Interesting, anti-immigrant groups in the past have used a “competitor standing” doctrine to try to limit immigration on the grounds that immigrants compete with local workers and harm their prospects. Now that doctrine may get used to go after Trump.
“At first she didn’t think of the state welfare homes as incarceration. But when she started to interview people she changed her mind. The regimes they were subject to were very similar to prison regimes.
“They were horrific. Really austere. Children were left in the secure cell during the day with nothing. Nothing. A concrete plinth. They even removed the mattress so they wouldn’t be comfortable during the day. They’d be boiling in the summer, they’d be freezing in the winter. In some institutions they even had a nodding system where the guards or workers wouldn’t even speak to them. You can’t imagine what that would do to you if you’re an adult let alone if you’re 11, 12, 15, that dehumanisation.”
That dehumanisation included regular use of physical violence as punishment, including electric-shock therapy. Some victims say the shocks were applied to their genitals and other parts of their bodies. Some children were controlled with drugs that sedated or knocked them out.
Not only are victims deeply distrustful – the state is still acting in ways that call into question its trustworthiness. Currently the process for making a complaint about abuse in state institutions means going through a system set up and administered by the government department that ran the institutions where the abuse happened.”
Great work by Aaron Smale supporting this morning’s RNZ’s piece about the reports about abuse in State care.
Interview with Judge Henwood, and currently Kim Hill has Anne Tolley on the griddle. I hope the audio will be available later.
Anne Tolley’s current defense is along the lines that only 3.odd percent of the 100,000 who went through State care during this period have made complaints.
I do not disagree, but unfortunately I heard Kim Hill calling for an independent inquiry quite a few times, rather than an independent agency to consider complaints – all some will hear is Tolley being hectored, and not understand the point that was being made. Any excuse for wilful misunderstanding will be taken in defense of the indefensible . . .
Agree with that, I heard that interview.
They will now be definitely earmarked for further funding cuts or sold off.
You must also remember Tolley was the minister who destroyed an NZ institution called Evening Classes.
As Paul said an appalling person.
Agree 1000% …. Tolley was toast, Kim for once you were wonderful, I am not one of your fans but this was great stuff putting an incompetent minister through the hoops.
@tc
Leave Ryan alone – she gets a lot of good stuff out into public asks good question people like yourself have too sharp teeth. Having a skeleton staff devoted to getting the news out there is better than having the bones bitten and cracked and some plastic thing built with a computer.
Meantime back on planet NZ where life still goes on our despicable Government is caught out by whistle-blowing from Housing NZ and no-one appears to have even noticed, likely because they’re too obsessed with Donald Trump.
The opposition parties have been handed the opportunity of a lifetime and I’ll bet few if any even know it.
But they have to make an allowance in their asset valuations for an impairment for a small proportion of their stock that they are selling to account for being a social housing agency.
WTF
So they are valuing their assets, and the return on those assets as if they were a normal commercial landlord. They say themselves that their assets are overvalued by 50 – 60%
Jeez, if a private sector business tried that on it’d get messy fast.
Yup. And a whole lot can be read and concluded from that.
One logical conclusion is they’ve established a formula for pricing the state houses they intend to sell to social housing providers. They’ve just announced the intended sale of 2400 state houses in ChCh and using their own formula they’d be intending to sell $1 billion worth of property for $380 million.
Selling significant publicly owned assets for only 38% of their value is not condusive to staying a government. Even National voters wouldn’t wear that, we all know what property is worth.
Really? That sounds exactly like the proposed Labour Party policy of building houses and selling them to people with low incomes at a discount.
The fact that the Party website says
“KiwiBuild homes will only be sold to first home buyers. To avoid buyers reaping windfall gains a condition of sale will require them to hand back any capital gain if sold on within 5 years”
clearly implies they expect to sell them at below market value.
I wonder how you qualify to buy one? Will production of a Union Card or proof of Labour Party membership be required?
Ah, no alwyn. Meaning your hearing is impaired. The information you posted doesn’t sound anything like what you thought you heard. No mention is made there of discounting the houses, indeed they’re doing the opposite in taking any capital gain that might accrue.
Now either your reading comprehension is so poor there’s no point in me conversing with you for fear of having my words misread, or you’re merely trying to derail & divert in which case there’s no point in me conversing with you there either.
Good that HNZC recognise that covenants are required to protect the social housing use once sold to the private provider. But that should have been explicit in the valuation, and expected return on that valuation, from the very beginning.
When the beginning was will have considerable political import, and along the way someone may have miss-understood, or been devious / deceived around the basis of valuation.
Time to sit well back and see where this cow pat lands.
It’s not that they were “Selling significant publicly owned assets for only 38% of their value”, the assets were overvalued by 163%
They’re not overvalued Graeme, HNZ are required to declare their housing stock at “Fair Value” according to IFRS rules and have done so for quite some time.
The social housing providers are non-profit organisations so there is no commercial valuation here. This is really about funding IMO. This tells me the charities that the Govt wants to sell to have no spare money. They look to be needing to borrow the dosh to buy the houses and HNZs income statement reveals the nett rental return from the properties won’t even come close to paying the interest on substantial levels of borrowed funds.
They can’t fund the deal on borrowed money at market rates, the rental income won’t pay the interest, so I’d expect the only way the deal can proceed is if English gives them a humungous discount or fronts them a low/no interest loan.
And they would have been valued under the same rules once the covenant / encumbrance had been applied to the property title. But nothing has changed about the property or it’s use, just the expected owner.
I see it more as explaining how inappropriate the “dividends” HNZC paid to the shareholding minister were. Both from the moral repugnance of it all and the usurious way that these dividends appear to have been calculated. No wonder the govt got out of there as quickly as they did.
Oh come now Graeme, do you seriously believe that a 25 year encumbrance really lowers the value of a house?
Commercial properties are often leased out on encumbrances like 7×7 terms, do you see any of those having their price lowered because they have to be leased for the next 14 years?
Get real mate, the encumbrance values are bullshit. All housing NZ properties are rented out at market rates and you’re trying to justify them being sold at a 60% discount to market price?
Well one of them is bullshit, as I said at the start nothing has actually changed, just a different way of looking at it.
The original valuations would have reflected the commercial value of the properties that could be rented and sold on the open market. The second reflected properties that could be rented as social housing, but not on-sold for capital gain.
The govt has got themselves in a bit of a hole there, as it would be politically difficult if the properties were on-sold for a profit, hence the encumbrance.
Whether HNZ’s properties were, or could be rented or sold on a commercial basis on the open market is a very debatable concept due to it’s social housing responsibilities and function. It does increase the possible / requires dividend if the assets are viewed as fully commercial however. I tend to the view that it’s actually the first valuations that are questionable.
“Well one of them is bullshit, as I said at the start nothing has actually changed, just a different way of looking at it.”
Huh? A very fundamental change has occurred, $240 million worth of a publicly owned asset has been written off for no good reason or reward.
“The original valuations would have reflected the commercial value of the properties that could be rented and sold on the open market. The second reflected properties that could be rented as social housing, but not on-sold for capital gain. ”
One would need to have come down in the last rain shower to fall for that line Graeme. These new valuations occurred in the context of the Govt being in lengthy negotiations with a potential buyer. It would be a complete fool who gives away their bottom line price to the other party wouldn’t it, clearly the ‘valuations’ were retrospective.
Of course they can be on-sold for capital gain. They can be held for 25yrs, amassing very considerable gains, and on-sold to anyone or on-sold earlier to another social housing provider. It’s little different to the situation of operators like Rymans and they don’t get to buy their retirement complexes at 38cents in the dollar do they.
“I tend to the view that it’s actually the first valuations that are questionable.”
You’d be questioning IFRS there and it’s not really relevant to the topic.
Tolley the terrible.
She is under orders to minimise the financial damage.
Having an independent agency and enquiry will show its more like 70% of children who were state wards were violently sexually psychologically abused.
Tolley’s dispicable obfuscation including she was just a child(still).
I know many many state wards most seriously damaged unable to function as adults.
Nasty Nasty piece of Work .
Shame on you Tolley.
The interview with Minister Anne Tolley on RNZ is going to go down in infamy as one of the worst and most heartless pieces of work in modern New Zealand politics.
Has anyone heard anything like it in the last three decades?
Also a particularly stupid juxtaposition:
On the one hand, Minister of Education Hekia Parata shuts down a Special Needs school in Dunedin for allegations about two teachers where the Police don’t see a case to answer, and so far there’s no evidence to be seen anywhere. So far.
Quite a strong reaction from the state to protect people under its direct control and care.
And on the same day, the Minister of Social Welfare cannot open her mouth and utter the word “I am sorry” for decades of solidly proven abuse on behalf of the state while protecting people under its direct control and care.
And also reported one parent who saw nothing untoward at that Dn school.
Me thinks some stirrers with bees in their bonnet at work. Perhaps that parent has brought up their child correctly?
“Perhaps that parent has brought up their child correctly?”
You might want to back up the judgmental truck there a tad jcuknz.
The whole issue of managing meltdowns and difficult behaviours is nuanced…requires a little more knowledge and experience that perhaps some commenters lack.
Upon establishing his provisional government in 1959, Castro organised trials of members of the previous government that resulted in hundreds of summary executions. In response to an international outcry and amid accusations that many of the trials were unfair, Castro responded:
“Revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction… we are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it.”
Was that when the mafia ran Cuba into communism.
After years of exploitation by the Mafia anything was better as far as the peasants were concerns.
American foreign policy could have solved the problem but alas just like in Syria the Russians gave Fidel Castro a better deal.
The Americans have propped up nasty dictators all through Central America for over a century.
Oh, he was a particularly unpleasant person but unless of course Quin counted the estimated Balseros death toll, 79,000 extrajudicial killings, really.
February 19, 2008 Update on Findings
This work documents loss of life and disappearances of a political or military nature attributed to the Cuban Revolution. Each documented case is available for review at http://www.CubaArchive.org and substantiated by bibliographic/historic data and reports from direct sources. Due to the ongoing nature of the work and the difficulty of obtaining and verifying data from Cuba, the following totals change as research progresses and are considered far from exhaustive. Cuba Archive is currently examining additional cases –most are expected to be added to this table. Experience has shown that as additional outreach efforts are undertaken, many more cases are likely to be uncovered’.
It does bring to mind the question of the accuracy of “everything else” if estimates vary that wildly.
Frankly, seven thousand just after the revolution seems a bit low to me – they captured 1200 in the Bay of Pigs, I would have thought many of those would have been put on trial and received severe sentences.
Even so, Cuba’s better off than if Batista had remained.
Ummm… you seem to be making a massive leap there. Not surprising for supporters of brutal leftists dictators like Castro. The idea that if you are not with them you must support who they disposed is one of the reasons human rights went out the window when Castro took power.
Local councils with democratic control who send remits and consensus upwards to their Government.
Cubans have more democratic control over things that affect them than we do.
Meanwhile, in the USA, everyone is terrified of what Trump may do with his dictatorial powers.
Castro saved Cuba from being one of the many examplars of US controlled South American capitalism.
Haiti, Nicaragua, Chile, Mexico. All poverty and crime ridden failed States.
Funny we never hear about all the people trying to leave them. Except for Trump and Obama trying to send them back.
If you are going on about human rights. There are some really serious and continued abuses in Cuba. In the US controlled Guantanamo Bay.
Not to mention, on our own doorstep. In Indonesia and Australia/Nauru
You really think the average Cuban has more control over their life than we do? Pray tell how the average Cuban can afford to go to a holiday resort in their own country without access to hard currency and why should they be denied that right?
Was that when the mafia ran Cuba into communism.
After years of exploitation by the Mafia anything was better as far as the peasants were concerns.
American foreign policy could have solved the problem but alas just like in Syria the Russians gave Fidel Castro a better deal.
The Americans have propped up nasty dictators all through Central America for over a century!
Castro was always a communist dictator (either in waiting OR in power). There was no way he was going to be some sort of Carribean Social Democrat. The Soviet Union didn’t force him to outlaw private enterprise or send Cubans offshore to ferment Communist revolution in other nations.
So that makes it okay in your book does it? Somehow all Castro’s human rights abuses are fine because the person he replaced was worse. I suppose that would explain why many leftists in the West supported East Germany. At least they weren’t the Nazi’s
No it doesn’t make it right but it does show that he actually made life better in Cuba from what was before.
Unlike our present NZ government which is actively making life worse for the poor so a few rich people can get richer. And, yes, there’s probably deaths involved as well from those policies.
The average poor person in NZ has a life that the average Cuban could only dream of. That is the tragedy of Cuba. With better economic management the country could have been a success story. Instead it is an economic basket case.
Trade is bad, ask Draco and the Nz loony left, any decent planned economy does not need it, so sorry no out there Also hard to trade with some one that wants to nuke you
Stop with the nonsense of the embargo. There is not one documented case of Cuba not being able to trade with a nation outside the US as a result of the embargo. Heck the country traded with the Soviet Bloc for 30 years. It can trade with the EU or China or even NZ. Name me one item that it couldn’t get from outside the US.
Actually havn’t seen so many clean, happy leisured people anywhere else, apart from New Zealands dairy farmer retirement towns, Mt Muanganui and Cambridge.
Especially glaring compared to parts of New Jersey, and Haiti and Jamaica.
You’ve been reading far too much propaganda from the same people who say that Chavez was a dictator?
Your utter refusal to look at how international politics, and how it works Gossy is outstanding. The Embargo had the effect of stopping trade with anyone who did not want to piss off the USA. Which was a big group, that even NZ was part of till after the fourth labour government.
But lets leave aside your lack of understanding of international politics. The other effect was to limit hard currency Cuba could lay it’s hands on. You understand what that does to an economy right?
Car parts and Kiwifruit? ?? The Cubans can get those from any number of nations. As for the US applying pressure on countries not to trade, there is no evidence for that. Indeed I believe Mexico is one of Cuba’s largest trading partners. That is not indicative of the US causing problems.
Facts to Gosman are such horrid things.
Cuba is the living example of what life will be like post oil.
Gossy take a hard long look and if you happen to be young enough to survive to until the time oil becomes so expensive it is no longer extracted, just think of what it must have been like for Cubans for the past 50 + years.
By the way – if you ever need a doctor in that part of the world – make sure you are in Cuba – not the US. In Cuba its free – you will come out minus an arm and a leg in the US.
Yes I give you Castro did well in convincing left ideologues and his people of that, as does North Korea howeve pre and post Cuba economic stats don’t support your rediculous statement, even before contrasting living standards in Cuba vs Latin America, Europe pre revolutions to now
Geez Gossy your lot have many on the right supporting old PInochet. It’s a dilemma for your lot.
The Cuban revolution was better than what became before, I know you find that hard because a leftist made it better. But they were far from perfect. Guess what – it’s a imperfect world.
As for many of your dumb assertions over the last few days have been sickening. The Cuban revolution was born out of nasty set of events. It was led by a Castro and like all authoritarian regimes it was crap. But, and it’s a big but, it was better than the authoritarian right wing gangsta nation it was before he came to power.
But lets not forget that for 2 million dollars a day the USA put Cuba under an embargo for almost half a century. So, so much for your free trade ah Gosman, so much for freedom there.
I don’t think many people on the right have claimed Pinochet was anything but a brutal military dictator with blood on his hands. He certainly hasn’t been set up to be some sort of Right wing icon who people should aspire to and that despite Pinochet leaving the country a whole lot better off economically than the mess Allende was making of the place. Noone can claim the same of Castro and Cuba.
I’m not putting him on a pedestal. As I stated he was a brutal military dictator with blood of his opponents on his hands. Are you willing to state the same for Castro?
But you did, when you said he was economically better. That is supporting his world view, and economic choices.
I have never said otherwise about Castro. But what I have with you is simple, your blanket statements, and ignoring that the Cuban economy was bulldozed by the US.
Plus, I think you are conveniently ignoring how bad it was before the revolution. The gangster state before the revolution, was one of the worst in the whole of America’s.
Puckish Rogue, you are a fool to quote Phil Quin for ANYTHING, let alone something where he is clearly so far out of his depth.
Perhaps the most risible part of the rant you linked to was the sentence beginning: “Anne Applebaum, a brilliant Washington Post reporter, hardly of the right….”
Anyone who has any familiarity with the views of Anne Applebaum—and Quin obviously does not—would immediately recognize that statement as an absurdity. Applebaum is an “adjunct fellow” at the American Enterprise Institute, a notorious extreme right think tank. Her writing is shrill, biased and the antithesis of scholarly: on one infamous occasion she claimed, outlandishly, that the late Ho Chi Minh, Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro were similar to Stalin, Mao and Kim Il-Sung.
Applebaum is one of the loudest and most incessant agitators on behalf of the Ukrainian junta, and she has been trenchantly condemned by leading thinkers like Glenn Greenwald.
On top of all that, she is actively involved in attempts to minimize and trivialize the under-age rape allegations against her friend Roman Polanski.
Yet Phil Quin, that vacuous chuntering radio ninny, claims she is “brilliant” and “hardly of the right.”
I don’t expect anything intelligent from Phil Quin, but I must say, Puckish Rogue, that I do expect better from you.
I think Castro was a brave and inspirational leader, and a symbol of freedom and resistance against oppression. However, that doesn’t mean that I think he was not deeply flawed. His intolerance of gays was notorious, which of course makes him pretty similar to a significant portion of the United States House of Representatives. And I never fail to be deeply angry and depressed when I think about Castro’s bumptious and destructive attitude toward the beautiful avante-garde architectural work of the National Art Schools.
So my take on him is complicated. But let’s not forget the reality of the situation he faced: He was demonized and targeted for assassination by the United States, which never forgave him for the radical act of leading a popular revolt against Fulgencio Batista, the dictator it backed. Cuba was in a permanent state of siege, as a vengeful superpower pursued a vicious, illegal and internationally condemned jihad against the island state for more than half a century.
Castro’s legacy should be rigorously criticized—-but by serious scholars, not by shallow know-nothings like Phil Quin.
Cuba income before revolution where 60 pc of European levels, amoung the highest in Latin America they are now the poorest in line with Central America. GDP 1950 per capita was approx 3k still as such in 1999, all hail the planned economy and the great Castro before we even consider the human rights record
Ah yes but GDP doesn’t count for many leftists. So long as education and health care are ‘free’ that is the real definition of a successful state. No matter that medical professionals don’t earn enough and many have to moonlight in jobs that pay hard currency, or that there is usually not enough drugs or other medical supplies and patients have to provide their own, or that the education they receive hasn’t led to any innovative new businesses or helped develop the Cuban economy at all.
No it’s not. What you are stating is the health care in Cuba is better than the health care available in the US for the uninsured. This may well be the case but I suspect in the US poor people are able to access health care of some level that does not need them to provide their own drugs and health supplies.
For the socialist elite and offshore paying customers yes, for the average Cuban, get real, smell the roses Many Cuban doctors are simply sent offshore to generate hard currency for the state
“Havana gets subsidized oil from Venezuela and money from several other countries in exchange for medical services. This year, according to the state-run newspaper Granma, the government expects to make $8.2 billion from its medical workers overseas. The vast majority, just under 46,000, are posted in Latin America and the Caribbean. A few thousand are in 32 African countries.”
But this brings up an interesting question: What is it about this trade that upsets the right-wing?
I’m pretty sure that they’ve been telling us how great trade is for centuries. Is it just that there isn’t a private individual making a profit from the work of others as corporations would?
“I was a couple of months old in October 1965, when the Indonesian government gave free rein to a mix of Indonesian soldiers and paramilitaries to kill anyone they considered to be a “communist.” Over the next few months into 1966, at least 500,000 people were killed (the total may be as high as one million). The victims included members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (P.K.I.), ethnic Chinese, as well as trade unionists, teachers, civil society activists and leftist artists.”
The Act of Killing
The film focuses on the perpetrators of the Indonesian killings of 1965–66 in the present day; ostensibly towards the communist community where almost a million people were killed. When Suharto overthrew Sukarno, the President of Indonesia, following the failed coup of the 30 September Movement in 1965, the gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry in Medan (North Sumatra) were promoted from selling black market movie theatre tickets to leading the most powerful death squad in North Sumatra. They also extorted money from ethnic Chinese as the price for keeping their lives. Anwar is said to have personally killed 1,000 people.
Today, Anwar is revered as the right wing of a paramilitary organization Pemuda Pancasila that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers who are openly involved in corruption, election rigging and clearing people from their land for developers.”
A right wing Gangster nation where mass murders are celebrated and walk free …………. I think we either just did a trade deal with them ,,,,,,,,,, or maybe it was a tax haven/offshore network meeting
Its hard to know with john keys nats ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
okey dokey.
That says 50-odd thousand doctors overseas.
CIA reckons 6.7 docs per thousand Cubans (looks like 2010 WHO stats).
Cuban population is 11.1 mil (same source).
That’s roughly 75 thousand doctors.
50,000 overseas, that’s 25,000 remaining.
Or, reversing the process, that’s 2.25 doctors per thousand.
NZ is 2.74, US is 2.45 per thousand.
I really couldn’t care less.
DTB asked for a citation that Cuba sent medical people overseas as a way of raising money.
I had been talking to a Cuban born friend who was telling me what incredibly low incomes the people in Cuba have. I found this reference when I was googling for info on that subject and remembered it when DTB asked for a reference. I posted it to satisfy his curiosity.
For the record I think that Castro was a miserable SOB. Not in the class of Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao or Hitler but a despicable specimen none the less.
I am old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. The one who came out of than looking sane was Khrushchev. Castro wanted to start WW3 and Kennedy wasn’t much different.
Castro was willing to destroy the world.
Hi Robert Guyton
Are you involved with this new Southland initiative? Sounds promising in the line of other Invercargill moves like adopting toothy Tim as Mayor. You people might be a role model for the Far North, isolated and languishing a bit though trying but with too many conservatives sitting on their prejudices I think – up for violent disagreement with that. (Note a recent radio piece on the police difficulties and understaffing there).
Southland can only go up along with feisty Stewart Island – after that there is only the Southern Ocean rocky outposts and sealife.
‘a bit languishing’
Violent offense duly taken.
Southland / Northland
GDP per capita – 57,135 / 34,825
Mean household income – 87,100 / 70,000
Unemployment rate – 3.6% / 8.8%
‘Isolated’
I’ll give you that one, and you forgot to point out that the weather in Southland is shit.
And Gore, though I think greywarshark was making his languishing comment with regards the Far North, rather than Southland but it certainly brought out the Parochial Defender in you. Good thing too.
I’ve spent a bit of time in both places (Dang, sold the holiday home at Shipwreck Bay way too early!).
IMO the primary reason for the economic disparity between the two regions is that while the kind of grass cows eat grows brilliantly in both, Southland has the good fortune to be crap for growing the kind you smoke.
That’s not a woolly idea. But I figure that with intelligent forward and smart thinking pollies instead of the prim and punitive little greasers we now have…if gummint could get its head around the growing and sale of marijuana under standards they would have a fast-moving expansionist economy. T
he Northland area would have a ready-made expertise in growing the weed and just need strong guidance to be marketed properly and to standard and be controlled by and keep the returns in, local trusts shared by the community, but employing Maori and pakeha half and half. There would be problems for sure, but just on a better level than at present.
Hi greywarshark
Do you mean the SoRDS (Southland Regional Development Strategy) that’s being launched this morning in the presence of Steven Joyce and Nathan Guy and seeks to establish fin-fish farms in Fiordland National Park, amongst other things?
Sounds like it, doesn’t it. “Swords” though, eh! Economic development, bring in the tourists, double our production, full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes! Pretty keen on drilling and fracking to, that Tom Campbell, Head Sword-wielder. Seen Tom’s name before?
2013, I wrote a story about Christchurch talent quest stars the Manetti Brothers, Gerry Brownlee and former schoolmate Richard Holden.
The pair performed a unique mix of country and western and jazz cover songs around Christchurch bars from 1980 to 1986.
Towards the end of their career, the Manetti Brothers auditioned in front of Ray Columbus for a TV show.
“He subtly told us we were crap,” Brownlee told me in 2013.
He went on to describe the audition as a “cock-up” on Columbus’s part.
“It was the most appalling thing. We went to the second floor of the now demolished TVNZ building to audition,” said Brownlee.
“Ray Columbus was there, very small he was. I had to look down to see him, and he said ‘show us what you’ve got’. We only got a little way through our act and he said ‘that’s enough, you guys’. I’m not bitter about it but it was a cock-up in my opinion.”
Oh how Ray laughed when I read Brownlee’s quote to him.
I really think you should have included the last bit of the article
“”All right,” Ray eventually agreed when I suggested he should have right of reply. “But you can only print this response when I’m gone.”
As I said, Ray did always like to have the last word.
“I may be short, Mr Brownlee, but at least I could sing.””
She listened to Guy ‘humans only have ten years left’ McPherson and experienced a personal epiphany….
“Many try to believe that politicians will soon see the error of their delays, act quickly on our behalf for the good of the planet, and all will be well. Business helps the environment, neoliberalism will save the kea, and continued fossil fuel extraction is a necessary evil. Technology will ultimately save the day. Hurrah!
I’ve thought hard on what was emotionally so different about McPherson’s short timeframe versus my unquestioning belief in a much longer one. Obviously, the longer timeframe means I’d get to live out my natural life.
I had never, for one second, consciously entertained the idea that human extinction was conceivable in the near term.
In other words, I’m basically okay with the sadness and anxiety about some far-off future generation seeing the collapse of humanity. Just not this one. My one.
Which tells me everything I didn’t want to know about myself. I possess precisely the same procrastination, selfishness and denial that got us into this mess.
@Rosemary
Makes you gulp more than a little. Most people I know are ignoring warnings, but trying to make rational decisions based on the expectation that an ordered society will be possible in the long term. Short term, well more earthquakes, tsunami, a change of government, but near extinction no!
And how many people are putting the Syrian and African refugees to the forefront. I gave some money some months ago but have been sidetracked by other costs of money and time. Though they are just ordinary people like us who deserve their chance to live and have settled communities without being bombed and murdered because they are inconveniently in the way of strategic assets wanted by giant powers.
I am part of a group trying to do something for now for the community with an eye for the near to mid- future and having hard enough job to keep people on reality track when their heads are full of untested ideas, beliefs, personality clashes, examples from different times, areas etc which may not be replicated, differing understandings of what we are doing and about, what is of first priority etc. And trying to keep control from being wrested by charismatic loud voices that disdain questioning, quiet and meaningful analysis.
“Short term, well more earthquakes, tsunami, a change of government, but near extinction no!”
A Young Twentysomething of my acquaintance has (and sometimes is blighted by) what she terms ‘Apocalypse’ nightmares. End of the world stuff in full living colour and 3D. Every disaster, natural or manmade that dominates the headlines results in a sub conscious -produced movie that robs her of the settled sleep she needs to function well. Often this will be a mish-mash of various cataclysms…a bit of earthquake, tsunami with a sub plot of volcanic eruption and civil disorder.
I can’t say…”Chill, child, it’ll never happen”, that would be lying, but I do try to say that combining all these different types of incidents into one big nightmare is a bit OTT. Then…she points out, that in the middle of the earthquake, and the resulting tsunami warning, miserable scrotes broke into the houses of evacuees and robbed them. Such are humans…and do we really deserve to inhabit, never mind dominate, the planet? I try the “Not all folk are like that”, line, pointing out some of the good stuff that people do…but looking at the Big Picture, the Overall View of The World….???
Lyrics…. No lullaby
Keep your eyes open
And prick up your ears
Rehearse your loudest cry.
There’s folk out there
Who would do you harm
So I’ll sing you no lullaby.
There’s a lock on the window;
There’s a chain on the door:
A big dog in the hall.
But there’s dragons and beasties
Out there in the night
To snatch you if you fall.
So come out fighting
With your rattle in hand.
Thrust and parry. Light
A match to catch the devil’s eye.
Bring a cross of fire to the fight.
And let no sleep bring false relief
From the tension of the fray.
Come wake the dead with the scream of life.
Do battle with ghosts at play.
Gather your toys at the call-to-arms
And swing your big bear down.
Upon our necks when we come to set
You sleeping safe and sound.
It’s as well we tell no lie
To chase the face that cries.
And little birds can’t fly
So keep an open eye.
It’s as well we tell no lie
So I’ll sing you no lullaby.
McPherson is a moonbat who follows a long line of millerites and millenialists.
Stewart has been gullible to be sucked in by him as there is little in the way of a life lesson to be drawn from McPherson’s ‘science’ (except perhaps ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’).
Stewart is particularly obtuse if she’s never encountered the possibility of humanity ending – as an opinion writer she’s remarkably uninformed if she has never read theories or novels on comet impacts, germ warfare, plagues, nuclear war, vogons, zombie apocalypse etc etc.
The IPCC always gives conservative estimates of AGW impact, as I see it McPherson is looking at worst case scenarios. Unlikely perhaps but not outside the realm of possibility.
inspider
Don’t be such a jerk and know all. Plenty of totally unreal things have happened in the last 150 years, they have been real – not unreal, rarely have many imagined their unpleasant possibilities.
And for those others who already know everything and just look sarcastically at others flailing around trying to open and expand their minds – note the numerous thinking pattern systems:
Black swan theory
Dunning–Kruger effect
Epistemic modal logic
Four stages of competence
I know that I know nothing
Ignoramus et ignorabimus
Ignotum per ignotius
Johari window
Known and Unknown: A Memoir
List of political catch phrases
Outside Context Problem
Russell’s teapot
The Unknown Known
Wild card (foresight)
These are not even unknown or unpredictable events, any science that contradicts the relentless pursuit of profit is treated as a pariah.
History shows that all civilizations have a limited life span, and there are so many things going wrong with the climate and ecosystems sustaining human civilisation, I think we will see in our lifetimes massive collapses of cities and nations, but hopefully not complete extinction of humanity.
Our species faces some existential threats but down here in Planet Key we are pretending it’s business as usual for as long as possible. Until it’s too late.
– record levels of extinctions
– collapsing bee populations
– widespread soil degradation
– increasing pressure on water supplies (fracking, cowshit, mining)
– human population still growing out of control
– destruction of remaining rainforests
– overfishing and fish dumping
– ocean acidification, warming, and gyres of floating garbage
– methane emissions from thawing tundra
– sea level rise and extreme weather events
– donald trump
“Coroner Bain concluded: “Having reviewed all the evidence, the Court does not support the view that Mr McMurtrie is in effect, the author of his own misfortune. Considerable issues are raised by the family and the Counsel for Trade Unions in respect of fatigue and in the Court’s view this may well have played a significant part in what occurred,” he said.
“The Court, on the balance of probabilities, finds no fault with Mr McMurtrie.”
Coroner Bain went on to repeat general findings from three inquest findings released on Friday, in which he said the forestry industry was a far safer place to work now than it was when the eight men died.
“The primary driver in highlighting the lack of safety in the forestry industry and the need for accountability and urgent safety reforms has been the CTU and, in particular, Helen Kelly,” he said.””
Many people appear to be concerned about the spread and influence of “fake news” in this so-called post-truth era and agonise about how to deal with it. I don’t think there’s an easy answer – it would be worth a lengthy post here on TS if I knew it would ever get published – but this piece may be a step in the right direction although I don’t think it is nearly enough or sufficient:
Nope, even philosophy 101 would be far too abstract for most kids.
Would be good to get the opinion of a teacher, but I remember learning about Nazi propaganda in social studies, and reading ‘1984’ and ‘Brave New World’ (and probably Fahrenheit 451) at various points.
So I think the basics are covered, if the high school curriculum is anything like it was in the 80s.
I don’t think philosophy needs to be abstract, rather the opposite, it can be highly practical and relevant. I think it would be great if more emphasis would be given in schools to ethics, logic, analytical thinking, etc. The (human) brain has awe-inspiring capabilities but if we don’t get taught how to engage our brains awful things can and do happen plus it is just a waste of our tremendous potential both individually and collectively IMHO.
Obviously, you tailor your teaching to the children but IMO philosophy starts at a very young age.
“There are reports a deal with the Greens to stand aside in Nelson has fractured the local electorate, with as many as eight people said to have quit the party in protest.
Labour sources suggested to Fairfax there were more.”
Someone is telling porkies – But it sounds like its possible some of the members are not happy with the MOU implementation.
I believe I have pointed out previously that this is what I’d expect. I’d also expect that the number of people actually voting for the local candidates would drop. I think that the party votes for the area will also drop.
It may make “political” sense for people in Wellington. However I suspect that overall it is a vote loser.
Personally as a matter of principal I’d simply vote against whatever party did it. Doesn’t matter if it is National in Epsom or Labour in Nelson. The idea that a political party ‘owns’ votes is just outright dumb. If you have a decent candidate (and Labour and National usually do), then put them up and let the voters make up their mind. Don’t do deals that cut into the voting base.
We have enough issues with the slow but steady reduction of the turnout already.
Very interesting move from the NZ Reserve Bank to seek powers to limit lending to home buyers if they do not earn enough.
English wants a bit more time to see if the current measures will continue to cool the Auckland market enough. But that’s quite a call if all this debt starts to get riskier.
I seem to recall Minister Smith this morning saying how important it was that young people didn’t rack up more mortgage debt than they could bear, after figures came in showing the percentage of debt increase for fist home buyers over the last two years. (better jaw jaw than act act, or something).
For example, events may change fast in the global economy that really push up interest rates up fast, so anyone with a mortgage that isn’t fixed gets in real trouble because it’s just too hard to pay back. Trouble Capital T.
We will see Ministers meet with the Reserve Bank in the next few weeks to nut this one out. It’s a biggie.
Under Labour the average person could afford to buy a house. Under National housing is the most unaffordable in the world.— Dovil (@Dovil) November 28, 2016
The NZ Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating has increased strongly to 141pts (up 14.5pts) in November with a high 65% (up 9.5%) of NZ electors saying NZ is ‘heading in the right direction’ compared to only 24% (down 5%) that say NZ is ‘heading in the wrong direction’. This is the rating’s highest score for nearly two years since January 2015.
The lolly scramble and two-tier economy is working well for Gnat supporters.
So is the media adulation and careful PR image of AB captain/beer swilling kiwi PM.
We are ranked near the top of the OECD on all sorts of measures except for absolute basic stuff like education, health, and housing. But that’s all swept under the carpet.
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beaglehole, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago niphon/Getty Images The number of people accessing medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand increased significantly between 2006 and 2022. But the disorder is still under-diagnosed and ...
To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. There’s nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
People trust other people more than institutions. So how can the media gain that trust through journalists without losing what’s important about the institution? Anna Rawhiti-Connell reflects on two years of curating the news for The Bulletin.Amonth ago, armed cops descended on my neighbourhood as calls to “lock your ...
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A warning – suicide is discussed in this podcast New Zealand’s own long-running soap Shortland Street doesn’t hesitate to kill off its much-loved characters. But would TVNZ dare to kill off our favourite soap? That’s the fear as times get tough in television – even though it’s been pointed out ...
Essay: If the Crown harms children, how do you hold it accountable? Analysis by Aaron Smale in light of the Waitangi Tribunal court decision. The post The Crown versus Māori Children appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are a class of thousands of man-made chemicals used widely in everyday consumer items such as textiles, packaging, and cookware, popular for their water, grease and stain-repellent properties. However, the very properties that make PFAS so attractive to manufacturers are also what ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)’ This is the hottest book in New Zealand, number one with a bullet in its first week, selling more than any overseas title, and demand is so huge that it’s already been reprinted. A ...
Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan resistance leader has condemned the United Nations role in allowing Indonesia to “integrate” the Melanesian Pacific region in what is claimed to be an “egregious act of inhumanity” on 1 May 1963. In an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A key part of the Albanese government’s political strategy is to fill the news cycle with its presence and messaging. Ministers are deployed to the maximum, even when they’ve little to say. This week ...
Recent extreme weather events showed the importance of a well-functioning insurance system, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs minister Andrew Bayly. ...
By Jo Moir, RNZ News political editor, and Craig McCulloch, deputy political editor New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. In an interview on RNZ’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Brakenridge, Postdoctoral research fellow at Swinburne University, Centre for Urban Transitions, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute The Conversation, Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock People have a pretty intuitive sense of what is healthy – standing is better than sitting, exercise is great for overall ...
The Wellington-based Reserve Force soldier is now almost three years into his New Zealand Army career with 5th/7th Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. ...
"The Government needs to release the review immediately as this reckless approach to change risks disjointed decision making and creates more distress and uncertainty for staff," Fitzsimons said. ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Jeremiah Manele has been elected Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, polling 31 votes to 18 over rival candidate and former opposition leader Mathew Wale with one abstention. The final result of the election by secret ballot was announced by the Governor-General, Sir David Vunagi, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Priestley Habru, PhD candidate, public diplomacy, University of Adelaide Former foreign minister Jeremiah Manele has been elected the next prime minister of Solomon Islands, defeating the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, in a vote in parliament. The result is a mixed bag for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shaun Eaves, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Jamey Stutz, CC BY-SA How often do mountains collapse, volcanoes erupt or ice sheets melt? For Earth scientists, these are important questions as we try ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Flood, Professor of Sociology, Queensland University of Technology Shutterstock Most young adult men in Australia reject traditional ideas of masculinity that endorse aggression, stoicism and homophobia. Nonetheless, the ongoing influence of those ideas continues to harm men and the people ...
The NZQA proposal released to staff today would involve a net loss of 35 roles. There are 66 roles being disestablished with 13 of those currently vacant, and 31 new roles proposed, said Fleur Fitzsimons Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga ...
Alex Casey talks to Loren Taylor, the writer, director and star of new film The Moon is Upside Down, about assembling her dream ensemble cast, toilet paper pads and turning literal dreams into reality. There’s a moment in The Moon is Upside Down where frazzled anaesthetist Briar (Loren Taylor) gets ...
Renters and realtors are upset with a government decision to scrap a bill meant to regulate property managers over concerns about unethical and unlawful behaviours. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassy Dittman, Senior Lecturer/Head of Course (Undergraduate Psychology), Research Fellow, Manna Institute, CQUniversity Australia With winter sports swinging into action, adults around the country have volunteered or been volunteered by others (humorously known as being “volun-told”) to coach junior sports teams. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University richardernestyap/Shutterstock Parents are often advised to burp their babies after feeding them. Some people think burping after feeding is important to reduce or prevent discomfort crying, or to ...
Workers at a major ASB contact centre in Auckland have voted to take strike action and withdraw their labour following disappointing pay negotiations with the employer and an "offer" to workers that would leave them worse off than the previous year. ...
As the government tries to get the country back on track with a school phone ban, Tara Ward has an idea for where they should turn their attention to next.New Zealand students returned to school on Monday morning, but their cellphones did not. The government’s new phone ban began ...
The Labour Party is demanding Peters be stood down, saying "he's embarrassed the country" with a "totally unacceptable" attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. ...
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance, whose members were victims of a China-backed cyber attack, is discussing forming a standing committee to deal with foreign influence. ...
The PSA is concerned that the voluntary redundancies being offered to staff by Stats NZ will impact on the agency’s ability to deliver on its core functions. ...
Results ranged from surprisingly yum to soul-destroying. I love cooking. The kitchen is a hearth of culinary creation, of sensory delights, of gastronomic poetry. I also can’t afford anything nice. Why does a pack of instant noodles and some milk cost ten bucks? I love you, Aotearoa, but I miss ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Police in Solomon Islands are on high alert ahead of the election of the prime minister today. The two candidates for the top job are former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele at the head of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation, which is ...
He’s fine but it feels like I’m losing a friend and it’s making me bitter. How do I say ‘enough is enough’? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzHey Hera,I’ve recently moved in with a girlfriend, her partner Steve, and his friend. We all live in a lovely little house. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 2 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
Interesting, anti-immigrant groups in the past have used a “competitor standing” doctrine to try to limit immigration on the grounds that immigrants compete with local workers and harm their prospects. Now that doctrine may get used to go after Trump.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-immigration-legal-theory-231899
Sit still for a wee while and read this….http://www.radionz.co.nz/stories/201825742/justice-delayed-justice-denied
“At first she didn’t think of the state welfare homes as incarceration. But when she started to interview people she changed her mind. The regimes they were subject to were very similar to prison regimes.
“They were horrific. Really austere. Children were left in the secure cell during the day with nothing. Nothing. A concrete plinth. They even removed the mattress so they wouldn’t be comfortable during the day. They’d be boiling in the summer, they’d be freezing in the winter. In some institutions they even had a nodding system where the guards or workers wouldn’t even speak to them. You can’t imagine what that would do to you if you’re an adult let alone if you’re 11, 12, 15, that dehumanisation.”
That dehumanisation included regular use of physical violence as punishment, including electric-shock therapy. Some victims say the shocks were applied to their genitals and other parts of their bodies. Some children were controlled with drugs that sedated or knocked them out.
Not only are victims deeply distrustful – the state is still acting in ways that call into question its trustworthiness. Currently the process for making a complaint about abuse in state institutions means going through a system set up and administered by the government department that ran the institutions where the abuse happened.”
Great work by Aaron Smale supporting this morning’s RNZ’s piece about the reports about abuse in State care.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport
Interview with Judge Henwood, and currently Kim Hill has Anne Tolley on the griddle. I hope the audio will be available later.
Anne Tolley’s current defense is along the lines that only 3.odd percent of the 100,000 who went through State care during this period have made complaints.
Heartless bastards.
Kim Hill roasts Anne Tolley.
What an appalling person Toley is.
I do not disagree, but unfortunately I heard Kim Hill calling for an independent inquiry quite a few times, rather than an independent agency to consider complaints – all some will hear is Tolley being hectored, and not understand the point that was being made. Any excuse for wilful misunderstanding will be taken in defense of the indefensible . . .
Audio here….http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201825818/judge-blasts-government-over-handling-of-abuse-claims
and the frying of Tolley here….http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201825819/anne-tolley-defends-government's-handling-of-abuse-claims
Good work Natrad…good work.
“Good work Natrad…good work”
Agree with that, I heard that interview.
They will now be definitely earmarked for further funding cuts or sold off.
You must also remember Tolley was the minister who destroyed an NZ institution called Evening Classes.
As Paul said an appalling person.
Agree 1000% …. Tolley was toast, Kim for once you were wonderful, I am not one of your fans but this was great stuff putting an incompetent minister through the hoops.
“They will now be definitely earmarked for further funding cuts or sold off.”
Hah! Just like the HRC and OHRP…god forbid that those paid from the Public Purse actually do their jobs.
I have flicked an email to Natrad asking if the feedback from survivors of abuse in state care that were read out by the hosts could be put on audio.
These spontaneous testimonies are gold.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201825831/abuse-victim-says-independent-inquiry-needed
and…. http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201825841/-i-want-an-inquiry-abuse-survivor
The Natrad links aren’t working but all morning report podcasts can be found here
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport
“The Natrad links aren’t working…”
I’ve gone back and checked each one, and their all fine from where I am…I do always check links are working…:-)
Good work kim hill you mean who stands apart from natoid shills like mora and pissweak interviewers like gluon and sidekick suzie.
Ryans been MIA awhile now.
@tc
Leave Ryan alone – she gets a lot of good stuff out into public asks good question people like yourself have too sharp teeth. Having a skeleton staff devoted to getting the news out there is better than having the bones bitten and cracked and some plastic thing built with a computer.
Excellent analysis and background from Aaron Smale, RNZ Te Manu Korihi Reporter …
http://www.radionz.co.nz/stories/201825742/justice-delayed-justice-denied
Great work Natty radio!
Yep – its getting some traction – here it is on stuff now: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/87027752/rnz-host-clashes-with-anne-tolley-for-her-response-to-state-abuse-inquiry
Meantime back on planet NZ where life still goes on our despicable Government is caught out by whistle-blowing from Housing NZ and no-one appears to have even noticed, likely because they’re too obsessed with Donald Trump.
The opposition parties have been handed the opportunity of a lifetime and I’ll bet few if any even know it.
OK I’ll bite – I haven’t noticed – do you have a cite?
Page 72 of their annual report….. hidden away in the notes.
http://www.hnzc.co.nz/assets/Uploads/Annual-Report-2016.pdf
?
If you’re talking about the Tamaki Redevelopment Co notes, that’s already been covered off on an earlier Open Mike.
The Tauranga and Invercargill property sales are dead in the water.
If it’s not either of those things, a more specific example that’s not a vague reference to “hidden away in the notes” would be more helpful.
Just how hard is it to download the file and read a page James?
Point.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>You.
I read it, but it wasn’t immediately obvious to what you were referring to.
More clarity next time please.
Thank you.
HNZC is a social housing agency.
But they have to make an allowance in their asset valuations for an impairment for a small proportion of their stock that they are selling to account for being a social housing agency.
WTF
So they are valuing their assets, and the return on those assets as if they were a normal commercial landlord. They say themselves that their assets are overvalued by 50 – 60%
Jeez, if a private sector business tried that on it’d get messy fast.
Yup. And a whole lot can be read and concluded from that.
One logical conclusion is they’ve established a formula for pricing the state houses they intend to sell to social housing providers. They’ve just announced the intended sale of 2400 state houses in ChCh and using their own formula they’d be intending to sell $1 billion worth of property for $380 million.
Selling significant publicly owned assets for only 38% of their value is not condusive to staying a government. Even National voters wouldn’t wear that, we all know what property is worth.
Really? That sounds exactly like the proposed Labour Party policy of building houses and selling them to people with low incomes at a discount.
The fact that the Party website says
“KiwiBuild homes will only be sold to first home buyers. To avoid buyers reaping windfall gains a condition of sale will require them to hand back any capital gain if sold on within 5 years”
clearly implies they expect to sell them at below market value.
I wonder how you qualify to buy one? Will production of a Union Card or proof of Labour Party membership be required?
You need to go back for further programming alwyn, that was a pretty weak attempt at diversion even by your standards.
You mean it is true and you don’t know how to justify it.
Ah, no alwyn. Meaning your hearing is impaired. The information you posted doesn’t sound anything like what you thought you heard. No mention is made there of discounting the houses, indeed they’re doing the opposite in taking any capital gain that might accrue.
Now either your reading comprehension is so poor there’s no point in me conversing with you for fear of having my words misread, or you’re merely trying to derail & divert in which case there’s no point in me conversing with you there either.
Back to the reprogramming booth for you.
Good that HNZC recognise that covenants are required to protect the social housing use once sold to the private provider. But that should have been explicit in the valuation, and expected return on that valuation, from the very beginning.
When the beginning was will have considerable political import, and along the way someone may have miss-understood, or been devious / deceived around the basis of valuation.
Time to sit well back and see where this cow pat lands.
It’s not that they were “Selling significant publicly owned assets for only 38% of their value”, the assets were overvalued by 163%
They’re not overvalued Graeme, HNZ are required to declare their housing stock at “Fair Value” according to IFRS rules and have done so for quite some time.
The social housing providers are non-profit organisations so there is no commercial valuation here. This is really about funding IMO. This tells me the charities that the Govt wants to sell to have no spare money. They look to be needing to borrow the dosh to buy the houses and HNZs income statement reveals the nett rental return from the properties won’t even come close to paying the interest on substantial levels of borrowed funds.
They can’t fund the deal on borrowed money at market rates, the rental income won’t pay the interest, so I’d expect the only way the deal can proceed is if English gives them a humungous discount or fronts them a low/no interest loan.
And they would have been valued under the same rules once the covenant / encumbrance had been applied to the property title. But nothing has changed about the property or it’s use, just the expected owner.
I see it more as explaining how inappropriate the “dividends” HNZC paid to the shareholding minister were. Both from the moral repugnance of it all and the usurious way that these dividends appear to have been calculated. No wonder the govt got out of there as quickly as they did.
Oh come now Graeme, do you seriously believe that a 25 year encumbrance really lowers the value of a house?
Commercial properties are often leased out on encumbrances like 7×7 terms, do you see any of those having their price lowered because they have to be leased for the next 14 years?
Get real mate, the encumbrance values are bullshit. All housing NZ properties are rented out at market rates and you’re trying to justify them being sold at a 60% discount to market price?
Well one of them is bullshit, as I said at the start nothing has actually changed, just a different way of looking at it.
The original valuations would have reflected the commercial value of the properties that could be rented and sold on the open market. The second reflected properties that could be rented as social housing, but not on-sold for capital gain.
The govt has got themselves in a bit of a hole there, as it would be politically difficult if the properties were on-sold for a profit, hence the encumbrance.
Whether HNZ’s properties were, or could be rented or sold on a commercial basis on the open market is a very debatable concept due to it’s social housing responsibilities and function. It does increase the possible / requires dividend if the assets are viewed as fully commercial however. I tend to the view that it’s actually the first valuations that are questionable.
“Well one of them is bullshit, as I said at the start nothing has actually changed, just a different way of looking at it.”
Huh? A very fundamental change has occurred, $240 million worth of a publicly owned asset has been written off for no good reason or reward.
“The original valuations would have reflected the commercial value of the properties that could be rented and sold on the open market. The second reflected properties that could be rented as social housing, but not on-sold for capital gain. ”
One would need to have come down in the last rain shower to fall for that line Graeme. These new valuations occurred in the context of the Govt being in lengthy negotiations with a potential buyer. It would be a complete fool who gives away their bottom line price to the other party wouldn’t it, clearly the ‘valuations’ were retrospective.
Of course they can be on-sold for capital gain. They can be held for 25yrs, amassing very considerable gains, and on-sold to anyone or on-sold earlier to another social housing provider. It’s little different to the situation of operators like Rymans and they don’t get to buy their retirement complexes at 38cents in the dollar do they.
“I tend to the view that it’s actually the first valuations that are questionable.”
You’d be questioning IFRS there and it’s not really relevant to the topic.
Tolley the terrible.
She is under orders to minimise the financial damage.
Having an independent agency and enquiry will show its more like 70% of children who were state wards were violently sexually psychologically abused.
Tolley’s dispicable obfuscation including she was just a child(still).
I know many many state wards most seriously damaged unable to function as adults.
Nasty Nasty piece of Work .
Shame on you Tolley.
Thats why she is there along with collins, parata and bennett.
Nasty people in a nasty party doing nasty things in govt.
Recall kate wilkinson, far to nice and nowhere near nasty enough so got moved on.
The interview with Minister Anne Tolley on RNZ is going to go down in infamy as one of the worst and most heartless pieces of work in modern New Zealand politics.
Has anyone heard anything like it in the last three decades?
Also a particularly stupid juxtaposition:
On the one hand, Minister of Education Hekia Parata shuts down a Special Needs school in Dunedin for allegations about two teachers where the Police don’t see a case to answer, and so far there’s no evidence to be seen anywhere. So far.
Quite a strong reaction from the state to protect people under its direct control and care.
And on the same day, the Minister of Social Welfare cannot open her mouth and utter the word “I am sorry” for decades of solidly proven abuse on behalf of the state while protecting people under its direct control and care.
This story is now set to roll.
And also reported one parent who saw nothing untoward at that Dn school.
Me thinks some stirrers with bees in their bonnet at work. Perhaps that parent has brought up their child correctly?
“Perhaps that parent has brought up their child correctly?”
You might want to back up the judgmental truck there a tad jcuknz.
The whole issue of managing meltdowns and difficult behaviours is nuanced…requires a little more knowledge and experience that perhaps some commenters lack.
Natrad is on fire this morning!
Although, having to listen to the smarmy, patronising and eventually whiny tones of both Tolley and Parata in the same morning is almost too much.
I don’t always agree with him but he’s pretty much spot on here:
http://www.philquin.com/blog/2016/11/29/castro-mourning-by-hipster-lefties-makes-me-sick
Quin’s source for this figure, his arse or the lunatic claims of the exile community?.
Phew that’s lucky, here I was thinking Castro was an unpleasant person, glad that’s cleared up:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/11/fidel-castro-s-human-rights-legacy-a-tale-of-two-worlds/
Upon establishing his provisional government in 1959, Castro organised trials of members of the previous government that resulted in hundreds of summary executions. In response to an international outcry and amid accusations that many of the trials were unfair, Castro responded:
“Revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction… we are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it.”
From a supporter of our Government of serial child abusers.
FIFY.
As opposed to the government of oppressive homophobic drug peddlers in Cuba do you mean?
Homosexuality was legalised in Cuba about the same time it was in Britain.
Don’t let facts get in the way of anti communist propoganda, however.
But the drug peddling is okay then?
How can you be sure hard drugs are produced in Cuba?
When it is financing the Contras? Or Cuba?
Was that when the mafia ran Cuba into communism.
After years of exploitation by the Mafia anything was better as far as the peasants were concerns.
American foreign policy could have solved the problem but alas just like in Syria the Russians gave Fidel Castro a better deal.
The Americans have propped up nasty dictators all through Central America for over a century.
How is the life of the average Cuban detailed in this article not corrupt?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cuba/corruption.htm
Any one who thinks Cubans making a burger joint is a corrupt practices isn’t worst listening too
Gosman ignores things like right wing death squads killing over 1 million in indonesia …………… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwJMJqjqEdw
Oh, he was a particularly unpleasant person but unless of course Quin counted the estimated Balseros death toll, 79,000 extrajudicial killings, really.
February 19, 2008 Update on Findings
This work documents loss of life and disappearances of a political or military nature attributed to the Cuban Revolution. Each documented case is available for review at http://www.CubaArchive.org and substantiated by bibliographic/historic data and reports from direct sources. Due to the ongoing nature of the work and the difficulty of obtaining and verifying data from Cuba, the following totals change as research progresses and are considered far from exhaustive. Cuba Archive is currently examining additional cases –most are expected to be added to this table. Experience has shown that as additional outreach efforts are undertaken, many more cases are likely to be uncovered’.
[…]
Documented Cases
Firing squad executions 4,074
Extrajudicial killings not in prison 1,334
Missing and disappeared 219
Other, including deaths in prison(1) 2,215
http://www.cubaverdad.net/genocide.htm#Other
It’s good that since Quinn got those numbers, allegedly, wrong everything else can be safely ignored 🙂
It does bring to mind the question of the accuracy of “everything else” if estimates vary that wildly.
Frankly, seven thousand just after the revolution seems a bit low to me – they captured 1200 in the Bay of Pigs, I would have thought many of those would have been put on trial and received severe sentences.
Even so, Cuba’s better off than if Batista had remained.
The moral bankruptcy of people on the left is truly wonderful to behold. I suspect you think the ends justifies the means.
You crying for Batista’s bunch of criminals.
LOL.
Ummm… you seem to be making a massive leap there. Not surprising for supporters of brutal leftists dictators like Castro. The idea that if you are not with them you must support who they disposed is one of the reasons human rights went out the window when Castro took power.
Local councils with democratic control who send remits and consensus upwards to their Government.
Cubans have more democratic control over things that affect them than we do.
Meanwhile, in the USA, everyone is terrified of what Trump may do with his dictatorial powers.
Castro saved Cuba from being one of the many examplars of US controlled South American capitalism.
Haiti, Nicaragua, Chile, Mexico. All poverty and crime ridden failed States.
Funny we never hear about all the people trying to leave them. Except for Trump and Obama trying to send them back.
If you are going on about human rights. There are some really serious and continued abuses in Cuba. In the US controlled Guantanamo Bay.
Not to mention, on our own doorstep. In Indonesia and Australia/Nauru
You really think the average Cuban has more control over their life than we do? Pray tell how the average Cuban can afford to go to a holiday resort in their own country without access to hard currency and why should they be denied that right?
I don’t know much about Cuba. But Britians have less control than Cubans
Elegant, Clump.
This may come as a surprise but going to a holiday resort isn’t a human right.
Except in moderately developed economies the vast majority can afford to spend some time at a holiday resort at some stage.
Have you got proof that Cubans can’t?
If you think the vast majority of Cubans are able to access a resort (even a relatively down market one) more power to you.
Tell that to the jobless brown kids in Whangarei.
Ah, so you don’t have anything to back up your assertion. That would make what you said a lie.
But that’s all we can expect from RWNJs – they have to lie because reality doesn’t conform to their delusional beliefs.
RWNJ’s think that an independent nation should just bend over and take it when US corporations want to rape and pillage.
The Cubans should not have stood up for freedom and justice, they should have let themselves be impoverished and exploited by criminal US enterprises.
Remind us, which nation throws people into Guantanamo Bay without trial?
Was that when the mafia ran Cuba into communism.
After years of exploitation by the Mafia anything was better as far as the peasants were concerns.
American foreign policy could have solved the problem but alas just like in Syria the Russians gave Fidel Castro a better deal.
The Americans have propped up nasty dictators all through Central America for over a century!
Castro was always a communist dictator (either in waiting OR in power). There was no way he was going to be some sort of Carribean Social Democrat. The Soviet Union didn’t force him to outlaw private enterprise or send Cubans offshore to ferment Communist revolution in other nations.
.
Yeah, if you ignore the 20,000 Cubans murdered by the Batista regime, human rights in Cuba prior to Castro were just fucking peachy.
So that makes it okay in your book does it? Somehow all Castro’s human rights abuses are fine because the person he replaced was worse. I suppose that would explain why many leftists in the West supported East Germany. At least they weren’t the Nazi’s
No it doesn’t make it right but it does show that he actually made life better in Cuba from what was before.
Unlike our present NZ government which is actively making life worse for the poor so a few rich people can get richer. And, yes, there’s probably deaths involved as well from those policies.
The average poor person in NZ has a life that the average Cuban could only dream of. That is the tragedy of Cuba. With better economic management the country could have been a success story. Instead it is an economic basket case.
Basket case, yeap you put an embargo on NZ for half a century and see where we end up. I like how you cherry pick and ignore facts Gosman.
Trade is bad, ask Draco and the Nz loony left, any decent planned economy does not need it, so sorry no out there Also hard to trade with some one that wants to nuke you
Stop with the nonsense of the embargo. There is not one documented case of Cuba not being able to trade with a nation outside the US as a result of the embargo. Heck the country traded with the Soviet Bloc for 30 years. It can trade with the EU or China or even NZ. Name me one item that it couldn’t get from outside the US.
Looked far from a “basket case” to me.
Actually havn’t seen so many clean, happy leisured people anywhere else, apart from New Zealands dairy farmer retirement towns, Mt Muanganui and Cambridge.
Especially glaring compared to parts of New Jersey, and Haiti and Jamaica.
You’ve been reading far too much propaganda from the same people who say that Chavez was a dictator?
Life expectancy in Cuba is better than the USA, and not far behind us.
Car parts. Kiwifruit. There two.
Your utter refusal to look at how international politics, and how it works Gossy is outstanding. The Embargo had the effect of stopping trade with anyone who did not want to piss off the USA. Which was a big group, that even NZ was part of till after the fourth labour government.
But lets leave aside your lack of understanding of international politics. The other effect was to limit hard currency Cuba could lay it’s hands on. You understand what that does to an economy right?
Car parts and Kiwifruit? ?? The Cubans can get those from any number of nations. As for the US applying pressure on countries not to trade, there is no evidence for that. Indeed I believe Mexico is one of Cuba’s largest trading partners. That is not indicative of the US causing problems.
Facts to Gosman are such horrid things.
Cuba is the living example of what life will be like post oil.
Gossy take a hard long look and if you happen to be young enough to survive to until the time oil becomes so expensive it is no longer extracted, just think of what it must have been like for Cubans for the past 50 + years.
By the way – if you ever need a doctor in that part of the world – make sure you are in Cuba – not the US. In Cuba its free – you will come out minus an arm and a leg in the US.
Are being obtuse Gossy, or are you really that ignorant of international politics and it’s machinations?
Yes I give you Castro did well in convincing left ideologues and his people of that, as does North Korea howeve pre and post Cuba economic stats don’t support your rediculous statement, even before contrasting living standards in Cuba vs Latin America, Europe pre revolutions to now
And so does John Key, on that we can agree Red.
Geez Gossy your lot have many on the right supporting old PInochet. It’s a dilemma for your lot.
The Cuban revolution was better than what became before, I know you find that hard because a leftist made it better. But they were far from perfect. Guess what – it’s a imperfect world.
As for many of your dumb assertions over the last few days have been sickening. The Cuban revolution was born out of nasty set of events. It was led by a Castro and like all authoritarian regimes it was crap. But, and it’s a big but, it was better than the authoritarian right wing gangsta nation it was before he came to power.
But lets not forget that for 2 million dollars a day the USA put Cuba under an embargo for almost half a century. So, so much for your free trade ah Gosman, so much for freedom there.
I don’t think many people on the right have claimed Pinochet was anything but a brutal military dictator with blood on his hands. He certainly hasn’t been set up to be some sort of Right wing icon who people should aspire to and that despite Pinochet leaving the country a whole lot better off economically than the mess Allende was making of the place. Noone can claim the same of Castro and Cuba.
Actually you just did, by saying he was economically better.
You just put him on a pedestal.
I’m not putting him on a pedestal. As I stated he was a brutal military dictator with blood of his opponents on his hands. Are you willing to state the same for Castro?
But you did, when you said he was economically better. That is supporting his world view, and economic choices.
I have never said otherwise about Castro. But what I have with you is simple, your blanket statements, and ignoring that the Cuban economy was bulldozed by the US.
Plus, I think you are conveniently ignoring how bad it was before the revolution. The gangster state before the revolution, was one of the worst in the whole of America’s.
The economy in Chile took 20years to recover from Pinochet.
In what right wing phantasy world did he improve it?
Rich people got richer and that’s all that the RWNJs care about.
You agree it was an improvement then.
“the ends justify the means” ..like in say Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay?
Are you stating that these places are not abhorent?
Puckish Rogue, you are a fool to quote Phil Quin for ANYTHING, let alone something where he is clearly so far out of his depth.
Perhaps the most risible part of the rant you linked to was the sentence beginning: “Anne Applebaum, a brilliant Washington Post reporter, hardly of the right….”
Anyone who has any familiarity with the views of Anne Applebaum—and Quin obviously does not—would immediately recognize that statement as an absurdity. Applebaum is an “adjunct fellow” at the American Enterprise Institute, a notorious extreme right think tank. Her writing is shrill, biased and the antithesis of scholarly: on one infamous occasion she claimed, outlandishly, that the late Ho Chi Minh, Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro were similar to Stalin, Mao and Kim Il-Sung.
Applebaum is one of the loudest and most incessant agitators on behalf of the Ukrainian junta, and she has been trenchantly condemned by leading thinkers like Glenn Greenwald.
On top of all that, she is actively involved in attempts to minimize and trivialize the under-age rape allegations against her friend Roman Polanski.
Yet Phil Quin, that vacuous chuntering radio ninny, claims she is “brilliant” and “hardly of the right.”
I don’t expect anything intelligent from Phil Quin, but I must say, Puckish Rogue, that I do expect better from you.
Fair enough, so whats your take on Castro?
he appears on way too many t-shirts
I think Castro was a brave and inspirational leader, and a symbol of freedom and resistance against oppression. However, that doesn’t mean that I think he was not deeply flawed. His intolerance of gays was notorious, which of course makes him pretty similar to a significant portion of the United States House of Representatives. And I never fail to be deeply angry and depressed when I think about Castro’s bumptious and destructive attitude toward the beautiful avante-garde architectural work of the National Art Schools.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2015/05/cuba-unfinished-spaces-150519094656409.html
So my take on him is complicated. But let’s not forget the reality of the situation he faced: He was demonized and targeted for assassination by the United States, which never forgave him for the radical act of leading a popular revolt against Fulgencio Batista, the dictator it backed. Cuba was in a permanent state of siege, as a vengeful superpower pursued a vicious, illegal and internationally condemned jihad against the island state for more than half a century.
Castro’s legacy should be rigorously criticized—-but by serious scholars, not by shallow know-nothings like Phil Quin.
4th rate stenographer is outraged….outraged I tells ya !
No hipsters are not left Puckish, Liberal (but, so is John Key) but not left. Most hipsters are all about money.
This is what I imagine most hipsters aspire to be:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/hipster-barbie?utm_term=.glarPxRA9#.mvK9lqVP1
Buying there way to happiness…
Yeah seems more right wing than left, that world view.
Definitely not anything I’d be into I can tell you that although I do sport a beard…a trimmed, neat beard though
Right wing death squads kill millions and you do not give a stuff ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwJMJqjqEdw
Sick ol Puck …….
http://www.amara.org/en/videos/lCHCQE8uqUJb/info/jagal-the-act-of-killing-full-movie/
Cuba income before revolution where 60 pc of European levels, amoung the highest in Latin America they are now the poorest in line with Central America. GDP 1950 per capita was approx 3k still as such in 1999, all hail the planned economy and the great Castro before we even consider the human rights record
Ah yes but GDP doesn’t count for many leftists. So long as education and health care are ‘free’ that is the real definition of a successful state. No matter that medical professionals don’t earn enough and many have to moonlight in jobs that pay hard currency, or that there is usually not enough drugs or other medical supplies and patients have to provide their own, or that the education they receive hasn’t led to any innovative new businesses or helped develop the Cuban economy at all.
strange also not many people drowned sailing from Miami to Cuba,
You do realise that the healthcare available in Cuba is better than that available in the US don’t you?
In fact, everything you said there sounds like a lie started and propagated through right-wing fake news outlets.
No it’s not. What you are stating is the health care in Cuba is better than the health care available in the US for the uninsured. This may well be the case but I suspect in the US poor people are able to access health care of some level that does not need them to provide their own drugs and health supplies.
No, I’m not.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salim-lamrani/cubas-health-care-system-_b_5649968.html
And there’s a WHO report around somewhere that places Cuba’s healthcare system above the US healthcare system as well.
You should probably watch this as well.
Considering how much the US spends per capita on health their system is truly pathetic.
That’s a left wing opinion piece.
The WHO report I mentioned isn’t. Irritated that I can’t find ATM but I’m sure I’ve linked to it before on this board.
And it’s a piece developed upon facts rather than the RWNJs usual use of delusion.
For the socialist elite and offshore paying customers yes, for the average Cuban, get real, smell the roses Many Cuban doctors are simply sent offshore to generate hard currency for the state
[citation needed]
Although it sounds like more RWNJ false news.
From the New York Times
“Havana gets subsidized oil from Venezuela and money from several other countries in exchange for medical services. This year, according to the state-run newspaper Granma, the government expects to make $8.2 billion from its medical workers overseas. The vast majority, just under 46,000, are posted in Latin America and the Caribbean. A few thousand are in 32 African countries.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/opinion/a-cuban-brain-drain-courtesy-of-us.html?_r=0
The article is quite strongly opposed to the US Government’s action but it does confirm the claim about being a source of income to Cuba.
Ok.
But this brings up an interesting question:
What is it about this trade that upsets the right-wing?
I’m pretty sure that they’ve been telling us how great trade is for centuries. Is it just that there isn’t a private individual making a profit from the work of others as corporations would?
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/28/indonesia-and-act-forgetting
“I was a couple of months old in October 1965, when the Indonesian government gave free rein to a mix of Indonesian soldiers and paramilitaries to kill anyone they considered to be a “communist.” Over the next few months into 1966, at least 500,000 people were killed (the total may be as high as one million). The victims included members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (P.K.I.), ethnic Chinese, as well as trade unionists, teachers, civil society activists and leftist artists.”
The Act of Killing
The film focuses on the perpetrators of the Indonesian killings of 1965–66 in the present day; ostensibly towards the communist community where almost a million people were killed. When Suharto overthrew Sukarno, the President of Indonesia, following the failed coup of the 30 September Movement in 1965, the gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry in Medan (North Sumatra) were promoted from selling black market movie theatre tickets to leading the most powerful death squad in North Sumatra. They also extorted money from ethnic Chinese as the price for keeping their lives. Anwar is said to have personally killed 1,000 people.
Today, Anwar is revered as the right wing of a paramilitary organization Pemuda Pancasila that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers who are openly involved in corruption, election rigging and clearing people from their land for developers.”
A right wing Gangster nation where mass murders are celebrated and walk free …………. I think we either just did a trade deal with them ,,,,,,,,,, or maybe it was a tax haven/offshore network meeting
Its hard to know with john keys nats ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
okey dokey.
That says 50-odd thousand doctors overseas.
CIA reckons 6.7 docs per thousand Cubans (looks like 2010 WHO stats).
Cuban population is 11.1 mil (same source).
That’s roughly 75 thousand doctors.
50,000 overseas, that’s 25,000 remaining.
Or, reversing the process, that’s 2.25 doctors per thousand.
NZ is 2.74, US is 2.45 per thousand.
Jamaica is 0.41 per thousand. Just as comparison.
I really couldn’t care less.
DTB asked for a citation that Cuba sent medical people overseas as a way of raising money.
I had been talking to a Cuban born friend who was telling me what incredibly low incomes the people in Cuba have. I found this reference when I was googling for info on that subject and remembered it when DTB asked for a reference. I posted it to satisfy his curiosity.
For the record I think that Castro was a miserable SOB. Not in the class of Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao or Hitler but a despicable specimen none the less.
I am old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. The one who came out of than looking sane was Khrushchev. Castro wanted to start WW3 and Kennedy wasn’t much different.
Castro was willing to destroy the world.
Hi Robert Guyton
Are you involved with this new Southland initiative? Sounds promising in the line of other Invercargill moves like adopting toothy Tim as Mayor. You people might be a role model for the Far North, isolated and languishing a bit though trying but with too many conservatives sitting on their prejudices I think – up for violent disagreement with that. (Note a recent radio piece on the police difficulties and understaffing there).
Southland can only go up along with feisty Stewart Island – after that there is only the Southern Ocean rocky outposts and sealife.
‘a bit languishing’
Violent offense duly taken.
Southland / Northland
GDP per capita – 57,135 / 34,825
Mean household income – 87,100 / 70,000
Unemployment rate – 3.6% / 8.8%
‘Isolated’
I’ll give you that one, and you forgot to point out that the weather in Southland is shit.
And Gore, though I think greywarshark was making his languishing comment with regards the Far North, rather than Southland but it certainly brought out the Parochial Defender in you. Good thing too.
I’ve spent a bit of time in both places (Dang, sold the holiday home at Shipwreck Bay way too early!).
IMO the primary reason for the economic disparity between the two regions is that while the kind of grass cows eat grows brilliantly in both, Southland has the good fortune to be crap for growing the kind you smoke.
It’s cooler here, so more incentive to dig and delve, rather than head to the beach and the bong.
That’s not a woolly idea. But I figure that with intelligent forward and smart thinking pollies instead of the prim and punitive little greasers we now have…if gummint could get its head around the growing and sale of marijuana under standards they would have a fast-moving expansionist economy. T
he Northland area would have a ready-made expertise in growing the weed and just need strong guidance to be marketed properly and to standard and be controlled by and keep the returns in, local trusts shared by the community, but employing Maori and pakeha half and half. There would be problems for sure, but just on a better level than at present.
Hi greywarshark
Do you mean the SoRDS (Southland Regional Development Strategy) that’s being launched this morning in the presence of Steven Joyce and Nathan Guy and seeks to establish fin-fish farms in Fiordland National Park, amongst other things?
@Robert G
Ho ho ho – I little innocent thought that Santa Claus had come with pressies that would be good to play with!
Sounds like it, doesn’t it. “Swords” though, eh! Economic development, bring in the tourists, double our production, full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes! Pretty keen on drilling and fracking to, that Tom Campbell, Head Sword-wielder. Seen Tom’s name before?
No but sounds like a nematode to watch.
Ray Columbus has died. Stuff entertainment had this item.
I thought this was a funny anecdote which relates to Gerry Brownlee – Vicki Anderson at http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/87016165/Ray-Columbus-always-had-the-last-word-even-for-Gerry-Brownlee
2013, I wrote a story about Christchurch talent quest stars the Manetti Brothers, Gerry Brownlee and former schoolmate Richard Holden.
The pair performed a unique mix of country and western and jazz cover songs around Christchurch bars from 1980 to 1986.
Towards the end of their career, the Manetti Brothers auditioned in front of Ray Columbus for a TV show.
“He subtly told us we were crap,” Brownlee told me in 2013.
He went on to describe the audition as a “cock-up” on Columbus’s part.
“It was the most appalling thing. We went to the second floor of the now demolished TVNZ building to audition,” said Brownlee.
“Ray Columbus was there, very small he was. I had to look down to see him, and he said ‘show us what you’ve got’. We only got a little way through our act and he said ‘that’s enough, you guys’. I’m not bitter about it but it was a cock-up in my opinion.”
Oh how Ray laughed when I read Brownlee’s quote to him.
I really think you should have included the last bit of the article
“”All right,” Ray eventually agreed when I suggested he should have right of reply. “But you can only print this response when I’m gone.”
As I said, Ray did always like to have the last word.
“I may be short, Mr Brownlee, but at least I could sing.””
How true those last 3 words were.
Yes Alwyn true, the last three lines are good. But Brownlee has now found how to squeeze the rest of us till we sing.
Deeply insightful piece by renegade farmer journalist Rachel Stewart.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=11756771
She listened to Guy ‘humans only have ten years left’ McPherson and experienced a personal epiphany….
“Many try to believe that politicians will soon see the error of their delays, act quickly on our behalf for the good of the planet, and all will be well. Business helps the environment, neoliberalism will save the kea, and continued fossil fuel extraction is a necessary evil. Technology will ultimately save the day. Hurrah!
I’ve thought hard on what was emotionally so different about McPherson’s short timeframe versus my unquestioning belief in a much longer one. Obviously, the longer timeframe means I’d get to live out my natural life.
I had never, for one second, consciously entertained the idea that human extinction was conceivable in the near term.
In other words, I’m basically okay with the sadness and anxiety about some far-off future generation seeing the collapse of humanity. Just not this one. My one.
Which tells me everything I didn’t want to know about myself. I possess precisely the same procrastination, selfishness and denial that got us into this mess.
Turns out, I’m only human.”
@Rosemary
Makes you gulp more than a little. Most people I know are ignoring warnings, but trying to make rational decisions based on the expectation that an ordered society will be possible in the long term. Short term, well more earthquakes, tsunami, a change of government, but near extinction no!
And how many people are putting the Syrian and African refugees to the forefront. I gave some money some months ago but have been sidetracked by other costs of money and time. Though they are just ordinary people like us who deserve their chance to live and have settled communities without being bombed and murdered because they are inconveniently in the way of strategic assets wanted by giant powers.
I am part of a group trying to do something for now for the community with an eye for the near to mid- future and having hard enough job to keep people on reality track when their heads are full of untested ideas, beliefs, personality clashes, examples from different times, areas etc which may not be replicated, differing understandings of what we are doing and about, what is of first priority etc. And trying to keep control from being wrested by charismatic loud voices that disdain questioning, quiet and meaningful analysis.
“Short term, well more earthquakes, tsunami, a change of government, but near extinction no!”
A Young Twentysomething of my acquaintance has (and sometimes is blighted by) what she terms ‘Apocalypse’ nightmares. End of the world stuff in full living colour and 3D. Every disaster, natural or manmade that dominates the headlines results in a sub conscious -produced movie that robs her of the settled sleep she needs to function well. Often this will be a mish-mash of various cataclysms…a bit of earthquake, tsunami with a sub plot of volcanic eruption and civil disorder.
I can’t say…”Chill, child, it’ll never happen”, that would be lying, but I do try to say that combining all these different types of incidents into one big nightmare is a bit OTT. Then…she points out, that in the middle of the earthquake, and the resulting tsunami warning, miserable scrotes broke into the houses of evacuees and robbed them. Such are humans…and do we really deserve to inhabit, never mind dominate, the planet? I try the “Not all folk are like that”, line, pointing out some of the good stuff that people do…but looking at the Big Picture, the Overall View of The World….???
Lyrics…. No lullaby
Keep your eyes open
And prick up your ears
Rehearse your loudest cry.
There’s folk out there
Who would do you harm
So I’ll sing you no lullaby.
There’s a lock on the window;
There’s a chain on the door:
A big dog in the hall.
But there’s dragons and beasties
Out there in the night
To snatch you if you fall.
So come out fighting
With your rattle in hand.
Thrust and parry. Light
A match to catch the devil’s eye.
Bring a cross of fire to the fight.
And let no sleep bring false relief
From the tension of the fray.
Come wake the dead with the scream of life.
Do battle with ghosts at play.
Gather your toys at the call-to-arms
And swing your big bear down.
Upon our necks when we come to set
You sleeping safe and sound.
It’s as well we tell no lie
To chase the face that cries.
And little birds can’t fly
So keep an open eye.
It’s as well we tell no lie
So I’ll sing you no lullaby.
McPherson is a moonbat who follows a long line of millerites and millenialists.
Stewart has been gullible to be sucked in by him as there is little in the way of a life lesson to be drawn from McPherson’s ‘science’ (except perhaps ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’).
Stewart is particularly obtuse if she’s never encountered the possibility of humanity ending – as an opinion writer she’s remarkably uninformed if she has never read theories or novels on comet impacts, germ warfare, plagues, nuclear war, vogons, zombie apocalypse etc etc.
The IPCC always gives conservative estimates of AGW impact, as I see it McPherson is looking at worst case scenarios. Unlikely perhaps but not outside the realm of possibility.
inspider
Don’t be such a jerk and know all. Plenty of totally unreal things have happened in the last 150 years, they have been real – not unreal, rarely have many imagined their unpleasant possibilities.
I think you should read this wikipedia page that goes into the realms of thinking and knowing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns
And for those others who already know everything and just look sarcastically at others flailing around trying to open and expand their minds – note the numerous thinking pattern systems:
Black swan theory
Dunning–Kruger effect
Epistemic modal logic
Four stages of competence
I know that I know nothing
Ignoramus et ignorabimus
Ignotum per ignotius
Johari window
Known and Unknown: A Memoir
List of political catch phrases
Outside Context Problem
Russell’s teapot
The Unknown Known
Wild card (foresight)
These are not even unknown or unpredictable events, any science that contradicts the relentless pursuit of profit is treated as a pariah.
History shows that all civilizations have a limited life span, and there are so many things going wrong with the climate and ecosystems sustaining human civilisation, I think we will see in our lifetimes massive collapses of cities and nations, but hopefully not complete extinction of humanity.
Our species faces some existential threats but down here in Planet Key we are pretending it’s business as usual for as long as possible. Until it’s too late.
– record levels of extinctions
– collapsing bee populations
– widespread soil degradation
– increasing pressure on water supplies (fracking, cowshit, mining)
– human population still growing out of control
– destruction of remaining rainforests
– overfishing and fish dumping
– ocean acidification, warming, and gyres of floating garbage
– methane emissions from thawing tundra
– sea level rise and extreme weather events
– donald trump
Can anyone else hear “Woman of the Year” Helen Kelly cry….YES! ?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11757719
“Coroner Bain concluded: “Having reviewed all the evidence, the Court does not support the view that Mr McMurtrie is in effect, the author of his own misfortune. Considerable issues are raised by the family and the Counsel for Trade Unions in respect of fatigue and in the Court’s view this may well have played a significant part in what occurred,” he said.
“The Court, on the balance of probabilities, finds no fault with Mr McMurtrie.”
Coroner Bain went on to repeat general findings from three inquest findings released on Friday, in which he said the forestry industry was a far safer place to work now than it was when the eight men died.
“The primary driver in highlighting the lack of safety in the forestry industry and the need for accountability and urgent safety reforms has been the CTU and, in particular, Helen Kelly,” he said.””
+100……. thanks for the post Rosemary
It made me happy … and sad.
For both Helen Kelly and David McMurtrie …
Many people appear to be concerned about the spread and influence of “fake news” in this so-called post-truth era and agonise about how to deal with it. I don’t think there’s an easy answer – it would be worth a lengthy post here on TS if I knew it would ever get published – but this piece may be a step in the right direction although I don’t think it is nearly enough or sufficient:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/86918289/why-we-should-be-teaching-philosophy-in-schools
Nope, even philosophy 101 would be far too abstract for most kids.
Would be good to get the opinion of a teacher, but I remember learning about Nazi propaganda in social studies, and reading ‘1984’ and ‘Brave New World’ (and probably Fahrenheit 451) at various points.
So I think the basics are covered, if the high school curriculum is anything like it was in the 80s.
I don’t think philosophy needs to be abstract, rather the opposite, it can be highly practical and relevant. I think it would be great if more emphasis would be given in schools to ethics, logic, analytical thinking, etc. The (human) brain has awe-inspiring capabilities but if we don’t get taught how to engage our brains awful things can and do happen plus it is just a waste of our tremendous potential both individually and collectively IMHO.
Obviously, you tailor your teaching to the children but IMO philosophy starts at a very young age.
Its official…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/87049997/high-profile-defection-of-nick-leggett-to-national-will-rock-labour
Nick Leggett – National candidate for Mana.
Good luck Nick !!!
Leggett didn’t leave Labour, Labour left Leggett 🙂
Leggett has been right wing all the way through.
He supports Rogernomics, Goff, hated Cunliffe, and thinks that Labour should focus more on the businessman.
In short. Typical RWNJ and only out for himself.
This was interesting in the same link:
“There are reports a deal with the Greens to stand aside in Nelson has fractured the local electorate, with as many as eight people said to have quit the party in protest.
Labour sources suggested to Fairfax there were more.”
Someone is telling porkies – But it sounds like its possible some of the members are not happy with the MOU implementation.
I believe I have pointed out previously that this is what I’d expect. I’d also expect that the number of people actually voting for the local candidates would drop. I think that the party votes for the area will also drop.
It may make “political” sense for people in Wellington. However I suspect that overall it is a vote loser.
Personally as a matter of principal I’d simply vote against whatever party did it. Doesn’t matter if it is National in Epsom or Labour in Nelson. The idea that a political party ‘owns’ votes is just outright dumb. If you have a decent candidate (and Labour and National usually do), then put them up and let the voters make up their mind. Don’t do deals that cut into the voting base.
We have enough issues with the slow but steady reduction of the turnout already.
Seems to me that that’s the good direction for Labour to lose members.
There needs to be a fundamental difference between the two main parties, imo. And a step to the left is illustrated by those who jump to the right 🙂
Very interesting move from the NZ Reserve Bank to seek powers to limit lending to home buyers if they do not earn enough.
English wants a bit more time to see if the current measures will continue to cool the Auckland market enough. But that’s quite a call if all this debt starts to get riskier.
I seem to recall Minister Smith this morning saying how important it was that young people didn’t rack up more mortgage debt than they could bear, after figures came in showing the percentage of debt increase for fist home buyers over the last two years. (better jaw jaw than act act, or something).
For example, events may change fast in the global economy that really push up interest rates up fast, so anyone with a mortgage that isn’t fixed gets in real trouble because it’s just too hard to pay back. Trouble Capital T.
We will see Ministers meet with the Reserve Bank in the next few weeks to nut this one out. It’s a biggie.
Sounds like a half arsed solution that picks on the bottom end of the market who are mostly priced out anyway.
National needs to implement policies that curb rentier behaviour and speculation, not punish working people.
See also this cartoon:
Latest Roy Morgan is out.
Ouch for labour. A dismal 23%. Jesus wept.
National on 49.5%.
Confidence in the government right up:
The NZ Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating has increased strongly to 141pts (up 14.5pts) in November with a high 65% (up 9.5%) of NZ electors saying NZ is ‘heading in the right direction’ compared to only 24% (down 5%) that say NZ is ‘heading in the wrong direction’. This is the rating’s highest score for nearly two years since January 2015.
The lolly scramble and two-tier economy is working well for Gnat supporters.
So is the media adulation and careful PR image of AB captain/beer swilling kiwi PM.
We are ranked near the top of the OECD on all sorts of measures except for absolute basic stuff like education, health, and housing. But that’s all swept under the carpet.