Susan St John: Child poverty measures short-change families
‘A shameful disparity between the treatment of children in families who can work enough paid hours, and those children whose families cannot, means in practice New Zealand has two classes of low-income children. The “in work” worthy can be supported to the full extent of the social security legislation, and the children of the unworthy, the outcasts: beneficiaries, disproportionately the disabled, Maori or Pasifika, many with chronic illness, are consigned to remain in poverty.
The parents of the “undeserving children” may struggle in a casualised labour market, on low wages or with redundancies, or in the aftermath of disasters. Irrespective of the cause of low income, regardless of circumstance, all children could and should be afforded the same tax-funded child payments to ensure an adequate standard of living.’
A quick perusal of the Charities Register confirms my theory that real advocacy is better done without the fetters of government funding.
CPAG has somehow managed to keep the issue of child poverty in New Zealand at the forefront in the media…despite receiving NOTHING from the the government in the way of funding.
People DONATE, and members VOLUNTEER. Shit gets DONE.
Hi Lara. Thanks for your comments on the John Key/White Ribbon ambassador post by Kerero Pono yesterday. It was good to get a different view of the functioning of White Ribbon – the link about the “anti feminist” WR ambassador in Oz was an eye opener. What you have said has made me think differently about them.
I’m still keeping an open mind and still have an expectation about them dropping Key – they absolutely must – but your words made sense and altered how I perceive White Ribbon.
“As part of her effort to run the Red Cross more like a business, McGovern recruited more than 10 former AT&T executives to top positions. The move stirred resentment inside the organization, with some longtime Red Cross hands referring to the charity as the “AT&T retirement program.’’
McGovern laid out a vision to increase revenue through “consolidated, powerful, breathtaking marketing.”
“This is a brand to die for,” she often said.
Her team unveiled a five-year blueprint in 2011 that called for expanding the charity’s revenue from $3 billion to $4 billion. In fact, Red Cross receipts have dropped since then and fell below their 2011 level last year.”
Glad y’all like that. It may be the only original thought I’ve ever had. It was sparked a few years ago by reading a flurry of articles showing high executive pay and poor company performance were well correlated. And I suspect that’s probably true for charities as well.
I think it holds true for CEO’s of gummint partmints too.
Many years ago, we used to worry about a thing called the Peter Principle.
Now we seem to worship incompetence.
Actually, I think it holds true for Munsters of the Crown. The only thing that props them up (their invisible means of support) seems to be our MSM (who’re rules along the same lines)
Stevie Ray Joyce, Pulla Bent, Soimun ‘Learnings’ Brudgizz, N. Tolley, etc.
The underappreciated bit about the Peter Principle is that you could be confident that, once upon a time, your boss actually was good at something useful.
Margrit Kennedy has done a fair amount of work with Bernard Lietar, who specialises (decades) in the field of money and how it works.
This ebook from Ms Kennedy outlines an interest free demurrage system.
The cool thing about demurrage is it reintroduces the incentive to loan, keeps the money supply stable and ensures existing money flows faster. The historic example of Worgl in Austria (it’s in the ebook) shows how well it can work.
I like the idea of demur-rage and believe it will come in to effect some time in the future. I just think that 0% interest loans need to come in first.
I want to address this bit in the introduction of the book:
For example, if you live in a village which relies entirely on barter, and you produce works of art but there is nobody to exchange your artwork with except the undertaker, you will soon have to change your occupation or leave.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how societies work.
A society that doesn’t use money would support the artist because they appreciate the art that they get to see. They may even go so far as to build art galleries to display it along with other artworks where everyone can go and view it as they choose.
It’s of note that David Graeber in his Debt: The first 5000 years notes that no bartering economy, as postulated by the economists, has ever been found.
I should also point out that I’m working to stop people loaning out money as it results in all the money going to people who are already rich – exactly as that book points out.
What an amazing level of cognitive dissonance expressed by the author of this article. They truly think that the recent election result in Venezuela has not fundamentally changed the game in that country.
The complete failure of socialism steering Pauly in the face , the answer move on nothing to see here. How many real world case studies do you need Pauly , capitalism has it failures nothing howerver to the scale of socialism, as Churchill rightly assessed capitalism is not perfect but it sure beats anything else
Capitalism only succeeds because of socialism. Without socialism capitalism would revert to its natural state – feudalism.
And ATM capitalism is bringing about the 6thextinctionevent. Wiping out life on Earth can in no way be considered successful.
A vast chunk of space rock crashes into the Yucatan Peninsula, darkening the sky with debris and condemning three-quarters of Earth’s species to extinction. A convergence of continents disrupts the circulation of the oceans, rendering them stagnant and toxic to everything that lives there. Vast volcanic plateaus erupt, filling the air with poisonous gas. Glaciers subsume the land and lock up the oceans in acres of ice.
Five times in the past, the Earth has been struck by these kinds of cataclysmic events, ones so severe and swift (in geological terms) they obliterated most kinds of living things before they ever had a chance to adapt.
Now, scientists say, the Earth is on the brink of a sixth such “mass extinction event.” Only this time, the culprit isn’t a massive asteroid impact or volcanic explosions or the inexorable drifting of continents. It’s us.
“Capitalism only succeeds because of socialism. Without socialism capitalism would revert to its natural state – feudalism.”
Mmmmm, I must remember that (You bastard!). It’s actually very profound and exemplifies what’s gone wrong today (i.e. we’re on the ‘neo-feudal’ route).
What’s your view: Do you think capitalism always leads to ‘crony-capitalism’? ( which is what we have, and what the likes of most trolls on here are pushing, as tho’ it was some sort of new religion. )
It wasn’t that long ago (around the time of Roger and Ruth) that they were espousing the idea of competition being the be-all and end-all – you know….many players competing is beneficial to ‘the consumer’ – even in things like health and edge-a-kayshun. Now of course (aided and abetted by an utterly knobbled Commerce Commission), the tendency towards monopoly/duopoly positions is seen by the capitalists (read 1%ers and those that aspire to the 1% – such as Gosman and ilk) is somehow capitalism at work and is seen as Norman Normal.
Really … they’re so full of shit private enterprise could make a killing off a sewage farm.
What’s your view: Do you think capitalism always leads to ‘crony-capitalism’?
Yes as competition is detrimental to everyone competing whereas cooperating is beneficial to everyone cooperating. So, the capitalists cooperate to screw over the rest of us while encouraging the rest of us to compete with each other. The latter is done through government policies of high unemployment and cutting out the welfare state while lambasting us with the idea that having ‘choice’ is all that matters while hiding the fact that you don’t have a choice in who you’re actually buying from.
I think you’re probably right (correct) @ Monsieur le Bastard.
I note you use the word ‘cooperating’.
(Foreign concept to most of the trolls that come in here from time to time and according to the roster – some even claiming ‘Christian values FFS – we have anew one, if you hadn’t noticed)
And I agree with you about their justifying their position with the idea of ‘choice’ being all important – problem being that they can’t then explain the tendency towards monopoly/duopoly structures that are inevitable. (Well, actually they can offer a few weasle words)
…… but then you’re just a ‘hard left’, kinsprissy-oriented, othered, fuckwit probably. You deserve to be locked up! :p
Good craic Draco and OWT. And, OWT, keep up the kooky way of speaking. I very much enjoy reading your comments. They are often lively, and always insightful.
Because Venezuela represents the sort of ideas and policies that a large number if leftists here wish to pursue. The idea that society can somehow control markets and that you can legislate wealth and prosperity for all. If you read those more radical left wing proposals I doubt there would be many that a lot of people here would disagree with. However it us those same policies that are causing the problems the country is facing.
I want something more like the New Zealand I grew up in – which worked and was humane. Venezuela is just a whipping boy for far-right trolls – you know nothing significant about it and care even less – you just think it supports your prejudices.
The failures of socialist societies, like those of capitalist societies, are complex and not generalisable without an indepth knowledge of the context of each. Israeli kibbutzim fail for different reasons than Stalinism. Bill English’s economic failures only partially resemble Cameron’s – Cameron didn’t bet the farm on a dairy bubble.
“I want something more like the New Zealand I grew up in – which worked and was humane”
From the things you put in other posts that sounds rather as if you grew up when Keith Holyoake was PM.
Life was a bit boring but certainly quite comfortable under a four term National Government.
On that basis John Key is going to come closest to providing those times again. Doesn’t that cheer you up?
socialism as a theory has failed, a nice fuzzy and warm theory that makes you fell good, however as it has been proven time and time again it fail in practice to achieve its desired or predicted outcomes, It is thus a flawed theory and ideology and should be dispensed with. Interesting however as you demonstrate as with other flawed theories its proponents tend to hold on to them no matter what, flat earth society etc
You look back at nz with rose tinted glasses, nz at the time as a command / mixed economy is another clear example of failed socialism, nz during the 50 60 70s was pretty bleak re choice and economic freedom, likewise opportunity. We funded our way of living by selling sheep and wool to Britain , once this door was closed we where pretty rooted, we kept it going by borrowing and paying farmers to produce lambs at a guaranteed price (Supplementary minimum prices) even though the price we sold product for to world markets was less.We Kept every one employed by running a bloated non productive state sector, e.g 40000 people working for kiwi rail, trucks not going more than 100 miles to maintain a state monopoly etc. We borrowed haevily to keep our so called utopia going. Eventually the world worked out what we where doing was not sustainable, hence the tap was turned off, normally how most socialist economies fail, they run out of other people’s money. Muldoon tried to keep the party going with price freezes, currency controls, think big ( all good socialist stuff) but eventually reality caught up and thank god for the 1984 labour government
The world has problems but contrary to Draco and Paul I believe capitalism ( with better regulation where required) and human innovation released by free markets has a far better chance of solving these problems than a ideology that simply fails time after time
Socialism preceded capitalism and continues to work and flourish even within the most dysfunctional capitalist societies. Public libraries, hospitals, post offices, police all reflect a communitarian approach which is successful, a necessary balancing influence. A healthy society runs mixed economies – both social and commercial.
But you are an extremist as well as a fool – you seem to think that society, like Thatcher, doesn’t exist. and that it can and should be eliminated, more fool you. You have lost the plot – as has National. Political parties don’t get to eliminate society unless they become despotic, and a despotic party has no right to exist in a democracy. You are traitors, every one of you.
Yes, National were truly lousy economic managers back in Holyoake’s day, and that hasn’t changed at all. But you have drifted a long, long, way right since then, without even learning the most basic things about how to run an economy. And now you have no redeeming social virtues to recommend you.
Run along and play on kiwiblog with the rest of the parasites – and dream of an economy financed by selling Auckland houses to one another indefinitely.
NZ has an abundance of natural resources, but none are as vast as the stupidity of National supporters.
No one is saying government should not provide public goods, I am simply saying they have no part in prouctive sector, as is well demonstrated with the bulk of econonic activity now produced by the private sector and corporates globally, replacing the state over the last 50 years. the facts are the facts, capitalism has trumped socialism wether you like it or not, even so called Marxist states are going the same way
Paul when some one starts a response with you ignorant turd (which tends to say more about the sender than the receiver) can you please advise how I should respond, I can’t use your tried and true method any more, I thought I was been polite in simply highlighting Stuart may have some anger issues , I also note nor you or Stuart really countered anything I said. I guess it’s hard when you are trying to deny facts with a washed up idealogy and some mythical past where Santa existed all year round or the favourite default response “troll”
States and commercial providers are both perfectly capable of providing public goods if scrupulously monitored & regulated.
Equally, both are capable of screwing up by the numbers if left to themselves or small interest groups.
Take Auckland housing. Could’ve been fixed by a state housing program. Could’ve been fixed by a well designed PPP model. Hasn’t been fixed by the clusterfuck Key kleptocracy.
As you say, facts are facts, and $105 billion worth of debt proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this so-called government doesn’t have a clue.
Why you should think I, or anyone else on here is especially attached to Marxism I do not know – I guess your education never got much beyond Muldoon’s Reds under the Beds ad campaign. But just to put the record straight, extremes of capitalism, as practised post Reagan Thatcher etc, consistently underperform the mixed model that preceded it.
Stop lying to yourself and for gods sake learn a smattering of economics you ignorant sack of shit.
No it couldn’t as there’s no such thing as a good PPP model. Or, to put it another way, no commercial enterprise will sign up to a PPP model that actually does what’s needed for the right price as they’re be little or no profit in it.
Virtually all ppps in the UK, Oz, and here are out and out rorts. In Korea however (where I spent most of the last decade) companies exist at the sufferance of the state and the worst ones will be broken up and their principals jailed if they play too fast and loose. My understanding is that not all Korean law is codified so that egregious wrongdoing gets you in trouble even if legislators did not anticipate it. Apart from the party linked companies, some of whose directors go to jail with every change of government, the larger companies negotiate with the state to avoid unpleasantness and for the most part actually perform as required. Serco is kind of the opposite of this. If Serco were in Korea the directors would not find prison radio gags especially entertaining, but of course they would not be able to listen to them, being behind bars.
My understanding is that not all Korean law is codified so that egregious wrongdoing gets you in trouble even if legislators did not anticipate it.
Recalls to mind the MPs manual that John Key dismissed with the wave of his hand and the pronunciation that it was just a set of guidelines rather than law when he broke those guidelines in an immoral manner and declared it legal.
Basically, what I’m getting at here is that people look for ways, that are often immoral, to do things that aren’t covered by law that will net them a quick profit. Despite them knowing that doing it that way is immoral they’ll do it any way as it benefits them and they just don’t care who’s harmed. The actions of this guy spring to mind.
We need laws and, IMO, we need a general set of principles that the law is set upon that will catch immoral behaviour even if there isn’t a law covering a specific action. I believe that we’ve gone too far in specificity in our laws.
I am simply saying they have no part in prouctive sector, as is well demonstrated with the bulk of econonic activity now produced by the private sector and corporates globally, replacing the state over the last 50 years
No mention of the private frameworks which skewed the odds in their favour. Global rape of human & environmental resource exploitation
Finance and legal would be the two frameworks you’re either ignoring, or are ignorant of
“Eventually the world worked out what we where doing was not sustainable, hence the tap was turned off, normally how most socialist economies fail, they run out of other people’s money.”
The number of times I have heard similiar shit about socialist are good at spending others money.
Please enlighten us how does that equate to the Double Dipping Dickhead from Dipton borrowing now over a 100 billion dollars just to waste on the likes of tax cuts for the rich and social welfare for the likes of Warners, Jackson Reo Tinto and money wasting stupid flag referendum. as I never classed that prat as a socialist
If the US could cause such economic dislocation as occurring in Venezuela right now then it should make people think twice before alienating them. Of course the problems faced by Venezuela are homegrown not caused by the US. However that won’t stop leftists like you trying to shift the blame.
The US is not responsible for the oil price: I’m not surprised that you’d suggest such a thing and you’re a fool if you think that’s what I’m referring to.
You cannot possibly know that Venezuela’s problems are 100% homegrown, because the aforementioned US foreign policy exists and has been implemented. Who knows where Venezuela would be without it?
Oh yes, the Venezuelan Government lost around $36 billion in export revenue in a year because somehow Venezuela has the power to set the world oil price… Damn that left wing government. A right wing dictatorship would of course still be riding high..
You seem to have a preoccupation with Venuzuela. It serves your cause of course – in this case taking an example where something has turned to shit, and trying to use it as an example of how those who disagree with that ‘centre-right-sensible’ ideology are stupid.
It’s a bit like taking a small minority of feral beneficiaries and using it as a weapon to bash all (they’re SO not like you). Classic CT, classic Nact, classic MSM.
What is with the preoccupation with Venuzuela by the way? Does it stem from when Key & Co (those bizniss ‘leaders’) visited Sth America and left with most Sth Americans seeing Him as a complete dolt? (Snubbing the funeral et al). What’s come of hopes of a ‘free trade agreement’ btw? About the only thing I can see is Air NZ Sth American route additions – and that’s on their own initiative.
(Shudda cudda wudda treated Brazilian students a bit better)
Hey Gosman How’s the economy going in that right wing cot case called the Ukraine.?
Oh I forgot things are looking up as the IMF have told them to forget about paying the money they owe to Russia. Pity the IMF does not apply the same rules to Greece.
By doing so, it announced its new policy: “We only enforce debts owed in US dollars to US allies.” This means that what was simmering as a Cold War against Russia has now turned into a full-blown division of the world into the Dollar Bloc (with its satellite Euro and other pro-U.S. currencies) and the BRICS or other countries not in the U.S. financial and military orbit.
What should Russia do? For that matter, what should China and other BRICS countries do? The IMF and U.S. neocons have sent the world a message: you don’t have to honor debts to countries outside of the dollar area and its satellites.
Why then should these non-dollarized countries remain in the IMF – or the World Bank, for that matter. The IMF move effectively splits the global system in half,between the BRICS and the US-European neoliberalized financial system.
Should Russia withdraw from the IMF? Should other countries?
My bold.
The present global system is designed to keep the US pre-eminent but it can’t as change happens.
The socialism (health, education, jobs etc) of the last Venezuelan government was very good for the poor. Unfortunately many took their new middle class wealth and security for granted and started believing the lies of capitalism. They went to the polls to vote out those who had rescued them. Much the same as the new middle classes in New Zealand drove from their new state houses to the polling booths in 1949 in their new cars to vote out the first Labour Government which had done so much for them.
“Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
In the aftermath of the economic collapse in 2008, a significant factor in the decline of the quality of jobs in the United States, as well as in Europe has been employers’ increasing reliance on “non-regular” workers — a growing army of freelancers, temps, contractors, part-timers, day laborers, micro-entrepreneurs, gig-preneurs, solo-preneurs, contingent labor, perma-lancers and perma-temps. It’s practically a new taxonomy for a workforce that has become segmented into a dizzying assortment of labor categories. Even many full-time, professional jobs and occupations are experiencing this precarious shift.
This practice has given rise to the term “1099 economy,” since these employees don’t file W-2 income tax forms like any regular, permanent employee; instead, they receive the 1099-MISC form for an IRS classification known as “independent contractor.” The advantage for a business of using 1099 workers over W-2 wage-earners is obvious: an employer usually can lower its labor costs dramatically, often by 30 percent or more, since it is not responsible for a 1099 worker’s health benefits, retirement, unemployment or injured workers compensation, lunch breaks, overtime, disability, paid sick, holiday or vacation leave and more. In addition, contract workers are paid only for the specific number of hours they spend providing labor, or completing a specific job, which increasingly are being reduced to shorter and shorter “micro-gigs.”
Exactly as has been happening in NZ starting back in the 1990s with the Employment Contracts Act. All the expenses shifted on to the workers while the bosses get all the benefits. The workers have been getting shafted as the amount that the bosses pay the workers isn’t enough to buy and maintain the tools that the workers need, any holiday or sick pay or pretty much anything at all. ACC then make it harder by making it almost impossible for the contractors to get it despite the fact that they’ve been paying both the employer and employee parts of the ACC levy.
New Zealand farming practice responsible for the massive Indonesian fires.
This is another consequence of our do nothing climate polices.
‘Palm kernel imports jump
Palm kernel imports picked up sharply last month
Imports of the controversial livestock feed supplement, which is used extensively in the dairy industry, came to 222,413 tonnes last month, up from 138,763 tonnes in October and 178,381 tonnes in November last year, according to Statistics NZ data.
Palm kernel became popular in 2007 when a drought sent North Island farmers looking for new feed sources.
Imports of palm kernel, a byproduct of the palm oil industry, went from 96,000 tonnes in 2003 to a record 2 million tonnes last year.’
Intensive dairy farming is increasingly looking like an industry that is not compatible with the sensible management of our planet and our country.
Destroying our rivers
Responsible for the destruction of pristine Indonesian rainforest
Animal cruelty, as exposed by SAFE and Farmwatch
Dairy is one of the most inflammatory foods in our modern diet, second only to gluten.
And it looks lie our government, rather than deal with its poor environmental record, engages in climate fraud.
‘Dealing with criminals in climate fraud
The Government’s plan for meeting our Kyoto Protocol commitment and 2020 emissions reduction target was released this month.
It reveals a shocking truth: New Zealand has been a willing participant in a wholesale climate fraud.
We’ve been dealing with criminals and fraudsters in order to meet our international obligations. If our reputation wasn’t shot to pieces after Paris – where we revealed our weak kneed 2030 target – it will be now.’
This kind of monkey business is why I think a straight up fossil carbon (and other greenhouse gas) tax is by far the best “market mechanism” to reduce emissions. Any kind of cap-and-trade system will inevitably be open to these sorts of frauds.
I don’t see the opportunity to line the bastards up against a wall coming anytime soon. Not even if Sanders becomes Prez and Corbyn becomes PM. Do you? And to be honest, the way revolutions played out in the past, I’d be worried about being lined up with the rest of them, being educated and well-off and all that.
So the tools of the system we’ve got now are pretty much the only tools we’ve got to play with.
If it comes to “lining the bastards up”, you can be pretty certain that anyone who fights for democracy will be the next against the wall. (Maybe third, after the academics, poets and musicians have been purged).
Governments, particularly revolutionary ones, can and often do far worse to their people than the rampant corruption, incompetence and theft that we currently labour under.
Yep, laws against corruption with Proceeds of Crime acts that are fully enforced are a much better idea. Gets rid of the capitalists on one hand while also returning the wealth to the nation.
While your generalisation is pretty sound, Frank Bainimarama managed to supplant a government without a very high butcher’s bill. It could be done here too – we are not some eastern European badlands with a tradition of mass murder going back to Attila.
Personally I think enthusiastic prosecution of public asset frauds would suffice, though of course it would see 90% of the incumbents doing porridge, so they will try to suppress investigations of things like CERA.
Are you suggesting that for real change to happen we must have a violent revolution? That is the bit I disagree with if I understand you correctly (please do point out if I’ve interpreted this wrongly).
Non voilent revolution is actually more effective. See this TED talk by Erica Chenoweth.
And I don’t think we even need a revolution to achieve real change. With an MMP system if we get enough people voting for parties that represent real change (which IMO would be Greens and Mana) then we may well get it. Peacefully and democratically.
IMO it is money; how it is structured, how it works, and who creates it most specifically that is the key to real change. If we change how our money works then we change our society.
Money has a big influence on our behaviour. Because we need money to survive; most of us can’t provide our shelter and food necessities without access to some money, and so to obtain money which buys us necessities of life we will do many things which we would rather not do. It drives much of our behaviour at an individual level and at a society wide level.
Change how money is structured and you change our behaviour at an individual level and at a society wide level.
If a new government was elected which had the balls to change our monetary system then we’d have the foundation of real change in NZ.
But that’s the problem. Most MPs don’t understand how our current monetary system works, nor how important it is, nor that there are alternatives. And they lack the balls to change it even if they did understand.
Because there are powerful interests that don’t want change.
Good luck with doing it that way. I’ll be cheering for you, no sarcasm, but I really doubt you’ll get any traction beyond “margin-of-error-in-the-polls”. And in the meantime I’ll put my efforts towards things that look to me like they have a chance of actually making improvements.
Ok, poor choice of words on my part about bastards and walls. Lesson learned, anything I say can and will be wilfully misinterpreted and used against me. Avoid hyperbole.
I advocated a simple carbon tax. Coz I want to see positive changes actually happen. A carbon tax is the kind of tool that is well known and easily adjusted to drive changes in behaviour.
I don’t want to just dream about the way things should be, though I do plenty of that too. And the kind of fundamental, radical societal changes on the scale you’re talking about has either taken generations or violent revolutions to come about. When it comes to climate change, we don’t have generations of time to play with, nor do I want to see violent revolution (although I’m very afraid it’s coming anyway). So it’s a case of getting the best results we can with the tools we have now.
The Lange-Douglas government is about the only example I can think of where that kind of radical change actually did happen non-violently. Although, metaphorically, it actually was pretty violent. While a lot of those changes were needed, a lot of the rest were not needed, and have turned out pretty negative for the vulnerable parts of our society. So looking back on how things have played out over the last 25 years I would rather the changes had been introduced incrementally.
One final general thought – when large holes get ripped into any complex system, say a natural ecosystem or a societal structure, it’s the quick opportunists that tend to fill the holes. Weeds. Fast buck artists. And once they get established they are pretty difficult to dislodge. So to my mind, the kind of change in the structure of money that Draco talks about, and it seems to me that you’re looking for, that’s a disruption bigger than Lange-Douglas and will invite all kinds of unintended consequences. Whereas things like a carbon tax or UBI are just an incremental change from what we have now and can be easily adjusted to get the desired effect.
@Andre
Am of a similar mind though probably less confident….revolutionary without the guillotine,using your example of Lange/Douglas but to the power of 10….and thats why the bulk of it will need to be government led (driven) although not this government obviously. A groundswell (bottom up if you prefer) is needed to establish that administration but the changes needed will need to be enforced, transitioned, supported in many instances….the alternative is anarchy (revolution) and as history has taught, while quick to tear down revolutions are slow to rebuild….and time hasn’t been on our side for a while .
Andre, there was no “wilful” in my misinterpretation. I made it very clear that it was my interpretation and I can only interpret what you wrote. I also asked to be corrected if I had gotten it wrong.
I agree with you that a carbon tax is a possible solution.
I am pointing out that carbon trading is unlikely to work. So far that is true.
And I am pointing out that it is the structure of our monetary system (which discounts the future) that is the root problem. And that I don’t think we need a revolution to change it.
So we actually agree, I’m just trying to take it one step further.
You are so right there, we visited a lake where many many many years ago we used to go sailing. This would be over 30 years ago. the kids used to swim and play in the lake. I was utterly disgusted this lake is now has a reddish colour about it and warning notices about unsafe to expose your skin to the water as it has a toxic algae in the lake. Shit the number of times I got wet in this lake I doubt if I would have survived the day in today’s conditions.
No one was sailing on this lake the day we were there. but I give it the benefit of the doubt as it was the holiday season, but I suspect the opposite, people are now wary of the condition this lake is in.
Lovely HUGE herds of cows in the neighborhood though. no doubt being fed that Palm kernel crap.
The cynic in me thinks that Fonterra is using this as both a PR and pre-emptive action. There are many in NZ that think our dairy cows are fully pasture or hay fed, it comes as a surprise to find out this is not the case.
As more look local, the transparency of supply chains for food become easier to collate and view.
However, without giving farmers direction on how to achieve profitability on their overstocked, climate-change prone farms, this directive is of little use to farmers.
Brings to mind my partner’s work in heavy industry where workers are told to “work safe” and then also told that production needs to increase to a certain level, and they have to find a way to make it happen. Often the responsibility for ensuring work safe practices belongs with the workers themselves, but few have the personality type or assurance that allows them to challenge conflicting messages from upper management.
Our complacency in damaging other countries environments while simultaneously damaging our own in our pursuit of white gold, does us no credit. And it seems to enrich very few in return – Amy Adams notwithstanding.
You are right to be cynical.
The article in the Herald looks like a PR exercise for Fonterra.
There are at least 4 specific mentions of how well Fonterra are doing.
The link to the WWF is revealing though, as this is one of the dodgiest charities around.
“However, without giving farmers direction on how to achieve profitability on their overstocked, climate-change prone farms, this directive is of little use to farmers.”
Completely agree Molly. If Fonterra gave a shit in real life they’d be supporting organics and sustainably production. It’s all going to be spin that works for the profit of the few and the expense of others.
The only way that less will be used by NZ farmers is if the government bans food importation for animal feed. This would mean that the animals raised in NZ will have to be done so sustainably on NZ’s resources.
This government won’t do it and I’m pretty sure that a Labour led one won’t either and for the same reason – free-market trade.
Good call. Red Delusion is obviously from the Youth Wing of the trolls – either that or it hasn’t the capacity to learn, think critically, or experience (going forward).
I ‘spose even the ‘hard-right’ are trying to scrape up enough specimens these days to comment, attempt diversions, pepper a few comments with semi-intelligent utterings – what’s the fucking point I sometimes think. CT can’t be ‘across’ everything even tho’ I see one is about to get a Cameron knighthood.
I wonder who does their roster.
It’d be nice if they understood some basic methmetuks – the natives will eventually (and are) getting restless – even tho’ the cynicism with politics and an alternative that’s still desperately trying to feed from the trough in order to preserve their comfort.
(Did someone say James Shaw and Andrew Little ???? SURELY not!!!!)
Palm kernel tend to agree not good, not sure of solution barring Indonesia sorting it out and or nz regulation ( re dairy intensification) or consumers rising up
Ukrain, complicated, no easy answer
El Salvador, not across it
capitalism destroying planet, disagree, I agree human activity and population growth is detrimental to planet, capitalism, well not so much capitalism but free markets with corporates of multiple forms of ownership are more likely to find answers though releasing innovation than innovation stifling state based socialism, wastage and poor regulation
“capitalism destroying planet, disagree, I agree human activity and population growth is detrimental to planet, capitalism, well not so much capitalism but free markets with corporates of multiple forms of ownership are more likely to find answers though releasing innovation than innovation stifling state based socialism, wastage and poor regulation”
what is capitalism if not free markets with corporates of multiple forms (and in the absence of regulation, lassiez faire) pray tell?
The fact that palm kernel is a buy product makes me think you’re being at best mischievous blaming Indonesian forest fires on kiwi farmers.
Any products on your shopping list with vegetable/palm oil in them by chance.
Exactly. Palm kernel is a by-product of the palm oil business. NZ dairy farmers are no more “responsible” for forest fires in Indonesia than are the people promoting the replacement of animal fats with vegetable ones.
Before anyone starts: the stupidity of intensifying dairy production to the point where we need to import animal feed (not that dairy cows ought to be eating this stuff) is a separate issue.
I know that’s the theory (and it’s certainly the industry and Fonterra’s PR), but is there evidence that stopping all palm kernal exports would not affect the economics of what is happening in Malayasia/Indonesia and that the kernal would be dumped?
Let’s think this through. Selling PKE increases the profitability of growing palm oil. So maybe the least profitable forest clearance to palm plantation projects might not go ahead without the PKE sales. Kind of like fewer dairy conversions happen when the milk payout is low. So there’s at least a tenuous link between kiwi farmers buying PKE and forest fires in Indonesia.
Whom do folks think should be responsible for ensuring that New Zealand Councils, are held accountable to the ‘Rule of Law’ regarding citizens and ratepayers LAWFUL rights to ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government?
I wonder how this will impact on our future, whether planetary or individual:
“Google claims the D-Wave 2X is 100 million times as fast as any of today’s machines. As a result, this quantum computer could theoretically complete calculations within seconds to a problem that might take a digital computer 10,000 years to calculate. That’s particularly important, given the difficult tasks that today’s computers are called upon to complete and the staggering amount of data they are called upon to process.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11567032
2015 Smashes Global Temperature Records
“According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), by mid-December, 25,242 high-temperature records had been set across the country for just the last year.
“Given that 2015 easily remains on track to become the hottest year ever recorded for the globe, record-high temperatures continue to be recorded across the planet.
“In the Arctic, the latest NOAA data shows that temperatures there in 2015 were up to 3 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, and that the warmth had caused so much melting of the sea ice that 70 percent of the ice pack was made up of first-year ice. These temperatures are the highest ever recorded there, and the minimum ice cover for this year was the fourth-smallest ever recorded.” (emph added) http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34090-gop-candidates-receive-failing-grades-on-climate-as-2015-smashes-global-temperature-records
Predictions for 2016.
1. Opinion polls for 2016 will all (RoyMorgan excluded) have National support greater than Labour+ Greens.
2. Greens will cuddle closer to National
3. At least two national MP’s will leave parliament.
4. There will be a by election.
5. Moves will be made to deselect certain longstanding Labour MP’s
6. There will be a Cabinet reshuffle and some talented MP’s elected in 2014 will be promoted.
7. An MP will die.
8. [RL: Deleted] will be rampant on the Standard.
9. Celtic will qualify for the Champions League
10. Tourism revenues for NZ will exceed dairy earnings again
[RL: Take a week off for repeating boring derivative crap when warned yesterday not to.]
1. the right will continue to lie about the Green Party as cosying up to National in an attempt to lessen the GP vote.
2. trolls will troll the standard, but increasingly find it harder to do anything other rely on the CT spin memos, because we’re now in the year of ‘everyone knows Key and National are corrupt so let’s stop pretending’.
3. real conservatives will speak out more about the problems with National, simply from embarrassment.
4. NZ will have several severe weather events that scream climate change (one of which will be flooding in Dunedin).
5. 2016 will see a quantum increase in awareness of the seriousness of climate change.
6. The Standard will go from strength to strength, including gaining new authors to help spread the load.
7. Moves will be made to deselect certain longstanding Labour MP’s (we can hope anyway).
8. a certain website (no not that one, the other one) will implode from too much beige exposure from trying to sue PG.
9. Andrew Little will continue steady as she goes with Labour, which will both build good standing for the 2017 election and frustrate/disappoint leftist lefties.
10. Key will make at least 3 rape culture political gaffs because despite some pretty pricey PR and advice he just can’t help himself.
If anyone comments on Mike Sabin on the Standard in 2016 will you include that in your no.8? Seven of the predictions are about politicians but none about him.
The public sector deficit – the difference between what the government spends and what it receives in revenues – rose to $5.1bn usd
[RL: Some of your comments are going into moderation because your user name is appearing with extra characters at the end. I’d check to see your user name is being entered properly. Cheers.]
The claim that economic inequality is justified based on the differential value of people’s contributions to society is no less ideological. It is not an objective weighing on Platonic scales that leads us to think that a doctor should earn more than a mechanic, or that a hedge fund manager should earn more than a teacher. If we accept such inequalities, it is because our thinking about what constitutes a valuable contribution has been shaped by the impression management of occupational groups and by a capitalist culture that would have us equate social value with money-making prowess. The conflation of money with value performs another ideological trick: it implies that wealth is the best indicator of the deservingness of wealth.
This is, of course, the main problem with today’s socio-economic system.
There is still no escaping first principles. My brief for equality rests on asserting the values of democracy, self-realization, empathy, dignity, and mutuality. Other people might reject these values. To this I offer a consequentialist rejoinder: only a society built on values consistent with equality will allow everyone to enjoy what the vast majority of human beings have sought from life throughout history. No society organized to enrich a ruling few at the expense of the many can produce such a result.
I note that the emphasis is on economic equality and almost the whole piece is set within an economic framework. The starting point or primary argument is that we are all equal and should therefore get an equal portion/part of the available (including man-made, I assume) but not necessarily unlimited resources and services: ”meaning that, yes, everyone should get pretty much the same”.
Side-stepping that all people are not equal, not in terms of needs or wants, not in terms of ability ”to join effectively in community decision making”, and not in utilising their capacities to the fullest (assuming they have equal capacities in the first place), this piece seems to advocate almost (?) absolute equality and to reject anything less as inferior!?
That said, striving for equality, for equal rights, is an almost Utopian ideal that I personally strongly subscribe to. The question remains, though, how to get closer to this ideal. To incentivise the people through materialism is out, by definition. To forcibly make people to treat one and another as equals also is an oxymoron. So, this only leaves the moral or ideological ‘reasoning’ as the way to achieve itself! I may have knotted myself into a circular argument here [bad metaphor, I know] and butchered the writing by Kolakowski on a different topic.
In any case, I don’t see an easy way (!) forward out of the neo-liberal quagmire unless we all get suddenly infected by a mind-altering virus that radically changes our thinking and attitudes. Unlikely.
And what replaces it Draco that will work better without massive unintended consequences and result in the efficient allocation of resources ( including human capital) , correct price discovery etc
Reading the Press today,I almost choked on my weetbix. One of the most avid supporters of our beloved leader giving him and his government one right in the groin with a number 10 toe cap.
Here was the Press holding the Prime Minister, Government ministers and the Health Ministry up for a dose of good old fashioned ridicule over their treatment of mentally ill people in Canterbury.
I am still in shock at the ferocity of the attack
yes but only 1000 of 12000 were moved enough to return their vote, so approx 800 of 12000 (or roughly 7%) actively support what National are doing…looked at in those terms pretty low level support…..my experience of most farmers in recent times is they are unimpressed with National but that in no way equates for support of Labour or the Greens, there may be some support for Winston but to vote left goes against genetic programing
They probably know they can be scathing because everyone is on holiday mode and the public just aren’t going to care (more so than normal). And you’ve got to feign criticality on your masters just to pretend to everyone you can still do a proper job.
David Farrar was also on the news tonight, being “critical” of the goverment rushing through legislation. Won’t see him on there again for at least another 6 months.
That’s grim reading. Not that it’s news to anyone that has been paying attention to what’s happened to Chch, which is why this is shame on NZ as a whole. It’s going on in our front yard.
As years of weariness, stress and anxiety continue taking a toll across Canterbury, the Ministry of Health is refusing to accept there is an issue when it comes to the extent of the region’s mental health problems.
Now Canterbury police district commander Superintendent John Price has added his concerns to the mix, revealing a huge increase in the number of attempted suicides around the region. Since 2011, suicide-related emergency calls have almost doubled and are now likely the highest in the country, Price says.
Such compelling and frightening statistics should be more than enough to spur into action a decent-minded, caring Government.
Instead, the ongoing issue is being met with tepid indifference by the ministry, which continues its “dogged determination” – according to the Canterbury District Health Board and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority – to deny the problem exists and to provide any extra mental health support.
Hard to imagine a more succinct summation of the neoliberal ethos. Come on all you righty regulars on TS, do tell us how this is right and proper in the scheme of things.
Nah it’s only a small minority of losers who aren’t ‘resilient’ enough to cope. No point in wasting good money on them when there’re plenty of lucrative, criminal carbon credits to spend it on.
(I went through about a decade of mild PTSD after the Edgecumbe quake in 1988, so I’m not in the least surprised by this … just how long it’s taken for our media to say anything about it.)
Well, if you’re looking through a neoliberal lens, the real question is not whether or not Christchurch has experienced a spike in the number of people suffering from mental health issues, but whether or not someone can make money out of it.
Capitalism and particularly the neo-liberal mind-set explicitly restricts the use of capital to only those ventures which are able to generate profit.
This in turn prevents inquiry into the most efficient use of capital; collectively funding the basic services upon which everybody relies (health, education, housing, access to water et al.).
The other lie I see often is the assertion that only capitalism and the capitalists lust for profit drives innovation. And that it is socialism, or my personal preference, social democracy that stifles innovation.
It’s easy to see this lie. Most of us grew up already knowing the answer: Necessity is the mother of invention.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 2 The Life of Dai by Dai Henwood and Jaquie Brown (HarperCollins, $39.99) 3 A Life Less Punishing by Matt Heath (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 4 Waitohu by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $35) ...
Susan St John: Child poverty measures short-change families
‘A shameful disparity between the treatment of children in families who can work enough paid hours, and those children whose families cannot, means in practice New Zealand has two classes of low-income children. The “in work” worthy can be supported to the full extent of the social security legislation, and the children of the unworthy, the outcasts: beneficiaries, disproportionately the disabled, Maori or Pasifika, many with chronic illness, are consigned to remain in poverty.
The parents of the “undeserving children” may struggle in a casualised labour market, on low wages or with redundancies, or in the aftermath of disasters. Irrespective of the cause of low income, regardless of circumstance, all children could and should be afforded the same tax-funded child payments to ensure an adequate standard of living.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11567240
https://www.register.charities.govt.nz/CharitiesRegister/ViewCharity?accountId=ddac582a-0c8a-dc11-98a0-0015c5f3da29&searchId=6842f25b-61b2-494d-9423-fe367ccec538
A quick perusal of the Charities Register confirms my theory that real advocacy is better done without the fetters of government funding.
CPAG has somehow managed to keep the issue of child poverty in New Zealand at the forefront in the media…despite receiving NOTHING from the the government in the way of funding.
People DONATE, and members VOLUNTEER. Shit gets DONE.
Just like it used to be.
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/sacs/pdf-files/Fears-constraints-and-contracts-Grey-and-Sedgwick-2014.pdf
I am always wary of charities that get large amounts of corporate money.
There is usually a hook attached.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/01/green-ngos-big-business-naomi-klein
https://www.facebook.com/nopinkwashing
http://ethicalnag.org/2011/01/07/sugarwashing-unicef-cadbury/
Thing is, if our economic system actually worked we wouldn’t need charities.
That is the thing not one reporter has ever said when doing a touchy feely piece about charities.
Totally predictable.
Neo-liberalism needs charities to patch up its gaping holes.
And it’s still sinking.
When corporate ‘marketers’ take over charities…
“The corporate takeover of the Red Cross: How a former AT&T exec gutted America’s most recognizable charity”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/27/how_att_execs_took_over_the_red_cross_and_hurt_its_ability_to_help_people_partner/
Reminds me of other charities that sacrifice their principles for money
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/292654/pm-to-keep-anti-violence-role-despite-radio-rape-joke
I’m not sure their principles are actually what they say they are.
I think they really are more about taking money for a cushy job that involves very little work.
Hi Lara. Thanks for your comments on the John Key/White Ribbon ambassador post by Kerero Pono yesterday. It was good to get a different view of the functioning of White Ribbon – the link about the “anti feminist” WR ambassador in Oz was an eye opener. What you have said has made me think differently about them.
I’m still keeping an open mind and still have an expectation about them dropping Key – they absolutely must – but your words made sense and altered how I perceive White Ribbon.
You’re welcome Rosie!
May you have a lovely New Years.
“As part of her effort to run the Red Cross more like a business, McGovern recruited more than 10 former AT&T executives to top positions. The move stirred resentment inside the organization, with some longtime Red Cross hands referring to the charity as the “AT&T retirement program.’’
McGovern laid out a vision to increase revenue through “consolidated, powerful, breathtaking marketing.”
“This is a brand to die for,” she often said.
Her team unveiled a five-year blueprint in 2011 that called for expanding the charity’s revenue from $3 billion to $4 billion. In fact, Red Cross receipts have dropped since then and fell below their 2011 level last year.”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/27/how_att_execs_took_over_the_red_cross_and_hurt_its_ability_to_help_people_partner/
If you want the best people you have to pay top dollar
😉
Pay peanuts, get monkeys. Pay more peanuts, get bigger monkeys.
“Pay peanuts, get monkeys. Pay more peanuts, get bigger monkeys.”
I like it I have put that in my file of quotable quotes.
Very good Andre.
😈 😆
Glad y’all like that. It may be the only original thought I’ve ever had. It was sparked a few years ago by reading a flurry of articles showing high executive pay and poor company performance were well correlated. And I suspect that’s probably true for charities as well.
I think it holds true for CEO’s of gummint partmints too.
Many years ago, we used to worry about a thing called the Peter Principle.
Now we seem to worship incompetence.
Actually, I think it holds true for Munsters of the Crown. The only thing that props them up (their invisible means of support) seems to be our MSM (who’re rules along the same lines)
Stevie Ray Joyce, Pulla Bent, Soimun ‘Learnings’ Brudgizz, N. Tolley, etc.
The underappreciated bit about the Peter Principle is that you could be confident that, once upon a time, your boss actually was good at something useful.
I bet on her first day she told the staff
“Things are gonna change around here. We need to be more business like cos. we are not a cbarity.”
Running NFP is NOT as simple as bringing i FP successes
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11567126
Add $200 billion private debt to $100 government debt and you end up with $66k of debt per child woman and man. (Hopefully I got enough zeros in my calculations)
Where does it end?
Under the present financial system – it doesn’t. Just keep adding those zeros.
The only way to fix it is for the government to, essentially, write off the present system and replace it with one that actually works.
Draco, have you read this one?
Margrit Kennedy has done a fair amount of work with Bernard Lietar, who specialises (decades) in the field of money and how it works.
This ebook from Ms Kennedy outlines an interest free demurrage system.
The cool thing about demurrage is it reintroduces the incentive to loan, keeps the money supply stable and ensures existing money flows faster. The historic example of Worgl in Austria (it’s in the ebook) shows how well it can work.
I like the idea of demur-rage and believe it will come in to effect some time in the future. I just think that 0% interest loans need to come in first.
I want to address this bit in the introduction of the book:
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how societies work.
A society that doesn’t use money would support the artist because they appreciate the art that they get to see. They may even go so far as to build art galleries to display it along with other artworks where everyone can go and view it as they choose.
It’s of note that David Graeber in his Debt: The first 5000 years notes that no bartering economy, as postulated by the economists, has ever been found.
A society that doesn’t use money would potentially support the artist because they appreciate the art that they get to see.
I don’t see any guarantees with this. Some artists may be supported, others not.
I do as it would be a cooperating society rather than a competitive one.
are there any things that wouldn’t be supported within this cooperating society?
That would be up to the society via democratic means.
what if this society, via democratic means, decided to be competitive rather than cooperative – would you accept that
Sure, but that would necessitate the return of money.
I should also point out that I’m working to stop people loaning out money as it results in all the money going to people who are already rich – exactly as that book points out.
What an amazing level of cognitive dissonance expressed by the author of this article. They truly think that the recent election result in Venezuela has not fundamentally changed the game in that country.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11790
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I’m honestly curious, Gosman. What’s with the Venezuela fetish?
Yes, we never hear about Saudi Arabia, Turkey or El Salvador.
Venezuela will be the line he is fed – I don’t think he comes up with his nonsense independently.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz to the power of 10 to the hundred
The complete failure of socialism steering Pauly in the face , the answer move on nothing to see here. How many real world case studies do you need Pauly , capitalism has it failures nothing howerver to the scale of socialism, as Churchill rightly assessed capitalism is not perfect but it sure beats anything else
Capitalism only succeeds because of socialism. Without socialism capitalism would revert to its natural state – feudalism.
And ATM capitalism is bringing about the 6th extinction event. Wiping out life on Earth can in no way be considered successful.
“Capitalism only succeeds because of socialism. Without socialism capitalism would revert to its natural state – feudalism.”
Mmmmm, I must remember that (You bastard!). It’s actually very profound and exemplifies what’s gone wrong today (i.e. we’re on the ‘neo-feudal’ route).
What’s your view: Do you think capitalism always leads to ‘crony-capitalism’? ( which is what we have, and what the likes of most trolls on here are pushing, as tho’ it was some sort of new religion. )
It wasn’t that long ago (around the time of Roger and Ruth) that they were espousing the idea of competition being the be-all and end-all – you know….many players competing is beneficial to ‘the consumer’ – even in things like health and edge-a-kayshun. Now of course (aided and abetted by an utterly knobbled Commerce Commission), the tendency towards monopoly/duopoly positions is seen by the capitalists (read 1%ers and those that aspire to the 1% – such as Gosman and ilk) is somehow capitalism at work and is seen as Norman Normal.
Really … they’re so full of shit private enterprise could make a killing off a sewage farm.
Yes as competition is detrimental to everyone competing whereas cooperating is beneficial to everyone cooperating. So, the capitalists cooperate to screw over the rest of us while encouraging the rest of us to compete with each other. The latter is done through government policies of high unemployment and cutting out the welfare state while lambasting us with the idea that having ‘choice’ is all that matters while hiding the fact that you don’t have a choice in who you’re actually buying from.
I think you’re probably right (correct) @ Monsieur le Bastard.
I note you use the word ‘cooperating’.
(Foreign concept to most of the trolls that come in here from time to time and according to the roster – some even claiming ‘Christian values FFS – we have anew one, if you hadn’t noticed)
And I agree with you about their justifying their position with the idea of ‘choice’ being all important – problem being that they can’t then explain the tendency towards monopoly/duopoly structures that are inevitable. (Well, actually they can offer a few weasle words)
…… but then you’re just a ‘hard left’, kinsprissy-oriented, othered, fuckwit probably. You deserve to be locked up! :p
Good craic Draco and OWT. And, OWT, keep up the kooky way of speaking. I very much enjoy reading your comments. They are often lively, and always insightful.
Happy NY.
Capitalism has its failures, including the minor issue of destroying the planet.
You are assuming a lot about my own philosophy, btw.
And the word is ‘staring.’
Are you educated?
Now now Pauly everybody hates a corrector
Where you bullied at school because of this affliction
yawn
That is at least a change from the repeated use of a letter that will get you banned.
Alwyn your trolling is very dull.
Some more zzzzzzzzz, you have run out it seems
Because Venezuela represents the sort of ideas and policies that a large number if leftists here wish to pursue. The idea that society can somehow control markets and that you can legislate wealth and prosperity for all. If you read those more radical left wing proposals I doubt there would be many that a lot of people here would disagree with. However it us those same policies that are causing the problems the country is facing.
Research El Salvador
This should concern you.
https://www.hrw.org/americas/el-salvador
https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/el-salvador/report-el-salvador/
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/reported-abuses-by-el-salvador-security-forces-up-official
Thanks. That helps me see where you’re coming from.
Even though I still think you’re misinterpreting comments and opinions here. Except maybe Draco.
He’s misinterpreting me as well. It seems to be purposeful as he simply doesn’t want to believe that there’s a better way.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXaxnbtWsAAS-Bz.jpg:large
I’m not misrepresenting your views at all. Have a look at the more left wing proposals in that article and tell me which ones you disagree with.
It’s a one-commodity wonder. Without the wonder.
But the one to watch is Brazil. Nasty fall ahead.
Personally, I see 2016 being pretty brutal for the whole world economy.
And here are my sources for that opinion.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/27/living-dangerously-2016-light-fuse-impending-explosion-global-economy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/recession/china-economic-slowdown/11980218/Financial-Talking-Points-how-bad-will-it-get-for-China.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/12/27/morgan-stanleys-bloodcurdling-economic-forecast-global-gdp-to-shrink-by-5-next-year/
Bullshit.
I want something more like the New Zealand I grew up in – which worked and was humane. Venezuela is just a whipping boy for far-right trolls – you know nothing significant about it and care even less – you just think it supports your prejudices.
The failures of socialist societies, like those of capitalist societies, are complex and not generalisable without an indepth knowledge of the context of each. Israeli kibbutzim fail for different reasons than Stalinism. Bill English’s economic failures only partially resemble Cameron’s – Cameron didn’t bet the farm on a dairy bubble.
“I want something more like the New Zealand I grew up in – which worked and was humane”
From the things you put in other posts that sounds rather as if you grew up when Keith Holyoake was PM.
Life was a bit boring but certainly quite comfortable under a four term National Government.
On that basis John Key is going to come closest to providing those times again. Doesn’t that cheer you up?
John Key is rapidly taking us back to the 19th century or earlier and all of the ills that existed then.
My family knew Holyoake – I had lunch with him once. And we wouldn’t have scum like Key on the porch, mate.
No Stuart the bs is all yours
socialism as a theory has failed, a nice fuzzy and warm theory that makes you fell good, however as it has been proven time and time again it fail in practice to achieve its desired or predicted outcomes, It is thus a flawed theory and ideology and should be dispensed with. Interesting however as you demonstrate as with other flawed theories its proponents tend to hold on to them no matter what, flat earth society etc
You look back at nz with rose tinted glasses, nz at the time as a command / mixed economy is another clear example of failed socialism, nz during the 50 60 70s was pretty bleak re choice and economic freedom, likewise opportunity. We funded our way of living by selling sheep and wool to Britain , once this door was closed we where pretty rooted, we kept it going by borrowing and paying farmers to produce lambs at a guaranteed price (Supplementary minimum prices) even though the price we sold product for to world markets was less.We Kept every one employed by running a bloated non productive state sector, e.g 40000 people working for kiwi rail, trucks not going more than 100 miles to maintain a state monopoly etc. We borrowed haevily to keep our so called utopia going. Eventually the world worked out what we where doing was not sustainable, hence the tap was turned off, normally how most socialist economies fail, they run out of other people’s money. Muldoon tried to keep the party going with price freezes, currency controls, think big ( all good socialist stuff) but eventually reality caught up and thank god for the 1984 labour government
The world has problems but contrary to Draco and Paul I believe capitalism ( with better regulation where required) and human innovation released by free markets has a far better chance of solving these problems than a ideology that simply fails time after time
Capitalism is destroying the Earth.
Your belief system isn’t going to save the planet.
You ignorant turd.
Socialism preceded capitalism and continues to work and flourish even within the most dysfunctional capitalist societies. Public libraries, hospitals, post offices, police all reflect a communitarian approach which is successful, a necessary balancing influence. A healthy society runs mixed economies – both social and commercial.
But you are an extremist as well as a fool – you seem to think that society, like Thatcher, doesn’t exist. and that it can and should be eliminated, more fool you. You have lost the plot – as has National. Political parties don’t get to eliminate society unless they become despotic, and a despotic party has no right to exist in a democracy. You are traitors, every one of you.
Yes, National were truly lousy economic managers back in Holyoake’s day, and that hasn’t changed at all. But you have drifted a long, long, way right since then, without even learning the most basic things about how to run an economy. And now you have no redeeming social virtues to recommend you.
Run along and play on kiwiblog with the rest of the parasites – and dream of an economy financed by selling Auckland houses to one another indefinitely.
NZ has an abundance of natural resources, but none are as vast as the stupidity of National supporters.
Calm down Stuart
No one is saying government should not provide public goods, I am simply saying they have no part in prouctive sector, as is well demonstrated with the bulk of econonic activity now produced by the private sector and corporates globally, replacing the state over the last 50 years. the facts are the facts, capitalism has trumped socialism wether you like it or not, even so called Marxist states are going the same way
Sheeeeeeesh what an angry we fella you are
Another meme
angry…
Can you actually debate a subject properly?
Troll.
Paul when some one starts a response with you ignorant turd (which tends to say more about the sender than the receiver) can you please advise how I should respond, I can’t use your tried and true method any more, I thought I was been polite in simply highlighting Stuart may have some anger issues , I also note nor you or Stuart really countered anything I said. I guess it’s hard when you are trying to deny facts with a washed up idealogy and some mythical past where Santa existed all year round or the favourite default response “troll”
I can’t be bothered debating with you.
Hence the sleep symbols.
You only come here to stir.
Please go home.
Then you’re even more of a fool.
States and commercial providers are both perfectly capable of providing public goods if scrupulously monitored & regulated.
Equally, both are capable of screwing up by the numbers if left to themselves or small interest groups.
Take Auckland housing. Could’ve been fixed by a state housing program. Could’ve been fixed by a well designed PPP model. Hasn’t been fixed by the clusterfuck Key kleptocracy.
As you say, facts are facts, and $105 billion worth of debt proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this so-called government doesn’t have a clue.
Why you should think I, or anyone else on here is especially attached to Marxism I do not know – I guess your education never got much beyond Muldoon’s Reds under the Beds ad campaign. But just to put the record straight, extremes of capitalism, as practised post Reagan Thatcher etc, consistently underperform the mixed model that preceded it.
Stop lying to yourself and for gods sake learn a smattering of economics you ignorant sack of shit.
Happy new year to you to Stuart, [RL: Deleted. Reference to mental health and death insinuation not needed. ]
Very few kiwis will have a happy new year thanks to the Key kleptocracy, but I’m sure your insincere good wishes make all the difference.
No it couldn’t as there’s no such thing as a good PPP model. Or, to put it another way, no commercial enterprise will sign up to a PPP model that actually does what’s needed for the right price as they’re be little or no profit in it.
Government doesn’t need the profit.
Virtually all ppps in the UK, Oz, and here are out and out rorts. In Korea however (where I spent most of the last decade) companies exist at the sufferance of the state and the worst ones will be broken up and their principals jailed if they play too fast and loose. My understanding is that not all Korean law is codified so that egregious wrongdoing gets you in trouble even if legislators did not anticipate it. Apart from the party linked companies, some of whose directors go to jail with every change of government, the larger companies negotiate with the state to avoid unpleasantness and for the most part actually perform as required. Serco is kind of the opposite of this. If Serco were in Korea the directors would not find prison radio gags especially entertaining, but of course they would not be able to listen to them, being behind bars.
Recalls to mind the MPs manual that John Key dismissed with the wave of his hand and the pronunciation that it was just a set of guidelines rather than law when he broke those guidelines in an immoral manner and declared it legal.
Basically, what I’m getting at here is that people look for ways, that are often immoral, to do things that aren’t covered by law that will net them a quick profit. Despite them knowing that doing it that way is immoral they’ll do it any way as it benefits them and they just don’t care who’s harmed. The actions of this guy spring to mind.
We need laws and, IMO, we need a general set of principles that the law is set upon that will catch immoral behaviour even if there isn’t a law covering a specific action. I believe that we’ve gone too far in specificity in our laws.
I am simply saying they have no part in prouctive sector, as is well demonstrated with the bulk of econonic activity now produced by the private sector and corporates globally, replacing the state over the last 50 years
No mention of the private frameworks which skewed the odds in their favour. Global rape of human & environmental resource exploitation
Finance and legal would be the two frameworks you’re either ignoring, or are ignorant of
Ignore , ignorant. Same same
“Eventually the world worked out what we where doing was not sustainable, hence the tap was turned off, normally how most socialist economies fail, they run out of other people’s money.”
The number of times I have heard similiar shit about socialist are good at spending others money.
Please enlighten us how does that equate to the Double Dipping Dickhead from Dipton borrowing now over a 100 billion dollars just to waste on the likes of tax cuts for the rich and social welfare for the likes of Warners, Jackson Reo Tinto and money wasting stupid flag referendum. as I never classed that prat as a socialist
Gosman wants everyone to acknowledge that no amount of democracy can withstand sustained attack by the United States.
If the US could cause such economic dislocation as occurring in Venezuela right now then it should make people think twice before alienating them. Of course the problems faced by Venezuela are homegrown not caused by the US. However that won’t stop leftists like you trying to shift the blame.
The US is not responsible for the oil price: I’m not surprised that you’d suggest such a thing and you’re a fool if you think that’s what I’m referring to.
You cannot possibly know that Venezuela’s problems are 100% homegrown, because the aforementioned US foreign policy exists and has been implemented. Who knows where Venezuela would be without it?
Not you, that’s for sure.
Oh yes, the Venezuelan Government lost around $36 billion in export revenue in a year because somehow Venezuela has the power to set the world oil price… Damn that left wing government. A right wing dictatorship would of course still be riding high..
You seem to have a preoccupation with Venuzuela. It serves your cause of course – in this case taking an example where something has turned to shit, and trying to use it as an example of how those who disagree with that ‘centre-right-sensible’ ideology are stupid.
It’s a bit like taking a small minority of feral beneficiaries and using it as a weapon to bash all (they’re SO not like you). Classic CT, classic Nact, classic MSM.
What is with the preoccupation with Venuzuela by the way? Does it stem from when Key & Co (those bizniss ‘leaders’) visited Sth America and left with most Sth Americans seeing Him as a complete dolt? (Snubbing the funeral et al). What’s come of hopes of a ‘free trade agreement’ btw? About the only thing I can see is Air NZ Sth American route additions – and that’s on their own initiative.
(Shudda cudda wudda treated Brazilian students a bit better)
Hey Gosman How’s the economy going in that right wing cot case called the Ukraine.?
Oh I forgot things are looking up as the IMF have told them to forget about paying the money they owe to Russia. Pity the IMF does not apply the same rules to Greece.
http://thesaker.is/the-imf-forgives-ukraines-loan-to-russia/
Some info for Gosman.
https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/ukraine
http://yubanet.com/world/Ukraine-Reduction-of-hostilities-but-serious-human-rights-concerns-persist-UN-report.php#.VoL3Sfl97cs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Ukraine
Great article:
My bold.
The present global system is designed to keep the US pre-eminent but it can’t as change happens.
The socialism (health, education, jobs etc) of the last Venezuelan government was very good for the poor. Unfortunately many took their new middle class wealth and security for granted and started believing the lies of capitalism. They went to the polls to vote out those who had rescued them. Much the same as the new middle classes in New Zealand drove from their new state houses to the polling booths in 1949 in their new cars to vote out the first Labour Government which had done so much for them.
Well put Sirenia The two bob millionaires
Yep, the success of socialism allows the capitalists to lie more and for more people to believe those lies.
“Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
In the aftermath of the economic collapse in 2008, a significant factor in the decline of the quality of jobs in the United States, as well as in Europe has been employers’ increasing reliance on “non-regular” workers — a growing army of freelancers, temps, contractors, part-timers, day laborers, micro-entrepreneurs, gig-preneurs, solo-preneurs, contingent labor, perma-lancers and perma-temps. It’s practically a new taxonomy for a workforce that has become segmented into a dizzying assortment of labor categories. Even many full-time, professional jobs and occupations are experiencing this precarious shift.
This practice has given rise to the term “1099 economy,” since these employees don’t file W-2 income tax forms like any regular, permanent employee; instead, they receive the 1099-MISC form for an IRS classification known as “independent contractor.” The advantage for a business of using 1099 workers over W-2 wage-earners is obvious: an employer usually can lower its labor costs dramatically, often by 30 percent or more, since it is not responsible for a 1099 worker’s health benefits, retirement, unemployment or injured workers compensation, lunch breaks, overtime, disability, paid sick, holiday or vacation leave and more. In addition, contract workers are paid only for the specific number of hours they spend providing labor, or completing a specific job, which increasingly are being reduced to shorter and shorter “micro-gigs.”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/29/the_sharing_economy_partner/
Exactly as has been happening in NZ starting back in the 1990s with the Employment Contracts Act. All the expenses shifted on to the workers while the bosses get all the benefits. The workers have been getting shafted as the amount that the bosses pay the workers isn’t enough to buy and maintain the tools that the workers need, any holiday or sick pay or pretty much anything at all. ACC then make it harder by making it almost impossible for the contractors to get it despite the fact that they’ve been paying both the employer and employee parts of the ACC levy.
New Zealand farming practice responsible for the massive Indonesian fires.
This is another consequence of our do nothing climate polices.
‘Palm kernel imports jump
Palm kernel imports picked up sharply last month
Imports of the controversial livestock feed supplement, which is used extensively in the dairy industry, came to 222,413 tonnes last month, up from 138,763 tonnes in October and 178,381 tonnes in November last year, according to Statistics NZ data.
Palm kernel became popular in 2007 when a drought sent North Island farmers looking for new feed sources.
Imports of palm kernel, a byproduct of the palm oil industry, went from 96,000 tonnes in 2003 to a record 2 million tonnes last year.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11567302
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/73843284/indonesian-forest-fires-fuel-row-over-palm-kernel-purchases
And yet Fonterra is telling suppliers to use less…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/72361968/Fonterra-PKE-bombshell-bewilders-farmers
Which is weird because some years ago, Fonterra was telling suppliers to use more PKE as it boost the fat content of the milk.
Somewhere there is research that indicates this increase in fat content was not necessarily a good thing…
Intensive dairy farming is increasingly looking like an industry that is not compatible with the sensible management of our planet and our country.
Destroying our rivers
Responsible for the destruction of pristine Indonesian rainforest
Animal cruelty, as exposed by SAFE and Farmwatch
Dairy is one of the most inflammatory foods in our modern diet, second only to gluten.
“Intensive dairy farming is increasingly looking like an industry that is not compatible with the sensible management of our planet and our country.”
That would have to be the understatement of the year 😉
We can have one of two things: a clean environment and sustainable economy, or industrial dairying. We can’t have both.
And it looks lie our government, rather than deal with its poor environmental record, engages in climate fraud.
‘Dealing with criminals in climate fraud
The Government’s plan for meeting our Kyoto Protocol commitment and 2020 emissions reduction target was released this month.
It reveals a shocking truth: New Zealand has been a willing participant in a wholesale climate fraud.
We’ve been dealing with criminals and fraudsters in order to meet our international obligations. If our reputation wasn’t shot to pieces after Paris – where we revealed our weak kneed 2030 target – it will be now.’
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/75315901/Dealing-with-criminals-in-climate-fraud
a pity this article was buried in a Boxing day edition
That does not happen by accident.
no, I suspect you are right….. it will be back to the ABs, house prices and the Kardashians when everyone is back on deck.
This kind of monkey business is why I think a straight up fossil carbon (and other greenhouse gas) tax is by far the best “market mechanism” to reduce emissions. Any kind of cap-and-trade system will inevitably be open to these sorts of frauds.
It never did look like a good idea to try and use the tools of the very system which caused the problem, to try and fix the problem.
I don’t see the opportunity to line the bastards up against a wall coming anytime soon. Not even if Sanders becomes Prez and Corbyn becomes PM. Do you? And to be honest, the way revolutions played out in the past, I’d be worried about being lined up with the rest of them, being educated and well-off and all that.
So the tools of the system we’ve got now are pretty much the only tools we’ve got to play with.
If it comes to “lining the bastards up”, you can be pretty certain that anyone who fights for democracy will be the next against the wall. (Maybe third, after the academics, poets and musicians have been purged).
Governments, particularly revolutionary ones, can and often do far worse to their people than the rampant corruption, incompetence and theft that we currently labour under.
Yep, laws against corruption with Proceeds of Crime acts that are fully enforced are a much better idea. Gets rid of the capitalists on one hand while also returning the wealth to the nation.
While your generalisation is pretty sound, Frank Bainimarama managed to supplant a government without a very high butcher’s bill. It could be done here too – we are not some eastern European badlands with a tradition of mass murder going back to Attila.
Personally I think enthusiastic prosecution of public asset frauds would suffice, though of course it would see 90% of the incumbents doing porridge, so they will try to suppress investigations of things like CERA.
Nope. I disagree vehemently.
Are you suggesting that for real change to happen we must have a violent revolution? That is the bit I disagree with if I understand you correctly (please do point out if I’ve interpreted this wrongly).
Non voilent revolution is actually more effective. See this TED talk by Erica Chenoweth.
And I don’t think we even need a revolution to achieve real change. With an MMP system if we get enough people voting for parties that represent real change (which IMO would be Greens and Mana) then we may well get it. Peacefully and democratically.
IMO it is money; how it is structured, how it works, and who creates it most specifically that is the key to real change. If we change how our money works then we change our society.
Money has a big influence on our behaviour. Because we need money to survive; most of us can’t provide our shelter and food necessities without access to some money, and so to obtain money which buys us necessities of life we will do many things which we would rather not do. It drives much of our behaviour at an individual level and at a society wide level.
Change how money is structured and you change our behaviour at an individual level and at a society wide level.
If a new government was elected which had the balls to change our monetary system then we’d have the foundation of real change in NZ.
But that’s the problem. Most MPs don’t understand how our current monetary system works, nor how important it is, nor that there are alternatives. And they lack the balls to change it even if they did understand.
Because there are powerful interests that don’t want change.
Good luck with doing it that way. I’ll be cheering for you, no sarcasm, but I really doubt you’ll get any traction beyond “margin-of-error-in-the-polls”. And in the meantime I’ll put my efforts towards things that look to me like they have a chance of actually making improvements.
Righto.
You continue with your idea of violent revolution then.
Apparently that’s the only way we’re going to get change.
Apparently.
And if that’s what everyone thinks… then that’s what we’ll fucking get.
You might want to take a look at what the results from violence gets you though.
Just sayin’
Ok, poor choice of words on my part about bastards and walls. Lesson learned, anything I say can and will be wilfully misinterpreted and used against me. Avoid hyperbole.
I advocated a simple carbon tax. Coz I want to see positive changes actually happen. A carbon tax is the kind of tool that is well known and easily adjusted to drive changes in behaviour.
I don’t want to just dream about the way things should be, though I do plenty of that too. And the kind of fundamental, radical societal changes on the scale you’re talking about has either taken generations or violent revolutions to come about. When it comes to climate change, we don’t have generations of time to play with, nor do I want to see violent revolution (although I’m very afraid it’s coming anyway). So it’s a case of getting the best results we can with the tools we have now.
The Lange-Douglas government is about the only example I can think of where that kind of radical change actually did happen non-violently. Although, metaphorically, it actually was pretty violent. While a lot of those changes were needed, a lot of the rest were not needed, and have turned out pretty negative for the vulnerable parts of our society. So looking back on how things have played out over the last 25 years I would rather the changes had been introduced incrementally.
One final general thought – when large holes get ripped into any complex system, say a natural ecosystem or a societal structure, it’s the quick opportunists that tend to fill the holes. Weeds. Fast buck artists. And once they get established they are pretty difficult to dislodge. So to my mind, the kind of change in the structure of money that Draco talks about, and it seems to me that you’re looking for, that’s a disruption bigger than Lange-Douglas and will invite all kinds of unintended consequences. Whereas things like a carbon tax or UBI are just an incremental change from what we have now and can be easily adjusted to get the desired effect.
@Andre
Am of a similar mind though probably less confident….revolutionary without the guillotine,using your example of Lange/Douglas but to the power of 10….and thats why the bulk of it will need to be government led (driven) although not this government obviously. A groundswell (bottom up if you prefer) is needed to establish that administration but the changes needed will need to be enforced, transitioned, supported in many instances….the alternative is anarchy (revolution) and as history has taught, while quick to tear down revolutions are slow to rebuild….and time hasn’t been on our side for a while .
Andre, there was no “wilful” in my misinterpretation. I made it very clear that it was my interpretation and I can only interpret what you wrote. I also asked to be corrected if I had gotten it wrong.
I agree with you that a carbon tax is a possible solution.
I am pointing out that carbon trading is unlikely to work. So far that is true.
And I am pointing out that it is the structure of our monetary system (which discounts the future) that is the root problem. And that I don’t think we need a revolution to change it.
So we actually agree, I’m just trying to take it one step further.
You are so right there, we visited a lake where many many many years ago we used to go sailing. This would be over 30 years ago. the kids used to swim and play in the lake. I was utterly disgusted this lake is now has a reddish colour about it and warning notices about unsafe to expose your skin to the water as it has a toxic algae in the lake. Shit the number of times I got wet in this lake I doubt if I would have survived the day in today’s conditions.
No one was sailing on this lake the day we were there. but I give it the benefit of the doubt as it was the holiday season, but I suspect the opposite, people are now wary of the condition this lake is in.
Lovely HUGE herds of cows in the neighborhood though. no doubt being fed that Palm kernel crap.
The cynic in me thinks that Fonterra is using this as both a PR and pre-emptive action. There are many in NZ that think our dairy cows are fully pasture or hay fed, it comes as a surprise to find out this is not the case.
As more look local, the transparency of supply chains for food become easier to collate and view.
However, without giving farmers direction on how to achieve profitability on their overstocked, climate-change prone farms, this directive is of little use to farmers.
Brings to mind my partner’s work in heavy industry where workers are told to “work safe” and then also told that production needs to increase to a certain level, and they have to find a way to make it happen. Often the responsibility for ensuring work safe practices belongs with the workers themselves, but few have the personality type or assurance that allows them to challenge conflicting messages from upper management.
Our complacency in damaging other countries environments while simultaneously damaging our own in our pursuit of white gold, does us no credit. And it seems to enrich very few in return – Amy Adams notwithstanding.
You are right to be cynical.
The article in the Herald looks like a PR exercise for Fonterra.
There are at least 4 specific mentions of how well Fonterra are doing.
The link to the WWF is revealing though, as this is one of the dodgiest charities around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJPK4FpTjCA
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x105tsl_wwf-silence-of-the-pandas_news
http://www.naturalnews.com/047517_World_Wildlife_Fund_corporate_practices_PandaLeaks.html
http://www.amazon.com/PandaLeaks-The-Dark-Side-WWF/dp/1502366541
“However, without giving farmers direction on how to achieve profitability on their overstocked, climate-change prone farms, this directive is of little use to farmers.”
http://grazinginfo.com/freestuff.php
It is not a sustainable solution if it is merely to tinker within the constraints of neo-liberal ideology.
Completely agree Molly. If Fonterra gave a shit in real life they’d be supporting organics and sustainably production. It’s all going to be spin that works for the profit of the few and the expense of others.
Fonterra’s enthusiastic use of coal shows its views on being a responsible global citizen.
The Herald is acting as its PR machine.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/element-magazine/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503340&objectid=11536799
The only way that less will be used by NZ farmers is if the government bans food importation for animal feed. This would mean that the animals raised in NZ will have to be done so sustainably on NZ’s resources.
This government won’t do it and I’m pretty sure that a Labour led one won’t either and for the same reason – free-market trade.
Zzzzzzzzzz
[RL: The ‘zzz’s’ are not needed. You and anyone else repeating them will earn a ban.]
Now go away and play
Good call. Red Delusion is obviously from the Youth Wing of the trolls – either that or it hasn’t the capacity to learn, think critically, or experience (going forward).
I ‘spose even the ‘hard-right’ are trying to scrape up enough specimens these days to comment, attempt diversions, pepper a few comments with semi-intelligent utterings – what’s the fucking point I sometimes think. CT can’t be ‘across’ everything even tho’ I see one is about to get a Cameron knighthood.
I wonder who does their roster.
It’d be nice if they understood some basic methmetuks – the natives will eventually (and are) getting restless – even tho’ the cynicism with politics and an alternative that’s still desperately trying to feed from the trough in order to preserve their comfort.
(Did someone say James Shaw and Andrew Little ???? SURELY not!!!!)
Don’t be like that Paul, it’s all robust debate,
A truce 😀
I do not call trolling robust debate.
Nor are ad hominems.
Would be great to hear your views on palm kernels
or the Ukraine
or El Salvador
or the clash between capitalism and saving the planet…..
Palm kernel tend to agree not good, not sure of solution barring Indonesia sorting it out and or nz regulation ( re dairy intensification) or consumers rising up
Ukrain, complicated, no easy answer
El Salvador, not across it
capitalism destroying planet, disagree, I agree human activity and population growth is detrimental to planet, capitalism, well not so much capitalism but free markets with corporates of multiple forms of ownership are more likely to find answers though releasing innovation than innovation stifling state based socialism, wastage and poor regulation
Have you read Naomi Klein’s book on Climate Change?
No, but I don’t deny climate change
“capitalism destroying planet, disagree, I agree human activity and population growth is detrimental to planet, capitalism, well not so much capitalism but free markets with corporates of multiple forms of ownership are more likely to find answers though releasing innovation than innovation stifling state based socialism, wastage and poor regulation”
what is capitalism if not free markets with corporates of multiple forms (and in the absence of regulation, lassiez faire) pray tell?
Interesting.
When it comes to the state of the economy of Venezuela, it is all the fault of the socialist system that has failed and will always fail.
When it comes to that other cot case but right wing Ukraine, it is ” complicated, no easy answer”
Apologies I just picked this up , understood, I will now z up
The fact that palm kernel is a buy product makes me think you’re being at best mischievous blaming Indonesian forest fires on kiwi farmers.
Any products on your shopping list with vegetable/palm oil in them by chance.
Exactly. Palm kernel is a by-product of the palm oil business. NZ dairy farmers are no more “responsible” for forest fires in Indonesia than are the people promoting the replacement of animal fats with vegetable ones.
Before anyone starts: the stupidity of intensifying dairy production to the point where we need to import animal feed (not that dairy cows ought to be eating this stuff) is a separate issue.
I know that’s the theory (and it’s certainly the industry and Fonterra’s PR), but is there evidence that stopping all palm kernal exports would not affect the economics of what is happening in Malayasia/Indonesia and that the kernal would be dumped?
Let’s think this through. Selling PKE increases the profitability of growing palm oil. So maybe the least profitable forest clearance to palm plantation projects might not go ahead without the PKE sales. Kind of like fewer dairy conversions happen when the milk payout is low. So there’s at least a tenuous link between kiwi farmers buying PKE and forest fires in Indonesia.
That’s what I’m thinking. Plus Fonterra etc will be supporting the best price and not the best practice so they’re culpable that way too.
A serious question.
Whom do folks think should be responsible for ensuring that New Zealand Councils, are held accountable to the ‘Rule of Law’ regarding citizens and ratepayers LAWFUL rights to ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government?
The Council’s elected representatives?
The Council’s CEO?
The Auditor-General?
Citizens and ratepayers?
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Council CEOs and people who pay their rates
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
[RL: The ‘zzz’s’ are not needed. You and anyone else repeating them will earn a ban.]
I shall have to think of others ways of indicating Reddelusion’s system of trolling is very dull.
*yawn* is traditional.
I wonder how this will impact on our future, whether planetary or individual:
“Google claims the D-Wave 2X is 100 million times as fast as any of today’s machines. As a result, this quantum computer could theoretically complete calculations within seconds to a problem that might take a digital computer 10,000 years to calculate. That’s particularly important, given the difficult tasks that today’s computers are called upon to complete and the staggering amount of data they are called upon to process.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11567032
SBW: “See how children live”
https://twitter.com/UNICEFNZ/status/674113821393354752
There are now more displaced persons in the world than ever before. More than 60,000,000
“Indications from the first half of the year suggest 2015 is on track to see worldwide forced displacement exceeding 60 million for the first time. In a global context, that means that one person in every 122 has been forced to flee their home.” http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/677031-number-of-people-forced-to-flee-war-violence-to-hit-record-in-2015.html
https://news.vice.com/article/there-are-more-displaced-people-in-the-world-than-ever-before
http://www.unhcr.org/5672c2576.html
2015 Smashes Global Temperature Records
“According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), by mid-December, 25,242 high-temperature records had been set across the country for just the last year.
“Given that 2015 easily remains on track to become the hottest year ever recorded for the globe, record-high temperatures continue to be recorded across the planet.
“In the Arctic, the latest NOAA data shows that temperatures there in 2015 were up to 3 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, and that the warmth had caused so much melting of the sea ice that 70 percent of the ice pack was made up of first-year ice. These temperatures are the highest ever recorded there, and the minimum ice cover for this year was the fourth-smallest ever recorded.” (emph added) http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34090-gop-candidates-receive-failing-grades-on-climate-as-2015-smashes-global-temperature-records
Predictions for 2016.
1. Opinion polls for 2016 will all (RoyMorgan excluded) have National support greater than Labour+ Greens.
2. Greens will cuddle closer to National
3. At least two national MP’s will leave parliament.
4. There will be a by election.
5. Moves will be made to deselect certain longstanding Labour MP’s
6. There will be a Cabinet reshuffle and some talented MP’s elected in 2014 will be promoted.
7. An MP will die.
8. [RL: Deleted] will be rampant on the Standard.
9. Celtic will qualify for the Champions League
10. Tourism revenues for NZ will exceed dairy earnings again
[RL: Take a week off for repeating boring derivative crap when warned yesterday not to.]
#7 ???
Various Gnat trolls have predicted Winston’s demise for several terms.
‘Demising’ can take a life time 😉
1. the right will continue to lie about the Green Party as cosying up to National in an attempt to lessen the GP vote.
2. trolls will troll the standard, but increasingly find it harder to do anything other rely on the CT spin memos, because we’re now in the year of ‘everyone knows Key and National are corrupt so let’s stop pretending’.
3. real conservatives will speak out more about the problems with National, simply from embarrassment.
4. NZ will have several severe weather events that scream climate change (one of which will be flooding in Dunedin).
5. 2016 will see a quantum increase in awareness of the seriousness of climate change.
6. The Standard will go from strength to strength, including gaining new authors to help spread the load.
7. Moves will be made to deselect certain longstanding Labour MP’s (we can hope anyway).
8. a certain website (no not that one, the other one) will implode from too much beige exposure from trying to sue PG.
9. Andrew Little will continue steady as she goes with Labour, which will both build good standing for the 2017 election and frustrate/disappoint leftist lefties.
10. Key will make at least 3 rape culture political gaffs because despite some pretty pricey PR and advice he just can’t help himself.
#s 4 – 6, Yes, totally agree
That is Sir CT
😉
lol.
Off with their heads!
If anyone comments on Mike Sabin on the Standard in 2016 will you include that in your no.8? Seven of the predictions are about politicians but none about him.
yawn
My prediction:
1. All RWNJs, such as Fisiani, will continue to talk out their arse
2. All RWNJs will continue to think that the sun shines out of John Key’s arse
We really do waste a lot of time on these useless trolls.
I like it
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0TR25D20151208
Disney doubles stake in Vice to $400 million
That’s how to control ‘independent media’
The agendas pushed through Vice have become highly visible in recent years, the site filled with articles containing blatant misstruth
Is this better or worse than NZ
The public sector deficit – the difference between what the government spends and what it receives in revenues – rose to $5.1bn usd
[RL: Some of your comments are going into moderation because your user name is appearing with extra characters at the end. I’d check to see your user name is being entered properly. Cheers.]
A Brief for Equality
This is, of course, the main problem with today’s socio-economic system.
A very interesting find, thank you!
I note that the emphasis is on economic equality and almost the whole piece is set within an economic framework. The starting point or primary argument is that we are all equal and should therefore get an equal portion/part of the available (including man-made, I assume) but not necessarily unlimited resources and services: ”meaning that, yes, everyone should get pretty much the same”.
Side-stepping that all people are not equal, not in terms of needs or wants, not in terms of ability ”to join effectively in community decision making”, and not in utilising their capacities to the fullest (assuming they have equal capacities in the first place), this piece seems to advocate almost (?) absolute equality and to reject anything less as inferior!?
That said, striving for equality, for equal rights, is an almost Utopian ideal that I personally strongly subscribe to. The question remains, though, how to get closer to this ideal. To incentivise the people through materialism is out, by definition. To forcibly make people to treat one and another as equals also is an oxymoron. So, this only leaves the moral or ideological ‘reasoning’ as the way to achieve itself! I may have knotted myself into a circular argument here [bad metaphor, I know] and butchered the writing by Kolakowski on a different topic.
In any case, I don’t see an easy way (!) forward out of the neo-liberal quagmire unless we all get suddenly infected by a mind-altering virus that radically changes our thinking and attitudes. Unlikely.
And what replaces it Draco that will work better without massive unintended consequences and result in the efficient allocation of resources ( including human capital) , correct price discovery etc
Democracy.
Elegant.
Unchallenged.
Reading the Press today,I almost choked on my weetbix. One of the most avid supporters of our beloved leader giving him and his government one right in the groin with a number 10 toe cap.
Here was the Press holding the Prime Minister, Government ministers and the Health Ministry up for a dose of good old fashioned ridicule over their treatment of mentally ill people in Canterbury.
I am still in shock at the ferocity of the attack
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/75497858/editorial-shameful-denial-of-canterburys-growing-mental-health-issues
will be interesting to see if the teflon retains its properties
84% of fed farmers support key and think is govt is great. Big surprise huh.
yes but only 1000 of 12000 were moved enough to return their vote, so approx 800 of 12000 (or roughly 7%) actively support what National are doing…looked at in those terms pretty low level support…..my experience of most farmers in recent times is they are unimpressed with National but that in no way equates for support of Labour or the Greens, there may be some support for Winston but to vote left goes against genetic programing
They probably know they can be scathing because everyone is on holiday mode and the public just aren’t going to care (more so than normal). And you’ve got to feign criticality on your masters just to pretend to everyone you can still do a proper job.
David Farrar was also on the news tonight, being “critical” of the goverment rushing through legislation. Won’t see him on there again for at least another 6 months.
That’s grim reading. Not that it’s news to anyone that has been paying attention to what’s happened to Chch, which is why this is shame on NZ as a whole. It’s going on in our front yard.
As years of weariness, stress and anxiety continue taking a toll across Canterbury, the Ministry of Health is refusing to accept there is an issue when it comes to the extent of the region’s mental health problems.
Now Canterbury police district commander Superintendent John Price has added his concerns to the mix, revealing a huge increase in the number of attempted suicides around the region. Since 2011, suicide-related emergency calls have almost doubled and are now likely the highest in the country, Price says.
Such compelling and frightening statistics should be more than enough to spur into action a decent-minded, caring Government.
Instead, the ongoing issue is being met with tepid indifference by the ministry, which continues its “dogged determination” – according to the Canterbury District Health Board and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority – to deny the problem exists and to provide any extra mental health support.
Hard to imagine a more succinct summation of the neoliberal ethos. Come on all you righty regulars on TS, do tell us how this is right and proper in the scheme of things.
opps, that last paragraph is mine not the editorial’s 😉
Nah it’s only a small minority of losers who aren’t ‘resilient’ enough to cope. No point in wasting good money on them when there’re plenty of lucrative, criminal carbon credits to spend it on.
(I went through about a decade of mild PTSD after the Edgecumbe quake in 1988, so I’m not in the least surprised by this … just how long it’s taken for our media to say anything about it.)
Well, if you’re looking through a neoliberal lens, the real question is not whether or not Christchurch has experienced a spike in the number of people suffering from mental health issues, but whether or not someone can make money out of it.
Capitalism and particularly the neo-liberal mind-set explicitly restricts the use of capital to only those ventures which are able to generate profit.
This in turn prevents inquiry into the most efficient use of capital; collectively funding the basic services upon which everybody relies (health, education, housing, access to water et al.).
The other lie I see often is the assertion that only capitalism and the capitalists lust for profit drives innovation. And that it is socialism, or my personal preference, social democracy that stifles innovation.
It’s easy to see this lie. Most of us grew up already knowing the answer: Necessity is the mother of invention.
Like this expression of understanding of mental health
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30122015/#comment-1113413
God forbid anyone mention nazis but calling left wingers loonies or commies is all good
Reddelusion — how much was your average monthly power bill in, say 1980?. Phone line rental? Rent? How much did you have to pay to go to the doctor?
Because….