With Muldoon making one of his sporadic appearances I thought to do some reading to see how good the memory is. It’s an interesting exercise, one to serve as a reminder that the memory is always flawed and two to be reminded how one’s own bias and personal circumstances influence how we see events as they occur.
1984 and the general election. It’s often still talked about and the terms currency crisis, constitutional crisis, Muldoon & Lange blah always take big billing in the narrative. That’s not my abiding memory of the election and after reading up on it most of my recollection holds good. I had some bits wrong but still had the crux of it.
The big story was the country was attacked by our own business community who managed to loot the taxpayer of nearly half a billion dollars. And that’s in 1984 dollars. A lot of fortunes were made from the big currency devaluation and it was the taxpayer who footed the bill for it.
I had only a couple of questions I wanted answered. Who were the currency speculators and when would the new government be going after them. The former is still unanswered and time answered the latter. I can’t help but think if the speculators had been exposed the next decades of NZ politics would have been very different.
So, that’s my memory of the 1984 election; that the country was fleeced of a lot of money and we never did get the utu we deserved. I bet there aren’t many others here who remember it that way -:)
How do you claim tax payers footed the bill for the devaluation? The country changed the rate of exchange between $NZ and $US because they were running out of the foreign currency. But people made money by anticipating this change (yes there was a leak as well) not by avoiding taxes or stealing govt funds.
The Reserve Bank was in charge of foreign exchange back then Nic. The sting was a simple one; Buy forex from the reserve bank for $1 before the election and sell it back to the reserve bank for $1.20 after devaluation. Since the reserve bank was funded by the taxpayer it was the taxpayer who paid out the speculators.
The Reserve bank sold nearly $1billion in forward contracts just in the week leading up the election. That’s $200 million paid out to the scepculators there alone.
The country wasn’t running out of forex or going broke like people suggested. The concern was that the speculators would keep hoovering up more forex if they didn’t devalue immediately.
The NZ dollar was overvalued. That is what the market was trying to tell the Government.The Government decided that it wasn’t and tried to prop it up by attempting to meet all the demand to sell NZ Dollars. That isn’t the speculators fault. That is the Governments fault for trying to keep a currency artificially high. Btw what was the benefit of keeping the NZ Dollar at the higher rate?
You’re spouting bullshit Gosman. The currency speculation was a short term gamble and the need or not need to devalue wasn’t one with time constraints.
90% of the forward contracts with the reserve bank were due to mature before the end of August. The speculation wasn’t against the dollar being devalued it was against the incoming Govt devaluing almost immediately.
And you’re also wrong about the dollar beiong overvalued, as were all the so-called pundist of the time. The doilar went UP after it was floated.
The reserve bank or (rather it delegated from treasury) is only able to do this by the governments ability to tax, but it issues all the $NZ itself. It certainly does so to pay out forex exchange contracts. In this sense no taxpayers paid for the devaluation, the reserve bank simply issued the $NZ at the new rate as required.
The reserve bank was running out of foreign exchange reserves at the time.
The Forex reserves of the Reserve bank were being rapidly run down as they were being used to prop up an artificially high exchange rate. This is not speculators fault. This is solely the fault of the Government for setting the rate of the NZ dollar too high.
Not true gosman. When demand for forex became heavy prior to the election, and started running down existing reserves, the Reserve Bank started selling forward contracts as an alternative to borrowing more foreign exchange. They could always borrow more forex, the country had a good credit rating.
The risk was the growing tab that the speculators were running up.
If you think you can beat the market over more than the short term you are dreaming. You should join your brethren in Venezuela or Cuba where there are multiple currency values as a result of the Government having no idea how to set a proper value.
What was the issue with devaluing the dollar anyway? Why do you think a NZD value that was set by Muldoon was better for the economy than one set by Douglas?
Well lets assume the devaluation netted the speculators $500 million. In your world the RB just magics up $500 million out of nowhere and gives it to them. Even in that scenario they’re getting $500 million while the rest of the taxpayers are getting nothing,… their wealth has increased at the expense of everyone else.
Of course at the time they fixed it, they were bound to be wrong in the future. Your really just saying always float your currency or expect the government to face occasional currency crises, right?
The point at which Euston makes any claim about taxpayers footing any bill is discussing the govt deficit. Its highly debateable if this is tax payers paying, because as I said, the only cost is the amount the RBNZ issues out at their forex window (in the fixed exchange system). In practice govts dont tend to repay their deficits, they occasionally pay them down a bit until it causes an economic crisis (eg a recession) eventually.
Ultimately the summary of that discussion should be that moving to a floating exchange rate has completely removed a lot of pressures on the government.
Nothing illegal in the actions of speculators at the time of course. If you want prosecutions make a case for a law against it, going forward.
Only in your view Nic, I’m happy to take Eastons word for it. He’s no fool.
You’re a bit like gosman in the way you want to divert my argument. My position is clear enough. I wanted the speculators identified so we all knew who they were. In the pursuit of substantial personal gain they displayed a blatant disregard for the economic well being of the country and if/when any of them raised their heads again in the future we’d know where they were coming from… if we knew who they were.
There was also the point that big fortunes were made and we could have done with some solid reassurances that no-one in a privileged position was in on it.
Prosecutions weren’t expected, just an opening of the books. Public opinion was the only court they needed to face.
Nah, the sting was done and dusted by then. They could have started investigating the funding of the speculators and possibly found some illegal doings but I wasn’t bothered about that personally.
What wasn’t looked into much is the speculators themselves and where they got the cash to buy their forex. Some of them at least probably played some devious tricks to get in on the game. One rumour was of a financial institution raiding depositors funds, the truth of that I do not know.
What I expected (wanted) from the Govt was for them to essentially blacklist the participants from having access to any taxpayer money or government influence again. That would have been quite legal, and justified IMO.
It was the decision of the government prior to the 1984 election to hold the exchange rate at a higher level than the “market” thought was appropriate, and it was also that government’s decision to issue forex contracts. I suspect DH that you and Gosman are talking across each other. It seems quite simple to me that Muldoon made decisions that turned out to be wrong. At least some of the forward exchange contracts would have been needed to facilitate imports or exports. Any change in relative wealth does mean that there are winners and losers.
I do not recall a decision being public before the election from Labour that they would float the currency, but by the time the election was decided there may have been few options
When you fix the currency you open up the possibility of a currency attack along the lines of what happened in 1984. The people betting against the Kiwi dollar’s value being correct are acting in an entirely rational manner. It is the Government who believes they know better than the market what the value should be that are acting irrationally.
‘the market’ are the owners of capital, the more you own the larger your impact…so in effect you are telling us we should allow the wealthy (of which NZ is a tiny proportion) to determine what our currency is worth in the casino where they are the house….you may think thats preferable to attempting to impart some control but I’d suggest that casinos are hardly a model for society.
Incorrrect. The Forex market is both the demand as well as the supply of capital. I can demand Forex without owning it. I can borrow (in fact many people do) against future earnings to get the Forex I require.
Except YOU have convinced virtually noone (that I am aware of) of the benefits of your approach. When I challenge you on this you build some flimsy defense that it is all because of evil capitalists trying to sabotage your alternatives. You seemingly ignore the inconvenient fact that your alternatives are so fragile that they are seemingly easily stopped by a handful of people with power and money.
Your question does raise an interesting point of difference between many left wing and right wing people. A large number of left wing people seem to object to the very concept of the market determining the price of goods and services and believe that the true value is better determined by some other means (usually involving a centralised authority controlling the price). They question the motivations of people involved in a market as if they are trying to scam something and people need to be protected from them.
You assume they have done no work. They in fact have done a great deal of work. They have ensured international trade can be maintained with minimal friction.
There was not increased unpredictability in this situation. In fact there was greater predictability because their actions virtually guaranteed the currency was devalued.
Even in a floating exchange rate situation speculators can reduce currency fluctuations.
Speculators can only reduce currency fluctuations if they bet wrong – i.e. selling before the price increases, or buying just before the price decreases.
But what they are guaranteed to do is increase the volume of trading, and if the wind direction is obvious to all they sell overvalued currencies thus even further lowering the overall demand, which makes the troughs much deeper.
You’re a market acolyte – you might have access to the volume of NZD sales prior to the dollar being floated. As it is, it fell 20%. Without the speculators, it might have only fallen 10 or 15%. Otherwise you’re arguing that decreased demand doesn’t change the equilibrium price.
Speculators CAN increase exchange rate fluctuations but they CAN also reduce it. What happens to the currency in a situation with no speculators if you are an export orientated economy reliant on products that have a highly seasonal demand and supply ?
Then your producers deal with those seasons, just as farmers deal with real seasons.
Because in order to reduce exchange rate fluctuations overall, the majority of speculative trading needs to be at a loss. So either your position is that speculators provide market stability by being mugs who lose money, or they make money by exacerbating fluctuations and market instability (thus being a barrier to trade in real goods and services people want).
It really is that simple. My position is that if speculators make money overall and on average, then they can only do so by betting in the direction that the market will go and therefore exacerbating market fluctuations. For speculators to actually stabilise the market they need to be bad at their jobs.
Either way, the existence of speculators means somebody is making money off chumps rather than actually producing something worthwhile to humanity.
The producers “deal” with it??? What does that mean?
You ignore what would happen. There would be extreme fluctuations of the price of the currency as there would be steep increases in the demand for it as Exports became available followed by equally steep falls when they no no longer were being supplied.
Speculators provide liquidity to smooth over such periods and enable regular purchases (and sellers) to buys and sell easily.
If a market is seasonal, they don’t bloody need to be trading in that market in the off season. So producers diversify. Just as farmers sell lambs in one part of the year, grow feed for winter, shear in spring, and so on.
What happens to an exporter of products that have a highly seasonal aspect in an environment of market speculators? When nobody wants NZD successful speculators will put off buying until they think the market has tanked, then they will buy up and put off selling until demand has peaked. Then they will sell as much as possible at that price and tank the market further. When they buy and hold until demand reaches breaking point. So the producers are faced with bigger peaks and troughs than if speculators didn’t stick their beaks in.
lol the best your religious text can produced is “it has been argued”.
What a load of shit. Speculators don’t win by betting against the market trends, they win by pre-empting and thereby reinforcing those trends.
The liquidity argument relies on the idea that a market will dry up without speculators who have no interest in that market other than speculative trading. This is an example on the simplistic analyses that free-market capitalists rely on in order to make even a mediocre argument that their system is something other than parasitic.
I don’t really care whether you accept my argument. I am merely pointing out what the argument is. You can choose to believe the opposite. It bothers me not a jot.
normally you come up with better bullshit than ‘not bovvered’. But if all you have to go on is the idea that more people bidding on something somehow doesn’t raise the price, I guess your cognitive dissonance can only go so far.
I stand corrected. It is rapidly falling since 1988 and is the best we have had since the 1950’s.
“More detailed data from similar sources plots a continuous decline since 1988. This is attributed to globalization increasing incomes for billions of poor people, mostly in India and China.”
“Developing countries like Brazil have also improved basic services like health care, education, and sanitation; others like Chile and Mexico have enacted more progressive tax policies.[35]”
So it’s not all down to the market.
And “globalization” isn’t just currency speculators. As discussed above, speculators can act as barriers to international trade.
I never claimed it was. I just disputed that global inequality is getting worse. I was wrong about it being the best ever I admit but was correct how it is getting better.
you are confusing income inequality with wealth inequality….wealth inequality is rising and is projected to continue
“The world’s richest people have seen their share of the globe’s total wealth increase from 42.5% at the height of the 2008 financial crisis to 50.1% in 2017, or $140tn (£106tn), according to Credit Suisse’s global wealth report published on Tuesday.
“The share of the top 1% has been on an upward path ever since [the crisis], passing the 2000 level in 2013 and achieving new peaks every year thereafter,” the annual report said. The bank said “global wealth inequality has certainly been high and rising in the post-crisis period”.
The motivations will be many and varied but ultimately the goal is to win…and that means everyone else loses. As said , not a model for cohesive society.
Far too many (both left and right) appear to consider ‘the market’ is some disinterested force when the reality is the polar opposite, so the question really should be do you want your lifestyle determined by an elected group of locals whom you can remove at regular periods or do you want it determined by some faceless individuals almost certainly not residing in your society who are engaged in some light entertainment?
You haven’t explained why anybody would lose from betting against an overvalued NZ Dollar. Moving towards a more sensible level would seem to be the best approach. If anybody is causing harm it is the Government trying to prop up a currency at a level higher than it should be.
a government trying to maintain an exchange rate at a ratio that serves the purposes of their economy is every bit as reasonable as allowing it to be controlled by the whim of non resident thrill seekers…..the (sad) reality is if we wish to trade we must play by the house rules so we should at least attempt to control the impact by not giving them a blank cheque and selecting our own stake.
It is not reasonable. It is entirely irrational that a Government can control the price of it’s currency in any meaningful way long term. It is why you have ridiculous situations where places like Venezuela have multiple values for their currency and why Zimbabwe no longer has it’s own one.
capital flight…caused by poor policy decisions and underpinned by a lack of democratic rigour. What do you think would happen to NZ with its current policy settings if there was capital flight on a similar scale here?…exactly the same thing…so it is not the system its the quality of the decision making and the exposure…and make no mistake, we are exposed.
What would happen is the value of the NZ Dollar would fall dramatically making NZ exports more valuable and encouraging greater foreign investment as our assets became comparatively cheaper. that would in turn drive up the value of the dollar and lower interest as a Capital flight turned in to a Capital flood.
perhaps …in time, just as it may in Zimbabwe and Venezuela (may require some democratic reform first) … meanwhile we would be impacted every bit as much as them, with spiralling inflation, shortages, unemployment and population exodus…..our ‘market forces’ economy wont change that.
Ummm… no. They were impacted by those things BECAUSE they ignored market forces. It was not because they allowed themselves to be dictated by market forces. They were/are actively hostile to the market setting the price of their currency and they suffered the inevitable consequences.
ummm…they ignored market forces? So they (being Zimbabwe and Venezuela) misjudged how the owners of capital would react to their policies…and then doubled down.
So who runs things in Zimbabwe and Venezuela?…or NZ for that matter?
You seem to think that the Government can control EVERYTHING. Just as the government can’t control the weather it can’t control the price of goods and services in the economy. It might be able to influence the price but it can’t control it.
thats what I concluded as well….Zimbabwe and Venezuela are capitalist failures.
Indeed a Government could control everything (economy wise) in a closed economy, but I doubt virtually anyone would accept such constraint as that would impose, however an intelligent government (or society) would not hand over entire control of its economy to outside forces and would seek to retain as much control as practicable….that is not an open market economy but something more akin to the Scandinavian models (although even they have moved further right in recent years)…and that requires a more hands on approach by the state and less reliance on attracting offshore investment and more on supplying our needs onshore….especially in a world of diminishing resource.
If we accept that Gosman has done the reading necessary to assert that
“There was no indication of corruption involving NZ in the Panama papers.”
then, depending on his definitions of ‘indication’ and ‘NZ’, this must simply be a rather remarkable coincidence.
NZ foreign trust numbers plummet after post-Panama Papers rules kick in
The number of foreign trusts registered in New Zealand has plummeted by about three-quarters since a clampdown was ordered in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal.
Inland Revenue said fewer than 3000 foreign trusts met a deadline last week for them to provide more information about their structures and activities.
There were 11,645 registered in April last year, in the immediate aftermath of the hacking of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
I think we can safely presume that reading is not Gosman’s cup of tea. The cognitive dissonance from the conflict between reality and his far-right fabulism must be well nigh unbearable.
Stuart Munro
Good joke. Denial. And accolades to you in trying to keep a thread of rationality on this blog, a gold thread that shows up all the dim bulbs that have found a home here.
No, they’re bludgers and produce no value. From Why we can’t afford the rich:
As the Christian socialist R.H. Tawney put it in 1929 (hence the gendered language): ‘The man who lives by owning without working is necessarily supported by the industry of someone else, and is, therefore, too expensive a luxury to be encouraged.’
The rich get wealthy through ownership and not through production of value. Their income is fully unearned and thus is a theft upon the rest of us.
So has stated countless hard core Socialists throughout the past 150 years yet your ideology seems to fail far quicker and more comprehensively than any system involving rich people.
Try to get it through your head that you are not an authority on socialism – or very much else come to that. The extravagance of your prejudices probably precludes you ever being one.
It clearly frightens you. Perhaps you should obsess about something over which you have more control.
I can quote Adam Smith as well – you know, the father of modern economics. In fact, all the classical economist were scathing of rentier capitalists and warned about them.
Now we have our entire socio-economic system based upon them and their greed.
The morality of the situation completely escapes you doesn’t it Gosman.
If you want to paint it as a rational act it should also be rational that the victims of the speculation, aka the Government and us taxpayers, would want to enact some revenge over those who fleeced us of our taxes. I bet you’d squawk like a chook if that was to happen.
The value of the currency is irrelevant to the conversation gosman. It’s the undermining of our election, the deliberate harm done to our economy and the looting of the taxpayer purse we’re talking about here,
The run on the dollar had little to no impact on the election in 1984. It barely got a mention and the incoming Government did not have an idea of the extent of the issue until AFTER they had won.
It had a very big impact on our election and electoral system gosman, it triggered the constitutional crisis for starters.
I think it was perfectly reasonable for us to demand to know who the speculators were. Then we’d have known who couldn’t be trusted with anything to do with our Government.
The constitutional crisis happened when Muldoon refused to follow the instructions of the incoming government. If you claim this was the crisis of democracy you acknowledge it didn’t impact the election. My understanding is that the currency crisis became known to the incoming government only after they won.
The constitutional crisis came about because Muldoon wanted to call the speculators bluff and refused to devalue. If there had been no speculation on the currency there would have been no crisis.
Douglas wanted to devalue to dollar by 20 %. This was common knowledge at the time. The currency traders were acting entirely rationally and legally by betting that an incoming government would carry out such a plan.
You have still to tell me why you think having a currency at a rate set by Muldoon was better for the NZ economy.
So the currency crisis didn’t impact the election then. And further there would have been no constitutional crisis if Muldoon had followed instructions.
It is entirely rational. If an incoming government has indicated that they would like to devalue the NZ Dollar by 20 % why would you not sell the NZ dollar and buy other currencies on the belief that you could make 20% return when it is devalued?
They weren’t breaking any laws. Your whole arguments seems to rest on the basis you think what they did was immoral. I personally think that government trying to dictate prices of goods and services is immoral but I’m not calling for people involved in the Muldoon administration to be held accountable.
No they weren’t breaking any laws. A part of me can admit to a grudging admiration at their opportunism. But the part of me who is a taxpayer and voter also wants some utu, they did harm to the country and while they can keep their riches they should also be paying the full consequences of their actions.
No, who did harm to the country was Muldoon who foolishly attempted to keep the value of the exchange rate higher than the market was suggesting it should be. If you want Utu take it out on him.
Cripes gosman what more do you want, should they dig up the box and scatter his bones?
You do know there can be more than one baddie don’t you?
Muldoon more than paid for his part in this. He ended up being the fall guy; the patsy who everyone blamed. It’s the villains who got away scot-free with their plunder I was more concerned with.
No, Muldoon was the imbecile who thought he knew better and could dictate to the Market what the price for not only the NZ Dollar was but for virtually everything in NZ.
That is unclear Gosman, as rational (in economics) means with the ability to correctly predict the future. If that is desireable or not politically is unclear I think.
Given the incoming government had strongly hinted it believed the NZ Dollar was overvalued then it wasn’t much of a stretch to predict the future in this case.
It is you who is claiming it is an attack on society. Personally I think Government trying to set prices is an attack on society so it is the Government that is being sociopathic following your own logic.
Capitalists, like all Parasites, suck the life out of their hosts.
And you don’t actually have a leg to stand on with your personal views as they’re completely contradicted by reality. The action that we’re talking about was a few people who bought and sold money to get richer without producing any value. That extra value had to come from somewhere and it, as always, comes from the workers.
In other words, those arseholes that you worship were just looking to be even bigger bludgers.
And once again Draco my ideas hold sway across the vast majority of the World and your ideas are only supported by a small number of fringe political extremists. Ever since University (over 25 years ago) I have seen people like you claim that Capitalism is eating itself and is on the verge of collapse. I, like you, am still waiting.
All the currency speculators did was to sell NZ Dollars and buy foreign currency on the (entirely understandable) logic that the Dollar was going to be devalued and therefore they would be able to buy back the NZ Dollars at a much cheaper rate. The reasons the Government (or more precisely the Reserve Bank) was running out of Foreign currency reserves was that they had to try and prop up the NZ Dollar at the rate they foolishly decided to set it at. If they had floated the dollar then there would have been little room for speculators to make money from such a situation.
“I’m pleased to inform members and supporters that there has been a significantly
positive response to my offer to support a political party that continues to promote
the policy manifesto that The Opportunities Party assembled to contest the 2017
election.
The Board, therefore, has decided to put on hold its plan to deregister TOP as a
political party to give us time to evaluate the responses and specifically to
evaluate how TOP may evolve as a political party.
In order that TOP is given the best chance of continuing, it’s imperative that we
successfully hold our AGM on Monday July 30th. To this end the Board has changed the
quorum rule for the AGM from a minimum of 50 members to 20 members and if this is
not achieved the quorum for the subsequent adjourned meeting from 25 members to 10
members.
We expect to be in a position to announce the results of our deliberations over the
future of the Party during August.”
I humbly have a suggestion for one of the writers on The Standard to tackle for a discussion piece…Labour antisemitism hysteria, Is it out to get Jeremy Corbyn out?
Adrian, I am pleased to say that the good folk over on Kiwi Blog came to a general consensus that the charges being leveled by the likes of Margaret Hodge are without merit, and that Jeremy Corbyn’s criticism of the Israeli state is not anti-Semitic.
Nearly every one of the posters—except for me and a couple of others—was extremely opposed to Corbyn and Labour, but they were not so craven or so dishonest as to endorse the smears of the Blairite faction.
Well obviously no one at the Guardian has got that message, they have gone all ‘daily mail’ in their hysterical and relentless attacks on Corbyn.
I would have thought progressives in NZ would have been far most interested in this story rather than the unending stories on Trump/Russia, as this is what the liberal establishment looks like when it is under a real threat from a real progressive, they will stop at nothing to stop it and play real dirty.
I have always said Corbyn should have purged the neoliberal cancer from UK Labour when he had that initial wave of popularity, the media couldn’t have any more negative on him and his project back then anyway, so really he had nothing to lose…unfortunately I think he probably thought that he could actually work with them, turns out that they believe in their ideology just as strongly as he does his.
Well obviously no one at the Guardian has got that message, they have gone all ‘daily mail’ in their hysterical and relentless attacks on Corbyn.
Which underlines my point, Adrian, viz., that even the most extreme right wing people are not so dishonest as to call Corbyn an anti-Semite. The Blairite rump, which the Guardian shills for, has no such scruples.
I’d prefer the company of even the most zealous poster at Kiwi Blog over the likes of Margaret Hodge or Hillary Benn. The Blairite rump of the Labour Party not only has no public credibility, it has no limits to its depravity.
“…I humbly have a suggestion for one of the writers on The Standard to tackle for a discussion piece…Labour antisemitism hysteria, Is it out to get Jeremy Corbyn out..?”
Are the neoliberal Blairite MPs in Labour willing to stoop to the lowest and most vile accusations imaginable in their liberal grab bag of identity politics smears to attack Corbyn?
Yes.
Are they aided and abetted by a privileged media class who still see a 1990s bourgeois liberalism married to managerialist late capitalism as the only possible teleological direction for society?
The media are looking to follow a distractive meme, Israel go straight for the antisemitic line when their violent ways and treatment of occupied territorities is questioned. That’s when they aren’t ignoring the world.
Perhaps a post could expand to the similar tactics the alt right use to defend their dissemination of facist views….the ” but it’s free speech” meme.
Maybe the post could grow like Blips list of each area and the distraction/diversion tactics at play in cohorts with the media…who stopped being the 4th estate decades ago.
@ tc, Yes a lot (but certainly not all) of the negativity in the press does seem too come back to his position on Israel/Palestine, Corbyn was one of the very few politicians in the west with the fucking balls to openly call out Israel on their slaughter of unarmed protesters on the Gaza prison fence…and look at the reaction.
“alot (but certainly not all) of the negativity in the press does seem too come back to his position on Israel/Palestine”
… the press can’t afford to talk about anything else.
Most especially not Corbyn’s actual economic or social policies, because The Press knows that when people actually hear those policies clearly explained they actually support them, as was proven when Corbyn and momentum hit the streets and managed a stirling result despite the so called civilized liberal press.
Follow up to, comments on, a post about the governments lack of initiative. This one is about the advantages of having full employment as a government policy.
Imagine if they are renting. Yet still not much interest from the Kiwibuild for massive roll out of state rentals. From the figures presented the other day of TS looks like 300 extra only over a decade in spite of a huge increase in population and increasing inequality.
Saw this the other day too, elderly are being kicked out of a camping ground, maybe with many people unable to find or afford a cheap (they pay $200 a fortnight incl utilities) rental in Auckland they relax the by laws… Sounds like a pretty good deal they will not be able to find anywhere else, pushing more people into poverty if they are evicted.
Oh. OK. read the blurb under a poster. There’s a rally, music and speakers at Aotea square at 5.30pm, Friday. then the demo will move off to protest the Fashist event.
I’m in for the rally at Aotea Square “to celebrate the power and strength of diversity and tolerance”.
Kinda reveals why morphing from the Gareth First Party into something consensual never happened, eh? The political strategy he deployed is now clear: my way or the highway, with democracy dangled as a carrot at the end of an extremely long stick.
Effectively, it’s a contractual design. It locks participants into support of a pre-determined policy mix. They sign up to the party to promote that programme. You could call it intelligent design since the originator is clever enough, but top-down decision-making ain’t the zeitgeist, Gareth. Participatory democracy is.
Yes, Morgan claimed TOP was neither left nor right, but based on evidence-based policy excellence. But his TOP-down, antidemocratic approach shows an MO that leans right.
It is more explicit this time round with TOP invitation mkII
Open letter re: Safe and unhindered passage for the 2018 international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. Urgent.
In reply to our emails to you on this matter (dated 5 July 2018 and 23 July 2018) we received an email acknowledgement from your office on 13 July 2018 and again on 24 July 2018, that indicated that we would receive a response ‘in due course’. However we have yet to receive a response from you.
Our emails requested you to demand that the Israeli authorities to end their illegal blockade of Gaza, and allow safe and unhindered passage for the 2018 international Freedom Flotilla heading for Gaza.
We have shared our request as an ‘open letter’ as this is an important issue of public concern.
Last night (NZ time) one of the 2018 international Freedom Flotilla boats, the Al Awda, was unlawfully boarded and apprehended by Israeli forces in international waters.
On board was our New Zealand representative, union leader Mike Treen, along with a number of other prominent human rights advocates and crew from around the world.
In any other circumstances if any New Zealand citizen was illegally detained in International Waters. It would be all over the News cycle. And the Foreign Affairs Minister and Acting PM both, would be expected to make a statement.
Unlawfully boarding a boat in international waters and kidnapping its occupants is called Piracy. Is the international community watching this? If so what are they going to do about this unlawful act?
The violent IDF thugs who invaded and occupied the Al Asqa Mosque last week, used as an excuse for the their actions, accounts of Palestinian youths throwing rocks at the estimated one thousand fundamentalist Jewish settlers who had tried to force their way into the Al Asqa compound.
What if the events were reversed?
What if Jewish youths threw stones at Palestinian fundamentalists encroaching on their property?
What if heavily armed Islamist forces used this as an excuse to invade the Synagogue and violently attack the worshipers?
They would be condemned around the world as terrorists and fascists, no matter what their alleged motive was.
Watched a new documentary on Netflix last night on how the rush to market of new medical devices have led to serious adverse effects. Doco looks into the highly dodgy FDA approval process and compromised bureaucrats.
…which discusses drug reactions and their gross under reporting.
Natrad, especially Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon, have done some seriously good work on highlighting NZ’s own scandalous treatment of women impacted by surgical mesh.
FDA/CDC/DOH et al…deeply conflicted and compromised…and directly responsible for an unfathomable number of deaths and injury…
Approvals process for ‘drugs’ is more stringent than for biologicals…both are now ‘fast tracked’ …for the public good of course…the approvals processes are forcast into corporate earnings/profit report…
Biologicals were not mentioned in the article about reporting/capturing/tracking of adverse events…
Putting a piece of wire into a fallopian tube on the reliance that it would inflame it and then scar over is something that shouldn’t have made it off the drawing board.
Looking back at the weekend political events and msm coverage of these, a few things stick out for me as being a little surprising.
As mickysavage noted in the first sentence of his post on Bridges and his cheerleaders, the lead up to the National Party Conference started with a plethora of fawning articles by, for example, Stacey Kirk, Audrey Young and Clare Trevett on Simon Bridges.
As the weekend wore on, Kirk and Young continued their ra ra articles, while Trevett seemed to become bored or turned off by late afternoon on Saturday and then produced two very entertaining pieces. Links if you missed them:
However, there was one longterm Herald “editorial writer and columnist” – and Key sycophant – who did not join the cheerleaders. John Roughan.
No, Roughan did not have a road to Damascus and write a turnaround re the Nats. He just ignored them and the whole Annual Conference event – and wrote an opinion piece on the events that happened one year ago that led to Jacinda Ardern becoming the leader of the Labour Party entitled “A year on from Andrew Little’s game changing decision”
Normally I bypass Roughan’s columns but that was too intriguing not to click. And I was bit surprised. In effect it is a summary and timeline of the events that happened up to and immediately after Little’s decision to step aside.
I know some Greens here will not agree with some of what Roughan has written, but IMHO it is a reasonably fair and accurate summation – especially coming from someone of Roughan’s usual persuasion.
Here are his first few paras – and then his final conclusion.
[WARNING – You really need to read the rest in between as any comments on these extracts alone will be well out of context.]
As someone who cares for the accuracy of history, it is often hard to watch the first draft being written.
This weekend it is one year since an event that may puzzle future historians of New Zealand politics. TVNZ had a poll ready for publication on the Sunday night. They had shared the results with the Labour Party’s leader, Andrew Little, who was interviewed for their weekend political programme.
…
Events moved so fast last this time last year that we have never properly reflected on them. History is in danger of deciding a public backlash against benefit cheating somehow caused Little to step down. The truth is more interesting for the development of our constitutional expectations. But history might not notice.”
Yes, there is an extraneous ‘last’ in the last para in the article. And no, I am not trying to drum up clicks for the Herald, but it is an intriguing article considering the author.
It is tradition now to have a cute animal picture in the media. This is Scoop’s and Gordon Campbell’s image for the National conference. A sweet little guinea pig. I’d vote for this one! I just don’t like it’s chances – it looks naive and somehow feminine (how do male g.p.s differ from females) but I think it might get roasted if up against hot cookies like Bennett, Collins and Adams etc. http://www.scoop.co.nz/
Oh Christ! Quelle surprise
Viv Rickard ……. Deputy Chief Exec Service Delivery MSD.
Could it be the very same Viv?
Punish punish beat beat, shunt sideways.
I used to wonder why the culture in MoBIE was so toxic.
Maybe the problem is actually within the SSC and the SSC alone.
This is real 3rd World shit
Ae!
Btw, there probably won’t be too much concern or comment on “16” even though it’s this sort of shit that the new gubbaamint will be pushing the proverbial uphill in their undertaking to make ‘change’.
And they haven’t yet come to realise there is more than one way to skin a cat (one that’s intent on scratching your eyes out)
Good morning The Am Show time to see reality I can not see national winning in 2020 .
Duncan if you don’t care about the future of your Mokopunas well yea lets just keep pouring carbon into our environment carbon taxes work I seen the traffic jams decrees with my own eyes. What do you think about TVNZ underarm bowl on Corin Dan from the Nation shifted to 930 pm . That’s sneaky
The MH370 plane going missing there were two people on that plane that owned some very important patents on that plane ???????????????????.
All these wild fires and the sad loss of life we need to pay Papatuanuku more respect keep vegetation away from building in fire prone places some places you mite have to have controled burns to burn the fuel that acumalates in these forest that have had wild fires from the beginning come up with systems to build communitys so they can survive fire its all in the design respecting Papatuanuku means we plan for the worst from her and design to minimize the risk of a natural disaster.
Butterbean you are doing good with your boot camps if we taxed sugar hard we would have half the problem solved A lot of our people bodys can not cope with sugar this fact is well documented.
Aotearoa is paradise compared to some other countrys but it still need big improvements Ka kite ano P.S on to my favorite charity
Good evening Newshub OUR business confidence will be affected by trump going around Papatuanuku trying to bully and intimidate everyone that’s a fact.
trumps good good statement it’s going to be good for his net worth. I see steve who has being going around Europe trying to reinvent himself trying to boost his profile and the neo libreal Capitalist in Europe I totally ignored this fact and he will go away
There you go some people are taking advantage of Aotearoa’s soft immigration laws big time the last government turned a blind eye they were pandering to the wealthy employers keeping wages low who cares if the displace common poor person .
Zimbabwe is having there election kia kaha Eco Maori know’s that the next government will be a government that delivers a better future for all Zimbabwean’s I see all of AFRICA has a free trade agree thats the way you know what I have said only Africans know whats best for all Africans not foreigners. Ka kite ano P.S my time on my computa was wrong the sandflys well if the are busy trying to intimadated Eco Maori our mokopunas won’t be hassled by the muppets
You see tangata Eco Maori is not just teaching tangata in Aotearoa about how there is one law for the wealthy and another for the common poor tangata and that the wealthy laugh that the poor common tangata are honest Eco Maori is teaching All of the common tangata of Papatuanuku of there SHAM . Ana to kai ka kite ano P.S the time on my computa corrected its self WTF
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
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It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
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Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
Average ordinary time hourly earnings, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), increased 5.2 percent in the year to the March 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Annual wage cost inflation, as measured by the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau ...
As of the March 2024 quarter, we can now look back on 20 years of data related to youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), as collected by the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), according to figures released by Stats NZ today. "The ...
Thousands of workers attended public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today to celebrate International Workers’ Day (May Day), but union representatives are urging caution and vigilance over the Government’s blatantly "anti-worker" ...
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
The PSA is warning the Government that the sensitive information of New Zealanders held by various agencies will fall into the wrong hands if the latest round of proposed cuts goes ahead. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Talitha Best, Professor of Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Victoria Rodriguez/Unsplash How do sugar rushes work? – W.H, age nine, from Canberra What a terrific question W.H! Let’s explore this, starting with some of the basics. What is sugar? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karinna Saxby, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne MART PRODUCTION/Pexels Increasing income support could help keep women and children safe according to new work demonstrating strong links between financial insecurity and domestic violence. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University The telecommunications industry faces a major shakeup following the release of the post-incident report on last November’s 12-hour Optus outage. Telecommunications companies will have to share more information with customers during future ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Eden Denyer, bookseller at Unity Books Auckland.Weirdest question/request you’ve had on the shop floorA mother came in looking for anything we might have on Alaskan bison as that was her little boy’s ...
NZCTU Economist Craig Renney said new data released by Statistics New Zealand shows the need for Government to act now, with unemployment rising from 3.4% to 4.3%. ...
The outpouring of anger over Maiki Sherman’s hyperbolic presentation of this week’s ‘nightmare’ poll is itself an overreaction, argues Stewart Sowman-Lund. Politicians love nothing more than to pretend they don’t care about polls. This week, deputy prime minister Winston Peters said he didn’t give a “rat’s derriere” about a TVNZ ...
Asia Pacific Report Ngāti Kahungunu in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region has become the first indigenous Māori iwi (tribe) to sign a resolution calling for a “ceasefire in Palestine”, reports Te Ao Māori News. Reporter Te Aniwaniwa Paterson talked to Te Otāne Huata, who has been organising peace rallies ...
By Dale Luma in Port Moresby “We want grants and not concessional loans,” is the crisp message from Papua New Guinea businesses directly affected by the Black Wednesday looting four months ago. The businesses, which lost millions after the January 10 rioting and looting, say they need grants as part ...
Happy May Day. Join a union. Q: What’s worse than a staff break room where the only place to sit and have a cup of tea is on a teetering stack of old pornography magazines? A: Your boss replacing the magazine stacks with chairs that are “heartily encrusted with ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Former opposition leader Matthew Wale has been announced as the second prime ministerial candidate ahead of the election in Solomon Islands tomorrow. He will face off against former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele, who was announced by the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation ...
We get but one birthday a year – why not make it last as long as possible by scheduling as many meals with friends and family as you can? This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. How do you celebrate your birthday? Do you celebrate at ...
A Koi Tū discussion paper released today proposes sweeping changes to New Zealand’s media industry. The principal’s key author, Gavin Ellis, explains how journalists have a key role to play in making others value their role in society. This is an abridged version of a piece first published on knightlyviews.com ...
The Government’s spending cuts are again targeting support for Māori with proposed reform of the agency charged with advising on Māori wellbeing and development. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Douglas, Honorary Senior Lecturer, UNSW Aviation., UNSW Sydney The history of budget jet airlines in Australia is a long road littered with broken dreams. New entrants have consistently struggled to get a foothold. Low-cost carrier Bonza has just become the industry’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosalind Dixon, Director, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW Sydney Australia is finally having a sustained conversation about violence against women and what we can do about it. It is more than time. Australian women and girls continue to experience ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne stockfour/Shutterstock Preliminary bulk billing data released this week shows a 2.1% rise in bulk billing up to March. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Schulz, Senior Lecturer, University of Adelaide Australia is once again grappling with how we can stop gendered violence in our country. Protests over the weekend show there is enormous community anger over the number of women who are dying and National ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University AnastasiaDudka/Shutterstock What if the government was doing everything it could to stop thieves making off with our money, except the one thing that could really work? That’s how it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury The Conversation It seems to be a time of old favourites. This month our experts have recommended two new seasons – the second season of Alone Australia (although ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland A bright Eta Aquariid meteor photobombed this photo of comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN) in May 2020.Jonti Horner Meteors – commonly known as shooting stars – can be seen on any night of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Flannery, Honorary fellow, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock Current concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in Earth’s atmosphere are unprecedented in human history. But CO₂ levels today, and those that might occur in coming decades, did occur millions of years ago. ...
Winston Peters has been keen to dismiss speculation on our involvement in Aukus but will give a speech tonight on the direction of our foreign policy, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Usmar, Lecturer in Critical Media Literacies, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images With the coalition government’s ban of student mobile phones in New Zealand schools coming into effect this week, reaction has ranged from the sceptical (kids will just get ...
Hospitals around the country are not allowed to make a single hiring decision without the approval of Te Whatu Ora's head office, including for cleaners and administration staff. ...
A new report on protecting journalism and democracy in New Zealand recommends a levy be charged on global platforms like Facebook and Google to fund media firms undertaking public interest reporting. It also calls for the reinstatement of a powerful Broadcasting Commission to distribute public funding for journalism and other ...
On International Workers' Day, also known as May Day, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi and the wider union movement are celebrating the proud history of the labour movement during a tough time for working people. ...
From bills to beards, a walk through the former Green co-leader’s time in politics. After close to a decade in politics, James Shaw is preparing to bid farewell to parliament. Tonight will see the former minister deliver his valedictory address, certain to be a speech filled with Shaw’s trademark wit ...
Two months ago, MPs unanimously voted to give themselves a week off in Efeso Collins’ honour. On Tuesday, most were too busy to give even an hour of their time. The day Fa’anānā Efeso Collins died, parliament felt different. In a building that operates at a breakneck pace, everyone stopped ...
India’s election involves hundreds of millions of people and is a months-long affair. Here’s how voting works and what’s at stake.The biggest-ever election in world history started on April 19, with more than 10% of the world’s population eligible to vote. Elections in India, the world’s most populous country ...
Behind closed doors, NZ First will be arguing fiercely against any watering down of the ministerial decision-making powers in the Bill The post Bishop backtracks after fast-track backlash appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Emotional scenes played out in the Invercargill courthouse on the first two days of the coronial inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones, in which the boy’s mother was accused of disposing of her son’s body. The second season of Newsroom’s award-nominated podcast The Boy in the Water ...
Opinion: The impression from the carpark is very inviting. The area is well fenced but barred so there is easy visibility of loved ones. Inside, the spaces are welcoming and clean and staff are friendly and clearly comfortable. I am greeted by ‘Kim’. She has worked here for three years, ...
After the Christchurch earthquake, the then-national civil defence boss compared his experience to “putting a team on the rugby field who have never ever played together before”. Now, eight years later – and following a damning inquiry into the emergency response of cyclones Gabrielle, Hale and the Auckland anniversary weekend floods – ...
“I had just come off the end of a major robbery case which I had been working on for six months when I got a call on the afternoon of September 1, 1992, that some remains had been found at a building site in Devonport, so I drove over with ...
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Comment: Journalists are very good at telling other people’s stories, but they fall well short when writing about their own profession. Perhaps that is why it is so undervalued. Every successive poll on the public’s attitude toward journalism is more alarming than the last. In the last month we have ...
Opinion: A young Māori woman and her Pacific partner arrive at their local hospital by ambulance. She has gone into labour at just under 24 weeks, but the couple haven’t recognised the symptoms – and don’t know the risks of premature birth for their baby. By the time they arrive, ...
Asia Pacific Report A Pacific civil society alliance has condemned French neocolonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, saying Paris is set on “maintaining the status quo” and denying the indigenous Kanak people their inalienable right to self-determination. The Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) Alliance, representing some 15 groups, said in ...
Koi Tū New Zealand cannot sit back and see the collapse of its Fourth Estate, the director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, Sir Peter Gluckman, says in the foreword of a paper published today. The paper, “If not journalists, then who?” paints a picture of an industry ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Foreign investment proposals with implications for Australia’s strategic or economic security will face tougher scrutiny, under a policy overhaul to be announced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Wednesday. At the same time, the government ...
A Waitangi Tribunal inquiry report has warned government that a repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act could cause harm to children in care. ...
The Treasury has published today three new papers covering government consumption multipliers, automatic stabilisers and the impacts of global shocks on New Zealand’s economy. ...
Asia Pacific Report The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now. In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ferrie, A/Prof, UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Technology Sydney PsiQuantum The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley. Half ...
With Muldoon making one of his sporadic appearances I thought to do some reading to see how good the memory is. It’s an interesting exercise, one to serve as a reminder that the memory is always flawed and two to be reminded how one’s own bias and personal circumstances influence how we see events as they occur.
1984 and the general election. It’s often still talked about and the terms currency crisis, constitutional crisis, Muldoon & Lange blah always take big billing in the narrative. That’s not my abiding memory of the election and after reading up on it most of my recollection holds good. I had some bits wrong but still had the crux of it.
The big story was the country was attacked by our own business community who managed to loot the taxpayer of nearly half a billion dollars. And that’s in 1984 dollars. A lot of fortunes were made from the big currency devaluation and it was the taxpayer who footed the bill for it.
I had only a couple of questions I wanted answered. Who were the currency speculators and when would the new government be going after them. The former is still unanswered and time answered the latter. I can’t help but think if the speculators had been exposed the next decades of NZ politics would have been very different.
So, that’s my memory of the 1984 election; that the country was fleeced of a lot of money and we never did get the utu we deserved. I bet there aren’t many others here who remember it that way -:)
How do you claim tax payers footed the bill for the devaluation? The country changed the rate of exchange between $NZ and $US because they were running out of the foreign currency. But people made money by anticipating this change (yes there was a leak as well) not by avoiding taxes or stealing govt funds.
The Reserve Bank was in charge of foreign exchange back then Nic. The sting was a simple one; Buy forex from the reserve bank for $1 before the election and sell it back to the reserve bank for $1.20 after devaluation. Since the reserve bank was funded by the taxpayer it was the taxpayer who paid out the speculators.
The Reserve bank sold nearly $1billion in forward contracts just in the week leading up the election. That’s $200 million paid out to the scepculators there alone.
The country wasn’t running out of forex or going broke like people suggested. The concern was that the speculators would keep hoovering up more forex if they didn’t devalue immediately.
The NZ dollar was overvalued. That is what the market was trying to tell the Government.The Government decided that it wasn’t and tried to prop it up by attempting to meet all the demand to sell NZ Dollars. That isn’t the speculators fault. That is the Governments fault for trying to keep a currency artificially high. Btw what was the benefit of keeping the NZ Dollar at the higher rate?
You’re spouting bullshit Gosman. The currency speculation was a short term gamble and the need or not need to devalue wasn’t one with time constraints.
90% of the forward contracts with the reserve bank were due to mature before the end of August. The speculation wasn’t against the dollar being devalued it was against the incoming Govt devaluing almost immediately.
And you’re also wrong about the dollar beiong overvalued, as were all the so-called pundist of the time. The doilar went UP after it was floated.
The decision to devalue was on the Labour party pre-election at the time I believe.
The reserve bank or (rather it delegated from treasury) is only able to do this by the governments ability to tax, but it issues all the $NZ itself. It certainly does so to pay out forex exchange contracts. In this sense no taxpayers paid for the devaluation, the reserve bank simply issued the $NZ at the new rate as required.
The reserve bank was running out of foreign exchange reserves at the time.
You can couch it whichever way you want it was still taxpayer money being handed out to the speculators.
And no they weren’t running out of forex. You do know what a forward contract is?
The Forex reserves of the Reserve bank were being rapidly run down as they were being used to prop up an artificially high exchange rate. This is not speculators fault. This is solely the fault of the Government for setting the rate of the NZ dollar too high.
Not true gosman. When demand for forex became heavy prior to the election, and started running down existing reserves, the Reserve Bank started selling forward contracts as an alternative to borrowing more foreign exchange. They could always borrow more forex, the country had a good credit rating.
The risk was the growing tab that the speculators were running up.
If you think you can beat the market over more than the short term you are dreaming. You should join your brethren in Venezuela or Cuba where there are multiple currency values as a result of the Government having no idea how to set a proper value.
Didn’t take you long to run out of argument did it gosman.
You have yet to advise why you think a Currency rate for the NZ Dollar set by Muldoon was beneficial to the NZ economy.
“You have yet to advise why you think a Currency rate for the NZ Dollar set by Muldoon was beneficial to the NZ economy.”
That would be like you advising when you stopped beating your wife.
I’ve made no comments about what the currency rate should be. Why would I, that’s not what this is about.
What was the issue with devaluing the dollar anyway? Why do you think a NZD value that was set by Muldoon was better for the economy than one set by Douglas?
Growing tab of what? Hint, its forex.
Unlike a broken clock, you’re not going to tell the correct time, Gosman…
You showed you don’t understand derivatives or counter party risk…
And you don’t understand simple FX related NZ fiscal history…
Please enlighten me then. What part don’t I understand?
Ok, so all the $NZ in existance come from the reserve bank. How are taxpayers paying for the devaluation? (The thing you still have not shown).
Well lets assume the devaluation netted the speculators $500 million. In your world the RB just magics up $500 million out of nowhere and gives it to them. Even in that scenario they’re getting $500 million while the rest of the taxpayers are getting nothing,… their wealth has increased at the expense of everyone else.
Their wealth has increased in relation to everybody else, yes. Not as an expense, no.
I’ll leave you to argue that with the economists who agreed it was the taxpayer who ultimately paid the tab. Brian Easton is one.
Again this is the fault of the Government for setting the value of the NZ dollar at a rate that was higher than the market stated it should be.
Of course at the time they fixed it, they were bound to be wrong in the future. Your really just saying always float your currency or expect the government to face occasional currency crises, right?
If you want to refer to somebody else claiming taxpayers footed a bill, then use a link.
Sure, this was one of my reading matter, pretty long but quite interesting ;
https://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/1989/09/from_run_to_float_the_making_of_the_rogernomics_exchange_rate_policy/
Easton tends to go more into the dry economics and the personalities involved which wasn’t really my interest.
The point at which Euston makes any claim about taxpayers footing any bill is discussing the govt deficit. Its highly debateable if this is tax payers paying, because as I said, the only cost is the amount the RBNZ issues out at their forex window (in the fixed exchange system). In practice govts dont tend to repay their deficits, they occasionally pay them down a bit until it causes an economic crisis (eg a recession) eventually.
Ultimately the summary of that discussion should be that moving to a floating exchange rate has completely removed a lot of pressures on the government.
Nothing illegal in the actions of speculators at the time of course. If you want prosecutions make a case for a law against it, going forward.
Only in your view Nic, I’m happy to take Eastons word for it. He’s no fool.
You’re a bit like gosman in the way you want to divert my argument. My position is clear enough. I wanted the speculators identified so we all knew who they were. In the pursuit of substantial personal gain they displayed a blatant disregard for the economic well being of the country and if/when any of them raised their heads again in the future we’d know where they were coming from… if we knew who they were.
There was also the point that big fortunes were made and we could have done with some solid reassurances that no-one in a privileged position was in on it.
Prosecutions weren’t expected, just an opening of the books. Public opinion was the only court they needed to face.
So when you asked when would the new government be going after them, you didn’t mean legally?
Nah, the sting was done and dusted by then. They could have started investigating the funding of the speculators and possibly found some illegal doings but I wasn’t bothered about that personally.
What wasn’t looked into much is the speculators themselves and where they got the cash to buy their forex. Some of them at least probably played some devious tricks to get in on the game. One rumour was of a financial institution raiding depositors funds, the truth of that I do not know.
What I expected (wanted) from the Govt was for them to essentially blacklist the participants from having access to any taxpayer money or government influence again. That would have been quite legal, and justified IMO.
It was the decision of the government prior to the 1984 election to hold the exchange rate at a higher level than the “market” thought was appropriate, and it was also that government’s decision to issue forex contracts. I suspect DH that you and Gosman are talking across each other. It seems quite simple to me that Muldoon made decisions that turned out to be wrong. At least some of the forward exchange contracts would have been needed to facilitate imports or exports. Any change in relative wealth does mean that there are winners and losers.
I do not recall a decision being public before the election from Labour that they would float the currency, but by the time the election was decided there may have been few options
Floating was always an option. It wasn’t the first preference however.
When you fix the currency you open up the possibility of a currency attack along the lines of what happened in 1984. The people betting against the Kiwi dollar’s value being correct are acting in an entirely rational manner. It is the Government who believes they know better than the market what the value should be that are acting irrationally.
and who are ‘the market’ Gosman?
People who use trade NZ Dollar in relation to other currencies. You know Banks, Exporters, Importers, Tourists, Government agencies.
‘the market’ are the owners of capital, the more you own the larger your impact…so in effect you are telling us we should allow the wealthy (of which NZ is a tiny proportion) to determine what our currency is worth in the casino where they are the house….you may think thats preferable to attempting to impart some control but I’d suggest that casinos are hardly a model for society.
Incorrrect. The Forex market is both the demand as well as the supply of capital. I can demand Forex without owning it. I can borrow (in fact many people do) against future earnings to get the Forex I require.
I suggest you read up on Steve Keens research regarding supply and demand.
I suggest you read up on the reality of the World rather than your fantasyland scenarios that you wish the World was like.
I have and that’s why I know capitalism to be delusional.
And Steve Keen’s research shows that the Supply and demand curve is a scatter graph.
Except YOU have convinced virtually noone (that I am aware of) of the benefits of your approach. When I challenge you on this you build some flimsy defense that it is all because of evil capitalists trying to sabotage your alternatives. You seemingly ignore the inconvenient fact that your alternatives are so fragile that they are seemingly easily stopped by a handful of people with power and money.
No, you’r ignoring that the system is owned by the people with power and money and that nothing happens without their say so.
Rich people fuck over democracy getting the laws tilted in their favour for their own benefit. This has been proven.
It hasn’t been proven. You just like to think it has. What is your solution to your ideas being messed over all the time and so easily by the way?
Neither do you understand what ‘the market’ is…or what runs ‘the market’…
FX market is nothing like as you describe it..
Your question does raise an interesting point of difference between many left wing and right wing people. A large number of left wing people seem to object to the very concept of the market determining the price of goods and services and believe that the true value is better determined by some other means (usually involving a centralised authority controlling the price). They question the motivations of people involved in a market as if they are trying to scam something and people need to be protected from them.
OMG! People use markets to further their own gains? Surely not?
Yes I know it is a terrifying concept.
so you don’t think it is fucked that people can make lots of money while creating nothing? That they extract the value of other people’s work?
You assume they have done no work. They in fact have done a great deal of work. They have ensured international trade can be maintained with minimal friction.
They do no work and produce no value therefore the only place that the value can come from is other people.
In other words, rich people are thieves.
They produce a huge amount of value. They lower transaction costs and reduce exchange risks in trading relationships.
by exacerbating currency fluctuations? How does increased unpredictability aid trade?
There was not increased unpredictability in this situation. In fact there was greater predictability because their actions virtually guaranteed the currency was devalued.
Even in a floating exchange rate situation speculators can reduce currency fluctuations.
Speculators can only reduce currency fluctuations if they bet wrong – i.e. selling before the price increases, or buying just before the price decreases.
But what they are guaranteed to do is increase the volume of trading, and if the wind direction is obvious to all they sell overvalued currencies thus even further lowering the overall demand, which makes the troughs much deeper.
You’re a market acolyte – you might have access to the volume of NZD sales prior to the dollar being floated. As it is, it fell 20%. Without the speculators, it might have only fallen 10 or 15%. Otherwise you’re arguing that decreased demand doesn’t change the equilibrium price.
No, speculators bring liquidity in to a market. Do you understand why liquidity is a good thing for efficient functioning of markets?
You do understand why larger volumes of water have bigger waves and swells?
Speculators CAN increase exchange rate fluctuations but they CAN also reduce it. What happens to the currency in a situation with no speculators if you are an export orientated economy reliant on products that have a highly seasonal demand and supply ?
Then your producers deal with those seasons, just as farmers deal with real seasons.
Because in order to reduce exchange rate fluctuations overall, the majority of speculative trading needs to be at a loss. So either your position is that speculators provide market stability by being mugs who lose money, or they make money by exacerbating fluctuations and market instability (thus being a barrier to trade in real goods and services people want).
It really is that simple. My position is that if speculators make money overall and on average, then they can only do so by betting in the direction that the market will go and therefore exacerbating market fluctuations. For speculators to actually stabilise the market they need to be bad at their jobs.
Either way, the existence of speculators means somebody is making money off chumps rather than actually producing something worthwhile to humanity.
The producers “deal” with it??? What does that mean?
You ignore what would happen. There would be extreme fluctuations of the price of the currency as there would be steep increases in the demand for it as Exports became available followed by equally steep falls when they no no longer were being supplied.
Speculators provide liquidity to smooth over such periods and enable regular purchases (and sellers) to buys and sell easily.
Exactly what I said.
If a market is seasonal, they don’t bloody need to be trading in that market in the off season. So producers diversify. Just as farmers sell lambs in one part of the year, grow feed for winter, shear in spring, and so on.
What happens to an exporter of products that have a highly seasonal aspect in an environment of market speculators? When nobody wants NZD successful speculators will put off buying until they think the market has tanked, then they will buy up and put off selling until demand has peaked. Then they will sell as much as possible at that price and tank the market further. When they buy and hold until demand reaches breaking point. So the producers are faced with bigger peaks and troughs than if speculators didn’t stick their beaks in.
Read and try and learn something McFlock
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/speculators-destabilizing.asp
lol the best your religious text can produced is “it has been argued”.
What a load of shit. Speculators don’t win by betting against the market trends, they win by pre-empting and thereby reinforcing those trends.
The liquidity argument relies on the idea that a market will dry up without speculators who have no interest in that market other than speculative trading. This is an example on the simplistic analyses that free-market capitalists rely on in order to make even a mediocre argument that their system is something other than parasitic.
I don’t really care whether you accept my argument. I am merely pointing out what the argument is. You can choose to believe the opposite. It bothers me not a jot.
lol
normally you come up with better bullshit than ‘not bovvered’. But if all you have to go on is the idea that more people bidding on something somehow doesn’t raise the price, I guess your cognitive dissonance can only go so far.
Oh you mean like Trump ??
lol…surely so, how confident are you that you’ll be the winner in a winner takes all game? especially when youre one of the smallest stake holders?
I rely on the safety in numbers approach. The more people involved the safer people are. This applies as much to markets as to anything.
and yet the proportion of ‘wealth’ is increasingly being accumulated by fewer and fewer….hows that safety in numbers work again?
It is not increasingly being accumulated by fewer and fewer at all. The World’s wealth is better distributed today than at any time in human history.
Actually, even over the last 200 years global income inequality has increased significantly.
So it can’t be better distributed today “than at any time in human history”.
I stand corrected. It is rapidly falling since 1988 and is the best we have had since the 1950’s.
“More detailed data from similar sources plots a continuous decline since 1988. This is attributed to globalization increasing incomes for billions of poor people, mostly in India and China.”
“Developing countries like Brazil have also improved basic services like health care, education, and sanitation; others like Chile and Mexico have enacted more progressive tax policies.[35]”
So it’s not all down to the market.
And “globalization” isn’t just currency speculators. As discussed above, speculators can act as barriers to international trade.
I never claimed it was. I just disputed that global inequality is getting worse. I was wrong about it being the best ever I admit but was correct how it is getting better.
Due to globalisation, progressive taxation, and increased access to basic services.
Speculators can be removed as they are a barrier to globalisation.
you are confusing income inequality with wealth inequality….wealth inequality is rising and is projected to continue
“The world’s richest people have seen their share of the globe’s total wealth increase from 42.5% at the height of the 2008 financial crisis to 50.1% in 2017, or $140tn (£106tn), according to Credit Suisse’s global wealth report published on Tuesday.
“The share of the top 1% has been on an upward path ever since [the crisis], passing the 2000 level in 2013 and achieving new peaks every year thereafter,” the annual report said. The bank said “global wealth inequality has certainly been high and rising in the post-crisis period”.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/14/worlds-richest-wealth-credit-suisse
The rich band together against the poor. Always have done.
The motivations will be many and varied but ultimately the goal is to win…and that means everyone else loses. As said , not a model for cohesive society.
Far too many (both left and right) appear to consider ‘the market’ is some disinterested force when the reality is the polar opposite, so the question really should be do you want your lifestyle determined by an elected group of locals whom you can remove at regular periods or do you want it determined by some faceless individuals almost certainly not residing in your society who are engaged in some light entertainment?
and remember the house always wins.
You haven’t explained why anybody would lose from betting against an overvalued NZ Dollar. Moving towards a more sensible level would seem to be the best approach. If anybody is causing harm it is the Government trying to prop up a currency at a level higher than it should be.
a government trying to maintain an exchange rate at a ratio that serves the purposes of their economy is every bit as reasonable as allowing it to be controlled by the whim of non resident thrill seekers…..the (sad) reality is if we wish to trade we must play by the house rules so we should at least attempt to control the impact by not giving them a blank cheque and selecting our own stake.
It is not reasonable. It is entirely irrational that a Government can control the price of it’s currency in any meaningful way long term. It is why you have ridiculous situations where places like Venezuela have multiple values for their currency and why Zimbabwe no longer has it’s own one.
and what destroyed the currencies of Venezuela and Zimbabwe?
Stupid left wing inspired fiscal and monetary policies.
Corruption – the same thing that destroyed the soviet union and is presently destroying NZ.
Except we are rated one of the least corrupt nations on the planet.
and growing less so by the day….is the impact of free markets causal or correlation?
Not correct. Our rating on the corruption index recently improved.
on the corruption ‘perception’ index…did it?, must be because of the change of government eh.
capital flight…caused by poor policy decisions and underpinned by a lack of democratic rigour. What do you think would happen to NZ with its current policy settings if there was capital flight on a similar scale here?…exactly the same thing…so it is not the system its the quality of the decision making and the exposure…and make no mistake, we are exposed.
What would happen is the value of the NZ Dollar would fall dramatically making NZ exports more valuable and encouraging greater foreign investment as our assets became comparatively cheaper. that would in turn drive up the value of the dollar and lower interest as a Capital flight turned in to a Capital flood.
perhaps …in time, just as it may in Zimbabwe and Venezuela (may require some democratic reform first) … meanwhile we would be impacted every bit as much as them, with spiralling inflation, shortages, unemployment and population exodus…..our ‘market forces’ economy wont change that.
Ummm… no. They were impacted by those things BECAUSE they ignored market forces. It was not because they allowed themselves to be dictated by market forces. They were/are actively hostile to the market setting the price of their currency and they suffered the inevitable consequences.
ummm…they ignored market forces? So they (being Zimbabwe and Venezuela) misjudged how the owners of capital would react to their policies…and then doubled down.
So who runs things in Zimbabwe and Venezuela?…or NZ for that matter?
You seem to think that the Government can control EVERYTHING. Just as the government can’t control the weather it can’t control the price of goods and services in the economy. It might be able to influence the price but it can’t control it.
thats what I concluded as well….Zimbabwe and Venezuela are capitalist failures.
Indeed a Government could control everything (economy wise) in a closed economy, but I doubt virtually anyone would accept such constraint as that would impose, however an intelligent government (or society) would not hand over entire control of its economy to outside forces and would seek to retain as much control as practicable….that is not an open market economy but something more akin to the Scandinavian models (although even they have moved further right in recent years)…and that requires a more hands on approach by the state and less reliance on attracting offshore investment and more on supplying our needs onshore….especially in a world of diminishing resource.
“Except we are rated one of the least corrupt nations on the planet.”
An assessment that the Panama papers have proven was erroneous.
There was no indication of corruption involving NZ in the Panama papers.
Denial is the longest river in Africa eh.
A clever (unoriginal) quip is a poor substitute for facts.
If we accept that Gosman has done the reading necessary to assert that
then, depending on his definitions of ‘indication’ and ‘NZ’, this must simply be a rather remarkable coincidence.
I can understand Key’s motivation for claiming that NZ wasn’t a tax haven, but what’s Gosman?
@ Drowsy
I think we can safely presume that reading is not Gosman’s cup of tea. The cognitive dissonance from the conflict between reality and his far-right fabulism must be well nigh unbearable.
Stuart Munro
Good joke. Denial. And accolades to you in trying to keep a thread of rationality on this blog, a gold thread that shows up all the dim bulbs that have found a home here.
They are scamming us. It’s how they get a profit without producing any value.
They produce a huge value. You just fail to see it just as most of the World fail to see any benefit in the policies you promote.
No, they’re bludgers and produce no value. From Why we can’t afford the rich:
The rich get wealthy through ownership and not through production of value. Their income is fully unearned and thus is a theft upon the rest of us.
So has stated countless hard core Socialists throughout the past 150 years yet your ideology seems to fail far quicker and more comprehensively than any system involving rich people.
Piffle. The wealthy merely contrive not to acknowledge the consequences of their actions.
So Socialists acknowledge the consequences of their actions and that is why it fails ?
It’s not socialism that fails. It’s capitalism. Even in the 1970s when we started to see stagflation it was still capitalism that failed.
@ Gosman
Try to get it through your head that you are not an authority on socialism – or very much else come to that. The extravagance of your prejudices probably precludes you ever being one.
It clearly frightens you. Perhaps you should obsess about something over which you have more control.
I can quote Adam Smith as well – you know, the father of modern economics. In fact, all the classical economist were scathing of rentier capitalists and warned about them.
Now we have our entire socio-economic system based upon them and their greed.
And we are richer than ever before.
The morality of the situation completely escapes you doesn’t it Gosman.
If you want to paint it as a rational act it should also be rational that the victims of the speculation, aka the Government and us taxpayers, would want to enact some revenge over those who fleeced us of our taxes. I bet you’d squawk like a chook if that was to happen.
What morality is at stake here? Why is an overvalued exchange rate beneficial and something that has to be protected as a matter of morality?
The value of the currency is irrelevant to the conversation gosman. It’s the undermining of our election, the deliberate harm done to our economy and the looting of the taxpayer purse we’re talking about here,
The run on the dollar had little to no impact on the election in 1984. It barely got a mention and the incoming Government did not have an idea of the extent of the issue until AFTER they had won.
It had a very big impact on our election and electoral system gosman, it triggered the constitutional crisis for starters.
I think it was perfectly reasonable for us to demand to know who the speculators were. Then we’d have known who couldn’t be trusted with anything to do with our Government.
The constitutional crisis happened when Muldoon refused to follow the instructions of the incoming government. If you claim this was the crisis of democracy you acknowledge it didn’t impact the election. My understanding is that the currency crisis became known to the incoming government only after they won.
The constitutional crisis came about because Muldoon wanted to call the speculators bluff and refused to devalue. If there had been no speculation on the currency there would have been no crisis.
Douglas wanted to devalue to dollar by 20 %. This was common knowledge at the time. The currency traders were acting entirely rationally and legally by betting that an incoming government would carry out such a plan.
You have still to tell me why you think having a currency at a rate set by Muldoon was better for the NZ economy.
So the currency crisis didn’t impact the election then. And further there would have been no constitutional crisis if Muldoon had followed instructions.
Do you not want people acting in an entirely rational manner being involved with Government?
You might want to think that one through gosman, it’s not very rational.
It is entirely rational. If an incoming government has indicated that they would like to devalue the NZ Dollar by 20 % why would you not sell the NZ dollar and buy other currencies on the belief that you could make 20% return when it is devalued?
It’s very irrational. A thief can be acting rationally so you’d be quite happy for thieves to be involved with Government too?
They weren’t breaking any laws. Your whole arguments seems to rest on the basis you think what they did was immoral. I personally think that government trying to dictate prices of goods and services is immoral but I’m not calling for people involved in the Muldoon administration to be held accountable.
No they weren’t breaking any laws. A part of me can admit to a grudging admiration at their opportunism. But the part of me who is a taxpayer and voter also wants some utu, they did harm to the country and while they can keep their riches they should also be paying the full consequences of their actions.
No, who did harm to the country was Muldoon who foolishly attempted to keep the value of the exchange rate higher than the market was suggesting it should be. If you want Utu take it out on him.
Cripes gosman what more do you want, should they dig up the box and scatter his bones?
You do know there can be more than one baddie don’t you?
Muldoon more than paid for his part in this. He ended up being the fall guy; the patsy who everyone blamed. It’s the villains who got away scot-free with their plunder I was more concerned with.
No, Muldoon was the imbecile who thought he knew better and could dictate to the Market what the price for not only the NZ Dollar was but for virtually everything in NZ.
That is unclear Gosman, as rational (in economics) means with the ability to correctly predict the future. If that is desireable or not politically is unclear I think.
Given the incoming government had strongly hinted it believed the NZ Dollar was overvalued then it wasn’t much of a stretch to predict the future in this case.
I don’t think sociopathic behaviour, which is what you’re describing, is entirely rational.
How is it sociopathic behaviour?
It is an attack upon society for their own enrichment and that is sociopathic.
It is you who is claiming it is an attack on society. Personally I think Government trying to set prices is an attack on society so it is the Government that is being sociopathic following your own logic.
Capitalists, like all Parasites, suck the life out of their hosts.
And you don’t actually have a leg to stand on with your personal views as they’re completely contradicted by reality. The action that we’re talking about was a few people who bought and sold money to get richer without producing any value. That extra value had to come from somewhere and it, as always, comes from the workers.
In other words, those arseholes that you worship were just looking to be even bigger bludgers.
And once again Draco my ideas hold sway across the vast majority of the World and your ideas are only supported by a small number of fringe political extremists. Ever since University (over 25 years ago) I have seen people like you claim that Capitalism is eating itself and is on the verge of collapse. I, like you, am still waiting.
All the currency speculators did was to sell NZ Dollars and buy foreign currency on the (entirely understandable) logic that the Dollar was going to be devalued and therefore they would be able to buy back the NZ Dollars at a much cheaper rate. The reasons the Government (or more precisely the Reserve Bank) was running out of Foreign currency reserves was that they had to try and prop up the NZ Dollar at the rate they foolishly decided to set it at. If they had floated the dollar then there would have been little room for speculators to make money from such a situation.
Explain to me what benefits to the country would have keeping the NZ dollar at the higher rate pre-1984 have meant for the economy.
“I’m pleased to inform members and supporters that there has been a significantly
positive response to my offer to support a political party that continues to promote
the policy manifesto that The Opportunities Party assembled to contest the 2017
election.
The Board, therefore, has decided to put on hold its plan to deregister TOP as a
political party to give us time to evaluate the responses and specifically to
evaluate how TOP may evolve as a political party.
In order that TOP is given the best chance of continuing, it’s imperative that we
successfully hold our AGM on Monday July 30th. To this end the Board has changed the
quorum rule for the AGM from a minimum of 50 members to 20 members and if this is
not achieved the quorum for the subsequent adjourned meeting from 25 members to 10
members.
We expect to be in a position to announce the results of our deliberations over the
future of the Party during August.”
Take the hint TOP!
I humbly have a suggestion for one of the writers on The Standard to tackle for a discussion piece…Labour antisemitism hysteria, Is it out to get Jeremy Corbyn out?
Guest Post?
Adrian, I am pleased to say that the good folk over on Kiwi Blog came to a general consensus that the charges being leveled by the likes of Margaret Hodge are without merit, and that Jeremy Corbyn’s criticism of the Israeli state is not anti-Semitic.
Nearly every one of the posters—except for me and a couple of others—was extremely opposed to Corbyn and Labour, but they were not so craven or so dishonest as to endorse the smears of the Blairite faction.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/07/three_jewish_newspapers_claim_corbyn_poses_existential_threat.html/comment-page-1#comment-2267113
Well obviously no one at the Guardian has got that message, they have gone all ‘daily mail’ in their hysterical and relentless attacks on Corbyn.
I would have thought progressives in NZ would have been far most interested in this story rather than the unending stories on Trump/Russia, as this is what the liberal establishment looks like when it is under a real threat from a real progressive, they will stop at nothing to stop it and play real dirty.
I have always said Corbyn should have purged the neoliberal cancer from UK Labour when he had that initial wave of popularity, the media couldn’t have any more negative on him and his project back then anyway, so really he had nothing to lose…unfortunately I think he probably thought that he could actually work with them, turns out that they believe in their ideology just as strongly as he does his.
Well obviously no one at the Guardian has got that message, they have gone all ‘daily mail’ in their hysterical and relentless attacks on Corbyn.
Which underlines my point, Adrian, viz., that even the most extreme right wing people are not so dishonest as to call Corbyn an anti-Semite. The Blairite rump, which the Guardian shills for, has no such scruples.
For a moment there I thought I saw ‘the good folk’ over on Kiwi Blog. Slim pickings I would have thought!
I’d prefer the company of even the most zealous poster at Kiwi Blog over the likes of Margaret Hodge or Hillary Benn. The Blairite rump of the Labour Party not only has no public credibility, it has no limits to its depravity.
“…I humbly have a suggestion for one of the writers on The Standard to tackle for a discussion piece…Labour antisemitism hysteria, Is it out to get Jeremy Corbyn out..?”
Are the neoliberal Blairite MPs in Labour willing to stoop to the lowest and most vile accusations imaginable in their liberal grab bag of identity politics smears to attack Corbyn?
Yes.
Are they aided and abetted by a privileged media class who still see a 1990s bourgeois liberalism married to managerialist late capitalism as the only possible teleological direction for society?
Yes.
No need for a post.
@Adrian Thornton, I’d been keen for that. They have tried everything else to get him out.
The media are looking to follow a distractive meme, Israel go straight for the antisemitic line when their violent ways and treatment of occupied territorities is questioned. That’s when they aren’t ignoring the world.
Perhaps a post could expand to the similar tactics the alt right use to defend their dissemination of facist views….the ” but it’s free speech” meme.
Maybe the post could grow like Blips list of each area and the distraction/diversion tactics at play in cohorts with the media…who stopped being the 4th estate decades ago.
@ tc, Yes a lot (but certainly not all) of the negativity in the press does seem too come back to his position on Israel/Palestine, Corbyn was one of the very few politicians in the west with the fucking balls to openly call out Israel on their slaughter of unarmed protesters on the Gaza prison fence…and look at the reaction.
“alot (but certainly not all) of the negativity in the press does seem too come back to his position on Israel/Palestine”
… the press can’t afford to talk about anything else.
Most especially not Corbyn’s actual economic or social policies, because The Press knows that when people actually hear those policies clearly explained they actually support them, as was proven when Corbyn and momentum hit the streets and managed a stirling result despite the so called civilized liberal press.
What would the two cops in this video have
done if black kids acted like this?
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=39896
Follow up to, comments on, a post about the governments lack of initiative. This one is about the advantages of having full employment as a government policy.
Pensioners are the largest cost for Work and Income, and yet their basic needs are still unmet.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/362919/number-of-hardship-grants-given-to-over-65s-increases-50-percent-in-5-years
Imagine if they are renting. Yet still not much interest from the Kiwibuild for massive roll out of state rentals. From the figures presented the other day of TS looks like 300 extra only over a decade in spite of a huge increase in population and increasing inequality.
Saw this the other day too, elderly are being kicked out of a camping ground, maybe with many people unable to find or afford a cheap (they pay $200 a fortnight incl utilities) rental in Auckland they relax the by laws… Sounds like a pretty good deal they will not be able to find anywhere else, pushing more people into poverty if they are evicted.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/07/elderly-parakai-campground-residents-told-to-get-out.html
Come to think of it, why doesn’t KB target pensioners? Given the demographic trend it would seem a better idea than flushing money down motel drains.
https://twitter.com/AntiFascistAkl/status/1023668547807981568
Looks like Aotea Square on the twitter image, but the posters/flyers say TBC
And I’ll go and stay as long as it’s peaceful.
Oh. OK. read the blurb under a poster. There’s a rally, music and speakers at Aotea square at 5.30pm, Friday. then the demo will move off to protest the Fashist event.
I’m in for the rally at Aotea Square “to celebrate the power and strength of diversity and tolerance”.
Interesting clarification from a grumpy old man here: https://www.top.org.nz/an_open_invitation_to_form_a_political_party_with_principles_gareth_morgan
Kinda reveals why morphing from the Gareth First Party into something consensual never happened, eh? The political strategy he deployed is now clear: my way or the highway, with democracy dangled as a carrot at the end of an extremely long stick.
Effectively, it’s a contractual design. It locks participants into support of a pre-determined policy mix. They sign up to the party to promote that programme. You could call it intelligent design since the originator is clever enough, but top-down decision-making ain’t the zeitgeist, Gareth. Participatory democracy is.
Yes, Morgan claimed TOP was neither left nor right, but based on evidence-based policy excellence. But his TOP-down, antidemocratic approach shows an MO that leans right.
It is more explicit this time round with TOP invitation mkII
What an absolute tragedy and sounds like an 11 year old dead.
Hope they get to the bottom of what caused that bus crash, early on it is looking like a mechanical failure.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/362926/fatal-mt-ruapehu-bus-crash-passenger-recalls-chaotic-scenes-everyone-was-just-trying-to-get-out
URGENT: Mike Treen kidnapped by Israel
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/07/30/urgent-mike-treen-kidnapped-by-israel/
Silence is consent
An Urgent open letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs
Kia Ora Gaza – July 30, 2018
In any other circumstances if any New Zealand citizen was illegally detained in International Waters. It would be all over the News cycle. And the Foreign Affairs Minister and Acting PM both, would be expected to make a statement.
Unlawfully boarding a boat in international waters and kidnapping its occupants is called Piracy. Is the international community watching this? If so what are they going to do about this unlawful act?
Thanks for that Jenny. Maybe the lovely smiling Jacinda will say something.
Maybe…..
Only in Israel
The violent IDF thugs who invaded and occupied the Al Asqa Mosque last week, used as an excuse for the their actions, accounts of Palestinian youths throwing rocks at the estimated one thousand fundamentalist Jewish settlers who had tried to force their way into the Al Asqa compound.
What if the events were reversed?
What if Jewish youths threw stones at Palestinian fundamentalists encroaching on their property?
What if heavily armed Islamist forces used this as an excuse to invade the Synagogue and violently attack the worshipers?
They would be condemned around the world as terrorists and fascists, no matter what their alleged motive was.
…..Earlier, more than 1,000 Israeli settlers forced their way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound under heavy protection of Israeli police.
Related comments:
“This is one major act of terrorism that won’t get any coverage in the Western media.”
Watched a new documentary on Netflix last night on how the rush to market of new medical devices have led to serious adverse effects. Doco looks into the highly dodgy FDA approval process and compromised bureaucrats.
https://www.netflix.com/nz/title/80170862
Coincidentally, Natrad aired this … https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018655786/calls-to-beef-up-reporting-of-adverse-drug-side-effects
…which discusses drug reactions and their gross under reporting.
Natrad, especially Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon, have done some seriously good work on highlighting NZ’s own scandalous treatment of women impacted by surgical mesh.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018638962/is-there-still-a-case-for-surgical-mesh
FDA/CDC/DOH et al…deeply conflicted and compromised…and directly responsible for an unfathomable number of deaths and injury…
Approvals process for ‘drugs’ is more stringent than for biologicals…both are now ‘fast tracked’ …for the public good of course…the approvals processes are forcast into corporate earnings/profit report…
Biologicals were not mentioned in the article about reporting/capturing/tracking of adverse events…
Putting a piece of wire into a fallopian tube on the reliance that it would inflame it and then scar over is something that shouldn’t have made it off the drawing board.
Could you be more specific as to what contraceptive device you are referring to?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essure
Looking back at the weekend political events and msm coverage of these, a few things stick out for me as being a little surprising.
As mickysavage noted in the first sentence of his post on Bridges and his cheerleaders, the lead up to the National Party Conference started with a plethora of fawning articles by, for example, Stacey Kirk, Audrey Young and Clare Trevett on Simon Bridges.
As the weekend wore on, Kirk and Young continued their ra ra articles, while Trevett seemed to become bored or turned off by late afternoon on Saturday and then produced two very entertaining pieces. Links if you missed them:
“Nats one bride short of a wedding” – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12097119
“PM Jacinda Ardern gatecrashes Simon Bridges’ party” – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12097422
However, there was one longterm Herald “editorial writer and columnist” – and Key sycophant – who did not join the cheerleaders. John Roughan.
No, Roughan did not have a road to Damascus and write a turnaround re the Nats. He just ignored them and the whole Annual Conference event – and wrote an opinion piece on the events that happened one year ago that led to Jacinda Ardern becoming the leader of the Labour Party entitled “A year on from Andrew Little’s game changing decision”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12096344
Normally I bypass Roughan’s columns but that was too intriguing not to click. And I was bit surprised. In effect it is a summary and timeline of the events that happened up to and immediately after Little’s decision to step aside.
I know some Greens here will not agree with some of what Roughan has written, but IMHO it is a reasonably fair and accurate summation – especially coming from someone of Roughan’s usual persuasion.
Here are his first few paras – and then his final conclusion.
[WARNING – You really need to read the rest in between as any comments on these extracts alone will be well out of context.]
Yes, there is an extraneous ‘last’ in the last para in the article. And no, I am not trying to drum up clicks for the Herald, but it is an intriguing article considering the author.
It is tradition now to have a cute animal picture in the media. This is Scoop’s and Gordon Campbell’s image for the National conference. A sweet little guinea pig. I’d vote for this one! I just don’t like it’s chances – it looks naive and somehow feminine (how do male g.p.s differ from females) but I think it might get roasted if up against hot cookies like Bennett, Collins and Adams etc.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/
Viv Rickards on RNZ. Fuck he sounds like a weasel and clearly fits right in with his MSD colleagues.
Have a listen and try to figure out what exactly his position is.
Who is he and is he related to that violent bent cop?
Brother
Oh Christ! Quelle surprise
Viv Rickard ……. Deputy Chief Exec Service Delivery MSD.
Could it be the very same Viv?
Punish punish beat beat, shunt sideways.
I used to wonder why the culture in MoBIE was so toxic.
Maybe the problem is actually within the SSC and the SSC alone.
This is real 3rd World shit
!!
Viv spoke as if it were his dedecision
Ae!
Btw, there probably won’t be too much concern or comment on “16” even though it’s this sort of shit that the new gubbaamint will be pushing the proverbial uphill in their undertaking to make ‘change’.
And they haven’t yet come to realise there is more than one way to skin a cat (one that’s intent on scratching your eyes out)
“Guns are fun”
Borat spoof ruins kids gun fun
“Students will no longer be able to hold or shoot army guns at school under new government guidelines.”
Adele Redmond – Stuff.co.nz, July 30, 2018
http://int.search.myway.com/search/video.jhtml?n=784865ef&p2=%5EBXZ%5Exdm012%5ETTAB02%5Enz&pg=video&pn=1&ptb=588D7DF5-9CD5-495D-8989-307886F67516&qs=&searchfor=Video+of+Sacha+Baron+Cohen%27s+Gun+Spoof+YouTube&si=google_engremarketing&ss=sub&st=tab&tpr=sbt&trs=wtt&vidOrd=1&vidId=QkXeMoBPSDk
Good morning The Am Show time to see reality I can not see national winning in 2020 .
Duncan if you don’t care about the future of your Mokopunas well yea lets just keep pouring carbon into our environment carbon taxes work I seen the traffic jams decrees with my own eyes. What do you think about TVNZ underarm bowl on Corin Dan from the Nation shifted to 930 pm . That’s sneaky
The MH370 plane going missing there were two people on that plane that owned some very important patents on that plane ???????????????????.
All these wild fires and the sad loss of life we need to pay Papatuanuku more respect keep vegetation away from building in fire prone places some places you mite have to have controled burns to burn the fuel that acumalates in these forest that have had wild fires from the beginning come up with systems to build communitys so they can survive fire its all in the design respecting Papatuanuku means we plan for the worst from her and design to minimize the risk of a natural disaster.
Butterbean you are doing good with your boot camps if we taxed sugar hard we would have half the problem solved A lot of our people bodys can not cope with sugar this fact is well documented.
Aotearoa is paradise compared to some other countrys but it still need big improvements Ka kite ano P.S on to my favorite charity
Good evening Newshub OUR business confidence will be affected by trump going around Papatuanuku trying to bully and intimidate everyone that’s a fact.
trumps good good statement it’s going to be good for his net worth. I see steve who has being going around Europe trying to reinvent himself trying to boost his profile and the neo libreal Capitalist in Europe I totally ignored this fact and he will go away
There you go some people are taking advantage of Aotearoa’s soft immigration laws big time the last government turned a blind eye they were pandering to the wealthy employers keeping wages low who cares if the displace common poor person .
Zimbabwe is having there election kia kaha Eco Maori know’s that the next government will be a government that delivers a better future for all Zimbabwean’s I see all of AFRICA has a free trade agree thats the way you know what I have said only Africans know whats best for all Africans not foreigners. Ka kite ano P.S my time on my computa was wrong the sandflys well if the are busy trying to intimadated Eco Maori our mokopunas won’t be hassled by the muppets
You see tangata Eco Maori is not just teaching tangata in Aotearoa about how there is one law for the wealthy and another for the common poor tangata and that the wealthy laugh that the poor common tangata are honest Eco Maori is teaching All of the common tangata of Papatuanuku of there SHAM . Ana to kai ka kite ano P.S the time on my computa corrected its self WTF