sideshow and his dealing room very carefully over the next few months, the MSM have checked out and wasting time now on irrelevant shit.
the most important issues is our assets being flogged by a party with less than a third of the eligible vote calling it a mandate.
The MP are already showing their lack of morality with the ‘we want to be there but not support asset sales’ WTF it only works one way or the other so cross back to the dark side or be in opposition you chumps. Julian cut sharples up in native affairs on this, what a pathetic sell out he is and lucky to have his seat.
tc.
‘the most important issues is our assets being flogged by a party with less than a third of the eligible vote calling it a mandate’
That may superficially seem to be the most important issue but actually the most important issue is preparing for a reduced global oil supply, preparing for hyperinflation or collapse of fiat currencies, and doing something to keep the Earth habitable for humans 40 years from now… all the things politicians continually shy away from.
It’s not as if these are newly discovered predicaments. The warnings go back half a century.
1957 Admiral Rickover:
‘The earth is finite. Fossil fuels are not renewable. In this respect our energy base differs from that of all earlier civilizations. They could have maintained their energy supply by careful cultivation. We cannot. Fuel that has been burned is gone forever. Fuel is even more evanescent than metals. Metals, too, are non-renewable resources threatened with ultimate extinction, but something can be salvaged from scrap. Fuel leaves no scrap and there is nothing man can do to rebuild exhausted fossil fuel reserves. They were created by solar energy 500 million years ago and took eons to grow to their present volume.
In the face of the basic fact that fossil fuel reserves are finite, the exact length of time these reserves will last is important in only one respect: the longer they last, the more time do we have, to invent ways of living off renewable or substitute energy sources and to adjust our economy to the vast changes which we can expect from such a shift.
Fossil fuels resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent will use his capital sparingly in order to pass on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and care not one whit how his offspring will fare.’
So, how does half a century of near total irrelsponsibilty on behalf of politiclasn and business leaders sit with the next generation?
How impressed with disaster-as-usual politics will the children of this nation be 5 years from now, when it has ‘all turned to custard’?
That’s why we must preserve our sustainable hydro power generation and not let the bankers and investors profit from it…..most people don’t buy the peak oil/ climate change argument but they understand their power bill.
Aye TC.
I think that a slight reframing of the argument helps. As soon as you say “peak oil” many people turn off because the thought and implications are too terrifying.
But if you say that Oil is going to go up in price considerably then you hit their pocket and it tends to get their attention.
And if you say that because of this hydro power is going to be more and more strategically important and we don’t want to have it controlled by Australia or Asia or America then they would have to be an idiot not to agree with you.
I appreciate AFKTT’s comments and agree with him but the framing will lose the argument every time with swing voters.
But unless the Left start to inform the populace about reality, and build a unified movement, however you frame it, the swing voters will side with the individualist case, cause they dominate the argument.
The Left needs to take very careful notice of the Occupy movement, because they are teaching and informing and building and will increasingly gain the support of those of us who see those who are engaged in the political “game” as being blinded by strategy and so prepared to neglect truth in fear of the focus group,
Lead! Teach! Be truthful! Capitalize on the platform this unrest is giving you!
My fear is the Left once again moving to the Right in order to try to capture territory from the Right, rather than seeing that there is massive support for a unified and modern Left that puts aside the Cold War narrative and captures the current issues of inequality, financial terrorism and the environment.
Unfortunately, I have no faith….
A message to Phil Goff.
Show New Zealand one further quality. Show them you can be flexible.
You have just suffered a humiliating defeat, but you also built an image across New Zealand that a lot of people actually liked. Do not resign your leadership, but build on what you have achieved.
(Your predecessor suffered two election defeats in that building process.)
if yur on facebook- leave Phil a message on his wall saying exactly this 🙂 0 well off the mine i go 😛
I did. I come home from work to find that Phil has caved… I am shocked, and disappointed. Just yesterday, I was assuring my son that PG and AK would not do the predicted thing – but they have! I am very sad.
Hear hear I think Phil should stay. Key is scared of him and he now has the knowledge of how to intimidate him. Also has higher in telligence integrity,empathy and honesty. Everything that Key does not have Phil had a great campaign under extremely trying circumstances and came out strong. STAY! If he does not stay please do not inflict Cunliffe on us. He has already showed his absol lute lack of loyalty
Cunliffe’s been loyal, you’ve just fallen into the CT MSM trap that he wasn’t propagated by the like of codrington etc.
They’re lining up the attack lines before he’s even got the gig, if he gets it which means they fear him.
In New Plymouth: Young 16,550, Little 12,420:.
What was a marginal seat that National only just managed to clinch from Harry ‘Do-nothing’ in 2008 is now firmly blue.
In view of all the flags and banners and billboards that were plastered all around the city it goes to show that people were not impressed by Little’s repeated failure to come up with the right answers when questioned. Some people were particularly irritated by his arrogance and talking down to them. New Plymouth has just fought a successful battle to get rid of fluoride in the water. Little’s suggestion that it could be re-imposed by central government if Labour got in went down like a lead balloon, as did his put down of those concerned about takeover of the natural food supply by global corporqations.
I was particualrly unimpressed by the local union representative who refused to accept anything that I said to him about the real world. Even as the Japanese economy continues to implode he told me that NZ needed to be ‘developed’ using funds derived from Japanese investors. There are just too many uninformed fuckwits and people who are ‘away with the fairies’ in the Labour movement at the moment.
Little’s task was made doubly hard by having a leader whom the right rejected on principle and the left remembered as being closely associated with corporate looting, free trade deals etc.
And Labour supporters should never forget that Key gained power in 2008 because so many people were thoroughly sick of the arrogantce of the hypocritical and dicatatorial government of Helen Clark.
My parents voted Labour all their lives, and I should be a Labour supporter. But I’m not because Labour stands for and promotes so much that is wrong with our society.
And I cannot possibly have any respect for anyone who was in power between 2000 and 2008 who IGNORED all the repeated warnings about peak oil and the dire consequences of doing nothing to prepare for it. The NZ economy is nearly 100% dependent on oil, most of which is imported. We are about to become completely ‘screwed’ because the last Labour government was DISHONEST. Had it come clean on the crucial issues of the time when it was firmly in power and commenced strategies to deal with them ‘the cat would be out of the bag’ and could not be put back in by any subsequent government. And we would not be in the mess we are in now.
Labour is presently paying the price for its history of failure to listen and failure to act appropriately, which go right back to the mid-1980s.
National, on the other hand, is just a ‘circus’ run by opportunists who know how ot manipulate the masses.
A very interesting outlook.
If I read you right, you are condemning Labour more harshly because Labour could’ve and should’ve known better, and acted more wisely.
While National are just a bunch of manipulative fuckwits who cause massive damage and harm but thats what they do anyways regardless of the decade or the situation.
Your proposition, if I have rendered it correctly, actually makes some kind of sickening sense.
CV,
Yes. That is pretty much what I am saying.
Yes, it is sickening.
However, we do live in a sick world which is geting sicker by the day. The crux of the problem is that rather than acknowledging that sickness, Labour just wants to perpetuate the system that is making us all sicker by the day. (As do the Greens, of course,)
Labour (for good or bad) has traditionally been a reforming party. They went some way towards this by fronting up with CGT.
However, it’s not enough. We need centrally planned, national initiatives to prepare NZ for the future – eg, no more oil & pubic transport, radically changing our money system (stop producing fiat money and use the issuing of currency to fund some future proofing projects).
fiat currency is money that is valid by government decree. Issuing of currency by government would still be fiat currency.
It’s not fiat currency that is the problem but the fractional reserve banking system which lets private banks print money essentially without limit – and then charge interest on it.
Point taken. When I was typing it I had in mind the ability of banks to create money (fractional reserve as you point out).
Converting these banking institutions into old fashioned ‘savings and loans’ outfits will sort out the problem.
That and increasing the supply of interest free government produced money to about 25%.
Yup, spot on.
You win the game by playing to the paradigms that are in front of you no matter how tasteless or against your values they may be so if you wanna win learn style over substance Labour and master the catchy soundbite no more blah blah blah as the swingers aint listening.
Less is more in a tweety world attention span.
“While National are just a bunch of manipulative fuckwits who cause massive damage and harm but thats what they do anyways regardless of the decade or the situation.”
Manipulative? In what sense? Cause massive damage and harm? Where and when? Colonial, at least take the time to back up your sweeping statements with some facts, else you’ll just appear to be a ranting nut job.
Learn english, dickhead.
Although, rather humourously, nats did and do “cause massive damage and harm” to the unemployed, the poor, children, and every combination thereof via their policies. Not to mention the environment, what with the recent mining announcement and attitudes to “100% pure”..
McFlock, another name caller with little of import to say and even less with regards to fact to back it up. My English is just fine thanks.
Thing is I dont care about what you think, my purpose is to get Key and English out of power come 2014.
Colonial, you are therefore arguing that by just saying a whole lot of stuff, much of it plucked from thin air with no basis of fact, Key and English will be removed? Goff and his people tried that, and copped a hiding, so you propose that by doing the same thing again, the result will be different?
Jenny, Carol.
This planet is run by money-lenders for the benefit of money-lenders. Acnowledging the reality of climate change (we are on track for a largely uninhabitbale Earth by mid-century) would ruin their financial Ponzi scheme, which is predicated on perpetual growth and perpetual increases in emissions.
Also, corporations have a huge say in how the world is managed (some would say a greater say that most governments). Corporations have few major imperitives, one of the most important being to maximise profits for shareholders. That can only be achieved by economic growth which requires ever increasing use of fossil fuels.
The fact that fossil fuels necessary for global economic growth are no longer available or that catastrophic climate change is on the way is of no interest to investment bankers, the vast majority of whom are scientifically illiterate (as are most elected representatives).
Right now the only imperitive is to prevent the house of cards economic system falling to pieces immediately by using any means possible; energetically that means by deep water drilling, fracking, tar sands, coal-to-liquid-fuels, starving millions of people to death via the use of food-to-fuel schems etc. and financially it means by bailouts, ‘quantitavie easing’, ‘special drawing rights’, ‘stabilty funds’ or whatever euphemism is in vogue this particular month to decsribe creating money out of thin air.
The fact that marlets have risen overnight is no indication that the system has a future. And every day the system continues te operate reduces the life expectancy and quality of life of children living now.
Practically everything you need to know to understand the big picture is here:
http://www.publishme.co.nz/shop/theeasyway-p-684.html
AFKTT – I think the earth will be OK mid-century. The climate is always changing. CO2 levels are already very low (if they go below 200 ppm, plants die) and the “greenhouse effect” is misnamed. Climate science is in a parlous state, based on lies and misinformation.
Check here – http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/11/booker-global-warming-greatest-delusion-in-history/#more-11986 – or read Willis Eschenbach’s letter to Phil Jones that I posted a link to yesterday.
There are real problems to worry about – but so-called climate change is not one of them, neither is concern over a trace, beneficial gas in the atmosphere.
Annette.
I don’t know how old you are but most under the age of 70 are going to face catastrophe within their natural lifespan. (The ones that won’t will have died.)
If that so-called article is the best you can come up with, we truly are ‘screwed’. Not only does the item simply pose a question but it also makes no mention of climate science! What else would we expect from a corporate source of ‘information’?
I suggest you thoroughly check the following, and related articles on the same site, if you actually want to become informed.
On the other hand, if you prefer to remain in your state of delusional ignorance and want to perish, don’t bother.
‘To borrow a line from Pete Seeger, “When will we ever learn?” If Karl Marx were alive today he would quickly see that television has become the opium of the people, dulling our senses and keeping our minds focused on trivial matters even as the world around us careens further out of control every day. What passes for national news media today is all corporate owned and dedicated to telling us as little as possible, placing virtually nothing in context, and talking to “experts” in thirty second sound bites. What they don’t tell us is often the stuff we really need to know.
http://guymcpherson.com/2011/11/global-warming-population-growth-and-food-supplies-when-will-americans-finally-get-it/
Television – the weapon of mass distraction
http://timothywstanley.com/storage/CalvinandHobbesReligionMarxTV.jpg
Hi Annette, you’re back pimping your denier claptrap. Pass the salt.
Annette..
Subscriber to Koch Bros funded Heartland Institute perhaps?
Do you understand the science behind climate change Annette because you’ve made no effort to defend the claptrap you posted here.
I rather suspect you’re just another loud mouth repeater like Delingpole who openly admits that he doesn’t even read any scientific sources and relies on other peoples interpretations.
Annette you said “I think the earth will be OK mid-century” your words seem sincere but i must ask if you are aware that there is a lot more to this topic than the very real although largely distractionary tactics of Oil consumption and Carbon emissions. Please remember the hard facts . . .
US State and Fedral funding is being funnelled into programmes that officially deny they have anything to do with weather manipulation despite State, Federal, Congessional and Senate documentation stating in plain english these programmes exist for the purpose of weather modification and climate adjustment.
It is a fact being hidden from the World in plain sight. There are seventeen sites known of globally, including one in Australia. Read the literature, watch the videos, chat with the large numbers of informed people working very hard to help everyday people like you and me to understand the implications of the sciences involved. If you prefer the FastFood media watch Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory show as a credible low impact introduction.
Most importantly look at the volumes of declassified and discovered documentation from the US Government that references the use of HAARP in the study and application of technology for weather manipulation, climate control and other purposes. It is out there, in black and white.
There are encampments of reality all over the place if you choose to read the tracks. I am not here to give co-ordinates to a grand view or dictate what constitues a landmark on your journey.
The walls may be high but here is a gate opened by others, for the first few steps of your journey
google: haarp study weather modification documents
Wow Annette, you are so going to get attacked! I dared to say something similar once, (along with expressing a pro-life view) and I am still be insulted, attacked and sworn at months later. It’s all about conformity here… 🙁
Are you sure the response wasn’t about your bigotry?
Climate change deniers like Annette rightly get flak on this site, just like every other self centred sub-species of rightie who turns up here. But, mainly, it will be her deluded ideas that get attacked, not her.
And, by the way, comments like this don’t help your rep, either. Garner’s not fat and even if he was, it does not alter his ability to do the job he is paid for. And being blonde is not an indicator of a woman’s capacity to do a similar job. It’s actually not about conformity, it’s about respect. If you don’t respect people, don’t expect to them to respect you.
Hilarious. My bigotry is in your head (it’s one of your obsessions.)
Not as far as I’ve seen so far…
You do keep banging on testerically about my calling people fat, don’t you? Got weight issues yourself? He was bordering on obese when I last saw him (you don’t seem to get that I don’t see TV news, I hear it.)
No, it’s not. But what would you like me to have called her? A moron? I don’t even know if she’s blonde. She certainly sounds it. I’ll say it slowly for the hard-of-thinking – I used the term “dumb blonde” f-i-g-u-r-a-t-i-v-e- l-y…
Oh this is your best line yet! Considering the nice line in insults that has been dished out to me for alleged “bigotry” you have the chutzpah of an IDF colonel to bang on about respect! Respect has to be earned, man and I will never respect a hypocritical sneering slimeball like you.
Your bigotry is real, and you’ve confirmed it, remember? Teh gays? Ring any bells?
“He was bordering on obese when I last saw him (you don’t seem to get that I don’t see TV news, I hear it.”
What does the latter part of that sentence mean? Why would I ‘get’ anything about your viewing habits? And if you don’t ‘see’ TV, how do you know Garner is bordering on obese or that another journo is blonde?
Do you not bother to read what I say? Do you, as another man admitted on another site only skim what I say? I’ve said often enough that I heard something on the TV news… That should have been a stonking great clue… You’re ignoring (quite deliberately) that I said right above that Garner was bordering on obese when I last saw him and also that I didn’t know whether the girl was blonde, I simply was using the term ‘dumb blonde’ f-i-g-u-r-a-t-i-v-e-l-y. Do learn to read.
Vicky, i would like to say if this site was all about conformity i would have been banned long ago.
IMHO The Standard is a fair, stable environment where information and ideas are shared in a balanced if not always passive manner. What I personally appreciate about the Standard is how when you say something that is fundamentally incorrect, there are usually helpful people who are more than willing to offer you alternatives to your point of view. I have been on both sides of that situation and I for one hope it never changes.
People today are so hungry for the self-assurance of their own beliefs being ‘more right’ than another’s, that full comprehension of any position is all too often sacrificed by attitudes that can only be ascribed to bigotry and ignorance. This is rarely the fault of the person presenting the view.
It is more likely to be the foundation of the information they were exposed to.
Dear Freedom, please don’t be so patronising. Thanks in advance… Obviously, I don’t want people “who are more than willing” offering me alternatives to my point of view, as I don’t agree with them that I am wrong! IMO, VoR is banging his usual drum about how much he hates and despises me, because of what he sees as bigotry, because I seriously don’t want to have to imagine S&M, cock rings and posing pouches before I know if it’s worth the risk of disagreeing with some people… who are so precious that their genitals hurt when they’re contradicted! 😀
This from the person who accuses almost everyone who disagrees with her of being misogynistic, homosexual, middle-aged males who fantasise that some young women possibly have sex for the fun of it (or some combination of a majority of the descriptors).
I spend my working day trying to make sense of essays written by learners of English as a second language. The sentences they write generally make more sense than the above. Homosexual men are misogynists, it goes with the territory. That being said, what are you saying about young women – that I say they have sex for fun, or that other people do? It’s a fact that some young women have sex for fun – so what? Why does that bother you?
“Homosexual men are misogynists, it goes with the territory.”
Yep, that’s the stuff right there – a nice wee bit of bigotry from your stunningly planked worldview.
” It’s a fact that some young women have sex for fun – so what? Why does that bother you?”
I was referring to a previous discussion where you asserted that anyone who claimed that (any women enjoyed one night stands for the fun of one night stands) were simply middle-aged men indulging in a fantasy, or words to that effect. I would look it up, but I don’t give a flying fuck.
You’re about due to play the victim because people refuse to tolerate your own intolerance, so bye bye.
????????????????????????????????????????????????
Obviously you do give a flying fuck, or you wouldn’t keep ranting! I suggest you do in fact look up the discussion you’re talking about, because I don’t remember any such thing!
As for your last sentence, I have no clue what you mean. I am not sure you do. But it would be very good if you’d stop clogging the thread with irrelevancies, ‘kay? Thanks. Bye! 🙂
Seriously? You were arguing [badly] with several individuals and being massively condescending withastonishingly little basis – no recollection? I guess it all just mixed in with the rest.
Not really, it is however pretty damn opinionated and you tend to get some robust argument with a considerable memory. But I seem to remember you held your end up well enough that I didn’t feel the need to intervene.
The only real conformity is that which I and the moderators apply. It concentrates on behavior, is very very heavy handed when I do it (sarcastic if the sprout does it, and very very sudden when Irish does it’ and the others are rather nice), and focuses on newbies to the site or people released from bans. Mostly that concentrates on making sure that people know exactly who runs the site (not them) and that we are intolerant to anything that we think makes the comment section worse (mostly stupid assertions, trolling, and pointless abuse).
There is quite a lot right now because I amnesty many people after the election, the news is about the left parties, and here are few stupid gloaters around – who I rather enjoy being a education to.
I see your point, but even so, you do have to admit that some sins are regarded as unforgiveable here – such as being witty at the expense of some people’s precious ideas about their sex lives! Or, advocating pro-life views – I remember a young woman called something like Bonnie being hounded away, because she dared to express pro-life opinions… That was just shameful! I’d like to point out to the attackers who will be lining up with acid to fling, that being pro-life for me, means opposing abortion, euthanasia, war and capital punishment as well! Which reminds me that when I submitted a guest post on capital punishment, it fell into the event horizon of a black hole. What, opposing capital punishment is not a left idea any more? 🙁
Depends who you wind up in an discussion with – for instance I have very strong views on the opposite side of the fence to you on abortion. But I can’t recall ever having ever expressed them here. I have quite strong views on the use of military force which would probably upset around two thirds of the commentators here. I can remember expressing them once or twice. What I am saying is that on most topics you only get a few people commenting, and they are frequently commenting strongly from several angles. Not worth getting wound up about whoever you are arguing with. Just concentrate on the much larger group of people watching because they will be the ones who are less committed and may be convinced.
We don’t tend to moderate discussions that are arguing about something even if it is getting heated. We’d just step in if we saw a behavioral problem like pointless abuse (which has quite a specific meaning the way that the moderators use it).
Guest posts get pulled and posted when a editor reads one that that they personally like and when the queue isn’t already chocka. Who is puts up the contributions depends on who has time to read it, likes it, copies it into a post, finds a graphic to add, writes an excerpt for the front page, and schedules it. On many days regardless of how good the writing is, no-one will have time. For instance today would be a good day for guest posts – but I haven’t looked at the mail since this morning because of the type of code I’m writing.
Putting up guest posts is quite labour intensive especially if you have to go through all of the steps (that is a broad hint to tell you that it is more likely to happen if most of those steps are done before we read the post). Personally my priority is the stability of the site and moderation. After I run through the moderation these days, answering or writing a few comments or notes, I’m usually on negative time for work. So I often don’t even read contributed posts – especially when I’m cracking through the end of a software project or involved in an election. I guess that others have similar time issues.
So what happens now that the slithery ones are back in the driving seat? Resist and protest? Or succumb and join the party?
Plan B mate, plan B. Which for me is staying in NZ and tackling the issues on other fronts for the next couple of years. Then roll on 2014.
actaully plan A was economy crashed and burning would align the people with labour.
Plan B is the far to cunning Key / Joyce crew have abided there time and will now unleash their radical right agenda with there so called mandate…bennies bashed, state assets kissed good bye, more concession and opportunity to the wealthy to get wealthier, look to state sector getting knifed, unions and free worker burnt at the stake to raise company profits, freeing up of resources, selling infrastructure, water and anything not nailed down…3 year before the cycle runs out so the Tories must act and act fast and fuck the peasants, the slaves and anyone not of the elite class..
The Tories have bought out the MP, solidified the right voting block and have great organisation on the ground.
The Fight is not for the left votig block but of the middle voting block that has been captured by smile and wave and ‘trust me’ ‘trust me’ in these tough economic times.
Yeah I know what you are saying but imo screw the mythical middle.
We need to get people living on less than $40,000 pa to get off their asses and vote for Labour. And given that is some 60% of the country I fail to see what the problem for Labour is. Greens and NZ1 can have some of the aspirational middle class vote, fine.
Only 5% of the country earn $90K pa and over. They are the only people who should be voting National.
But how do you solve stupidity? Wellington residents know that massive public sector cuts are coming under National. But they swung to the NATs anyway.
If people really want to vote against their own interests, who are we to stop them?
wellington central went to grant by heaps, good old grant increased his majority but the party vote went westward due to what…poor campaign strategy on not going after the party vote.
you’re saying that people needed to be told to party vote Labour? And in the absence of that voters in Wellington Central conveniently forgot that National has been slashing and burning the public sector and that there is far more to come from the NATs?
Not likely. They liked Grant as an MP, they didn’t want back Labour to be in power, full stop.
vto.
My suggestion is to disengage as much as possible. Know where you can get drinkable water. Prepare to produce your own food or be prepared to adopt a hunter-gatherer lifesyle. Be psychologically prepared for the mayhem that will come when oil depletion reaches the critical point of demolishing the global economic system (2013-15?).
I see NWS has been hit hard again. There will soon come a time when the hits come harder and faster than repairs can be organised and the energy needed to carry out repairs won’t be available.
And don’t own a farm within 100km of a large population, lest it be ransacked and pillaged..
What’s NWS?
NSW I guess – hit by floods
Hi VTO I think AFKTT is referring to New South Wales which has gotten some more flooding again.
vto.
Apologies. Typing too fast; letters out of order.
NSW.
http://www.ses.nsw.gov.au/news/2011/monday_morning_flood_update
Personally I think the time to peacefully resist has come to an end. However I’m hopeful that I’m wrong and that the right wing will start to wake up before it’s too late. The signs aren’t looking all that good though.
Disengaging from supporting the defunct and destructive system is a good idea, but there needs to be more resistance politically.
+1
This election win, Greens move to mainstream, Labours inevitable ratchet to the Right all lead to the conclusion that there are going to have to be bodies in front of bulldozers!
Two party Democracy, which is essentially where the majority mindset sits – even in our MMP environment – make Politics impotent. Citizens need to stand up or continue to watch the progress of Totalitarianism and Environmental collapse.
The RWNJs will never wake up – they live in a constant state of denial of reality.
If this shit goes down (not so bad here cf the US) being stuck a 100km in the middle of nowhere with just a couple of people on a farm is NOT a good idea. You actually want a farm near a hamlet or small town dependent on it. (Your point on being away from very large population centres is valid however).
That way locals will help protect you and your property from marauders and bandits.
Here’s my two cents on why people are confused about the nature of our National debt:
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/italian-job-stealing-2451-8-tons-of-gold-with-style/
money lenders = drug dealers
these governments should default. or rather, they should pull the same trick as the money printers and simply write new laws to allow them to repay when able to, subject to satisfying their citizens needs first.
the money printers / lenders can just wait in line. near the back.
You know our opinions have grown a lot closer over the years haven’t they?:-)
From David Graeber’s “Debt”
“But in a way 2008 let the cat out of the bag. We realize now that if money is owed by really important players, even trillions in debts can be made to disappear or renegotiated away. Money is just a social arrangement, a set of promises or IOUs”
http://janelanaweb.com/trends/david-graeber-the-american-empire-collapse-is-effectively-being-negotiated-both-internationally-and-within/
Yep!
Quoteing article:-
That’s a realisation I had a few years back. Government debt isn’t there because it has to be but because it allows a permanent guaranteed income for a few from the many. A lot of rich people would have been very upset that NZ was paying down its debt from 2000 to 2008 but very happy that the present NAct government massively increased our deficits for no purpose.
The governments defaulting and writing off the external private debt is actually the only rational move. They won’t be allowed to do this by the banksters though. The only way to get it done would be a revolution by the people against the banks.
But the likes of David Graeber and Seteve Keen are suddenly all over the mainstream media debating the idea of Debt forgiveness and showing historical precedent for it, but we need the dialogue to broaden, we need to continue to educate and inform and learn and we need to push this outside of the closed loop of the blogosphere and out to the public.
Information / propaganda is where the real battle is fought, the Left need to unite, put aside the cold war narrative which weakens them, and inform a populace which will be increasingly looking for answers as the economic crisis deepens.
Superb decision by US judge.
Too many cases brought by government regulators against finance institutions have been resolved by way of settlement in which the finance institution pays a settlement on condition that they did not admit any wrong doing or accepting any liability. But here “come da judge”……
http://thesecondalarm.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/parkposter.png?w=450&h=355
We are the 99% is catchy and all, but this is by far the best Occupy slogan that’s out there
+1
+1 Make a great teeshirt slogan!
That’s so encouraging to read. Wonderful wisdom on Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s part. Let’s hope it starts the ball rolling!
It seems that we’ve been advancing technology despite capitalism rather than because of it.
???
DAT was widely used in the industry for years precisely because it was the best and easiest way to write and rewrite high quality digital audio. It only fell out of favour when powerful processors, large amounts of RAM and bigger hard drives rendered it obsolete as a recording medium in the late 90s.
Even then it was favoured by many as an archival medium and for reliable playback of backing tracks in live settings.
Hardly a flop.
I see new Roundtable head Roger Partridge is spouting the same inanities as Kerr before him. These people don’t even seem to think. They just spout.
Partridge blithely kept stating, in a Press piece today, that regulation should be reduced. He gave no explanation as to why this is helpful to people, nor did he provide any evidence as to how this works, or has worked in the past. But here is some evidence for you Partridge…
Deregulation of the finance sector – led directly to people losing their life savings.
Deregulation of the building sector – led directly to people’s homes rotting and falling apart.
Deregulation of the mining safety sector – led directly to the killing of 29 men at Pike River.
Good one Partridge – you’re onto it ….
Banks was saying the same thing yesterday. Yet, we are the third easiest country in the world in which to do business. How can that be if we are so bogged down by regulation? Could it be that when business isn’t thriving it’s time to blame the government? Could it be that they don’t know what else to say? They have no other answers!
It’s part of the RWNJ psyche – when something is going wrong it’s someone else’s fault and not them or anything they said or did.
Business lobbyists whinge like farmers. We could have the least regulated, lowest taxed nation on the planet and they’d still whinge.
I say fuck ’em. Farmers need to be regulated or we end up with cowshit in the drinking water, businesses need to be regulated or we end up as serfs, with lead in the toothpaste and arsenic in the underpants.
Or vice versa.
Low voter turnout
It is highly undemocratic to work to remove people’s right to vote and disincentives the poor from participating in politics. National know that the poor are more likely to disengage and actively work to exploit this dynamic…
National don’t waste time getting the news out to those they like!
Do not recall seeing this on the MSM yesterday, or, come to think of it, in their main Policy docs either
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/80-starting-out-wage-way-ck-105234
I watched the two hours of Native Affairs on Maori TV last night. Brilliant. Format and Julian the reason that it runs circles around all other free to air TV. I think that it was the best review of the election I have seen or read or heard and it went well beyond the Maori perspective. Interviews with:
Peta Sharples: grumpy
Hone: Optimistic
Winston: emphatic and dangerous for National
Materia: Succinct and clever
Shane: Best appraisal of Labour now and future
Kelvin: Stiff upper lip
Simon Bridges: Believed to be a future National Leader.
Panel: Mike King surprisingly perceptive, Matt McCartney good points, Sandra Lee explores the angles.
Tried to get a link but can’t. Reruns on Sunday evening?
two little things that have bugged the hell out of me the last 24 hours
1: NZ Herald stating in its map that 100% of the vote has been counted,
2: “If this was First Past the Post and there were 100 MPs, there would be roughly 65 National seats and 35 Labour, ” Mr Key, we are not a two party state despite your wet dreams of being America’s President
Amazing, disturbing, inspiring pictures from Egypt last week…
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/11/scenes-from-egypts-unfinished-revolution/100194/
Is it just me or does it seem a bit weird that the two parties with the least mandate to be in parliament are the ones Key will give ministerial portfolios to?
Yes Felix I had a little rant to myself this morning about this very issue. Banks speaks for 1% of the population yet he’s a Minister of the Crown?! There’s something not right about that.
Polling affects election outcomes
http://www.3news.co.nz/Did-opinion-polls-influence-the-election/tabid/370/articleID/234528/Default.aspx
Ban media polling and media polling discussion in the immediate run up to election day, I say.
or, if they insist on using them they must be obligated to publish the whole poll, including but not limited to;
: the methodology of the poll
: the number of people polled
: the numbers who hang up
: the numbers who choose not to answer a particular question
: the don’t knows for each question
: the areas polled
and most importantly,
: a full and specific list of questions asked
basically they should be regulated to publish the poll and not the spin
Yep have that in place for the entire of the regulated period, with a full ban on media polls and media polls discussion for the 24 hours before E-Day.
I actually think I preferred my suggestion yesterday. Have them poll the policies and not the party, candidates or preferred PM. Then have them link those policies back to the parties that way we might have an informed populace voting rather than a led populace voting.
“I actually think I preferred my suggestion yesterday. Have them poll the policies and not the party, ”
Draco, I would like to point out that my comment above in no way stipulates the poll’s subject
it simply asks for some legitimacy to the public dissemination of the results
Yes, I realised that. That’s why I responded to CV’s post of outright banning. Having it so that they poll on the policies they would then be forced to discuss the policies rather than the parties (hopefully, although I’m sure that they could find some way around it). Your suggestion would complement mine.
oops , i will pay more attention to the post-number thingys 🙂 (shuffles away quietly)
Corporate Media
Unfortunately factual reporting has been declining worldwide over the last few years… and especially in New Zealand. The continued underreporting of many important issues just one indicator that New Zealand’s mainstream media and their watchdogs are biased.
so did kweewee have a two term agreement in his contract with national?
i have a bet on that he will step down for personal/family reasons within twelve weeks of the election date
and labour must invest in micropulse radio stations so that they can have their own broadcasting outlet.
relying on radio skwawkbak and the hair and teeth jobs on teeveennzzzz will never be enough when they are beholden to the money masters.
I heard Banks or Brash describe themselves as Centre Right. Is that right? What would Far Right look like? How far can you lean to the Right before you fall over?
Banks actually described himself and Paul Goldsmith as “Centre Right” telling the electorate of Epsom that a vote for himself would return “Two Centre Right MPs” to government.
He neglected to tell the people of Epsom, that the purpose of his standing was to return the extreme right leader of ACT to parliament.
Fitch upgrades Australia to AAA
Avg Australian wages up by 4%
Kisckstarter, No – Space NYC
looks like they do great work
94 yr old Stéphane Hessel on Occupy Wall Street, lessons from the French resistance, democracy, Middle East, Security: Find the Time for Outrage When Your Values Are Not Respected
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/10/10/stphane_hessel_on_occupy_wall_street_find_the_time_for_outrage_when_your_values_are_not_respected
Thought for the day:
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” – Winston Churchill
Well, that just proves that Churchill was an idiot – just like all other RWNJs.
I seem to recall that Churchill didnt unpick the NHS when returned to power in 1951.
Exactly, just like ShonKey won’t dispatch what he called in parliament “communism by stealth” the in work tax credit, or Working For Families middle class welfare payment.
Well, that didn’t take long.
More here
NAct, back to destroying our children’s future.
NAct knew about this months ago.
I’d imagine, Draco, that the miners would far rather have an open cast mine that go for say, a 2.5km tunnel that goes through a fault line, and cannot be used as an escape route should their be for argument’s sake, a methane explosion. You might recall this example, signed off by the Labour Party. It cost people their lives.
I’d imagine that you’re an idiot. Labour didn’t design and administer Pike River, that was left to the free-market.
Oh, and I’d prefer it if the coal was left in the ground. We (NZ) don’t need to use it just yet but it may become useful in another century or so.
Further to my post at No 15.
Native Affairs is now available online: “Kowhiri Post Election”
http://www.maoritelevision.com/Default.aspx?tabid=683&pid=12340
The interviews in the first hour are excellent and cast more light that most commentaries.
Chevron, Pay For The Damage You Caused to Brazil’s Beaches!
So, Phil Goff and Annette King have in fact gone. A dumb blonde on TV3 (one Rebecca Wright) says “they’ve gotten (sic) the message loud and clear that their time is over”..
I am completely disgusted. Why did Phil satisfy the yapping media by this action? Why (for once) didn’t Labour do the right thing instead of the expected thing? Fatty Garner is as overjoyed as the Wright idiot is gormless, imagining bloodbaths etc. He’s so excited he’s gabbling like a race caller. Yet a another one of his nasty gittish predictions has come true. By contrast National’s bulging caucus room was all sweetness and light and joy he says. Shame.
Duncan Garner was going on like Labour is already having a fight… is he related to Cameron Slater by any chance? I mean both National hacks look similar… or is that just what happens when you talk too much shit?
lol yeah Garner has def packed the tonnes on. Like this big>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seen it sideways on tv and fuk hes pregnant with Keys kid
😛
Hi there. Not sure who you are Vicky32 but I can assure you that Rebecca Wright is no ‘dumb blonde’. Naturally blonde, yes, but so what? Misogynist insults like yours serve no purpose. Dumb? Definitely not. She went after Banks like a Rottweiler over the tea tapes.
And no, I’m not her. But I do know her wonderful family and I found your insults quite offensive.
Cheers
I particularly liked it how Patrick Gower came to her rescue after Banks made a complete fool of himself going on about suppositions Rebecca Wright was fantasizing about. LOL I wonder how many woman voted for Act?
Haha yeah not many I suspect!!
toughshit
the gloves are off on the whole lot of them
cant DEeal tell the cow to stfu or dont dish it out
Frida, I apologise. I am sorry, I should not have said the things about her that I did.
Cheers for the apology Vicky. I totally get your feelings about the MSM. I share them, but let’s not get personal eh? We’re just lowering ourselves to their level. And Rebecca really isn’t one of the problematic ones 🙂
Peace
“Bienvenida al Cantri”
Ah, that inefficient socialism strikes again…
Oh, wait.
It’s worse than we thought. While the big boys of Wall Street, the ones we thought were not in danger (JP Morgan and others), were secretly borrowing $1.2 trillion from the Fed.
Yes I heard Kathryn Ryan’s US correspondent detailing some of this story just before 10:00am this morning. I had seen some clues around this months ago, but this is now the official confirmation.
BTW the total sum involved is at least $7.7Trillion. .. almost 50% of the entire US annual GDP.
Let’s put this in a NZ context… it’s more or less the equivalent of the Reserve Bank giving NZ$100b to the four big Australian banks at an interest rate of 0.1%… and not telling anyone.
Habermas, the Last European
Jürgen Habermas has had enough. The philosopher is doing all he can these days to call attention to what he sees as the demise of the European ideal. He hopes he can help save it — from inept politicians and the dark forces of the market.
[—]
And then he’s really angry again: “I condemn the political parties. Our politicians have long been incapable of aspiring to anything whatsoever other than being re-elected. They have no political substance whatsoever, no convictions.”
And they’re off. On demand webcasts of the UN Climate change conference in Durban.
The job market is constantly shifting…I would call it musical chairs, or a merry-go-round. People retire, move to a different job or role, new jobs are created, seasonal work becomes available, people leave for personal reaons etc. It is easy to point to the number of unemployed, and say “there are no jobs!” as if the job ‘market’ – for want of a better term – was a fixed and imovable position instead of endlessly fluid. The job market is not a solid concrete wall, it is porous and shifting.
The benefit system provides a safety net for people who find themselves unemployed; a safety net that ensures that they are covered until they can jump back on the carousel. It’s a bus stop until the next bus comes along. Often quite a lot of people will be at the bust stop at any one time, but they are always in preperation for the next bus, and then they catch and it’s someone else’s turn to wait at the bus stop….temporarily.
It is not meant to be a lifestyle choice. Anyone remaining on a benefit for a considerably lengthy period of time is going to suffer as a direct result because they are going to suffer an erosion of their self esteem. Which is why I don’t understand why long-term beneficiaries are seemingly unable to take their turn on the work carousel, but are content to milk the taxpayer while at the same time subsiding into a life missing (the) dignity (that work provides). Labour, as the party of work and workers, should understand this.
There was a question during one of the leaders debates from a person who (apparently) had a degree, but had been unemployed for 2 years, unable to find employment. If I was to be out of job next week, I would back myself to have another one within 2 weeks, and I don’t have a degree. I would take a vacant spot on the carousel. The reality is: there are people who can’t or won’t take a turn themselves – no matter what the disasterous consequences are for themselves. Either they don’t want to work, or there is something about them that ensures that they don’t get past the interview process, or they consider themselves above many different types of work.
What many cannot comprehend, yet try to, is the constant defence by the left of the dug-in, firmly entrenched long term beneficiary who dances down a path that leads eventually to inter-generational welfare depenendance and ‘rogue feral’ status. After all, Labour is the party of state intervention, yet they will not intervene to help those most in need get employed. A carrot and stick approach is needed to save lives, otherwise we are going to see an epedemic of Kahui type scenario’s – if we are not already. The days of 100% employment are gone, but so to should the days of “I can’t get a job, year upon year, decade upon decade”.
[lprent: out of context to the post and the surrounding comment. Moved to OpenMike. ]
There is no need for unemployment but having full employment degrades profits which is why John Key promised to lower wages and why Bill English said that you couldn’t have less than 6% unemployment.
We don’t defend them, we try to help them to find their way and also accept that, no matter what we do, there will always be some who cannot be helped. NAct, on the other hand, just rant and rave at people and then punish them for things that aren’t their fault.
snap.
I’ll just add that I know a couple of people who “backed themselves” to be back in work within a couple of weeks after being laid off. It didn’t always work out that way, even though they were skilled workers with excellent references – but then the average tory seems to have an inflated sense of their own productive worth, whatever the economy is like.
Post election rant
All the while the right continue to profess their ignorant rhetoric like it’s a mantra that will stop National taking even more taxes from them and distributing it to their already wealthy mates… a position that most right wing supporters will never attain…
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1111/S00970/let-link-maximize-your-new-zealand-business-purchase-or-sale.htm
scavenging scum
DIY search engine takes on Google
Could this be the begging of the end of massive centralised search engine sever farms?
It is unlikely. The logistics of updating numerous systems wih spider updates will massively favor centralized hubs compared with dispersed ones. I’ve written and maintained both. In fact this site operates dispersed.
If garenr is pregnant its more likely to be the offspring of fatboy farrar.
you can see why parlaiament wont do anything about fatty foods when garner and farrar live on a diet of sausage rolls and rubber chickens.
Aucklands vote is blue because all these new aspirationals hanging on to plummeting mainstreet real estate prices. The banks aren’t lending to mainstreet.
Someone needs to get real on poor fools who bought rental property thinking that it would be their meal ticket after ten years of work. Housing prices needs to plummet to meet the real new couple/ family market, that’s life
Someone needs to get real on poor fools who bought rental property thinking that it would be their meal ticket after ten years of work. Housing prices needs to plummet to meet the real new couple/ family market, that’s life.
The poor can’t do modern mortgages. Working and non-working and we shaw as hell don’t want to make you and your kids fat paying off a dumb- ass high rent.