Fabulously clear day in Riverton. The sound of the waves from North beach promise settled weather. The students coming to our forest school today will be making damper, cooking it over an open fire of their creation. We'll learn about charcoal-making 🙂
Tomorrow, a South Korean film crew begins filming here for a series about people who live in forests.
Maybe students on the East Cape could learn about charcoal making in their region – lots of timber to pick up there.
It staggers me that we are two decades into the 21st century, we are supposedly a modern, progressive society and we get timber slash destroying lives and businesses on a massive scale. This parallels the damage to society caused by intensive dairying in Canterbury and elsewhere.
From what I can see, forests grown on unstable land in East Cape have been clear-felled with no regard to the consequences. The primary concern of the forestry companies is profit.
I don't know, if anyone, is advising Eli Rubashkyn but fleeing the country to avoid arrest on a minor assault charge is a really, really, really dumb idea. Even dumber is mocking the police with triumphalist statements on social media of their inability to do anything about her flight. Does she really think staying away for six months, one year or three years will make a difference to the NZ Police when she comes back to NZ?
She is of course being egged on via social media by an army of idiots none of whom will be standing in the dock next to her when she inevitably gets deported or arrives back in NZ and is arrested.
Travelling with an outstanding arrest warrant for assault is going to be perilous. One red flag or passport check at passport control will see her hauled off to a holding cell and deportation – God forbid she has been lying on her electronic visa applications, or travelling on other passports which conceal her identity in some way. You basically get treated like a potential terrorist if border authorities pick that up.
Much better advice would be to have turned up at the police station, been charged and bailed and in six months if you are lucky you’ll get a discharge without conviction and a stern telling off. At worst it’ll be a conviction and fine. Fleeing the justice system and laughing at the authorities means the courts will take a much dimmer view of her actions now.
Travelling to the USA with an outstanding warrant seems especially foolish and likely to end in sitting in immigration detention for a few days at the very least.
I agree. Saying they did assault people and would do it again is daft at.
Although they say they left because of death threats. And is there any evidence they have left the country? Some of their social media photos are fake or old photos reposted.
Doesn't sound "triumphalist" to me. Sounds more like someone in fear of their life.
Rubashkyn had already fled the country, before she heard the police were looking for her.
Considering the sort of organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker. And the on-line threats being made against her.
To get Eli Rubashkyn back to this country to face the offence she has been charged with, the New Zealand authorities need to offer Rubashkyn guaranteed safe protective custody.
Eli Rubashkyn expresses her love for this country and her dream for nobody to ever have to live in fear here.
[please supply evidence for the two sets of claims of fact. 1. that ER left the country before they knew the police were looking for them. 2. “the sort of organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker”
Evidence means your explanation, quotes, and links. I want more than one piece of evidence for #2 and it had better be good, showing that there are fascists in NZ who both *follow KJK and *support her.
If you can’t produce evidence for both, please withdraw the assertion and agree that you won’t make assertions like this again without evidence.
You were warned about this the other day. This is a fraught topic and it’s not ok to run casual slur politics. The site policy is clear that you have to provide back up when requested.
If you ignore my moderation here I will simply ban you, because I’m not wasting any more time trying to get you up to speed when you have a long history of bans for similar. You have until the end of the day – weka]
Mod note. I've now looked at your ban history for 2023 and see you've already had two bans this year, one for making misleading comments, the other for attacking a commenter. If you don't follow the moderation note above in all respects, or if you mess me around, I will ban you until well after the election. If you are unclear on anything, please ask.
I do have a life you know. And have things to do. I will try and make your deadline, later to night when I get time. But I can't make any promiises. Except I will promise to do my best.
I did mean midnight, but am ok to extend until midnight tomorrow if you can’t get it all done today. Please know that I have a life too and things to do, and I am no longer willing to use my time to chase people up for this kind of thing when they have been warned before.
Trans people exist. Trans people want to go to the toilet. Something we all need to do most every day. Trans people. like everyone else want to be able to relieve themselves where they feel safest. This should not infringe on anyone's rights. It's the toilets, for goodness sake, we go there for one thing. And who hasn't gone in the other gendered toilets when they have been really busting and all the cubicles are occupied? But a moral panic has been created over this issue by the far right.
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society.[1][2][3][page needed] It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue",[4] usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers.[1][2]Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community. [5]
Stanlev Cohen, who developed the term, states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests".[6]While the issues identified may be real, the claims "exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm"…..
….Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory pedophiles;[9][10][11]belief in ritual abuse of women and children by Satanic cults;[12]and concerns over the effects of music lyrics.[13] Some moral panics can become embedded in standard political discourse.[2] which include concepts such as the "Red Scare"[14] and terrorism.[15]
[please supply evidence for the two sets of claims of fact. 1. that ER(she has a name you know) Eliana Rubashkyn left the country before theyshe knew the police were looking for them. her. 2. “the sort of organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker”
I am tired. In the morning I will be rested. But in the morning you will still lack empathy.
I am not excusing or supporting what Eliana did. And I certainly would not have done anything like that myself. But Eliana Rubashkyn is a person, she is not a "they" or a "them". Eliana Ruashyn is certainly not an “it”, like a dog or a sub-human or a thing. It really shouldn't have to be said, but Eliana Ruashyn is a real person who needs to be treated as a person with a proper identity, You may not agree with how Eliana Rubashkyn identifies herself but at least give her the respect to address her as she would wished to be addressed. I notice for instance that you address Posie Parker as she wishes to be addressed.
As a moderator, your lack of empathy means you have no issues at all with Eliana Rubashkyn being described as an “it” or as a “they” or as a “fuckwit” or as a “thug” terms that dehumanise her.
Well, when " it, they, fuckwit, thug", finally gets arrested for common assault on a woman, he ( yes its a man ), can explain its actions in court
No bans or cautions here. What I see is lots of prejudice, lots of hate, lots of fear, and zero empathy.
I also notice that you also don't object to trans, intersex, Jews being described as "sacred classes" or that it might be interesting to see if these "sacred classes" get special treatment in the US. A common fascist trope.
It will be interesting to see if any of the proclaimed "sacred classes" (trans, intersex, Jewish, Ukrainian) offer any protection.
Nothing to moderate here as far as you are concerned.
Whether Eliana Ruashyn knew or not whether she was being sought by the police is irrelevant really, I believe her when she says she heard if from a friend when she was already in Australia that the police were looking for her. She says she left this country which she says she loves dearly, because of the threats made against her.
And this fear is real. It was continuous non-stop on-line threats and abuse that brought down the ablest politician of a generation and the best Prime Minister of my life time. I can remember and name them all, starting from (Sir) Keith Holyoak on.
I think that if Jacinda Ardern spoke publicly in support of our trans community, the far right would kill her. I am not joking or exaggerating this is how strong the far right hate was/is against her. And what was Jacinda Ardern's crime that earned such hate from the far right? Being caring and courageous enough to take drastic actions to save possibly thousands of New Zealanders lives.
And you know what else I think. I think New Zealanders rallied in solidarity with our trans brothers and sisters in such numbers because we are sick and tired of the far right taking over the narrative by occupying and dominating our public and on-line spaces.
What was your other question?
What are the organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker”
Evidence for that is everywhere..
I might give you the links tomorrow if you are interested. But I don't think you are. Not really.
[banned for the rest of the year for wasting moderator time and refusing to play by the rules (patterns of behaviour) – weka]
Te Allen, I want to apologise to you for a comment I made in response to your Nuremberg comment on the Daily Blog.
I can’t remember what I said, but it was reactive. I know you have a family member who is transgender and they absolutely deserve to live free of personal harassment.
I heard an interview with an older lesbian who claimed many of the trans rights activists were heterosexual men who identify as non binary.
people are entitled to identify any how they like, but I am against changing laws to accommodate that.
I also refuse to be gaslite by the state, now including the police that women can have a penis
Thanks Jenny, takes a brave person to support the trans community at the Standard.
Possibly, but it also takes someone who is willing to abide by the rules. Jenny has a long history of being moderated, on a range of topics. There are other people here who regularly support the trans community but don't do so by running slur politics and who are willing to work within the long standing debate culture of TS. They are welcome.
"…Analysts say Russia is also engaged in a continual conflict with what it perceives as its enemy, the west, including the US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of which have developed their own classified cyber-offensive capabilities in a digital arms race…"
I don't know how much damage will be done to the government over this email saga, with revelations coming out about whether it was incorrectly withheld from the Ombudsman and who was involved in the decision making process. In some respects, it may be seen as a beltway issue, and perceived as gotcha politics that doesn't impact on the lives of ordinary kiwis.
But, on the other hand, it is a very unwelcome distraction for the government, and is proving to be a major test of Hipkin's leadership. And also, stands in stark contrast to previous promises around transparency.
So, it will be interesting to see what happens from here on in. In some ways, a tidy way to control the narrative would be for the government to initiate an inquiry. This would get the issue out of media attention as the findings of the inquiry could be delayed until after the election.
The biggest problem for the government though is that the Auditor General may organise an independent inquiry. Under this scenario, the government would have no control over that enquiry, or when findings are released. And the AG may decide to have a much broader look at OIA releases.
I think the press gallery is trying to work itself into a frenzy about it, but that is because it suits their agenda – a beltway scandal they don't have to go far to investigate and where the they get to do the usual round of tired pundits and questions that beget questions and all from the comfort of their office chair.
Most issue like this have little impact on voters once the offending minister has been sacked, and anyway – Hipkins is insulated from the actions of the previous PM's office.
I agree, the damage is likely to be more limited if it can be confined to Nash.
However, what we don't know is what other emails may come to light, and whether that could involve other government ministers. If there has been a systematic pattern of suppressing OIA requests, then there may be more to come out, and we could have email controversies right up until the election.
Interesting times, and certainly a gift to the opposition, which ever way it is looked at.
Mr Key was well exposed in Nicky Hager’s “Dirty Politics” on his obstructionist attitude to some OIA requests–kicking out the timeline for “political purposes” and sometimes via his “office” (it wasn’t meee…) even supplying them to Mr “SlaterOil” before the official recipient got them!
So Cameron Slater Mr Key’s one time late night phone confidant (confirmed in Parliament) got a sneak preview.
Sure, not distant history like the Titanic disastor, or the American Civil War.
But distant in the sense that it applies to a government no longer in power and to politicians such as Key who haven't been in parliament for quite a long time. And it relates to issues that were covered quite extensively back then. So, it would be reboiling the cabbage so to speak.
Anyway, que sera sera. The opposition will be pushing this as hard as they can for awhile now. So, time will tell whether this has any long-term impact or not.
One problem for Hipkins is that he has set the standard for sacking now. So, if another similar email comes out implicating another minister, then Hipkins has a precedent he has to live up to.
One problem for Hipkins is that he has set the standard for sacking now. So, if another similar email comes out implicating another minister, then Hipkins has a precedent he has to live up to.
Context doesn’t matter in the Court of Public Opinion.
Except Pony getting away with it in the 'distant' past made it easier for any slippery customers after him to do the same. An enquiry with teeth would be a good thing regardless of who is in power.
I agree. If this is an isolated incident that can be sheeted to Nash, then you are probably right.
However, as I mentioned, what we don't know is how much more is out there. If this isn't an isolated accident, but part of a deliberate strategy to obstruct OIA requests, then there could be a lot more.
If that is the case, then the whole issue could keep boiling along with some new email being dropped every couple of weeks.
Caveat: I don't think this is anything more than a beltway issue. The whole problem of OIA evasion is not something that registers on the radar of ordinary Kiwis.
However, I think that the paper trail of this cock-up or coverup (take your pick) goes from Nash's office to the PM's office. At the very least, it's incompetence (there is no way that this email wasn't relevant – so what were the reasons for concealing it?)
However, the bigger issue brought to light is the standard practice of every party in government to conceal as much as possible in any OIA request.
We see this time and again – when Minister's 'forget' to include meetings in diaries, or staff exclude valid emails/letters on spurious grounds.
No party is immune from this. All do it – purely for political advantage.
I'd like to see legislation or regulation 'clarifying' that once someone is a Minister, they no longer have a separation of identity into MP and Minister – for OIA purposes. I mean, what do they do – run an impermeable membrane down the centre of their identity! Of course, MP communications are informed by their ministerial role and knowledge of what is discussed around the cabinet table. That is *why* there is an OIA to a minister, and not to a backbencher.
I'd also like to see serious consequences for OIA request delays and rejections (which are then pushed back by the Ombudsman) – which have just about become routine. Perhaps the Minister should be required to get leave from Parliament, complete with an excuse considered acceptable, for any delay. And make a formal explanation to Parliament of any adverse Ombudsman findings.
"My second comment is that this is a perfect example of why the OIA needs criminal penalties for deliberate violations. Canada does this, with the Access to Information Act having a penalty of two years imprisonment for those who, with intent to frustrate a request, conceal, falsify or destroy records. We should do the same, to deter such behaviour and enable public servants to stand up to illegal demands from their political masters. But as with the Ombudsmen's Act, the problem is getting Ministers to apply the law to themselves…"
No party is immune from this. All do it – purely for political advantage.
I tend to agree with you on that. However, the problem for Hipkins now is that he has set a threshold for sacking cabinet ministers. So, I bet he is sweating on the hope that no other ministers have offended in a similar way.
TBH – I'd say that the particular offence (sharing insider information from the cabinet with political donors) – is highly likely to be limited to Nash.
It doesn't seem the kind of thing that would be likely to be widespread – if only because your cabinet colleagues would be furious with you if/when they found out.
Also assuming that the rest of the Ministers have at least read the Cabinet Manual!
Any other Minister who has done such a stupid thing, would now know exactly what the consequences are. [Anyone who's even slightly dubious about what they've said, will no doubt be spending the weekend reviewing their correspondence for the last 5 years]
The part that is widespread – evasion of OIA requests, using any excuse under the sun – isn't something that he sacked Nash for, so won't need to hold others to the same high standard.
TBH – I'd say that the particular offence (sharing insider information from the cabinet with political donors) – is highly likely to be limited to Nash.
That is probably a fair point. One would hope such behaviour isn't wide-spread.
It looks like I missed the evolution of the meaning of another word. A car burned out on the Harbour Bridge last night. The vehicle "identified by witnesses as a Tesla – had somehow caught ablaze… Photos show the white Tesla’s front completely torched. No one was injured, he confirmed. The cause of the fire is also not yet known at this stage."
In my once-upon-a-time saying something had been 'torched' meant the cause was known – the object had been 'torched', i.e. deliberately set on fire. The word is used twice.
Interesting recent blogpost on mental health trends for young people in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Intro by Jon Haidt, one of the authors of 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind, (which I have no knowledge of), the rest is Part 1 of the preliminary report by research partner, Zach Rausch.
When Jon first asked me to figure out whether teen mental health had collapsed around the globe after 2012, I thought he was nuts. The task felt impossible and beyond what I thought I could accomplish. But it was precisely this kind of work that I aspired to do…
…The short answer to Jon’s question is: Teen mental health plummeted across the Western world in the early 2010s, particularly for girls and particularly in the most individualistic nations. The longer answer begins below and will continue in parts 2 and 3.
The increase in self-reported anxiety and depression in New Zealand is among the steepest across all of the Anglo countries. Figure 14, with data from the New Zealand Ministry of Health, shows that in 2007, the percentage of 15-24-year-old males and females who said they had been given an anxiety diagnosis was approximately 3%. By 2020, the percentage of young females with an anxiety diagnosis had grown to 24.8% (a259% increase compared to 2011). Males also rose to 9% in 2020 (a 131%increase).
These increases are so large, and the starting numbers are so low (just 3% of girls had an anxiety diagnosis in 2007?) that we suspect that this graph shows, in part, changing diagnostic criteria and greater awareness of anxiety. We do not believe that the underlying rates of anxiety disorders increased as quickly as the lines in Figure 11 suggest. Nonetheless, given what we are seeing in all of the Anglosphere countries, and given the self-harm data below, we believe that much or most of the rise is real. In any case, in 2007, only one in 30 girls thought she had an anxiety disorder; by 2020, it was one in four.
There is a 60 page draft document which lists sources and data not shown on the blogpost:
I'm currently looking through, and although no conclusions have been drawn it seems that addressing effectively this significant increase should be a priority for any government.
Me being cynical and therefore not overly helpful means I think that the Govt will be able to blame this concerning increase on the oppression felt by young people at the exercise of women's rights to safe spaces, fairness in sport etc.
On a more sensible note:
My concern is that children are being made to listen/absorb what should be the concerns of adults. I first became aware of this in the mid 1990s when my loved mother in law involved my then 9 year old brother & sister in law in listening to her troubles concerning the father's non payment/her legal troubles etc. I have seen this trend over and over. My bro in law was very affected by this, was powerless though.
We should strive to make sure our children have time to be children. They will have the rest of their lives to be concerned about world, country etc problems. I'm not meaning they live in a bubble.
I'm aware of how non acceptable/old fashioned these views are to some.
"We should strive to make sure our children have time to be children. "
I agree. I always considered one of the primary roles of a child's caregiver is to maintain appropriate boundaries.
The boundaries for independence and behaviour expand as the child grows in capability and demonstrations of maturity.
Safeguarding boundaries are not just related to physical access, but exposure to ideas and concepts (particularly adult concerns and sexuality) that disrupt or blight their individual development at their own pace.
If I find it, I’ll add the Facebook findings on the negative social media impact on young people, notably girls again.
Having a read through of the substack piece. I'd love to see that NZ graph plotted with increases in various SM platforms, and local events like Roastbusters. Also would be very good to see a breakdown of NZ by area, rural vs urban, ethnicity.
Looking at the all age group graph, there have been increases across all age groups, but most of the others have had ups and downs within that. So were young people better before and are catching up, or have been impacted more badly than other groups?
For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how its photo-sharing app affects its millions of young users. Repeatedly, the company’s researchers found that Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of them, most notably teenage girls.
“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues.
“Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression,” said another slide. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”
Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed.
Affordability of smart phones, or other devices making them more accessible to young teenagers for longer periods of time?
I'll have to see if there is data or research looking at that in particular. If I find it, I'll post here. I think that may also differ by country as well.
When looking at such research, I don't think it is likely there is one answer. I'm more interested in looking at possible contributors, and trying to determine the weighting of each.
Otherwise, there is a danger of identifying one particular contributor, providing a solution for it, and disregarding the rest.
With that in mind – this from 2022 which I post without reading to beat the edit time constraint:
Off the books payment probe has resulted in a thunder of justice event – the big apple entices Florida man to home detention in Trump Towers.
A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges.
The felony indictment, filed under seal by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, will likely be announced in the coming days. By then, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, will have asked Mr. Trump to surrender and to face arraignment on charges that remain unknown for now.
A huge shoutout to the Hipkins government for continuing to do the one big thing they do well: redistribute taxpayer cash to those who need it.
From tomorrow the 1st of April over 1.4 million New Zealanders are going to get more money, Of course it's not enough. But Labour have a consistently strong record over two terms of increasing payments across welfare.
As of tomorrow the nurses pay agreement worth $200million kicks in; that's right across nurses in aged residential care, hospices, home and community services, those in Māori and Pacific healthcare, get up to 15% more in take home pay.
Also as of tomorrow more than half of New Zealand families with children can get subsidised childcare assistance. 10,000 more children can get Childcare Subsidy and takes an edge of financial grief off childcare before and after work.
For those on NZSuper, since 2017, a couple get $326.68 more per fortnight and single older people get an extra $212.34 per fortnight.
Also you get adjusted lifts for veteran's pensions.
Also coming up from 1 May the Winter Energy Payment goes to all beneficiaries and superannuants.
Also from 1 July Child Support will be passed on to sole parent beneficiaries.
That's easily 20% of New Zealand getting more of a hand to deal with growth in supermarket prices, power prices. Of course it's not enough. And yes poverty isn't going down fast enough and here's a series of stats on that:
A group of people probably vastly under-polled, and basically invisible in the constant media parade of middle class whiners, cookers and entitled small business complainers. Because Labour won by so much in 2019 it is overlooked that the polls were out by quite margin – I can't recall exactly, but I think they over-stated the right vote by 2% or so and understated Labour's support by around 4%, hopefully these groups will get out and vote en masse come the next election.
Duncan Garner,Tovar O'brien are facing the reality of the Free market and probably no redundancy. You would think they would be defending a company which can't make money closing down a loss making enterprise.The Media landscape has been changing for more than ten year's so no surprises therefore why would any company continue to throw good money after bad.
" Oh you poor little highly paid things. Now you know how it feels to be made redundant and tossed on the scrap heap without so much as a "sorry". It happened to many thousands of us in the 80s and 90s and we didn't earn big bucks. We survived, but not without serious hardships, and you will too. So shut up and stop moaning about how hard done by you are. We're not listening.
I watched the Hobart Let Women Speak several times and it was the genesis of the approach I made to SUFW and now the complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
She comments:
'The Tasmanian event was pretty horrifying. The women who spoke were visibly terrified and an angry mob drowned out their voices with hysterical screams and cult-like mantras' .
The women were surrounded by baying, shouting jostling people only kept at a distance of about 5ft, behind them, by several older men, no police. Police let the crowd surge forward. Also of concern at Hobart were the pest media who jostled the women speakers including putting the long nose of a camera across/above the shoulder of the woman speaking from a wheelchair.
I was being satirical because I couldn't quite take in that you were arguing that there's something about women's rights campaigners or women speaking at an open mike that attract angry mobs.
At a guess ( thinking of actual Fascist ideology ) is the strong emphasis put on traditional family values and roles. The idea of different genders and homosexuality being viewed as deviant.
The neo nazi presence would be not so much as support for Parker but rather as a show of dislike for the groups protesting against her.
Also, of course is the Nazi love of dressing up in uniforms and parading! Theres nothing a Nazi likes more than looking like a bus conductor!
"Nazi love of dressing up in uniforms and parading!"
Yep, like men dressing up as women (or how they think women should or do dress) and shutting opposing viewpoints down through use of intimidation and violence.
Socratic mode of questioning, that I had in all of its tough glory in some of my law studies is designed to elucidate, to expand knowledge by questioning.
Although the questioner(tutor) assumes an ignorant mindset, or argues in the negative, ignorant mindsets are not usually the ones who use this type of questioning.
The questioner has a depth of knowledge of the topic sufficient to enable them to maintain an argument against the topic to generate enhanced knowledge
People seeking knowledge about a topic that they do not have are best to read texts on and around the topic.
For instance we would not adopt a Socratic method of questioning when somebody wants to know how gravity works. We would ask them to read on the topic then to test or extend the depth of their knowledge we may ask some Socratic type questions.
But oh the almost terror in a law class where we had to sit in exactly the same seat as we had originally turned up to the first lecture, the lecturer who goes row by row along the rows & you realise you might not have 'got' the readings and questions are getting closer and closer, you've got to stand, think on your feet……
Good method perhaps especially for those involved in courtroom work.
Women's rights, women's rights, free speech, 'women don't have penises men don't have vaginas' are quite clear & plain to me.
In Open Mike today 1/4 I quote from a NZ woman Katrina Biggs on the Shaneel Lal debacle.
She concludes:
It seems that being an arsehole is still no barrier to getting a prestigious award, but being a woman who doesn’t want men in her or her daughters’ spaces gets your life put in danger. Good to know that the world hasn’t tilted on its’ axis too much.
I am, by now, quite well-read on the issue. I believe I understand the position you, weka et al have taken.
Something about it though, is off, imo.
Perhaps you do understand but I've not seen much evidence that you understand Molly, my, or other women's position, because you simply don't engage with the substance of the ideas. The way you have been commenting on TS strongly suggests that you don't understand. Again here instead of stating clearly what is off, it's just the smear suggestion so often used by TRAs in the place of clean debate.
I'm open to being wrong, maybe you do have a grasp of the issues, but I'm not seeing that.
I wonder if any of us here recall the UK miners strike of the mid eighties. This was the action that ultimately led to the decline of union power in Britain, and likely influenced, as unlike events in major powers often do to NZ, our own dark descent into Roger Douglas's wretched folly – for the decline of our unions did not proceed from resentment at their (unions) demand to be treated as a special case in wage negotiations.
I raise the issue because activism out of a context of genuine disadvantage, is wont to be self-defeating. The people of Europe after the revolutions of 1848, the suffragettes, once women had secured the vote, unions, once pay and safety concerns were meaningfully addressed, all had to wait getting on for a generation, and the development of new issues, before fresh activism could attract broadly based support.
Activists, having achieved any measure of success, are disempowered by it. They must find new careers, or fresh problems, if they substantially resolve the ones that initially motivated them.
And so I expect it is with the contemporary trans debate. Gifted unprecedented (and unearned) parliamentary representation by the Covid response, they voted themselves, in the form of the BDM review, unprecedented liberties without all that tiresome business of securing public support. Not bad for a group of roughly 3% (using Australian numbers) of the population. But as noted above, the natural demise of popular support for further activism.
not sure if I quite followed that, but in the UK there's the theory that because the big campaigns for lesbians and gays had been one, the charity Stonewall needed a new cause and chose trans issues. They've been hugely influential in how trans rights have developed and in blocking debate about how to ensure trans rights without harming women or LGB rights.
There have been a number of claims that the trans issues are settled, loosely based on Gen Z responses. There is a problem with the assertion, beyond its speculative nature, in that (and I don't have a convenient reference, alas) adolescence is pretty much a high point for gender variation – identity tends to stabilize with age or experience or some combination of the two, so that current snap-shots of Gen Z are as likely to be the apogee of gender variation in that generation, rather than some LGBT& millennium.
But the culmination of advocacy isn't going away. It might be, for example, an explanation for Grant Robertson's adoption of a useful role (economics) outside gender advocacy – realizing that the major battles in that field have already been fought, and that consequently the number of positions for activists is declining.
Issues move on, and climate, and the transition to a plausible socioeconomic accommodation with it, must be resolved. This is a present issue – perhaps the present issue – others are a distraction.
the other thing about the whole Gen Z idea is that the young women grow up into young mothers then older mothers and grandmothers and have to deal with everything that goes with that, both biologically and sociopolitically. There's a reason why the people that get the problems with GI are usually older women (and lesbians, they always got it). Nothing like sexism and misogyny when you're in labour or menopause to peak you.
A good point – and I think too that there is a kind of social conditioning, on younger folk and especially younger women, to not speak out. The habit of contemplating failures and injustices in silence makes older women especially formidable when, at last, they do.
"Activists, having achieved any measure of success, are disempowered by it."
I think we saw a good example of it in the 1980s over the issue of nuclear proliferation and the French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in particular. It culminated in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior bombing in 1985 and its aftermath, by which time the success of the NZ government’s nuclear-free status had become synonymous with Prime Minister David Lange and the role he played. Who can forget the famous Oxford Union debate:
Together with the row over Rogernomics which Lange came to view with alarm and contempt, his successes (especially on the international stage) were to bring about his downfall. In other words he was in large part “disempowered” by those successes.
He died a sick man in 2005. He was only 62 years of age and I often wondered since how much all that argy-bargy in the 1980s might have affected his health.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
Opinion: New Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy is authorised to assume operational leadership – chief executive Margie Apa is effectively relegated to his operational deputy The post All-powerful Levy is feudal baron of a $28b fiefdom appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Fabulously clear day in Riverton. The sound of the waves from North beach promise settled weather. The students coming to our forest school today will be making damper, cooking it over an open fire of their creation. We'll learn about charcoal-making 🙂
Tomorrow, a South Korean film crew begins filming here for a series about people who live in forests.
The 4-day forecast looks good.
Maybe students on the East Cape could learn about charcoal making in their region – lots of timber to pick up there.
It staggers me that we are two decades into the 21st century, we are supposedly a modern, progressive society and we get timber slash destroying lives and businesses on a massive scale. This parallels the damage to society caused by intensive dairying in Canterbury and elsewhere.
From what I can see, forests grown on unstable land in East Cape have been clear-felled with no regard to the consequences. The primary concern of the forestry companies is profit.
Enjoy Robert. So pleased our fickle weather is behaving for your enterprises.
I don't know, if anyone, is advising Eli Rubashkyn but fleeing the country to avoid arrest on a minor assault charge is a really, really, really dumb idea. Even dumber is mocking the police with triumphalist statements on social media of their inability to do anything about her flight. Does she really think staying away for six months, one year or three years will make a difference to the NZ Police when she comes back to NZ?
She is of course being egged on via social media by an army of idiots none of whom will be standing in the dock next to her when she inevitably gets deported or arrives back in NZ and is arrested.
Travelling with an outstanding arrest warrant for assault is going to be perilous. One red flag or passport check at passport control will see her hauled off to a holding cell and deportation – God forbid she has been lying on her electronic visa applications, or travelling on other passports which conceal her identity in some way. You basically get treated like a potential terrorist if border authorities pick that up.
Much better advice would be to have turned up at the police station, been charged and bailed and in six months if you are lucky you’ll get a discharge without conviction and a stern telling off. At worst it’ll be a conviction and fine. Fleeing the justice system and laughing at the authorities means the courts will take a much dimmer view of her actions now.
Travelling to the USA with an outstanding warrant seems especially foolish and likely to end in sitting in immigration detention for a few days at the very least.
It will be interesting to see if any of the proclaimed "sacred classes" (trans, intersex, Jewish, Ukrainian) offer any protection.
I agree. Saying they did assault people and would do it again is daft at.
Although they say they left because of death threats. And is there any evidence they have left the country? Some of their social media photos are fake or old photos reposted.
"They?" I thought it was only one arsehole that assaulted her, there are more? I think you meant “he” Weka
Doesn't sound "triumphalist" to me. Sounds more like someone in fear of their life.
Rubashkyn had already fled the country, before she heard the police were looking for her.
Considering the sort of organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker. And the on-line threats being made against her.
To get Eli Rubashkyn back to this country to face the offence she has been charged with, the New Zealand authorities need to offer Rubashkyn guaranteed safe protective custody.
Eli Rubashkyn expresses her love for this country and her dream for nobody to ever have to live in fear here.
https://twitter.com/1newsnz/status/1639493167811796992
[please supply evidence for the two sets of claims of fact. 1. that ER left the country before they knew the police were looking for them. 2. “the sort of organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker”
Evidence means your explanation, quotes, and links. I want more than one piece of evidence for #2 and it had better be good, showing that there are fascists in NZ who both *follow KJK and *support her.
If you can’t produce evidence for both, please withdraw the assertion and agree that you won’t make assertions like this again without evidence.
You were warned about this the other day. This is a fraught topic and it’s not ok to run casual slur politics. The site policy is clear that you have to provide back up when requested.
If you ignore my moderation here I will simply ban you, because I’m not wasting any more time trying to get you up to speed when you have a long history of bans for similar. You have until the end of the day – weka]
Right, so the poor wee mites plan when detained at the border somewhere is too… Claim refugee status on the grounds she is fleeing persecution?
This sort of unfiltered and adolescent emotional response to anything stressful is unfortunately fairly typical of many TRAs.
She needs to face the music and deal with it like every adult has to when they decide to clout someone in public.
Mod note. I've now looked at your ban history for 2023 and see you've already had two bans this year, one for making misleading comments, the other for attacking a commenter. If you don't follow the moderation note above in all respects, or if you mess me around, I will ban you until well after the election. If you are unclear on anything, please ask.
When you say end of the day. Is that Midnight?
I do have a life you know. And have things to do. I will try and make your deadline, later to night when I get time. But I can't make any promiises. Except I will promise to do my best.
I did mean midnight, but am ok to extend until midnight tomorrow if you can’t get it all done today. Please know that I have a life too and things to do, and I am no longer willing to use my time to chase people up for this kind of thing when they have been warned before.
Trans people exist. Trans people want to go to the toilet. Something we all need to do most every day. Trans people. like everyone else want to be able to relieve themselves where they feel safest. This should not infringe on anyone's rights. It's the toilets, for goodness sake, we go there for one thing. And who hasn't gone in the other gendered toilets when they have been really busting and all the cubicles are occupied? But a moral panic has been created over this issue by the far right.
[please supply evidence for the two sets of claims of fact. 1. that
ER(she has a name you know) Eliana Rubashkyn left the country beforetheyshe knew the police were looking forthem. her. 2. “the sort of organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker”I am tired. In the morning I will be rested. But in the morning you will still lack empathy.
I am not excusing or supporting what Eliana did. And I certainly would not have done anything like that myself. But Eliana Rubashkyn is a person, she is not a "they" or a "them". Eliana Ruashyn is certainly not an “it”, like a dog or a sub-human or a thing. It really shouldn't have to be said, but Eliana Ruashyn is a real person who needs to be treated as a person with a proper identity, You may not agree with how Eliana Rubashkyn identifies herself but at least give her the respect to address her as she would wished to be addressed. I notice for instance that you address Posie Parker as she wishes to be addressed.
As a moderator, your lack of empathy means you have no issues at all with Eliana Rubashkyn being described as an “it” or as a “they” or as a “fuckwit” or as a “thug” terms that dehumanise her.
No bans or cautions here. What I see is lots of prejudice, lots of hate, lots of fear, and zero empathy.
I also notice that you also don't object to trans, intersex, Jews being described as "sacred classes" or that it might be interesting to see if these "sacred classes" get special treatment in the US. A common fascist trope.
https://www.ajc.org/news/antisemitic-tropes-are-proliferating-can-you-spot-them
Nothing to moderate here as far as you are concerned.
Whether Eliana Ruashyn knew or not whether she was being sought by the police is irrelevant really, I believe her when she says she heard if from a friend when she was already in Australia that the police were looking for her. She says she left this country which she says she loves dearly, because of the threats made against her.
And this fear is real. It was continuous non-stop on-line threats and abuse that brought down the ablest politician of a generation and the best Prime Minister of my life time. I can remember and name them all, starting from (Sir) Keith Holyoak on.
I think that if Jacinda Ardern spoke publicly in support of our trans community, the far right would kill her. I am not joking or exaggerating this is how strong the far right hate was/is against her. And what was Jacinda Ardern's crime that earned such hate from the far right? Being caring and courageous enough to take drastic actions to save possibly thousands of New Zealanders lives.
And you know what else I think. I think New Zealanders rallied in solidarity with our trans brothers and sisters in such numbers because we are sick and tired of the far right taking over the narrative by occupying and dominating our public and on-line spaces.
What was your other question?
What are the organised fascist groups that follow and support Posie Parker”
Evidence for that is everywhere..
I might give you the links tomorrow if you are interested. But I don't think you are. Not really.
[banned for the rest of the year for wasting moderator time and refusing to play by the rules (patterns of behaviour) – weka]
mod note.
Thanks Jenny, takes a brave person to support the trans community at the Standard.
Yep, respect for Jenny and all those missing, silenced voices here, even ure, who for once was on the right path.
I can’t remember what I said, but it was reactive. I know you have a family member who is transgender and they absolutely deserve to live free of personal harassment.
I heard an interview with an older lesbian who claimed many of the trans rights activists were heterosexual men who identify as non binary.
people are entitled to identify any how they like, but I am against changing laws to accommodate that.
I also refuse to be gaslite by the state, now including the police that women can have a penis
I'm not bothered either way.
Edit: But welcome your comment on my child.
Possibly, but it also takes someone who is willing to abide by the rules. Jenny has a long history of being moderated, on a range of topics. There are other people here who regularly support the trans community but don't do so by running slur politics and who are willing to work within the long standing debate culture of TS. They are welcome.
Well, when " it, they, fuckwit, thug", finally gets arrested for common assault on a woman, he ( yes its a man ), can explain its actions in court
please don't refer to humans on TS as it. It in English is dehumanising when applied to people.
Agreed, apologies.
thanks
Riverton's Harvest Festival on Stuff (if anyone's interested 🙂
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/garden/131632100/gardeners-concerned-at-cost-of-living-learn-at-southern-harvest-festival
Pretty sure planning systematic torture and bringing your own standardised kit to do the job is a high tariff war crime.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1641110351646261248
[…]
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1641114362654998533
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1641110351646261248.html
Interesting article today in the guardian that notes NZ is in the forefront of OFFENSIVE cyberwarfare capabilities in the fight against Russian online propaganda and cyberwarfare:
"…Analysts say Russia is also engaged in a continual conflict with what it perceives as its enemy, the west, including the US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of which have developed their own classified cyber-offensive capabilities in a digital arms race…"
If we had something useful to extend into an AUKUS side agreement, it would surely be in this field.
Just so long as the first into the fray isn't the Waikato DHB.
I don't know how much damage will be done to the government over this email saga, with revelations coming out about whether it was incorrectly withheld from the Ombudsman and who was involved in the decision making process. In some respects, it may be seen as a beltway issue, and perceived as gotcha politics that doesn't impact on the lives of ordinary kiwis.
But, on the other hand, it is a very unwelcome distraction for the government, and is proving to be a major test of Hipkin's leadership. And also, stands in stark contrast to previous promises around transparency.
So, it will be interesting to see what happens from here on in. In some ways, a tidy way to control the narrative would be for the government to initiate an inquiry. This would get the issue out of media attention as the findings of the inquiry could be delayed until after the election.
The biggest problem for the government though is that the Auditor General may organise an independent inquiry. Under this scenario, the government would have no control over that enquiry, or when findings are released. And the AG may decide to have a much broader look at OIA releases.
I think the press gallery is trying to work itself into a frenzy about it, but that is because it suits their agenda – a beltway scandal they don't have to go far to investigate and where the they get to do the usual round of tired pundits and questions that beget questions and all from the comfort of their office chair.
Most issue like this have little impact on voters once the offending minister has been sacked, and anyway – Hipkins is insulated from the actions of the previous PM's office.
I agree, the damage is likely to be more limited if it can be confined to Nash.
However, what we don't know is what other emails may come to light, and whether that could involve other government ministers. If there has been a systematic pattern of suppressing OIA requests, then there may be more to come out, and we could have email controversies right up until the election.
Interesting times, and certainly a gift to the opposition, which ever way it is looked at.
Maybe someone should start investigating similar scenarios during the Nat years under Key et al.
Mr Key was well exposed in Nicky Hager’s “Dirty Politics” on his obstructionist attitude to some OIA requests–kicking out the timeline for “political purposes” and sometimes via his “office” (it wasn’t meee…) even supplying them to Mr “SlaterOil” before the official recipient got them!
So Cameron Slater Mr Key’s one time late night phone confidant (confirmed in Parliament) got a sneak preview.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/257009/pm-admits-govt-uses-delaying-tactics
None of this negates Nashy’s behaviour let alone anyone else, but the Natzos are on rather thin ice here.
Except, that was fairly distant history. This is very much current.
Around seven to eight years ago? That's modern history of our time.
Sure, not distant history like the Titanic disastor, or the American Civil War.
But distant in the sense that it applies to a government no longer in power and to politicians such as Key who haven't been in parliament for quite a long time. And it relates to issues that were covered quite extensively back then. So, it would be reboiling the cabbage so to speak.
Anyway, que sera sera. The opposition will be pushing this as hard as they can for awhile now. So, time will tell whether this has any long-term impact or not.
One problem for Hipkins is that he has set the standard for sacking now. So, if another similar email comes out implicating another minister, then Hipkins has a precedent he has to live up to.
From Twitter:
"So, @chrishipkinshas revealed senior official Holly Donald is the person who hid Stuart Nash's email – despite it being requested as part of an Official Information Act query. This is the same Holly Donald who led a seminar on how to avoid having things examined under the OIA."
And this from NRT:
In this case its strictly false, because information from Cabinet discussions can only be held in a Ministerial capacity; the PM's staff's willingness to overlook this calls every OIA judgement they have ever made into question, and suggests they are systematically illegally withholding information on political grounds.
Rotten to the core.
Context doesn’t matter in the Court of Public Opinion.
Except Pony getting away with it in the 'distant' past made it easier for any slippery customers after him to do the same. An enquiry with teeth would be a good thing regardless of who is in power.
I think dumping Nash and then blaming him for everything has sorted it in the minds of the populace
I agree. If this is an isolated incident that can be sheeted to Nash, then you are probably right.
However, as I mentioned, what we don't know is how much more is out there. If this isn't an isolated accident, but part of a deliberate strategy to obstruct OIA requests, then there could be a lot more.
If that is the case, then the whole issue could keep boiling along with some new email being dropped every couple of weeks.
Caveat: I don't think this is anything more than a beltway issue. The whole problem of OIA evasion is not something that registers on the radar of ordinary Kiwis.
However, I think that the paper trail of this cock-up or coverup (take your pick) goes from Nash's office to the PM's office. At the very least, it's incompetence (there is no way that this email wasn't relevant – so what were the reasons for concealing it?)
However, the bigger issue brought to light is the standard practice of every party in government to conceal as much as possible in any OIA request.
We see this time and again – when Minister's 'forget' to include meetings in diaries, or staff exclude valid emails/letters on spurious grounds.
No party is immune from this. All do it – purely for political advantage.
I'd like to see legislation or regulation 'clarifying' that once someone is a Minister, they no longer have a separation of identity into MP and Minister – for OIA purposes. I mean, what do they do – run an impermeable membrane down the centre of their identity! Of course, MP communications are informed by their ministerial role and knowledge of what is discussed around the cabinet table. That is *why* there is an OIA to a minister, and not to a backbencher.
I'd also like to see serious consequences for OIA request delays and rejections (which are then pushed back by the Ombudsman) – which have just about become routine. Perhaps the Minister should be required to get leave from Parliament, complete with an excuse considered acceptable, for any delay. And make a formal explanation to Parliament of any adverse Ombudsman findings.
You'll be interested in this piece from NRT.
"My second comment is that this is a perfect example of why the OIA needs criminal penalties for deliberate violations. Canada does this, with the Access to Information Act having a penalty of two years imprisonment for those who, with intent to frustrate a request, conceal, falsify or destroy records. We should do the same, to deter such behaviour and enable public servants to stand up to illegal demands from their political masters. But as with the Ombudsmen's Act, the problem is getting Ministers to apply the law to themselves…"
Here Corin Dann interviews Andrew Geddes about the government's handling of this email. Quite interesting.
It was, thanks for linking.
I tend to agree with you on that. However, the problem for Hipkins now is that he has set a threshold for sacking cabinet ministers. So, I bet he is sweating on the hope that no other ministers have offended in a similar way.
TBH – I'd say that the particular offence (sharing insider information from the cabinet with political donors) – is highly likely to be limited to Nash.
It doesn't seem the kind of thing that would be likely to be widespread – if only because your cabinet colleagues would be furious with you if/when they found out.
Also assuming that the rest of the Ministers have at least read the Cabinet Manual!
Any other Minister who has done such a stupid thing, would now know exactly what the consequences are. [Anyone who's even slightly dubious about what they've said, will no doubt be spending the weekend reviewing their correspondence for the last 5 years]
The part that is widespread – evasion of OIA requests, using any excuse under the sun – isn't something that he sacked Nash for, so won't need to hold others to the same high standard.
That is probably a fair point. One would hope such behaviour isn't wide-spread.
OR, hoping that one or two HAVE offended in a similar way…
It looks like I missed the evolution of the meaning of another word. A car burned out on the Harbour Bridge last night. The vehicle "identified by witnesses as a Tesla – had somehow caught ablaze… Photos show the white Tesla’s front completely torched. No one was injured, he confirmed. The cause of the fire is also not yet known at this stage."
In my once-upon-a-time saying something had been 'torched' meant the cause was known – the object had been 'torched', i.e. deliberately set on fire. The word is used twice.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/dramatic-scenes-on-auckland-harbour-bridge-after-car-catches-fire/BAYOYLMW4BC6JHFLHBS7DA6UKI/
Interesting recent blogpost on mental health trends for young people in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Intro by Jon Haidt, one of the authors of 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind, (which I have no knowledge of), the rest is Part 1 of the preliminary report by research partner, Zach Rausch.
https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/international-mental-illness-part-one
You can skip to the New Zealand summary here:
https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/i/111288830/new-zealand
There is a 60 page draft document which lists sources and data not shown on the blogpost:
I'm currently looking through, and although no conclusions have been drawn it seems that addressing effectively this significant increase should be a priority for any government.
Me being cynical and therefore not overly helpful means I think that the Govt will be able to blame this concerning increase on the oppression felt by young people at the exercise of women's rights to safe spaces, fairness in sport etc.
On a more sensible note:
My concern is that children are being made to listen/absorb what should be the concerns of adults. I first became aware of this in the mid 1990s when my loved mother in law involved my then 9 year old brother & sister in law in listening to her troubles concerning the father's non payment/her legal troubles etc. I have seen this trend over and over. My bro in law was very affected by this, was powerless though.
We should strive to make sure our children have time to be children. They will have the rest of their lives to be concerned about world, country etc problems. I'm not meaning they live in a bubble.
I'm aware of how non acceptable/old fashioned these views are to some.
"We should strive to make sure our children have time to be children. "
I agree. I always considered one of the primary roles of a child's caregiver is to maintain appropriate boundaries.
The boundaries for independence and behaviour expand as the child grows in capability and demonstrations of maturity.
Safeguarding boundaries are not just related to physical access, but exposure to ideas and concepts (particularly adult concerns and sexuality) that disrupt or blight their individual development at their own pace.
If I find it, I’ll add the Facebook findings on the negative social media impact on young people, notably girls again.
IMHO the whole world is on a mental health hiding to nothing as the realisation of just how serious the climate crisis is, sinks in.
Over the next decade or so, our whole way of life is going to change, very probably materially for the worse.
And change begets stress.
We ain't seen nothing yet!
best advice I am hearing is to build community resiliency in any way we can right now, not waiting for government (central or local).
Yes. Busy with that. https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/garden/131632100/gardeners-concerned-at-cost-of-living-learn-at-southern-harvest-festival
Covid disruption may have affected some age demographics more than others too.
We could be increasing current access while conducting research into the hows for targeted solutions.
Did you look at the links? Anything in particular that stood out for you?
Having a read through of the substack piece. I'd love to see that NZ graph plotted with increases in various SM platforms, and local events like Roastbusters. Also would be very good to see a breakdown of NZ by area, rural vs urban, ethnicity.
Looking at the all age group graph, there have been increases across all age groups, but most of the others have had ups and downs within that. So were young people better before and are catching up, or have been impacted more badly than other groups?
am also wondering about changes in diagnostic criteria in that time, as well as diagnosing culture with NZ GPS, and how that played out in NZ.
They do mention that, so it'll be interesting if they definitively weight it in their final draft.
https://twitter.com/moveincircles/status/1634162342379372545
Causes
Being constantly told that the earth's is fucked due cc
Social media.
Stressed parents only just making ends meat,
Gender ideology, my kids school tried gender neutral toilets, a fucking primary school.
Rampant divorce rates because that's the easy option.
It's trendy to be anxious and gender fluid.
Overview of Facebook internal research:
https://archive.ph/RMV5C
those are obviously influences in later years, but not at the start.
2008 the year the country elected the lying key ing.
Only partially joking
The year the truth stopped mattering. That'd make anyone anxious.
Facebook 2004
Instagram 2010
Snapchat 2011
TikTok 2017
Tumblr 2007 (of particular interest re gender ideology and the rise of girls transitioning)
Would be interesting to know the years that FB upped its emotional manipulation algorithms.
Quite the correlation with the growth of youtube and the 2016 kick in females mirrors uptake of fibre to the home.
2014 to 2015?
Affordability of smart phones, or other devices making them more accessible to young teenagers for longer periods of time?
I'll have to see if there is data or research looking at that in particular. If I find it, I'll post here. I think that may also differ by country as well.
It's also 2013-2014, a 2013-2015 spike and when it goes down for males.
For males the jump is 2015-2016, when it goes down/flatlines for females.
Good luck.
When looking at such research, I don't think it is likely there is one answer. I'm more interested in looking at possible contributors, and trying to determine the weighting of each.
Otherwise, there is a danger of identifying one particular contributor, providing a solution for it, and disregarding the rest.
With that in mind – this from 2022 which I post without reading to beat the edit time constraint:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-022-02012-8
The growth of the internet and insidious advertising may be a factor?
It could be that society and culture has been unable to accommodate such sudden and significant changes without cost.
Off the books payment probe has resulted in a thunder of justice event – the big apple entices Florida man to home detention in Trump Towers.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/03/30/nyregion/trump-indictment-news
A huge shoutout to the Hipkins government for continuing to do the one big thing they do well: redistribute taxpayer cash to those who need it.
From tomorrow the 1st of April over 1.4 million New Zealanders are going to get more money, Of course it's not enough. But Labour have a consistently strong record over two terms of increasing payments across welfare.
As of tomorrow the nurses pay agreement worth $200million kicks in; that's right across nurses in aged residential care, hospices, home and community services, those in Māori and Pacific healthcare, get up to 15% more in take home pay.
Also as of tomorrow more than half of New Zealand families with children can get subsidised childcare assistance. 10,000 more children can get Childcare Subsidy and takes an edge of financial grief off childcare before and after work.
For those on NZSuper, since 2017, a couple get $326.68 more per fortnight and single older people get an extra $212.34 per fortnight.
Also you get adjusted lifts for veteran's pensions.
Also coming up from 1 May the Winter Energy Payment goes to all beneficiaries and superannuants.
Also from 1 July Child Support will be passed on to sole parent beneficiaries.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2303/S00270/over-a-quarter-of-new-zealanders-to-get-cost-of-living-relief-from-tomorrow.htm
That's easily 20% of New Zealand getting more of a hand to deal with growth in supermarket prices, power prices. Of course it's not enough. And yes poverty isn't going down fast enough and here's a series of stats on that:
https://www.childpoverty.org.nz/
A group of people probably vastly under-polled, and basically invisible in the constant media parade of middle class whiners, cookers and entitled small business complainers. Because Labour won by so much in 2019 it is overlooked that the polls were out by quite margin – I can't recall exactly, but I think they over-stated the right vote by 2% or so and understated Labour's support by around 4%, hopefully these groups will get out and vote en masse come the next election.
Duncan Garner,Tovar O'brien are facing the reality of the Free market and probably no redundancy. You would think they would be defending a company which can't make money closing down a loss making enterprise.The Media landscape has been changing for more than ten year's so no surprises therefore why would any company continue to throw good money after bad.
Live by the capitalist sword, die by the capitalist sword.
Live by the taxpayer dollar without creating, die from the economic reality.
My first reaction to the story:
" Oh you poor little highly paid things. Now you know how it feels to be made redundant and tossed on the scrap heap without so much as a "sorry". It happened to many thousands of us in the 80s and 90s and we didn't earn big bucks. We survived, but not without serious hardships, and you will too. So shut up and stop moaning about how hard done by you are. We're not listening.![angry angry](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/angry_smile.png?x42494)
A piece by the much maligned Posey Parker in the Spectator .
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/fear-and-loathing-in-new-zealand/
I watched the Hobart Let Women Speak several times and it was the genesis of the approach I made to SUFW and now the complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
She comments:
'The Tasmanian event was pretty horrifying. The women who spoke were visibly terrified and an angry mob drowned out their voices with hysterical screams and cult-like mantras' .
The women were surrounded by baying, shouting jostling people only kept at a distance of about 5ft, behind them, by several older men, no police. Police let the crowd surge forward. Also of concern at Hobart were the pest media who jostled the women speakers including putting the long nose of a camera across/above the shoulder of the woman speaking from a wheelchair.
Kudos to those women.
What is it about them that attracts angry mobs?
left wing men being useless?
Useless?
Guess then, I'm gone-burger!
I was being satirical because I couldn't quite take in that you were arguing that there's something about women's rights campaigners or women speaking at an open mike that attract angry mobs.
Wondering why the neo-nazis turned up in support in Australia.
No Nazis in Hobart.
As for the rest of your question you are clearly not reading the links we have provided.
KJM does not support Nazis. I doubt any of the women who tried to line up to talk in Akl support Nazis either.
This is a trans trope/slur
The obvious point for many is that women don't have penises and men don't have vaginas.
Sure with the miracles of modern cosmetic etc surgery these can be created the fact remains there are two sexes: male & female.
"KJM does not support Nazis. I doubt any of the women who tried to line up to talk in Akl support Nazis either."
This is my belief also.
What were the neo-Nazis supporting?
What were the neo Nazis supporting?
At a guess ( thinking of actual Fascist ideology ) is the strong emphasis put on traditional family values and roles. The idea of different genders and homosexuality being viewed as deviant.
The neo nazi presence would be not so much as support for Parker but rather as a show of dislike for the groups protesting against her.
Also, of course is the Nazi love of dressing up in uniforms and parading! Theres nothing a Nazi likes more than looking like a bus conductor!
sounds like a good guess to me.
" traditional family values and roles."
Father brings home the bacon, mother bakes the cakes, that sort of thing?
"Nazi love of dressing up in uniforms and parading!"
Yep, like men dressing up as women (or how they think women should or do dress) and shutting opposing viewpoints down through use of intimidation and violence.
Sounds just like facists to me.
My question also, weka.
I'm not convinced by hetzer'a argument. Are you?
They weren't there to support Parker, but instead to "show dislike" for a community?
please describe the support that you see, of neo-Nazis supporting KJK and LWS. Some evidence of it would be useful as well so we can see the context.
because I see you making the assertion and I don't actually know what you mean and there's certainly been no evidence or theory in your comments.
If you are honestly still wondering, then it is because you are not reading any of the responses given to this question on TS.
Go back, and stop pretending ignorance.
Or worse, celebrating ignorance when enlightenment is available to you.
Good points Molly.
Socratic mode of questioning, that I had in all of its tough glory in some of my law studies is designed to elucidate, to expand knowledge by questioning.
Although the questioner(tutor) assumes an ignorant mindset, or argues in the negative, ignorant mindsets are not usually the ones who use this type of questioning.
The questioner has a depth of knowledge of the topic sufficient to enable them to maintain an argument against the topic to generate enhanced knowledge
People seeking knowledge about a topic that they do not have are best to read texts on and around the topic.
For instance we would not adopt a Socratic method of questioning when somebody wants to know how gravity works. We would ask them to read on the topic then to test or extend the depth of their knowledge we may ask some Socratic type questions.
But oh the almost terror in a law class where we had to sit in exactly the same seat as we had originally turned up to the first lecture, the lecturer who goes row by row along the rows & you realise you might not have 'got' the readings and questions are getting closer and closer, you've got to stand, think on your feet……
Good method perhaps especially for those involved in courtroom work.
I am, by now, quite well-read on the issue. I believe I understand the position you, weka et al have taken.
Something about it though, is off, imo.
"I am, by now, quite well-read on the issue. I believe I understand the position you, weka et al have taken."
Not apparent by your comments. However, feel free to articulate your understanding of "the position you, weka et al have taken.".
I'll honestly tell you if you've got it right – or wrong.
"Something about it though, is off, imo."
The only information that imparts is that it is a vague aspersion.
Women's rights, women's rights, free speech, 'women don't have penises men don't have vaginas' are quite clear & plain to me.
In Open Mike today 1/4 I quote from a NZ woman Katrina Biggs on the Shaneel Lal debacle.
She concludes:
https://aboldwoman.substack.com/p/you
In a less topsy turvey world women who stepped up to protect their daughters would be feted not derided.
Unless you express your views about what is 'off' with these views we cannot discuss them (obviously)
Perhaps you do understand but I've not seen much evidence that you understand Molly, my, or other women's position, because you simply don't engage with the substance of the ideas. The way you have been commenting on TS strongly suggests that you don't understand. Again here instead of stating clearly what is off, it's just the smear suggestion so often used by TRAs in the place of clean debate.
I'm open to being wrong, maybe you do have a grasp of the issues, but I'm not seeing that.
Okay.
I wonder if any of us here recall the UK miners strike of the mid eighties. This was the action that ultimately led to the decline of union power in Britain, and likely influenced, as unlike events in major powers often do to NZ, our own dark descent into Roger Douglas's wretched folly – for the decline of our unions did not proceed from resentment at their (unions) demand to be treated as a special case in wage negotiations.
I raise the issue because activism out of a context of genuine disadvantage, is wont to be self-defeating. The people of Europe after the revolutions of 1848, the suffragettes, once women had secured the vote, unions, once pay and safety concerns were meaningfully addressed, all had to wait getting on for a generation, and the development of new issues, before fresh activism could attract broadly based support.
Activists, having achieved any measure of success, are disempowered by it. They must find new careers, or fresh problems, if they substantially resolve the ones that initially motivated them.
And so I expect it is with the contemporary trans debate. Gifted unprecedented (and unearned) parliamentary representation by the Covid response, they voted themselves, in the form of the BDM review, unprecedented liberties without all that tiresome business of securing public support. Not bad for a group of roughly 3% (using Australian numbers) of the population. But as noted above, the natural demise of popular support for further activism.
not sure if I quite followed that, but in the UK there's the theory that because the big campaigns for lesbians and gays had been one, the charity Stonewall needed a new cause and chose trans issues. They've been hugely influential in how trans rights have developed and in blocking debate about how to ensure trans rights without harming women or LGB rights.
Yes I think that is one facet of the situation.
There have been a number of claims that the trans issues are settled, loosely based on Gen Z responses. There is a problem with the assertion, beyond its speculative nature, in that (and I don't have a convenient reference, alas) adolescence is pretty much a high point for gender variation – identity tends to stabilize with age or experience or some combination of the two, so that current snap-shots of Gen Z are as likely to be the apogee of gender variation in that generation, rather than some LGBT& millennium.
But the culmination of advocacy isn't going away. It might be, for example, an explanation for Grant Robertson's adoption of a useful role (economics) outside gender advocacy – realizing that the major battles in that field have already been fought, and that consequently the number of positions for activists is declining.
Issues move on, and climate, and the transition to a plausible socioeconomic accommodation with it, must be resolved. This is a present issue – perhaps the present issue – others are a distraction.
the other thing about the whole Gen Z idea is that the young women grow up into young mothers then older mothers and grandmothers and have to deal with everything that goes with that, both biologically and sociopolitically. There's a reason why the people that get the problems with GI are usually older women (and lesbians, they always got it). Nothing like sexism and misogyny when you're in labour or menopause to peak you.
A good point – and I think too that there is a kind of social conditioning, on younger folk and especially younger women, to not speak out. The habit of contemplating failures and injustices in silence makes older women especially formidable when, at last, they do.
"Activists, having achieved any measure of success, are disempowered by it."
I think we saw a good example of it in the 1980s over the issue of nuclear proliferation and the French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in particular. It culminated in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior bombing in 1985 and its aftermath, by which time the success of the NZ government’s nuclear-free status had become synonymous with Prime Minister David Lange and the role he played. Who can forget the famous Oxford Union debate:
https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/32901/david-lange-and-the-oxford-union-debate
Together with the row over Rogernomics which Lange came to view with alarm and contempt, his successes (especially on the international stage) were to bring about his downfall. In other words he was in large part “disempowered” by those successes.
He died a sick man in 2005. He was only 62 years of age and I often wondered since how much all that argy-bargy in the 1980s might have affected his health.