Radio NZ hack claims National’s dirty politics scandal merely a “beltway” issue.
Are Michelle Boag and Matthew Hooton writing their scripts now?
Radio NZ National Checkpoint, Wednesday 29 July 2015
Conservative Party founder and (until recently) leader Colin Craig has announced he is suing extreme right wing National Party blogger Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater for the campaign of lies and intimidation the fat man has been running against him for months. This cynical assault on our democracy was exhaustively laid out last year by Nicky Hager in his book Dirty Politics.
However, according to Radio NZ National’s Liz Banas, whether or not this brutal National Party operative is lying is nothing more than a “hard core beltway” issue. She tried unsuccessfully to upset Craig by firing that statement at him several times tonight….
COLIN CRAIG: …. Holding these guys to account is the right thing.
LIZ BANAS: But you’ve put things in this brochure that the public don’t even know about and probably much less care about.
COLIN CRAIG: Well I think it DOES matter to the New Zealand public that we have politics that is free from this sort of agenda that the Dirty Politics brigade run.
LIZ BANAS: Well I think you’ll see from the election result that people didn’t really take too much notice of the Dirty Politics when it came to voting.
COLIN CRAIG: I think it does matter the sort of country that we have, and the way that we run it. I think it does matter what the agenda of people is. It is our law in this land that you are not allowed to go out and defame public persons, for very good reasons. And I think that this is NOT a core value for New Zealanders, this sort of attack. We are honest people, we like a fair game and we like people to play within the rules. Good debate is good, a bit of argy-bargy is good, but having biased referees, or one team cheating, taking out an opposing player with a foul, that’s not the way we are.
LIZ BANAS: But it’s seriously beltway. I mean, a lot of these allegations people wouldn’t have any idea about. It’s hard core beltway.This is just for the people who are really involved in politics will be talking about this. As far as they’re concerned, you lost the election, you’ve admitted to inappropriate behavior with Miss McGregor, your party has imploded, and a lot of people would regard you as finished, politically.
COLIN CRAIG: Well, I think Liz you’ve said an awful lot there, but the reality is that this is a public issue. People DO know all about this, they DO want to know the truth of it, going to the court and having the court rule on whether these guys are telling the truth or whether I’m telling the truth DOES matter. That’s what political credibility is about, who’s telling the truth? Am I honest, or are they honest? We can’t both be right, the public do need to know.
LIZ BANAS: Do you worry that people see you as a laughing stock?
COLIN CRAIG: Oh I don’t worry about that at all. I stand for issues, I am who I am, and I’m very comfortable that this is the right approach to take with these guys who have been campaigning against me for week after week after week. I mean, it’s unheard of. This is unprecedented, there isn’t this sort of attack that’s gone on before. It’s serious stuff, and the court will rule whether or not I’ve been telling the truth. That matters to people. ….
………
POINT TO PONDER: It’s not as if there was a more competent and serious journalist on hand to make up for her shoddiness. Thanks to the recent purges at Radio NZ National, her partner was… Jim Mora.
RNZ is heads and shoulders above any of the other News outlets. I do believe Jim Mora is on borrowed time holding down the late afternoon slot.
The Monday morning political show with Hooton & Williams I personally find quite insightful and is a good summary on current political issues. Plunket’s Friday show with National cyborg Boag and Williams is equally as good, recently Sean gave the cyborg a real decent crack over the non Govt foreigner’s register, it was classic.
I’m not sure whether I entirely agree with this. I certainly do think that there is a disparity between the easy ride that government MPs (especially Mr. Key) get in the face of obviously and woefully inadequate statements in interviews on the one hand, and the belligerent but content-lite attack interviews on successive labour and green leaders. However, I also think that it is an interviewer’s job to challenge the motives and framing of any and all politicians that they interview, and try as I might, I can’t see any more in the above than that. Her framing could be more informed/informative, but I think the basic line of questioning is appropriate and gives him ample scope to respond.
Craig is being challenged to explain why his legal and PR campaign is a public interest issue, rather than a personal vendetta that serves nothing but his own satisfaction. Assuming that his info and claims are true, then it is in the public interest, but it’s still up to him to state his case and show the public why it’s important. Interviews like that facilitate that best, because the members public can hear many competing aspects of the argument and make up their own minds. I don’t wish people would stop interviewing Craig like that, I wish they would do more in that vein to Mr. Key.
@Morrisey
I heard Liz Banas name mentioned the other morning when I expected to hear Susie’s and I looked up but could find no Liz Banash in presenters.
Are you saying that Jim Mora is on early morning instead of Guyon. Do you know about changes? Holiday breaks? I looked up google for –
radionz management advice on personnel changes
and found nothing except headings about news not about the entity.
“No no no…. I understand that…. all right….okay…”
British state television frontwoman comes horribly unstuck on HARDtalk
Poor old Mishal Husain had her lines carefully written out—including such gems as calling a Financial Times hatchet job a “well considered piece”—but she simply lacked the intellect to counter Stathis Kouvelakis. What followed was one of the most complete humiliations of a BBC hack since Tim Sebastian’s 1993 trauma at the hands of Lee Kuan Yew.
It’s great the way you expose the media, Morrissey.
Some people seem unaware of how dumbed down the media has become.
For example, today, while Grosser and his Randite minions are trading away NZ’ s sovereignty in Hawaii, our miserable media has barely a word to say in this act of treason.
As biased as the media are, the Labour “opposition” is also failing us. Can you imagine the non-stop, hour by hour furore that would have ensued if it were a LABOUR government in Hawaii negotiating away our right to Pharmac?
Instead, the Labour Party leader talks about how he doesn’t like our national anthem.
By the way, the nasty, dim BBC hackette dying so horribly in that HARDtalk interview was Zeina Badawi, not Mishal Husain.
Darn it, Morrissey. Andrew Little has spoken out against TPPA several times lately.
The piece about the national anthem was picked out by the MSM of a speech he was giving in Parliament about the flag debate and used to trivialise whatever he was saying then. You of all people should know how easily the MSM trivialise whatever Labour says to keep attention away from the important stuff they say!
Thanks for that Jenny. We shouldn’t chop Labour down to miniscule over MSM misrepresentation. It’s good to be put right otherwise we don’t hear the truth only the manufactured litany of lies from the ba….s.
I noticed Toby Manhire and Sean Plunket yesterday getting affronted on Key’s behalf because Groser got testy with Key. The Notionals seem to have made ‘friends’ with many jonolists who are willing to write about Gullible’s Travels!
Peons of praise?
edited
Fair comment, Jenny. I have no doubt that Gower and his friends have utterly distorted what he said—and I was foolish enough to amplify it here. I am, however, not convinced that Labour has a coherent policy on this vital issue. If National was in Opposition, and it was a Labour government pushing this profoundly anti-democratic measure, all the media would be saturated with the message that Labour was selling out our public health system.
I’m also still trying to come to terms with the way Little and his colleagues meekly supported the Government’s snooping legislation a few months ago.
By the way, may I say what a privilege it is to be handed a whupping from someone with such a distinguished Labour name.
@Morrissey
That is not Mishal Husain doing the interview. She is (from memory) Cambridge educated and very smart. Works on Radio 4 Today programme now.
WikiLeaks on Twitter: “ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak … https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/626457709471211521
41 secs ago – WikiLeaksVerified account … ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak within the hour. …. @wikileaks @Ladydus Greatest robbery/corruption of all times by …
WikiLeaks on Twitter: “ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak … https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/626457709471211521
41 secs ago – WikiLeaksVerified account … ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak within the hour. …. @wikileaks @Ladydus Greatest robbery/corruption of all times by …
from Australia
“TPP negotiations threaten to forcibly commercialise state-owned bodies
PHILIP DORLING
The ABC, SBS and Australia Post could lose special regulatory treatment under trade measures being pushed for by the US.
A plan to treat vulnerable newborns as “lab rats” by sitting back for two years to see if they were abused has been blocked by the Government.
The Ministry of Social Development proposed to include 60,000 children born this year in an “observational study” to test the accuracy of its new predictive risk modelling tool.
It attempts to predict abuse, welfare dependency and the likelihood of a child’s downward spiral into crime on the path to adulthood so it can better target spending.
The Government gave the go-ahead to develop the model in 2012, as part of the Children’s Action Plan. It had now begun testing it.
But documents show officials had sought ethical approval for one study which involved risk-rating a group of newborns and not intervening in high-risk cases, to check whether their predictions came true.
A furious Social Development Minister Anne Tolley said she could not fathom what her officials were thinking.
These kinds of controlled experiments raise ethical issues all the time. For instance trials of new experimental drugs – there is always a control group who don’t get the potentially life-saving treatment.
Or you could argue that now this study has been squashed – that NO children will potentially benefit from it now. Sort of like tossing all the lab rats in the bin.
All we have is a possible model of which children may or may not be at risk. This is the direct equivalent of a medical diagnostic tool – but until it is tested we have no evidence of whether it is going to work well enough or not.
If the researchers simply developed an untested social diagnostic tool to predict which children were at risk – and then applied it as an en-mass intervention on the whole population what do you imagine might happen?
For a start – how would you deal with all the false positive cases?
“If the researchers simply developed an untested social diagnostic tool to predict which children were at risk – and then applied it as an en-mass intervention on the whole population what do you imagine might happen?”
Isn’t this precisely the reason that new interventions usually are trialed on small control groups under informed consent before introducing them to the general public or larger group concerned?
But almost all interventions have negative as well as positive effects, so applying them to people who don’t need them leaves the negative for no actual positive – i.e. they can actually do harm.
I’m in favour of seeing if it works before leaping to conclusions about every kid in the country.
Which is pretty much what was planned. The target study group was going to be one cohort of 60,000 children born in one year, and thereby large enough to give a statistically confident result.
And therefore we can never do any studies, of any kind, with children because we cannot ever get ‘informed consent’ from them? That’s another kind of nonsense.
This was only ever a passive ‘observational study’. Whether it proceeded or not – the lives of the participants would be exactly the same. So precisely what are you asking ‘informed consent’ for?
Besides there is the practical question of the study needing to be of a significant minimum size in order to obtain a results with acceptable statistical confidence.
They didn’t want to intervene in cases identified as “high risk” by the untested predictive model.
That doesn’t preclude normal intervention when/if current systems come to the same conclusion – indeed, that would be one of the measurements involved in the assessment of the accuracy of the new model.
Unless you can show that these researchers had access to an equivalent ‘crash test dummy’ model that would give equivalent results in this space – I don’t think that comparison works vto.
These ‘researchers’ were prepared to let people seriously damage their lives in order to observe that damage…. that is fucked in the head and smells of the third re1ch…
I can understand if the effect on natural people is minor and negligible, and repairs itself like a scratch with a band-aid, but not this shit. Its over the top by a country mile.
+1. Not least because there are any number of measures that can be implemented to improve people’s lives without having to inflict that sort of harm upon anybody.
RL the study design could have been done differently to address the ethical concerns raised. For instance, a higher level of monitoring of the “high risk” group, with protocols for intervention in any instances where children were detected to be actually mistreated (whatever group they were from).
Remember that one of the issues with the “Unfortunate Experiment” were healthcare professionals who were aware that certain research subjects were at higher risk of developing cancer – but then doing nothing about it.
Again the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ example is not so clear cut as you would like to think.
The original experiment design made reasonable sense in the light of the knowledge of the day. There were many aspects of this cancer not at all well understood at the time.
Like much medical research it made an easy target with the benefit of hindsight – and definitely Green should have been more pro-active about managing the arising cases of cervical cancer that did arise. But the issues were nowhere near as black and white as the popular outrage of the day.
Not according to Cartwright. Your interpretation is itself revisionist and made with the benefit of many years hindsight. Greens “experiment” was very definitely ethically questionable at the very least and bears remarkable similarities to MSD’s proposed study. Some people are slow learners.
And everyone also ignored the fact that Herb Green designed his study in the mid-60’s – and it was considered acceptable in the light of the thinking of the day. It’s completely and utterly wrong to condemn a man for actions taken in ignorance of knowledge yet to be discovered.
There was by the 1980s an extensive international literature questioning whether early intervention was necessary or was over-treatment, causing more harm than good.
Medicine faces a especial challenge in that the public find it very difficult to separate out the role of a researchers who have a role of studying illness – and that of clinicians whose role is to treat it. And back in the 60’s that distinction was virtually non-existent; it was absolutely common-place for clinicians like Green to also be researchers.
But that is not the case with this proposed social study at all.
It’s been a while since I read the book, but from what I remember this is not true.
It was against current thinking at the time. The ethical and management teams of National Women’s were not robust enough to challenge Green, and efforts by McIndoe to ensure care was given, and standards were upheld were constantly overridden.
As a female child born in that hospital at the time, I may have been one of those female newborns that were given a smear test – without knowledge of my mother – and without any particular research benefit. The practice continued for two years after Green decided the results coming from newborns were not supporting his theory.
The continual recall of women identified for “non-treatment” and observation was appalling. And they would have been under the mistaken idea that they were receiving timely and appropriate treatment.
Most of the problems arose because by force of circumstance Green was forced into the role of both researcher and clinician. These days the roles are usually quite separate which makes these kinds of ethical issues much easier to manage.
Actually Green’s thinking turned out to be correct – that early hysterectomies and large cone biopsies which often prevented women from conceiving again were usually unnecessary; a conclusion that current practise endorses.
Worth a read. I accept that by current modern standards there are things he should have done better, but ultimately there is a lot more to the story than the narrow conclusions Cartwright came to. Incidentally I was delivered by Herb Green. I was a very late term baby and he saved my life. So maybe I’m biased.
And as it happened my family knew MacIndoe as well. They were all good people just doing the best they could with the understandings they possessed at the time.
Tolley also appeared to signal a major backdown on a proposed population-wide application of the model, saying it was “unlikely” to be used on children that had not already been notified to Child Youth and Family (CYF).
Well, it seems that the entire predictive modelling has now been canned which, of course, means that those children who are at high risk of being abused will now most likely be abused and CYF won’t actually know about them.
What do you think a future Tory government might do with a tool that is proven to demonstrate that certain parents or classes of parents are more likely to be child abusers? Or if such a database listing those parents and families was leaked?
well the tool is inevitably going to end up scientifically justifying the singling out of specific types of households and classes of people who have done no wrong (yet).
Under a responsible and enlightened regime, that might be tolerable, even useful.
I think this comment neatly highlights an important distinction between a predictive tool based on correlational datasets and a causal understanding (or scientific theory) of a phenomenon – i.e., exploration of a ‘real’ scientific theory as opposed to statistical modelling based upon empirical regularity.
Correlational ‘predictions’ are not based on causal understanding (i.e., causal scientific theories) but on statistical regularities (which are often developed into so-called ‘models’).
Importantly, in construction of such tools the statistics to which the tool’s builders will inevitably turn are the ones already being collected (and which were typically developed to serve other purposes).
And that’s where the danger of using a statistical predictive tool exists, in policy terms.
If the causal processes involved in generating abuse are not being used to guide policy then interventions are triggered based on statistical probabilities embedded in the ‘tool’.
Here’s a revealing example. Being a young Maori male (as opposed to being a non-Maori young male) is correlated with criminal offending (it helps explain some of the variance of criminal offending in the general population).
A predictive tool to identify those ‘at risk’ of criminal offending could be developed based on that statistic (which is already collected and available in many datasets).
In fact, that ‘tool’ has already been invented and is, of course, often called racial profiling.
The difference can be put in stark terms: being a young Maori male does not cause criminal offending but it does (statistically at the population level) predict it.
For those interested, this is all part of the esoteric debate between those known as ’empiricists’ and those known as ‘scientific realists’.
Interestingly, much standard economic modelling seems to be of this empiricist kind and tends to eschew realist scientific theorising (i.e., production of theories that postulate hidden, generative causal mechanisms – e.g., such as William Harvey’s theory of the circulation of blood through veins and arteries).
An unfortunate consequence of that – given the leverage economists often have in the policy space – is that the public, and presumably many politicians, often interpret these economic ‘theories’ – i.e., statistical and mathematical models – as causal scientific theories.
But they aren’t. (Folk theories – appealing to ‘common sense’ – are sometimes used to provide the de facto causal explanation in support of the predictions of the modelling.)
That misunderstanding I think helps create all kinds of dangerous ‘unintended consequences’ in the social policy space – e.g., beneficiary bashing, retributive impulses towards those who commit crimes, anti-Maori racism, etc..
Fortunately there are growing areas such as behavioural economics, evolutionary economics and neuroeconomics that are trying to introduce ‘proper’ scientific theorising into economics.
For too long, economics, it seems, has relied upon Smith’s postulates about human nature as the only realist bit of theorising in the discipline.
Much science has been done on the general topic of ‘human nature’ since Smith’s time.
Until recently, that science seems to have passed economics by.
In fact IMO it’s one of the reasons that economics so far has been more religion than its acolytes’ pseudoscientific pretensions would have is believe.
If you went to the doctor with an ache and the doctor made a diagnosis solely on how your stats matched epidemiological data, your doctor should be done for malpractise.
It doesn’t work in medicine, it doesn’t work in economics, and it won’t work in social work.
It’s like putting real people in a test car and sending it into a crash wall at 130kph, knowing full well the impact will kill them (ignoring earlier research), and purposely neglecting to first reduce the speed to a level that will not kill, but just give them a headache.
But why you’d do it that way – even try to give them a headache – just exposes 1) total lack of ethics in aims (and lack of education or skill in research techniques) , 2) psychopathy 3) really really poor science 4) being told to do it that way by your employers/funders/Minister.
Tolley must go, so must the so-called officals. They were her people. In fact, the whole fucking lot have to go, which makes the argument kind of pointless. Get rid of these psychos – problem solved.
It’s not the researchers putting these kids at risk. They are ALREADY strapped into the seat of life – and some of them are ALREADY hurtling towards the crash wall.
But how is NOT observing these children going to make anything better either?
It’s not as is the researchers were proposing to actively intervene in their lives in order to set them up for abuse and crime. It really amounts to exactly the same thing as any other major longitudinal study – but with some predictions thrown in to test some ideas.
Social science is full of these issues because you really have no alternative but to conduct your research on real people – and the more serious the problem being studied – the more difficult these ethical issues become. That is why these supervisory committees exist.
But in each case you have to also include the impact of NOT doing the study as well.
Some screwed up negative backwards type statement/questions in there methinks RL, in particular first and last sentences.
Then there is this
“It’s not as is the researchers were proposing to actively intervene in their lives in order to set them up for abuse and crime.” ……….. Yes they were, from what I can see. They were going to actively intervene by way of active non-intervention
Sounds like you are familiar with these things, but I would suggest that if this sphere of study has got to this point then it has gone way too far down the rabbit hole and needs hauling out by the bunny tail for a severe telling-off
Yes they were, from what I can see. They were going to actively intervene by way of active non-intervention
And NOT doing this kind of study is a massive non-intervention as well. You just cannot have it both ways. This is exactly the same as many other hugely valuable research projects such as:
It’s been running over 40 years – and almost certainly it has included individuals who’ve been victims of harm, abuse and crime. Want to shut that one down as well?
Quite a different thing as there was no attempt at predicting outcomes before the study started and then standing back to see if it actually occurred. Taking a slice of the general population and following their lives (including presumably State interventions) is not the same. Can I draw your attention again to the Cartwright enquiry into the “unfortunate experiment ” which is a much closer analogue to this proposed study by MSD.
From the perspective of the participants the effect of the study, whether it is passively observational only like the famous Dunedin study – or this new one where the researchers were also attempting to use the data to validate a proposed predictive model – is exactly the same.
The ethics of such studies is based only partly on the effect on the subjects. It is also based on the state of knowledge of the researchers. Do they know or suspect that an UNINFORMED control group are at risk without intervention yet CHOOSE not to warn or inform or intervene.
Again, this is why the MSD proposal bears striking similarities to Green’s study.
But Cartwright had the benefit of hindsight – by 1987 it was known that early medical intervention was indeed the right thing to do. But when Green started the study in the 1960’s no-one knew that for certain.
Again I ask the question – what if it had not been the case? What if Green (and others) had not done the research and it turned out that early intervention had killed many women instead?
What Green did miss out was the ‘informed consent’ part. But again this was a consideration made in hindsight – in the 1960’s this was not thought of as so important. Indeed given the role of the placebo effect it was considered a simple way to ‘blind’ the study.
I think that’s misleading Red. I don’t know about 1960, but in later decades what Green was doing was unethical by contemporary practice at the time. It wasn’t the benefit of hindsight, it was the women at the time (patients, staff, feminist activists), who called the medical staff and the hospital on the practice and a stop was put to it.
That in the 1980s it was still very hard work to break the doctor is god ethos simply reflects that the culture was unethical too. But it’s not like the ethics hadn’t been discussed before that time. People didn’t suddenly have an ephiphany in 1987 about what was right and proper, people knew for a very long time, that’s the whole point, and that’s why we’ve had subsequent processes in NZ like the development of the Health and Disability Act.
“It’s been running over 40 years – and almost certainly it has included individuals who’ve been victims of harm, abuse and crime. Want to shut that one down as well?”
If a researcher on this one see one of the subjects about to harm themselves and the researcher does nothing about it then absolutely yes it needs to be amended.
The researchers are not hovering 24/7 over the shoulders of anyone. If something bad happens to one of the people participating the researcher usually only finds out about it well after the event.
They simply are not in the business of intervening – that’s the role of other institutions like the Police.
The point is that they are using existing diagnostic tools to predict in advance that a certain very vulnerable group is at risk and then proposing to take a “watch from afar” role in order to see whether the predicted harm comes to pass.
This is what makes this case so similar to Green’s experiment at National womens. He actually suspected that intervention was the way to go, but didn’t intervene and watched the cancer develop in order to develop data to support his case for intervention. (From Memory).
Green had plenty of ethical alternatives. For instance, he could have told affected women that their case had reached an early cancer stage and would they like to exit the study and get treatment.
By doing so he could have avoided accusations that he was playing God with other peoples lives.
CV
I’m glad to see you put it so clearly. There was an alternative, which would have allowed his study to run with useful findings and you have explained it.
The medical profession is strong on trust being important which comes up often when a desire for ethanasia to be legal comes up. But they will countenance some dodgy practices from within their own.
Green’s experiment would have caused a massive lack of trust in doctors when family concerned found that Green had allowed the cervical cancer to advance too far for healing treatment. Particularly among the people who had to arrange to go with Mum or daughter from the regions to the clinic in the city many times, at their own cost I should think, but always disruptive of family life and trusting him to care for her and advise the true situation, and ask for permission to delay treatment and explain outcome which was not done properly.
did any of these children volunteer to be part of the study group?
that is your difference to your group trying experimental medicine. The guys that are dying of cancer might volunteer for a new drug to be tested for a. a cure that will heal them, or b. a cure that may heal those that get ill long after the study subjects have died.
However, the babies/newborn/little children in this ‘study group’ would most likely not have volunteered or consented to this study. And as far as i am concerned if we know that a child is in danger of abuse we have a duty to call CYF or the police.
And as far as i am concerned if we know that a child is in danger of abuse we have a duty to call CYF or the police.
And at no point would have this study stopped these normal processes. No-one was proposing that the researchers just let it keep on happening for the jollies of it.
All it was attempting to do was predict the risk of abuse – and no-one can act to prevent this before it happens.
And at no point would have this study stopped these normal processes. No-one was proposing that the researchers just let it keep on happening for the jollies of it.
The briefing note the Minister got clearly said that follow up would be at 2 years, to see if predicted negative outcomes had in fact occurred.
But this is different to not letting CYF intervene if abuse is detected through the normal methods, e.g. a teacher reports it.
Folk are acting like the study was designed to look at the kid’s factors at birth, then refuse to provide any social service or government interaction for two years, upon which time they just count how many of the kids are dead.
As it is, the lack of assessment could simply result in a number of kids being labelled “at high risk” when they’re not, wasting resources and at worst resulting in needless prosecution (false positive “high risk” kid breaks arm as simple accident, and the risk rating makes people more suspicious of abuse which changes their enforcement bias) while genuinely at risk kids are ignored.
“Folk are acting like the study was designed to look at the kid’s factors at birth, then refuse to provide any social service or government interaction for two years, upon which time they just count how many of the kids are dead.”
Can you read it another way? Graphic language aside that is a good summing up imo.
The predictive model is untested and possibly either not sensitive enough (so it doesn’t actually help in the prevention/detection of harm) or not specific enough (so resources are rationed from those in greater need to those in little to no need), so making intervention decisions based on that model is not just unwise but could possibly do more harm than good.
So no interventions should be made based on that model until its reliability as a screening tool is known.
Interventions based on all the systems currently in use would still be made, and where the model predicted those interventions, that’s good for the model, where the model did not predict those interventions, that’s bad, and where the model predicted interventions were required when they were not, that’s also bad.
There are real concerns with using macro data to make predictions about specific individuals, though, simply because the closer you look based on assumptions the more likely you are (and the more inclined you are) to find something, so it reinforces one’s prejudices rather than being a genuine tool.
That’s essentially the problem with racial profiling by police.
I tend to follow the philosophy that macro data can make extrapolated predictions at a population level, but you need direct case data to draw conclusions about individuals. But then this predictive model comes along so if a case worker makes a judgement based on the facts of the case they might have to second-guess the model. But if they do that, it’s on their head if they’re wrong, but if they just say “computer says abuse” their arse is covered.
I guess my issue is with the concept of the model itself and what it will be used for, rather than the testing proposal.
Except there needs to be some check that Tolley’s “interventions” don’t do more harm than they prevent. Given how intrusive this kind of monitoring of people who have committed no crime is, and the profiling involved, some checks do need to be done.
From what I understand, these families are going to be treated as criminals rather than given extra support and resources. It would be better to provide families with what they need, but this is not the ‘treatment’ that these families in the control group are missing out on, nor is it the default for vulnerable families or people in need generally.
If Anne Tolley stops anything on the basis of it being wrong I wonder what’s the real reason.
I thought the predictive model was to identify the most at risk of family violence or distress, and ensure that the family concerned had assistance through the difficult years. Presumably that could involve learning better parenting methods, and coping strategies.
But needed is understanding that concomitantly a lot of the problem arises from chronic poverty and people’s necessary accommodation to the way of life that brings. The money worries, regular shortages or absence of comfort and meeting of needs with no hope for better conditions would remain as the elephant in the room. That would not have been helped by this callous, irresponsible government system at presently operating.
Watching to see if the predictive model was effective did not have to mean, not doing anything. The government welfare arm is not a nature photographer or researcher recording nature unrestrained. Just watching and stepping in when needed, supporting and helping to a certain extent, then stepping out and monitoring the effectiveness of that help, would have been enough to provide results for assessment without the strict extreme required for academically rigorous proof.
That would have shown an honest willingness on the part of government and Tolley but from her past history, it has been observed that she is not a person who wishes well to the strugglers of our country.
We have an aristocratic mutation grown in our society, which is more the meritocratic model. And these self-satisfied higher educated highly paid people regard themselves on the one hand as exceptional and deserving of high rewards, and on the other hand as models that anyone who wanted to achieve the same lifestyle, could follow if they tried and worked harder. Contradictory thinking.
Now we have the code of deserving and undeserving that goes right back to the cold charity, unwillingly ladelled out with many strictures, of the 19th century. How we have advanced! Not.
The thing that bothers me is that this is now so deeply embedded in the civil service culture.
This one stood out:
“It attempts to predict abuse, welfare dependency and the likelihood of a child’s downward spiral into crime on the path to adulthood so it can better target spending.”
Why are they measuring is spending targeting rather than assitance targeting? They’re not the same thing, but I think it’s clear that it’s all about the money now.
Well if we want to target spending, ministerial expenses are out today.
Now maybe should we start profiling MP’s to see which ones will spend more time in the mini bar than others adding to the public health bill , which ones won’t find receipts or want to stay at only the best hotel which ones are going to have their kids brought up by the state after a broken marriage, add in a drug test or two so they don’t get paid until they are clean.
That way we could pick the one’s that don’t cost as much.
the thought that occurs is that, while I disagree with her decision, credit to Tolley for actually doing her job and making a decision based on an interpretation of what she actually read.
CF. the serco debacle where the information was handed on a plate and ignored until it hit the media.
Major corporates and their shareholders will definitely benefit from the TPPA. That’s why they are the ones pushing hardest for it. And keeping it secret.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 5.1.3.1
They’re keeping it secret because negotiating in public tends to make negotiation difficult. That is why they have all been done this way since the beginning of time. By everyone.
Last year, we made a billion and a half dollars from the China FTA. Tax on a billion and a half dollars is about $400m. We spent that on shit you guys like getting for free.
3. Show how much China has extracted from and or will extract going forward. Oh and illustrate environmental damage and other societal mess left behind by the FTA
Quite comfortably you are one of a most puerile posters here which is saying something
Coming across as a fuck-wit comes exceedingly easily to you
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 5.1.3.1.2.1
Warner Bros. I noticed Jackson is still on the rich list. Hasn’t he done well assisted by the tax payer
Sky City
Any sporting body who’s participants want to play at life i.e. America’s Cup. and once again hasn’t Couttss done well via the tax payer.
Pay down the massive debt (now at over a billion) created by that double dipping dickhead from Dipton giving tax breaks to the higher income earners who do not pay the same % of their income through tax avoidance.
Private schools, If these prats want to send their offspring to an elitist school to learn how to rule, don’t expect tax payers to subsidise it
Charter Schools, a dismal failure but still being bailed out by the tax payer.
Stupid referendum on the flag that nobody wants
Gold plated perks for ALL Members of Parliament for life.
Let’s start having a bit less of the corporate welfare, when the money should be allocated to other areas.
Nothing is free we all contribute with our taxes the only ones getting it free are the likes of Rio Tinto.
You wrote
“We spent that on shit you guys like getting for free. “
I see you have used the royal “we”. Who the fuck are the “we”? More to the point who the fuck are you? You are not another non society Randian brain dead fuckwit are you, who thinks that you have some god given right and privilege and first go over other people.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
But when all parties to the negotiation have seen the position documents – why would you not release the position documents to the people whose position is described ? Todd couldn’t quite deliver clarity on this,
On the face of it this TPP directive looks to put even the Superfund on the skids forcing it to be run by private operators taking a bigger cut and even EQC to give way to the big insurance companies.
The new age of serfdom is just around the corner.
I missed this the other day and it was thrown back into my to view box on youtube I think after watching your video today Morrissey – So thanks. It raises some great points about the workings of propaganda in The USA. Which, I think we see here. I’m thinking the NBR or the herald are probably our equivalent.
A post from David Hood over on Public Address is rather technical but also disturbing. It seems that billions of dollars are entering the housing market but it is not known from whence it comes. He calls it Magic Money.
He also looks at the flaw in the “supply side” claims.
David says “somethings up.” Indeed.
It is a good analysis based directly on data reported to the Reserve Bank. I read it this morning.
The divergence between local mortgage funding and the funds tied up in houses over the last 15 years, especially since 2006 shows a bloody disturbing pattern of excessive speculation, and catastrophically in the last 4 years.
Unless of course some ideological numerically challenged idiots can point to funding sources in the local economy for hundreds of billions of dollars, I’m just going to assume this is from cheap overseas money piling into speculating mainly on Auckland properties.
In fact I am going to take a little informed leap and say that just at present most of the magic money appears to be coming from mainland China – because it is logical and backed by some rough but statistically valid evidence.
This isn’t a particular attack on Chinese despite what dickheads chose to believe. The problem is that there is nothing to stop people with capital that isn’t working much anywhere in the world looking for reasonably safe property investments with good returns continuing to pile it high in the Auckland market. The consequences for Auckland as a working city are dire.
I’d also point out to our numerically illiterates who were quoting David Hood’s analysis at me last week, that this magic money was what all of his previous analysis said as well. They just hadn’t read the comments carefully enough to understand what it meant.
I guess that I’ll just have to educate our local numerical idiots for a few years about the value of data and how to read it.
(if anyone hasn’t figured out that I’m annoyed by some of the blatant ideological stupidity I saw last week, can probably detect it now… )
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 8.1.1
Nauru is going through a crisis with the President and leaders rejecting democracy in favour of direct, dictatorial action to suit themselves. Australia and the flow of money and the dumping of aliens in bad conditions on the island causing strain on the political system has probably tipped the balance.
In addition Nauru’s leaders looking round the world, have the example of barefaced dictatorial behaviour in Fiji by Bana….and the military there. There is Mugabe who has found a satisfactory system for him to grasp and hold onto power in Zimbabwe. There is the willingness for the USA to support countries with undemocratic political systems when it suits the USA.
The powerful democratic nations can surprisingly, act against encouraging the system of democracy in their own as well as other countries, with it virtues of valuing of individuals as well as groups. But the empty rhetoric about it continues while the undermining of it goes on.
edited
as the social, economic and environmental conditions of individual countries deteriorate, we will see the process of democracy continue to get hollowed out or abandoned.
Would you agree the style of presentation suggests Slater really really really does not want this to go much further ?
Apart from alluding to sexts and how he is obviously lusting after the associated scandal-mongering that would ensue, he appears to be concerned with the prospective duration and the potential for exposure from the legal proceedings.
Thats the problem with bully boys like Colin Craig isn’t it, they can afford to tie up people in the courts they threaten people with the courts
Even the most biast, one-eyed, Whaleoil hater (otherwise known as the your average Standard reader) would agree that Colon Craig is just trying to keep his name in the public eye
A damn expensive way to do it imho and its going to come back and bite him in the ass
…would agree that Colon Craig is just trying to keep his name in the public eye
Nope. I doubt if he cares enough about that particular role now.
I suspect that he has decided (like so many of us) that Cameron Slater and other similar opportunistic arseholes just need to be eliminated from our political sphere. They don’t add anything. They lie routinely about facts because they care far more for the look of things than reality. They cause a lot of damage to the local political debate. They don’t add a damn thing to the debate because all they are concerned about is destruction rather than construction.
Anyone sensible just needs to go a little out of their way to screw them over in whatever way is required to get them out of the way of the rational public debate. Flush them in such a way that no-one wants to try the same tricks again. Do the same to their rather disgusting apologists.
What it comes down to is you don’t like them therefore you support anyone that wants to take them down even if the people doing the “taking” are…dubious to say the least
Puckish, that could be restated as saying that the cause for which you may have allies is more important than who that ally is. Lprent has been very strong for a long time about Slater and his actions. Craig has just finally come to that realisation when he fell out with his fellow right wingers for whom Slater is the hack man.
I’m just saying that championing people such as Colin Craig, you know the guy thats got his former PA tied up in a non-disclosure agreement yet seems to spread as many details about as his likes and Krim Dot Con is not a good look
And I’m ‘just saying’ that people who look beyond that rather shallow interpretation of events will see that the cause which both Craig and many left -wingers espouse is the correct one.
That common cause is the rat-bag actions of a sociopathic individual who is used by others as their dirt-spreader and purveyer of pathogenic politics.
You know, Puckish, I never read of many individuals who criticised the New Zealand government for having allied with Joe Stalin in their common cause against fascism and Hitler. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.
Secondly, who’s ‘championing’ Craig? A rather loaded word, there.
Heres the thing though I don’t think Colin Craig is all that bothered by the cause so much as he can use it to stay in the limelight and convince the rest of followers that hes still a viable option for election
Desperate times call for desperate measures and this is hardly desperate except for those people who really, really dislike John Key
Its not a good look for the left to be cuddling up to drongoes simply because they don’t like certain individuals on the right
here’s a different thought:
As Colin Craig is reported as being a sternly religious person who obviously strayed off whatever path he was walking, perhaps the legal proceedings (he might be embarking upon) are a penance.
A form of redemptive service to allow him to reinstate his own conviction to his own beliefs.
I don’t just dislike them. I think that they are dangerous and probably criminals.
I look at people and organisations as being potential dangers to our society and act against the worst of them first.
The conservatives I don’t like much because of their policies and attitudes. However they were acting well within the framework of political change systems in NZ. That means I will voice my opposition to them and their ideas, but respect their right to disagree.
Cameron Slater and the idiots at Lauda Finem, I view as acting as deliberately destructive fools who are too stupid to understand what they are really doing (read Dirty POlitics on the corrosive effects that they produce in politics). I also think that it likely that much of what they do is criminal. So I act against them as far as the laws allow, and encourage others to do so as well.
What is so hard for you to understand? This behaviour on my part must be pretty damn obvious even to posturing fools. FFS you rail against criminals here in a simplistic and rather stupid way all of the time as being a danger to society, in fact I have seen you do it today. You appear to follow the exact same logic – just because my reasons are a bit more thoughtful and less reflexive than yours shouldn’t make that much of a difference.
Mainfreight just attacked the government’s lack of support for rail on RNZ saying just for Mainfreight alone if the rail system was closed this would add 21,500 truck movements.
Stick that in your pipe Bill English.
The Nats really don’t get the long-term vision thing.
they do ….and it is lining the pockets of themselves and their mates….they want to privatise KiwiRail imo…and Goldman Sachs is there to help them,
Goldman Sachs advises Treasury on sale of state assets…and on private investment opportunities…Is NZ rail being starved of taxpayer funds so it can be sold off privately and made into a private rail network.? ( the way they have done in Britain?)
“Goldman Sachs is one of the largest infrastructure fund managers globally, having raised more than $10 billion of capital since the inception of the business in 2006.
The primary focus for GS Infrastructure Partners (GSIP) is on investment opportunities with the following parameters:
Sectors including transportation infrastructure (such as airports, ports, railways and roads) and utilities infrastructure (such as electricity, gas and water networks and conventional/ renewable contracted power generation),….
Labour needs to introduce an Anti- Money Laundering BIll…banks need to be on notice!
(Penny is right on the button to keep going on about the need for anti- corruption and anti -money laundering laws… especially as applied to what is going on in Auckland…It is no solution to Auckland’s problems to spread it to the rest of New Zealand )
“The “wall of Chinese capital” hitting property markets in Sydney and Melbourne will not ease up until the government introduces its anti-money laundering legislation, says an expert in ‘flight capital’….
The $US50,000 limit on exchanging Chinese currency into $US and $A was being breached in the majority of Chinese property deals in Melbourne and Sydney, and once the AML laws were introduced, the “wall of capital” from China would dry up.
Is anyone else suffering from Facebook’s attentions more than usual lately? I get two or three a day from them telling me I have more friends than I know about exhorting me to embrace and tell all to the world. FT. I don’t want to share every little nook and cranny about me so they can read me like a hedgehog in a spotlight, and be at my elbow guiding me to sites where they want to sell, sell.
Others seem to love fb and tweet. Yet as time goes on sinister things pop out of all these tech things like an evil genie.
Zizek says that there is too much smoothing our way so we slide or are directed along well-oiled grooves with expected levels of satisfaction, rather than stride around our domain and find and experience new things, have serendipity meetings and surprises.
just like the myth of getting more work done by having your emails sent to you day and night – doesn’t save time at all, just re-orders it to intrude into private time. No savings or advantages whatsoever…
In the past in an 8 hour day, communicate 1 hour, work 7.
Today in an 8 hour day, communicate 3 hours, work 5.
Amply evidenced by recent projects completed which took same amount of time, money and effort as pre-email days…. i.e. internet communicatons provided no benefit to cost or time. Fact.
Just like we were sold the idea of speed and ease of eftpos – ha ha ha ha ha
So can any lawyers on here explain why this guy doesn’t have a preventitve detention order slapped on him instead of a jail term in case he doesn’t take part in any courses and is still considered a threat when his sentence ends
Surely judges should err on the side of keeping the community safe?
The site is a bit slow at present. There is some clown in AWS east coast that has a new largish attack cluster that is a bit aggravating.
I got up last night to put a preventative in. However that just limited the impact, which has continued to increase today. So page displays and comments are a lot slower today. It hasn’t been worrisome enough to divert more time to..
I’ll be blocking the fool a bit more strongly after I get home, and getting their attack base shutdown.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
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1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
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TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
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Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
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The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
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Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
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As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
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Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
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TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
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This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
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Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
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Radio NZ hack claims National’s dirty politics scandal merely a “beltway” issue.
Are Michelle Boag and Matthew Hooton writing their scripts now?
Radio NZ National Checkpoint, Wednesday 29 July 2015
Conservative Party founder and (until recently) leader Colin Craig has announced he is suing extreme right wing National Party blogger Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater for the campaign of lies and intimidation the fat man has been running against him for months. This cynical assault on our democracy was exhaustively laid out last year by Nicky Hager in his book Dirty Politics.
However, according to Radio NZ National’s Liz Banas, whether or not this brutal National Party operative is lying is nothing more than a “hard core beltway” issue. She tried unsuccessfully to upset Craig by firing that statement at him several times tonight….
COLIN CRAIG: …. Holding these guys to account is the right thing.
LIZ BANAS: But you’ve put things in this brochure that the public don’t even know about and probably much less care about.
COLIN CRAIG: Well I think it DOES matter to the New Zealand public that we have politics that is free from this sort of agenda that the Dirty Politics brigade run.
LIZ BANAS: Well I think you’ll see from the election result that people didn’t really take too much notice of the Dirty Politics when it came to voting.
COLIN CRAIG: I think it does matter the sort of country that we have, and the way that we run it. I think it does matter what the agenda of people is. It is our law in this land that you are not allowed to go out and defame public persons, for very good reasons. And I think that this is NOT a core value for New Zealanders, this sort of attack. We are honest people, we like a fair game and we like people to play within the rules. Good debate is good, a bit of argy-bargy is good, but having biased referees, or one team cheating, taking out an opposing player with a foul, that’s not the way we are.
LIZ BANAS: But it’s seriously beltway. I mean, a lot of these allegations people wouldn’t have any idea about. It’s hard core beltway.This is just for the people who are really involved in politics will be talking about this. As far as they’re concerned, you lost the election, you’ve admitted to inappropriate behavior with Miss McGregor, your party has imploded, and a lot of people would regard you as finished, politically.
COLIN CRAIG: Well, I think Liz you’ve said an awful lot there, but the reality is that this is a public issue. People DO know all about this, they DO want to know the truth of it, going to the court and having the court rule on whether these guys are telling the truth or whether I’m telling the truth DOES matter. That’s what political credibility is about, who’s telling the truth? Am I honest, or are they honest? We can’t both be right, the public do need to know.
LIZ BANAS: Do you worry that people see you as a laughing stock?
COLIN CRAIG: Oh I don’t worry about that at all. I stand for issues, I am who I am, and I’m very comfortable that this is the right approach to take with these guys who have been campaigning against me for week after week after week. I mean, it’s unheard of. This is unprecedented, there isn’t this sort of attack that’s gone on before. It’s serious stuff, and the court will rule whether or not I’ve been telling the truth. That matters to people. ….
………
POINT TO PONDER: It’s not as if there was a more competent and serious journalist on hand to make up for her shoddiness. Thanks to the recent purges at Radio NZ National, her partner was… Jim Mora.
Well RNZ now invite Jordan Williams, Michelle Boag and Matthew Hooton as regular visitors.
They are rapidly becoming another worthless news source.
RNZ is heads and shoulders above any of the other News outlets. I do believe Jim Mora is on borrowed time holding down the late afternoon slot.
The Monday morning political show with Hooton & Williams I personally find quite insightful and is a good summary on current political issues. Plunket’s Friday show with National cyborg Boag and Williams is equally as good, recently Sean gave the cyborg a real decent crack over the non Govt foreigner’s register, it was classic.
CyBoag! Heh!
I’m not sure whether I entirely agree with this. I certainly do think that there is a disparity between the easy ride that government MPs (especially Mr. Key) get in the face of obviously and woefully inadequate statements in interviews on the one hand, and the belligerent but content-lite attack interviews on successive labour and green leaders. However, I also think that it is an interviewer’s job to challenge the motives and framing of any and all politicians that they interview, and try as I might, I can’t see any more in the above than that. Her framing could be more informed/informative, but I think the basic line of questioning is appropriate and gives him ample scope to respond.
Craig is being challenged to explain why his legal and PR campaign is a public interest issue, rather than a personal vendetta that serves nothing but his own satisfaction. Assuming that his info and claims are true, then it is in the public interest, but it’s still up to him to state his case and show the public why it’s important. Interviews like that facilitate that best, because the members public can hear many competing aspects of the argument and make up their own minds. I don’t wish people would stop interviewing Craig like that, I wish they would do more in that vein to Mr. Key.
@ Hanswurst Good objectivity from over there, good to have.
I guess it comes down to whether you think “PR” stands for “Personal Rachel”, or “Public Relations”……..
I thought the latter- ergo its a Public issue.
I think that using ‘beltway’ repeatedly immediately makes that person more beltway than anything they’re talking about or anyone they’re talking to.
That is a very good point. I have never heard a non-“beltway” person say “beltway”.
@Morrisey
I heard Liz Banas name mentioned the other morning when I expected to hear Susie’s and I looked up but could find no Liz Banash in presenters.
Are you saying that Jim Mora is on early morning instead of Guyon. Do you know about changes? Holiday breaks? I looked up google for –
radionz management advice on personnel changes
and found nothing except headings about news not about the entity.
“No no no…. I understand that…. all right….okay…”
British state television frontwoman comes horribly unstuck on HARDtalk
Poor old Mishal Husain had her lines carefully written out—including such gems as calling a Financial Times hatchet job a “well considered piece”—but she simply lacked the intellect to counter Stathis Kouvelakis. What followed was one of the most complete humiliations of a BBC hack since Tim Sebastian’s 1993 trauma at the hands of Lee Kuan Yew.
Enjoy….
HARDtalk Stathis Kouvelakis
It’s great the way you expose the media, Morrissey.
Some people seem unaware of how dumbed down the media has become.
For example, today, while Grosser and his Randite minions are trading away NZ’ s sovereignty in Hawaii, our miserable media has barely a word to say in this act of treason.
As biased as the media are, the Labour “opposition” is also failing us. Can you imagine the non-stop, hour by hour furore that would have ensued if it were a LABOUR government in Hawaii negotiating away our right to Pharmac?
Instead, the Labour Party leader talks about how he doesn’t like our national anthem.
By the way, the nasty, dim BBC hackette dying so horribly in that HARDtalk interview was Zeina Badawi, not Mishal Husain.
Darn it, Morrissey. Andrew Little has spoken out against TPPA several times lately.
The piece about the national anthem was picked out by the MSM of a speech he was giving in Parliament about the flag debate and used to trivialise whatever he was saying then. You of all people should know how easily the MSM trivialise whatever Labour says to keep attention away from the important stuff they say!
Go Jenny
Thanks for that Jenny. We shouldn’t chop Labour down to miniscule over MSM misrepresentation. It’s good to be put right otherwise we don’t hear the truth only the manufactured litany of lies from the ba….s.
I noticed Toby Manhire and Sean Plunket yesterday getting affronted on Key’s behalf because Groser got testy with Key. The Notionals seem to have made ‘friends’ with many jonolists who are willing to write about Gullible’s Travels!
Peons of praise?
edited
Fair comment, Jenny. I have no doubt that Gower and his friends have utterly distorted what he said—and I was foolish enough to amplify it here. I am, however, not convinced that Labour has a coherent policy on this vital issue. If National was in Opposition, and it was a Labour government pushing this profoundly anti-democratic measure, all the media would be saturated with the message that Labour was selling out our public health system.
I’m also still trying to come to terms with the way Little and his colleagues meekly supported the Government’s snooping legislation a few months ago.
By the way, may I say what a privilege it is to be handed a whupping from someone with such a distinguished Labour name.
absolutely NO relation to the distinguished Labour name, Morrissey – sheer coincidence – thanks all the same.
Try reading Scoop NZ News, Paul. There’s a very long piece by Gordon Campbell about TPP.
@Morrissey
That is not Mishal Husain doing the interview. She is (from memory) Cambridge educated and very smart. Works on Radio 4 Today programme now.
Once was the standard bearer for intellectual rigour and objectivity and under fresh threat from DC and his backers like Wuppert etc
Paid actor, presenter gets arse handed ….
MP’s are paid actors too and in NZ we have Z list actors
That includes the NZLP
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks TPP Expert Analysis on SOE Ministerial Guidance
https://wikileaks.org/tpp-soe-minister/analysis/page-1.html
Pages 9 and 10 list the questions that need to be answered.
“Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Treaty: State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Issues for Ministerial Guidance”
https://wikileaks.org/tpp-soe-minister/
WikiLeaks on Twitter: “ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak …
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/626457709471211521
41 secs ago – WikiLeaksVerified account … ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak within the hour. …. @wikileaks @Ladydus Greatest robbery/corruption of all times by …
“Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Treaty: State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Issues for Ministerial Guidance”
https://wikileaks.org/tpp-soe-minister/
WikiLeaks on Twitter: “ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak …
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/626457709471211521
41 secs ago – WikiLeaksVerified account … ANNOUNCE: A new secret #TPP leak within the hour. …. @wikileaks @Ladydus Greatest robbery/corruption of all times by …
from Australia
“TPP negotiations threaten to forcibly commercialise state-owned bodies
PHILIP DORLING
The ABC, SBS and Australia Post could lose special regulatory treatment under trade measures being pushed for by the US.
Leaked details of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations, published today by WikiLeaks, reveal that the futures of publicly owned enterprises such as Australia Post, the ABC, SBS and state power utilities may be on the negotiating table in secret talks under way in Hawaii this week.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2015/07/30/tpp-negotiations-threaten-forcibly-commercialise-state-owned-bodies
Thank you minister tolley
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/70647353/Children-not-lab-rats-Anne-Tolley-intervenes-in-child-abuse-experiment
Seriously wtf??? – check whether the predictions came true??? What is wrong with our society???
Wow…just wow
These kinds of controlled experiments raise ethical issues all the time. For instance trials of new experimental drugs – there is always a control group who don’t get the potentially life-saving treatment.
Or you could argue that now this study has been squashed – that NO children will potentially benefit from it now. Sort of like tossing all the lab rats in the bin.
I think this is different – not intervening in high risk cases to check the model is completely unacceptable, morally and in every other way.
The example used above of experimental drugs is not equivalent imo and therefore not a good counter example.
Sighs – the equivalence is actually pretty good.
All we have is a possible model of which children may or may not be at risk. This is the direct equivalent of a medical diagnostic tool – but until it is tested we have no evidence of whether it is going to work well enough or not.
If the researchers simply developed an untested social diagnostic tool to predict which children were at risk – and then applied it as an en-mass intervention on the whole population what do you imagine might happen?
For a start – how would you deal with all the false positive cases?
“If the researchers simply developed an untested social diagnostic tool to predict which children were at risk – and then applied it as an en-mass intervention on the whole population what do you imagine might happen?”
Isn’t this precisely the reason that new interventions usually are trialed on small control groups under informed consent before introducing them to the general public or larger group concerned?
But almost all interventions have negative as well as positive effects, so applying them to people who don’t need them leaves the negative for no actual positive – i.e. they can actually do harm.
I’m in favour of seeing if it works before leaping to conclusions about every kid in the country.
Which is pretty much what was planned. The target study group was going to be one cohort of 60,000 children born in one year, and thereby large enough to give a statistically confident result.
And therefore we can never do any studies, of any kind, with children because we cannot ever get ‘informed consent’ from them? That’s another kind of nonsense.
This was only ever a passive ‘observational study’. Whether it proceeded or not – the lives of the participants would be exactly the same. So precisely what are you asking ‘informed consent’ for?
Besides there is the practical question of the study needing to be of a significant minimum size in order to obtain a results with acceptable statistical confidence.
My understanding is that they didn’t want to intervene in high risk cases so they could ascertain whether their predictions were correct.
They didn’t want to intervene in cases identified as “high risk” by the untested predictive model.
That doesn’t preclude normal intervention when/if current systems come to the same conclusion – indeed, that would be one of the measurements involved in the assessment of the accuracy of the new model.
My understanding is that medical and drug trials should always be done with informed consent. Was this the case with the MSD proposal?
Yep, whoever dreamed that scheme up in the public service needs to be shown the door – it is way off the planet
Its like replacing the crash-test dummies in simulated vehicle crashes with real people.
absolutely unbelievable.
Unless you can show that these researchers had access to an equivalent ‘crash test dummy’ model that would give equivalent results in this space – I don’t think that comparison works vto.
Eh? Too technical redlogix…
These ‘researchers’ were prepared to let people seriously damage their lives in order to observe that damage…. that is fucked in the head and smells of the third re1ch…
I can understand if the effect on natural people is minor and negligible, and repairs itself like a scratch with a band-aid, but not this shit. Its over the top by a country mile.
+1. Not least because there are any number of measures that can be implemented to improve people’s lives without having to inflict that sort of harm upon anybody.
The study has been shut down and the harm will continue regardless. You seem to have cause and effect arse about face here.
RL the study design could have been done differently to address the ethical concerns raised. For instance, a higher level of monitoring of the “high risk” group, with protocols for intervention in any instances where children were detected to be actually mistreated (whatever group they were from).
Remember that one of the issues with the “Unfortunate Experiment” were healthcare professionals who were aware that certain research subjects were at higher risk of developing cancer – but then doing nothing about it.
Again the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ example is not so clear cut as you would like to think.
The original experiment design made reasonable sense in the light of the knowledge of the day. There were many aspects of this cancer not at all well understood at the time.
Like much medical research it made an easy target with the benefit of hindsight – and definitely Green should have been more pro-active about managing the arising cases of cervical cancer that did arise. But the issues were nowhere near as black and white as the popular outrage of the day.
Not according to Cartwright. Your interpretation is itself revisionist and made with the benefit of many years hindsight. Greens “experiment” was very definitely ethically questionable at the very least and bears remarkable similarities to MSD’s proposed study. Some people are slow learners.
And everyone also ignored the fact that Herb Green designed his study in the mid-60’s – and it was considered acceptable in the light of the thinking of the day. It’s completely and utterly wrong to condemn a man for actions taken in ignorance of knowledge yet to be discovered.
There was by the 1980s an extensive international literature questioning whether early intervention was necessary or was over-treatment, causing more harm than good.
Medicine faces a especial challenge in that the public find it very difficult to separate out the role of a researchers who have a role of studying illness – and that of clinicians whose role is to treat it. And back in the 60’s that distinction was virtually non-existent; it was absolutely common-place for clinicians like Green to also be researchers.
But that is not the case with this proposed social study at all.
It’s been a while since I read the book, but from what I remember this is not true.
It was against current thinking at the time. The ethical and management teams of National Women’s were not robust enough to challenge Green, and efforts by McIndoe to ensure care was given, and standards were upheld were constantly overridden.
As a female child born in that hospital at the time, I may have been one of those female newborns that were given a smear test – without knowledge of my mother – and without any particular research benefit. The practice continued for two years after Green decided the results coming from newborns were not supporting his theory.
The continual recall of women identified for “non-treatment” and observation was appalling. And they would have been under the mistaken idea that they were receiving timely and appropriate treatment.
I fail to see how you given Green such credit.
Most of the problems arose because by force of circumstance Green was forced into the role of both researcher and clinician. These days the roles are usually quite separate which makes these kinds of ethical issues much easier to manage.
Actually Green’s thinking turned out to be correct – that early hysterectomies and large cone biopsies which often prevented women from conceiving again were usually unnecessary; a conclusion that current practise endorses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Green
Worth a read. I accept that by current modern standards there are things he should have done better, but ultimately there is a lot more to the story than the narrow conclusions Cartwright came to. Incidentally I was delivered by Herb Green. I was a very late term baby and he saved my life. So maybe I’m biased.
And as it happened my family knew MacIndoe as well. They were all good people just doing the best they could with the understandings they possessed at the time.
Ahhh thanks for the context RL.
Well, it seems that the entire predictive modelling has now been canned which, of course, means that those children who are at high risk of being abused will now most likely be abused and CYF won’t actually know about them.
Thanks idiots.
Gawd i wish the left was a bit more far-sighted.
What do you think a future Tory government might do with a tool that is proven to demonstrate that certain parents or classes of parents are more likely to be child abusers? Or if such a database listing those parents and families was leaked?
So far everyone is calling foul because we might have a predictive tool to prevent abuse – and this proposed study was not going to intervene.
Now you are calling foul because it might be used to intervene.
Damned if we do and damned if we don’t eh?
Exactly RL
The area is fraught with fishhooks which is why careful hands are needed and careful policy too.
well the tool is inevitably going to end up scientifically justifying the singling out of specific types of households and classes of people who have done no wrong (yet).
Under a responsible and enlightened regime, that might be tolerable, even useful.
I think this comment neatly highlights an important distinction between a predictive tool based on correlational datasets and a causal understanding (or scientific theory) of a phenomenon – i.e., exploration of a ‘real’ scientific theory as opposed to statistical modelling based upon empirical regularity.
Correlational ‘predictions’ are not based on causal understanding (i.e., causal scientific theories) but on statistical regularities (which are often developed into so-called ‘models’).
Importantly, in construction of such tools the statistics to which the tool’s builders will inevitably turn are the ones already being collected (and which were typically developed to serve other purposes).
And that’s where the danger of using a statistical predictive tool exists, in policy terms.
If the causal processes involved in generating abuse are not being used to guide policy then interventions are triggered based on statistical probabilities embedded in the ‘tool’.
Here’s a revealing example. Being a young Maori male (as opposed to being a non-Maori young male) is correlated with criminal offending (it helps explain some of the variance of criminal offending in the general population).
A predictive tool to identify those ‘at risk’ of criminal offending could be developed based on that statistic (which is already collected and available in many datasets).
In fact, that ‘tool’ has already been invented and is, of course, often called racial profiling.
The difference can be put in stark terms: being a young Maori male does not cause criminal offending but it does (statistically at the population level) predict it.
For those interested, this is all part of the esoteric debate between those known as ’empiricists’ and those known as ‘scientific realists’.
Interestingly, much standard economic modelling seems to be of this empiricist kind and tends to eschew realist scientific theorising (i.e., production of theories that postulate hidden, generative causal mechanisms – e.g., such as William Harvey’s theory of the circulation of blood through veins and arteries).
An unfortunate consequence of that – given the leverage economists often have in the policy space – is that the public, and presumably many politicians, often interpret these economic ‘theories’ – i.e., statistical and mathematical models – as causal scientific theories.
But they aren’t. (Folk theories – appealing to ‘common sense’ – are sometimes used to provide the de facto causal explanation in support of the predictions of the modelling.)
That misunderstanding I think helps create all kinds of dangerous ‘unintended consequences’ in the social policy space – e.g., beneficiary bashing, retributive impulses towards those who commit crimes, anti-Maori racism, etc..
Fortunately there are growing areas such as behavioural economics, evolutionary economics and neuroeconomics that are trying to introduce ‘proper’ scientific theorising into economics.
For too long, economics, it seems, has relied upon Smith’s postulates about human nature as the only realist bit of theorising in the discipline.
Much science has been done on the general topic of ‘human nature’ since Smith’s time.
Until recently, that science seems to have passed economics by.
I agree entirely Puddleglum.
In fact IMO it’s one of the reasons that economics so far has been more religion than its acolytes’ pseudoscientific pretensions would have is believe.
If you went to the doctor with an ache and the doctor made a diagnosis solely on how your stats matched epidemiological data, your doctor should be done for malpractise.
It doesn’t work in medicine, it doesn’t work in economics, and it won’t work in social work.
Indeed. To use the crash test dummy analogy:
It’s like putting real people in a test car and sending it into a crash wall at 130kph, knowing full well the impact will kill them (ignoring earlier research), and purposely neglecting to first reduce the speed to a level that will not kill, but just give them a headache.
But why you’d do it that way – even try to give them a headache – just exposes 1) total lack of ethics in aims (and lack of education or skill in research techniques) , 2) psychopathy 3) really really poor science 4) being told to do it that way by your employers/funders/Minister.
Tolley must go, so must the so-called officals. They were her people. In fact, the whole fucking lot have to go, which makes the argument kind of pointless. Get rid of these psychos – problem solved.
Again cause and effect being horribly muddled.
It’s not the researchers putting these kids at risk. They are ALREADY strapped into the seat of life – and some of them are ALREADY hurtling towards the crash wall.
We are just not sure which ones.
But how is NOT observing these children going to make anything better either?
It’s not as is the researchers were proposing to actively intervene in their lives in order to set them up for abuse and crime. It really amounts to exactly the same thing as any other major longitudinal study – but with some predictions thrown in to test some ideas.
Social science is full of these issues because you really have no alternative but to conduct your research on real people – and the more serious the problem being studied – the more difficult these ethical issues become. That is why these supervisory committees exist.
But in each case you have to also include the impact of NOT doing the study as well.
Some screwed up negative backwards type statement/questions in there methinks RL, in particular first and last sentences.
Then there is this
“It’s not as is the researchers were proposing to actively intervene in their lives in order to set them up for abuse and crime.” ……….. Yes they were, from what I can see. They were going to actively intervene by way of active non-intervention
Sounds like you are familiar with these things, but I would suggest that if this sphere of study has got to this point then it has gone way too far down the rabbit hole and needs hauling out by the bunny tail for a severe telling-off
Yes they were, from what I can see. They were going to actively intervene by way of active non-intervention
And NOT doing this kind of study is a massive non-intervention as well. You just cannot have it both ways. This is exactly the same as many other hugely valuable research projects such as:
http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/
It’s been running over 40 years – and almost certainly it has included individuals who’ve been victims of harm, abuse and crime. Want to shut that one down as well?
Quite a different thing as there was no attempt at predicting outcomes before the study started and then standing back to see if it actually occurred. Taking a slice of the general population and following their lives (including presumably State interventions) is not the same. Can I draw your attention again to the Cartwright enquiry into the “unfortunate experiment ” which is a much closer analogue to this proposed study by MSD.
Now you are doing the pin dance.
From the perspective of the participants the effect of the study, whether it is passively observational only like the famous Dunedin study – or this new one where the researchers were also attempting to use the data to validate a proposed predictive model – is exactly the same.
The ethics of such studies is based only partly on the effect on the subjects. It is also based on the state of knowledge of the researchers. Do they know or suspect that an UNINFORMED control group are at risk without intervention yet CHOOSE not to warn or inform or intervene.
Again, this is why the MSD proposal bears striking similarities to Green’s study.
Do they know or suspect that an UNINFORMED control group are at risk without intervention yet CHOOSE not to warn or inform or intervene.
They have a proposed diagnostic model, but until they have tested it against real life they cannot use it in the manner you suggest.
It may for instance throw up a rate of false positives or negatives which render it impractical to use.
“They have a proposed diagnostic model, but until they have tested it against real life they cannot use it in the manner you suggest.
It may for instance throw up a rate of false positives or negatives which render it impractical to use.”
Which is precisely the rationale used by Green to justify his study and which the Cartwright Inquiry found to be ethically unacceptable.
But Cartwright had the benefit of hindsight – by 1987 it was known that early medical intervention was indeed the right thing to do. But when Green started the study in the 1960’s no-one knew that for certain.
Again I ask the question – what if it had not been the case? What if Green (and others) had not done the research and it turned out that early intervention had killed many women instead?
What Green did miss out was the ‘informed consent’ part. But again this was a consideration made in hindsight – in the 1960’s this was not thought of as so important. Indeed given the role of the placebo effect it was considered a simple way to ‘blind’ the study.
I think that’s misleading Red. I don’t know about 1960, but in later decades what Green was doing was unethical by contemporary practice at the time. It wasn’t the benefit of hindsight, it was the women at the time (patients, staff, feminist activists), who called the medical staff and the hospital on the practice and a stop was put to it.
That in the 1980s it was still very hard work to break the doctor is god ethos simply reflects that the culture was unethical too. But it’s not like the ethics hadn’t been discussed before that time. People didn’t suddenly have an ephiphany in 1987 about what was right and proper, people knew for a very long time, that’s the whole point, and that’s why we’ve had subsequent processes in NZ like the development of the Health and Disability Act.
http://www.medicolegal.co.nz/Journal/Bryder.pdf
I think you’re missing the point..
“It’s been running over 40 years – and almost certainly it has included individuals who’ve been victims of harm, abuse and crime. Want to shut that one down as well?”
If a researcher on this one see one of the subjects about to harm themselves and the researcher does nothing about it then absolutely yes it needs to be amended.
I think you can’t see the wood for the trees RL
That isn’t how these studies work.
The researchers are not hovering 24/7 over the shoulders of anyone. If something bad happens to one of the people participating the researcher usually only finds out about it well after the event.
They simply are not in the business of intervening – that’s the role of other institutions like the Police.
Yes and that is why I used the word ‘if’.
The point is that they are using existing diagnostic tools to predict in advance that a certain very vulnerable group is at risk and then proposing to take a “watch from afar” role in order to see whether the predicted harm comes to pass.
This is what makes this case so similar to Green’s experiment at National womens. He actually suspected that intervention was the way to go, but didn’t intervene and watched the cancer develop in order to develop data to support his case for intervention. (From Memory).
So Green’s alternative was to never do the research and hope that early intervention was the correct model. As it happened it was.
But what if it had not been?
Green had plenty of ethical alternatives. For instance, he could have told affected women that their case had reached an early cancer stage and would they like to exit the study and get treatment.
By doing so he could have avoided accusations that he was playing God with other peoples lives.
CV
I’m glad to see you put it so clearly. There was an alternative, which would have allowed his study to run with useful findings and you have explained it.
The medical profession is strong on trust being important which comes up often when a desire for ethanasia to be legal comes up. But they will countenance some dodgy practices from within their own.
Green’s experiment would have caused a massive lack of trust in doctors when family concerned found that Green had allowed the cervical cancer to advance too far for healing treatment. Particularly among the people who had to arrange to go with Mum or daughter from the regions to the clinic in the city many times, at their own cost I should think, but always disruptive of family life and trusting him to care for her and advise the true situation, and ask for permission to delay treatment and explain outcome which was not done properly.
Details:
http://www.cartwrightinquiry.com/
did any of these children volunteer to be part of the study group?
that is your difference to your group trying experimental medicine. The guys that are dying of cancer might volunteer for a new drug to be tested for a. a cure that will heal them, or b. a cure that may heal those that get ill long after the study subjects have died.
However, the babies/newborn/little children in this ‘study group’ would most likely not have volunteered or consented to this study. And as far as i am concerned if we know that a child is in danger of abuse we have a duty to call CYF or the police.
So again….?
No-one volunteers for abuse or illness either.
And as far as i am concerned if we know that a child is in danger of abuse we have a duty to call CYF or the police.
And at no point would have this study stopped these normal processes. No-one was proposing that the researchers just let it keep on happening for the jollies of it.
All it was attempting to do was predict the risk of abuse – and no-one can act to prevent this before it happens.
The briefing note the Minister got clearly said that follow up would be at 2 years, to see if predicted negative outcomes had in fact occurred.
But this is different to not letting CYF intervene if abuse is detected through the normal methods, e.g. a teacher reports it.
Folk are acting like the study was designed to look at the kid’s factors at birth, then refuse to provide any social service or government interaction for two years, upon which time they just count how many of the kids are dead.
As it is, the lack of assessment could simply result in a number of kids being labelled “at high risk” when they’re not, wasting resources and at worst resulting in needless prosecution (false positive “high risk” kid breaks arm as simple accident, and the risk rating makes people more suspicious of abuse which changes their enforcement bias) while genuinely at risk kids are ignored.
“Folk are acting like the study was designed to look at the kid’s factors at birth, then refuse to provide any social service or government interaction for two years, upon which time they just count how many of the kids are dead.”
Can you read it another way? Graphic language aside that is a good summing up imo.
Yes.
The predictive model is untested and possibly either not sensitive enough (so it doesn’t actually help in the prevention/detection of harm) or not specific enough (so resources are rationed from those in greater need to those in little to no need), so making intervention decisions based on that model is not just unwise but could possibly do more harm than good.
So no interventions should be made based on that model until its reliability as a screening tool is known.
Interventions based on all the systems currently in use would still be made, and where the model predicted those interventions, that’s good for the model, where the model did not predict those interventions, that’s bad, and where the model predicted interventions were required when they were not, that’s also bad.
Thank you that clears it up.
well – that’s how I’d do it.
There are real concerns with using macro data to make predictions about specific individuals, though, simply because the closer you look based on assumptions the more likely you are (and the more inclined you are) to find something, so it reinforces one’s prejudices rather than being a genuine tool.
That’s essentially the problem with racial profiling by police.
I tend to follow the philosophy that macro data can make extrapolated predictions at a population level, but you need direct case data to draw conclusions about individuals. But then this predictive model comes along so if a case worker makes a judgement based on the facts of the case they might have to second-guess the model. But if they do that, it’s on their head if they’re wrong, but if they just say “computer says abuse” their arse is covered.
I guess my issue is with the concept of the model itself and what it will be used for, rather than the testing proposal.
Yes the racial profiling is an issue and they can’t seem to help themselves in doing it.
“An unfortunate experiment”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartwright_Inquiry
Except there needs to be some check that Tolley’s “interventions” don’t do more harm than they prevent. Given how intrusive this kind of monitoring of people who have committed no crime is, and the profiling involved, some checks do need to be done.
From what I understand, these families are going to be treated as criminals rather than given extra support and resources. It would be better to provide families with what they need, but this is not the ‘treatment’ that these families in the control group are missing out on, nor is it the default for vulnerable families or people in need generally.
If Anne Tolley stops anything on the basis of it being wrong I wonder what’s the real reason.
I thought the predictive model was to identify the most at risk of family violence or distress, and ensure that the family concerned had assistance through the difficult years. Presumably that could involve learning better parenting methods, and coping strategies.
But needed is understanding that concomitantly a lot of the problem arises from chronic poverty and people’s necessary accommodation to the way of life that brings. The money worries, regular shortages or absence of comfort and meeting of needs with no hope for better conditions would remain as the elephant in the room. That would not have been helped by this callous, irresponsible government system at presently operating.
Watching to see if the predictive model was effective did not have to mean, not doing anything. The government welfare arm is not a nature photographer or researcher recording nature unrestrained. Just watching and stepping in when needed, supporting and helping to a certain extent, then stepping out and monitoring the effectiveness of that help, would have been enough to provide results for assessment without the strict extreme required for academically rigorous proof.
That would have shown an honest willingness on the part of government and Tolley but from her past history, it has been observed that she is not a person who wishes well to the strugglers of our country.
We have an aristocratic mutation grown in our society, which is more the meritocratic model. And these self-satisfied higher educated highly paid people regard themselves on the one hand as exceptional and deserving of high rewards, and on the other hand as models that anyone who wanted to achieve the same lifestyle, could follow if they tried and worked harder. Contradictory thinking.
Now we have the code of deserving and undeserving that goes right back to the cold charity, unwillingly ladelled out with many strictures, of the 19th century. How we have advanced! Not.
+1
Bloody well said.
“What is wrong with our society???”
The thing that bothers me is that this is now so deeply embedded in the civil service culture.
This one stood out:
“It attempts to predict abuse, welfare dependency and the likelihood of a child’s downward spiral into crime on the path to adulthood so it can better target spending.”
Why are they measuring is spending targeting rather than assitance targeting? They’re not the same thing, but I think it’s clear that it’s all about the money now.
Yep – all about the money. – better target spending ffs
It will be interesting to see this model with the indicators on it – I wonder what it says…
Do you have or have you had a parent or relative in Jail for any period of time?
Are you a person of colour or do you have a ‘Māori’ sounding name?
Do you know anyone that HASN’T been abused?…
What school did you go to?
How much money have you got?
Well if we want to target spending, ministerial expenses are out today.
Now maybe should we start profiling MP’s to see which ones will spend more time in the mini bar than others adding to the public health bill , which ones won’t find receipts or want to stay at only the best hotel which ones are going to have their kids brought up by the state after a broken marriage, add in a drug test or two so they don’t get paid until they are clean.
That way we could pick the one’s that don’t cost as much.
the thought that occurs is that, while I disagree with her decision, credit to Tolley for actually doing her job and making a decision based on an interpretation of what she actually read.
CF. the serco debacle where the information was handed on a plate and ignored until it hit the media.
FYI.
30 July 2015
Will PM John Key personally profit from the TPPA?
Where’s my OIA reply Trade Minister Tim Groser?
Dear Minister Tim Groser,
I STILL do not have a reply to this now overdue and VERY urgent OIA request.
[Penny, you have been asked not use cut and pastes. Just give a brief summary and a link. Last chance. TRP]
See original OIA here: http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-28072015/#comment-1050873
We will all profit from the TPPA, Penny.
how?
it easy vto, just close your eyes, clear your mind, say it slower:
WE WILL ALL PROFIT FROM THE TPPA.
Silence thought. Thought is all in your mind.
The National Party have good intentions.
Anyone can see that. Anyone at all.
WE WILL ALL PROFIT.
The fool is referring to the 0.1% . All of the 0.1% will profit.
No we won’t. The majority of people will be worse off.
Major corporates and their shareholders will definitely benefit from the TPPA. That’s why they are the ones pushing hardest for it. And keeping it secret.
They’re keeping it secret because negotiating in public tends to make negotiation difficult. That is why they have all been done this way since the beginning of time. By everyone.
Last year, we made a billion and a half dollars from the China FTA. Tax on a billion and a half dollars is about $400m. We spent that on shit you guys like getting for free.
Oh really TGF? So how come the teams of all of the top corporations in the US have seen/influenced the documents?
1. Prove it
2. Show where the money went
3. Show how much China has extracted from and or will extract going forward. Oh and illustrate environmental damage and other societal mess left behind by the FTA
Quite comfortably you are one of a most puerile posters here which is saying something
Coming across as a fuck-wit comes exceedingly easily to you
Coming across as a fuck-wit comes exceedingly easily to you
Thanks, man. Coming from you, that means a lot.
” We spent that on shit you guys like getting for free.”
Really !!
And what shit was that then ?
Gormless doesn’t like education, healthcare, ACC or border controls, apparently.
Health. Education. Welfare.
What would you cut $400m off half crown?
Gormless wrote @12.31 pm 30.7.15
“What would you cut $400m off half crown?”
Try these for starters
Welfare for
Rio Tinto,
Warner Bros. I noticed Jackson is still on the rich list. Hasn’t he done well assisted by the tax payer
Sky City
Any sporting body who’s participants want to play at life i.e. America’s Cup. and once again hasn’t Couttss done well via the tax payer.
Pay down the massive debt (now at over a billion) created by that double dipping dickhead from Dipton giving tax breaks to the higher income earners who do not pay the same % of their income through tax avoidance.
Private schools, If these prats want to send their offspring to an elitist school to learn how to rule, don’t expect tax payers to subsidise it
Charter Schools, a dismal failure but still being bailed out by the tax payer.
Stupid referendum on the flag that nobody wants
Gold plated perks for ALL Members of Parliament for life.
Let’s start having a bit less of the corporate welfare, when the money should be allocated to other areas.
Nothing is free we all contribute with our taxes the only ones getting it free are the likes of Rio Tinto.
You wrote
“We spent that on shit you guys like getting for free. “
I see you have used the royal “we”. Who the fuck are the “we”? More to the point who the fuck are you? You are not another non society Randian brain dead fuckwit are you, who thinks that you have some god given right and privilege and first go over other people.
I am all for no corporate welfare.
“I am all for no corporate welfare.”
Well that’s good news, Thanks for that.
How will Labour reduce our reliance on the dairy sector without corporate welfare, I wonder?
But when all parties to the negotiation have seen the position documents – why would you not release the position documents to the people whose position is described ? Todd couldn’t quite deliver clarity on this,
On the face of it this TPP directive looks to put even the Superfund on the skids forcing it to be run by private operators taking a bigger cut and even EQC to give way to the big insurance companies.
The new age of serfdom is just around the corner.
+1
I missed this the other day and it was thrown back into my to view box on youtube I think after watching your video today Morrissey – So thanks. It raises some great points about the workings of propaganda in The USA. Which, I think we see here. I’m thinking the NBR or the herald are probably our equivalent.
A post from David Hood over on Public Address is rather technical but also disturbing. It seems that billions of dollars are entering the housing market but it is not known from whence it comes. He calls it Magic Money.
He also looks at the flaw in the “supply side” claims.
David says “somethings up.” Indeed.
http://publicaddress.net/speaker/house-prices-and-the-magic-money/
It is a good analysis based directly on data reported to the Reserve Bank. I read it this morning.
The divergence between local mortgage funding and the funds tied up in houses over the last 15 years, especially since 2006 shows a bloody disturbing pattern of excessive speculation, and catastrophically in the last 4 years.
Unless of course some ideological numerically challenged idiots can point to funding sources in the local economy for hundreds of billions of dollars, I’m just going to assume this is from cheap overseas money piling into speculating mainly on Auckland properties.
In fact I am going to take a little informed leap and say that just at present most of the magic money appears to be coming from mainland China – because it is logical and backed by some rough but statistically valid evidence.
This isn’t a particular attack on Chinese despite what dickheads chose to believe. The problem is that there is nothing to stop people with capital that isn’t working much anywhere in the world looking for reasonably safe property investments with good returns continuing to pile it high in the Auckland market. The consequences for Auckland as a working city are dire.
I’d also point out to our numerically illiterates who were quoting David Hood’s analysis at me last week, that this magic money was what all of his previous analysis said as well. They just hadn’t read the comments carefully enough to understand what it meant.
I guess that I’ll just have to educate our local numerical idiots for a few years about the value of data and how to read it.
(if anyone hasn’t figured out that I’m annoyed by some of the blatant ideological stupidity I saw last week, can probably detect it now… )
So angry all of the time. Try a comment without using “idiot” and “dickhead”. If you put love into the universe, you get it back. It’s science, dude!
Nauru is going through a crisis with the President and leaders rejecting democracy in favour of direct, dictatorial action to suit themselves. Australia and the flow of money and the dumping of aliens in bad conditions on the island causing strain on the political system has probably tipped the balance.
In addition Nauru’s leaders looking round the world, have the example of barefaced dictatorial behaviour in Fiji by Bana….and the military there. There is Mugabe who has found a satisfactory system for him to grasp and hold onto power in Zimbabwe. There is the willingness for the USA to support countries with undemocratic political systems when it suits the USA.
The powerful democratic nations can surprisingly, act against encouraging the system of democracy in their own as well as other countries, with it virtues of valuing of individuals as well as groups. But the empty rhetoric about it continues while the undermining of it goes on.
edited
as the social, economic and environmental conditions of individual countries deteriorate, we will see the process of democracy continue to get hollowed out or abandoned.
Breaking news! Whaleoil interviews Colin Craigs “Mr X”
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2015/07/exclusive-mr-x-talks-to-whaleoil/
🙂
[lprent: Looks like Cameron interviewing his cock – you can tell from its sense of morality.
But more likely it is just Slater talking to himself. ]
alternate link :
http://www.donotlink.com/g5r4
Fair enough
Would you agree the style of presentation suggests Slater really really really does not want this to go much further ?
Apart from alluding to sexts and how he is obviously lusting after the associated scandal-mongering that would ensue, he appears to be concerned with the prospective duration and the potential for exposure from the legal proceedings.
Thats the problem with bully boys like Colin Craig isn’t it, they can afford to tie up people in the courts they threaten people with the courts
Even the most biast, one-eyed, Whaleoil hater (otherwise known as the your average Standard reader) would agree that Colon Craig is just trying to keep his name in the public eye
A damn expensive way to do it imho and its going to come back and bite him in the ass
it’ll be like watching a chess game where most of the pieces are missing and only half the board is in view at any time
I hope it does go ahead but I reckon Colon won’t go through with it which would be a shame
Nope. I doubt if he cares enough about that particular role now.
I suspect that he has decided (like so many of us) that Cameron Slater and other similar opportunistic arseholes just need to be eliminated from our political sphere. They don’t add anything. They lie routinely about facts because they care far more for the look of things than reality. They cause a lot of damage to the local political debate. They don’t add a damn thing to the debate because all they are concerned about is destruction rather than construction.
Anyone sensible just needs to go a little out of their way to screw them over in whatever way is required to get them out of the way of the rational public debate. Flush them in such a way that no-one wants to try the same tricks again. Do the same to their rather disgusting apologists.
Does this make it clear enough for you?
What it comes down to is you don’t like them therefore you support anyone that wants to take them down even if the people doing the “taking” are…dubious to say the least
Puckish, that could be restated as saying that the cause for which you may have allies is more important than who that ally is. Lprent has been very strong for a long time about Slater and his actions. Craig has just finally come to that realisation when he fell out with his fellow right wingers for whom Slater is the hack man.
I’m just saying that championing people such as Colin Craig, you know the guy thats got his former PA tied up in a non-disclosure agreement yet seems to spread as many details about as his likes and Krim Dot Con is not a good look
And I’m ‘just saying’ that people who look beyond that rather shallow interpretation of events will see that the cause which both Craig and many left -wingers espouse is the correct one.
That common cause is the rat-bag actions of a sociopathic individual who is used by others as their dirt-spreader and purveyer of pathogenic politics.
You know, Puckish, I never read of many individuals who criticised the New Zealand government for having allied with Joe Stalin in their common cause against fascism and Hitler. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.
Secondly, who’s ‘championing’ Craig? A rather loaded word, there.
Heres the thing though I don’t think Colin Craig is all that bothered by the cause so much as he can use it to stay in the limelight and convince the rest of followers that hes still a viable option for election
Desperate times call for desperate measures and this is hardly desperate except for those people who really, really dislike John Key
Its not a good look for the left to be cuddling up to drongoes simply because they don’t like certain individuals on the right
here’s a different thought:
As Colin Craig is reported as being a sternly religious person who obviously strayed off whatever path he was walking, perhaps the legal proceedings (he might be embarking upon) are a penance.
A form of redemptive service to allow him to reinstate his own conviction to his own beliefs.
I hadn’t thought of that possibility, I guess thats as good a guess as any as to his motivations
I don’t just dislike them. I think that they are dangerous and probably criminals.
I look at people and organisations as being potential dangers to our society and act against the worst of them first.
The conservatives I don’t like much because of their policies and attitudes. However they were acting well within the framework of political change systems in NZ. That means I will voice my opposition to them and their ideas, but respect their right to disagree.
Cameron Slater and the idiots at Lauda Finem, I view as acting as deliberately destructive fools who are too stupid to understand what they are really doing (read Dirty POlitics on the corrosive effects that they produce in politics). I also think that it likely that much of what they do is criminal. So I act against them as far as the laws allow, and encourage others to do so as well.
What is so hard for you to understand? This behaviour on my part must be pretty damn obvious even to posturing fools. FFS you rail against criminals here in a simplistic and rather stupid way all of the time as being a danger to society, in fact I have seen you do it today. You appear to follow the exact same logic – just because my reasons are a bit more thoughtful and less reflexive than yours shouldn’t make that much of a difference.
So your point is?
Well yes I’m guessing its not serious but it is amusing
Sicko
Kumquat
This could be of interest
I did like Ross Ashcrofts comment
“Austerity is back door privatisation”
http://everyinvestor.co.uk/2015/07/23/video-film-director-warns-on-financial-crisis/
Mainfreight just attacked the government’s lack of support for rail on RNZ saying just for Mainfreight alone if the rail system was closed this would add 21,500 truck movements.
Stick that in your pipe Bill English.
The Nats really don’t get the long-term vision thing.
they do ….and it is lining the pockets of themselves and their mates….they want to privatise KiwiRail imo…and Goldman Sachs is there to help them,
Goldman Sachs advises Treasury on sale of state assets…and on private investment opportunities…Is NZ rail being starved of taxpayer funds so it can be sold off privately and made into a private rail network.? ( the way they have done in Britain?)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4730668/Big-benefits-seen-in-State-asset-sales
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/briefings/2014-commercial/bim-14-commercial.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail
“Goldman Sachs is one of the largest infrastructure fund managers globally, having raised more than $10 billion of capital since the inception of the business in 2006.
The primary focus for GS Infrastructure Partners (GSIP) is on investment opportunities with the following parameters:
Sectors including transportation infrastructure (such as airports, ports, railways and roads) and utilities infrastructure (such as electricity, gas and water networks and conventional/ renewable contracted power generation),….
http://www.goldmansachs.com/what-we-do/investing-and-lending/direct-private-investing/equity-folder/gs-infrastructure-partners.html
Labour needs to introduce an Anti- Money Laundering BIll…banks need to be on notice!
(Penny is right on the button to keep going on about the need for anti- corruption and anti -money laundering laws… especially as applied to what is going on in Auckland…It is no solution to Auckland’s problems to spread it to the rest of New Zealand )
“The “wall of Chinese capital” hitting property markets in Sydney and Melbourne will not ease up until the government introduces its anti-money laundering legislation, says an expert in ‘flight capital’….
The $US50,000 limit on exchanging Chinese currency into $US and $A was being breached in the majority of Chinese property deals in Melbourne and Sydney, and once the AML laws were introduced, the “wall of capital” from China would dry up.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/wall-of-chinese-capital-buying-up-australian-properties-20150628-ghztdf.html#ixzz3hFO1I1gK
( the same legislation is required in New Zealand)
Is anyone else suffering from Facebook’s attentions more than usual lately? I get two or three a day from them telling me I have more friends than I know about exhorting me to embrace and tell all to the world. FT. I don’t want to share every little nook and cranny about me so they can read me like a hedgehog in a spotlight, and be at my elbow guiding me to sites where they want to sell, sell.
Others seem to love fb and tweet. Yet as time goes on sinister things pop out of all these tech things like an evil genie.
Zizek says that there is too much smoothing our way so we slide or are directed along well-oiled grooves with expected levels of satisfaction, rather than stride around our domain and find and experience new things, have serendipity meetings and surprises.
The whole thing is a myth grey, a myth…
just like the myth of getting more work done by having your emails sent to you day and night – doesn’t save time at all, just re-orders it to intrude into private time. No savings or advantages whatsoever…
In the past in an 8 hour day, communicate 1 hour, work 7.
Today in an 8 hour day, communicate 3 hours, work 5.
Amply evidenced by recent projects completed which took same amount of time, money and effort as pre-email days…. i.e. internet communicatons provided no benefit to cost or time. Fact.
Just like we were sold the idea of speed and ease of eftpos – ha ha ha ha ha
Does you good to have a larf occasionally vto. Just a quick one and don’t burst a foo foo valve.
So can any lawyers on here explain why this guy doesn’t have a preventitve detention order slapped on him instead of a jail term in case he doesn’t take part in any courses and is still considered a threat when his sentence ends
Surely judges should err on the side of keeping the community safe?
Indeed. Lets start with Cameron Slater and the idiots at lauda finem.
The site is a bit slow at present. There is some clown in AWS east coast that has a new largish attack cluster that is a bit aggravating.
I got up last night to put a preventative in. However that just limited the impact, which has continued to increase today. So page displays and comments are a lot slower today. It hasn’t been worrisome enough to divert more time to..
I’ll be blocking the fool a bit more strongly after I get home, and getting their attack base shutdown.
Ok, that attack is toast. An interesting one to counter though. Almost worth writing a timewasting honey trap for.
Sounds like more fun than shooting tame lions in Africa for sure. How do you resist sending something nasty back down the pipe to fry his stuff?