I must say that Joe B has had his work cut out. The Paid family leave and medical leave is gone and so is the proposed Tax on billionaires – Thanks Mauchin. But they are still not there yet – huge disappointment to the progressive members of both Senate and House, and the House has just postponed voting on it until next week.
House Democrats – again – postponed a vote on the $1 trillion Senate-approved infrastructure bill, pushing off its consideration until at least next week. The delay followed a visit to Capitol Hill by Biden, who asked House Democrats to support both the infrastructure plan and the separate social policy and climate change framework, saying: “We are at an inflection point. The rest of the world wonders whether we can function […] I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the House and Senate majorities – and my presidency – will be determined by what happens in the next week.” Progressive Democrats, however, blocked the scheduled vote, saying they wanted to review the written legislative text of the $1.75 trillion social spending outline – and receive assurances that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema would vote for it, which neither have outright given.
Mixed messaging about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine in pregnancy early in the pandemic had caused confusion, Cox said
I don't think mixed messaging about the vaccine is the main problem. I believe the problem is the very clear messaging from the moment a woman considers a pregnancy that anything she eats, drinks, breathes in that is not pure food or pure air will harm her baby. And if she does have that glass of wine, slice of brie or catches a whiff of exhaust fumes on her daily commute she alone is responsible for any perceived defect in her child.
A mother's guilt is never-ending. In a climate like that, she'd rather die than have any sense she may harm her child by deliberately injecting a vaccine into her pregnant body. Which of course makes no sense because the most harm a person who cares so much could do to her child is not be around for them.
Does Auckland stay in the current level system until all DHB's top to bottom have made it to 90% eligible 2 jabs? Or does Auckland have to get only their own DHB's, 3 – I think, to the target? Can someone please clarify.
When the 3 Auckland DHBs each individually reach 90% fully vaccinated, the Auckland region gets to the red light at the end of the tunnel, ie the traffic light system. Counties Manukau looks likely to be the last one to reach that target, somewhere around mid-December I'm guessing.
The hard border around the Auckland region will remain until all DHBs nationally reach the 90% double-vaccinated target. At which time the entire nation will change to the traffic light system. edit: It’s probably too soon to predict what might happen to the Auckland border at that time. It may remain in place if Auckland still has significant community transmission and the rest of the country doesn’t.
All of this is subject to change in response to changing circumstances (including simple political pressure).
Thanks for that Andre. I was concerned Auckland would have to stay locked down until heaven knows when the whole country hits the target. The end is in sight, at last, for our big apple. Stay strong Auckland.
Already I can see Covid getting out in every region, this will be the deciding factor. Lockdowns will be required when the health system is unable to cope, regardless of vaccination as antibodies wane or a new mutation overwhelms the vaccine. Vaccination is the only thing which can partially contain Covid without a lockdown.
Will Covid in every region occur before full vaccination reaches 90% for every DHB?
Everyone in New Zealand should expect to be exposed to the virus within a year or so. Even if we get to over 95% vaccination. The Auckland border won't stand much longer against the political pressure building to open it.
I find it infuriating that locking down with its attendant removal of four Bill of Right rights seems to be viewed with equanimity, but that imposing a few minor restriction and consequences on those that choose to exercise their right to refuse vaccination in a pandemic seems to be a no-go zone.
It's not a given that some new variant worse than Delta will arise. It's possible that the Delta spike protein is very close to the peak possible match to the ACE-2 receptor on the surface of human cells that it uses to get in. If that's the case, then a virus that evolves enough changes to its spike protein that the antibodies no longer attach, then that altered spike protein also won't be a good fit to the ACE-2 protein and the virus won't be very infectious. Which seems to be the case for that A.30 variant Cricklewood was bedwetting about yesterday.
The Right to Life trumps your BORA nonsense, and I assure you that there is copious public pressure from non-Aucklanders to keep that border closed.
So long as the external and internal borders remain closed, this outbreak will burn itself out (there are only so many unvaccinated muppets in Auckland). Point is, it will take a while.
BORA nonsense? Fuck off, asshole. Even within the Auckland borders we don't have freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly, or freedom of religion, as expressed in the Bill of Rights. At least partly because of some assholes fantasising that the right to refuse medical treatment also confers on them the right to be disease spreaders in workplaces and public spaces.
Advocating for locking down more than a third of the population for however long it takes a disease outbreak to burn out (which is never; it's going to become endemic) is an appalling disrespect for individual human rights. It's the kind of authoritarian thinking that I want nothing to do with. But it's sadly prevalent among large parts of "the left".
[RL: You have an argument – but it wasn’t made any better by the first sentence. Chill.]
[I just moderated another comment of yours for abuse, so adding to RL’s moderation here. Putting you in premod until I see an agreement from you to stop the abuse towards other commenters. If you are unclear on where the boundaries are, just ask, I’m happy to clarify the line between robust debate and abuse/flaming.
This is a heated, fast moving but long term conversation and my concern is resentment is building up over time betweem regulars. Mods don’t want to have to manage flame wars, so intervening now. See this from the Policy:
We encourage robust debate and we’re tolerant of dissenting views. But this site run for reasonably rational debate between dissenting viewpoints and we intend to keep it operating that way.
What we’re not prepared to accept are pointless personal attacks, or tone or language that has the effect of excluding others.
I also suggest checking your comments because not all mods give a heads up about mod notices. – weka]
New Zealand is actually too small for the disease to become endemic, so long as the border remains shut. Influenza actually burns itself out each year in NZ, only to be imported fresh from overseas.
In this case, so long as the disease is confined to unvaccinated muppets (and there is good reason for thinking it is), it will burn itself out. We're seeing a Delta wave among a clearly defined subset of Auckland, not Auckland generally. At some point (maybe now-ish), the outbreak will peak, and start declining. The key being to keep it confined.
Yes, I'm authoritarian on this issue. I don't mind. I like not crashing the entire public health system.
FACT Aotearoa, a group formed to counter misinformation and conspiracy theories in New Zealand, lodged a formal complaint with the New Zealand Law Society against the Nelson-based lawyer on Monday.
Grey, who is co-leader of the NZ Outdoors Party, has a large following on social media and regularly posts anti-vaccine content, including false claims of Covid-19 deaths and promotion of alternative and unproven treatments. In its complaint FACT Aotearoa said the claim “falls below the high ethical standard of the legal profession and brings the profession into disrepute”.
The New Zealand Law Society – Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa said it was prevented by law from disclosing receipt of complaints or making any comment about concerns raised. “This is due to legal requirements placed on us by the Lawyers and Conveyancing Act 2006 which means that we would be breaking the law if we release information about specific complaints or concerns.”
Complaints received by the society are referred to an independent standards committee for investigation. Complaints deemed serious enough can be referred to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal.
The doctrine of minority rights is the sleeper in this issue. Lawyers bringing the profession into disrepute ain't nothing new, of course, and the default position of the establishment is to fudge the decision-making around a complaint as much as possible. Journos assuming truth instead of establishing it are likewise nothing new, but we ought not to side with the oppressed automatically because delusional thinking is widespread nowadays. Lawyer/politician Grey was on the hikoi which used the delusion of personal sovereignty to have a go defeating state sovereignty.
Heh! According to the article, "the cities were “judged against a criteria addressing topicality, unique experiences, ‘wow’ factor and sustainability”."
Spent Friday night at Piha, up and down the beach super-black sand with drizzly tropical rain, Pohutukawa cliffs on my right and burnt orange setting sun on my left.
I still cannot for the life of me see how the overall allocation process could regard the English netball team as being more deserving of a MIQ place than Bergen Graham, a pregnant New Zealand citizen whose request for an emergency spot in MIQ was turned down six times.
I suspect the decision was not actually made by the process, but by a bureaucrat. To err is human. Our public service has long been notorious for treating the public with contempt – notwithstanding all those public servants who try to do it right.
Suspicions regarding just how fair and justifiable MIQ’s operation has been in practice are compounded by the way the government has avoided having its allocation decisions scrutinised. On the two occasions that people who were refused emergency MIQ spots took their claims before the courts, previous decisions that they failed to meet the criteria were reversed mid-trial.
Well yes, Andrew, govt evasion of accountability is a traditional syndrome. The important thing is to protect the anonymity of delinquent public servants. The method used combines privilege with privacy law. Being a law prof means you can't tell the truth of course, so we get why you skip over this bit.
It may or may not be entirely coincidental that doing so had the consequence of putting the legal action to an end before the High Court had a chance to rule on the government’s actions. And now the government is busy moving the legal basis for making MIQ decisions from secondary legislation into a primary enactment. That this parliamentary move will have the effect of largely insulating the overall MIQ process from being judicially overturned at a time when it is being challenged in the High Court again may or may not be coincidental.
Yes, best to gamble 50c each way on the issue of coincidence. Correlation ain't causation. Fortunately pesky litigants will be eliminated.
And yet for 18 months MIQ has pretty much worked in terms of its over-riding objective – stopping Covid-positive people wandering off aeroplanes into the community. There have been only a handful of leaks with unfortunately the last one (Delta) proving ineradicable once it got out – mostly due to declining lockdown compliance.
And if you expect such a brutal but necessary system to be set up on the fly without producing numerous examples of injustice and the odd outright idiocy – where the hell have you been and what have you spent your life doing?
Still – it will be good to see the MIQ system wound down and that transition is starting. Though now the armchair critics like to point out that with community transmission in Auckland, Aucklanders now present a statistically greater risk than returning travelers, so we have inconsistent settings. Aside from the obvious fact that transitions are usually messy, the inconsistency argument is an odd one. Why would we create an additional risk for a still partially-vaccinated population, by weakening MIQ safeguards and adding a new source of infection as a nice little top-up to what is already going on in Auckland? Fortunately the government is not that silly.
For an undergraduate exam, I am going to be 'writing' about Maori and the vaccine rollout. I am just after specific examples of the government working with Maori to rollout the vaccine together.
Clearly, our national health depends upon the number and behaviour of unvaccinated individuals. How, then, do we confront them without condescension, anger or vilification? My answer rests on two observations. First, one must distinguish between non-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. The former include those who are drug-addicted, mentally unstable, transient, desperately poor and suspicious of legal authority (criminals, overstayers). Individuals who inhabit one or more of these categories are immune to official health messages, government announcements and vaxathon initiatives. Second, anti-vaxxers are diverse and fragmented. If there was no pandemic and no vaccination campaign, they would have little in common.
What follows is a selection of anti-vaxxer archetypes. I may have missed some. If so, send them in, our national health depends on it. Bear in mind though that there is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between each archetype and a given person. Some anti-vaxxers may exhibit a combination of archetypes.
Very sensible & I commend him for using archetype theory appropriately. He describes seven, and seven is the magic number, so the effect on readers will be magical – but only if the invisible spell works. Regardless, Pythagoras would be proud.
1: Mostly, but apparently it's quite variable. Reports of second covid infections were happening before vaccinations started. Since then, reporting interest has shifted more to breakthrough infections. It's worth noting that even in places like the US, there are a lot more vaccinated people than there are covid survivors, so there's no useful info to be gained from just comparing numbers of second covid infections to numbers of breakthrough infections.
2: Up until recently, there appeared to be a consensus that vaccine-derived immunity was stronger and more reliable than infection-derived immunity. With Delta, that consensus doesn't appear quite as strong.
3: In New Zealand, very very few people have actually been exposed to the virus and derived immunity. So the only way NZers have immunity is through vaccination, so only going by vaccination numbers is not understating the level of immunity in our community.
Overseas, yes, there are likely to be significant numbers of the unvaccinated that have acquired immunity through infection. So although in this coming week, it is likely that the percentage of fully vaccinated NZers will pass that of Israel, UK, and Germany, we will still likely have less population immunity than those countries.
Kourtney Kardashian had Covid as an unvaccinated person and now has covid as a fully vaccinated person. I think the virus does as the virus likes and that the 'vaccines' at best give some protection against severe illness, but that is about all it does and only for a few month at best. Mask, physically distance, santize and don't got to large gatherings for the forseable future. Get tested, get jabbed and hope it is enough.
It is literally all it does. It does not prevent you from catching it, it does not prevent you from transmitting it, it will however in most cases prevent you from dying. If you find an issue with that, don't discuss this with me, but discuss this with more knowledgable people who are saying exactly the same.
So i repeat for those that have issues understanding how to behave in the times of the plague.
1. mask up
2. physically distance from others – 1 – 2 m while waiting in line for example
3. sanitize like your life depended on it, cause funnily enough it does.
4. if you are an essential worker or work in a high risk environment get tested regularly, like once a week.
5. if not already done, get jabbed
but keep in mind, that the 'vaccine' will not stop you from catching Covid, nor from transmitting it.
Immediately after a vaccination, the vaccinated person is 90% less likely to contract Covid. That appears to wane to about 50% over 6 months although it's not clear to me whether that's based on actual studies or antibodies. It's true that it doesn't prevent it completely, but 90% is still pretty good.
I did read that and thought maybe 2 different strains. Appears as though break through with Delta when vaccinated. Not being vaccinated when infectious with a previous strain it is unknown if break through would have occurred.
they have had break through cases all along. But it goes hand in hand as what was in then news yesterday via the BBC, namely that the jab will not prevent you from spreading it if you have it – this would be household cases for the most part as you would be isolating at home, nor would it prevent you from catching it if someone else brings it home or to the work place.
However, chances are that you will feel very little to no discomfort, and only in a few cases so far have serious illness or death happened in these break through cases.
And yes, new variants would make a breakthrough case easier i would assume.
From the studies I've seen, if you survive, and don't get Long Covid, then yes you develop a more effective natural immunity. But it's an unnecessary risk
Not sure if it was on Prime news or newshub this evening, schools in NSW have closed down after opening up recently and in the UK 9% of students have had Covid.
That's the accurate description, because when you look at the slogans the language is imported from the USA far right: "Don't tread on me", "The media is the virus", etc.
Oh, and Auckland's record high number of cases today. Irony is beyond these fools.
The footage of the protests is beyond parody. First, today of all days, they wave Tonga flags – so NZ should have more "freedom" to infect the poor Tongans?
Then they chant "Together as one" … solidarity, comrades? No, because "socialism is taking over". Four legs good, two legs better!
Spreading Covid is the issue and not an anti vaxers right to protest. Anti vaxers seem to think they have an entitlement to infect children and other people and to overwhelm the health system.
It has been approved or is in the process of being approved elsewhere on this planet. Medsafe is literally sleepwalking through a pandemic, but yeah, we have time, its not as if the virus ain't here.
Many people who are in no way "anti-vax" will need to have confidence that a decision is not taken by a government Minister just for a headline. For the sake of a few days it could undermine the entire vaccination programme. To say nothing of all future decisions (boosters, new variants etc)
Medsafe is fairly pedestrian. under resourced and under skilled having lost a large percentage of their more skilled assessors over the last 24 months.
They also lean heavily on offshore agencies in well regulated markets when making their decisions.
What Seymour has failed to realise is even if the government stepped in (they won't), the dose in 5-12yrs is only 1/3 of that in older cohorts and I believe we will need to order paediatric specific vaccine vials rather than utilising current stock at smaller volumes (I may be incorrect).
Additionally the utility of vaccinating children both for their own health and to limit spread of the virus vs. the risk posed is debatable.
I seem to recall some articles saying we were in discussions with Pfizer about the feasibility of using the stocks of adult vaccine we already have. The articles gave the impression that more dilution would be involved, but wasn't specific.
I've seen plenty of discussion pieces saying the risk/benefit for children is debatable, but the only risk I've seen alluded to in those "debates" is myocarditis. But allegedly myocarditis is a much lower risk in under 12s than it is in over 12s.
Meanwhile, "lower risk than adults" does not mean "no risk" or even "low enough risk to not be worth worrying about". Over 500 kids in the US have died from covid and a lot more have long-term issues. Scaled to NZ population, that still looks like enough harm to kids to take it very seriously.
It's not a given that some new variant worse than Delta will arise.
It is not a given that it will not arise. The reinfection of Covid with a different strain with or without vaccination, antibodies on the spike protein appear to have some weaknesses which need to be fully understood. Break through infection also needs to be fully understood as it might not have much to do with waining immunity.
How many people returning to NZ have long Covid or worsened health conditons due to Covid?
Recovery 29 is on Prime TV at 8.30 pm tonight. It was on Tuesday night, I will rewatch it. It is about going into the Pike River mine drift. Many details were covered, the cost, division in the community, the purpose of re entery.
The hunter/gatherer lifestyle is distant from many of us nowaday, so perhaps the PM & partner felt the need to reconnect with it. After all, it's the original evolutionary basis of humanity.
The Herald on Sunday has seen a raft of email exchanges between Pierson, Gayford and Ardern's electorate secretary Barbara Ward, which reveal how negotiations unravelled over the past few months.
No kidding!! Isn't that some kind of breach of confidentiality? Get Hager onto this leaked email story pronto. Just say the two words `dirty politics' & I reckon he'll get the angle in a fraction of a second.
In one, Pierson writes: "Clarke's intentions to provide wild venison for the menu – it is my understanding that this contravenes all food hygiene regulations."
Now that can't possibly be right. It would mean that all food hygiene regulations mention wild venison. I think someone fed him a little white lie.
Pierson continues to demand $5000, saying his venue on the outskirts of Gisborne was booked two years ago and the couple owe a cancellation fee. He admits his "feathers were ruffled" by Gordon doing the catering.
Bird-man? Evolutionary hybrids are quite rare but anything's possible.
In a final email to Ward, Pierson wrote: "I am no longer interested in responding to your continued false claims and assertions. Your offer of $1250 is not acceptable and I have attached a copy of my original invoice. Please pay asap to prevent this situation from getting even more pear-shaped."
Is it worth them paying 5k to end the harassment? I wouldn't. I reckon if he had a contract we'd know by now. It's bluff. Capital vs Labour. Next step: court case.
yes, and no. It also depends on the food control plan of that particular place. For example – any wild game will have specific requirements to be met in order to be usable and servable at this venue. If this particular venue has not set its food control plan up for this – due to restrictions and hassle to be honest, then it would mean that this particular venue would have to update its food control plan and pass this by the council for approval, at a cost bien sur.
Also the food control plan will have a list of anyone authorized in the kitchen, front of house etc. The owner of the premises will have to have training records for everyone who is in that kitchen working. Any new person, requires thus training, updated records etc etc etc. Thanks Ministry of Business and Inovation
For example, i have a total exclusion of peanuts on my site, simply due to the allergen risk. This is in my food control plan. If someone were to bring locally foraged peanuts for a specific cake – a cake that was ordered but not specified as a peanut cake …., or a cake that would be peanuts and a brought in chef, i would have to train this chef on my food control plan, and update my food control plan, and only then were this person allowed to bake this peanut cake in my kitchen.
Now i totally understand that people are loath to critique the PM on anything, but in this case, if she had a contract, or a verbal agreement, and there are emails pertaining to this, then pay the 5 grand and go have your foraging and gathering wedding elsewhere.
This all seems very odd in a small town like Gisborne. Pierson's website says he's been there 20 years at least, in that time you'd have built up a fairly accurate reputation and people would know what you can do and can't. Clarke and family should have been able to have sussed the organisation and management out and management out and known what was coming.
It's pretty common for high level wedding events to include a celebrity chef and team. Venues here work around that and embrace it to enhance their reputation and often learn heaps. Some just have a very top end kitchen and the event organisers arrange the kitchen team. It sort of reads that Pierson was offered the dream gig and blew it.
As for wild game at a wedding, it's certainly a Southland tradition and is common in hunting circles. Have been to several weddings and flash places here where the groom and party have provided game and kai moana, once to the chef's specifications and it was a very enjoyable night, and foraging expeditions for the lads.
Any venue will have that in a contract. So if the PM and her husband to be have signed a binding agreement that they will use these premises i would suggest that they do the correct thing and pay the 5 grand. Its not as if it a lot of money to them. It is also called a Place holder fee. Once booked, and this was booked before covid, they would have refused any other occasion to happen at that time. And for what its worth, that email exchange can actually be proof of that agreement, and i would also like to point out that verbal agreements can be considered fully binding and legal.
But then, right, how dare these businesses inconvenience the most powerful women and hubby. Don't they know their limits and place?
The question is, why on earth would you want a lavish 150 people strong wedding during a pandemic where people aren't even allowed out of quarantine – vaxxed and covid free (per tests) to see a dying dad.
Fwiw, i have a cancellation fee of 30% of the sum total for any order as they days of work for these orders are booked in, and other orders at that time either will have to be done at a different time or refused.
I appreciate your insight into the situation Sabine, and it sounds like that scenario could apply as you suggest. However I suspect they didn't sign a contract. I think if they had they'd already have paid the cancellation fee.
Seems to me they were still negotiating the terms of the contract, and that negotiation which dragged on many months was what the email trail actually documents.
Re the 150/pandemic thing, yeah that's probably why it has dragged out so long. They've been stalled by Delta. Will Neve be bridesmaid in the new year? That's the question the women's mag editors will be pondering. Paparazzi alert!
As i said, if they had a verbal agreement, and the emails pertain to that, and if he can prove say that he refused other events for this timeframe, then he has a case.
In any case, this is petty, bullshitty and in the times of the plague in which hospitality businesses suffer just plain ugly.
My point being this guy is not pretending that someone booked his venue. Someone did. Someone told him a different cook was wanted. Someone told him wild food would be hunted and prepared on his premises by that cook etc etc etc.
So clearly there was an understanding that that would happen there, and sorry mate, but food control plan is food control plan. He breaks his plan he can lose his business.
And frankly i find the idea that some multi millionaires (and both fall in that category) would battle it out publicly over 5 grand is just plain sad. And it does not paint the venue owner in a sad light, but the PM and her husband to be.
Also, first you book and you state how many people etc etc etc and then you plan. Do not plan a wedding before you have the venue secured as you might find yourself without one.
Also Delta arrived in India in April and in NZ in July. so that too ain’t a good excuse.
The point is, if you cancel a booked venue expect a cancellation fee. If you cancel a booked venue because you need specially hunted food, specially gathered food, specially brought in cook/chefs then you pay the cancellation fee.
If the venue cancels on you, you would expect a total refund of what ever you paid to secure the venue.
Securing he venue is the first thing you do when holding such a schindig.
Last she is the PM, they would have a contract. Seriously, as she would not want to show up in her wedding gown, just to find someone else who booked with a contract holding their wedding.
You make a strong case – I can see why business owner/operators get so grumpy about regulations. One of my younger brothers is to the right of ACT and you ought to hear him go on about that stuff. He's built several businesses, thinks the Nats are a joke, watches only Fox News etc. I had to learn compassion – it's a sad fate when folks box themselves into a social niche so tight they can't get out.
These rules and regulations are in place so that you don't get salmonella, or food poisioning, or be served possum stew rather then the Osso Bucca you ordered. Can't help you there with your younger brother on that, he will have to live with the fact that rules exists and that people have to abide by them.
The reason i explained this is as people seem to really have no idea actually what goes into raising a successful eatery or fine restaurant. It is a lot of work, requires skilled and trained staff (even if they are migrants they are skilled and trained), and there are rules for everything, down to the point of how many times a day you have to check temperatures of your fridges and freezers.
So yes, you can hunt a wild deer, you can get it butchered by someone who knows what they do, and you can serve it in your back yard. But try to bring this into any legal lisenced premise that is not set up for it, or has a food control plan that does not allow for it, and it ain't a happening thing. Not because the business would not want too, but because it is too costly to make it so, and breaking the rules means to get fined many many dollars and lose business and reputation.
So they should pay the cancellation fee and have a back yard wedding with a famous chef, and hunted and gathered food. Non of this needs anymore publicity.
Some serious analysis is required on how vaccines are performing. Surely the vaccines are being tested on past strains and new strains which are emerging. Russia is going into the winter period in a month.
Not always, just every now and then for a few days. Usually that happens when there are links or to many but it is now doing it on standard comments with no links either.
If you copy text with links, right-click on them before posting & select unlink on each one. Sometimes I forget & mine end up in moderation/purgatory too.
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The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on news New Zealand abstained from a vote on a global shipping levy on climate emissions and downgraded the importance ...
Hi,In case you missed it, New Zealand icon Lorde has a new single out. It’s called “What Was That”, and has a very low key music video that was filmed around her impromptu performance in New York’s Washington Square Park. When police shut down the initial popup, one of my ...
A strategy of denial is now the cornerstone concept for Australia’s National Defence Strategy. The term’s use as an overarching guide to defence policy, however, has led to some confusion on what it actually means ...
The IMF’s twice-yearly World Economic Outlook and Fiscal Monitor publications have come out in the last couple of days. If there is gloom in the GDP numbers (eg this chart for the advanced countries, and we don’t score a lot better on the comparable one for the 2019 to ...
For a while, it looked like the government had unfucked the ETS, at least insofar as unit settings were concerned. They had to be forced into it by a court case, but at least it got done, and when National came to power, it learned the lesson (and then fucked ...
The argument over US officials’ misuse of secure but non-governmental messaging platform Signal falls into two camps. Either it is a gross error that undermines national security, or it is a bit of a blunder ...
Cost of living ~1/3 of Kiwis needed help with food as cost of living pressures continue to increase - turning to friends, family, food banks or Work and Income in the past year, to find food. 40% of Kiwis also said they felt schemes offered little or no benefit, according ...
Hi,Perhaps in 2025 it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the CEO and owner of Voyager Internet — the major sponsor of the New Zealand Media Awards — has taken to sharing a variety of Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories to his 1.2 million followers.This included sharing a post from ...
In the sprint to deepen Australia-India defence cooperation, navy links have shot ahead of ties between the two countries’ air forces and armies. That’s largely a good thing: maritime security is at the heart of ...
'Cause you and me, were meant to be,Walking free, in harmony,One fine day, we'll fly away,Don't you know that Rome wasn't built in a day?Songwriters: Paul David Godfrey / Ross Godfrey / Skye Edwards.I was half expecting to see photos this morning of National Party supporters with wads of cotton ...
The PSA says a settlement with Health New Zealand over the agency’s proposed restructure of its Data and Digital and Pacific Health teams has saved around 200 roles from being cut. A third of New Zealanders have needed help accessing food in the past year, according to Consumer NZ, and ...
John Campbell’s Under His Command, a five-part TVNZ+ investigation series starting today, rips the veil off Destiny Church, exposing the rot festering under Brian Tamaki’s self-proclaimed apostolic throne. This isn’t just a church; it’s a fiefdom, built on fear, manipulation, and a trail of scandals that make your stomach churn. ...
Some argue we still have time, since quantum computing capable of breaking today’s encryption is a decade or more away. But breakthrough capabilities, especially in domains tied to strategic advantage, rarely follow predictable timelines. Just ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Pearl Marvell(Photo credit: Pearl Marvell. Image credit: Samantha Harrington. Dollar bill vector image: by pch.vector on Freepik) Igrew up knowing that when you had extra money, you put it under a bed, stashed it in a book or a clock, or, ...
The political petrified piece of wood, Winston Peters, who refuses to retire gracefully, has had an eventful couple of weeks peddling transphobia, pushing bigoted policies, undertaking his unrelenting war on wokeness and slinging vile accusations like calling Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick a “groomer”.At 80, the hypocritical NZ First leader’s latest ...
It's raining in Cockermouth and we're following our host up the stairs. We’re telling her it’s a lovely building and she’s explaining that it used to be a pub and a nightclub and a backpackers, but no more.There were floods in 2009 and 2015 along the main street, huge floods, ...
A recurring aspect of the Trump tariff coverage is that it normalises – or even sanctifies – a status quo that in many respects has been a disaster for working class families. No doubt, Donald Trump is an uncertainty machine that is tanking the stock market and the growth prospects ...
The National Party’s Minister of Police, Corrections, and Ethnic Communities (irony alert) has stumbled into yet another racist quagmire, proving that when it comes to bigotry, the right wing’s playbook is as predictable as it is vile. This time, Mitchell’s office reposted an Instagram reel falsely claiming that Te Pāti ...
In the week of Australia’s 3 May election, ASPI will release Agenda for Change 2025: preparedness and resilience in an uncertain world, a report promoting public debate and understanding on issues of strategic importance to ...
In a world crying out for empathy, J.K. Rowling has once again proven she’s more interested in stoking division than building bridges. The once-beloved author of Harry Potter has cemented her place as this week’s Arsehole of the Week, a title earned through her relentless, tone-deaf crusade against transgender rights. ...
Health security is often seen as a peripheral security domain, and as a problem that is difficult to address. These perceptions weaken our capacity to respond to borderless threats. With the wind back of Covid-19 ...
Would our political parties pass muster under the Fair Trading Act?WHAT IF OUR POLITICAL PARTIES were subject to the Fair Trading Act? What if they, like the nation’s businesses, were prohibited from misleading their consumers – i.e. the voters – about the nature, characteristics, suitability, or quantity of the products ...
Rod EmmersonThank you to my subscribers and readers - you make it all possible. Tui.Subscribe nowSix updates today from around the world and locally here in Aoteaora New Zealand -1. RFK Jnr’s Autism CrusadeAmerica plans to create a registry of people with autism in the United States. RFK Jr’s department ...
We see it often enough. A democracy deals with an authoritarian state, and those who oppose concessions cite the lesson of Munich 1938: make none to dictators; take a firm stand. And so we hear ...
370 perioperative nurses working at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike for two hours on 1 May – the same day senior doctors are striking. This is part of nationwide events to mark May Day on 1 May, including rallies outside public hospitals, organised by ...
Character protections for Auckland’s villas have stymied past development. Now moves afoot to strip character protection from a bunch of inner-city villas. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest from our political economy on Wednesday, April 23:Special Character Areas designed to protect villas are stopping 20,000 sites near Auckland’s ...
Artificial intelligence is poised to significantly transform the Indo-Pacific maritime security landscape. It offers unprecedented situational awareness, decision-making speed and operational flexibility. But without clear rules, shared norms and mechanisms for risk reduction, AI could ...
For what is a man, what has he got?If not himself, then he has naughtTo say the things he truly feelsAnd not the words of one who kneelsThe record showsI took the blowsAnd did it my wayLyrics: Paul Anka.Morena folks, before we discuss Winston’s latest salvo in NZ First’s War ...
Britain once risked a reputation as the weak link in the trilateral AUKUS partnership. But now the appointment of an empowered senior official to drive the project forward and a new burst of British parliamentary ...
Australia’s ability to produce basic metals, including copper, lead, zinc, nickel and construction steel, is in jeopardy, with ageing plants struggling against Chinese competition. The multinational commodities company Trafigura has put its Australian operations under ...
There have been recent PPP debacles, both in New Zealand (think Transmission Gully) and globally, with numerous examples across both Australia and Britain of failed projects and extensive litigation by government agencies seeking redress for the failures.Rob Campbell is one of New Zealand’s sharpest critics of PPPs noting that; "There ...
On Twitter on Saturday I indicated that there had been a mistake in my post from last Thursday in which I attempted to step through the Reserve Bank Funding Agreement issues. Making mistakes (there are two) is annoying and I don’t fully understand how I did it (probably too much ...
Indonesia’s armed forces still have a lot of work to do in making proper use of drones. Two major challenges are pilot training and achieving interoperability between the services. Another is overcoming a predilection for ...
The StrategistBy Sandy Juda Pratama, Curie Maharani and Gautama Adi Kusuma
As a living breathing human being, you’ve likely seen the heart-wrenching images from Gaza...homes reduced to rubble, children burnt to cinders, families displaced, and a death toll that’s beyond comprehension. What is going on in Gaza is most definitely a genocide, the suffering is real, and it’s easy to feel ...
Donald Trump, who has called the Chair of the Federal Reserve “a major loser”. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories shortest from our political economy on Tuesday, April 22:US markets slump after Donald Trump threatens the Fed’s independence. China warns its trading partners not to side with the US. Trump says some ...
Last night, the news came through that Pope Francis had passed away at 7:35 am in Rome on Monday, the 21st of April, following a reported stroke and heart failure. Pope Francis. Photo: AP.Despite his obvious ill health, it still came as a shock, following so soon after the Easter ...
The 2024 Independent Intelligence Review found the NIC to be highly capable and performing well. So, it is not a surprise that most of the 67 recommendations are incremental adjustments and small but nevertheless important ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkThe world has made real progress toward tacking climate change in recent years, with spending on clean energy technologies skyrocketing from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars globally over the past decade, and global CO2 emissions plateauing.This has contributed to a reassessment of ...
Hi,I’ve been having a peaceful month of what I’d call “existential dread”, even more aware than usual that — at some point — this all ends.It was very specifically triggered by watching Pantheon, an animated sci-fi show that I’m filing away with all-time greats like Six Feet Under, Watchmen and ...
Once the formalities of honouring the late Pope wrap up in two to three weeks time, the conclave of Cardinals will go into seclusion. Some 253 of the current College of Cardinals can take part in the debate over choosing the next Pope, but only 138 of them are below ...
The National Party government is doubling down on a grim, regressive vision for the future: more prisons, more prisoners, and a society fractured by policies that punish rather than heal. This isn’t just a misstep; it’s a deliberate lurch toward a dystopian future where incarceration is the answer to every ...
The audacity of Don Brash never ceases to amaze. The former National Party and Hobson’s Pledge mouthpiece has now sunk his claws into NZME, the media giant behind the New Zealand Herald and half of our commercial radio stations. Don Brash has snapped up shares in NZME, aligning himself with ...
A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 13, 2025 thru Sat, April 19, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. The formatting is a ...
“What I’d say to you is…” our Prime Minister might typically begin a sentence, when he’s about to obfuscate and attempt to derail the question you really, really want him to answer properly (even once would be okay, Christopher). Questions such as “Why is a literal election promise over ...
Ruth IrwinExponential Economic growth is the driver of Ecological degradation. It is driven by CO2 greenhouse gas emissions through fossil fuel extraction and burning for the plethora of polluting industries. Extreme weather disasters and Climate change will continue to get worse because governments subscribe to the current global economic system, ...
A man on telly tries to tell me what is realBut it's alright, I like the way that feelsAnd everybody singsWe are evolving from night to morningAnd I wanna believe in somethingWriter: Adam Duritz.The world is changing rapidly, over the last year or so, it has been out with the ...
MFB Co-Founder Cecilia Robinson runs Tend HealthcareSummary:Kieran McAnulty calls out National on healthcare lies and says Health Minister Simeon Brown is “dishonest and disingenuous”(video below)McAnulty says negotiation with doctors is standard practice, but this level of disrespect is not, especially when we need and want our valued doctors.National’s $20bn ...
Chris Luxon’s tenure as New Zealand’s Prime Minister has been a masterclass in incompetence, marked by coalition chaos, economic lethargy, verbal gaffes, and a moral compass that seems to point wherever political expediency lies. The former Air New Zealand CEO (how could we forget?) was sold as a steady hand, ...
Has anybody else noticed Cameron Slater still obsessing over Jacinda Ardern? The disgraced Whale Oil blogger seems to have made it his life’s mission to shadow the former Prime Minister of New Zealand like some unhinged stalker lurking in the digital bushes.The man’s obsession with Ardern isn't just unhealthy...it’s downright ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is climate change a net benefit for society? Human-caused climate change has been a net detriment to society as measured by loss of ...
When the National Party hastily announced its “Local Water Done Well” policy, they touted it as the great saviour of New Zealand’s crumbling water infrastructure. But as time goes by it's looking more and more like a planning and fiscal lame duck...and one that’s going to cost ratepayers far more ...
Donald Trump, the orange-hued oligarch, is back at it again, wielding tariffs like a mob boss swinging a lead pipe. His latest economic edict; slapping hefty tariffs on imports from China, Mexico, and Canada, has the stench of a protectionist shakedown, cooked up in the fevered minds of his sycophantic ...
In the week of Australia’s 3 May election, ASPI will release Agenda for Change 2025: preparedness and resilience in an uncertain world, a report promoting public debate and understanding on issues of strategic importance to ...
One pill makes you largerAnd one pill makes you smallAnd the ones that mother gives youDon't do anything at allGo ask AliceWhen she's ten feet tallSongwriter: Grace Wing Slick.Morena, all, and a happy Bicycle Day to you.Today is an unofficial celebration of the dawning of the psychedelic era, commemorating the ...
It’s only been a few months since the Hollywood fires tore through Los Angeles, leaving a trail of devastation, numerous deaths, over 10,000 homes reduced to rubble, and a once glorious film industry on its knees. The Palisades and Eaton fires, fueled by climate-driven dry winds, didn’t just burn houses; ...
Te Pāti Māori are appalled by Cabinet's decision to agree to 15 recommendations to the Early Childhood Education (ECE) sector following the regulatory review by the Ministry of Regulation. We emphasise the need to prioritise tamariki Māori in Early Childhood Education, conducted by education experts- not economists. “Our mokopuna deserve ...
The Government must support Northland hapū who have resorted to rakes and buckets to try to control a devastating invasive seaweed that threatens the local economy and environment. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill that would ensure the biological definition of a woman and man are defined in law. “This is not about being anti-anyone or anti-anything. This is about ensuring we as a country focus on the facts of biology and protect the ...
After stonewalling requests for information on boot camps, the Government has now offered up a blog post right before Easter weekend rather than provide clarity on the pilot. ...
More people could be harmed if Minister for Mental Health Matt Doocey does not guarantee to protect patients and workers as the Police withdraw from supporting mental health call outs. ...
The Green Party recognises the extension of visa allowances for our Pacific whānau as a step in the right direction but continues to call for a Pacific Visa Waiver. ...
The Government yesterday released its annual child poverty statistics, and by its own admission, more tamariki across Aotearoa are now living in material hardship. ...
Today, Te Pāti Māori join the motu in celebration as the Treaty Principles Bill is voted down at its second reading. “From the beginning, this Bill was never welcome in this House,” said Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader, Rawiri Waititi. “Our response to the first reading was one of protest: protesting ...
The Green Party is proud to have voted down the Coalition Government’s Treaty Principles Bill, an archaic piece of legislation that sought to attack the nation’s founding agreement. ...
A Member’s Bill in the name of Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter which aims to stop coal mining, the Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill, has been pulled from Parliament’s ‘biscuit tin’ today. ...
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s Members Bill to make the law simpler and fairer for businesses operating on Easter, Anzac and Christmas Days has passed its first reading after a conscience vote in Parliament. ...
Nicola Willis continues to sit on her hands amid a global economic crisis, leaving the Reserve Bank to act for New Zealanders who are worried about their jobs, mortgages, and KiwiSaver. ...
COMMENTARY:By Mandy Henk When the US Embassy knocked on my door in late 2024, I was both pleased and more than a little suspicious. I’d worked with them before, but the organisation where I did that work, Tohatoha, had closed its doors. My new project, Dark Times Academy, was ...
Transport Minister Chris Bishop said it would "provide better value for money by maximising private sector investment while keeping the taxpayers' contribution to a minimum". ...
The inquiry focused on vaccines and mandates; the lockdowns; and tools such as testing and tracing. The coalition government had also widened the scope of the inquiry to seek feedback on issues such as the social and economic impact of lockdowns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch another push on health on Sunday, announcing a re-elected Labor government would set up a free around-the-clock 1800MEDICARE advice line and afterhours GP telehealth service. The service would ...
To sleep, perchance to dreamIn the shadowy chambers of Lord Winston,The great clock strikes thirteen.All remains untouched, covered with dust,As it has done since the 1970s,In a simple world where boys were boys,Ladies were mini-skirted and compliant ladies,And Italian law students ruled the streetsIn their wide lapel zoot suits.King Lux ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch another push on health on Sunday, announcing a re-elected Labor government would set up a free around-the-clock 1800MEDICARE advice line and afterhours GP telehealth service. The service would ...
Asia Pacific Report Activists for Palestine paid homage to Pope Francis in Aotearoa New Zealand today for his humility, care for marginalised in the world, and his courageous solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza at a street theatre rally just hours before his funeral in Rome. He was remembered ...
By Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific presenter The doors of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican have now been closed and the coffin sealed, ahead of preparations for tonight’s funeral of Pope Francis. The Vatican says a quarter of a million people have paid respects to Pope Francis in the last ...
By Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific presenter The doors of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican have now been closed and the coffin sealed, ahead of preparations for tonight’s funeral of Pope Francis. The Vatican says a quarter of a million people have paid respects to Pope Francis in the last ...
Once or twice a week, Dr Margaret Henley rolls up the door on a windowless storage locker in central Auckland, pulls her plastic chair up to a picnic table and sifts through the history of netball in New Zealand.She works alongside netball archivist and statistician Todd Miller, together trawling through ...
Corin DannThe time is 7:36am on Wednesday, April 23, and you’re listening to Morning Report, New Zealand’s voice of the educated left on good incomes. I’m joined now by acting Prime Minister Winston Peters. Good morning Mr Peters.Winston PetersIt was, until I saw you. I much prefer your brother.Corin DannLiam ...
When Professor David Krofcheck got an email congratulating him on winning the Oscar of the science world, he dismissed it as a hoax.“I thought it was a scam, I thought it was a phishing email,” recalls Krofcheck, nuclear physicist at Auckland University.“Yeah right, I’ve won the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was.I’ve been re-watching Girls lately, the HBO classic that perfectly captures millennial women in the most painful way. I highly recommend it especially if you haven’t watched it before. Every character on the show is deeply flawed and frustrating in their own ...
With the double-header long weekend comes a welcome chance to escape streaming slop, writes Alex Casey. Over Easter I texted my husband Joe a sentence that perhaps nobody in human history has ever texted: “hurry up geostorm is starting”. No punctuation, no capitalisation, not because I was trying to ...
April 27 is Moehanga Day, the anniversary of the day in 1806 when Ngāpuhi warrior Moehanga became the first Māori to visit England. This is his story. The wooden ship sailed down the River Thames, past smoke stacks and brick factories, until it reached a wharf in industrial south London. ...
Heidi Thomson on how her husband’s illness and Daniel Kalderimis’s book Zest have enhanced her understanding of George Eliot’s great novel.Sometimes a book finds you at just the right time. In early December my husband John had a stroke. At the time we were both reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch, ...
The musician, actor and star of upcoming documentary Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds takes us through his life in television. Musician Marlon Williams has been on our My Life in TV wish list ever since he revealed during his My Boy tour that he wrote ‘Thinking ...
When she walked dripping into the lounge, hair wet from the shower, she took one look at Hamish and dropped her towel.He was holding her phone.—How long has it been going on for?His blue eyes blazed. She wanted to pluck them out and blow on them gently, cool them off. ...
A citizens’ assembly of 100 Porirua locals has provided the city council with more than a dozen recommendations about how to tackle climate change and make sure the region is resilient to worsening extreme weather events.Ranging from expanding access to renewable energy and incentivising the planting of native trees through ...
Comment: Democracy globally is in crisis. Around the world we are seeing the rise of nationalism and declining trust in democratic institutions. Politicians, even in Aotearoa, undermine the authority of core institutions like the media and the courts, which are critical for a functioning democracy. To live well together, in ...
Journalist Rod Oram, who died last year, would have been delighted to see the commitment to addressing climate change shown by the 23-year-old winner of a prize established in his memory.Mika Hervel, a student at Victoria University of Wellington, is today named winner of the Rod Oram Memorial Essay Prize, ...
COMMENTARY:By Nour Odeh There was faint hope that efforts to achieve a ceasefire deal in Gaza would succeed. That hope is now all but gone, offering 2.1 million tormented and starved Palestinians dismal prospects for the days and weeks ahead. Last Saturday, the Israeli Prime Minister once again affirmed ...
An ocean conservation non-profit has condemned the United States President’s latest executive order aimed at boosting the deep sea mining industry. President Donald Trump issued the “Unleashing America’s offshore critical minerals and resources” order on Thursday, directing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to allow deep sea mining. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In this election, voters are more distrustful than ever of politicians, and the political heroes of 2022 have fallen from grace, swept from favour by independent players. A Roy Morgan survey has found, for ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor The former head of BenarNews’ Pacific bureau says a United States court ruling this week ordering the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to release congressionally approved funding to Radio Free Asia and its subsidiaries “makes us very happy”. However, Stefan Armbruster, who has ...
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on April 25, 2025. Labor takes large leads in YouGov and Morgan polls as surge continuesSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne With just eight days until the May 3 federal election, and with in-person early voting well under way, Labor has taken a ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35) Fictionalised true crime for foodies. 2 Sunrise on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Taneshka Kruger, UP ISMC: Project Manager and Coordinator, University of Pretoria Healthcare in Africa faces a perfect storm: high rates of infectious diseases like malaria and HIV, a rise in non-communicable diseases, and dwindling foreign aid. In 2021, nearly half of ...
Australia and New Zealand join forces once more to bring you the best films and TV shows to watch this weekend. This Anzac Day, our free-to-air TV channels will screen a variety of commemorative coverage. At 11am, TVNZ1 has live coverage of the Anzac Day National Commemorative Service in Wellington. ...
Our laws are leaving many veterans who served after 1974 out in the cold. I know, because I’m one of them.This Sunday Essay was made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.First published in 2024.As I write this story, I am in constant pain. My hands ...
Sorry wrong link above
https://youtu.be/L9eFABJqGTM
Not sure we should be taking existential cues from a dinosaur.
Certainly not from the current DINOsaurs* like Manchin and Sinema.
*Reptilian Democrats In Name Only
If Dems can get Biden's BBB through, they will have passed nearly $5Trillion in domestic spending despite Manchin, Sinema and a skinny majority. Not bad.
I must say that Joe B has had his work cut out. The Paid family leave and medical leave is gone and so is the proposed Tax on billionaires – Thanks Mauchin. But they are still not there yet – huge disappointment to the progressive members of both Senate and House, and the House has just postponed voting on it until next week.
I hear Jacinda and other politicians invoking the "rules based order" fairly often
Read this and consider how much we actually value our commitment to human rights
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/10/29/special-report-assumptions-vs-facts-how-the-assange-case-confronts-our-biases/
There's info in here from Selwyn Manning that was new to me
Thanks Francesca. Have been following this online.
Yay!!!
This article put up yesterday was an absolute mish mash of pregnant people (actually in the headline)interspersed with pregnant women
Today it has been edited with none of the nonsense pregnant people using pregnant women instead
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126805433/covid19-pregnant-women-delaying-getting-vaccinated-playing-russian-roulette
I don't think mixed messaging about the vaccine is the main problem. I believe the problem is the very clear messaging from the moment a woman considers a pregnancy that anything she eats, drinks, breathes in that is not pure food or pure air will harm her baby. And if she does have that glass of wine, slice of brie or catches a whiff of exhaust fumes on her daily commute she alone is responsible for any perceived defect in her child.
A mother's guilt is never-ending. In a climate like that, she'd rather die than have any sense she may harm her child by deliberately injecting a vaccine into her pregnant body. Which of course makes no sense because the most harm a person who cares so much could do to her child is not be around for them.
+1
Does Auckland stay in the current level system until all DHB's top to bottom have made it to 90% eligible 2 jabs? Or does Auckland have to get only their own DHB's, 3 – I think, to the target? Can someone please clarify.
When the 3 Auckland DHBs each individually reach 90% fully vaccinated, the Auckland region gets to the red light at the end of the tunnel, ie the traffic light system. Counties Manukau looks likely to be the last one to reach that target, somewhere around mid-December I'm guessing.
The hard border around the Auckland region will remain until all DHBs nationally reach the 90% double-vaccinated target. At which time the entire nation will change to the traffic light system. edit: It’s probably too soon to predict what might happen to the Auckland border at that time. It may remain in place if Auckland still has significant community transmission and the rest of the country doesn’t.
All of this is subject to change in response to changing circumstances (including simple political pressure).
Thanks for that Andre. I was concerned Auckland would have to stay locked down until heaven knows when the whole country hits the target. The end is in sight, at last, for our big apple. Stay strong Auckland.
Another 7 weeks of home detention with day release for work really isn't much of an "end in sight". Trust me on this.
Already I can see Covid getting out in every region, this will be the deciding factor. Lockdowns will be required when the health system is unable to cope, regardless of vaccination as antibodies wane or a new mutation overwhelms the vaccine. Vaccination is the only thing which can partially contain Covid without a lockdown.
Will Covid in every region occur before full vaccination reaches 90% for every DHB?
Everyone in New Zealand should expect to be exposed to the virus within a year or so. Even if we get to over 95% vaccination. The Auckland border won't stand much longer against the political pressure building to open it.
I find it infuriating that locking down with its attendant removal of four Bill of Right rights seems to be viewed with equanimity, but that imposing a few minor restriction and consequences on those that choose to exercise their right to refuse vaccination in a pandemic seems to be a no-go zone.
It's not a given that some new variant worse than Delta will arise. It's possible that the Delta spike protein is very close to the peak possible match to the ACE-2 receptor on the surface of human cells that it uses to get in. If that's the case, then a virus that evolves enough changes to its spike protein that the antibodies no longer attach, then that altered spike protein also won't be a good fit to the ACE-2 protein and the virus won't be very infectious. Which seems to be the case for that A.30 variant Cricklewood was bedwetting about yesterday.
The Right to Life trumps your BORA nonsense, and I assure you that there is copious public pressure from non-Aucklanders to keep that border closed.
So long as the external and internal borders remain closed, this outbreak will burn itself out (there are only so many unvaccinated muppets in Auckland). Point is, it will take a while.
BORA nonsense? Fuck off, asshole. Even within the Auckland borders we don't have freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly, or freedom of religion, as expressed in the Bill of Rights. At least partly because of some assholes fantasising that the right to refuse medical treatment also confers on them the right to be disease spreaders in workplaces and public spaces.
Advocating for locking down more than a third of the population for however long it takes a disease outbreak to burn out (which is never; it's going to become endemic) is an appalling disrespect for individual human rights. It's the kind of authoritarian thinking that I want nothing to do with. But it's sadly prevalent among large parts of "the left".
[RL: You have an argument – but it wasn’t made any better by the first sentence. Chill.]
[I just moderated another comment of yours for abuse, so adding to RL’s moderation here. Putting you in premod until I see an agreement from you to stop the abuse towards other commenters. If you are unclear on where the boundaries are, just ask, I’m happy to clarify the line between robust debate and abuse/flaming.
This is a heated, fast moving but long term conversation and my concern is resentment is building up over time betweem regulars. Mods don’t want to have to manage flame wars, so intervening now. See this from the Policy:
I also suggest checking your comments because not all mods give a heads up about mod notices. – weka]
New Zealand is actually too small for the disease to become endemic, so long as the border remains shut. Influenza actually burns itself out each year in NZ, only to be imported fresh from overseas.
In this case, so long as the disease is confined to unvaccinated muppets (and there is good reason for thinking it is), it will burn itself out. We're seeing a Delta wave among a clearly defined subset of Auckland, not Auckland generally. At some point (maybe now-ish), the outbreak will peak, and start declining. The key being to keep it confined.
Yes, I'm authoritarian on this issue. I don't mind. I like not crashing the entire public health system.
mod notes for you Andre.
The doctrine of minority rights is the sleeper in this issue. Lawyers bringing the profession into disrepute ain't nothing new, of course, and the default position of the establishment is to fudge the decision-making around a complaint as much as possible. Journos assuming truth instead of establishing it are likewise nothing new, but we ought not to side with the oppressed automatically because delusional thinking is widespread nowadays. Lawyer/politician Grey was on the hikoi which used the delusion of personal sovereignty to have a go defeating state sovereignty.
Bit left field.
Having been to Auckland don't get it. And can't go there, but a bit weird timing
"Auckland, closed to the world by Covid, tops Lonely Planet’s list of best cities to visit"
Last time I checked it was about 3 dollars for a game of pool. Frankly that auto puts places on my no go list.
That and the dire public transport.
Hey. Nice people though. /Big ups there. I still love yus kiwi brothers and brothettes. 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/29/auckland-closed-to-the-world-by-covid-tops-lonely-planets-list-of-best-cities-to-visit
Heh! According to the article, "the cities were “judged against a criteria addressing topicality, unique experiences, ‘wow’ factor and sustainability”."
Spent Friday night at Piha, up and down the beach super-black sand with drizzly tropical rain, Pohutukawa cliffs on my right and burnt orange setting sun on my left.
And I was the only person there.
If the tourists could just hold off for a bit ………
Fish and chip shop still operating ?
Closest is Titirangi.
Andrew Geddis:
I suspect the decision was not actually made by the process, but by a bureaucrat. To err is human. Our public service has long been notorious for treating the public with contempt – notwithstanding all those public servants who try to do it right.
Well yes, Andrew, govt evasion of accountability is a traditional syndrome. The important thing is to protect the anonymity of delinquent public servants. The method used combines privilege with privacy law. Being a law prof means you can't tell the truth of course, so we get why you skip over this bit.
Yes, best to gamble 50c each way on the issue of coincidence. Correlation ain't causation. Fortunately pesky litigants will be eliminated.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/29-10-2021/andrew-geddis-our-miq-system-is-at-a-legal-and-humanitarian-tipping-point/
Sport vs pregnant woman. The one is a profit center the other is a cost center.
And yet for 18 months MIQ has pretty much worked in terms of its over-riding objective – stopping Covid-positive people wandering off aeroplanes into the community. There have been only a handful of leaks with unfortunately the last one (Delta) proving ineradicable once it got out – mostly due to declining lockdown compliance.
And if you expect such a brutal but necessary system to be set up on the fly without producing numerous examples of injustice and the odd outright idiocy – where the hell have you been and what have you spent your life doing?
Still – it will be good to see the MIQ system wound down and that transition is starting. Though now the armchair critics like to point out that with community transmission in Auckland, Aucklanders now present a statistically greater risk than returning travelers, so we have inconsistent settings. Aside from the obvious fact that transitions are usually messy, the inconsistency argument is an odd one. Why would we create an additional risk for a still partially-vaccinated population, by weakening MIQ safeguards and adding a new source of infection as a nice little top-up to what is already going on in Auckland? Fortunately the government is not that silly.
The big dumps like over seas, no thanks. The nice little top ups are bad enough.
For an undergraduate exam, I am going to be 'writing' about Maori and the vaccine rollout. I am just after specific examples of the government working with Maori to rollout the vaccine together.
Why was my question about the government working with Maori to rollout the vaccine together removed?
all first time commenter comments get held back to be release manually to prevent spam.
Wayne Hope's analysis on TDB is worth a read.
Very sensible & I commend him for using archetype theory appropriately. He describes seven, and seven is the magic number, so the effect on readers will be magical – but only if the invisible spell works. Regardless, Pythagoras would be proud.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/10/30/anti-vaxxers-a-users-guide/
Hoo boy, that cover.
https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1453314681653927945
https://www.newsweek.com/2021/11/05/covid-now-major-cause-death-kids-many-parents-remain-hesitant-vaccine-1642720.html
First question: Do the unvaccinated who contract covid19 and survive develop natural immunity?
Second question: Is that natural immunity more reliable than vaccine generated immunity?
Third question: Is the reporting of vaccine numbers actually understating the true level of immunity in the community?
1: Mostly, but apparently it's quite variable. Reports of second covid infections were happening before vaccinations started. Since then, reporting interest has shifted more to breakthrough infections. It's worth noting that even in places like the US, there are a lot more vaccinated people than there are covid survivors, so there's no useful info to be gained from just comparing numbers of second covid infections to numbers of breakthrough infections.
2: Up until recently, there appeared to be a consensus that vaccine-derived immunity was stronger and more reliable than infection-derived immunity. With Delta, that consensus doesn't appear quite as strong.
3: In New Zealand, very very few people have actually been exposed to the virus and derived immunity. So the only way NZers have immunity is through vaccination, so only going by vaccination numbers is not understating the level of immunity in our community.
Overseas, yes, there are likely to be significant numbers of the unvaccinated that have acquired immunity through infection. So although in this coming week, it is likely that the percentage of fully vaccinated NZers will pass that of Israel, UK, and Germany, we will still likely have less population immunity than those countries.
Kourtney Kardashian had Covid as an unvaccinated person and now has covid as a fully vaccinated person. I think the virus does as the virus likes and that the 'vaccines' at best give some protection against severe illness, but that is about all it does and only for a few month at best. Mask, physically distance, santize and don't got to large gatherings for the forseable future. Get tested, get jabbed and hope it is enough.
The vaccines only give some protection against severe illness? Well I suppose that's good enough reason for some to not have anyone vaccinated.
It is literally all it does. It does not prevent you from catching it, it does not prevent you from transmitting it, it will however in most cases prevent you from dying. If you find an issue with that, don't discuss this with me, but discuss this with more knowledgable people who are saying exactly the same.
So i repeat for those that have issues understanding how to behave in the times of the plague.
1. mask up
2. physically distance from others – 1 – 2 m while waiting in line for example
3. sanitize like your life depended on it, cause funnily enough it does.
4. if you are an essential worker or work in a high risk environment get tested regularly, like once a week.
5. if not already done, get jabbed
but keep in mind, that the 'vaccine' will not stop you from catching Covid, nor from transmitting it.
Behave accordingly.
Immediately after a vaccination, the vaccinated person is 90% less likely to contract Covid. That appears to wane to about 50% over 6 months although it's not clear to me whether that's based on actual studies or antibodies. It's true that it doesn't prevent it completely, but 90% is still pretty good.
I did read that and thought maybe 2 different strains. Appears as though break through with Delta when vaccinated. Not being vaccinated when infectious with a previous strain it is unknown if break through would have occurred.
they have had break through cases all along. But it goes hand in hand as what was in then news yesterday via the BBC, namely that the jab will not prevent you from spreading it if you have it – this would be household cases for the most part as you would be isolating at home, nor would it prevent you from catching it if someone else brings it home or to the work place.
However, chances are that you will feel very little to no discomfort, and only in a few cases so far have serious illness or death happened in these break through cases.
And yes, new variants would make a breakthrough case easier i would assume.
https://news.yale.edu/2021/09/07/study-examines-severe-breakthrough-cases-covid-19
From the studies I've seen, if you survive, and don't get Long Covid, then yes you develop a more effective natural immunity. But it's an unnecessary risk
Not sure if it was on Prime news or newshub this evening, schools in NSW have closed down after opening up recently and in the UK 9% of students have had Covid.
Another Trumpy protest in central Auckland today.
That's the accurate description, because when you look at the slogans the language is imported from the USA far right: "Don't tread on me", "The media is the virus", etc.
Oh, and Auckland's record high number of cases today. Irony is beyond these fools.
So another bump in ak cases in a week or 3
The footage of the protests is beyond parody. First, today of all days, they wave Tonga flags – so NZ should have more "freedom" to infect the poor Tongans?
Then they chant "Together as one" … solidarity, comrades? No, because "socialism is taking over". Four legs good, two legs better!
Newmarket, from Herald coverage
Spreading Covid is the issue and not an anti vaxers right to protest. Anti vaxers seem to think they have an entitlement to infect children and other people and to overwhelm the health system.
Portia Woodman isn't named in the Black Ferns! Is! nothing! sacred!?
(hope you mend that injury soon)
https://www.twitter.com/NewshubPolitics/status/1454245810854531075
Because the best way to convince nervous parents is to ignore Medsafe's independence? They will be reassured by Dr Seymour instead?
It's highly irresponsible, and of course he knows it and he doesn't care. Easy headlines are all that matters.
Six months Time
Seymour railes at govt for not waiting for medsafe approval!!!!!
Really stupid he is quoted as saying!
It has been approved or is in the process of being approved elsewhere on this planet. Medsafe is literally sleepwalking through a pandemic, but yeah, we have time, its not as if the virus ain't here.
It has been approved in the US, and maybe that is why the Hologram is asking government to approve here too. But then maybe US American humans are different to NZ humans.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-advisory-panel-oks-pfizer-vaccine-kids-5-11-rcna3726
Medsafe is not sleepwalking, literally or figuratively.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/29/covid-19-vaccine-approved-children-latest
Many people who are in no way "anti-vax" will need to have confidence that a decision is not taken by a government Minister just for a headline. For the sake of a few days it could undermine the entire vaccination programme. To say nothing of all future decisions (boosters, new variants etc)
Let's agree to have a different opinion on that.
Doesn't look like an application has been made yet: https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/status-of-applications.asp
Medsafe is fairly pedestrian. under resourced and under skilled having lost a large percentage of their more skilled assessors over the last 24 months.
They also lean heavily on offshore agencies in well regulated markets when making their decisions.
What Seymour has failed to realise is even if the government stepped in (they won't), the dose in 5-12yrs is only 1/3 of that in older cohorts and I believe we will need to order paediatric specific vaccine vials rather than utilising current stock at smaller volumes (I may be incorrect).
Additionally the utility of vaccinating children both for their own health and to limit spread of the virus vs. the risk posed is debatable.
I seem to recall some articles saying we were in discussions with Pfizer about the feasibility of using the stocks of adult vaccine we already have. The articles gave the impression that more dilution would be involved, but wasn't specific.
I've seen plenty of discussion pieces saying the risk/benefit for children is debatable, but the only risk I've seen alluded to in those "debates" is myocarditis. But allegedly myocarditis is a much lower risk in under 12s than it is in over 12s.
Meanwhile, "lower risk than adults" does not mean "no risk" or even "low enough risk to not be worth worrying about". Over 500 kids in the US have died from covid and a lot more have long-term issues. Scaled to NZ population, that still looks like enough harm to kids to take it very seriously.
It's not a given that some new variant worse than Delta will arise.
It is not a given that it will not arise. The reinfection of Covid with a different strain with or without vaccination, antibodies on the spike protein appear to have some weaknesses which need to be fully understood. Break through infection also needs to be fully understood as it might not have much to do with waining immunity.
How many people returning to NZ have long Covid or worsened health conditons due to Covid?
Reply to Andre @ 4.1.2.1.
Recovery 29 is on Prime TV at 8.30 pm tonight. It was on Tuesday night, I will rewatch it. It is about going into the Pike River mine drift. Many details were covered, the cost, division in the community, the purpose of re entery.
The hunter/gatherer lifestyle is distant from many of us nowaday, so perhaps the PM & partner felt the need to reconnect with it. After all, it's the original evolutionary basis of humanity.
No kidding!! Isn't that some kind of breach of confidentiality? Get Hager onto this leaked email story pronto. Just say the two words `dirty politics' & I reckon he'll get the angle in a fraction of a second.
Now that can't possibly be right. It would mean that all food hygiene regulations mention wild venison. I think someone fed him a little white lie.
Bird-man? Evolutionary hybrids are quite rare but anything's possible.
Is it worth them paying 5k to end the harassment? I wouldn't. I reckon if he had a contract we'd know by now. It's bluff. Capital vs Labour. Next step: court case.
AFAIK you can't sell your catch but you can serve it to non-paying family/guests if it's professionally butchered .
yes, and no. It also depends on the food control plan of that particular place. For example – any wild game will have specific requirements to be met in order to be usable and servable at this venue. If this particular venue has not set its food control plan up for this – due to restrictions and hassle to be honest, then it would mean that this particular venue would have to update its food control plan and pass this by the council for approval, at a cost bien sur.
Also the food control plan will have a list of anyone authorized in the kitchen, front of house etc. The owner of the premises will have to have training records for everyone who is in that kitchen working. Any new person, requires thus training, updated records etc etc etc. Thanks Ministry of Business and Inovation
For example, i have a total exclusion of peanuts on my site, simply due to the allergen risk. This is in my food control plan. If someone were to bring locally foraged peanuts for a specific cake – a cake that was ordered but not specified as a peanut cake …., or a cake that would be peanuts and a brought in chef, i would have to train this chef on my food control plan, and update my food control plan, and only then were this person allowed to bake this peanut cake in my kitchen.
Now i totally understand that people are loath to critique the PM on anything, but in this case, if she had a contract, or a verbal agreement, and there are emails pertaining to this, then pay the 5 grand and go have your foraging and gathering wedding elsewhere.
This all seems very odd in a small town like Gisborne. Pierson's website says he's been there 20 years at least, in that time you'd have built up a fairly accurate reputation and people would know what you can do and can't. Clarke and family should have been able to have sussed the organisation and management out and management out and known what was coming.
It's pretty common for high level wedding events to include a celebrity chef and team. Venues here work around that and embrace it to enhance their reputation and often learn heaps. Some just have a very top end kitchen and the event organisers arrange the kitchen team. It sort of reads that Pierson was offered the dream gig and blew it.
As for wild game at a wedding, it's certainly a Southland tradition and is common in hunting circles. Have been to several weddings and flash places here where the groom and party have provided game and kai moana, once to the chef's specifications and it was a very enjoyable night, and foraging expeditions for the lads.
It is called a cancelation fee.
Any venue will have that in a contract. So if the PM and her husband to be have signed a binding agreement that they will use these premises i would suggest that they do the correct thing and pay the 5 grand. Its not as if it a lot of money to them. It is also called a Place holder fee. Once booked, and this was booked before covid, they would have refused any other occasion to happen at that time. And for what its worth, that email exchange can actually be proof of that agreement, and i would also like to point out that verbal agreements can be considered fully binding and legal.
But then, right, how dare these businesses inconvenience the most powerful women and hubby. Don't they know their limits and place?
The question is, why on earth would you want a lavish 150 people strong wedding during a pandemic where people aren't even allowed out of quarantine – vaxxed and covid free (per tests) to see a dying dad.
Fwiw, i have a cancellation fee of 30% of the sum total for any order as they days of work for these orders are booked in, and other orders at that time either will have to be done at a different time or refused.
I appreciate your insight into the situation Sabine, and it sounds like that scenario could apply as you suggest. However I suspect they didn't sign a contract. I think if they had they'd already have paid the cancellation fee.
Seems to me they were still negotiating the terms of the contract, and that negotiation which dragged on many months was what the email trail actually documents.
Re the 150/pandemic thing, yeah that's probably why it has dragged out so long. They've been stalled by Delta. Will Neve be bridesmaid in the new year? That's the question the women's mag editors will be pondering. Paparazzi alert!
As i said, if they had a verbal agreement, and the emails pertain to that, and if he can prove say that he refused other events for this timeframe, then he has a case.
In any case, this is petty, bullshitty and in the times of the plague in which hospitality businesses suffer just plain ugly.
My point being this guy is not pretending that someone booked his venue. Someone did. Someone told him a different cook was wanted. Someone told him wild food would be hunted and prepared on his premises by that cook etc etc etc.
So clearly there was an understanding that that would happen there, and sorry mate, but food control plan is food control plan. He breaks his plan he can lose his business.
And frankly i find the idea that some multi millionaires (and both fall in that category) would battle it out publicly over 5 grand is just plain sad. And it does not paint the venue owner in a sad light, but the PM and her husband to be.
Also, first you book and you state how many people etc etc etc and then you plan. Do not plan a wedding before you have the venue secured as you might find yourself without one.
Also Delta arrived in India in April and in NZ in July. so that too ain’t a good excuse.
The point is, if you cancel a booked venue expect a cancellation fee. If you cancel a booked venue because you need specially hunted food, specially gathered food, specially brought in cook/chefs then you pay the cancellation fee.
If the venue cancels on you, you would expect a total refund of what ever you paid to secure the venue.
Securing he venue is the first thing you do when holding such a schindig.
Last she is the PM, they would have a contract. Seriously, as she would not want to show up in her wedding gown, just to find someone else who booked with a contract holding their wedding.
You make a strong case – I can see why business owner/operators get so grumpy about regulations. One of my younger brothers is to the right of ACT and you ought to hear him go on about that stuff. He's built several businesses, thinks the Nats are a joke, watches only Fox News etc. I had to learn compassion – it's a sad fate when folks box themselves into a social niche so tight they can't get out.
These rules and regulations are in place so that you don't get salmonella, or food poisioning, or be served possum stew rather then the Osso Bucca you ordered. Can't help you there with your younger brother on that, he will have to live with the fact that rules exists and that people have to abide by them.
The reason i explained this is as people seem to really have no idea actually what goes into raising a successful eatery or fine restaurant. It is a lot of work, requires skilled and trained staff (even if they are migrants they are skilled and trained), and there are rules for everything, down to the point of how many times a day you have to check temperatures of your fridges and freezers.
So yes, you can hunt a wild deer, you can get it butchered by someone who knows what they do, and you can serve it in your back yard. But try to bring this into any legal lisenced premise that is not set up for it, or has a food control plan that does not allow for it, and it ain't a happening thing. Not because the business would not want too, but because it is too costly to make it so, and breaking the rules means to get fined many many dollars and lose business and reputation.
So they should pay the cancellation fee and have a back yard wedding with a famous chef, and hunted and gathered food. Non of this needs anymore publicity.
Fuck these people suffer.
https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1454291962023092225
https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1454295678511947777
https://meduza.io/news/2021/10/29/rosstat-za-devyat-mesyatsev-v-rossii-umerli-299-tysyach-chelovek-s-koronavirusom
google translate
Some serious analysis is required on how vaccines are performing. Surely the vaccines are being tested on past strains and new strains which are emerging. Russia is going into the winter period in a month.
"vaccinating the world should remain the priority."
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2665-9913%2821%2900330-1
Is there are reason my comments fall into moderation?
Not that I am aware of. But I will have a look at the next one that does.
Not always, just every now and then for a few days. Usually that happens when there are links or to many but it is now doing it on standard comments with no links either.
cheers.
If you copy text with links, right-click on them before posting & select unlink on each one. Sometimes I forget & mine end up in moderation/purgatory too.
These are comments without links. And i usually unlink before posting to facilitate posting. It's just a wee glitch in the matrix. 🙂
there was a word in the filter that you use a lot. It's been removed, so you shouldn't have a problem now.
what word is it?
Sabine uses one of the words in the filter a lot, but I see you've had a clean out 🙂