Sadly, the numbers in quarantine just keep rising as Kiwis meander and dawdle home some 90 days after we went into lockdown, and even longer since we were warned it was time to come home.
It was way back on March 18 when Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said, "If you can get home – come home now".
I think those that are still returning are taking the mickey and putting all our sacrifices at risk. New Zealanders have had plenty of time to get their backsides home if that was their intention.
We have been more than accommodating and generous. I believe now is the time to totally shut the border to everyone – returning Kiwis included.
Just for three months.
Where do I start? It's illegal for a kickoff, for a second his transparent little 'just for three months' arse cover is an arbitrary nonsense with no justification whatsoever.
It's also deeply ignorant; there are over 1m kiwis living overseas. Many still retain family and business connections in NZ, many effectively spend their income earned overseas back in NZ at some point. Most will have gained skills and experience that they could never have attained by staying home; it's certainly true in my own case. Most plan to return home at some time in the future.
As for his bullshit argument that we should have come home already, it overlooks the obvious point that if 1m kiwis had all returned before the March 24 cutoff the country could never have coped, and certainly COVID19 would have slipped through en-mass. Far better we return at a manageable rate over a period of the next year or so.
But the decision to return is rarely as clear cut as he pretends it it. In our case we've been caught between circumstances which mean that we lose out if I return, or if I don't. In normal circumstances right now I'd be back in NZ looking after important family and personal matters, but if I did, I would not be able to return to Australia as they are not allowing Kiwis to enter on the usual SCV444 unless they have been resident in Australia for more than 10 years, which I'm just shy of. That would have other bad consequences right now.
Not to mention the two weeks in quarantine at both ends. (Which are of course vital to do properly, but a real consideration nonetheless.)
There will be tens of thousands of people in similar situations, caught between commitments overseas and back home, and no easy way to manage both at the same time. For us the decision has been to sit tight in Brisbane for the time being, but it's not one we took lightly. Even if compared to many people my problem is a pretty small one, each morning I wake up it's the first thing I worry about.
Over time it will all sort itself out, but idiots like Garner beating up click bait like this is irksome and irresponsible. We all have enough uncertainty in our lives right now without this crap added to the pile.
Duncan Garner seems to write in the same manner he thinks and speaks, with supreme confidence in his utterings and without regard for context or nuance.
Any rational person reading that article, will find many holes in his argument, and will discount it.
(Didn't realise you were in Brisbane, hope you and your family are well there. I would assume that there are many in your position of not having a clear choice or options available.)
Yeah the "three months" jarred me too, what does that even mean? Why 3 months? Just nonsense. Has any country in the world ever stopped its own citizens entering their own country? What an idiot.
I'm the idiot who invested in a small business here late last year. Having reached the age where one's CV automatically goes into the 'round universal filing unit', we put put a lump of cash into an opportunity here, with the long term intention of bringing it back to NZ if it went well.
Globally there are millions of people with similar stories, all of them complicated, messy and unique to their circumstances. COVID 19 has pulled the rug out from the assumption of freedom of travel that was part of our lives. We aren't complaining about that, we understand the ground has shifted for everyone and we have to take our chances along with everyone else. But there will be kiwis who are going to have to return, decisions they made three months ago to stay overseas may not always work out for any number of reasons.
What I would advocate for is a more stringent process of return, including a booking system that required two tests before you get on the plane, and controlled the rate at which people returned to ensure the system at the NZ end was never overwhelmed.
I am enormously proud of what NZ has achieved in controlling this demon virus, and I'd doing anything necessary to ensure if I came home I did it as safely as possible. I think most ex-pats would feel much the same.
Your situation and age gives breadth to your innate wisdom Redlogix. I think what you say about handling the borders is right.
But also while NZs should be able to return, we also have a moral obligation to people who have built their lives around being in NZ and devoted themselves to working here as good people contributing to the country. So can you work those into at least a quota to start with if they can tick a number of criteria, or can make a very special case? And then there are the legal partners of NZs who would be immigrants hoping to become residents alongside their husband/wife.
It needs to be viewed like some illnesses are, which are hard to diagnose. There is a list of affects and if you have over 6 say, then you are regarded as having the…..syndrome; that applies to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, for example. So immigrants with ticks in particular boxes rise to the top. That will give them guidance on what to expect. Immigration seems to have been affected by Power Agency Syndrome that performs to government targets without let or hindrance in their manner, free to make decisions and eye Ministers with weary detachment. Or so it seems to this citizen.
You are good on the planning, engineering side. It would be good if we in NZ could tap into those skills and attributes.
You touch on an important aspect of COVID 19. It's got far more in common with a disease like polio than influenza in that while many people will recover, it looks like there will be many long term health consequences for them.
And for nations this could have huge impacts on their health systems.
But otherwise thanks for the encouragement; just lately it feels like every decision we make with the best information we have available at the time, comes undone for reasons we could never have guessed. And that will be the case for so many others as well.
And something Garner in his blithering bombast has absolutely NFC about.
I too think a booking system and controlling the rate of return would be a good idea. As it seems at the moment airlines can just decide to fly here with passengers (American airlines are returning in Oct) to heck with how much quarantine we have available.
I was interested in RL saying that Australia have a border ban on some visa's unless you have been permanently resident for 10 years. We have permanent residents in name only (PRINO?) who haven't lived here for years but as far as I know we have no filter on the border so we only let in those who have been actually resident and working here. ( habitually resident)
We also have dual passports holders (think Peter Thiel and some of the chinese and american billionaires) who are citizens in name only (CINO). Their only interest in NZ is what they can grab out of it or as a bolthole and frankly public opinion would probably be quite happy leaving them well down the queue but I don't know how you do that.
I'd also suspend then kill the business investment category . We give you a passport and the ability to buy any distressed assets for sale? We must be nuts – and it certainly won't help asset values to drop to a level that are affordable by those within the local economy – as the bolt hole premium is removed. Economists have also gone back and found that it doesn't do a thing for our economy. Most put the money on a deposit and then take it out of the country when the time is up. Where are the factories ??? non existent
I'd also chop issuing any further visas under the high wage cutoff. If you are here and working that's fine but we will get a good number of the well qualified back ( they are already turning up in my 'hood) who may simply want their kids to live in a covid free environment.
As to those who have been here for a number of years on a succession of limited or short term visas. or who were employer sponsored. Don't vote for the Nacts. We had this problem in 2008 when companies dodged training people in favour of employing temporary visa workers some of whom had been here for 5-8 years. These have been crack cocaine for employers in keeping wages down and when employer sponsored are the source of a number of scams and outright fraud. I have personal sympathy for a lot of them and they need a nuanced response but they are in a scarce job market and if employer sponsored have jumped any queue. Short term visa's and youth visas 1-2 years should probably expect to go – with perhaps a a sliding scale that matches those with permanent residence
I expect most people think that partners get the same consideration as the primary holder.
The politics of this position the same day that Muller say’s that border restrictions are “untenable” are a bit bizarre.
Either Garner is a complete loose cannon muppet who isn’t influenced by anyone bar himself, or there’s some very contradictory messaging coming out of the National Party.
The problem for National is that their instinctive desire to ensure both public safety AND a return to business as usual are in direct conflict with each other.
Neither ambition is not necessarily a bad thing, but right now COVID means they cannot have both at the same time. Until they're willing to have an honest conversation on this, expect more talking out of both sides of the mouth.
The world is now 6 months into the pandemic and what do virologists, infectious disease, immunologist and respiratory doctors know to treat and prevent the pandemic?
Muller cannot have it both ways (closed border and open border for business) because that is the way it is, to think otherwise is being in denial. Someone needs to tell him that the pandemic has not yet reached its peak.
I think the Nats are positioning them selves to advocate taxpayer paid but employer privatised and supervised quarantine. Preferably down on the farm milking them cows…
There are still people who have been unable to find flights back to New Zealand. There will also be others who need to stay overseas for current commitments but will want to travel back in the next few months or years. Does Garner think that the thousands who have returned in the last few weeks could have found transport between the advisory to return and our own lockdown?
There is so much to think about when entering and exiting the country. When it comes to going for a short trip overseas obtaining health insurance for Covid-19 is unlikely and catching the virus is likely. If the purpose of a trip is to relax this is going to be a stretch.
I totally get that for political reasons the Greens proposal for a wealth tax is dead on arrival.
Labour head and PM Jacinda Ardern signalled yesterday that her party is not interested in it. This stands to Wayne's point yesterday that tax policy will remain in the hands of the majority coalition partner, both now and in the future.
Also of course the Tax Working Group already considered a wealth tax and opposed it.
And Ardern also came out last year saying that she would never, ever support a capital gains tax as long as she was an MP.
So it's not like they were unclear on the matter.
But the effect of Ardern’s clarification simply reassures the 9% of New Zealand voters who turn on a dime, and the effect of Green’s policy throws a bone to the socialist left within the Greens to keep them above 5%.
But it does ask: what is Labour's tax policy going to be – other than exactly what we have right now?
At some point the state is going to have to start earning more money. They could at least reverse National's tax cuts from the previous administration. It's not enough to save the health of the country. You have to start making it less unequal – and your primary instrument to do that with is tax policy.
It also asks: do the Greens get what policy areas they are really be allowed to effect inside a future coalition?
It's an intelligent, asset class neutral policy that delivers what proponents of a Capital Gains or a Wealth Tax actually want. But like the UBI idea, the CCT originates from outside the gated political narrative … so no-one will touch it.
We got the Alliance to adopt it in the early '90s – I attended some of those meetings and voted for it. Your confidence that Labour will go for it seems misplaced, however, due to ongoing neoliberal hegemony. They would only adopt it if they wanted to campaign on the basis of being genuinely progressive. I doubt there's anyone left alive who can recall Labour being that honest…
Yes. TOP actually stumbled on a magic combination, a UBI, CCT and FTT (a bunch of TLA's if there ever was) … but it was not just the merit of each one that fascinated me, but how they all worked together to deliver more than the sum of the parts.
I was never so much interested in the party for it's own sake, but in it's interesting policies. The Greens and Labour have a lot of objectives in common with TOP, and often come very close to nailing it (the Green's GMI and Labour's now dead CGT are good examples).
Dennis is right though, the political trauma of the 80’s seems to have permanently disabled Labour’s ability to try anything new. It’s not so much they’re locked into neo-liberalism, it’s they deeply fear anyone who looks like another Douglas with fancy ideas.
I don't think TOP's tax proposals are really what proponents of CGTs or wealth taxes actually want. Advocates of CGTs want to exclude family homes whereas TOP wants to bring them into the tax net. Wealth tax advocates want to tax wealth (however it is defined) whereas TOP is happy to see only the return on wealth taxed, but subject to the proviso that, where that return is deemed inadequate, it will impute an adequate return and tax that.
Your claim that the state must at some point earn more money is still uterly false.
The reserve bank still issues all the tickets (on behalf of the government). In the same way the trains have temporarily stopped collecting tickets. Does that in any way threaten their ability to issue tickets? Obviously not.
Capacity, yes meaningless (there is no impact despite rhetoric). Impacts on the real economy on the other hand are obviously worth discussing.
Btw I completely agree here the goegraphy of New Zealand is different to other places. But then not without reason I have described your rhetorical style as stream on non-sequeiter.
I know you don't make links in your thinking, so I'll help you out.
My first mention was of New Zealand, and an implication that there might be limits at some point to tax income and public debt. Treasury thinking from June last year was that there are three areas to consider.
First, the debt sustainability approach. This considers the level of debt above which the government would simply be insolvent. That is because the interest expenses on the debt would be so large that the government’s primary fiscal balance (that is, revenue less non-interest expenditure) could not be sufficient.
Second, the market access perspective. This considers the level of debt such that beyond it, creditors are no longer willing to lend on reasonable terms. Market confidence is lost, and governments cannot roll-over debt.
The third approach is to consider the level of public debt beyond which there are likely to be adverse consequences for living standards and economic welfare.
I have a little suspicion that their longer term thinking hasn't yet caught up with events, other than roll out another budget.
My second mention was that of the United States, and they have plenty of commentary on the effects of excessive public debt here from the Congressional Budget Office.
And my third one was Newfoundland, which caught my eye recently. Though brewing for a while, Covid-19 and the oil crisis makes it all a bit tight, so the Federal government has had to step in:
Unfortunately this is a highly slippery area of economic theory and government economic policy.
The simple story is that it does make a difference if your state operates its own central bank which issues its currency, floats its currency and almost exclusively issues debt in its own currency (like New Zealand, but not all countries, do). In this case the government can always make payments by marking up bank accounts inside the countries inter-bank accounts which its central bank operates. There are of course many ways that these funds are put into this set of accounts, the key point is that the central bank is a monopoly issuer of the currency and is in fact the only place this form of money originated. Obviously and as I described, if you issue the tickets you can't run out just because you didn't clip any recently. These are just fundamental institutional realities, but understanding these clears up a lot of confusion.
By contrast you raised an example of the geographic area called Newfoundland. Now obviously as a Canadian province it doesn't issue its own currency via its own central bank. Unsurprisingly (once you understand the institutions) it needs to negotiate help with its limited budget with the overarching federal government of Canada. The fact that Newfoundland on the other hand is a similar size and population to New Zealand is not really relevant here, what is important is that it remains on good terms with the institutions which facilitate its spending, at least to the extent it doesn't raise that in local taxation (and things like mining revenues, etc…).
A similar (but subtly different) relationship exists between Eurozone states and the ECB (and the parts of the EU bureaucracy which govern the ECB) in order to facilitate Eurozone states spending. This is public enough its possible to observe the current declarations that Eurozone states are allowed to spend as much as they need without limits (at least in the short term) to get through the Covid-19 crisis. At other times the relationship has been different with states told to implement reforms to target <60% debt to GDP ratios or <3% of GDP government deficits. It should be clear enough from the history of such events who holds the purse strings and that this is different between Eurozone countries and non-Eurozone countries.
Another similar (but subtly different) relationship exists between the Auckland council and the government of New Zealand in that some of the funding for large scale projects is provided by the central government. If the Auckland council wants to make serious progress on its light rail proposal its going to require a funding proposal to traverse cabinet.
What should be clear is that these relationships is that one of the sides has a budget constraint and must negotiate with the other to overcome it, while the other side isn't negotiating with any party to facilitate its spending, it just decides broadly (and in practice subject to its forecasts being any good) what to spend and that then goes ahead.
Now onto the treasury discussion.
First its worth pointing out how treasury considers its role.
"The level and the exact specification of the debt anchor has changed quite frequently. These changes reflect different economic circumstances and policy preferences and each successive government has set its own fiscal strategy, creating strong political commitment to the overarching framework. " – Makhlouf
"I want to use this lecture to lay out how the Treasury has thought about prudent debt and the assumptions and judgments behind our advice. These are rightfully matters for public debate and should not been seen as merely technocratic questions." – Makhlouf
What should be clear here is that Treasury sees the decision of an appropriate budget and public debt levels to be a decision at the discretion of the government and legitimately influenced by public debate. In fact it would seem to be treasuries own advice that the government first consider its policy objectives and secondarily consider how these influence its budget and long term what it should set its public debt targets to be. Where as what you seem to be suggesting is that the Green parties proposed policy would shift the Labour parties pre-conceived long term budget targets (because tax changes will be politically unmanageable) and so should be discarded. Clearly by treasury standards it would be more than reasonable for the implementation of the Green's policy proposals to influence the long term debt targets the government sets itself anyway.
Now moving onto the slippery slope.
"The result of debt reaching the levels envisaged by either the debt sustainability or the market access approach, is a debt crisis. From there, governments face three unpalatable choices. They can default on their debt. They can make drastic adjustments to spending and taxation to reduce debt. Or, in states with sovereign monetary policy and debt issued in their own currency, they can stimulate inflation to devalue their debt. The effect of any of these policies would be devastating for living standards." – Makhlouf
So we can start with the worst case scenario. It turns out as a country New Zealand has recently entered it with the implementation from this year of QE. Supposedly this will devalue the debt by stimulating inflation (and additionally driving interest rates up with a likely flight from public debt). However as it turns out not to be an effective way of stimulating inflation, or any of the other harms cited. Well New Zealand has just started so we might consider countries which have been doing this for a while then. The US, UK and among other countries have been doing this for about 10 years or more with none of the harms occurring. Probably the worst case is Japan with 20+ years of this policy. In fact virtually the opposite effects are evident than the effects predicted. Now I don't know how you feel about a theory which gives you completely the wrong conclusions, but I don't have much use for them.
Drilling down a bit into how these conclusions are drawn its actually fairly clear why the modeled conclusions are next to useless. This follows from the construction which wants to draw conclusions about long term debt levels and so only considers projections of the economy to equilibrium (long run) states. You should note that an equilibrium state is by definition one where the economy is fully employed so the rather heroic assumption is made that the economy automatically corrects itself. One of the most destructive consequences of the equilibrium modeling assumption is that such a state is not one an economy can actually reach (equilibrium is a state the economy supposedly settles in in the absence of any external events, like new technology, actually basically anything can be an external event) so it becomes impossible to validate your modeling assumptions. But why did I raise this?
"This highlights that the fundamental challenge is one of scarcity. It is a basic point, but one worth reiterating. Increases in debt cannot be used to fund new spending without trade-offs in the rest of the economy. I emphasise this, in part, because of another strain of thinking gaining increasing prominence in the United States: Modern Monetary Theory.
The central proposition of its advocates is that a state that can print its own money cannot go bankrupt and therefore debt should not be a constraint on public spending. The first part of that statement is, in a technical sense, true. But the second part is missing an important part of the story: productive investment requires the ‘real resources’ of the economy, workers, machines, land. Money creation or new government bond issues do not automatically create real resources. When the economy is near capacity, as New Zealand’s is today, more of these resources being used by government means less being used by the private sector in the short term, and more inflationary pressure across the whole economy. If infrastructure investment is of high quality, it may increase the supply potential of the economy and increase overall productivity but only in the longer term. There is no free lunch: we will always face trade-offs." – Makhlouf
So here we can see how the overall argument influences things and it just leads towards shutting down the debate. In fact the MMT literature is very focused on an economies real resource constraints because this is central to its own model for inflation. That includes the claim that increased spending on an economy which is fully utilized may be a cause of inflation. But we are not considering a New Zealand economy which is highly utilized at present and even when this Treasury presentation was made its highly debatable that the government was facing an inflationary spending constraint (e.g that there was a visible up-tick in the New Zealand inflation rate).
Anyway as I said its a slippery area and seems to have drawn you into some miss-leading claims that New Zealand is likely to face significant public spending constraints while the country is simultaneously (and quite obviously) operating with an elevated unemployment rate and below recent capacity utilization rates. On the other hand I do believe Treasury has a better feel for which way the wind is presently blowing and so won't be releasing anything similar to this discussion for a year or maybe ten.
It's not particular to QE (though this can be part of the accounting gymnastics via which a central bank ends up buying its own governments debt). Virtually all government spending involves a transfer of funds into the account of a government payees bank (and ultimately a payees bank account) and this happens in the accounts administered by the central bank.
Once you understand this its pretty obvious that "all tax levels are meaningless to the government's capacity" to spend. The impacts of that spending on the economy are what should be considered.
Actually what I said describes virtually all New Zealand government payments. That applies if there is some QE in the mix or not or even if there is no debt matching going on (e.g the RBNZ runs a zero interest rate more permanently).
After reading you should understand why excluding any of supermarkets, pharmacies or fuel sellers from essential lockdown services could easily have lead to massive inflation in New Zealand (regardless of whatever was going on with monetary or fiscal policy).
If now is not the time for using some of the enormous political capital that Labour (read: Ardern) has accumulated and campaign on a progressive and transformative policy platform then when is the time?
Is Labour going to be a chassis whilst blaming a minor and junior coalition partner for being a handbrake on all of its ‘aspirations’. When does a “nuclear moment” change into a “nuclear decade”?
Although there will be more crises in future, I won’t want to vote for a party (read: leader) that is good in crisis management and communication only!
Be imaginative, be bold, there is no try, there is no ”let’s do this”. Do, or do not, and be damned in the history books.
What do you think, Ad, is this ‘advanced baiting’?
Labour is the party of great intentions. Its MPs spend their years in opposition claiming that National is destroying our country through its neo-liberal policies. Then in government Labour do nothing transformational and continue BAU.
Labour will never be more popular than they are now. Now is the time to reform our economy and end poverty. If Labour do not adopt the Green policy, or at least a version of it, then what is the point of supporting them?
and the effect of Green’s policy throws a bone to the socialist left within the Greens to keep them above 5%.
Or are they hoping to attract Left-leaning, Green-friendly Labour voters … that slice of the electorate that – despite identifying most strongly with Labour – continually voted Green throughout the Key years, swung back to Labour in the midst of Jacindamania in 2017 and then further pulled back to Labour by the Govt's handling of COVID-19.
I think our chums in the Metro Woke Hipster / Ageing Hippie Party are hoping to make inroads into Left-Labour … the Left-Greens already being onboard.
Probably a correct diagnosis of the intent of the Metro Woke Hipster segment. On behalf of the Ageing Hippie faction, I'll just do an 🙄. Oh for a little sophisticated political strategising to be injected into that mix, for a change. Okay, maybe the election after next…
LOL … I've always considered you a leading spiritual force in the Ageing Hippie faction of the Green Party, Dennis … indeed longtime organiser of the dominant Grateful Dead tendency within that faction, clashing as you so often have with your strategically outwitted Loving Spoonful & JeffersonAirplane rivals. Dreadful bitter business … and yet in its own way groovy.
I was a LS fan back in '66 but not since. The airplane has stood the test of time, and I still play a selection of favourites by them at least a few times each year. Blows Against the Empire in which they relabelled themselves starship, was an all-time classic – not just the music, but their political stance as well. By the mid-'70s they had degenerated into commercial crap.
I've never actually self-identified as deadhead, but GD music has been good to me since '72 (up until then too weird to my Keith Richards taste). But Quicksilver & Moody Blues were always the best hippie bands…
"If now is not the time for using some of the enormous political capital that Labour (read: Ardern) has accumulated and campaign on a progressive and transformative policy platform then when is the time?"
Exactery. And so far, despite some of the positive stuff Labour have achieved, there are stuff things that've caused me to jump ship to the Greens after a lifetime.
3 Tier dirty filthy bennies; the shameful treatment of some immigrants; kicking the can down the road on so many things (PSB included); public service reform.
edit
I know you feel strongly OwT but please save your diatribes for later after Labour is back in, though positively backing Greens. NZs are backsliding animals like Toad) and you are wise Badger who can see things pretty clearly and in a way that leads to sensible action. (I love the BBC audio version of Wind in the Willows with all those great actors.)
Badger knew of a secret entrance to Toad Hall, information entrusted to him by Toad's father, not to be disclosed to Toad till the time of necessity. Now is not yet that time. So don't go hard, the poor leftie-type things are under all sorts of pressure in Parliament (Toad Hall infested with weasels).
Remember that Roger Douglas went around giving lectures at good fees to those who wanted to sweep pesky considerations for the ordinary people aside – Tony Blair also. And they have won a huge following.
If our dormice have been able to wake up at Alice's table, it's getting us a part of a magical, clever fable. Keep the story going, it might turn out to have a happy ending. Hey, there goes the White Rabbit muttering about time, and being late!
(For people who believe in magical endings and need both a laugh and a fresh perspective apart from the chaotic grim fairy tales abounding, see the parallels with our polity and Dodson's treacle pit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dormouse)
I tempted to go with another 'diatribe' explaining the reasons for feeling so "strongly" but I'll refrain.
Suffice to say they relate to things such as:
– One's NZ-born toddler God/Guru daughter having to watch her mother being sexually abused by an over-stayer of more than 5 years despite INZ being given the exact location of his whereabouts. Reported more than once by more than one.
– Receiving a selfie of JA and a couple of Chardonnay-sipping ladies (one closely related) at the Martinborough post election shindig at the exact time I was seated with an octogenarian hearing about what happened during partiton, and regularly taking him to hospital after he stopped eating. The reason being the indebtedness and potential loss of land as a result of his family members going through NZ's wonderful tertiary education system and series of ticket clippers at the time.
– It might even be the way I witnessed INZ 'swoops' by people quite happy to have immigrants referred to as "Scum".
(There's a lot more. And it isn't just down to what Helen Clark referred to as a "lack of capacity" in our public service these days.
A real diatribe would take several pages but I think you know what I mean.
Saying there there by me doesn't help. But convince the self-centred to do something right. try, huh i have given up with most – won't be infomed or care. but get labour in or there is no chance, as the wealthy want to live like kings and bugger responsibility to anyone or thing.
"If now is not the time for using some of the enormous political capital that Labour (read: Ardern) has accumulated and campaign on a progressive and transformative policy platform then when is the time?"
With the rate of change increasing over the past couple of decades, H1's incremental pragmatism (or pragmatic incrementalism), steady as she goes approach that worked in the past isn't going to cut it for much longer, and nor are politicians who are happy to just keep kicking the can down the road.
By the way – couldn't agree with you more:
"But also while NZs should be able to return, we also have a moral obligation to people who have built their lives around being in NZ and devoted themselves to working here as good people contributing to the country."
especially since we've turned citizenship itself into just another tradeable commodity – some as you know (Peter Thiel for example) just love collecting passports and those 'rights' that go with them, while not bothering with all those supposed 'responsibilities' we're expected to observe
I’m glad the Prime Minister refused to hand over any sacrificial victims, either by condemning the two women, who were after all grieving for a parent who had just died; or by naming and sacking the hapless civil servant who gave them permission to travel without a Covid-19 test.
Yes, that's the bit. She held her nerve, and if she had sacked people or went public with those women what would the difference be today, nothing. Great decision, excellent leadership.
If Labour stabilises over 50% in the next poll, that view will seem validated. If it continues to be an ebb tide for Labour, will you concede that it's wrong?
Do I really need to explain this to you? A week is a long time in politics (ask Chris Penk, Simon Bridges, or Paula Bennett (next week), for example). Do you really think that the next political poll result will be determined by a single factor of your choice/preference of a media beat up of a few weeks back? If so, you’re reading way too much into polls – go and ask Swordfish – and I have a bridge to sell you. Why on Earth would you ask another commenter to concede when the issue is that they hold an opinion that’s different from yours? Isn’t that what you meant with this:
And yes, to anticipate those who will try to correct me, I do concede that the real/imaginal boundary is a matter of subjective opinion. [my italics]
Well, that just raises the question of other factors that can reasonably be expected to ebb Labour's tide further. None come to mind. I agree that you make a reasonable point about this – but my assumption is only reasonably categorised as naive if there are other such suitable contenders, right? Perhaps you can provide a list of those??
Lack of imagination. Plus who knows what other ‘factors’ will appear over the next little while? Can you predict the future?
but my assumption is only reasonably categorised as naive if there are other such suitable contenders, right?
Nope, wrong premise; see above.
Perhaps you can provide a list of those??
Sorry, can’t do; even though I’ve stopped playing Lotto after the announcement of the Greens’ tax policy I still will not share with you the lucky numbers for the next draws.
We had a government before that did whatever would increase polling – sometimes it worked, but in the end the public decided that ethics and morality did actually have a place in politics, and that polls are not good determinants for the advisability of actions on single issues.
If journalists want to be respected by the public, they must check their facts. The last thing we need is a Crosby-Textor style of divisive, dishonest politics in this election, in the middle of the ravages of a global pandemic. The country deserves better than that.
"Journalists" claim that they screamed pointed to the errors on the border in order to help make NZ safer. And that is nonsensensical.
Obviously anyone corrects a mistake after becoming aware of it. Dunno why you are advocating journalists are wrong to alert people to those mistakes. If the govt were able to rectify the mistakes without the help of journalists, you might have a point. But we live in a reality in which govts usually deny mistakes, right?
I don't disagree with anything the dame wrote, but her glaring omission in failing to acknowledge the role of the health minister indicates she was just trying to do spin to help Labour. Nothing to do with fairness – or social justice!
But journalists didn't just alert to mistakes. They shouted over and over and use National's "shambles" over and over for over a week, long after corrections were made.
I wonder about your reference to the Health Minister. Seems likely that you are doing the Devil's work forMr Woodhouse. Wonder why?
It seems that Woodhouse has a valid basis to call for Clark's resignation – like I wrote yesterday, even someone with average intelligence can get it right 50% of the time. Fairness is all about giving credit where it's due.
In regard to your first paragraph, I think that's fair and I agree with your critique. Some journos do seem to have an anti-govt agenda that warps their judgment.
Don't be silly. It's all about ministerial responsibility and accountability. Look it up on the govt website if you haven't considered that yet. Self-harm.
Minsterial responsibility was never cut and dried. It's fairly easy when the Minister misleads Parliament, or is caught out in some obvious malfeasance.
But operational problems within their Ministry were always less obvious, clearly you can't sack the minister every time some public servant makes any mistake, none of them would last until lunchtime. So there has to be some threshold of mistake that justifies a sacking.
That threshold would ask questions like, is this a systemic problem, has there been a history of this, could have it been reasonably foreseen and has there been an opportunity to fix it, was the mistake reckless or ill-advised?
Now I understand exactly how these quarantine mistakes happened I am satisfied none of these criteria these apply.
"Individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention. Members of cabinet are individually responsible in three main ways:
they are accountable for decisions that they take in relation to their portfolio responsibilities
they are responsible for their own professional and personal conduct
they are responsible for decisions and actions (and the consequences that follow) of individuals and organisations for which they have ministerial responsibility, whether or not they were party to or knew of those actions. This is known as vicarious ministerial responsibility.
Breaches of ministerial responsibility
The Cabinet manual provides some guidance, but ultimately it is for the prime minister to decide, in a broader political as well as a constitutional context, whether a breach of individual ministerial responsibility has occurred and, if so, what the consequences should be.
Grounds for resignation or dismissal include misuse or abuse of the financial supports available to a minister, and misleading the prime minister, one’s cabinet or parliamentary colleagues, or Parliament itself. On some occasions ministers who are the subject of an accusation will stand aside until matters have been investigated. If no serious fault on the part of the minister is established, their cabinet position will be restored.
Vicarious responsibility
Vicarious responsibility is the one aspect of individual ministerial responsibility where the consequences of a breach are most debated. In one view, even where a minister is unaware of an action taken by a subordinate, he or she should resign. The contrary view, held by successive New Zealand governments, is that rectification should be placed ahead of resignation."
Rectification should be placed ahead of resignation.
It's for the PM to decide. She decided for rectification. All the rest is commentary. Time to move on from desiring to examine the entrails which is some people's sole purpose- not for reasons of state but for reasons of political revenge. Motivation is important in this discussion as it informs our choice in the matter.
That's well-reasoned. Just leaves aside the issue of damage to Labour & the PM's reputation for good judgment. Time will tell on that. I do agree that public perceptions of responsibility, accountability & natural justice are irrelevant to how govt operates.
David Clark is an idiot, long before Covid 19. Does no one here remember the string of lies he told about Middlemore way back in 2018/2019, which after many months he admitted his 'errors' (lies or ignorance morelike).
Just do a Google search 'David Clark Middlemore' for the full story.
He is an embarrassment to the government. And why on earth do we now have Megan Woods, the Minister of Housing, fronting Covid 19? Surely that is Clarks job, or just a tacit admission that he is not up to the job. Sack the idiot.
It is my understanding that covid-19 is still largely a health issue – while organisation of quarantine and managed isolation at the border include some health issues, the task mostly requires coordination with transport, airports, planning for accommodation, administration of the process, logistics relating to security and specialist supplies, and communication to travellers. She is not being asked to make or approve Health decisions, but to facilitate implementation of those decisions.
Peter CHCH how come that Health has been the very big winner/most successful of the port folios under the coalition govt if Clark is such bad news. I have outlined now a number of times what has been achieved in health under his watch.
If you list for us all the things that David Clark did along the line and let us know what % of things he got right we can decide whether any credit is due.
Maybe, in itemising all those things he did you could also weight them according to significance. Not significance as determined by public reaction to them and headlines but significance in terms of handling the Covid-19 to best cope with the situation and protect us.
I know you were an early adopter of Chris Trotter's argument that the government had to dump the Health Minister to save itself (this is the same person who argued that Labour was wrong to dump Little for Ardern in 2017).
And you also believe the fallacy that the media alerted the government to failings that saved us all (the media's own spin of their gotcha grab a headline style).
But to adopt the Pete GeorgeJoffre of Verdun approach to defending a position is, while courageous at the risk of heavy casualties, such as perspective and truth.
Think it through.
The government was under pressure to move to Level 1. The DG of Health would have advised to wait another week and (so they could in time) bring in testing to minimise the greater risk applying at Level 1. Cabinet decided to bring it in on June 9 with a days notice before there was capacity to test, and for all we know Clark took Bloomfield's position in Cabinet but was outvoted.
The PM herself has said those two work together and that there was collective responsibility – the whole of Cabinet made the choice.
Re Joffre of Verdun, I did scan the wiki but relevance failed to become apparent. Not sure why you would jump to the conclusion that media reportage of quarantine failures failed to alert the govt. Calling it a fallacy obviously disregards public opinion.
And I rarely adopt Trotter's opinion on anything. I've spent a lifetime figuring stuff out before anyone else, and in this instance I had already got there independently when I reported his view.
As regards your later reasoning, it disregards the relevance of ministerial responsibility but the countering argument you mention has been well made elsewhere already and I accept the PM's advocacy of collective fudging on the basis of realpolilik. 🙄 There is indeed room for diverse views on this situation so I will try to refrain from reiteration of my view!
It is certainly a fallacy to presume a government only learns about something when it can be read by the public in the media or when media ask them questions.
Minister’s often advocate based on their ministry advice but are then outvoted and become part of collective responsibility … cabinet papers when released in x weeks are going to show advice (I would expect that this would have been one rationale for another week at level 2) that bringing in a testing regime would take longer than 1 day (June 8 to June 9).
From memory (not that I was there at the time), the battle of Verdun cost the French 450,000 dead and the Germans 420,000 dead. One shell landed for something smaller than every square metre on that battlefield. It was war specifically to wear down the enemy by attrition. Let's kill more of yours than you kill of ours.
I have walked some of that battlefield and viewed a walled-up part of the French fort Douaumont where after capture by the Germans a 410mm shell penetrated the roof and instantly killed some 700 men.
I was then, and am still sorry, that truth is not the only casualty of war.
As an adolescent I read All Quiet on the Western Front and it spooked the hell out of me. Made me anti-war. Later, in '64, hearing Bob Dylan sing Masters of War got me reinforced on that:
And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I will follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand over your grave
'Til I’m sure that you’re dead
I read the same book, and Archibald Baxter's "We Shall Not Cease" and heard the song "Universal Soldier" by Donovan. "He's here and there, and you and me, and brother can't you see, This is not the way we put an end to war."
Even more incredible is that if we look at the so-called conservative 1960s governments of Keith Holyoake in New Zealand and John F. Kennedy in the US, the wealthy were paying personal tax rates over 50 per cent.
So when we look at the Greens' ‘'far Left’' wealth tax, we have to remember that it is a slightly Left-of-centre party big on the environment and with the Right-wing ‘'realist'’ faction of the party firmly in control.
I feel Love, thank you for posting that. Yes, I think people have been forgetting to be kind to each other. Fear is behind Duncan Garner's plea for the border to be closed to returnees. Also some do not want to share the safe places on the lifeboat we have become.
Most are anxious that our systems could be overwhelmed, but others are still wanting even more people allowed in. So those groups try to justify their position about our borders with cries of "Shut them" or "Open them"
Muller is saying we "won't survive without open borders, our GDP will be wrecked." The emphasis is for returnees who bring cash along with the virus. He does not say how much it would cost the country if cases slipped through with the students or immigrant workers, instead the short term gains are lauded.
Muller and c/o would create jobs with private groups doing the necessary isolation work. There is no mention of training or oversight though, the very things they are rumbling about now. "But they would do it better" Really?? So much unjustified hubris.
Over a million New Zealanders are learning working or living overseas. Those who are working for affected entities, those afraid of changing health circumstances, and those needing to complete contracts or sell possessions are not able to "jump the first flight out". Some had return flights which were postponed or cancelled,
The returnees have come from frightening situations, and often have had their lives and plans wrecked, we need to be ready for thousands of these covid refugees.
Muller has raised an important dilemma. Our border restrictions are simultaneously too weak and too strong. Too weak, because recent issues suggest that getting them 100% perfectly secure from COVID-19 intrusions is difficult. Too strong, because they harm the economy by stopping people coming here, and by putting those who do in a business-unfriendly two-week quarantine.
How do we square the circle and reconcile these contradictions – something that is 100% safe and also lets the economy roar into action? I’d humbly put forward a suggestion that I think cracks it:
We should have completely unrestricted borders for homeless people who don’t actually exist. Totally safe – because they don’t exist. But great for the economy too – imagine all the people who could be employed trying to find them. As Michael ('Aristotle') Woodhouse would say – "no evidence of existence is not proof of non-existence" – so it’s a never-ending task. Plenty of opportunity for thrusting entrepreneurs in this scenario. I will be putting this idea forward to Todd for his masterful consideration.
Business unfriendly? I think you mean, massive business opportunity. A captive market fergawdsake. Do they want government to gut and fillet the fish for them as well?
Todd Mullers chant that borders must open any other option is untenable is stupid we don't have the capacity in our health system if it got out of control.
Looking at the Canterbury rebuild and repairs Nationals handling of this disaster now being exposed that the $550 million repairs of dodgy repairs is set to rise into $billions of dollars as most of the repairs were substandard on par with the leaky buildings $ 35 billion cost.
National cut health spending by 20% over 9 years leaving our health system in a very bad condition unable to cope with a small outbreak.
Luckily our borders were shut ,but on every measure our hospital system has been run down.Buildings in a very poor state, massive shortages of experienced professionals massive shortages of nursing staff.filthy dirty hospitals cleaned by poorly trained minimum wage casual workers who don't care about cleaning wards properly.
Muller if you want to open the border's put your money where your mouth is $ billions need to be spent on just the buildings let alone staffing to cope with a worst case scenario.
This would take at least 4 years of a massive increase in health funding to cope with any moderate outbreak.
Our countries ability to cope is at the bottom of the OECD.
Leaving aside the confused calendar (tomorrow *is* next month), it reads like a defensive child, responding to a telling-off. Short and sullen.
It is a statement from the opposition on policy at the border, without any mention of National's policy at the border. Who is Muller aiming this at? Probably his own caucus ("look, I'm doing something"). But really it just comes across as more digging.
As the wannabe next PM, why doesn’t he front up with his answers? We need to know so that New Zealanders have confidence in electing the right people to progressively and safely open the border and grow the economy.
Muller fails to understand that talking an economy down is a self fulfilling prophecy.His diatribe that the only answer for the economy of NZ inc, is the opening of the borders seems to be at odds with both public opinion,and economic statistics (and more a message from his sponsers).
To enable a recovery,people need confidence ie stability for decision making such as spending or investment,not an enhanced set of risks.
Cordon sanitaire for NZ is working,relaxation of controls overseas has seen that too early gets recurrence,and return to lockdown.
to have confidence we need to ask the right questions.
The question of predicting the disease trajectory is less important than questions related to what’s necessary to 1) cause an exponential decrease rather than increase in new infections and 2) cause this decrease to occur as quickly as possible.
Certainly some strange goings on in National re the border, Garner's piece at 1 above, and Kirk Hope's (Business NZ) rant, then this. Something's cooking
I imagine Matthew Hooton is behind this current nonsense. It is exactly how he operated when he was part of the RNZ Monday morning political bash with Kathryn Ryan. He was forever making absurd claims without a skerrick of evidence to back them up. Even Ryan found some of them sufficiently unpalatable to give him a scolding – not that he ever took any notice.
You're now in the blacklist, which means that your comments won't show in the front end until you respond to moderation. Please read my comment above, follow the link and respond, thanks. It's not a big deal, you just have to pay attention to moderation and respond and then things will get sorted out.
The relevant ideology of the partisans seems to be that one must attempt to de-platform opponents at all times (rather than working together for the common good). Using that logic, they would have opposed the Churchill/Stalin summits that produced the Allied victory over Hitler in WWII.
So when you get spokespeople for local islamic folk wanting to understand the motives of the shooter, they dig in and resist. Why give him a platform? What they don't say to those folk is "What part of white supremacy do you not already understand?" Implying that someone is a slow learner is too non-pc for the de-platformers…
I'd say let him have his platform but not in person on video as that will readily be misused. Let his words be reported in the third person, so that his explanations for his actions are known, but without the rhetoric and the inflammatory content.
Let it be a dispassionate reporting, as an historian would write commentary upon a Mussolini speech, or a psychologist would review in case notes of a serial killer, or a linguistics expert might examine in a study of the language of hate.
Documents available to those who have a proper interest in the matter, restricted upon sufficient grounds.
But then I'm not a victim or related to his victims, nor am I of the religion or ethnic group related to his victims. I might think differently, then.
One thing I'm sure we would agree on, is that we don't want the words and views, especially a video, of a hateful and evil killer to cause more harm in our community.
I like that approach. Get a professor of sociology to provide an expert analysis and use that to inform those who seek an explanation for the massacre. See if the result satisfies their interest – or do they want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth instead? Anyway, probably best to restrict access to the victims, eh?
Your final sentence is possible to be read to read two diametrically opposed things. 🙂 Whichever you meant, I do believe that the victims should be consulted, and whatever evidence of the killer's motives, explanations and justifications be treated with as much care as is possible.
At the the time I accepted the censorship was probably necessary in the immediate aftermath of the event, but I recall saying that waiting for a Royal Commission to answer the obvious questions was a reasonable compromise.
I still think this is necessary. I don't need to hear from the perpetrator directly, but there remain open questions about his travels, connections and motives that should be made public. The fact that the authorities seem deeply reluctant to be transparent on this only sharpens my doubts.
The left would have no problem with it. You think a government with a top rate of tax at 33 cents, not CGT, no wealth tax, no estate tax is left wing. Why?
There is no reason to think a openly right wing government would rush this out with full disclosure.
MH to JS; "we're friends now", at the close of the interview. So farmers using estimates for the purpose of scaremongering encounter the facts from James, and lose. Good to hear that the people in local communities involved in forestry are keen to make the shift to native forests instead of pine.
They may just have been trying to help the fish, or give kayakers a decent course to practice on, or a number of really thoughtful reasons. I wonder what their defence will be? Perhaps they expect a huge amount of rain and don't want a collapse as elsewhere recently in the world. Don&#Can’t remember just where but I read about dams collapsing FTTT, it's not rare enough to be sanguine about it.
It's not fair on the poor to take away their incentive to better themselves by selling cheaply, when you can nurture their growth to selfimprovement by screwing them into the ground and kicking them in the face. It's what jesus would want.
You sound sort of muddy yourself Gabby perhaps with imprints of hobnail boots in your cheeks. But leave Jesus out of that, his name gets besmirched by the smirking tv evangelists, personality cults and prosperity churches without having it popped in to every discourse on a Godwin basis.
We run a fuel card with discount off the national price and the provider sends notification of any price movement 3 or 4 days before. Got one for a price increase of 3-4c applied yesterday, but nothing yet for tomorrow or Monday.
Bit cynical making a fuss about it in the media when the price has already gone up.
The country's pork sector says it is facing "severe staff shortages" with skilled migrant workers unable to enter the country and those already here in danger of not having their visas renewed.
The industry is calling on the Government to urgently review its policies around who it lets into the country in the wake of COVID-19.
Pigs are considered as important hosts or “mixing vessels” for the generation of pandemic influenza viruses. Systematic surveillance of influenza viruses in pigs is essential for early warning and preparedness for the next potential pandemic. Here, we report on an influenza virus surveillance of pigs from 2011 to 2018 in China, and identify a recently emerged genotype 4 (G4) reassortant Eurasian avian-like (EA) H1N1 virus, which bears 2009 pandemic (pdm/09) and triple-reassortant (TR)-derived internal genes and has been predominant in swine populations since 2016. Similar to pdm/09 virus, G4 viruses bind to human-type receptors, produce much higher progeny virus in human airway epithelial cells, and show efficient infectivity and aerosol transmission in ferrets. Moreover, low antigenic cross-reactivity of human influenza vaccine strains with G4 reassortant EA H1N1 virus indicates that preexisting population immunity does not provide protection against G4 viruses. Further serological surveillance among occupational exposure population showed that 10.4% (35/338) of swine workers were positive for G4 EA H1N1 virus, especially for participants 18 y to 35 y old, who had 20.5%
… new flu strain that has been identified in China is similar to 2009 swine flu, but with some new changes.
It emerged recently and is carried by pigs, but can infect humans, they say. The researchers are concerned that it could mutate further so that it can spread easily from person to person, and trigger a global outbreak. While it is not an immediate problem, they say, it has "all the hallmarks" of being highly adapted to infect humans and needs close monitoring.
Now now. Being mean to China like that creates a very real danger some left-winger will call you racist. It's what they do. Remember you don't have to actually be racist to be racist, you just have to trigger the paranoia by means of creating a subjective impression in their minds. Even commenting on the weather could do it. The world is an extremely dangerous place! 🥶
If feeding anti-biotics to pigs, allowing live markets with animals in cages cheek by jowl does not cause us a hospital crisis with super bugs there is the pandemic, next is the matter of hormones into American livestock and the promotion of the burden of that and Big Pharma in FTA around the world …
Not again. The main dairy farm job site shows some 720 jobs with around 1900 looking for work(okay that 1900 needs to be culled for the ineligible) and yes it is pigs but there must be some transferable skills and we have a lot of unemployed neets that are being trained. So why are the media giving this a beat up?
The owners need to get onto plan B
– updating and brushing up their employer CV
-making sure they have the right skills, wages and background conditions including further training and skills updating being offered to employees.
-having references that show they don't take drugs or indulge in sackable offences towards their employees like bullying and sexism.
-using their local networks to score an employee
-doing sufficent training and forward planning to put resilience into the industry so the issue does not reoccur.
Stop whinging and seeking special treatment as the market will provide.
Are you aware that todays report highlighted the reason for the fuck up. It was an IT mistake of not putting the NIH number on one of the two forms required so they couldn't be cross referenced. If every Minister resigned after an IT fuck up everybody in the country would have had a turn at being a Minister.
Typical IT bullshit, over-promising and under delivering. the industry runs on more bullshit than Fonterra.
Question for past/current 'leading lights' in the National party: If 'your team' had been in charge during this pandemic, and your efforts had contributed to NZ's relatively good Covid-19 health outcomes (~1,530 cases; 22 deaths; at level 1 for weeks with no evidence of community transmission), would you be relieved and pleased? That's how I feel.
The reality is our Wai is life so conservating the use of Wai is the way of the future so we don't use it all and leave nothing for our wildlifes environment.
Having a sestanable fishery is of utmost importance for our future generations.
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Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
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Duncan Garner advocating for something utterly illegal and morally wrong. No-one can have any confidence in his judgement.
Where do I start? It's illegal for a kickoff, for a second his transparent little 'just for three months' arse cover is an arbitrary nonsense with no justification whatsoever.
It's also deeply ignorant; there are over 1m kiwis living overseas. Many still retain family and business connections in NZ, many effectively spend their income earned overseas back in NZ at some point. Most will have gained skills and experience that they could never have attained by staying home; it's certainly true in my own case. Most plan to return home at some time in the future.
As for his bullshit argument that we should have come home already, it overlooks the obvious point that if 1m kiwis had all returned before the March 24 cutoff the country could never have coped, and certainly COVID19 would have slipped through en-mass. Far better we return at a manageable rate over a period of the next year or so.
But the decision to return is rarely as clear cut as he pretends it it. In our case we've been caught between circumstances which mean that we lose out if I return, or if I don't. In normal circumstances right now I'd be back in NZ looking after important family and personal matters, but if I did, I would not be able to return to Australia as they are not allowing Kiwis to enter on the usual SCV444 unless they have been resident in Australia for more than 10 years, which I'm just shy of. That would have other bad consequences right now.
Not to mention the two weeks in quarantine at both ends. (Which are of course vital to do properly, but a real consideration nonetheless.)
There will be tens of thousands of people in similar situations, caught between commitments overseas and back home, and no easy way to manage both at the same time. For us the decision has been to sit tight in Brisbane for the time being, but it's not one we took lightly. Even if compared to many people my problem is a pretty small one, each morning I wake up it's the first thing I worry about.
Over time it will all sort itself out, but idiots like Garner beating up click bait like this is irksome and irresponsible. We all have enough uncertainty in our lives right now without this crap added to the pile.
Duncan Garner seems to write in the same manner he thinks and speaks, with supreme confidence in his utterings and without regard for context or nuance.
Any rational person reading that article, will find many holes in his argument, and will discount it.
(Didn't realise you were in Brisbane, hope you and your family are well there. I would assume that there are many in your position of not having a clear choice or options available.)
Yeah the "three months" jarred me too, what does that even mean? Why 3 months? Just nonsense. Has any country in the world ever stopped its own citizens entering their own country? What an idiot.
I'm the idiot who invested in a small business here late last year. Having reached the age where one's CV automatically goes into the 'round universal filing unit', we put put a lump of cash into an opportunity here, with the long term intention of bringing it back to NZ if it went well.
Globally there are millions of people with similar stories, all of them complicated, messy and unique to their circumstances. COVID 19 has pulled the rug out from the assumption of freedom of travel that was part of our lives. We aren't complaining about that, we understand the ground has shifted for everyone and we have to take our chances along with everyone else. But there will be kiwis who are going to have to return, decisions they made three months ago to stay overseas may not always work out for any number of reasons.
What I would advocate for is a more stringent process of return, including a booking system that required two tests before you get on the plane, and controlled the rate at which people returned to ensure the system at the NZ end was never overwhelmed.
I am enormously proud of what NZ has achieved in controlling this demon virus, and I'd doing anything necessary to ensure if I came home I did it as safely as possible. I think most ex-pats would feel much the same.
Your situation and age gives breadth to your innate wisdom Redlogix. I think what you say about handling the borders is right.
But also while NZs should be able to return, we also have a moral obligation to people who have built their lives around being in NZ and devoted themselves to working here as good people contributing to the country. So can you work those into at least a quota to start with if they can tick a number of criteria, or can make a very special case? And then there are the legal partners of NZs who would be immigrants hoping to become residents alongside their husband/wife.
It needs to be viewed like some illnesses are, which are hard to diagnose. There is a list of affects and if you have over 6 say, then you are regarded as having the…..syndrome; that applies to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, for example. So immigrants with ticks in particular boxes rise to the top. That will give them guidance on what to expect. Immigration seems to have been affected by Power Agency Syndrome that performs to government targets without let or hindrance in their manner, free to make decisions and eye Ministers with weary detachment. Or so it seems to this citizen.
You are good on the planning, engineering side. It would be good if we in NZ could tap into those skills and attributes.
You touch on an important aspect of COVID 19. It's got far more in common with a disease like polio than influenza in that while many people will recover, it looks like there will be many long term health consequences for them.
And for nations this could have huge impacts on their health systems.
But otherwise thanks for the encouragement; just lately it feels like every decision we make with the best information we have available at the time, comes undone for reasons we could never have guessed. And that will be the case for so many others as well.
And something Garner in his blithering bombast has absolutely NFC about.
I too think a booking system and controlling the rate of return would be a good idea. As it seems at the moment airlines can just decide to fly here with passengers (American airlines are returning in Oct) to heck with how much quarantine we have available.
I was interested in RL saying that Australia have a border ban on some visa's unless you have been permanently resident for 10 years. We have permanent residents in name only (PRINO?) who haven't lived here for years but as far as I know we have no filter on the border so we only let in those who have been actually resident and working here. ( habitually resident)
We also have dual passports holders (think Peter Thiel and some of the chinese and american billionaires) who are citizens in name only (CINO). Their only interest in NZ is what they can grab out of it or as a bolthole and frankly public opinion would probably be quite happy leaving them well down the queue but I don't know how you do that.
I'd also suspend then kill the business investment category . We give you a passport and the ability to buy any distressed assets for sale? We must be nuts – and it certainly won't help asset values to drop to a level that are affordable by those within the local economy – as the bolt hole premium is removed. Economists have also gone back and found that it doesn't do a thing for our economy. Most put the money on a deposit and then take it out of the country when the time is up. Where are the factories ??? non existent
I'd also chop issuing any further visas under the high wage cutoff. If you are here and working that's fine but we will get a good number of the well qualified back ( they are already turning up in my 'hood) who may simply want their kids to live in a covid free environment.
As to those who have been here for a number of years on a succession of limited or short term visas. or who were employer sponsored. Don't vote for the Nacts. We had this problem in 2008 when companies dodged training people in favour of employing temporary visa workers some of whom had been here for 5-8 years. These have been crack cocaine for employers in keeping wages down and when employer sponsored are the source of a number of scams and outright fraud. I have personal sympathy for a lot of them and they need a nuanced response but they are in a scarce job market and if employer sponsored have jumped any queue. Short term visa's and youth visas 1-2 years should probably expect to go – with perhaps a a sliding scale that matches those with permanent residence
I expect most people think that partners get the same consideration as the primary holder.
Daleks exterminate hostile government agencies! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BsWzmq0OCY Seriously!
Or either the Daleks or they'll wipe us out eventually despite Spike Millgan's worst efforts. (Note: Has references to curry and Pakistani.)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0n88tZQc4Q
Sorry I don't get the point there. I don't watch you tube vids – security setting.
Given the number of countries one can buy a drivers licence, I wouldn't be putting too much reliance on tests prior to boarding.
The politics of this position the same day that Muller say’s that border restrictions are “untenable” are a bit bizarre.
Either Garner is a complete loose cannon muppet who isn’t influenced by anyone bar himself, or there’s some very contradictory messaging coming out of the National Party.
The problem for National is that their instinctive desire to ensure both public safety AND a return to business as usual are in direct conflict with each other.
Neither ambition is not necessarily a bad thing, but right now COVID means they cannot have both at the same time. Until they're willing to have an honest conversation on this, expect more talking out of both sides of the mouth.
The world is now 6 months into the pandemic and what do virologists, infectious disease, immunologist and respiratory doctors know to treat and prevent the pandemic?
Muller cannot have it both ways (closed border and open border for business) because that is the way it is, to think otherwise is being in denial. Someone needs to tell him that the pandemic has not yet reached its peak.
I think the Nats are positioning them selves to advocate taxpayer paid but employer privatised and supervised quarantine. Preferably down on the farm milking them cows…
There are still people who have been unable to find flights back to New Zealand. There will also be others who need to stay overseas for current commitments but will want to travel back in the next few months or years. Does Garner think that the thousands who have returned in the last few weeks could have found transport between the advisory to return and our own lockdown?
There is so much to think about when entering and exiting the country. When it comes to going for a short trip overseas obtaining health insurance for Covid-19 is unlikely and catching the virus is likely. If the purpose of a trip is to relax this is going to be a stretch.
I totally get that for political reasons the Greens proposal for a wealth tax is dead on arrival.
Labour head and PM Jacinda Ardern signalled yesterday that her party is not interested in it. This stands to Wayne's point yesterday that tax policy will remain in the hands of the majority coalition partner, both now and in the future.
Also of course the Tax Working Group already considered a wealth tax and opposed it.
And Ardern also came out last year saying that she would never, ever support a capital gains tax as long as she was an MP.
So it's not like they were unclear on the matter.
But the effect of Ardern’s clarification simply reassures the 9% of New Zealand voters who turn on a dime, and the effect of Green’s policy throws a bone to the socialist left within the Greens to keep them above 5%.
But it does ask: what is Labour's tax policy going to be – other than exactly what we have right now?
At some point the state is going to have to start earning more money. They could at least reverse National's tax cuts from the previous administration. It's not enough to save the health of the country. You have to start making it less unequal – and your primary instrument to do that with is tax policy.
It also asks: do the Greens get what policy areas they are really be allowed to effect inside a future coalition?
what is Labour's tax policy going to be
Just to remind you that TOP put up the correct answer, the CCT.
It's an intelligent, asset class neutral policy that delivers what proponents of a Capital Gains or a Wealth Tax actually want. But like the UBI idea, the CCT originates from outside the gated political narrative … so no-one will touch it.
FTT
We got the Alliance to adopt it in the early '90s – I attended some of those meetings and voted for it. Your confidence that Labour will go for it seems misplaced, however, due to ongoing neoliberal hegemony. They would only adopt it if they wanted to campaign on the basis of being genuinely progressive. I doubt there's anyone left alive who can recall Labour being that honest…
Yes. TOP actually stumbled on a magic combination, a UBI, CCT and FTT (a bunch of TLA's if there ever was) … but it was not just the merit of each one that fascinated me, but how they all worked together to deliver more than the sum of the parts.
I was never so much interested in the party for it's own sake, but in it's interesting policies. The Greens and Labour have a lot of objectives in common with TOP, and often come very close to nailing it (the Green's GMI and Labour's now dead CGT are good examples).
Dennis is right though, the political trauma of the 80’s seems to have permanently disabled Labour’s ability to try anything new. It’s not so much they’re locked into neo-liberalism, it’s they deeply fear anyone who looks like another Douglas with fancy ideas.
I don't think TOP's tax proposals are really what proponents of CGTs or wealth taxes actually want. Advocates of CGTs want to exclude family homes whereas TOP wants to bring them into the tax net. Wealth tax advocates want to tax wealth (however it is defined) whereas TOP is happy to see only the return on wealth taxed, but subject to the proviso that, where that return is deemed inadequate, it will impute an adequate return and tax that.
Your claim that the state must at some point earn more money is still uterly false.
The reserve bank still issues all the tickets (on behalf of the government). In the same way the trains have temporarily stopped collecting tickets. Does that in any way threaten their ability to issue tickets? Obviously not.
So all tax levels are meaningless to the government's capacity?
We're not the US.
And luckily we're not Newfoundland either.
Capacity, yes meaningless (there is no impact despite rhetoric). Impacts on the real economy on the other hand are obviously worth discussing.
Btw I completely agree here the goegraphy of New Zealand is different to other places. But then not without reason I have described your rhetorical style as stream on non-sequeiter.
*geography
*stream of non-sequeiter
It's actually "non sequitur".
I know you don't make links in your thinking, so I'll help you out.
My first mention was of New Zealand, and an implication that there might be limits at some point to tax income and public debt. Treasury thinking from June last year was that there are three areas to consider.
First, the debt sustainability approach. This considers the level of debt above which the government would simply be insolvent. That is because the interest expenses on the debt would be so large that the government’s primary fiscal balance (that is, revenue less non-interest expenditure) could not be sufficient.
Second, the market access perspective. This considers the level of debt such that beyond it, creditors are no longer willing to lend on reasonable terms. Market confidence is lost, and governments cannot roll-over debt.
The third approach is to consider the level of public debt beyond which there are likely to be adverse consequences for living standards and economic welfare.
You can see the Treasury commentary on that here:
https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/speech/what-prudent-debt
I have a little suspicion that their longer term thinking hasn't yet caught up with events, other than roll out another budget.
My second mention was that of the United States, and they have plenty of commentary on the effects of excessive public debt here from the Congressional Budget Office.
http://www.crfb.org/blogs/cbo-consequences-growing-national-debt#:~:text=Higher%20interest%20payments%2C%20leading%20to,risk%20of%20a%20fiscal%20crisis
And my third one was Newfoundland, which caught my eye recently. Though brewing for a while, Covid-19 and the oil crisis makes it all a bit tight, so the Federal government has had to step in:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/economics/video/newfoundland-facing-unsustainable-debt-levels-amid-oil-crash-covid-19-premier~1934953
We're closer in size to Newfoundland than the United States, and we don't have a federal government to take care of us if this all gets worse.
Unfortunately this is a highly slippery area of economic theory and government economic policy.
The simple story is that it does make a difference if your state operates its own central bank which issues its currency, floats its currency and almost exclusively issues debt in its own currency (like New Zealand, but not all countries, do). In this case the government can always make payments by marking up bank accounts inside the countries inter-bank accounts which its central bank operates. There are of course many ways that these funds are put into this set of accounts, the key point is that the central bank is a monopoly issuer of the currency and is in fact the only place this form of money originated. Obviously and as I described, if you issue the tickets you can't run out just because you didn't clip any recently. These are just fundamental institutional realities, but understanding these clears up a lot of confusion.
By contrast you raised an example of the geographic area called Newfoundland. Now obviously as a Canadian province it doesn't issue its own currency via its own central bank. Unsurprisingly (once you understand the institutions) it needs to negotiate help with its limited budget with the overarching federal government of Canada. The fact that Newfoundland on the other hand is a similar size and population to New Zealand is not really relevant here, what is important is that it remains on good terms with the institutions which facilitate its spending, at least to the extent it doesn't raise that in local taxation (and things like mining revenues, etc…).
A similar (but subtly different) relationship exists between Eurozone states and the ECB (and the parts of the EU bureaucracy which govern the ECB) in order to facilitate Eurozone states spending. This is public enough its possible to observe the current declarations that Eurozone states are allowed to spend as much as they need without limits (at least in the short term) to get through the Covid-19 crisis. At other times the relationship has been different with states told to implement reforms to target <60% debt to GDP ratios or <3% of GDP government deficits. It should be clear enough from the history of such events who holds the purse strings and that this is different between Eurozone countries and non-Eurozone countries.
Another similar (but subtly different) relationship exists between the Auckland council and the government of New Zealand in that some of the funding for large scale projects is provided by the central government. If the Auckland council wants to make serious progress on its light rail proposal its going to require a funding proposal to traverse cabinet.
What should be clear is that these relationships is that one of the sides has a budget constraint and must negotiate with the other to overcome it, while the other side isn't negotiating with any party to facilitate its spending, it just decides broadly (and in practice subject to its forecasts being any good) what to spend and that then goes ahead.
Now onto the treasury discussion.
First its worth pointing out how treasury considers its role.
"The level and the exact specification of the debt anchor has changed quite frequently. These changes reflect different economic circumstances and policy preferences and each successive government has set its own fiscal strategy, creating strong political commitment to the overarching framework. " – Makhlouf
"I want to use this lecture to lay out how the Treasury has thought about prudent debt and the assumptions and judgments behind our advice. These are rightfully matters for public debate and should not been seen as merely technocratic questions." – Makhlouf
What should be clear here is that Treasury sees the decision of an appropriate budget and public debt levels to be a decision at the discretion of the government and legitimately influenced by public debate. In fact it would seem to be treasuries own advice that the government first consider its policy objectives and secondarily consider how these influence its budget and long term what it should set its public debt targets to be. Where as what you seem to be suggesting is that the Green parties proposed policy would shift the Labour parties pre-conceived long term budget targets (because tax changes will be politically unmanageable) and so should be discarded. Clearly by treasury standards it would be more than reasonable for the implementation of the Green's policy proposals to influence the long term debt targets the government sets itself anyway.
Now moving onto the slippery slope.
"The result of debt reaching the levels envisaged by either the debt sustainability or the market access approach, is a debt crisis. From there, governments face three unpalatable choices. They can default on their debt. They can make drastic adjustments to spending and taxation to reduce debt. Or, in states with sovereign monetary policy and debt issued in their own currency, they can stimulate inflation to devalue their debt. The effect of any of these policies would be devastating for living standards." – Makhlouf
So we can start with the worst case scenario. It turns out as a country New Zealand has recently entered it with the implementation from this year of QE. Supposedly this will devalue the debt by stimulating inflation (and additionally driving interest rates up with a likely flight from public debt). However as it turns out not to be an effective way of stimulating inflation, or any of the other harms cited. Well New Zealand has just started so we might consider countries which have been doing this for a while then. The US, UK and among other countries have been doing this for about 10 years or more with none of the harms occurring. Probably the worst case is Japan with 20+ years of this policy. In fact virtually the opposite effects are evident than the effects predicted. Now I don't know how you feel about a theory which gives you completely the wrong conclusions, but I don't have much use for them.
Drilling down a bit into how these conclusions are drawn its actually fairly clear why the modeled conclusions are next to useless. This follows from the construction which wants to draw conclusions about long term debt levels and so only considers projections of the economy to equilibrium (long run) states. You should note that an equilibrium state is by definition one where the economy is fully employed so the rather heroic assumption is made that the economy automatically corrects itself. One of the most destructive consequences of the equilibrium modeling assumption is that such a state is not one an economy can actually reach (equilibrium is a state the economy supposedly settles in in the absence of any external events, like new technology, actually basically anything can be an external event) so it becomes impossible to validate your modeling assumptions. But why did I raise this?
"This highlights that the fundamental challenge is one of scarcity. It is a basic point, but one worth reiterating. Increases in debt cannot be used to fund new spending without trade-offs in the rest of the economy. I emphasise this, in part, because of another strain of thinking gaining increasing prominence in the United States: Modern Monetary Theory.
The central proposition of its advocates is that a state that can print its own money cannot go bankrupt and therefore debt should not be a constraint on public spending. The first part of that statement is, in a technical sense, true. But the second part is missing an important part of the story: productive investment requires the ‘real resources’ of the economy, workers, machines, land. Money creation or new government bond issues do not automatically create real resources. When the economy is near capacity, as New Zealand’s is today, more of these resources being used by government means less being used by the private sector in the short term, and more inflationary pressure across the whole economy. If infrastructure investment is of high quality, it may increase the supply potential of the economy and increase overall productivity but only in the longer term. There is no free lunch: we will always face trade-offs." – Makhlouf
So here we can see how the overall argument influences things and it just leads towards shutting down the debate. In fact the MMT literature is very focused on an economies real resource constraints because this is central to its own model for inflation. That includes the claim that increased spending on an economy which is fully utilized may be a cause of inflation. But we are not considering a New Zealand economy which is highly utilized at present and even when this Treasury presentation was made its highly debatable that the government was facing an inflationary spending constraint (e.g that there was a visible up-tick in the New Zealand inflation rate).
Anyway as I said its a slippery area and seems to have drawn you into some miss-leading claims that New Zealand is likely to face significant public spending constraints while the country is simultaneously (and quite obviously) operating with an elevated unemployment rate and below recent capacity utilization rates. On the other hand I do believe Treasury has a better feel for which way the wind is presently blowing and so won't be releasing anything similar to this discussion for a year or maybe ten.
Presuming Nic means QE, he has a point. Why would the govt rely on real money when the Reserve Bank is using imaginary money to keep us afloat??
And yes, to anticipate those who will try to correct me, I do concede that the real/imaginal boundary is a matter of subjective opinion.
When marking exams and you cannot read the answer that’s written down you have to fail it 😉
QE only works in times of low inflation and if your country has enough productive capacity.
It's not particular to QE (though this can be part of the accounting gymnastics via which a central bank ends up buying its own governments debt). Virtually all government spending involves a transfer of funds into the account of a government payees bank (and ultimately a payees bank account) and this happens in the accounts administered by the central bank.
Once you understand this its pretty obvious that "all tax levels are meaningless to the government's capacity" to spend. The impacts of that spending on the economy are what should be considered.
Zimbabwe Nic
Can you please reply to this moderation? Your comments are still in premod, and I’m close to shunting them to Spam until you respond.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30-06-2020/#comment-1724514
Actually what I said describes virtually all New Zealand government payments. That applies if there is some QE in the mix or not or even if there is no debt matching going on (e.g the RBNZ runs a zero interest rate more permanently).
On the other hand read this.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=3773
After reading you should understand why excluding any of supermarkets, pharmacies or fuel sellers from essential lockdown services could easily have lead to massive inflation in New Zealand (regardless of whatever was going on with monetary or fiscal policy).
It seems that we ought to be literally, Newfoundland in all meanings.
If now is not the time for using some of the enormous political capital that Labour (read: Ardern) has accumulated and campaign on a progressive and transformative policy platform then when is the time?
Is Labour going to be a chassis whilst blaming a minor and junior coalition partner for being a handbrake on all of its ‘aspirations’. When does a “nuclear moment” change into a “nuclear decade”?
Although there will be more crises in future, I won’t want to vote for a party (read: leader) that is good in crisis management and communication only!
Be imaginative, be bold, there is no try, there is no ”let’s do this”. Do, or do not, and be damned in the history books.
What do you think, Ad, is this ‘advanced baiting’?
No it's Yoda schooling Luke Skywalker on how to lift his vehicle out of the bog. A very good analogy. Use the power, force of your mind he urges Luke.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3-CpzZJl8w
We need to do this!
I agree 100%
Labour is the party of great intentions. Its MPs spend their years in opposition claiming that National is destroying our country through its neo-liberal policies. Then in government Labour do nothing transformational and continue BAU.
Labour will never be more popular than they are now. Now is the time to reform our economy and end poverty. If Labour do not adopt the Green policy, or at least a version of it, then what is the point of supporting them?
The 2020 Labour manifesto consists of the following policy areas:
"Be grateful and keep chewing"
"Stop asking for plans"
"Here's how we print money"
"Saying the word kindness provides shoes", and:
"The Answer Is No"
A more coherent policy platform than I’d expected. Should be an easy campaign for Labour. Any guesses for the campaign slogan?
My Electorate has changed too as I found out the other day when I actually bothered to look it up but I don’t know yet who the candidates are.
Do you give Masterclasses or should I join Beginners?
Campaign slogan: "Keep breathing"
Hmmm, bit too edgy for my liking.
Or are they hoping to attract Left-leaning, Green-friendly Labour voters … that slice of the electorate that – despite identifying most strongly with Labour – continually voted Green throughout the Key years, swung back to Labour in the midst of Jacindamania in 2017 and then further pulled back to Labour by the Govt's handling of COVID-19.
I think our chums in the Metro Woke Hipster / Ageing Hippie Party are hoping to make inroads into Left-Labour … the Left-Greens already being onboard.
Probably a correct diagnosis of the intent of the Metro Woke Hipster segment. On behalf of the Ageing Hippie faction, I'll just do an 🙄. Oh for a little sophisticated political strategising to be injected into that mix, for a change. Okay, maybe the election after next…
LOL … I've always considered you a leading spiritual force in the Ageing Hippie faction of the Green Party, Dennis … indeed longtime organiser of the dominant Grateful Dead tendency within that faction, clashing as you so often have with your strategically outwitted Loving Spoonful & Jefferson Airplane rivals. Dreadful bitter business … and yet in its own way groovy.
I was a LS fan back in '66 but not since. The airplane has stood the test of time, and I still play a selection of favourites by them at least a few times each year. Blows Against the Empire in which they relabelled themselves starship, was an all-time classic – not just the music, but their political stance as well. By the mid-'70s they had degenerated into commercial crap.
I've never actually self-identified as deadhead, but GD music has been good to me since '72 (up until then too weird to my Keith Richards taste). But Quicksilver & Moody Blues were always the best hippie bands…
The Greens can take Auckland Central out of our cold dead hands.
"If now is not the time for using some of the enormous political capital that Labour (read: Ardern) has accumulated and campaign on a progressive and transformative policy platform then when is the time?"
Exactery. And so far, despite some of the positive stuff Labour have achieved, there are stuff things that've caused me to jump ship to the Greens after a lifetime.
3 Tier dirty filthy bennies; the shameful treatment of some immigrants; kicking the can down the road on so many things (PSB included); public service reform.
edit
I know you feel strongly OwT but please save your diatribes for later after Labour is back in, though positively backing Greens. NZs are backsliding animals like Toad) and you are wise Badger who can see things pretty clearly and in a way that leads to sensible action. (I love the BBC audio version of Wind in the Willows with all those great actors.)
Badger knew of a secret entrance to Toad Hall, information entrusted to him by Toad's father, not to be disclosed to Toad till the time of necessity. Now is not yet that time. So don't go hard, the poor leftie-type things are under all sorts of pressure in Parliament (Toad Hall infested with weasels).
Remember that Roger Douglas went around giving lectures at good fees to those who wanted to sweep pesky considerations for the ordinary people aside – Tony Blair also. And they have won a huge following.
If our dormice have been able to wake up at Alice's table, it's getting us a part of a magical, clever fable. Keep the story going, it might turn out to have a happy ending. Hey, there goes the White Rabbit muttering about time, and being late!
(For people who believe in magical endings and need both a laugh and a fresh perspective apart from the chaotic grim fairy tales abounding, see the parallels with our polity and Dodson's treacle pit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dormouse)
So don't go hard, the poor leftie-type things are under all sorts of pressure in Parliament…
Poor diddumsses…
While we are thinking of inspiring black musicians here's Paul Robeson with Joe Hill.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes
Refrain – Joe Hill – 'Went on to organise'.
"I never died says he."
I tempted to go with another 'diatribe' explaining the reasons for feeling so "strongly" but I'll refrain.
Suffice to say they relate to things such as:
– One's NZ-born toddler God/Guru daughter having to watch her mother being sexually abused by an over-stayer of more than 5 years despite INZ being given the exact location of his whereabouts. Reported more than once by more than one.
– Receiving a selfie of JA and a couple of Chardonnay-sipping ladies (one closely related) at the Martinborough post election shindig at the exact time I was seated with an octogenarian hearing about what happened during partiton, and regularly taking him to hospital after he stopped eating. The reason being the indebtedness and potential loss of land as a result of his family members going through NZ's wonderful tertiary education system and series of ticket clippers at the time.
– It might even be the way I witnessed INZ 'swoops' by people quite happy to have immigrants referred to as "Scum".
(There's a lot more. And it isn't just down to what Helen Clark referred to as a "lack of capacity" in our public service these days.
A real diatribe would take several pages but I think you know what I mean.
Saying there there by me doesn't help. But convince the self-centred to do something right. try, huh i have given up with most – won't be infomed or care. but get labour in or there is no chance, as the wealthy want to live like kings and bugger responsibility to anyone or thing.
No worries @grey. NZ will get what they get off their arses to choose.
As @Incognito said at https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30-06-2020/#comment-1724265
"If now is not the time for using some of the enormous political capital that Labour (read: Ardern) has accumulated and campaign on a progressive and transformative policy platform then when is the time?"
With the rate of change increasing over the past couple of decades, H1's incremental pragmatism (or pragmatic incrementalism), steady as she goes approach that worked in the past isn't going to cut it for much longer, and nor are politicians who are happy to just keep kicking the can down the road.
By the way – couldn't agree with you more:
"But also while NZs should be able to return, we also have a moral obligation to people who have built their lives around being in NZ and devoted themselves to working here as good people contributing to the country."
especially since we've turned citizenship itself into just another tradeable commodity – some as you know (Peter Thiel for example) just love collecting passports and those 'rights' that go with them, while not bothering with all those supposed 'responsibilities' we're expected to observe
This was posted last night, & yes, good on Ardern for not sacking anyone or scapegoating, just getting on with the job. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/1278081/anne-salmond-on-clickbait
Wonderful. Especially this:
Yes, that's the bit. She held her nerve, and if she had sacked people or went public with those women what would the difference be today, nothing. Great decision, excellent leadership.
If Labour stabilises over 50% in the next poll, that view will seem validated. If it continues to be an ebb tide for Labour, will you concede that it's wrong?
Don’t be so naïve.
??
Do I really need to explain this to you? A week is a long time in politics (ask Chris Penk, Simon Bridges, or Paula Bennett (next week), for example). Do you really think that the next political poll result will be determined by a single factor of your choice/preference of a media beat up of a few weeks back? If so, you’re reading way too much into polls – go and ask Swordfish – and I have a bridge to sell you. Why on Earth would you ask another commenter to concede when the issue is that they hold an opinion that’s different from yours? Isn’t that what you meant with this:
Well, that just raises the question of other factors that can reasonably be expected to ebb Labour's tide further. None come to mind. I agree that you make a reasonable point about this – but my assumption is only reasonably categorised as naive if there are other such suitable contenders, right? Perhaps you can provide a list of those??
Lack of imagination. Plus who knows what other ‘factors’ will appear over the next little while? Can you predict the future?
Nope, wrong premise; see above.
Sorry, can’t do; even though I’ve stopped playing Lotto after the announcement of the Greens’ tax policy I still will not share with you the lucky numbers for the next draws.
Huh. Sophistry is a poor substitute for addressing the issues. 🙄
What issues? There’s more than one? How can we interpret those polls if there are multiple issues at play?
A narrow and persistent focus on a single issue with negative consequences is called an obsession.
I’m calling your comments as I see them. I don’t expect you to like it but I’m not here to make friends; I use Tinder for that.
We had a government before that did whatever would increase polling – sometimes it worked, but in the end the public decided that ethics and morality did actually have a place in politics, and that polls are not good determinants for the advisability of actions on single issues.
That would be a sign it was time to go after Goldfish Woodlouse & Munter with a tad more rigour.
I feel love 4.1.1
It would have also lowered the bar considerably. The threshold for such actions must remain fairly high.
Anne is so correct that it hurts.
"Journalists" claim that they
screamedpointed to the errors on the border in order to help make NZ safer. And that is nonsensensical.Obviously anyone corrects a mistake after becoming aware of it. Dunno why you are advocating journalists are wrong to alert people to those mistakes. If the govt were able to rectify the mistakes without the help of journalists, you might have a point. But we live in a reality in which govts usually deny mistakes, right?
I don't disagree with anything the dame wrote, but her glaring omission in failing to acknowledge the role of the health minister indicates she was just trying to do spin to help Labour. Nothing to do with fairness – or social justice!
But journalists didn't just alert to mistakes. They shouted over and over and use National's "shambles" over and over for over a week, long after corrections were made.
I wonder about your reference to the Health Minister. Seems likely that you are doing the
Devil'swork forMr Woodhouse. Wonder why?It seems that Woodhouse has a valid basis to call for Clark's resignation – like I wrote yesterday, even someone with average intelligence can get it right 50% of the time. Fairness is all about giving credit where it's due.
In regard to your first paragraph, I think that's fair and I agree with your critique. Some journos do seem to have an anti-govt agenda that warps their judgment.
Did David Clark piss on your Weetbix at some time because you obviously have an unhealthy obsession with harming him ?
Don't be silly. It's all about ministerial responsibility and accountability. Look it up on the govt website if you haven't considered that yet. Self-harm.
Minsterial responsibility was never cut and dried. It's fairly easy when the Minister misleads Parliament, or is caught out in some obvious malfeasance.
But operational problems within their Ministry were always less obvious, clearly you can't sack the minister every time some public servant makes any mistake, none of them would last until lunchtime. So there has to be some threshold of mistake that justifies a sacking.
That threshold would ask questions like, is this a systemic problem, has there been a history of this, could have it been reasonably foreseen and has there been an opportunity to fix it, was the mistake reckless or ill-advised?
Now I understand exactly how these quarantine mistakes happened I am satisfied none of these criteria these apply.
What the 2012 Cabinet manual says.
"Individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention. Members of cabinet are individually responsible in three main ways:
Breaches of ministerial responsibility
The Cabinet manual provides some guidance, but ultimately it is for the prime minister to decide, in a broader political as well as a constitutional context, whether a breach of individual ministerial responsibility has occurred and, if so, what the consequences should be.
Grounds for resignation or dismissal include misuse or abuse of the financial supports available to a minister, and misleading the prime minister, one’s cabinet or parliamentary colleagues, or Parliament itself. On some occasions ministers who are the subject of an accusation will stand aside until matters have been investigated. If no serious fault on the part of the minister is established, their cabinet position will be restored.
Vicarious responsibility
Vicarious responsibility is the one aspect of individual ministerial responsibility where the consequences of a breach are most debated. In one view, even where a minister is unaware of an action taken by a subordinate, he or she should resign. The contrary view, held by successive New Zealand governments, is that rectification should be placed ahead of resignation."
Rectification should be placed ahead of resignation.
It's for the PM to decide. She decided for rectification. All the rest is commentary. Time to move on from desiring to examine the entrails which is some people's sole purpose- not for reasons of state but for reasons of political revenge. Motivation is important in this discussion as it informs our choice in the matter.
That's well-reasoned. Just leaves aside the issue of damage to Labour & the PM's reputation for good judgment. Time will tell on that. I do agree that public perceptions of responsibility, accountability & natural justice are irrelevant to how govt operates.
Good reply mac, way better than my off-the-cuff effort.
David Clark is an idiot, long before Covid 19. Does no one here remember the string of lies he told about Middlemore way back in 2018/2019, which after many months he admitted his 'errors' (lies or ignorance morelike).
Just do a Google search 'David Clark Middlemore' for the full story.
He is an embarrassment to the government. And why on earth do we now have Megan Woods, the Minister of Housing, fronting Covid 19? Surely that is Clarks job, or just a tacit admission that he is not up to the job. Sack the idiot.
It is my understanding that covid-19 is still largely a health issue – while organisation of quarantine and managed isolation at the border include some health issues, the task mostly requires coordination with transport, airports, planning for accommodation, administration of the process, logistics relating to security and specialist supplies, and communication to travellers. She is not being asked to make or approve Health decisions, but to facilitate implementation of those decisions.
Thats a good answer Ed1. Makes sense, but my comments re Clark stand. I will never forget his shambolic and deceiptful approach with Middlemore.
Peter CHCH how come that Health has been the very big winner/most successful of the port folios under the coalition govt if Clark is such bad news. I have outlined now a number of times what has been achieved in health under his watch.
Okay, even someone with average intelligence can get it right 50% of the time and fairness is all about giving credit where it's due.
The link has the timeline of coronavirus.
https://shorthand.radionz.co.nz/coronavirus-timeline/
If you list for us all the things that David Clark did along the line and let us know what % of things he got right we can decide whether any credit is due.
Maybe, in itemising all those things he did you could also weight them according to significance. Not significance as determined by public reaction to them and headlines but significance in terms of handling the Covid-19 to best cope with the situation and protect us.
FIFY
Myself, I have no qualms in suggesting Woodhouse's performance since 1/ Covid/19 is more deserving of public contempt and opprobrium than Clarks.
Anne Salmond a partisan spin doctor for Labour
I can’t stop crying
😀
Re Incog, I think DF projecting a bit there.
I know you were an early adopter of Chris Trotter's argument that the government had to dump the Health Minister to save itself (this is the same person who argued that Labour was wrong to dump Little for Ardern in 2017).
And you also believe the fallacy that the media alerted the government to failings that saved us all (the media's own spin of their gotcha grab a headline style).
But to adopt the
Pete GeorgeJoffre of Verdun approach to defending a position is, while courageous at the risk of heavy casualties, such as perspective and truth.Think it through.
The government was under pressure to move to Level 1. The DG of Health would have advised to wait another week and (so they could in time) bring in testing to minimise the greater risk applying at Level 1. Cabinet decided to bring it in on June 9 with a days notice before there was capacity to test, and for all we know Clark took Bloomfield's position in Cabinet but was outvoted.
The PM herself has said those two work together and that there was collective responsibility – the whole of Cabinet made the choice.
Re Joffre of Verdun, I did scan the wiki but relevance failed to become apparent. Not sure why you would jump to the conclusion that media reportage of quarantine failures failed to alert the govt. Calling it a fallacy obviously disregards public opinion.
And I rarely adopt Trotter's opinion on anything. I've spent a lifetime figuring stuff out before anyone else, and in this instance I had already got there independently when I reported his view.
As regards your later reasoning, it disregards the relevance of ministerial responsibility but the countering argument you mention has been well made elsewhere already and I accept the PM's advocacy of collective fudging on the basis of realpolilik. 🙄 There is indeed room for diverse views on this situation so I will try to refrain from reiteration of my view!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Joffre
It is certainly a fallacy to presume a government only learns about something when it can be read by the public in the media or when media ask them questions.
Minister’s often advocate based on their ministry advice but are then outvoted and become part of collective responsibility … cabinet papers when released in x weeks are going to show advice (I would expect that this would have been one rationale for another week at level 2) that bringing in a testing regime would take longer than 1 day (June 8 to June 9).
From memory (not that I was there at the time), the battle of Verdun cost the French 450,000 dead and the Germans 420,000 dead. One shell landed for something smaller than every square metre on that battlefield. It was war specifically to wear down the enemy by attrition. Let's kill more of yours than you kill of ours.
I have walked some of that battlefield and viewed a walled-up part of the French fort Douaumont where after capture by the Germans a 410mm shell penetrated the roof and instantly killed some 700 men.
I was then, and am still sorry, that truth is not the only casualty of war.
As an adolescent I read All Quiet on the Western Front and it spooked the hell out of me. Made me anti-war. Later, in '64, hearing Bob Dylan sing Masters of War got me reinforced on that:
And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I will follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand over your grave
'Til I’m sure that you’re dead
I read the same book, and Archibald Baxter's "We Shall Not Cease" and heard the song "Universal Soldier" by Donovan. "He's here and there, and you and me, and brother can't you see, This is not the way we put an end to war."
Trotsker wouldn't be angry at Labour for him being wrong would he? Surely he wouldn't be so self involved and arrogant.
Interesting review of the Greens radical tax policy by someone who frames it as moderate! https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/121976743/greens-wealth-tax-will-appeal-to-labours-leftwingers
Most countries in the OECD have a CGT and some form of wealth/estate tax as well, and a higher top rate of tax than 33 cents.
Advocating for something of that sort here is not radical but mainstream, New Zealand is the outlier on tax.
I feel Love, thank you for posting that. Yes, I think people have been forgetting to be kind to each other. Fear is behind Duncan Garner's plea for the border to be closed to returnees. Also some do not want to share the safe places on the lifeboat we have become.
Most are anxious that our systems could be overwhelmed, but others are still wanting even more people allowed in. So those groups try to justify their position about our borders with cries of "Shut them" or "Open them"
Muller is saying we "won't survive without open borders, our GDP will be wrecked." The emphasis is for returnees who bring cash along with the virus. He does not say how much it would cost the country if cases slipped through with the students or immigrant workers, instead the short term gains are lauded.
Muller and c/o would create jobs with private groups doing the necessary isolation work. There is no mention of training or oversight though, the very things they are rumbling about now. "But they would do it better" Really?? So much unjustified hubris.
Over a million New Zealanders are learning working or living overseas. Those who are working for affected entities, those afraid of changing health circumstances, and those needing to complete contracts or sell possessions are not able to "jump the first flight out". Some had return flights which were postponed or cancelled,
The returnees have come from frightening situations, and often have had their lives and plans wrecked, we need to be ready for thousands of these covid refugees.
At what point will a journalist ask Todd Muller, "So, how many deaths are an acceptable if we allow all the students/tourists back in?"
Muller has raised an important dilemma. Our border restrictions are simultaneously too weak and too strong. Too weak, because recent issues suggest that getting them 100% perfectly secure from COVID-19 intrusions is difficult. Too strong, because they harm the economy by stopping people coming here, and by putting those who do in a business-unfriendly two-week quarantine.
How do we square the circle and reconcile these contradictions – something that is 100% safe and also lets the economy roar into action? I’d humbly put forward a suggestion that I think cracks it:
We should have completely unrestricted borders for homeless people who don’t actually exist. Totally safe – because they don’t exist. But great for the economy too – imagine all the people who could be employed trying to find them. As Michael ('Aristotle') Woodhouse would say – "no evidence of existence is not proof of non-existence" – so it’s a never-ending task. Plenty of opportunity for thrusting entrepreneurs in this scenario. I will be putting this idea forward to Todd for his masterful consideration.
AB
A Hoot
Business unfriendly? I think you mean, massive business opportunity. A captive market fergawdsake. Do they want government to gut and fillet the fish for them as well?
Todd Mullers chant that borders must open any other option is untenable is stupid we don't have the capacity in our health system if it got out of control.
Looking at the Canterbury rebuild and repairs Nationals handling of this disaster now being exposed that the $550 million repairs of dodgy repairs is set to rise into $billions of dollars as most of the repairs were substandard on par with the leaky buildings $ 35 billion cost.
National cut health spending by 20% over 9 years leaving our health system in a very bad condition unable to cope with a small outbreak.
Luckily our borders were shut ,but on every measure our hospital system has been run down.Buildings in a very poor state, massive shortages of experienced professionals massive shortages of nursing staff.filthy dirty hospitals cleaned by poorly trained minimum wage casual workers who don't care about cleaning wards properly.
Muller if you want to open the border's put your money where your mouth is $ billions need to be spent on just the buildings let alone staffing to cope with a worst case scenario.
This would take at least 4 years of a massive increase in health funding to cope with any moderate outbreak.
Our countries ability to cope is at the bottom of the OECD.
This is a really strange press release from Muller:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2006/S00278/whats-your-border-strategy-prime-minister.htm
Leaving aside the confused calendar (tomorrow *is* next month), it reads like a defensive child, responding to a telling-off. Short and sullen.
It is a statement from the opposition on policy at the border, without any mention of National's policy at the border. Who is Muller aiming this at? Probably his own caucus ("look, I'm doing something"). But really it just comes across as more digging.
As the wannabe next PM, why doesn’t he front up with his answers? We need to know so that New Zealanders have confidence in electing the right people to progressively and safely open the border and grow the economy.
Muller fails to understand that talking an economy down is a self fulfilling prophecy.His diatribe that the only answer for the economy of NZ inc, is the opening of the borders seems to be at odds with both public opinion,and economic statistics (and more a message from his sponsers).
To enable a recovery,people need confidence ie stability for decision making such as spending or investment,not an enhanced set of risks.
Cordon sanitaire for NZ is working,relaxation of controls overseas has seen that too early gets recurrence,and return to lockdown.
to have confidence we need to ask the right questions.
The question of predicting the disease trajectory is less important than questions related to what’s necessary to 1) cause an exponential decrease rather than increase in new infections and 2) cause this decrease to occur as quickly as possible.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/23/2011542117
Certainly some strange goings on in National re the border, Garner's piece at 1 above, and Kirk Hope's (Business NZ) rant, then this. Something's cooking
More digging? I'd say a fox hole, quickly.
I imagine Matthew Hooton is behind this current nonsense. It is exactly how he operated when he was part of the RNZ Monday morning political bash with Kathryn Ryan. He was forever making absurd claims without a skerrick of evidence to back them up. Even Ryan found some of them sufficiently unpalatable to give him a scolding – not that he ever took any notice.
The palaver around the border could be related to this decision
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/420153/covid-19-nz-to-host-virtual-apec-summit-in-2021
I realise that many on the left would probably prefer this particular sleeping dog to be left to rot, but a Royal Commission that doesn't actually report?
Could give the perpetrator a higher profile .
To push his agenda
Trickldrown, can you please respond to this moderation note? You are still in premod until I see that. Thanks.
https://thestandard.org.nz/green-party-rocks-their-new-guaranteed-minimum-income-policy/#comment-1724057
You're now in the blacklist, which means that your comments won't show in the front end until you respond to moderation. Please read my comment above, follow the link and respond, thanks. It's not a big deal, you just have to pay attention to moderation and respond and then things will get sorted out.
The relevant ideology of the partisans seems to be that one must attempt to de-platform opponents at all times (rather than working together for the common good). Using that logic, they would have opposed the Churchill/Stalin summits that produced the Allied victory over Hitler in WWII.
So when you get spokespeople for local islamic folk wanting to understand the motives of the shooter, they dig in and resist. Why give him a platform? What they don't say to those folk is "What part of white supremacy do you not already understand?" Implying that someone is a slow learner is too non-pc for the de-platformers…
I'd say let him have his platform but not in person on video as that will readily be misused. Let his words be reported in the third person, so that his explanations for his actions are known, but without the rhetoric and the inflammatory content.
Let it be a dispassionate reporting, as an historian would write commentary upon a Mussolini speech, or a psychologist would review in case notes of a serial killer, or a linguistics expert might examine in a study of the language of hate.
Documents available to those who have a proper interest in the matter, restricted upon sufficient grounds.
But then I'm not a victim or related to his victims, nor am I of the religion or ethnic group related to his victims. I might think differently, then.
One thing I'm sure we would agree on, is that we don't want the words and views, especially a video, of a hateful and evil killer to cause more harm in our community.
I like that approach. Get a professor of sociology to provide an expert analysis and use that to inform those who seek an explanation for the massacre. See if the result satisfies their interest – or do they want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth instead? Anyway, probably best to restrict access to the victims, eh?
Your final sentence is possible to be read to read two diametrically opposed things. 🙂 Whichever you meant, I do believe that the victims should be consulted, and whatever evidence of the killer's motives, explanations and justifications be treated with as much care as is possible.
Not a bad suggestion mac, I could go with that.
At the the time I accepted the censorship was probably necessary in the immediate aftermath of the event, but I recall saying that waiting for a Royal Commission to answer the obvious questions was a reasonable compromise.
I still think this is necessary. I don't need to hear from the perpetrator directly, but there remain open questions about his travels, connections and motives that should be made public. The fact that the authorities seem deeply reluctant to be transparent on this only sharpens my doubts.
I don't have any conspiratorial doubts, just a desire to serve the needs of justice and humanity compassionately.
The left would have no problem with it. You think a government with a top rate of tax at 33 cents, not CGT, no wealth tax, no estate tax is left wing. Why?
There is no reason to think a openly right wing government would rush this out with full disclosure.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/james-shaw-climate-change-minister-on-farm-to-forestry-controversy/
MH to JS; "we're friends now", at the close of the interview. So farmers using estimates for the purpose of scaremongering encounter the facts from James, and lose. Good to hear that the people in local communities involved in forestry are keen to make the shift to native forests instead of pine.
Fed farmers say its 70 k hectares .
O'connor say it say provisionalnumbers for 2019 are 22 k hectares
Shaw say 13 k
Confused of raetihi???
I’ve edited o’connor’s figures after a quick check
It obviously depends on which side of the fence you are 😉
I'd expect the feds to massage numbers but two of those chaps should have access to the real figures!!!
Entirely possible that different Ministries have/use different numbers 😉
Meridian accused of cheating by spilling water to bump up prices. Is this the product of Key's vision?
Meridian Owner: New Zealand Government (51.02%, 2016)
They may just have been trying to help the fish, or give kayakers a decent course to practice on, or a number of really thoughtful reasons. I wonder what their defence will be? Perhaps they expect a huge amount of rain and don't want a collapse as elsewhere recently in the world. Don&#Can’t remember just where but I read about dams collapsing FTTT, it's not rare enough to be sanguine about it.
Suppose those dividends must be paid to the Mum and Dad investors?
It's not fair on the poor to take away their incentive to better themselves by selling cheaply, when you can nurture their growth to selfimprovement by screwing them into the ground and kicking them in the face. It's what jesus would want.
You sound sort of muddy yourself Gabby perhaps with imprints of hobnail boots in your cheeks. But leave Jesus out of that, his name gets besmirched by the smirking tv evangelists, personality cults and prosperity churches without having it popped in to every discourse on a Godwin basis.
Better let Todmunter know.
The case for renationalising them?
Petrol going up by 4cents pl tomorrow.
"The ministry says the increased fuel price will cost the average one-vehicle household around $35 to $40 per year." What not $400 per car?
We run a fuel card with discount off the national price and the provider sends notification of any price movement 3 or 4 days before. Got one for a price increase of 3-4c applied yesterday, but nothing yet for tomorrow or Monday.
Bit cynical making a fuss about it in the media when the price has already gone up.
Bad timing for a press release
The country's pork sector says it is facing "severe staff shortages" with skilled migrant workers unable to enter the country and those already here in danger of not having their visas renewed.
The industry is calling on the Government to urgently review its policies around who it lets into the country in the wake of COVID-19.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/rural/2020/06/pork-sector-calls-for-urgent-meeting-to-find-solution-to-shortage-of-skilled-migrant-workers.html
Pigs are considered as important hosts or “mixing vessels” for the generation of pandemic influenza viruses. Systematic surveillance of influenza viruses in pigs is essential for early warning and preparedness for the next potential pandemic. Here, we report on an influenza virus surveillance of pigs from 2011 to 2018 in China, and identify a recently emerged genotype 4 (G4) reassortant Eurasian avian-like (EA) H1N1 virus, which bears 2009 pandemic (pdm/09) and triple-reassortant (TR)-derived internal genes and has been predominant in swine populations since 2016. Similar to pdm/09 virus, G4 viruses bind to human-type receptors, produce much higher progeny virus in human airway epithelial cells, and show efficient infectivity and aerosol transmission in ferrets. Moreover, low antigenic cross-reactivity of human influenza vaccine strains with G4 reassortant EA H1N1 virus indicates that preexisting population immunity does not provide protection against G4 viruses. Further serological surveillance among occupational exposure population showed that 10.4% (35/338) of swine workers were positive for G4 EA H1N1 virus, especially for participants 18 y to 35 y old, who had 20.5%
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/23/1921186117
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53218704
If at first you don't succeed…
Now now. Being mean to China like that creates a very real danger some left-winger will call you racist. It's what they do. Remember you don't have to actually be racist to be racist, you just have to trigger the paranoia by means of creating a subjective impression in their minds. Even commenting on the weather could do it. The world is an extremely dangerous place! 🥶
It helps if you are though. Doesn't it.
If feeding anti-biotics to pigs, allowing live markets with animals in cages cheek by jowl does not cause us a hospital crisis with super bugs there is the pandemic, next is the matter of hormones into American livestock and the promotion of the burden of that and Big Pharma in FTA around the world …
Not again. The main dairy farm job site shows some 720 jobs with around 1900 looking for work(okay that 1900 needs to be culled for the ineligible) and yes it is pigs but there must be some transferable skills and we have a lot of unemployed neets that are being trained. So why are the media giving this a beat up?
The owners need to get onto plan B
– updating and brushing up their employer CV
-making sure they have the right skills, wages and background conditions including further training and skills updating being offered to employees.
-having references that show they don't take drugs or indulge in sackable offences towards their employees like bullying and sexism.
-using their local networks to score an employee
-doing sufficent training and forward planning to put resilience into the industry so the issue does not reoccur.
Stop whinging and seeking special treatment as the market will provide.
Problem fixed.
QT: Muller just denied ever saying that we should open up to China. A quote just read from cell phone. Misleading? Dunno.
And Nick Smith sat down after trying to argue that the question whether the PM had read the quote attacked the Opposition leader.
Now what ever attack could there be in a quoting of a text in direct contradiction to what an MP (Muller) had just said to the House he did not say?
Hinting that Todmunter might be a lying shitweasel would be A NATIONAL DISGRACE.
More that it is so easy to do so … is an enmbarrassment to ….
I noted Mallard ignored him as though he had never spoken and called Jacinda Ardern to answer original supplementary.
https://www.twitter.com/Kiwi_things/status/1277796930593017856
Gosh, Todmunter will have something for Confession this week.
Are you aware that todays report highlighted the reason for the fuck up. It was an IT mistake of not putting the NIH number on one of the two forms required so they couldn't be cross referenced. If every Minister resigned after an IT fuck up everybody in the country would have had a turn at being a Minister.
Typical IT bullshit, over-promising and under delivering. the industry runs on more bullshit than Fonterra.
Question for past/current 'leading lights' in the National party: If 'your team' had been in charge during this pandemic, and your efforts had contributed to NZ's relatively good Covid-19 health outcomes (~1,530 cases; 22 deaths; at level 1 for weeks with no evidence of community transmission), would you be relieved and pleased? That's how I feel.
You're all right.
I've just talked myself, via my blog comments, into believing if you can't shout for the people you're no good to them.
The last one who did that was Norman Kirk. All the following played the cards they were given by the powerful.
Kia Ora
Newshub.
I think it's a logical move for people to have watertanks to catch their own water.
Film and television getting a funding boost $73 million I hope some putea will go to Tangata Whenua projects.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
The fule tax will lower our emissions that will be good for our environment.
The Matariki festival in Taramaki Makaru looks good.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
The Am Show.
The reality is our Wai is life so conservating the use of Wai is the way of the future so we don't use it all and leave nothing for our wildlifes environment.
Having a sestanable fishery is of utmost importance for our future generations.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
Its good to see Rugby Park getting a up grade.
That's is cool Te puia hosting tourist again in Rotorua.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
The Am Show.
The Zorb ride rolling down a hill in a big bubble looks good.
Off the Beaten track looks like a good company.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Newshub.
I think playing if safe with is correct.
Doc does awesome mahi for Aotearoa wildlife and environment.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama
It will be awesome when New Zealand history is taught from Tangata Whenua facts on the events.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
Newshub.
Looks like the ski season is going to be OK after all.
That was a lucky landing for that small aircraft alright.
There is a few good reasons to keep a vigilant process and keep the virus out of Aotearoa.
The science festival looks great its good to get people interested in science.
Ka kite Ano
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora
Newshub.
There are people who don't consider the effects of their actions jumping the fence.
That's the way Paddy.
That's is a cool waiata.
Ka kite Ano.