Looks like there's been mostly upsides from the election result, and any forecast Brexit instability will be camouflaged by Coronavirus economic impact.
The Scottish parliament have voted to have another independence referendum. Northern Ireland is going to blow up but now the old-Irish outnumber the Anglo/Scots-Irish so they'll probably rejoin Ireland. The UK is going to be just down to Wales and England. So, yea, if Boris' legacy is to lose resources, population and territory (which all equates to income and security) then he's doing a great job.
That's all just speculation. You're making the same mistake as other remainers – passing judgement based on hypotheticals. The EU is a poisonous animal that needs major reform. Hopefully Brexit will start a landslide of countries either leaving or demanding change.
Odd how progressives queue up to shit on the 'white racist, jingoistic' motives that saw Trump elected, yet when it comes to Brexit this is all a fine and good thing.
The impeachment is really showing how the false idea that there's a legitimate "both sides to every story" really gets in the way of reporting objective truth and facts. Sometimes the facts, law, and moral legitimacy are all on one side, and all the other side has is lying, wilful ignorance, and shamelessness.
My mother (long since departed this mortal coil) was an active member of the School of Philosophy in Auckland. It was a branch of the quite famous London School of Philosophy which, among its members, sported some famous names.
Around 1975 the NZ Truth printed a headline along the lines… "School of Philosophy in Auckland a Communist Front”. The claims made were bollocks – a finer more upstanding group of people you could not meet.
That is one example of the damage that sick rag incurred on organisations and individuals who were deemed, for one idiotic reason or another, to be a danger to the security of the nation. It was a time of gross ignorance and collective institutional madness and I sometimes wonder who was behind that newspaper.
While that rag has gone don't you think the ways of media in the world now are far more insidious? For example, a blog site posting headlines along the style of the one you quote, do it everyday about all sorts of things can, because of the nature of media, reach everywhere.
Fortunately there aren't people with scumbag motives any more which you thought were at the Truth.
I mean now we have ethical people like David Farrar.
Well, that scumbag Cameron Slater did try to resurrect it a few years ago. Fortunately it failed along with his own reputation.
Yes, you have a point. It still goes on… but there are plenty of people with scumbag motives. It's just they are more spread around now and not so concentrated.
Yes, Anne, the scumbags now are not so concentrated and are more visible through social media.
Worse now than when the mass media were the only source of news apart from word of mouth?
Twenty years ago, before social media really kicked in, as a parliamentary candidate I was very falsely rumoured to have had two drug convictions and to be a supporter of paedophiles.
What would have been the harm if social media had been used to perpetrate such lies?
Then a reporter asked about the drug convictions. My answer was of course no, and it would be a matter of public record for a journalist to verify or find false.
That never went further.
With today's social media and ratbags like Slater?
And how does this relate to the Hunter Biden issue?
Your link is to a US company effectively bribing foreign officials. This is explicitly illegal, although the combover con wants to make it legal.
Hunter Biden was hired for a fake job by a foreign company. There is no law against this. Presumably it was in hopes of getting Joe Biden to feel favourably towards that foreign company and hopefully influence Joe's actions. But there is zero evidence that any actual influence happened, and a lot of evidence that Joe's actions, as part of a public bipartisan and international policy, in fact were likely to make things more difficult for that foreign company.
So one instance is of a US company knowingly playing the corruption game with knowingly corrupt foreign officials. The other is of a foreign company gambling by putting bait out to try induce corruption in a US official, and losing the gamble when the bait failed to catch any actual influence.
But I'm trying to stay away from invoking the many much much worse instances of corruption going on right now in the dayglo swampzilla's team. Because that plays into the hands of those trying to paint a false "both sides" picture.
In this case, it seems absolutely clear that Joe did nothing, nothing, ethically questionable. Let alone anything dodgy, bending the rules or actually illegal. At worst, he failed to rise to the extreme purity level of asking his son to give up some easy cash because it might cause a bit of an optics problem.
While it's almost certain that Hunter Biden didn't technically break any laws, the media mantra that he's squeaky clean doesn't hold much water either. Given that Ukraine is a notoriously corrupt country, the probability that the Biden's could withstand serious scrutiny strikes me as pretty low.
But still Joe is or was the leading Dem candidate so I guess that makes him untouchable.
I've yet to see any media that says Hunter is squeaky clean. Pretty everything I've seen has a definite tone that Hunter is a low-talent sleazoid just cashing in on his proximity to daddy.
However, when it comes to corruption, the issue is Joe's actions. Not Hunter's. And it seems Joe's actions with respect to Ukraine corruption were indeed squeaky clean (possibly surprisingly), his familial proximity to Hunter notwithstanding.
Dunno about Joe being untouchable. There's plenty he's getting bashed for, quite reasonably. Like his record as the senator from MBNA, his openness to shit like gutting Social Security and so on.
But latching onto the Repug tactic of falsely smearing Joe to try to divert from Darth Drumpf's high crimes and misdemeanours just contributes to growing the bullshit pond making it ever harder to fish out the few chunks of truth still floating there.
And it seems Joe's actions with respect to Ukraine corruption were indeed squeaky clean (possibly surprisingly), his familial proximity to Hunter notwithstanding.
Trump is such a polarising figure there are few independent voices left who can be trusted to give us the whole picture. Everyone has reason to select only those parts of the story that fit their narrative. It’s not safe to accept uncritically anyone’s version of what is really happening here.
Still I keep circling back to my original contention, that this whole shit show is being driven by a group of very dangerous Washington anti-Russian hawkes who were enraged by Trump meddling with their insane scheme to split Ukraine and the Crimea away from Russia. Unable to attack Trump directly they're using the Democrats as a proxy.
Well there is the delicious possibility that Trump will be convicted and removed from office. But to imagine this will necessarily translate into a win for the progressive left … well that's a lot harder vision to conjure up.
Yes the sight of all the Brexiter's all gloating about their 'win' when none of the actual consequences and costs of this omnishambles have yet to arrive, is all a bit sick making.
Remember the vote was split pretty evenly, if Brexit does turn to custard, there will be a lot of people loudly and with very good reason turning hard on the political class that led them out of the EU.
And the US has not even started the process of demolishing the Brit's will to live when it comes to trade negotiations.
Ad, your optimism is Admirable – only time will tell if it’s also well founded.
"Brexit it is then. But 31 January seems like much ado about nothing other than the issuing of a reminted 50p coin that is going to highlight the stark differences that exist between young remainers and old leavers. We are living in an increasingly digital age and the young mostly don’t use cash, preferring plastic. Big Ben is also not going to bong so there will be no ringing in Brexit. Not a good start methinks.
GDP growth appears to be flat and imports have fallen after the stockpiling that took place on Brexit fears. Over the Christmas period retail sales failed to rise for a record fifth month in a row in a sign of just how weak the economy is. But PMI data released last week was slightly better than I had expected, while there was a marked rise in business confidence after the election. However, confidence is fragile and this may well be a temporary reprise before reality bites."
Much like a marriage, or a divorce, some ramifications of Brexit may take more than a few days to surface – I’m too cautious to rate it an unqualified success, yet…
The terror of the spread of Coronavirusfrom China he arrived in Rome. And in two distinct situations. On Thursday morning, a Costa Cruises ship was stopped in the port of Civitavecchia (after stopping in Marseille, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca) for two suspected cases of Coronavirus on board. The two people who manifested symptoms were put in isolation in the on-board hospital, their cabin sealed, and were joined by Spallanzani doctors to undergo specific tests: they are husband and wife, Hong Kong Chinese, boarded the "Costa Smeralda" in Savona a few days ago and arrived in Italy at Malpensa on 25 January. They had fever and breathing problems. In reality, the woman would have triggered the alarm after showing up on Wednesday evening at the hospital on board: but it would have been judged by health professionals not to worry and with "mild symptoms" of flu. On the other hand, her husband would not present signs of the disease. All the other passengers of the ship, about 7 thousand, were unable to disembark until 3pm.
Of course Xi and his privileged party officials will be just fine in their HazMat bunkers and kit. Fuckers.
The development is significant. If the virus spreads in Xinjiang it could leave the estimated 1 million Uighur Muslims detained in prison camps across the region highly vulnerable to infection. Uighurs call the region East Turkestan.
The camps are filthy, have poor infrastructure, and are packed to busting with prisoners, according to testimony of former inmates. This makes them an ideal breeding ground for disease and infection.
A better idea would be for the council to acknowledge the housing crisis, and as a response put a higher rate on unused housing. The income acquired from that would then go towards providing social housing.
Asking home owners that have the capital to invest in housing, and then leave those houses empty assumes it is only the 'hassle' of being a landlord that has stopped them using those houses for their intended purpose. In terms of the rise in capital value, when they leave them empty, it increases the scarcity of available property, thereby increasing the value.
Capital gains tax is also unlikely to kick in after a prolonged period of time, negating any social benefit from this type of housing investment. The owners are openly taking houses from the available market and hoarding them in order to increase their personal wealth. I consider it unlikely that they will change this strategy at a request from council. If they do it will have to be sweetened with further financial benefits from Housing NZ and Auckland Council.
In recognising the housing crisis for the problem that it is, we should consider those who purchase these houses to keep them out of the market in order to increase their personal wealth as hoarders. Safe, accessible, affordable housing is a necessity for our people, communities and country. House hoarders should be regarded as similar to those who would stockpile food or increase food prices during a food shortage. Therefore, they should be required to offset the harm done with targeted misuse of resources and charged higher rates.
it would also be nice if the government could look into tax loop holes that allow property owners – be it residential or commercial – to write of any looses incurred on a rental property to be written off.
If the loss incurred is that of the property not being rented then maybe the property is not rentable at the price the owner asks, or maybe it is in such a shitty state that it can't be rented in the first place.
But clearly as it is now, it must be more profitable to leave commercial properties empty to the point of whole towns centers being 'for lease' with no one biting. It can't all be the fault of those that wont' lease these properties? Right? And someone please explain to me why property in Tokoroa, Whakamaru, Putaruru, Rotorua etc cost the same as in AKL? Surely it ain't market forces?
Same with residential property that is empty for 9 month a year and only goes on air bnb every now and then, or is kept empty all year round. It must be more profitable to not rent these properties and in that case something is very very wrong in our tax system.
So where is the government here? Or is that one of the things they may look at this time around if we kindly vote them back in, cause obviously the last three years they had not time to look at that. Right?
There are some residential properties that aren't affected by the ring-fencing rules, including:
your main home (if you have more than one home, this is the home you have the greatest connection with)
property that comes under the mixed-use asset rules
farmland
property used mainly as business premises
property you've identified to us as land that will be taxed on sale, regardless of when it's sold
property owned by companies (other than close companies)
employee accommodation
property owned by Government enterprises
If you're unsure if a property is affected by these rules or not, we recommend you talk to your tax agent.
again, does not address the willful keeping empty of properties, and does not address business properties, commerical properties, etc. Essentially it addressed the bare minimum and again only 'residential' and only some 'residential'.
Our government does not have sharp teeth, but it allows for loopholes. For everyone they close they open half a dozen others.
I think you will need to describe the manner in which these land bankers are actually profiting prior to being able to identify how to collect the tax on that profit.
Its entirely possible that owning but not utilising a property is a loss making activity and that is what the ring-fencing rules discourage.
But my general conclusion on this situation is that, the govts focus on using monetary policy for circa 30 years has been much better at suppressing wage growth than housing price growth. The economy doesn't automatically balance these prices so that housing is affordable, nothing necessitates that. Its not an issue effected by tax rules and rates so even the implementation of the policy changes your demanding doesn't fix the problem.
Four of my ancestors directly benefitted from this, from the Kinloch estate on Banks Peninsula.
For a sum of $1 billion in today's money, 4,800 farm properties were created. That's $200,000 per property. The impetus came from a land tax that penalised land holders who farmed uneconomically, forcing them to sell. Yet, even then, only 13 of 219 estates were compulsorily purchased.
What essentially is the difference between then and now in terms of social harm, social need and social action?
Yes, and Prince Edward Island a favourite holiday destination for many, have increased tax rates on holiday homes specifically to address the harm that partially lived in houses have on community.
"P.E.I. has long worried about the impact of absentee landowners. But unlike the rest of the country, which is so consumed with the issue of foreign ownership that even Canada’s top housing agency has gotten involved, P.E.I. identified those people and enacted laws to prevent them from taking over ages ago.
“Years ago, the Americans and foreigners were just buying up the island like crazy. All the shoreline, farmland,” said Wayne Ellis, president of the Prince Edward Island Real Estate Association. “It doesn’t matter where you’re from, Canadian, American or from the moon, a non-resident can own just five acres of land or 165 feet of shoreline. Listen, this is a small province, if there’s no rules, it could be bought out.”"
We seem slow in recognising this truth here.
"…Islanders already can’t compete with foreign buyers for land, so restrictions are trying keep property in local lands. Substitute empty lots for empty condos and Chinese buyers for Americans and out-of-province bidders – and you could be talking about Vancouver and Toronto and not beautiful coastline 20 minutes by car from Charlottetown.
“Rules on foreign ownership are the exception more than the norm. They have some rules like that in Australia,” said Bob Dugan, chief economist with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., about the island’s laws that are dealing with a sea of Asian buyers…"
"…P.E.I., equally, wants foreign investors and has a program to encourage them to come to the island, but it wants them to buy and become residents. This is a small province, if there’s no rules, it could be bought out
Scott MacKenzie, chair and chief executive of the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission known as IRAC, says the application alone costs one per cent of the purchase price, although if the deal falls through and you are rejected, only 50 per cent of the fee is refunded.
In a normal year P.E.I. gets 100 applications for individuals that exceed the five-acre or 165-feet of shoreline limits, and about 50 applications from corporations. There are a number of considerations before an appeal will be considered. One of the stipulations is that no more than 30 per cent of a community be made up of non-islanders…"
"…“If you are coming here to move here and be a resident of P.E.I. and be a member of the community, even though you are a non-resident right now, there is a good strong chance that the application will go through. If you are a corporate farmer from Ontario and you realize that you can buy farmland in P.E.I. for $2,500 an acre, whereas it would cost you $25,000 in Ontario and you simply want 1,000 acres to farm from afar, you’ve got a problem,” MacKenzie said.
Tracking out-of-province buyers might be a problem elsewhere in Canada but P.E.I. keeps a handle on the situation through a tax structure that effectively doubles property taxes for non-residents, creating an incentive for people to prove they are living on the island and meet the minimum stay of 183 days…"
There are many established and existing examples of ways to address the housing crisis. A number of solutions that will aid the increasing the access and affordability of housing our people. What we lack, is the political bravery and will.
They should use the Public Works Act, ie government declares there's a housing crisis and it will be aquiring empty houses in Auckland to facilitate a Public Work of housing people. Anyone with a house that's empty more than a few months will get a compulsory purchase order telling them what the government's going to pay them for taking their house off them. Advance notice that if rentiers were to win any court case resulting from this move, the government's response would be "Tough shit pal, Parliament's sovereign."
Give six months' advance notice and I'd expect it would be hard to actually find an empty house in Auckland when the notice period expired. The rash of sales by foreign capital-gain farmers might well also lower property prices in Auckland. Win-win, except for the rentier fucks causing the problem.
or say with tougher ring fencing,that the property is an investment and not a revenue earner hence deductions are not allowable for tax purposes (and no offsetting against salaries etc)
I wonder how much under-utilised Maori land is sitting around that could be compulsorily purchased at a non-negotiable price? There's a nice piece of unusued land near the Manakau that would make a great housing estate ….
Maybe if everyone could be clearer about what categories of people are going to have their land confiscated eh …. but starting with the kulaks has a satisfactory feel to it.
But it is confiscation of future value. People grudgingly accept compulsory acquistion under the Public Works Act because usually the resulting road, school or hospital is of benefit to the whole community.
Taking property off existing owners for the much narrower benefit of new occupants just doesn't have the same look and feel. You can argue this is a Good Thing tm for the new occupants, but this is balanced off by the negatives for the old owners.
Capital gain farming is the result of decades of distorted tax and fiscal incentives. The fix is to reform them (which incidentally TOP was the only party last election to directly address forward, centre and comprehensively … but of course all the tribalists here refused to even try to understand) rather than playing whack-a-mole with the symptoms.
Incidentally the fact that some owners prefer to leave valuable properties empty rather than rent speaks volumes to how much hassle and risk tenants can be, compared to the modest returns they generate.
Capital gain farming is the result of decades of distorted tax and fiscal incentives. The fix is to reform them…
Yes, we should fix the crap tax settings that encourage capital gain farming, but in the meantime we have a shitload of properties sitting empty so doing something about the symptoms would also be good. I wouldn't envisage many compulsory purchases taking place under my suggestion, because most of the capital gain farmers would cash in ahead of time rather than find out how little the government is willing to compensate them.
Incidentally the fact that some owners prefer to leave valuable properties empty rather than rent speaks volumes to how much hassle and risk tenants can be…
Then they should sell those properties to people who are willing to let people live in them. The country has a housing crisis and can't afford to have thousands of houses sitting empty.
This seems so bizarre – if owning houses that no one lives in for extended periods of time is OK (because of all that "hassle and risk" shit), then just imagine when the ranks of owners of untenanted accommodation swell to 11 billion.
All it would take (apparently) is limitless energy (to power the leap-frogging) – coming suddenly to a planet near you. Or maybe a new “global world order” is more your style – maybe one that approves of owning empty houses.
If you don’t like sharing your resources, just say so. I certainly prefer not to share, but tough times call for…
This seems so bizarre – if owning houses that no one lives in for extended periods of time is OK
Never said it was OK. It comes about because leaving the property empty and earning only capital gain is more attractive than the relatively modest return from tenanting it.
Let's say you own a $2m property and it's asset price increases 5% pa, which yeilds a paper gain of $100k risk free. It's essentially being used by the owner as a bank deposit with a decent interest rate. Yet tenanted it might also have another cash income of say $50k, although a tenant incurs extra costs around property management, repairs and maintenance, meeting ever changing rental standards and accounting. Not to mention the non-zero risk of some expensive drama with the tenant. All this reasonably reduces the expected rental income to maybe less than $35k pa which is a very low 1.5% return on the total asset value.
You can see why some owners rationally choose not to bother with the risk involved. You'd never go to the same effort to achieve such a low return from a bank deposit or similar low risk investments.
Of course socially none of this is desirable, but it makes a lot more sense to tackle the root cause of the problem. TOP's policy of taxing all assets at a low but consistent rate would achieve the outcomes everyone wants here, but without the proto-marxist revenge fantasies.
But it's more fun having a crack at property owners … right?
Hardly – I'm a property owner myself. I'm having a crack at people whose capital gain farming involves depriving others of housing. Regardless of how "rational" that farming is, in a housing crisis the government needs to strongly discourage it.
Here's another reason why a house may stay empty. For obvious reasons it's older people over 65 who tend to be home owners, but these are also the group who are most likely to be in hospital or rest homes for extended periods. If there is a reasonable prospect of their recovery, they aren't going to sell or rent the home they hope to return to.
Similarly if they've moved long term to a rest home, renting the property may have an immediate impact on their RCS. At that age they (or their PoE) may well have no interest nor capacity to become a landlord; so the home sits empty for an indefinite period. I've no idea how to guess the fraction of homes tangled up like this, but I'd wager it's more than a negligible few.
Yes, there are valid reasons why a house may stay empty. And there are valid reasons for the homeless, those living in cars or in other unsafe circumstances, or put up in motels by the state, to be granted access to empty or otherwise under-utilised houses or commercial properties.
Just suggesting that such access shouldn't be ruled out in perpetuity, and might make a significant contribution to addressing the growing shortage of affordable housing.
"Empty properties now made up 7.3 per cent of Auckland's private dwellings, compared to 6.6 per cent in 2013."
But you should not be provided with one tax write of either. 🙂 Instead you should be taxed to the fullest so maybe that you find a tenant who is not a Housing New Zealand tenant.
And i would also like to point out that there is not one 'house' in Ponsonby that would be worth 1.5 million, the land has the value, the hovels on them not. So the question that needs to be asked of the owner of that 1.5 million dollar sliver of land in Ponsonby, why should the rest of the country finance your land banking?
If the house is sitting vacant, no rental income is being earned and the owner is still having to pay maintenance, insurance and rates. If the property is not available to be rented, they cannot claim any expenses for tax deductions or for losses to be carried forward as these losses are now ring fenced. If house has been empty that long its pretty easy for IRD to say property is not available for rent therefore there is no tax deductions. So they shouldn't have even one tax write off.
If I owned a property worth $1.52m in Ponsonby, I would not want it rented out to HNZ tenants.
And if you were leaving it empty to farm capital gain during a housing crisis, your country might want to take some steps to make that seriously not worth your while.
Finally a well written and thoughtful article on where next for the global world order:
But Oxford University's Ian Goldin believes it is time for radical change.
He says many international institutions like the UN, the IMF and the World Bank have become "overloaded" with "mushrooming mandates".
What's needed, he argues, is a back to basics approach and a root-and-branch rethink of the very idea of global governance.
Professor Goldin has set out five core principles that he says could and should guide all future global initiatives or collaborations.
The first principle involves overreach, he says, recognising that not every dispute should actually be subject to global governance. Global action should only be required on genuinely global problems….
The second he terms "selective inclusion" — pinpointing the necessary key players who need to be included to achieve results…..
The third principle is what Professor Goldin calls "variable geometry". Efficiency is essential ….
The fourth principle, is legitimacy. ….
And the fifth and final principle, is enforceability….
Principles and big regulatory institutions are awesome, but I think you forget sometimes that they only emerge out of a sustained global crisis. Today, more people and governments are reacting with more force about a global flu than global warming or species extinction.
All of the post-WW2 UN machinery annoying Mr Goldin has lost mojo because they are broadly fine or they don't have executive power to change much.
In trade, the decline of the WTO is being replaced with big regional pacts.
In development, most people are getting hauled out of poverty.
In human rights, those states who allow themselves to be held to account, are accountable. In financial restructuring, pretty much the Washington Consensus and New Public Management are installed globally. The rest is honestly UN make-work.
Nothing has regulated the concentration of wealth, and since the late 1970s no one has even given it a good go.
Same with environmental degradation. Some big wins, but mostly losses.
So broadly people are settled about what they can change and what they can't.
And people generally accept that the global instruments they have are the ones that will stay around.
Most big regulatory orders only alter according to really big crises – and so far there's nowhere near enough agreement that there is one that needs a really big global regulatory body to regulate the crisis down.
Thanks, that's an engaging response Ad. I agree totally the timing is not now.
But there are two components to any substantial change, one is preparing the ground, sowing the seeds … and the other is the trigger to action. I accept, very reluctantly, that it will probably take another serious catastrophe like WW2 to trigger change …. but in the meantime it's definitely worth thinking ahead about the nature and range of choices we might have.
Red, I'm just in a different place.
Call it Pretend and Extend, call it NeoConLeft, call it anything you like.
But the institutional setting and the strength of democracy and distribution is about as good in Australasia as it is across the world bar Scandinavia.
In my remaining professional lifetime we should enjoy this peak institutional point and enable existing institutions and settings to stay there doing what they are doing for the foreseeable future.
Call it Pretend and Extend, call it NeoConLeft, call it anything you like.
lol … you may have noticed that I rarely label anyone with anything. I assume that everyone, has something to teach me.
It’s only going to get worse, so preserve it.
Probably, although at my age I've been around long enough to know that the future rarely works out quite like how I expect it will. Therefore there are reasonable grounds to remain somewhat optimistic.
I do respect your intensely realistic and pragmatic views, but keep small corner in your heart for your dreams to live on in.
The guy merely put the full blame for the spectacle provided on the shoulders of the republican senate. By doing so he provided a nice avenue for Roberts – now called out for doing fuck all and for trampling all over the constitution – to find a spine, guts, to the glory of the country and finally preside of this impeachment as the independent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the US. Because as of now, with exeption to the question asked by Rand Paul – he was missing in action. Present but not engaged, certainly not ready nor happy to do his job as per the rules rather then party affiliation.
A nice calling out of woke and virtue signaling types who infest the internet.
Fav quote of the day. It's big sorry – It's at the 5:52 point of the below video. The rest of the video is neat, especially near the start with a clip from Joe Rogan.
Best that no-one speculates on who may have been charged at the moment especially on here
There was a lot going on last night in that regard with David Farrar having to take down a post on KB. (He was ‘asked’ to do so …) Certain MSM reports have also been running close to the line in trying to identify the accused, with one or two items also disappearing into the ether in the last 24 hours.
Legal situation is not as simple as EiE makes it out to be re name suppression – eg my understanding is that currently things are in the period when applications can still be made for name suppression.
Hi VV 🙂 Good advice, thanks. plunket was going on and on about it all afternoon, like he had the biggest scoop in the world, he even had slippery simon on his radio show cheering him on.
No doubt there will be a very good reason why the other news outlets haven't touched plunkets so called scoop.
I meant to listen to that broadcast (streamed on TDB) but forgot and comments on TDB about it are not very specific. Plunket will probably not be censored/charged with, for example, breaching name suppression as this is presumably not yet formally in place for anyone associated with the case – whether as a defendent or as a witness.* But I wonder whether he may have opened himself up for defamation depending on what he said, but its best not to pursue that line of thinking here on TS or elsewhere public.
Re other news outlets, Soper's speculation disappeared from The Herald tout suite, as did Farrar's post on Soper's contentions – and also tweets between Soper and Farrar where Soper supposedly claimed Farrar had misread Soper. But Farrar really needs to do a sweep and clean of his GD 30 January comments (354) especially from 6pm on … LOL
I don't recall Thatcher whacking anyone with her handbag. Admirable self-discipline. On the other hand, rugby forwards nowadays often use virtual hand-bags – unusual behaviour by macho guys. So perhaps it is a cultural trend worth watching.
National have probably already spent the $100k donation, but paying it back will be easy enough.
Just a quick phone call to Beijing with the promise of another Beijing-approved list MP, and the money will be in the Nats bank account before Simon can say "godbless Xi Jinping".
US media will have taken heart in the UK media's public destruction of Corbyn, and will surely be taking the gloves now that Sanders is becoming a serious threat to their comfortable status quo.
I get it that Corbyn's selection as Labour leader gave you a years-long bout of priapism that finally climaxed with the release of the 2019 manifesto. Which led to Labour's worst election result in almost a century.
Did the result give you even a moment's pause to consider whether the things that excite you personally might not in fact result in actual progress? Y'know, because implementing change requires actually holding power?
If the Sanders campaign wins Iowa Caucus, the industrial strength shit sprayer will certainly be deployed. Mr Sanders is running a similar organising style campaign on the ground as Trump, but appealing to vastly different facets of human thinking and behaviour.
A long public life offers more opportunity for vetting I guess, but from observing Bernie Sanders recent iterations I think he has less to worry about than ex Republican Warren and Welfare slasher Mr Biden! But if the Sanders campaign gets a few Primary wins on the board, all manner of revisionist takes on Bernie’s life will likely be presented.
joe90’s linked piece makes it clear Sanders regarded Wallace a quasi fascist type, and the praise was in regard to his populist radar.
"The pure temple politics of the Greens where exclusion is the new inclusion, where online Identity Politics activists create resentment and no solidarity are proving to be about as successful at recruitment as Donald Trump at a feminist folk festival." Guess who? Someone unable to comprehend political compromise!
"Green apologists will ignore all this criticism and state that the Greens can only do what they do because of NZ First. That’s horse shit. If you had good enough strategists, you’d outplay Winston and Shane in a second while holding the fire to Labour’s feet, but the Greens have no one good there other than Chloe, Julie-Anne Genter, Jan Logie and Gareth (who is resigning this election). The behind the scenes crew have all the strategic capacity of moss." https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/01/30/if-marama-davidson-made-s-speech-in-the-forest-and-no-one-noticed-did-she-make-it/
"Marama’s serious run in Tamaki Makaurau is likely to split the Labour vote and allow a John Tamihere candidacy for the Māori Party to succeed which would be the ultimate irony."
"I’ve been a Green voter my entire political life, it’s so sad to see the sorry state the Party is in now with such limp leadership when it’s core issue of the Climate Crisis is the ONLY issue." I'm genuinely surprised. He always seemed typical Labour.
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
“It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April to meet the Prime Minister’s ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
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Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
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By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
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Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
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Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
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Happy Brexit Britain.
Looks like there's been mostly upsides from the election result, and any forecast Brexit instability will be camouflaged by Coronavirus economic impact.
Sometimes the doomsayers are just wrong.
Britain gets its sovereignty back today.
Rather than beginning today as many predicted, the Brexit chaos ends today.
In this case, very wrong. Britain will be stronger for Brexit, much stronger.
The Scottish parliament have voted to have another independence referendum. Northern Ireland is going to blow up but now the old-Irish outnumber the Anglo/Scots-Irish so they'll probably rejoin Ireland. The UK is going to be just down to Wales and England. So, yea, if Boris' legacy is to lose resources, population and territory (which all equates to income and security) then he's doing a great job.
That's all just speculation. You're making the same mistake as other remainers – passing judgement based on hypotheticals. The EU is a poisonous animal that needs major reform. Hopefully Brexit will start a landslide of countries either leaving or demanding change.
Odd how progressives queue up to shit on the 'white racist, jingoistic' motives that saw Trump elected, yet when it comes to Brexit this is all a fine and good thing.
The impeachment is really showing how the false idea that there's a legitimate "both sides to every story" really gets in the way of reporting objective truth and facts. Sometimes the facts, law, and moral legitimacy are all on one side, and all the other side has is lying, wilful ignorance, and shamelessness.
https://www.salon.com/2020/01/30/give-it-up-media-cowards–theres-no-way-to-both-sides-impeachment/
It should make it easy for people with the Truth to win over the voters they need to take control of the levers of government then.
Some of us remember a salacious weekly rag of that name- the NZ Truth- and what it did, and to whom……
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/02/17/something-similar-political-skulduggery-was-rife-in-1975-why-not-in-2014/
And as Trotter asked in 2014, "Why not in 2020"?
Especially when, in the 'robust' arena of politics, the Advertising Standards Authority graphically itself sets a very low bar as to what truth is.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/408537/national-party-ads-ruled-acceptable-despite-criticism
The NZ Truth :
My mother (long since departed this mortal coil) was an active member of the School of Philosophy in Auckland. It was a branch of the quite famous London School of Philosophy which, among its members, sported some famous names.
Around 1975 the NZ Truth printed a headline along the lines… "School of Philosophy in Auckland a Communist Front”. The claims made were bollocks – a finer more upstanding group of people you could not meet.
That is one example of the damage that sick rag incurred on organisations and individuals who were deemed, for one idiotic reason or another, to be a danger to the security of the nation. It was a time of gross ignorance and collective institutional madness and I sometimes wonder who was behind that newspaper.
While that rag has gone don't you think the ways of media in the world now are far more insidious? For example, a blog site posting headlines along the style of the one you quote, do it everyday about all sorts of things can, because of the nature of media, reach everywhere.
Fortunately there aren't people with scumbag motives any more which you thought were at the Truth.
I mean now we have ethical people like David Farrar.
While that rag has gone.
Well, that scumbag Cameron Slater did try to resurrect it a few years ago. Fortunately it failed along with his own reputation.
Yes, you have a point. It still goes on… but there are plenty of people with scumbag motives. It's just they are more spread around now and not so concentrated.
Yes, Anne, the scumbags now are not so concentrated and are more visible through social media.
Worse now than when the mass media were the only source of news apart from word of mouth?
Twenty years ago, before social media really kicked in, as a parliamentary candidate I was very falsely rumoured to have had two drug convictions and to be a supporter of paedophiles.
What would have been the harm if social media had been used to perpetrate such lies?
Then a reporter asked about the drug convictions. My answer was of course no, and it would be a matter of public record for a journalist to verify or find false.
That never went further.
With today's social media and ratbags like Slater?
Hi Anne, I can happily report the School of (Practical) Philosophy is still going strong in the provinces here in the 'Tu.
By far the most impactful/nurturing/loving/growth periods of my life.
If a US based company gives the son of a well connected overseas citizen a fake job, it turns out to be illegal.
https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/1222992649092837384?s=21
Yeah.. somehow I can't see you making the same argument in respect to Peter Dunne and his son in the legal high industry.
🙄
And how does this relate to the Hunter Biden issue?
Your link is to a US company effectively bribing foreign officials. This is explicitly illegal, although the combover con wants to make it legal.
Hunter Biden was hired for a fake job by a foreign company. There is no law against this. Presumably it was in hopes of getting Joe Biden to feel favourably towards that foreign company and hopefully influence Joe's actions. But there is zero evidence that any actual influence happened, and a lot of evidence that Joe's actions, as part of a public bipartisan and international policy, in fact were likely to make things more difficult for that foreign company.
So one instance is of a US company knowingly playing the corruption game with knowingly corrupt foreign officials. The other is of a foreign company gambling by putting bait out to try induce corruption in a US official, and losing the gamble when the bait failed to catch any actual influence.
https://abovethelaw.com/2020/01/former-115k-a-month-qatari-lobbyist-is-shocked-shocked-at-hunter-bidens-sweetheart-deal/?rf=1
Well, yeah.
But I'm trying to stay away from invoking the many much much worse instances of corruption going on right now in the dayglo swampzilla's team. Because that plays into the hands of those trying to paint a false "both sides" picture.
In this case, it seems absolutely clear that Joe did nothing, nothing, ethically questionable. Let alone anything dodgy, bending the rules or actually illegal. At worst, he failed to rise to the extreme purity level of asking his son to give up some easy cash because it might cause a bit of an optics problem.
There is no law against this.
Hunter Biden's actions did not technically breach any law and were not criminal as such, but they certainly passed over the threshold of wrong-doing.
By the way, thank you for illustrating how easily a false "both sides" bullshit diversion gets traction and spreads around.
I thought you'd love it … 🙂
While it's almost certain that Hunter Biden didn't technically break any laws, the media mantra that he's squeaky clean doesn't hold much water either. Given that Ukraine is a notoriously corrupt country, the probability that the Biden's could withstand serious scrutiny strikes me as pretty low.
But still Joe is or was the leading Dem candidate so I guess that makes him untouchable.
I've yet to see any media that says Hunter is squeaky clean. Pretty everything I've seen has a definite tone that Hunter is a low-talent sleazoid just cashing in on his proximity to daddy.
However, when it comes to corruption, the issue is Joe's actions. Not Hunter's. And it seems Joe's actions with respect to Ukraine corruption were indeed squeaky clean (possibly surprisingly), his familial proximity to Hunter notwithstanding.
Dunno about Joe being untouchable. There's plenty he's getting bashed for, quite reasonably. Like his record as the senator from MBNA, his openness to shit like gutting Social Security and so on.
But latching onto the Repug tactic of falsely smearing Joe to try to divert from Darth Drumpf's high crimes and misdemeanours just contributes to growing the bullshit pond making it ever harder to fish out the few chunks of truth still floating there.
And it seems Joe's actions with respect to Ukraine corruption were indeed squeaky clean (possibly surprisingly), his familial proximity to Hunter notwithstanding.
Or maybe not.
Trump is such a polarising figure there are few independent voices left who can be trusted to give us the whole picture. Everyone has reason to select only those parts of the story that fit their narrative. It’s not safe to accept uncritically anyone’s version of what is really happening here.
Still I keep circling back to my original contention, that this whole shit show is being driven by a group of very dangerous Washington anti-Russian hawkes who were enraged by Trump meddling with their insane scheme to split Ukraine and the Crimea away from Russia. Unable to attack Trump directly they're using the Democrats as a proxy.
Well there is the delicious possibility that Trump will be convicted and removed from office. But to imagine this will necessarily translate into a win for the progressive left … well that's a lot harder vision to conjure up.
All the best for Brexit Day Britain.
Doesn't seem to have hurt your economy despite all the doomsayers. And any evidence of impact will now be washed out by Chinese virus impact.
Sometimes one doomsday just gets replaced with another.
There's not even this much spin for BoJo coming from the Tory machine!
Bojo doesn't need spin.
Unemployment is fine.
Business confidence is fine.
Inflation is fine.
Political order is locked in for the next five years, and opposition reduced to irrelevancy.
No major EU regulatory issues to speak of.
If you were going to do some major international trade rupture, now's about the best time.
Nothing about social consciousness?
Also an irrelevancy in your world it seems.
I was and am a Remainer, a Labour supporter, and very much an internationalist when it comes to social movements.
And on this one we lost on all counts.
There's no redeeming it.
2020 is now a year of accelerating entropy.
Yes the sight of all the Brexiter's all gloating about their 'win' when none of the actual consequences and costs of this omnishambles have yet to arrive, is all a bit sick making.
Remember the vote was split pretty evenly, if Brexit does turn to custard, there will be a lot of people loudly and with very good reason turning hard on the political class that led them out of the EU.
And the US has not even started the process of demolishing the Brit's will to live when it comes to trade negotiations.
Ad, your optimism is Admirable – only time will tell if it’s also well founded.
UK
Wage increases: Yes
Interest rates: Flat
Inflation: Good
Budget stimulus: coming this year
GDP growth: Solid
Balance of Payments: Good
Unemployment: Good
Inward investment: strong
We don't have to wait – the UK has appeared to have got on with things.
Much like a marriage, or a divorce, some ramifications of Brexit may take more than a few days to surface – I’m too cautious to rate it an unqualified success, yet…
The folly of international travel.
(google translate)
The terror of the spread of Coronavirusfrom China he arrived in Rome. And in two distinct situations. On Thursday morning, a Costa Cruises ship was stopped in the port of Civitavecchia (after stopping in Marseille, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca) for two suspected cases of Coronavirus on board. The two people who manifested symptoms were put in isolation in the on-board hospital, their cabin sealed, and were joined by Spallanzani doctors to undergo specific tests: they are husband and wife, Hong Kong Chinese, boarded the "Costa Smeralda" in Savona a few days ago and arrived in Italy at Malpensa on 25 January. They had fever and breathing problems. In reality, the woman would have triggered the alarm after showing up on Wednesday evening at the hospital on board: but it would have been judged by health professionals not to worry and with "mild symptoms" of flu. On the other hand, her husband would not present signs of the disease. All the other passengers of the ship, about 7 thousand, were unable to disembark until 3pm.
https://roma.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_gennaio_30/virus-cina-paura-due-casi-sospetti-roma-turisti-cinesi-ricoverati-all-istituto-spallanzani-607f1282-432f-11ea-bdc8-faf1f56f19b7.shtml?refresh_ce-cp
Of course Xi and his privileged party officials will be just fine in their HazMat bunkers and kit. Fuckers.
The development is significant. If the virus spreads in Xinjiang it could leave the estimated 1 million Uighur Muslims detained in prison camps across the region highly vulnerable to infection. Uighurs call the region East Turkestan.
The camps are filthy, have poor infrastructure, and are packed to busting with prisoners, according to testimony of former inmates. This makes them an ideal breeding ground for disease and infection.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/wuhan-coronavirus-xinjiang-uighur-squalid-detention-camps-2020-1?r=US&IR=T
In the other hand Joe, the Uighur's might be in one of the safest, most infection-isolated places in China at the moment.
In the early stages Xi's bungling, authoritarian mob covered up the epidemic, and then reported that it had confined the outbreak to Wuhan.
Do you really thing they'll lift a finger to contain, and prevent the spread of the virus into minority communities they view as enemies of the state?
https://twitter.com/Anne_MarieBrady/status/1221543476992495616
Why yes! I'm certain they want to keep their organs free from disease.
This is a very good idea….
A better idea would be for the council to acknowledge the housing crisis, and as a response put a higher rate on unused housing. The income acquired from that would then go towards providing social housing.
Asking home owners that have the capital to invest in housing, and then leave those houses empty assumes it is only the 'hassle' of being a landlord that has stopped them using those houses for their intended purpose. In terms of the rise in capital value, when they leave them empty, it increases the scarcity of available property, thereby increasing the value.
Capital gains tax is also unlikely to kick in after a prolonged period of time, negating any social benefit from this type of housing investment. The owners are openly taking houses from the available market and hoarding them in order to increase their personal wealth. I consider it unlikely that they will change this strategy at a request from council. If they do it will have to be sweetened with further financial benefits from Housing NZ and Auckland Council.
In recognising the housing crisis for the problem that it is, we should consider those who purchase these houses to keep them out of the market in order to increase their personal wealth as hoarders. Safe, accessible, affordable housing is a necessity for our people, communities and country. House hoarders should be regarded as similar to those who would stockpile food or increase food prices during a food shortage. Therefore, they should be required to offset the harm done with targeted misuse of resources and charged higher rates.
Brilliant!!
it would also be nice if the government could look into tax loop holes that allow property owners – be it residential or commercial – to write of any looses incurred on a rental property to be written off.
If the loss incurred is that of the property not being rented then maybe the property is not rentable at the price the owner asks, or maybe it is in such a shitty state that it can't be rented in the first place.
But clearly as it is now, it must be more profitable to leave commercial properties empty to the point of whole towns centers being 'for lease' with no one biting. It can't all be the fault of those that wont' lease these properties? Right? And someone please explain to me why property in Tokoroa, Whakamaru, Putaruru, Rotorua etc cost the same as in AKL? Surely it ain't market forces?
Same with residential property that is empty for 9 month a year and only goes on air bnb every now and then, or is kept empty all year round. It must be more profitable to not rent these properties and in that case something is very very wrong in our tax system.
So where is the government here? Or is that one of the things they may look at this time around if we kindly vote them back in, cause obviously the last three years they had not time to look at that. Right?
IRD introduced this last year.
https://www.classic.ird.govt.nz/campaigns/2019/ring-fencing-residential-rental-deductions/ring-fencing-residential-rental-deductions.html
hold your horses
under the exempt:
Excluded properties
There are some residential properties that aren't affected by the ring-fencing rules, including:
If you're unsure if a property is affected by these rules or not, we recommend you talk to your tax agent.
again, does not address the willful keeping empty of properties, and does not address business properties, commerical properties, etc. Essentially it addressed the bare minimum and again only 'residential' and only some 'residential'.
Our government does not have sharp teeth, but it allows for loopholes. For everyone they close they open half a dozen others.
IRD introduced this last year. The horses have already bolted.
So the appearance of doing something is more important than actually doing something. Oh my!
I think you will need to describe the manner in which these land bankers are actually profiting prior to being able to identify how to collect the tax on that profit.
Its entirely possible that owning but not utilising a property is a loss making activity and that is what the ring-fencing rules discourage.
But my general conclusion on this situation is that, the govts focus on using monetary policy for circa 30 years has been much better at suppressing wage growth than housing price growth. The economy doesn't automatically balance these prices so that housing is affordable, nothing necessitates that. Its not an issue effected by tax rules and rates so even the implementation of the policy changes your demanding doesn't fix the problem.
That's a much better idea…increasing rates on unused properties.
Similar actions taken in NZ 127 years ago under the Liberal government.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/cheviot-estate-taken-over-by-government
Four of my ancestors directly benefitted from this, from the Kinloch estate on Banks Peninsula.
For a sum of $1 billion in today's money, 4,800 farm properties were created. That's $200,000 per property. The impetus came from a land tax that penalised land holders who farmed uneconomically, forcing them to sell. Yet, even then, only 13 of 219 estates were compulsorily purchased.
What essentially is the difference between then and now in terms of social harm, social need and social action?
Something like this was used by Vancouver with some success; see :
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-empty-homes-tax-increase-1.5376581
Yes, and Prince Edward Island a favourite holiday destination for many, have increased tax rates on holiday homes specifically to address the harm that partially lived in houses have on community.
We seem slow in recognising this truth here.
There are many established and existing examples of ways to address the housing crisis. A number of solutions that will aid the increasing the access and affordability of housing our people. What we lack, is the political bravery and will.
They should use the Public Works Act, ie government declares there's a housing crisis and it will be aquiring empty houses in Auckland to facilitate a Public Work of housing people. Anyone with a house that's empty more than a few months will get a compulsory purchase order telling them what the government's going to pay them for taking their house off them. Advance notice that if rentiers were to win any court case resulting from this move, the government's response would be "Tough shit pal, Parliament's sovereign."
Give six months' advance notice and I'd expect it would be hard to actually find an empty house in Auckland when the notice period expired. The rash of sales by foreign capital-gain farmers might well also lower property prices in Auckland. Win-win, except for the rentier fucks causing the problem.
or say with tougher ring fencing,that the property is an investment and not a revenue earner hence deductions are not allowable for tax purposes (and no offsetting against salaries etc)
You don't only have a housing crisis in Auckland and you don't only have empty houses in Auckland.
You will find that housing crisis and empty houses for tax speculation and land banking go hand in hand in the whole of the country.
I wonder how much under-utilised Maori land is sitting around that could be compulsorily purchased at a non-negotiable price? There's a nice piece of unusued land near the Manakau that would make a great housing estate ….
Not nearly as ready as that golf course in Remmers nobody is currently living on..
Maybe if everyone could be clearer about what categories of people are going to have their land confiscated eh …. but starting with the kulaks has a satisfactory feel to it.
Compulsory purchase isn't confiscation. Also, if we have a housing crisis, why continue to indulge capital-gain farming in the worst-affected areas?
But it is confiscation of future value. People grudgingly accept compulsory acquistion under the Public Works Act because usually the resulting road, school or hospital is of benefit to the whole community.
Taking property off existing owners for the much narrower benefit of new occupants just doesn't have the same look and feel. You can argue this is a Good Thing tm for the new occupants, but this is balanced off by the negatives for the old owners.
Capital gain farming is the result of decades of distorted tax and fiscal incentives. The fix is to reform them (which incidentally TOP was the only party last election to directly address forward, centre and comprehensively … but of course all the tribalists here refused to even try to understand) rather than playing whack-a-mole with the symptoms.
Incidentally the fact that some owners prefer to leave valuable properties empty rather than rent speaks volumes to how much hassle and risk tenants can be, compared to the modest returns they generate.
Capital gain farming is the result of decades of distorted tax and fiscal incentives. The fix is to reform them…
Yes, we should fix the crap tax settings that encourage capital gain farming, but in the meantime we have a shitload of properties sitting empty so doing something about the symptoms would also be good. I wouldn't envisage many compulsory purchases taking place under my suggestion, because most of the capital gain farmers would cash in ahead of time rather than find out how little the government is willing to compensate them.
Incidentally the fact that some owners prefer to leave valuable properties empty rather than rent speaks volumes to how much hassle and risk tenants can be…
Then they should sell those properties to people who are willing to let people live in them. The country has a housing crisis and can't afford to have thousands of houses sitting empty.
because most of the capital gain farmers would cash in ahead of time rather than find out how little the government is willing to compensate them.
Ah so you really do have at least a partial confiscation in mind.
Yes, we should fix the crap tax settings that encourage capital gain farming,
But it's more fun having a crack at property owners … right?
This seems so bizarre – if owning houses that no one lives in for extended periods of time is OK (because of all that "hassle and risk" shit), then just imagine when the ranks of owners of untenanted accommodation swell to 11 billion.
All it would take (apparently) is limitless energy (to power the leap-frogging) – coming suddenly to a planet near you. Or maybe a new “global world order” is more your style – maybe one that approves of owning empty houses.
If you don’t like sharing your resources, just say so. I certainly prefer not to share, but tough times call for…
This seems so bizarre – if owning houses that no one lives in for extended periods of time is OK
Never said it was OK. It comes about because leaving the property empty and earning only capital gain is more attractive than the relatively modest return from tenanting it.
Let's say you own a $2m property and it's asset price increases 5% pa, which yeilds a paper gain of $100k risk free. It's essentially being used by the owner as a bank deposit with a decent interest rate. Yet tenanted it might also have another cash income of say $50k, although a tenant incurs extra costs around property management, repairs and maintenance, meeting ever changing rental standards and accounting. Not to mention the non-zero risk of some expensive drama with the tenant. All this reasonably reduces the expected rental income to maybe less than $35k pa which is a very low 1.5% return on the total asset value.
You can see why some owners rationally choose not to bother with the risk involved. You'd never go to the same effort to achieve such a low return from a bank deposit or similar low risk investments.
Of course socially none of this is desirable, but it makes a lot more sense to tackle the root cause of the problem. TOP's policy of taxing all assets at a low but consistent rate would achieve the outcomes everyone wants here, but without the proto-marxist revenge fantasies.
But it's more fun having a crack at property owners … right?
Hardly – I'm a property owner myself. I'm having a crack at people whose capital gain farming involves depriving others of housing. Regardless of how "rational" that farming is, in a housing crisis the government needs to strongly discourage it.
Here's another reason why a house may stay empty. For obvious reasons it's older people over 65 who tend to be home owners, but these are also the group who are most likely to be in hospital or rest homes for extended periods. If there is a reasonable prospect of their recovery, they aren't going to sell or rent the home they hope to return to.
Similarly if they've moved long term to a rest home, renting the property may have an immediate impact on their RCS. At that age they (or their PoE) may well have no interest nor capacity to become a landlord; so the home sits empty for an indefinite period. I've no idea how to guess the fraction of homes tangled up like this, but I'd wager it's more than a negligible few.
Yes, there are valid reasons why a house may stay empty. And there are valid reasons for the homeless, those living in cars or in other unsafe circumstances, or put up in motels by the state, to be granted access to empty or otherwise under-utilised houses or commercial properties.
Just suggesting that such access shouldn't be ruled out in perpetuity, and might make a significant contribution to addressing the growing shortage of affordable housing.
This is the best idea since the captain of the Titanic said "Lets have a closer look at that iceberg"!
If I owned a property worth $1.52m in Ponsonby, I would not want it rented out to HNZ tenants.
that is cool.
But you should not be provided with one tax write of either. 🙂 Instead you should be taxed to the fullest so maybe that you find a tenant who is not a Housing New Zealand tenant.
And i would also like to point out that there is not one 'house' in Ponsonby that would be worth 1.5 million, the land has the value, the hovels on them not. So the question that needs to be asked of the owner of that 1.5 million dollar sliver of land in Ponsonby, why should the rest of the country finance your land banking?
If the house is sitting vacant, no rental income is being earned and the owner is still having to pay maintenance, insurance and rates. If the property is not available to be rented, they cannot claim any expenses for tax deductions or for losses to be carried forward as these losses are now ring fenced. If house has been empty that long its pretty easy for IRD to say property is not available for rent therefore there is no tax deductions. So they shouldn't have even one tax write off.
Nice one
If I owned a property worth $1.52m in Ponsonby, I would not want it rented out to HNZ tenants.
And if you were leaving it empty to farm capital gain during a housing crisis, your country might want to take some steps to make that seriously not worth your while.
Another nice one
This will never happen. Be suicidal politically given the property rights ramifications.
Also ineffective given a few hundred dollars worth of timers would circumvent detection.
Finally a well written and thoughtful article on where next for the global world order:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-31/liberal-international-order-under-threat-china-us/11905652
Principles and big regulatory institutions are awesome, but I think you forget sometimes that they only emerge out of a sustained global crisis. Today, more people and governments are reacting with more force about a global flu than global warming or species extinction.
All of the post-WW2 UN machinery annoying Mr Goldin has lost mojo because they are broadly fine or they don't have executive power to change much.
In trade, the decline of the WTO is being replaced with big regional pacts.
In development, most people are getting hauled out of poverty.
In human rights, those states who allow themselves to be held to account, are accountable. In financial restructuring, pretty much the Washington Consensus and New Public Management are installed globally. The rest is honestly UN make-work.
Nothing has regulated the concentration of wealth, and since the late 1970s no one has even given it a good go.
Same with environmental degradation. Some big wins, but mostly losses.
So broadly people are settled about what they can change and what they can't.
And people generally accept that the global instruments they have are the ones that will stay around.
Most big regulatory orders only alter according to really big crises – and so far there's nowhere near enough agreement that there is one that needs a really big global regulatory body to regulate the crisis down.
We just don't have the political tide …
Thanks, that's an engaging response Ad. I agree totally the timing is not now.
But there are two components to any substantial change, one is preparing the ground, sowing the seeds … and the other is the trigger to action. I accept, very reluctantly, that it will probably take another serious catastrophe like WW2 to trigger change …. but in the meantime it's definitely worth thinking ahead about the nature and range of choices we might have.
Red, I'm just in a different place.
Call it Pretend and Extend, call it NeoConLeft, call it anything you like.
But the institutional setting and the strength of democracy and distribution is about as good in Australasia as it is across the world bar Scandinavia.
In my remaining professional lifetime we should enjoy this peak institutional point and enable existing institutions and settings to stay there doing what they are doing for the foreseeable future.
It’s only going to get worse, so preserve it.
Call it Pretend and Extend, call it NeoConLeft, call it anything you like.
lol … you may have noticed that I rarely label anyone with anything. I assume that everyone, has something to teach me.
It’s only going to get worse, so preserve it.
Probably, although at my age I've been around long enough to know that the future rarely works out quite like how I expect it will. Therefore there are reasonable grounds to remain somewhat optimistic.
I do respect your intensely realistic and pragmatic views, but keep small corner in your heart for your dreams to live on in.
this was a good question to ask, and it was a painful question for hte Chief Justice to read.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4851016/user-clip-chief-justice-roberts-reads-senator-warrens-fastball-question
Oooooh … fuck me that's brutal.
Ouch! And the answer is?
Schiff chickened out and sucked up to Roberts with an utterly shameless big sloppy wet kiss on the ass.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/480799-warren-puts-justice-roberts-in-awkward-spot-with-supreme-court-legitimacy
That is a bit harsh.
The guy merely put the full blame for the spectacle provided on the shoulders of the republican senate. By doing so he provided a nice avenue for Roberts – now called out for doing fuck all and for trampling all over the constitution – to find a spine, guts, to the glory of the country and finally preside of this impeachment as the independent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the US. Because as of now, with exeption to the question asked by Rand Paul – he was missing in action. Present but not engaged, certainly not ready nor happy to do his job as per the rules rather then party affiliation.
A nice calling out of woke and virtue signaling types who infest the internet.
Fav quote of the day. It's big sorry – It's at the 5:52 point of the below video. The rest of the video is neat, especially near the start with a clip from Joe Rogan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lijM_C-zOJ8&ab_channel=TheJimmyDoreShow
plunket is spouting off on the wireless telling people jlr is one of those who have been charged…….
Would that not be a breach of name suppression? There's no mention of it on the news.
Admin, please delete comment if not appropriate, thanks.
There is no suppression.
They just haven't been named by the SFO
What name suppression?
Best that no-one speculates on who may have been charged at the moment especially on here
There was a lot going on last night in that regard with David Farrar having to take down a post on KB. (He was ‘asked’ to do so …) Certain MSM reports have also been running close to the line in trying to identify the accused, with one or two items also disappearing into the ether in the last 24 hours.
Legal situation is not as simple as EiE makes it out to be re name suppression – eg my understanding is that currently things are in the period when applications can still be made for name suppression.
Of course applications can be made. That is why the SFO has not named them.
But there is no suppression order yet. That is why Soper and Plunket are saying who it is. They won't be charged for breaching suppression.
Hi VV 🙂 Good advice, thanks. plunket was going on and on about it all afternoon, like he had the biggest scoop in the world, he even had slippery simon on his radio show cheering him on.
No doubt there will be a very good reason why the other news outlets haven't touched plunkets so called scoop.
I meant to listen to that broadcast (streamed on TDB) but forgot and comments on TDB about it are not very specific. Plunket will probably not be censored/charged with, for example, breaching name suppression as this is presumably not yet formally in place for anyone associated with the case – whether as a defendent or as a witness.* But I wonder whether he may have opened himself up for defamation depending on what he said, but its best not to pursue that line of thinking here on TS or elsewhere public.
Re other news outlets, Soper's speculation disappeared from The Herald tout suite, as did Farrar's post on Soper's contentions – and also tweets between Soper and Farrar where Soper supposedly claimed Farrar had misread Soper. But Farrar really needs to do a sweep and clean of his GD 30 January comments (354) especially from 6pm on … LOL
Oh dang! Good advice to not get tangled up in that mess.
Rather dubious charging if the Nat whistleblower copped it…and leader & President wriggled out
That would be the system working exactly as intended – expendable bagmen protecting the higher-ups.
Never a truer word hath been spoke!
An amendment… bagmen and bagwomen.
Now that could get interesting
I don't recall Thatcher whacking anyone with her handbag. Admirable self-discipline. On the other hand, rugby forwards nowadays often use virtual hand-bags – unusual behaviour by macho guys. So perhaps it is a cultural trend worth watching.
She didn't have to. She had a habit of displaying them in a prominent way – quite big handbags too. That was enough to keep the troops in order.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-language-of-margaret-thatchers-handbags
Simon says he's not going to keep the $100k ill-gotten gains.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/01/simon-bridges-has-no-intention-of-keeping-100-000-donation-seeks-electoral-commission-s-advice.html
Lols. Nearly two years down the track the Nats have suddenly acquired a moral compass and have decided not the keep the donation.
I see he's also trying to project some of his conduct onto Jacinda Ardern. That's the action of a guilty person.
National have probably already spent the $100k donation, but paying it back will be easy enough.
Just a quick phone call to Beijing with the promise of another Beijing-approved list MP, and the money will be in the Nats bank account before Simon can say "godbless Xi Jinping".
Corporate Media Are the Real ‘Sanders Attack Machine'
https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-are-the-real-sanders-attack-machine/
US media will have taken heart in the UK media's public destruction of Corbyn, and will surely be taking the gloves now that Sanders is becoming a serious threat to their comfortable status quo.
Bernie 2020!
Turn Labour Left!
I get it that Corbyn's selection as Labour leader gave you a years-long bout of priapism that finally climaxed with the release of the 2019 manifesto. Which led to Labour's worst election result in almost a century.
Did the result give you even a moment's pause to consider whether the things that excite you personally might not in fact result in actual progress? Y'know, because implementing change requires actually holding power?
No?
Didn't think so.
Trump has turned his attention to Bernie now…https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/trump-sanders-2020-election/
If the Sanders campaign wins Iowa Caucus, the industrial strength shit sprayer will certainly be deployed. Mr Sanders is running a similar organising style campaign on the ground as Trump, but appealing to vastly different facets of human thinking and behaviour.
[Fixed typo in user handle]
Bernie is still the Republican gift of Trump Term 2 to the world.
The attack files go back a long, long way.
And, in case we didn’t see Corbyn’s Catastrophe Mark 2 coming, he’s as risky as Goldwater was, .
And the serious business of vetting hasn’t started.
https://www.al.com/news/2020/01/bernie-sanders-praised-alabama-segregationist-governor-george-wallace-in-1972-article.html
A long public life offers more opportunity for vetting I guess, but from observing Bernie Sanders recent iterations I think he has less to worry about than ex Republican Warren and Welfare slasher Mr Biden! But if the Sanders campaign gets a few Primary wins on the board, all manner of revisionist takes on Bernie’s life will likely be presented.
joe90’s linked piece makes it clear Sanders regarded Wallace a quasi fascist type, and the praise was in regard to his populist radar.
Small piece of advice
Are we allowed to mention the Mallard defamation case or is that likely to get me binned again?
Thanks
"The pure temple politics of the Greens where exclusion is the new inclusion, where online Identity Politics activists create resentment and no solidarity are proving to be about as successful at recruitment as Donald Trump at a feminist folk festival." Guess who? Someone unable to comprehend political compromise!
"Green apologists will ignore all this criticism and state that the Greens can only do what they do because of NZ First. That’s horse shit. If you had good enough strategists, you’d outplay Winston and Shane in a second while holding the fire to Labour’s feet, but the Greens have no one good there other than Chloe, Julie-Anne Genter, Jan Logie and Gareth (who is resigning this election). The behind the scenes crew have all the strategic capacity of moss." https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/01/30/if-marama-davidson-made-s-speech-in-the-forest-and-no-one-noticed-did-she-make-it/
"Marama’s serious run in Tamaki Makaurau is likely to split the Labour vote and allow a John Tamihere candidacy for the Māori Party to succeed which would be the ultimate irony."
"I’ve been a Green voter my entire political life, it’s so sad to see the sorry state the Party is in now with such limp leadership when it’s core issue of the Climate Crisis is the ONLY issue." I'm genuinely surprised. He always seemed typical Labour.
He should stop whining they only need 5%, and look like that could probably manage that.