I’ve found the solution to the housing crisis, and it’s been here all along.
On the whole, the Monday announcement was more about making renting fairer. It was not groundbreaking.
For renters, it says things might be slightly better but still not great. For landlords, I presume there will be little impact.
Yet, Twyford’s paper still shook some property moguls.
They rolled out their talking heads to try to halt progress and scare tenants by threatening rent rises.
Those lobbyists told us a lot of strange things this week.
Landlord Peter Lewis said changes would make it harder for renters. He then listed a bunch of costs and suggested everything, the whole damned economy, could be worse off because of rules to make life slightly fairer for renters.
“Rates? Insurance? Building materials? Tradesmen’s hourly rates …” None of the scaremongers said anything nearly as idiotic as Andrew King, who heads a lovely-sounding group called the Property Investors’ Federation.
He says: “A lot of tenants ironically actually like the letting fee.”
He is wrong.
He is so wrong, he must know it. His wild statement makes me wonder, why are we playing along with such a broken industry?
At the suggestion of mild and positive change, people like King shriek in horror. These are people who hold huge power over normal people’s everyday lives. When they catch even a whiff of change meant to clean up their broken industry, they threaten to throw their toys.
They seem to think running an ethical business is impossible, which is (once again) wrong.
To Twyford, I ask: Why bother putting a plaster on a broken industry? Groups like Ngāti Whātua, the Salvation Army and Wellington’s Dwell Housing Trust have already started the renters’ revolution.
The Government should ensure renters have an option of living in safe, affordable and enjoyable homes. The pā model offers that and has the potential to give gluttonous investors a run for their money.
Under the normal tenancy rules this is not acceptable! I’m pretty sure the tenancy tribunal under existing rules would rule in the tenants favour for it to be remedied and probably give them a rent reduction for the inconvenience. The tenants would just have to give a 10 day letter to landlord. Also if they had called the council (even anonymously) they could have got some action as it is leaking into the neighbours property.
They stayed because they would struggle to find another rental due to having a dog and in the price range and probably needing parking if they are a tradie.
So all these Wellington ideas of intensification and more apartments are not going to help the majority of kiwi renters who live this type of lifestyle, just Singapore investors and foreign students …because apartments don’t suit kiwi families aka dogs and Utes and small kids running around in a backyard. (obviously not that one by the state of it!).
The old state houses would have been perfect… and it is a shame that whoever is making the decisions on housing seems to have zero idea of their market and what is required and leads by talking to the construction industry and self interested groups, about what is needed and keeps adding more people into Auckland’s struggling infrastructure and the wealthier ones are much better off than those who don’t have a lot and their needs are not being thought of at all.
because apartments don’t suit kiwi families aka dogs and Utes and small kids running around in a backyard.
Very few people actually live that lifestyle and there’s a question of it even being a good lifestyle.
Personally I’d prefer to see kids playing together in the park with the parents socialising together while watching over them. I believe it would help build a much better community.
And tradies shouldn’t be taking the work vehicle home. It should be staying at the work depot and they take public transport home.
The old state houses would have been perfect…
The old housing system that we can no longer afford was an ideological construct brought about by the idea that with cars we no longer needed the high density housing of previous centuries. Climate change has proven that we were wrong.
and it is a shame that whoever is making the decisions on housing seems to have zero idea of their market
I suspect that the market for apartments is growing while the demand for stand-alone housing is shrinking considering how many apartment buildings are being built around Auckland.
I’d be saying that’s a very nice illustrative example of why NZ needs a Registry of Landlords. Local bodies (councils) could administer and oversee such a register that should be searchable by (at least) registration number that all landlords would be required to attach to all adverts etc. And yes, applications to register should come with a fee to cover admin and management costs and registration should require periodic renewal.
Any non-registered person renting out a property would then be guilty of a criminal offense.
How long before long drawn out situations like that featured in the Campbell piece don’t happen any more?
That landlord loses their registration. They then break the law, and are up for a very hefty fine or jail time if they attempt to collect rent.
I’d say that the reason these tenants didn’t move out, was that they couldn’t get anywhere else, aka shortage of rental properties that suit them and they may have other issues like bad credit history which is fairly common in NZ with our low wage, low financial nous, precariat lifestyle championed by successive governments to make everyone “competitive” … so if they start putting together a registry of landlords (which is crazy when they don’t even have a regulatory body for rental agents) then low and behold they are putting more paperwork and reasons not to rent out your house…
This bad landlord that should have been sent a letter at the start of the tenancy, is he even a Kiwi landlord or a new migrant landlord who doesn’t care about the rules?
The tenants didn’t go to the tribunal because they did not seem that convinced they could get somewhere better and that house is still half the cost of that one room $1000 p/w emergency hotel… that the government feel is ok to put the beneficiaries in (which they technically have to pay back).
It’s a nit picking slope of issues, we have homelessness and huge demand for emergency housing directly caused by government policy of selling off state houses and evicting people, not doing anything about meth, and overloading the housing market with new residents, not cleaning up construction years ago, but pandering to them and allowing a profit driven housing market that is more expensive than most nations.
The woman quite clearly explained why she and her partner and children hadn’t simply moved out – none of the reasons contained in your comment btw. And as for your speculative xenophobic tosh…yeah, noted.
Currently in NZ, it is really bloody difficult to hold a landlord to account. A Registry would at the very least weed out the most unscrupulous landlords, with fear of loss of registration (with subsequent criminal proceedings for anyone tempted to rent “on the fly”) acting as a nice incentive for those closer to the floor of acceptability.
It’s not a “cure all” and doesn’t in any way dismiss or deny any of the 1001 other factors impacting on the rental environment.
Cool … zero problem with a register of ‘problem landlords’. It would be a good for the industry, and impose a minimum standards and professionalism. It’s a role MBIE could manage effectively and as long as it was open to challenge and accountability I’d welcome it.
Now can I have the same kind of register for problem tenants please?
I think the costs associated with a landlord registry would outweigh any benefit.
The best system is the one we’ve got. Works fine when used as it should be. Over 90% of cases heard by the Tenancy Tribunal are brought about by landlords.
Crook tenants vs crook landlords seems to run at about 20 to 1.
dawn Robbie is well aware of how best to get a result, She and Cameron took their landlord to the tribunal in 2016 and won.
Their property shares a water supply that services 2 properties. There is no separate check meter. The landlord was advised that he can’t charge them for water. He illegally charged them a letting fee. He was ordered to repay it. The landlord was ordered to immediately lodge the bond, if not, he award exemplary charges to the tenant of $1000.
The landlord was ordered to repay Dawn and her partner the $20.44 Tribunal fee to have their case heard.
The best approach is not another layer of bureaucracy, it is to use the existing system. Post the landlord a 14 day notice to comply (just like the ones he sends out) there’s a template on the MBIE tenancy website.
Like Dawn and Cameron’s 2016 hearing, Most Tribunal orders are public information.
I say let the Tribunal Adjudicators continue to rip strips off the very few exploitive landlords. Continue to hit them where it hurts, in their greedy pockets. Their public orders are a great way to keep tabs on dud landlords and tenants alike.
‘Problem’ landlords and tenants might wish to rehabilitate themselves off these proposed registers, so as to regain access to income and shelter (respectively.) Hopefully there would be equitable protocols for this.
Of course, the humbug landlords have the option of cashing out, and presumably the humbug tenants could access state housing and cars (the agony of choice), and maybe even assistance to address behavioural and mental health ‘problems’.
Or just replace ‘landlords’ with lords and ‘tenants’ with serfs (what’s a lord to do with ‘problem serfs’?) – where we’re heading (back to), for as long as it lasts.
@DM: “Crook tenants vs crook landlords seems to run at about 20 to 1” – that’s remarkable, especially if there’s a 1:1 ratio of serfs to lords.
Yeah the archaic language really doesn’t help. The resentment across the board is an obstacle to modernising the whole business.
It’s hard to guess what the actual numbers are. Certainly there are more tenants than landlords, probably in a ratio of about 5:1. (Wild arsed guess. It’s greater than 1:1 and probably less than 10:1)
From experience about 10% of tenants cause some form of problem, and I’d imagine a lower number applies to landlords as they have a substantial asset in the game, say 2%. That would work out at a bad tenant to landlord ratio of about 25:1 so given these very rough assumptions David Macs guess is not totally out of the ballpark.
However one bad landlord will likely affect around 5 tenants so this will even things out somewhat. Also the distribution of landlords to number of units is highly non-linear; most have only 1 or 2 units, with only a minority running more than 10. (This complicates any analysis quite a lot, although if I could be arsed wheeling out my rather rusty statistical analysis it would possible to put up a more accurate interpretation.)
Good tenents can find themselves ‘dehomed’ at short notice. Even good landlords sometimes need (cf. ‘want’) to sell, but knowing no-one has a choice doesn’t make a tenent’s situation any easier. Like the ‘poor’ manager who agonises over the decision of who to let go in a downturn, it’s the sacked who really do it hard.
NZ is a wealthy country (total wealth goes up and up – growth is good), so why this “resentment across the board”? Is the level of resentment unusually high in NZ (no idea; surprised it’s not higher tbh), and, if so, why?
Redistribution of wealth, reversing the trend that has the richest 10% of NZ households controlling half of NZ’s wealth (more than half now), while the poorest 40% of households ‘get by’ on 3%, might ameliorate that resentment.
As discussed on The Standard, and elsewhere, it’s simple maths to show the tremendous difference even a small % redistribution would make to those poorest 40% of households. But there will be no significant redistribution. The ‘business as usual’ trend will continue and deliver lords and serfs to ‘New’ Zealand.
Will the new lords/serfs society be more resilient in the face of economic and environmental pressures? We can only hope…
Dawn Robbie knows the procedure to go through, she has done it before and won. If she has provided her landlord with notices to comply she is in the box seat for $1000’s of exemplary charges. I think there is a good chance an adjudicator would demand that paid rent be returned to Dawn and her partner for the duration of the under-house swamp situation.
I find it odd that Dawn chose to ring the John Campbell Show. I wonder if she might like the idea of a state house, rent set at a third of their income.
As per the ratbag landlord list Bill suggests, the existing system works. A search of Dawn’s landlord ‘Mandeep Pala’ reveals a man with form. First of all trying to slither out from his responsibility by saying its a company ‘Southern Assets Limited’ that makes the decisions. The adjudicator saw through it and called ‘Humbug’.
About a year ago he was ordered to return all of the rent paid by a tenant for a home that was technically a garage: $9200 returned to the tenant along with the max exemplary damages: $1000. A bill for $10240 and here Mandeep is again, man deep in poo.
Strange Dawn hasn’t checked out his form and nailed him to the yard arm again.
I’d say if the tenant has won before at the tribunal then maybe she waited for 21 months and then went for max media attention so perhaps a chance at free rent for that entire time?
Why else wait 21 months with her children getting sick and not going to the tribunal first to get an order to remedy when she has already won before a tribunal and moved in knowing it has drainage issues?
Who knows the motivation, a match made in heaven for MSM and the tribunal will go to town on this extreme example, and now got the housing minister wading in (ha ha) , possibly he could have be a bit more cautious before he went out there telling everyone how common a situation it was.
I think we need a government that rewards good landlords and tenants alike. Makes it harder for exploiters on both sides.
Gear the Govt paid housing supplement to favourable outcomes for both parties, It doesn’t need to be adversarial. Gear the govt supp towards tenants needs. eg: A 2 year lease at a fixed rent with a 10% rise in the govt paid component will ultimately save money all round. Starting with kids not swapping schools every 6 months.
Red logic tenants have to provide references. That is the protection for landlords.
Besides which landlords are landlords out of choice. One of the risks of buying property to rent out is that you may encounter bad tenants. If you don’t like that as a possibility invest your money elsewhere.
Whereas everyone needs a roof over their heads, not a lifestyle option.
I did rent out my house when I left Auckland and thought I might return so didn’t want to risk not being able to get back into the market. I believe I was a good landlord and my home was better insulated for my tenants than when I lived there. Fair enough, they were paying me a reasonable amount to stay there. When I finally sold it realtor told more I could have been charging $100 more a week, and was surprised when I told him that didn’t bother me as I was getting a fair rent
The suggestion, taken from pre-existing legislation elsewhere, isn’t for a register of “problem landlords”, but for a registration process to apply to landlords.
Meaning, that if you are on the register, it’s a good thing.
If you aren’t, and have no pending application, and are trying to rent residential property (whether directly or through an agent) then you’re breaking criminal law.
As for problem tenants, don’t landlords these days almost insist on a dossier of past references? And what with social media the way it is, and already routinely “checked out” by employers, I’m pretty damned sure a landlord could get a good sense of who or what a person is on the sly.
Nah some landlords just ask you to meet them at the house, park around the corner then when you turn up ring you on your cellphone to say the flat is gone.
That’s not everyone. Just if you’re Maori or Pacifica.
They said the didn’t move out because they had a dog, he was a roofer and they couldn’t just keep moving around. But the question is, they could have written a letter asking for it to be rectified in 10 days, and gone to the tribunal why didn’t they?
They were in there for a long period of time without doing anything about it and then went to the media rather than tribunal or council or send a letter to the landlord? Why is that?
There is ample protection for them under the law.
We get this type of story every time the construction industry or right wingers won’t labour’s polls to go down..
Many homeowners actually have their entire houses fall down due to bad construction and then they become renters while paying for repairs and a mortgage, for example but don’t see the politicians doing much about that or giving them compensation instead just giving more hand outs to construction and happy with the appalling jobs councils are doing and of course the click bait, bad landlord story to divert attention away from major issues going on.
We’d be better off with a register of tradies AND the unqualified people they employ like a LOG on site work, because it’s often not the registered tradies doing the work, and somehow registered tradies who sign it off, just get away with bad workmanship from unqualified people. Then the council aka the rate payers paying for bad work that the council employees have often approved because developers and tradies can just set up new companies and avoid responsibility.
One hopes the Government will ensure councils have the oversight in place to deal with the increase in construction of new homes.
The last thing Labour needs in the run up to the next election is reports of thousands of newly built kiwibuild and state homes requiring major repairs due to shoddy workmanship.
You say, councils could administer and oversee such a register. Yet, councils are money hungry beasts, hence would soon seek to turn that into a lucrative new revenue stream (above and beyond administration costs) for themselves.
And of course, landlords would look to pass on any new costs incurred.
Therefore, a better option (if we were to go down that track) would be a national register overseen by central government with admin costs funded from the fines they dish out. Avoiding stinging landlords who comply while avoiding costs being passed on.
I’d be saying that’s a very nice illustrative example of why NZ needs a Registry of Landlords. Local bodies (councils) could administer and oversee such a register that should be searchable by (at least) registration number that all landlords would be required to attach to all adverts etc. And yes, applications to register should come with a fee to cover admin and management costs and registration should require periodic renewal.
And tenants can leave feedback the same way that users can leave feedback on Trade-me.
Any non-registered person renting out a property would then be guilty of a criminal offense.
/agreed
Combined with a decent ownership registry that allows people to find out who owns what.
The council can’t even read it’s own resource consent rules, for gods sake half of Auckland (and it’s spreading to other cities) is under remedial work as it is, often signed off by council. The last person anybody would want to see, is the council administering rentals. They can’t even handle the basics.
How many more landlord bodies are there going to be, a WOF, the tenancy tribunal and a log of landlords?
Deary me, I wonder why there is a rental shortage… with these wonderful ideas floating around to “stem’ the shortage based on getting rid of all the bad landlords and properties. Wonderful, now they are gone, is the state going to provide the thousands of cheap, safe, warm rentals, that will be needed tomorrow?
must rank up there like Kiwibuild where you evict the tenants for years to rebuild their rental while selling off the rest of the land and therefore having no capacity for future state house builds when you are actively trying to grow the low wage economy as fast as possible, subsidise construction and deregulate it while tuning a blind eye to all the unskilled unqualified people working on the jobs, and keeping foreign speculation going to keep prices high so banks like you.
Then believe the free market fairy will provide private accomodation for all the growing low wage families and beneficiaries who have bad credit ratings out of the kindness of their hearts, while the state gives the multimillionaires in construction and banks more help.
Sounds like something out of Yes Minister savenz
‘Where did you get that preposterous idea. Civil servant Sir Humphrey
‘Oh I just thought of it. PM Jim Jacker.
That was about not giving awards to civil servants unless they had earned them. With a litany of lulus that you have set out, it seems time to start the 2nd Labours of Hercules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labours_of_Hercules
The council professionals in housing would fit one of the Labours, just before or after cleaning the Augean stables which actually, housed the single greatest number of cattle in the country and had never been cleaned. (This could be expanded to modern feedlots.)
How about the government and council stops demolishing cheaper homes for roads and Housing corporation houses for re-devleoperment for a start and stop allowing more and more people to settle here to compete on low wages or for housing.
Homes slated for demolition to be used as emergency housing
Sounds good. Let’s keep at it for change at all levels but particularly
the simple practical, with space at the doorstep for big plastic tubs growing vegs and flowers, and covered clothes lines, and waist high fences to allocate an area that is for the tenant to enjoy and look after. Little things that mean a lot.
And for the homeless and recovering and recent prisoners; concrete shelters, with cream painted walls, and concrete floors with drainage in one corner so that they can be easily cleaned. Practical, safe, warm and a basic level of comfort, identity and sanitation, and overview to keep reasonable standards.
The irony is that Labour fucked up 2 elections by pandering to identity housing groups and hypocritical or unpractical housing positions.
Now they got in, effectively with Kiwibuild they are screwing the renters and helping the home owners while throwing previous elections by loudly campaigning for renters while forgetting 60% of voters are homeowners.
To be as unpopular as possible once elected they are emotionally screaming “lift your game or get out” to landlords most of whom the home owners identify with and forgetting the government is one of the worst offenders of evicting people.
The last person anybody would want to see, is the council administering rentals.
Who said anything about them administering rentals (Although I believe that they did a good job of that when they had council flats). Keeping a registry of landlords would probably come down to the central government rather than councils as a landlord could own a house anywhere in the country and many would be offshore owners.
How many more landlord bodies are there going to be, a WOF, the tenancy tribunal and a log of landlords?
Just one.
Deary me, I wonder why there is a rental shortage… with these wonderful ideas floating around to “stem’ the shortage based on getting rid of all the bad landlords and properties.
So, you think keeping bad landlords that cost individuals and the state huge amounts of money and cause grief for individuals should be kept around because they provide housing?
Have you noticed the housing crisis that is allowing these scum to get super-profits?
Wonderful, now they are gone, is the state going to provide the thousands of cheap, safe, warm rentals, that will be needed tomorrow?
The problem is that they aren’t. Housing should be a right and the government should be ensuring that everyone has a good place to live.
Soper considers Trump’s contribution as being decisive and gives him credit. Clearly in recent months the situation was evolving every which way and who knows, the latest steps might have nothing to do with Trump’s tweeting. No matter, Trump’s a hero.
If someone in the New Zealand Parliament had tweeted something about another country would Soper have turned out a column criticising it as an intrusion into the politics of another country?
Ed : The judge of everything –
Did you listen to the trainee doctor discussing the problems of getting the necessary training in his specialty – orthopaedics?
Good point he made was that if you are on in weekend you get crash victims, emergencies.l But that is only part of the work and is rather different than seeing the daily patients booked in for electives, chosen surgery for their problem.
I thought he was cogent and any animosity I had about this ‘breakaway union’ went away after hearing him.
It is refreshing to see a government Minister standing up to foreign owned banks and not grovelling to them.
Now the Government should put their money where their mouth is and close down their account with Westpac.
Shane Jones slams ‘Aussie-owned’ banks for shutting branches in provincial NZ.
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has taken aim at this country’s Australian-owned banks for shutting branches in provincial town, suggesting they should be obligated to adequately service rural areas.
“The Aussie-owned banks are incredibly profitable. Their level of profitability never seems to decline although the breadth of their services is in decline,” he told Stuff.
Over the past two years, almost 50 Westpac, BNZ and ANZ branches have closed, which was evidence of a retreat from the regions, according to the bank workers’ union.
Jones said this country’s banks, which are predominantly Australian-owned, needed to take their responsibility to rural customers more seriously.
…….National Party Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott said the closures reflected the commercial reality of modern banking, and if there were enough people using local branches the banks would keep them open.
But Jones also took issue with that way of thinking.
“You will never hear the National Party complain about corporate New Zealand because they are a political extension of corporate New Zealand.”
No chance ,Westpacs David McClean was a lead speaker at the business confidence meeting,and down played pessimism.
It would be very ungracious to strip them of their Govt business.
I’m not fond of using the reductio ad absurdum but you do know what happens to countries that have closed virtually all borders, don’t you? Does Albania ring a bell, or even North-Korea?
Let’s try and bring some nuance into the debate. Comments that lack any nuance either get ignored here or attract an equally simplistic or absurd reflexive response. It doesn’t get us anywhere except to further polarise and antagonise people; not much progressive about that, is there?
Privatisation has caused major increases in poverty and trashed the economy but the rich are doing well so it’s allowed to stand. The will of the people is ignored.
Mitterand was unusual in having been a right-wing political activist when young, then ending up a socialist president. If you examine his trajectory, little evidence of any socialist conviction becomes apparent. Easy to see his bombing of the Rainbow warrior as a global signal that the imperial left will never merge with the Green movement. His imperialism seems more authentic than his leftism.
I recall his switch back to the right making the headlines when his leftist economic policy failed dramatically. This pragmatism achieved his record-breaking durability as president. However, underlying that was a lifetime of copying Stalin: using a medial line between left & right, with the leverage of the political center as a position of strength to operate from, switching tactical alignments when necessary. Winston Peters has spent a quarter-century trying to teach his fellow kiwis how effective this praxis is.
However, I disagree with you that education doesn’t hurt; it hurts a lot and once you know things you cannot unknow them. Hence the saying “ignorance is bliss”.
How do you think Électricité de France, Gaz de France, Air France etc were created. They were state creations in the late 40s.
There was a history behind Frances actions., which included
“With a wide-reaching 1982 nationalization law, the government took over the major industrial groups CGE, Péchiney, Rhône-Poulenc, Saint Gobain, and Thomson; defense manufacturers Dassault-Bréguet and Matra; steel giants Usinor and Sacilor; computer companies Bull and ITT-France; and the pharmaceutical lab Roussel-UCLAF; along with the country’s thirty-six biggest banks—all at a cost of fifty-eight billion francs to the taxpayer.
The state ownership allowed better managed transitions for some
declining industries
‘Faced first with cheaper coal imports in the 1960s, and then opting in the 1970s to develop nuclear power, the government put in place a decades-long plan to wind down Charbonnages de France’s coal mining and power generation activities. The company gradually shrank its work force by relying exclusively on retirements and transfers to other public companies. From its peak in 1946, when Charbonnages employed 350,000 miners, to 2004 when the last coal mine in France shuttered its shafts, the company didn’t lay off a single worker.”
All good examples of a moderate, evolutionary policy, implemented incrementally over a period of decades. No doubt underlying that brief description above, there was much complexity and compromise needed to make it all work. In places it was probably messy and imperfect.
And at the same time largely successful French private entities, Peugeot and Schneider Electric come to mind as examples, continued to operate and thrive. The French didn’t make the radical mistake of going all neo-liberal and privatising everything not nailed down, nor neo-marxist extreme of nationalising the same. They steered a pragmatic path down the middle and came through their post-WW2 crisis reasonably well.
All good examples of a moderate, evolutionary policy, implemented incrementally over a period of decades.
A decades long plan across multiple industries that only the government can do – as long as it doesn’t have any RWNJs come in and fuck things up. Private companies, no matter how big they are, don’t seem able to maintain plans that last for decades. They only seem to operate for short term profit.
Yes … that aligns nicely with the view that state enterprise is best for managing long-term multigenerational risks, while private enterprise scales better for the short-term. Both have a complementary place.
It’s a question neatly captured by Arnold Nordmeyer’s rhetorical question “do we want the state running corner dairies?”.
‘They steered a pragmatic path down the middle and came through their post-WW2 crisis reasonably well.’
They certainly didn’t forget their humiliation by Germany quickly or their colonisation mindset.
Africa,Vietnam and the Rainbow Warrior attest to..that.
Exploitation by privatising water in Africa was all done in the best possible taste..no doubt.
‘French multinationals—Saur, Suez and Vivendi—have been the main companies involved in the water business in Africa but in the last few years Portugual’s Aguas de Portugal and the British company Biwater have entered the scene. Currently, Vivendi is involved in Burkina Faso, Gabon and Niger; Suez in South Africa; and Biwater in the Republic of Congo. The PSIRU report reveals that privatisations are planned in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, amongst others.
Despite IMF pressure, the privatisation of water in Africa has proceeded with difficulty in the last few years. In the PSIRU report a number of cases are given where negotiations over contracts or existing contracts between multinationals and governments broke down. Revelations from Vivendi staff at a Kampala conference indicate the problem. They explained that private firms would invest only if there are “guarantees securing the flow of payments by the municipalities or governments” and/or “sufficient and assured revenues from the users of the service.”
Having worked in the water industry for almost a decade I’m very aware of the issues around the public/private split. The core problem is that water supply is fundamental human need and cannot be permitted to fail. This makes it a very politically sensitive industry.
In general fully privatised water provision is a bad idea. Equally there are no examples of totally public provision either. (Even the most staunchly public utility is still utterly dependent on a myriad of private sector suppliers and contractors to operate effectively.)
In very simple terms, the optimum arrangement seems to be where a public body owns the asset (aquifers, plants, pipes and pumping stations, etc) while some form of commercial entity operates and maintains them. Managed intelligently you retain local control of the asset, it’s maintenance, investment and pricing … while accessing the efficiencies of scale from large vendors who bring real expertise and best practise global standards to the table,
A sure, risk free bet required to invest’…’They explained that private firms would invest only if there are “guarantees securing the flow of payments by the municipalities or governments” and/or “sufficient and assured revenues from the users of the service.”
Please put some effort into it if you want to convince people.
Just providing a link to the banking environment in the US in the 1820s does not constitute an argument. By clicking on that link TS readers should understand and come to the conclusion that it can and has to be done? And by “it” you presumably mean waging war on the Ozzie banks and kicking them out of NZ (nationalising?)?
Politics is contest of ideas that requires effort and persuasion (which means appealing to both reason as well as emotion).
Somebody once said that war is the continuation of politics by other means but you seem to want to skip the peaceful approach and go straight for the last resort?
For the record, I do think that the power and influence of the global corporate banking industry needs to be curbed especially in domestic affairs. Whether you agree with that and how we’d go about it are the issues to be addressed.
A considerable amount of work has been done on this in recent decades by many who have reframed the historical binary in an attempt to learn from history. When the ridiculous extremes of nationalisation & privatisation are eliminated from contention, the middle way becomes the path to progress.
This tertiary stakeholder design has also been trialled historically, so we ought to be learning from the successes & failures that have been analysed. If community banks are chartered on a local stakeholder design, they can services businesses in a bioregion context, to build both local & regional resilience. As long as everyone is able to participate in both design & governance to some extent, that crowd-sourcing ought to be able to generate perceptions of the common interests of all being catered for.
However critical mass has yet to be attained: complacency of the majority ensures that dependency on the capitalists will persist until the tipping point of sufficient desperation is reached. The visible desperate seem to prefer living under bridges to collective organising for a better future.
On the nail Dennis!. This is where the left must focus it’s energy in order to be effective. Radicals only discredit us. The majority of people, with real justification, will regard them with deep suspicion, and all moderate left wingers if we fail dissociate ourselves from them.
Hi Dennis, I really appreciate your engaging and considerate comments & replies here on TS.
As long as everyone is able to participate in both design & governance to some extent, that crowd-sourcing ought to be able to generate perceptions of the common interests of all being catered for. [my bold]
What do you mean with “perceptions”? Surely, you mean “realities”?
Regarding the “complacency of the majority”, do you think this is wilful or possibly caused by lack of or poor education, lack of or poor journalism, lack of public intellectuals, or some other reasons altogether? Any conscious change starts (or ends) with awareness …
Well, that’s good to know. 🙂 Both perceptions & realities are required for success, it’s just that whereas the latter is essential to structure the emerging new social reality, perceptions must shift so that participants become conscious of that emergence.
That’s because participants are more influential when they are actors rather than passive folk unconsciously going along with the new flow.
To your point about awareness: that perception of shift induces awareness. Complacency is primarily caused by culture, but I agree the factors you suggest all contribute. So the key to mass transformation is not just for individuals to operate as catalysts & lead by example, but for some of them to achieve gnosis around how to exercise even more leverage via organising – and then co-create groups for that purpose.
Totally agree. Ed’s narrow totalitarian thinking has been proven a catastrophe everywhere it has ever been implemented, but this doesn’t cause him the slightest moment’s concern.
Indeed economic catastrophe and social breakdown would appear to be quite welcomed by these revolutionary types; although they’d never actually say so out loud. And then there is the false assumption that it would never affect them because they’ve got the right ideology and everyone else will do the suffering.
I’m not fond of using the reductio ad absurdum but you do know what happens to countries that have closed virtually all borders, don’t you?
What’s banning foreign ownership got to do with closing the borders?
Let’s try and bring some nuance into the debate. Comments that lack any nuance either get ignored here or attract an equally simplistic or absurd reflexive response.
And yet your own comment lacks nuance and also includes a false dichotomy and a false equivalence.
Basically, it seems that you’re talking out your arse to scare people.
What’s banning foreign ownership got to do with closing the borders?
Odd question. A foreigner comes in, it doesn’t have to be literally, buys or invests into something here and thus owns or part-owns it and the ownership crosses the border, legally and economically.
And yet your own comment lacks nuance and also includes a false dichotomy and a false equivalence.
Depends on how you read it but in any case you’re not helping much either in engaging in a constructive discussion, sadly.
Basically, it seems that you’re talking out your arse to scare people.
I do indeed talk out of my arse an awful lot and I’m trying to lift my game to talking from my guts & belly (gut instinct) to talking from my mouth but it is lifelong process; care to be more specific? How and why would I want “to scare people” and about what? Are we still talking about Ozzie banks or have you moved to a completely different topic without issuing a memo?
I must say that your comment is a good example of a reflexive response that neither helps to build bridges nor to generate (an) understanding; it is an attempt to pull & put down without a sign of empathy or respect and no option for reconciliation or a way forward (or out …). Your absolutisms lack nuance [you like this oxymoron?].
No. It’s a perfectly valid question from your assertion that anybody even suggested closing the borders.
A foreigner comes in, it doesn’t have to be literally, buys or invests into something here and thus owns or part-owns it and the ownership crosses the border, legally and economically.
No, that would be delusional BS. But, then, the entire economic theory is delusional BS.
Banning foreign ownership still allows trade in actual products and that’s all that trade should be.
How and why would I want “to scare people” and about what?
RW aristos bringing their fine sentiments into play to control the rabble’s practical ideas of what the country needs bring amusement.
Blazer No chance ,Westpacs David McClean was a lead speaker at the business confidence meeting,and down played pessimism.
It would be very ungracious to strip them of their Govt business.
Like being ungracious (ungrateful) to Westpac for saying some positive things about present financial situation (not getting stuck into Labour because they can). Pragmatically, it illustrates a reason to stay with Westpac while they see it to their business advantage not to play anti-politics while they have so much to gain from their government contract.
(This old man should keep on giving the dog a bone.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxfiFOHtwUA&vl=en
.National Party Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott said the closures reflected the commercial reality of modern banking, and if there were enough people using local branches the banks would keep them open,
“The commercial reality of modern banking” that National Party MPs celebrate is to make huge profits from land sales to the world, creating a huge bubble that, following the history of other bubbles, has created large profit expectations and dragged investment away from other business sectors needed for our economy, and like an inflated balloon not tied off will result in a large farting noise as it travels madly pinging off solid surfaces in an unco-ordinated way and end up torn, flat and wrecked.
Exactly why ‘deplatforming’ is such a terrible idea. It’s all well and good when it’s done to people you don’t like, but then you have zero defence when it’s done to people your opponents don’t like.
This is so fucking blindly obvious I feel embarrassed for typing it out.
“Women ‘not developed’ to be CEOs, activist Lauren Southern says https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/victoria-police-charge-lauren-southern/news-story/9986324084f649beaa9cc568e51523e0
Jul 20, 2018 … A Canadian alt-right activist currently touring Australia has said women are not psychologically developed to hold leadership positions and …”
Forgive me if I’m wrong re “Human Rights Law” but comments like that surely goes against New Zealand’s rights for equality. Bit of a stunt aimed for reaction or her genuine Neanderthal opinions, you choose.
Making the statement of the stupid theory was the stunt. I provided a specific example with proof of a link, can you do the same and provide an example of someone on the left who think “all” men are violent and we live in one vast “rape culture” To equate with Southern that will have to be someone who people at the Standard have heard of and supported. Otherwise there is no comparison.
Thanks for that, nowhere in that article does she accuse ALL men of being violent and her reference to the Rape Culture mentions “SOME schools” and she “thinks” there is a rape culture and “How can we stop it”. Southerns comments as copied from Google this side of the PayWall as stated were (Jul 20, 2018 … A Canadian alt-right activist currently touring Australia has said women are not psychologically developed to hold leadership positions and …”) Women ARE NOT. If you think these are “Two sides of the same…” then I’m not going to try and change your mind but politely agree to disagree.
I recall that The Australian article well and there were plenty of other Australian media reports on it, including this one from 9 News which reports it halfway down – along with plenty else of Southern’s “views”. You are more polite that I am in agreeing to disagree with his Two Sides of the same.
Jones does sound as if he is going to do something. And we need to think about the options.
But some good research internationally indicates expensive dams may not give the lengthy service to justify and while there is no control over the dangerous reliance on milk that is skewing our national accounts and the mad water export scheme, we don’t dare to allow the keen men to run off with our goodies.
Jack sold off the family cow, but they still had water left to drink and grow the beans with. We are living in ultra fairyland and I don’t trust these smart guys. There are two sorts – the ones who load up the dosh and sell out, and the ones that remain in place cutting a deep trough unable to see over the sides.
Inciting in your view yes. But if you want to make that case legally, you have to accept they may well want to mount a defense.
In my opinion what we are seeing with S&M is what happens when the right play ‘white identity’ politics back at the left. We think it’s pretty ugly. Guess what … the right think our forms of it are ugly too. And have done so for decades.
I’ll agree with a bit of that – except the Right are using words they don’t understand. So they’re using them in a slightly warped way, like a chatbot.
Like Chris T comparing comments about biological determination of aptitudes with comments about rape culture – the two have nothing in common, but Chris T doesn’t seem to understand that. From his perspective, they look alike. But they are not.
Yes that’s a good point, there isn’t necessarily a direct equivalence. But I think the underlying ‘power/oppression game’ narrative exploits the identical dynamics.
It’s cargo-cult “identity politics”, though. They claim victimhood on behalf of the oppressors: the “It’s ok to be white” tshirt for example.
Who the fuck said it wasn’t? Especially compared to the experiences of people who seemed to be followed around stores a lot more often than white people?
That’s what really pisses me off about it – it’s the bullies claiming that they’re bullied because someone said that “bullying is bad”.
Last night I commented on the Chelsea Manning post. wondering whether Manning had been issued a visa for Australia, in light of the National party (led by Woodhouse but supported by Bridges according to Newshub *) calling for Immigration to refuse her a visa to NZ in view of her criminal convictions. At that point the Australian press were reporting on the situation here re these calls to refuse a visa, but little seemed to be known as to the Australian position. https://thestandard.org.nz/let-chelsea-manning-speak/#comment-1519028
Sure enough, overnight it all blew up in the Australian media with many reports similar to the SMH (Sydney Morning Herald) report above.
One thing re the SMH report: It reports that Manning was denied a visa to enter Canada in Sept last year (2017) BUT it does not mention that Canada subsequently issued her a very limited time visa to enter Canada for one speaking engagement in May this year.
This was reported by the Guardian yesterday and also by RNZ National on Morning Report this morning (an earlier article at 5.54am does not give the details of the limitations on the visa but they were detailed half way down in the later mention linked to below).
So there is precedent for a country similar to Australia and NZ to grant a one off limited visa for the same type of event Manning is scheduled to give here in NZ (ie she will only be here for 2 days for one event in Auckland on Sat 8 Sept and one in Wellington on Sun 9 Sept before scheduled for one in Brisbane on 11 Sept. Her earlier planned speeches are in Sydney this Sunday, 2 Sept and then Melbourne Friday 7 Sept before the two days 8/9 Sept in NZ.
* Newhub item on Bridges/National saying Manning should not be let into NZ.
What’s this business of convicted criminals not being able to travel.
There are tons of people who should be convicted getting around freely.
Having caught a few of them, when they are let out or off, they should not be automatically be refused visas.
There are some egregious offences that people should have to prove they have renounced but a blanket ban is crazy. Every day I listen to stories about state-sponsored killing, bombing from east and west and gunshots from USA where half of them should be convicted criminals according to the news.
“What’s this business of convicted criminals not being able to travel.” and “… but a blanket ban is crazy.”
Do you really not know that many countries, including Canada, Australia, NZ, UK, USA etc, have immigration restrictions (which they decide for themselves) on who they will let into their country. This includes in particular if that person has any convictions over a specified level – for example, whether they were for crimes that can incur a sentence of two years in prison . In many cases, these restrictions apply regardless of whether the person has served their sentence.
These restrictions may also apply across the board, or they may vary according to the period of time the person wants to enter the country, and the purpose of their stay (Eg holiday, work , transit to another country, to live permanently).
Such restrictions are the norm not the exception – and have been around for many years, centuries.
Some countries, including NZ but not all, have “Clean Slate” laws whereby convictions under a specified level of seriousness and/or sentence period may be wiped from the records after a specified period of time (eg 7 years) where the person has had no further convictions (a clean slate) over that period. The US is less generous in such matters and even if someone is clean slated in NZ, they may still have to disclose their clean slated conviction(s) when applying for entry to the US.
Sure, there are people running around freely who should be convicted – but if they have not been convicted by due process through a court of law then they are free to do so.
I note that all the countries referred to are English speaking and part of the myopic 5 eyes, that mini Hydra-head.
Just because ‘they’ say something and pass it into law doesn’t mean it is right and fair. So I say WTF – in a global world why are there developing so many controls at the borders in the 21st century? Is it to protect their borders? Is it to limit people wanting to utilise the country’s resources for free or at a net cost to us? That applies to us and why it might be considered that NZ should agree to border controls with Australia (except that they would step up the cleansing of Australia and also refuse re-entry to NZ visiting family here.)
Is it to prevent people who might reveal another way of thinking about things. S&M can get in, they don’t reveal anything new and just expound on personal prejudices that we hold to us tight, and claim to be our right. But Chelsea Manning revealed something new and displayed government subterfuge, that goes to what would be the heart of government, if it had one that is.
No, grey, such restrictions are much wider that just English speaking countries. In fact, it would probably be hard to find any country that just lets everyone and their dog into their country.
As I said, such restrictions are very old – definitely not a 21st century phenomenon. In fact, much more recent are moves to reduce border controls generally (but not necessarily for people with convictions) – such as between NZ and Australia under the 1963 Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Tasman_Travel_Arrangement
The current problems with Australia re NZers is in fact them re-tightening their border control despite this agreement.
S & M got visas, but very restricted short term business ones, because they have no convictions. Manning was convicted and sentenced to 35 years and her conviction was not pardoned by Obama and therefore stands, but her sentence was reduced to seven years by Obama. So for immigration purposes, she still has convictions.
Absolutely agree, Gabby, but that is the law. I really hope CM gets let in to both NZ and Australia under the special exemptions available to both governments. Would love to go to hear her at the Wellington one, but have no money to do so. Loved the interview with Kim Hill.
“There are tons of people who should be convicted getting around freely.”
This is very true. With some of them enjoying the privileges of owning expensive holiday homes in the UK, Hawaii and elsewhere, flaunting their knighthoods in the process …
My te reo Maori is pre-kindergarten, sorry. Anyway, I saw you have been sparring with certain people here in the last day or so with four letter names. Was looking close there last night with one who is known for making sparring partners disappear – was looking like the steam was rising fast, but whew …
Old veutoviper saying: Beware men with four letter names, two of which are the same. LOL.
LOL. See the a one is self-projecting full time in his comments to you and mc f. Sad angry little man with chips so big on his shoulders it is a wonder he can stand up. I interacted for quite some time but then just gave up due to the abuse.
When the party of Lincoln is too racist for Faux news.
Just hours after a big win to become the GOP nominee for Florida governor, Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis went on Fox News Wednesday morning to say the last thing Floridians should do is “monkey this up” by electing his African-American progressive opponent, Andrew Gillum.
[…]
Later in the hour, the Fox News anchor read the DeSantis camp statement and felt the need to address his remarks, saying “We do not condone this language and wanted to make our viewers aware that he has since clarified his statement.”
They served in the Army, Border Patrol and as police. They have legitimate U.S. birth certificates. But Trump’s government is denying their passport applications and telling them they aren’t U.S. citizens.
A Washington Post report out today tells of the “growing number of people whose official birth records show they were born in the United States but who are now being denied passports — their citizenship suddenly thrown into question,” under the Trump administration’s racist policies.
I can’t access the WaPO because of my adblocker but the Herald has run the article, and this stood out.
The denials are happening at a time when Trump has been lobbying for stricter federal voter identification rules, which would presumably affect the same people who are now being denied passports – almost all of them Hispanic, living in a heavily Democratic sliver of Texas.
And they just might vote in the up-coming mid terms – and you know which way they will vote!
The US has no right to call itself a democracy.
They hold the elections on a tuesday.
The day is a working day.
They restrict the number of polling booths to the affluent areas
And in many states they demand id such as driver license or passport.
And that doesn’t even cover the extensive gerrymandering of districts!
North Carolina has been charged with redrawing the districts because of the deceitful gerrymandering – just weeks before the election!
I think if Ron De Santis really wanted to go with an obviously racist hit straight after the primary, he should have said on live TV "I don't think Floridians want to elect a dude who looks like Obama and is aping Bernie Sanders."— Liz Mair (@LizMair) August 29, 2018
UPDATE: Rep. Ron DeSantis has quit the Facebook group that trafficked in racist and offensive slurs, following American Ledger’s reporting on Wednesday. – 8:54 PM
Ron DeSantis, the Trump-endorsed congressman who won Tuesday’s GOP primary for Florida governor, is an administrator on an active Facebook group where conservatives share racist, conspiratorial and incendiary posts about a litany of targets, including black Americans and South Africans, the “deep state,” survivors of February’s massacre at a Florida high school, immigrants, Muslims and, in recent days, John McCain.
I have also been looking into something I was told this week – that one of the “big players” draws massive amounts of water from the deepest of the aquifers and sends it to China, Hong Kong and Singapore. I thought I was pretty much up with all the ins and outs of this dam but that is the first I have heard of this particular angle. Does anyone know any more about this? Apparently the bore used to belong to the TDC but because it is on this person’s land it now belongs to him.
“Per the Naval Historical Center: The English borrowed the word “sergeant” from the French in about the Thirteenth Century. They spelled it several different ways and pronounced it both as SARgent and SERgeant. The latter was closer to the French pronunciation.”
My maternal grandad enlisted age 16 to die in the trenches WWI but survived, then a motorbike courier stationed at Dublin Castle during the Irish Rebellion riding that new technology. Eventually, promoted up from corporal, since his surname was Sergeant he became Sergeant Sergeant.
Interesting, eh? To Marty, Anne & In Vino & anyone else interested, doesn’t it just remind us how boys automatically learned how to be heroes so young, and as often as not then died as cannon fodder? In defense of empire…
Yes Dennis… or to survive, come back blighted by shellshock, etc, and visit their suffering upon their wives and children… Actually, I think that the bible says that the sins of the father will be visited upon the sons for seven generations. But I gather that in those days, 7 was a rather symbolic number.
We had a lad in NZ Scots who’s surname was Hooper and being a Cav SQN had the rank of Trooper Hooper. The poor sod got hammered from Depot to SQN until I think he discharged or transferred to another Corp.
I looked up Blue Spring and Blue Lake but haven’t had time to go through all those listed – lots have been removed from the company register as well.
This could be a completely wrong direction but I have always thought that there seemed to be something or someone much bigger behind this extraordinary push for the dam. The scale of it made no sense at all.
Prickles
I see that this was a Nelson company and Rachel Reese the Mayor was there cheering it on. Selling water, big deal. Lord Ernest Rutherford came from a little place out in the rurals, near here, and really made a breakthrough. Now we mine water as our highest achievement and the erstwhile Prime Minister comes and says a few words.
Reminds me of Balham Gateway to the South tourist spoof from Peter Sellers.
I love the tradesman in toothbrushholesmanship. He was visited by some grand notable who said a few words to him. He didn’t understand any of them.
Sock it to them Shane. I find Shane Jones refreshing, strong language and all.
He is like the rugby player that picks up the ball and runs wuith it, and i think he will get it down into touch. So kia kaha Shane. The water may be sludgy, but keeping stirring and bringing in some oxygen and sunlight and we might get some policy that is usable and healthy for the country.
PRES. NIXON: The most difficult decision that I have made since being President was on December the eighteenth last year.
[Slight caesura, then massive applause]
PRES. NIXON: And there were many occasions in that ten day period after the decision was made when I wondered whether the country really supported it. But I can tell you this: after having met each one of our honored guests this evening, after having talked to them, I think that all of us would like to join in a round of applause for the brave men who took those B-52s in and did the job!
[Massive standing ovation, whistling and stomping]
Who is more scurrilous—the shrill fanatics who organized it, or Change.org for allowing this farrago of lies?
This petition by the desperate and discredited Blairite rump is preceded by the following warning:
We have received flags from our users that the facts in this petition may be contested. You should consider researching this issue before signing or sharing.
Another disgraceful display by another loutish shill for Israel
In this farcical clip, Michael Walker, a journalist with Novara News is pitted against “writer Benedict Spence”, a pro-Israel fanatic. As usual, the Israeli apologist has nothing to offer, so he starts interrupting and talking over Michael Walker.
It starts talking over Walker at the 3:56 mark. Instead of addressing the lout, the host pretends that they are BOTH acting rudely, and says: “Okay guys, if you both speak at once then nobody can hear what you’re saying. Just finish your point, please, Michael and then we’ll bring in Ben….”
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Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
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A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
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The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Photo by Jari Hytönen on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government is talking up the crucial role of gas as a transition fuel “through to 2050 and beyond”. In a gas strategy to be released on Thursday, the government envisages the fuel’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Next week the government will again next try to get its legislation through to deal with non-citizens who won’t cooperate with efforts to deport them. The bill, which the opposition and crossbench refused to rush ...
A long-term project that will set out an alternative vision for Aotearoa that looks beyond the narrow confines of the policy straight jacket adopted by successive governments. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bree Hurst, Associate Professor, Faculty of Business and Law, QUT, Queensland University of Technology TK Kurikawa/Shutterstock A much-awaited report into Coles and Woolworths has found what many customers have long believed – Australia’s big supermarkets engage in price gouging. What started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney The Albanese government wanted to avoid an inquiry into its migration amendment bill. The report, handed down yesterday by a senate committee that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne Lobbying is at the heart of government. Who has access to and influence over key government officials shapes the decisions governments make – and how they make them. The ability to influence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Myfany Turpin, Associate Professor, Ethnomusicology, Linguistics and Ethnobiology, University of Sydney The act representing Australia at this year’s Eurovision contest has sadly not qualified for the grand final. Yet for Zaachariaha Fielding and Michael Ross, the duo that makes up Electric Fields, ...
In announcing changes to the school lunches programme, David Seymour said kids would no longer be served ‘woke’ foods. To clear up any confusion, The Spinoff has compiled a guide to the wokeness levels of some common food items. Apple = NOT WOKE Avocado = WOKE Avocado, smashed = EVEN ...
The Minister Responsible for GCSB and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security have been notified of this review, and have been provided a finalised Terms of Reference. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Minglu Chen, Senior Lecturer, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Robert Way/Shutterstock As the past few years have illustrated so clearly, the Australia-China relationship is complicated. As such, it is crucial for Australians to develop a more nuanced understanding of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mariana Campbell, Research Lecturer, Conservation, Charles Darwin University Marilyn Connell Australian freshwater turtles are facing an alarming trend. Almost half of these species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. The Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) is one of Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritise the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University Unsplash We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that everyone thinks, interacts and experiences the world differently. In the past, autistic people, people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder ...
PNG Post-Courier Papua New Guinea’s deputy opposition leader James Nomane has accused the government of “reckless economic management” that has forced devaluation to manage loan repayments in foreign currency and placate the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prime Minister James Marape “must stop lying to the people of Papua New Guinea”, ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Jane Arthur, author of Brown Bird, and former bookseller at Good Books.The book I wish I’d writtenI have been working on not comparing myself to others. On accepting that what I can ...
The final decision on the Wellington District Plan makes it official: High-density housing is legal across most of Wellington. Housing minister Chris Bishop has announced his decision on the Wellington District Plan, approving a series of amendments to radically upzone most of Wellington, allowing tens of thousands of new townhouses ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to ...
RNZ News As Israel presses ahead with strikes in Rafah and seizing the Rafah crossing from Egypt, aid agencies are sounding the alarm of a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”. Rafah was “significant” because it was the only part in Gaza that had not been terribly damaged by the conflict, United Nations ...
With funding set to be scrapped for the Hamilton-Auckland commuter train, Te Huia enthusiast Georgie Dansey argues for it to be thrown a lifeline. It’s 5.45am and the chain of my crappy old bike falls off slugging up the one hill in Hamilton. I contemplate yeeting the bike into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Cooke, Honorary Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland We feel ecological grief when we lose places, species or ecosystems we value and love. These losses are a growing threat to mental health and wellbeing globally. We all see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shauna Brail, Associate Professor, Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto A shift to hybrid and remote work continues to affect worker presence in Toronto’s downtown.(Shutterstock) Downtown Toronto, the core of Canada’s largest city, continues to reel from the lingering ...
Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
Productivity apps now make up a big chunk of the software market. But do they work? And why do they all have AI integrations?Despite being firmly on the record as a physical planner fan, I sometimes dream of something better than my pretty diary and its scrawled, ugly, interior ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
An objective list of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand, as judged by the Spinoff Editorial Board. It’s power list season, baby, and we want in on the action. Sure, there’s the rich list and the powerful “c-suite” list and the young people with power (hmmm) but here, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the names of deceased people, and describes ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. First Nations people in Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University Netflix Baby Reindeer’s phenomenal success has much to do with its writer and lead, Richard Gadd, who plays Donny in a tender semi-autobiographical account of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking. Gadd’s story has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle KarolinaGrabowska/Pexels If you didn’t have food allergies as a child, is it possible to develop them as an adult? The short answer is yes. But the reasons why are much ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Moon, Professor of History, Auckland University of Technology Ans Westra, self-portrait, c. 1963. National Library ref AWM-0705-F They try but invariably fail – those writers who believe they are capable of encapsulating in prose or verse the essence of ...
Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the growing concern around the world in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. What’s all this? When Covid-19 arrived on our shores in early 2020, some argued we were too slow, or crucially, ill-prepared for a pandemic. So ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Franco Montalto, Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Director, Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Laboratory, Drexel University Water runs into a storm drain in a Los Angeles alley on Aug. 19, 2023, during Tropical Storm Hilary.Citizen of the Planet/Universal Images ...
The inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones has turned up a new witness who says he saw two teenagers and a small child in a high vis vest in the area where the boy’s body was found the day he died. Lachie’s body was discovered face up ...
Stories from the tenancy trenches, featuring spider infestations, cupboard rats and same-sex discrimination. Lucy’s brother was living in a damp 1930s building in Mt Eden where “he had to tie the cupboard doors closed so the rats didn’t get in”. Although he shared custody of his six-year-old son, his property ...
Simeon Brown, Chris Luxon, and Wayne Brown climbed into a hole and announced a plan to solve Auckland’s water woes. This is how it’ll work. New Zealand’s pipes are munted. They’re cracked and leaking, and struggling to handle all the extra poos excreted by our rising population. It’s a big, ...
I knew Taika Waititi quite well when he was a kid. His mother lived in a tall narrow house in Aro St, and my youngest sister had a similar house two doors along. They were both single mums, they each had a son aged seven. Taika and my nephew Stepan ...
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Excerpts from a thought provoking article
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/106628206/ive-found-the-solution-to-the-housing-crisis-and-its-been-here-all-along
No doubt King, Lewis and the other pimps for this unethical industry defend this.
Under the normal tenancy rules this is not acceptable! I’m pretty sure the tenancy tribunal under existing rules would rule in the tenants favour for it to be remedied and probably give them a rent reduction for the inconvenience. The tenants would just have to give a 10 day letter to landlord. Also if they had called the council (even anonymously) they could have got some action as it is leaking into the neighbours property.
They stayed because they would struggle to find another rental due to having a dog and in the price range and probably needing parking if they are a tradie.
So all these Wellington ideas of intensification and more apartments are not going to help the majority of kiwi renters who live this type of lifestyle, just Singapore investors and foreign students …because apartments don’t suit kiwi families aka dogs and Utes and small kids running around in a backyard. (obviously not that one by the state of it!).
The old state houses would have been perfect… and it is a shame that whoever is making the decisions on housing seems to have zero idea of their market and what is required and leads by talking to the construction industry and self interested groups, about what is needed and keeps adding more people into Auckland’s struggling infrastructure and the wealthier ones are much better off than those who don’t have a lot and their needs are not being thought of at all.
Very few people actually live that lifestyle and there’s a question of it even being a good lifestyle.
Personally I’d prefer to see kids playing together in the park with the parents socialising together while watching over them. I believe it would help build a much better community.
And tradies shouldn’t be taking the work vehicle home. It should be staying at the work depot and they take public transport home.
The old housing system that we can no longer afford was an ideological construct brought about by the idea that with cars we no longer needed the high density housing of previous centuries. Climate change has proven that we were wrong.
I suspect that the market for apartments is growing while the demand for stand-alone housing is shrinking considering how many apartment buildings are being built around Auckland.
I’d be saying that’s a very nice illustrative example of why NZ needs a Registry of Landlords. Local bodies (councils) could administer and oversee such a register that should be searchable by (at least) registration number that all landlords would be required to attach to all adverts etc. And yes, applications to register should come with a fee to cover admin and management costs and registration should require periodic renewal.
Any non-registered person renting out a property would then be guilty of a criminal offense.
How long before long drawn out situations like that featured in the Campbell piece don’t happen any more?
That landlord loses their registration. They then break the law, and are up for a very hefty fine or jail time if they attempt to collect rent.
I’d say that the reason these tenants didn’t move out, was that they couldn’t get anywhere else, aka shortage of rental properties that suit them and they may have other issues like bad credit history which is fairly common in NZ with our low wage, low financial nous, precariat lifestyle championed by successive governments to make everyone “competitive” … so if they start putting together a registry of landlords (which is crazy when they don’t even have a regulatory body for rental agents) then low and behold they are putting more paperwork and reasons not to rent out your house…
This bad landlord that should have been sent a letter at the start of the tenancy, is he even a Kiwi landlord or a new migrant landlord who doesn’t care about the rules?
The tenants didn’t go to the tribunal because they did not seem that convinced they could get somewhere better and that house is still half the cost of that one room $1000 p/w emergency hotel… that the government feel is ok to put the beneficiaries in (which they technically have to pay back).
It’s a nit picking slope of issues, we have homelessness and huge demand for emergency housing directly caused by government policy of selling off state houses and evicting people, not doing anything about meth, and overloading the housing market with new residents, not cleaning up construction years ago, but pandering to them and allowing a profit driven housing market that is more expensive than most nations.
Did you not watch the video link?
The woman quite clearly explained why she and her partner and children hadn’t simply moved out – none of the reasons contained in your comment btw. And as for your speculative xenophobic tosh…yeah, noted.
Currently in NZ, it is really bloody difficult to hold a landlord to account. A Registry would at the very least weed out the most unscrupulous landlords, with fear of loss of registration (with subsequent criminal proceedings for anyone tempted to rent “on the fly”) acting as a nice incentive for those closer to the floor of acceptability.
It’s not a “cure all” and doesn’t in any way dismiss or deny any of the 1001 other factors impacting on the rental environment.
Cool … zero problem with a register of ‘problem landlords’. It would be a good for the industry, and impose a minimum standards and professionalism. It’s a role MBIE could manage effectively and as long as it was open to challenge and accountability I’d welcome it.
Now can I have the same kind of register for problem tenants please?
I think the costs associated with a landlord registry would outweigh any benefit.
The best system is the one we’ve got. Works fine when used as it should be. Over 90% of cases heard by the Tenancy Tribunal are brought about by landlords.
Crook tenants vs crook landlords seems to run at about 20 to 1.
dawn Robbie is well aware of how best to get a result, She and Cameron took their landlord to the tribunal in 2016 and won.
Their property shares a water supply that services 2 properties. There is no separate check meter. The landlord was advised that he can’t charge them for water. He illegally charged them a letting fee. He was ordered to repay it. The landlord was ordered to immediately lodge the bond, if not, he award exemplary charges to the tenant of $1000.
The landlord was ordered to repay Dawn and her partner the $20.44 Tribunal fee to have their case heard.
The best approach is not another layer of bureaucracy, it is to use the existing system. Post the landlord a 14 day notice to comply (just like the ones he sends out) there’s a template on the MBIE tenancy website.
Like Dawn and Cameron’s 2016 hearing, Most Tribunal orders are public information.
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/101648931.pdf
I say let the Tribunal Adjudicators continue to rip strips off the very few exploitive landlords. Continue to hit them where it hurts, in their greedy pockets. Their public orders are a great way to keep tabs on dud landlords and tenants alike.
‘Problem’ landlords and tenants might wish to rehabilitate themselves off these proposed registers, so as to regain access to income and shelter (respectively.) Hopefully there would be equitable protocols for this.
Of course, the humbug landlords have the option of cashing out, and presumably the humbug tenants could access state housing and cars (the agony of choice), and maybe even assistance to address behavioural and mental health ‘problems’.
Or just replace ‘landlords’ with lords and ‘tenants’ with serfs (what’s a lord to do with ‘problem serfs’?) – where we’re heading (back to), for as long as it lasts.
@DM: “Crook tenants vs crook landlords seems to run at about 20 to 1” – that’s remarkable, especially if there’s a 1:1 ratio of serfs to lords.
Yeah the archaic language really doesn’t help. The resentment across the board is an obstacle to modernising the whole business.
It’s hard to guess what the actual numbers are. Certainly there are more tenants than landlords, probably in a ratio of about 5:1. (Wild arsed guess. It’s greater than 1:1 and probably less than 10:1)
From experience about 10% of tenants cause some form of problem, and I’d imagine a lower number applies to landlords as they have a substantial asset in the game, say 2%. That would work out at a bad tenant to landlord ratio of about 25:1 so given these very rough assumptions David Macs guess is not totally out of the ballpark.
However one bad landlord will likely affect around 5 tenants so this will even things out somewhat. Also the distribution of landlords to number of units is highly non-linear; most have only 1 or 2 units, with only a minority running more than 10. (This complicates any analysis quite a lot, although if I could be arsed wheeling out my rather rusty statistical analysis it would possible to put up a more accurate interpretation.)
Good tenents can find themselves ‘dehomed’ at short notice. Even good landlords sometimes need (cf. ‘want’) to sell, but knowing no-one has a choice doesn’t make a tenent’s situation any easier. Like the ‘poor’ manager who agonises over the decision of who to let go in a downturn, it’s the sacked who really do it hard.
NZ is a wealthy country (total wealth goes up and up – growth is good), so why this “resentment across the board”? Is the level of resentment unusually high in NZ (no idea; surprised it’s not higher tbh), and, if so, why?
Redistribution of wealth, reversing the trend that has the richest 10% of NZ households controlling half of NZ’s wealth (more than half now), while the poorest 40% of households ‘get by’ on 3%, might ameliorate that resentment.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/307458/10-percent-richest-kiwis-own-60-percent-of-nz%27s-wealth
As discussed on The Standard, and elsewhere, it’s simple maths to show the tremendous difference even a small % redistribution would make to those poorest 40% of households. But there will be no significant redistribution. The ‘business as usual’ trend will continue and deliver lords and serfs to ‘New’ Zealand.
Will the new lords/serfs society be more resilient in the face of economic and environmental pressures? We can only hope…
Dawn Robbie knows the procedure to go through, she has done it before and won. If she has provided her landlord with notices to comply she is in the box seat for $1000’s of exemplary charges. I think there is a good chance an adjudicator would demand that paid rent be returned to Dawn and her partner for the duration of the under-house swamp situation.
I find it odd that Dawn chose to ring the John Campbell Show. I wonder if she might like the idea of a state house, rent set at a third of their income.
As per the ratbag landlord list Bill suggests, the existing system works. A search of Dawn’s landlord ‘Mandeep Pala’ reveals a man with form. First of all trying to slither out from his responsibility by saying its a company ‘Southern Assets Limited’ that makes the decisions. The adjudicator saw through it and called ‘Humbug’.
About a year ago he was ordered to return all of the rent paid by a tenant for a home that was technically a garage: $9200 returned to the tenant along with the max exemplary damages: $1000. A bill for $10240 and here Mandeep is again, man deep in poo.
Strange Dawn hasn’t checked out his form and nailed him to the yard arm again.
Mandeep’s other tribunal dealing.
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/122681833.pdf
I’d say if the tenant has won before at the tribunal then maybe she waited for 21 months and then went for max media attention so perhaps a chance at free rent for that entire time?
Why else wait 21 months with her children getting sick and not going to the tribunal first to get an order to remedy when she has already won before a tribunal and moved in knowing it has drainage issues?
Who knows the motivation, a match made in heaven for MSM and the tribunal will go to town on this extreme example, and now got the housing minister wading in (ha ha) , possibly he could have be a bit more cautious before he went out there telling everyone how common a situation it was.
Really???
Yes, finding a rental is getting tougher.
I think we need a government that rewards good landlords and tenants alike. Makes it harder for exploiters on both sides.
Gear the Govt paid housing supplement to favourable outcomes for both parties, It doesn’t need to be adversarial. Gear the govt supp towards tenants needs. eg: A 2 year lease at a fixed rent with a 10% rise in the govt paid component will ultimately save money all round. Starting with kids not swapping schools every 6 months.
Red logic tenants have to provide references. That is the protection for landlords.
Besides which landlords are landlords out of choice. One of the risks of buying property to rent out is that you may encounter bad tenants. If you don’t like that as a possibility invest your money elsewhere.
Whereas everyone needs a roof over their heads, not a lifestyle option.
I did rent out my house when I left Auckland and thought I might return so didn’t want to risk not being able to get back into the market. I believe I was a good landlord and my home was better insulated for my tenants than when I lived there. Fair enough, they were paying me a reasonable amount to stay there. When I finally sold it realtor told more I could have been charging $100 more a week, and was surprised when I told him that didn’t bother me as I was getting a fair rent
The suggestion, taken from pre-existing legislation elsewhere, isn’t for a register of “problem landlords”, but for a registration process to apply to landlords.
Meaning, that if you are on the register, it’s a good thing.
If you aren’t, and have no pending application, and are trying to rent residential property (whether directly or through an agent) then you’re breaking criminal law.
As for problem tenants, don’t landlords these days almost insist on a dossier of past references? And what with social media the way it is, and already routinely “checked out” by employers, I’m pretty damned sure a landlord could get a good sense of who or what a person is on the sly.
Nah some landlords just ask you to meet them at the house, park around the corner then when you turn up ring you on your cellphone to say the flat is gone.
That’s not everyone. Just if you’re Maori or Pacifica.
They said the didn’t move out because they had a dog, he was a roofer and they couldn’t just keep moving around. But the question is, they could have written a letter asking for it to be rectified in 10 days, and gone to the tribunal why didn’t they?
They were in there for a long period of time without doing anything about it and then went to the media rather than tribunal or council or send a letter to the landlord? Why is that?
There is ample protection for them under the law.
We get this type of story every time the construction industry or right wingers won’t labour’s polls to go down..
Many homeowners actually have their entire houses fall down due to bad construction and then they become renters while paying for repairs and a mortgage, for example but don’t see the politicians doing much about that or giving them compensation instead just giving more hand outs to construction and happy with the appalling jobs councils are doing and of course the click bait, bad landlord story to divert attention away from major issues going on.
The underlying issue is to do with bad construction and some sort of illegal set up of their drainage…
We’d be better off with a register of tradies AND the unqualified people they employ like a LOG on site work, because it’s often not the registered tradies doing the work, and somehow registered tradies who sign it off, just get away with bad workmanship from unqualified people. Then the council aka the rate payers paying for bad work that the council employees have often approved because developers and tradies can just set up new companies and avoid responsibility.
One hopes the Government will ensure councils have the oversight in place to deal with the increase in construction of new homes.
The last thing Labour needs in the run up to the next election is reports of thousands of newly built kiwibuild and state homes requiring major repairs due to shoddy workmanship.
You say, any non-registered person renting out a property would then be guilty of a criminal offense.
Therefore, under your proposal if a landlord loses their registration, tenants will be forced out.
Even if rent is suspended, technically it will still be a tenanted rental.
You say, councils could administer and oversee such a register. Yet, councils are money hungry beasts, hence would soon seek to turn that into a lucrative new revenue stream (above and beyond administration costs) for themselves.
And of course, landlords would look to pass on any new costs incurred.
Therefore, a better option (if we were to go down that track) would be a national register overseen by central government with admin costs funded from the fines they dish out. Avoiding stinging landlords who comply while avoiding costs being passed on.
And tenants can leave feedback the same way that users can leave feedback on Trade-me.
/agreed
Combined with a decent ownership registry that allows people to find out who owns what.
The council can’t even read it’s own resource consent rules, for gods sake half of Auckland (and it’s spreading to other cities) is under remedial work as it is, often signed off by council. The last person anybody would want to see, is the council administering rentals. They can’t even handle the basics.
How many more landlord bodies are there going to be, a WOF, the tenancy tribunal and a log of landlords?
Deary me, I wonder why there is a rental shortage… with these wonderful ideas floating around to “stem’ the shortage based on getting rid of all the bad landlords and properties. Wonderful, now they are gone, is the state going to provide the thousands of cheap, safe, warm rentals, that will be needed tomorrow?
must rank up there like Kiwibuild where you evict the tenants for years to rebuild their rental while selling off the rest of the land and therefore having no capacity for future state house builds when you are actively trying to grow the low wage economy as fast as possible, subsidise construction and deregulate it while tuning a blind eye to all the unskilled unqualified people working on the jobs, and keeping foreign speculation going to keep prices high so banks like you.
Then believe the free market fairy will provide private accomodation for all the growing low wage families and beneficiaries who have bad credit ratings out of the kindness of their hearts, while the state gives the multimillionaires in construction and banks more help.
Sounds like something out of Yes Minister savenz
‘Where did you get that preposterous idea. Civil servant Sir Humphrey
‘Oh I just thought of it. PM Jim Jacker.
That was about not giving awards to civil servants unless they had earned them. With a litany of lulus that you have set out, it seems time to start the 2nd Labours of Hercules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labours_of_Hercules
The council professionals in housing would fit one of the Labours, just before or after cleaning the Augean stables which actually, housed the single greatest number of cattle in the country and had never been cleaned. (This could be expanded to modern feedlots.)
How about the government and council stops demolishing cheaper homes for roads and Housing corporation houses for re-devleoperment for a start and stop allowing more and more people to settle here to compete on low wages or for housing.
Homes slated for demolition to be used as emergency housing
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018651008/homes-slated-for-demolition-to-be-used-as-emergency-housing
Someone needs to ask the housing minister “how much security of tenure you get in a house marked for demolition or an emergency hotel”?
Sounds good. Let’s keep at it for change at all levels but particularly
the simple practical, with space at the doorstep for big plastic tubs growing vegs and flowers, and covered clothes lines, and waist high fences to allocate an area that is for the tenant to enjoy and look after. Little things that mean a lot.
And for the homeless and recovering and recent prisoners; concrete shelters, with cream painted walls, and concrete floors with drainage in one corner so that they can be easily cleaned. Practical, safe, warm and a basic level of comfort, identity and sanitation, and overview to keep reasonable standards.
The irony is that Labour fucked up 2 elections by pandering to identity housing groups and hypocritical or unpractical housing positions.
Now they got in, effectively with Kiwibuild they are screwing the renters and helping the home owners while throwing previous elections by loudly campaigning for renters while forgetting 60% of voters are homeowners.
To be as unpopular as possible once elected they are emotionally screaming “lift your game or get out” to landlords most of whom the home owners identify with and forgetting the government is one of the worst offenders of evicting people.
Whose their strategist, Basile Fawlty?
Who said anything about them administering rentals (Although I believe that they did a good job of that when they had council flats). Keeping a registry of landlords would probably come down to the central government rather than councils as a landlord could own a house anywhere in the country and many would be offshore owners.
Just one.
So, you think keeping bad landlords that cost individuals and the state huge amounts of money and cause grief for individuals should be kept around because they provide housing?
Have you noticed the housing crisis that is allowing these scum to get super-profits?
The problem is that they aren’t. Housing should be a right and the government should be ensuring that everyone has a good place to live.
rentals ?
A journalism student finds rentals exist?
Well he seem to have found click bait headlines as well
Does Barry Soper support the white theft of African land?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12116038
Soper considers Trump’s contribution as being decisive and gives him credit. Clearly in recent months the situation was evolving every which way and who knows, the latest steps might have nothing to do with Trump’s tweeting. No matter, Trump’s a hero.
If someone in the New Zealand Parliament had tweeted something about another country would Soper have turned out a column criticising it as an intrusion into the politics of another country?
Interestingly the stat’s for murdered farmers in RSA is at it’s lowest in twenty years.
What about murdered farm workers ?
Soper conveniently forgets to mention that land reforms were part of the agreement that ended apartheid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_Two_of_the_Constitution_of_South_Africa#Property
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/03/this-land-is-our-land/
Thanks for cleaning up that Sope scum Ed. Appreciated.
Nice pun
Specialty Trainees of New Zealand, or SToNZ.
Smells very fishy.
They seem to be as similar to a union as the Taxpayers Union.
Wonder who is behind this group?
Jordan Williams?
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/365240/junior-doctors-warn-new-hospital-rosters-wreck-training-bad-for-patients
I listened to the doctor representing this new Union on RNZ this morning and he made a lot of sense.
Wonder if we will see nurses form a new Union?
No links to Taxpayers “union”. STONZ is a genuine union, affiliated to the Council of Trade Unions.
No links to ACTing up?
Tee hee! No, I’m an actor.
Ed : The judge of everything –
Did you listen to the trainee doctor discussing the problems of getting the necessary training in his specialty – orthopaedics?
Good point he made was that if you are on in weekend you get crash victims, emergencies.l But that is only part of the work and is rather different than seeing the daily patients booked in for electives, chosen surgery for their problem.
I thought he was cogent and any animosity I had about this ‘breakaway union’ went away after hearing him.
It is refreshing to see a government Minister standing up to foreign owned banks and not grovelling to them.
Now the Government should put their money where their mouth is and close down their account with Westpac.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/106593175/shane-jones-slams-aussieowned-banks-for-shutting-branches-in-provincial-nz
No chance ,Westpacs David McClean was a lead speaker at the business confidence meeting,and down played pessimism.
It would be very ungracious to strip them of their Govt business.
Keep $6 billion the country.
Close down foreign banks operating here.
I’m not fond of using the reductio ad absurdum but you do know what happens to countries that have closed virtually all borders, don’t you? Does Albania ring a bell, or even North-Korea?
Let’s try and bring some nuance into the debate. Comments that lack any nuance either get ignored here or attract an equally simplistic or absurd reflexive response. It doesn’t get us anywhere except to further polarise and antagonise people; not much progressive about that, is there?
It has been done before.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/24d.asp
In 1982 French President Francois Mitterand tried to nationalize all the banks in France.
It was a fucking moronic idea pushed by the Communist faction within his government, with weak reasoning.
These and the other nationalisations early in the first term helped contribute to a French economic recession.
It was a total disaster.
The communists were pushed out nice and fast, and Mitterand went on to be France’s longest-serving President.
Privatisation hasn’t been a raging success either – but it still went ahead.
Privatisation has caused major increases in poverty and trashed the economy but the rich are doing well so it’s allowed to stand. The will of the people is ignored.
Mitterand was unusual in having been a right-wing political activist when young, then ending up a socialist president. If you examine his trajectory, little evidence of any socialist conviction becomes apparent. Easy to see his bombing of the Rainbow warrior as a global signal that the imperial left will never merge with the Green movement. His imperialism seems more authentic than his leftism.
I recall his switch back to the right making the headlines when his leftist economic policy failed dramatically. This pragmatism achieved his record-breaking durability as president. However, underlying that was a lifetime of copying Stalin: using a medial line between left & right, with the leverage of the political center as a position of strength to operate from, switching tactical alignments when necessary. Winston Peters has spent a quarter-century trying to teach his fellow kiwis how effective this praxis is.
Dennis Frank
Interesting.
Watch to see how modern private banking works.
You want us to watch a Full Movie? And after that? Another one?
Sorry, I pass.
Scared of becoming educated?
Try it in small pieces. It won’t hurt – really.
http://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/banking-101-video-course/
Yeah, that’s much more like it, thank you!
However, I disagree with you that education doesn’t hurt; it hurts a lot and once you know things you cannot unknow them. Hence the saying “ignorance is bliss”.
It is not really necessary to nationalize the banks; it is only necessary to stop them creating money out of nothing.
Either or, beggars can’t be chooses.
How do you think Électricité de France, Gaz de France, Air France etc were created. They were state creations in the late 40s.
There was a history behind Frances actions., which included
“With a wide-reaching 1982 nationalization law, the government took over the major industrial groups CGE, Péchiney, Rhône-Poulenc, Saint Gobain, and Thomson; defense manufacturers Dassault-Bréguet and Matra; steel giants Usinor and Sacilor; computer companies Bull and ITT-France; and the pharmaceutical lab Roussel-UCLAF; along with the country’s thirty-six biggest banks—all at a cost of fifty-eight billion francs to the taxpayer.
The state ownership allowed better managed transitions for some
declining industries
‘Faced first with cheaper coal imports in the 1960s, and then opting in the 1970s to develop nuclear power, the government put in place a decades-long plan to wind down Charbonnages de France’s coal mining and power generation activities. The company gradually shrank its work force by relying exclusively on retirements and transfers to other public companies. From its peak in 1946, when Charbonnages employed 350,000 miners, to 2004 when the last coal mine in France shuttered its shafts, the company didn’t lay off a single worker.”
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/lessons-from-the-nationalization-nation-state-owned-enterprises-in-france
All good examples of a moderate, evolutionary policy, implemented incrementally over a period of decades. No doubt underlying that brief description above, there was much complexity and compromise needed to make it all work. In places it was probably messy and imperfect.
And at the same time largely successful French private entities, Peugeot and Schneider Electric come to mind as examples, continued to operate and thrive. The French didn’t make the radical mistake of going all neo-liberal and privatising everything not nailed down, nor neo-marxist extreme of nationalising the same. They steered a pragmatic path down the middle and came through their post-WW2 crisis reasonably well.
A decades long plan across multiple industries that only the government can do – as long as it doesn’t have any RWNJs come in and fuck things up. Private companies, no matter how big they are, don’t seem able to maintain plans that last for decades. They only seem to operate for short term profit.
Yes … that aligns nicely with the view that state enterprise is best for managing long-term multigenerational risks, while private enterprise scales better for the short-term. Both have a complementary place.
It’s a question neatly captured by Arnold Nordmeyer’s rhetorical question “do we want the state running corner dairies?”.
‘They steered a pragmatic path down the middle and came through their post-WW2 crisis reasonably well.’
They certainly didn’t forget their humiliation by Germany quickly or their colonisation mindset.
Africa,Vietnam and the Rainbow Warrior attest to..that.
Exploitation by privatising water in Africa was all done in the best possible taste..no doubt.
‘French multinationals—Saur, Suez and Vivendi—have been the main companies involved in the water business in Africa but in the last few years Portugual’s Aguas de Portugal and the British company Biwater have entered the scene. Currently, Vivendi is involved in Burkina Faso, Gabon and Niger; Suez in South Africa; and Biwater in the Republic of Congo. The PSIRU report reveals that privatisations are planned in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, amongst others.
Despite IMF pressure, the privatisation of water in Africa has proceeded with difficulty in the last few years. In the PSIRU report a number of cases are given where negotiations over contracts or existing contracts between multinationals and governments broke down. Revelations from Vivendi staff at a Kampala conference indicate the problem. They explained that private firms would invest only if there are “guarantees securing the flow of payments by the municipalities or governments” and/or “sufficient and assured revenues from the users of the service.”
Having worked in the water industry for almost a decade I’m very aware of the issues around the public/private split. The core problem is that water supply is fundamental human need and cannot be permitted to fail. This makes it a very politically sensitive industry.
In general fully privatised water provision is a bad idea. Equally there are no examples of totally public provision either. (Even the most staunchly public utility is still utterly dependent on a myriad of private sector suppliers and contractors to operate effectively.)
In very simple terms, the optimum arrangement seems to be where a public body owns the asset (aquifers, plants, pipes and pumping stations, etc) while some form of commercial entity operates and maintains them. Managed intelligently you retain local control of the asset, it’s maintenance, investment and pricing … while accessing the efficiencies of scale from large vendors who bring real expertise and best practise global standards to the table,
A sure, risk free bet required to invest’…’They explained that private firms would invest only if there are “guarantees securing the flow of payments by the municipalities or governments” and/or “sufficient and assured revenues from the users of the service.”
Please put some effort into it if you want to convince people.
Just providing a link to the banking environment in the US in the 1820s does not constitute an argument. By clicking on that link TS readers should understand and come to the conclusion that it can and has to be done? And by “it” you presumably mean waging war on the Ozzie banks and kicking them out of NZ (nationalising?)?
Politics is contest of ideas that requires effort and persuasion (which means appealing to both reason as well as emotion).
Somebody once said that war is the continuation of politics by other means but you seem to want to skip the peaceful approach and go straight for the last resort?
For the record, I do think that the power and influence of the global corporate banking industry needs to be curbed especially in domestic affairs. Whether you agree with that and how we’d go about it are the issues to be addressed.
A considerable amount of work has been done on this in recent decades by many who have reframed the historical binary in an attempt to learn from history. When the ridiculous extremes of nationalisation & privatisation are eliminated from contention, the middle way becomes the path to progress.
This tertiary stakeholder design has also been trialled historically, so we ought to be learning from the successes & failures that have been analysed. If community banks are chartered on a local stakeholder design, they can services businesses in a bioregion context, to build both local & regional resilience. As long as everyone is able to participate in both design & governance to some extent, that crowd-sourcing ought to be able to generate perceptions of the common interests of all being catered for.
However critical mass has yet to be attained: complacency of the majority ensures that dependency on the capitalists will persist until the tipping point of sufficient desperation is reached. The visible desperate seem to prefer living under bridges to collective organising for a better future.
On the nail Dennis!. This is where the left must focus it’s energy in order to be effective. Radicals only discredit us. The majority of people, with real justification, will regard them with deep suspicion, and all moderate left wingers if we fail dissociate ourselves from them.
Hi Dennis, I really appreciate your engaging and considerate comments & replies here on TS.
What do you mean with “perceptions”? Surely, you mean “realities”?
Regarding the “complacency of the majority”, do you think this is wilful or possibly caused by lack of or poor education, lack of or poor journalism, lack of public intellectuals, or some other reasons altogether? Any conscious change starts (or ends) with awareness …
Well, that’s good to know. 🙂 Both perceptions & realities are required for success, it’s just that whereas the latter is essential to structure the emerging new social reality, perceptions must shift so that participants become conscious of that emergence.
That’s because participants are more influential when they are actors rather than passive folk unconsciously going along with the new flow.
To your point about awareness: that perception of shift induces awareness. Complacency is primarily caused by culture, but I agree the factors you suggest all contribute. So the key to mass transformation is not just for individuals to operate as catalysts & lead by example, but for some of them to achieve gnosis around how to exercise even more leverage via organising – and then co-create groups for that purpose.
Totally agree. Ed’s narrow totalitarian thinking has been proven a catastrophe everywhere it has ever been implemented, but this doesn’t cause him the slightest moment’s concern.
Indeed economic catastrophe and social breakdown would appear to be quite welcomed by these revolutionary types; although they’d never actually say so out loud. And then there is the false assumption that it would never affect them because they’ve got the right ideology and everyone else will do the suffering.
I suspect Ed is all key board and no action
An ex banker !
His obsession with the french banks and ignored the other industrial groups bought under state control shows that
What’s banning foreign ownership got to do with closing the borders?
And yet your own comment lacks nuance and also includes a false dichotomy and a false equivalence.
Basically, it seems that you’re talking out your arse to scare people.
Odd question. A foreigner comes in, it doesn’t have to be literally, buys or invests into something here and thus owns or part-owns it and the ownership crosses the border, legally and economically.
Depends on how you read it but in any case you’re not helping much either in engaging in a constructive discussion, sadly.
I do indeed talk out of my arse an awful lot and I’m trying to lift my game to talking from my guts & belly (gut instinct) to talking from my mouth but it is lifelong process; care to be more specific? How and why would I want “to scare people” and about what? Are we still talking about Ozzie banks or have you moved to a completely different topic without issuing a memo?
I must say that your comment is a good example of a reflexive response that neither helps to build bridges nor to generate (an) understanding; it is an attempt to pull & put down without a sign of empathy or respect and no option for reconciliation or a way forward (or out …). Your absolutisms lack nuance [you like this oxymoron?].
No. It’s a perfectly valid question from your assertion that anybody even suggested closing the borders.
No, that would be delusional BS. But, then, the entire economic theory is delusional BS.
Banning foreign ownership still allows trade in actual products and that’s all that trade should be.
To keep the status quo that is making NZ poorer.
RW aristos bringing their fine sentiments into play to control the rabble’s practical ideas of what the country needs bring amusement.
Blazer
No chance ,Westpacs David McClean was a lead speaker at the business confidence meeting,and down played pessimism.
It would be very ungracious to strip them of their Govt business.
Like being ungracious (ungrateful) to Westpac for saying some positive things about present financial situation (not getting stuck into Labour because they can). Pragmatically, it illustrates a reason to stay with Westpac while they see it to their business advantage not to play anti-politics while they have so much to gain from their government contract.
(This old man should keep on giving the dog a bone.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxfiFOHtwUA&vl=en
.National Party Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott said the closures reflected the commercial reality of modern banking, and if there were enough people using local branches the banks would keep them open,
“The commercial reality of modern banking” that National Party MPs celebrate is to make huge profits from land sales to the world, creating a huge bubble that, following the history of other bubbles, has created large profit expectations and dragged investment away from other business sectors needed for our economy, and like an inflated balloon not tied off will result in a large farting noise as it travels madly pinging off solid surfaces in an unco-ordinated way and end up torn, flat and wrecked.
Looks like Manning might be blocked from entering Aussie
If she can’t go there would imagine she won’t come here
https://www.smh.com.au/national/chelsea-manning-threatened-with-visa-denial-ahead-of-australian-tour-20180829-p500l2.html
Exactly why ‘deplatforming’ is such a terrible idea. It’s all well and good when it’s done to people you don’t like, but then you have zero defence when it’s done to people your opponents don’t like.
This is so fucking blindly obvious I feel embarrassed for typing it out.
Are you so stupid not to know that Southern stunts are an offence under our Human rights law.
Which stunts?
“Women ‘not developed’ to be CEOs, activist Lauren Southern says https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/victoria-police-charge-lauren-southern/news-story/9986324084f649beaa9cc568e51523e0
Jul 20, 2018 … A Canadian alt-right activist currently touring Australia has said women are not psychologically developed to hold leadership positions and …”
Forgive me if I’m wrong re “Human Rights Law” but comments like that surely goes against New Zealand’s rights for equality. Bit of a stunt aimed for reaction or her genuine Neanderthal opinions, you choose.
Nope. It’s just a stupid argument, and one that’s pretty easily refuted I would imagine.
If you want a law against stupidity, then let us know why you think any of us would be immune to prosecution.
No
As RedLogix says, it is just a stupid theory
To me it’s a bit like some on the left who think all men are violent and we live in one vast “rape culture”
Two sides to the same stupid
Making the statement of the stupid theory was the stunt. I provided a specific example with proof of a link, can you do the same and provide an example of someone on the left who think “all” men are violent and we live in one vast “rape culture” To equate with Southern that will have to be someone who people at the Standard have heard of and supported. Otherwise there is no comparison.
Your link is behind a pay wall, so who knows what it is
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11817696
Thanks for that, nowhere in that article does she accuse ALL men of being violent and her reference to the Rape Culture mentions “SOME schools” and she “thinks” there is a rape culture and “How can we stop it”. Southerns comments as copied from Google this side of the PayWall as stated were (Jul 20, 2018 … A Canadian alt-right activist currently touring Australia has said women are not psychologically developed to hold leadership positions and …”) Women ARE NOT. If you think these are “Two sides of the same…” then I’m not going to try and change your mind but politely agree to disagree.
I recall that The Australian article well and there were plenty of other Australian media reports on it, including this one from 9 News which reports it halfway down – along with plenty else of Southern’s “views”. You are more polite that I am in agreeing to disagree with his Two Sides of the same.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/07/19/17/00/lauren-southern-australia-tour-meets-a-current-affair
+ 1 yep. Well put.
Jones does sound as if he is going to do something. And we need to think about the options.
But some good research internationally indicates expensive dams may not give the lengthy service to justify and while there is no control over the dangerous reliance on milk that is skewing our national accounts and the mad water export scheme, we don’t dare to allow the keen men to run off with our goodies.
Jack sold off the family cow, but they still had water left to drink and grow the beans with. We are living in ultra fairyland and I don’t trust these smart guys. There are two sorts – the ones who load up the dosh and sell out, and the ones that remain in place cutting a deep trough unable to see over the sides.
In what way? Share your well hidden secret.
Not proven. Their actions may be an offence in your opinion, but that’s not the same as testing that proposition in front of a Court.
Nor does it mean that it’s a good idea to deal to every contention with resort to a law that’s capable of very broad interpretation.
Human Rights Act 1993
Inciting racial/ethnic disharmony , with intent.
It might be a bar legally , but if you are renting out a venue it could be enough to say ‘not under my roof’
Inciting in your view yes. But if you want to make that case legally, you have to accept they may well want to mount a defense.
In my opinion what we are seeing with S&M is what happens when the right play ‘white identity’ politics back at the left. We think it’s pretty ugly. Guess what … the right think our forms of it are ugly too. And have done so for decades.
I’ll agree with a bit of that – except the Right are using words they don’t understand. So they’re using them in a slightly warped way, like a chatbot.
Like Chris T comparing comments about biological determination of aptitudes with comments about rape culture – the two have nothing in common, but Chris T doesn’t seem to understand that. From his perspective, they look alike. But they are not.
Yes that’s a good point, there isn’t necessarily a direct equivalence. But I think the underlying ‘power/oppression game’ narrative exploits the identical dynamics.
It’s cargo-cult “identity politics”, though. They claim victimhood on behalf of the oppressors: the “It’s ok to be white” tshirt for example.
Who the fuck said it wasn’t? Especially compared to the experiences of people who seemed to be followed around stores a lot more often than white people?
That’s what really pisses me off about it – it’s the bullies claiming that they’re bullied because someone said that “bullying is bad”.
Last night I commented on the Chelsea Manning post. wondering whether Manning had been issued a visa for Australia, in light of the National party (led by Woodhouse but supported by Bridges according to Newshub *) calling for Immigration to refuse her a visa to NZ in view of her criminal convictions. At that point the Australian press were reporting on the situation here re these calls to refuse a visa, but little seemed to be known as to the Australian position. https://thestandard.org.nz/let-chelsea-manning-speak/#comment-1519028
Sure enough, overnight it all blew up in the Australian media with many reports similar to the SMH (Sydney Morning Herald) report above.
One thing re the SMH report: It reports that Manning was denied a visa to enter Canada in Sept last year (2017) BUT it does not mention that Canada subsequently issued her a very limited time visa to enter Canada for one speaking engagement in May this year.
This was reported by the Guardian yesterday and also by RNZ National on Morning Report this morning (an earlier article at 5.54am does not give the details of the limitations on the visa but they were detailed half way down in the later mention linked to below).
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/29/ban-felon-chelsea-manning-from-new-zealand-urge-opposition-mps
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018660318/australia-considers-banning-chelsea-manning-from-entry
So there is precedent for a country similar to Australia and NZ to grant a one off limited visa for the same type of event Manning is scheduled to give here in NZ (ie she will only be here for 2 days for one event in Auckland on Sat 8 Sept and one in Wellington on Sun 9 Sept before scheduled for one in Brisbane on 11 Sept. Her earlier planned speeches are in Sydney this Sunday, 2 Sept and then Melbourne Friday 7 Sept before the two days 8/9 Sept in NZ.
* Newhub item on Bridges/National saying Manning should not be let into NZ.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/08/national-party-says-chelsea-manning-should-not-be-allowed-in-new-zealand.html
What’s this business of convicted criminals not being able to travel.
There are tons of people who should be convicted getting around freely.
Having caught a few of them, when they are let out or off, they should not be automatically be refused visas.
There are some egregious offences that people should have to prove they have renounced but a blanket ban is crazy. Every day I listen to stories about state-sponsored killing, bombing from east and west and gunshots from USA where half of them should be convicted criminals according to the news.
“What’s this business of convicted criminals not being able to travel.” and “… but a blanket ban is crazy.”
Do you really not know that many countries, including Canada, Australia, NZ, UK, USA etc, have immigration restrictions (which they decide for themselves) on who they will let into their country. This includes in particular if that person has any convictions over a specified level – for example, whether they were for crimes that can incur a sentence of two years in prison . In many cases, these restrictions apply regardless of whether the person has served their sentence.
These restrictions may also apply across the board, or they may vary according to the period of time the person wants to enter the country, and the purpose of their stay (Eg holiday, work , transit to another country, to live permanently).
Such restrictions are the norm not the exception – and have been around for many years, centuries.
Some countries, including NZ but not all, have “Clean Slate” laws whereby convictions under a specified level of seriousness and/or sentence period may be wiped from the records after a specified period of time (eg 7 years) where the person has had no further convictions (a clean slate) over that period. The US is less generous in such matters and even if someone is clean slated in NZ, they may still have to disclose their clean slated conviction(s) when applying for entry to the US.
Sure, there are people running around freely who should be convicted – but if they have not been convicted by due process through a court of law then they are free to do so.
I note that all the countries referred to are English speaking and part of the myopic 5 eyes, that mini Hydra-head.
Just because ‘they’ say something and pass it into law doesn’t mean it is right and fair. So I say WTF – in a global world why are there developing so many controls at the borders in the 21st century? Is it to protect their borders? Is it to limit people wanting to utilise the country’s resources for free or at a net cost to us? That applies to us and why it might be considered that NZ should agree to border controls with Australia (except that they would step up the cleansing of Australia and also refuse re-entry to NZ visiting family here.)
Is it to prevent people who might reveal another way of thinking about things. S&M can get in, they don’t reveal anything new and just expound on personal prejudices that we hold to us tight, and claim to be our right. But Chelsea Manning revealed something new and displayed government subterfuge, that goes to what would be the heart of government, if it had one that is.
No, grey, such restrictions are much wider that just English speaking countries. In fact, it would probably be hard to find any country that just lets everyone and their dog into their country.
As I said, such restrictions are very old – definitely not a 21st century phenomenon. In fact, much more recent are moves to reduce border controls generally (but not necessarily for people with convictions) – such as between NZ and Australia under the 1963 Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Tasman_Travel_Arrangement
The current problems with Australia re NZers is in fact them re-tightening their border control despite this agreement.
S & M got visas, but very restricted short term business ones, because they have no convictions. Manning was convicted and sentenced to 35 years and her conviction was not pardoned by Obama and therefore stands, but her sentence was reduced to seven years by Obama. So for immigration purposes, she still has convictions.
Not very likely to reoffend though.
Absolutely agree, Gabby, but that is the law. I really hope CM gets let in to both NZ and Australia under the special exemptions available to both governments. Would love to go to hear her at the Wellington one, but have no money to do so. Loved the interview with Kim Hill.
greywarshark (5.2.1)
“There are tons of people who should be convicted getting around freely.”
This is very true. With some of them enjoying the privileges of owning expensive holiday homes in the UK, Hawaii and elsewhere, flaunting their knighthoods in the process …
Thanks veutoviper
You’re welcome, hoa – or should that be tai?
My te reo Maori is pre-kindergarten, sorry. Anyway, I saw you have been sparring with certain people here in the last day or so with four letter names. Was looking close there last night with one who is known for making sparring partners disappear – was looking like the steam was rising fast, but whew …
Old veutoviper saying: Beware men with four letter names, two of which are the same. LOL.
Yes good advice lol just got to take it 😊
LOL. See the a one is self-projecting full time in his comments to you and mc f. Sad angry little man with chips so big on his shoulders it is a wonder he can stand up. I interacted for quite some time but then just gave up due to the abuse.
Lol
Kia ora e hoa is good – bit like gidday mate – i think we are aligned in much of our thinking – that’s cool with me ☺
perfect
The Cannazis weren’t refused visas were they?
Totally different situation on the immigration/visa front. They did not have criminal convictions.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12116075
I think this woman should have used the MT defence.
When the party of Lincoln is too racist for Faux news.
Just hours after a big win to become the GOP nominee for Florida governor, Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis went on Fox News Wednesday morning to say the last thing Floridians should do is “monkey this up” by electing his African-American progressive opponent, Andrew Gillum.
[…]
Later in the hour, the Fox News anchor read the DeSantis camp statement and felt the need to address his remarks, saying “We do not condone this language and wanted to make our viewers aware that he has since clarified his statement.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/desantis-floridians-monkey-electing-african-american-democrat-governor/story?id=57476957
Ugly politics
First they came for the undocumented workers…
They served in the Army, Border Patrol and as police. They have legitimate U.S. birth certificates. But Trump’s government is denying their passport applications and telling them they aren’t U.S. citizens.
A Washington Post report out today tells of the “growing number of people whose official birth records show they were born in the United States but who are now being denied passports — their citizenship suddenly thrown into question,” under the Trump administration’s racist policies.
https://boingboing.net/2018/08/29/trumps-government-denying-pa.html
Yep divide and conquer and test the limit of what they can get away with, and keep pushing against it. Dirty rightie tricks are really dirty.
I can’t access the WaPO because of my adblocker but the Herald has run the article, and this stood out.
The denials are happening at a time when Trump has been lobbying for stricter federal voter identification rules, which would presumably affect the same people who are now being denied passports – almost all of them Hispanic, living in a heavily Democratic sliver of Texas.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12116233
And they just might vote in the up-coming mid terms – and you know which way they will vote!
The US has no right to call itself a democracy.
They hold the elections on a tuesday.
The day is a working day.
They restrict the number of polling booths to the affluent areas
And in many states they demand id such as driver license or passport.
And that doesn’t even cover the extensive gerrymandering of districts!
North Carolina has been charged with redrawing the districts because of the deceitful gerrymandering – just weeks before the election!
I know the tag for those two comments on USA macro –
You couldn’t make this shit up
Republican comms strategist decided to help out.
There goes the it was out of character defence.
UPDATE: Rep. Ron DeSantis has quit the Facebook group that trafficked in racist and offensive slurs, following American Ledger’s reporting on Wednesday. – 8:54 PM
Ron DeSantis, the Trump-endorsed congressman who won Tuesday’s GOP primary for Florida governor, is an administrator on an active Facebook group where conservatives share racist, conspiratorial and incendiary posts about a litany of targets, including black Americans and South Africans, the “deep state,” survivors of February’s massacre at a Florida high school, immigrants, Muslims and, in recent days, John McCain.
https://american-ledger.com/accountability/desantis-moderates-hate-filled-facebook-group-that-attacks-african-americans-parkland-survivors-and-muslims/
It’s not over yet – dam proponents are still pursuing their dream.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018660346/waimea-dam-proponents-look-for-alternative-funding
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/106662879/mayor-richard-kempthorne-to-stay-in-wash-up-of-waimea-dam-decision
I have also been looking into something I was told this week – that one of the “big players” draws massive amounts of water from the deepest of the aquifers and sends it to China, Hong Kong and Singapore. I thought I was pretty much up with all the ins and outs of this dam but that is the first I have heard of this particular angle. Does anyone know any more about this? Apparently the bore used to belong to the TDC but because it is on this person’s land it now belongs to him.
Cinny – What do yu know? Marty mars?
I’m sergeant schultzing it
Interestingly I did find this
“Per the Naval Historical Center: The English borrowed the word “sergeant” from the French in about the Thirteenth Century. They spelled it several different ways and pronounced it both as SARgent and SERgeant. The latter was closer to the French pronunciation.”
My maternal grandad enlisted age 16 to die in the trenches WWI but survived, then a motorbike courier stationed at Dublin Castle during the Irish Rebellion riding that new technology. Eventually, promoted up from corporal, since his surname was Sergeant he became Sergeant Sergeant.
Cool Dennis. My paternal grandfather enlisted to ww1 at age 16 too.
And mine too – lied about age. Battle of Somme did him no good at all. Wish I knew how he would have been without all that..
So did my father. Doctored his birth certificate. As a result we never did manage to work out how old he really was…
Interesting, eh? To Marty, Anne & In Vino & anyone else interested, doesn’t it just remind us how boys automatically learned how to be heroes so young, and as often as not then died as cannon fodder? In defense of empire…
Yes Dennis… or to survive, come back blighted by shellshock, etc, and visit their suffering upon their wives and children… Actually, I think that the bible says that the sins of the father will be visited upon the sons for seven generations. But I gather that in those days, 7 was a rather symbolic number.
We had a lad in NZ Scots who’s surname was Hooper and being a Cav SQN had the rank of Trooper Hooper. The poor sod got hammered from Depot to SQN until I think he discharged or transferred to another Corp.
Well goodness me. Look what I have found. Fancy John Key being involved.
https://www.estel.nz/press
and this is interesting too
https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/6254889
https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/service/services/documents/69C05EE7740E2E6C8A48533AD04F3437/CertIncorporation_6254744_30August2018.pdf
I looked up Blue Spring and Blue Lake but haven’t had time to go through all those listed – lots have been removed from the company register as well.
This could be a completely wrong direction but I have always thought that there seemed to be something or someone much bigger behind this extraordinary push for the dam. The scale of it made no sense at all.
Prickles
I see that this was a Nelson company and Rachel Reese the Mayor was there cheering it on. Selling water, big deal. Lord Ernest Rutherford came from a little place out in the rurals, near here, and really made a breakthrough. Now we mine water as our highest achievement and the erstwhile Prime Minister comes and says a few words.
Reminds me of Balham Gateway to the South tourist spoof from Peter Sellers.
I love the tradesman in toothbrushholesmanship. He was visited by some grand notable who said a few words to him. He didn’t understand any of them.
Thanks for that Greywarshark Maybe the worker was related to Richard Kempthorne? He doesn’t understand much that is said to him either.
Sock it to them Shane. I find Shane Jones refreshing, strong language and all.
He is like the rugby player that picks up the ball and runs wuith it, and i think he will get it down into touch. So kia kaha Shane. The water may be sludgy, but keeping stirring and bringing in some oxygen and sunlight and we might get some policy that is usable and healthy for the country.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018660331/prime-minister-s-business-advisory-chief-a-celebrity-jones
Aus banks take ‘skinflint’ approach to NZ – Shane Jones
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/365265/aus-banks-take-skinflint-approach-to-nz-shane-jones This will give you audio on RNZ site.
More on banks and how they are serving us – Kiwibank
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/359536/fury-over-closures-of-kiwibank-nz-post-in-dunedin 13 June 18
NZ Post looking for suitable shop agents – Kiwibank? May have found alternative?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/106649371/alas-smith-and-jones-hit-out-at-council-decision-to-end-waimea-dam-plan
You forgot him ripping into the councillors who voted no to the dam . 😁
Another chance missed like ruataniwha.
I’m sure the ratepayers rue bitterly the missed opportunity to shout orchardists a shiny new irrigation scheme.
Yeah the only problem with shane Jones is shane jones. He is literally a turkey. Watch him and tell me it ain’t so.
I’ve been saying it for years (if your really bored you can check) . Just couldn’t let the chance to stir go by
I thought it was a good shot, with humour. Nice one.
Well we’ll have his measure by Christmas.
and Gabby
Don’t hold his special interest in pornography against him. Everyone to his own.
He’s a fatuous dick greysie.
Shane Jones is a beaut guy to go fishing with, deliver a speech at your daughter’s wedding or lick an edge onto the chain of your Husqvarna.
Government minister with a billion in his purse? ….Uh oh.
David Mac
Sounds like Key!
Shane might go far.
McCain was a “war hero”? Really?
The White House, May 1973…
PRES. NIXON: The most difficult decision that I have made since being President was on December the eighteenth last year.
[Slight caesura, then massive applause]
PRES. NIXON: And there were many occasions in that ten day period after the decision was made when I wondered whether the country really supported it. But I can tell you this: after having met each one of our honored guests this evening, after having talked to them, I think that all of us would like to join in a round of applause for the brave men who took those B-52s in and did the job!
[Massive standing ovation, whistling and stomping]
ad nauseam…
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/08/27/heres-what-i-think-of-when-i-hear-about-war-hero-john-mccain/
Who is more scurrilous—the shrill fanatics who organized it, or Change.org for allowing this farrago of lies?
This petition by the desperate and discredited Blairite rump is preceded by the following warning:
https://www.change.org/p/the-parliamentary-labour-party-jeremy-corbyn-is-an-antisemite-and-must-go
Another disgraceful display by another loutish shill for Israel
In this farcical clip, Michael Walker, a journalist with Novara News is pitted against “writer Benedict Spence”, a pro-Israel fanatic. As usual, the Israeli apologist has nothing to offer, so he starts interrupting and talking over Michael Walker.
It starts talking over Walker at the 3:56 mark. Instead of addressing the lout, the host pretends that they are BOTH acting rudely, and says: “Okay guys, if you both speak at once then nobody can hear what you’re saying. Just finish your point, please, Michael and then we’ll bring in Ben….”