Yeah, I love how all the right wing journalists keep trying to advise the Green Party that if only they were more like National they would be able to be a minor part of government and then maybe they could get the occasional environmental policy enacted. Nothing too green of course, nothing that would stop Nats’ mates continuing to wreck the environment. The Herald editorial has a similar flavour to O’Sullivan’s piece. Unbelievably patronising with absolutely no understanding of how the Green Party operates.
The problem with rightwingers is they can’t comprehend the concept of having principals and sticking to them. For them it seems power is all that counts.
That’s political class bilge if ever there was. Nixon “went to China” in order to drive a further wedge between the USSR and China. Don’t forget that at the time he went to China, Nixon was supervising the destruction of Indo-China.
As well as that, his backdoor emissary to the Chinese was Yahya Khan, the bloodsoaked leader of Pakistan. Because of Khan’s sterling work, the United
States refrained from speaking out against Pakistan’s murderous war on East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh.
The idea that the Democrats would somehow have lacked the credentials or political weight to undertake certain actions is as nonsensical as the notion that Obama is a great reformer who is held back by those ornery Republicans.
These long queues we are seeing for people trying to find a place to rent are only going to get bigger and bigger. So the political story will grow too.
Surely this should have an asset-sales scale campaign from a party or parties? Labour and Greens are so close on this.
Another day another Auckland housing story it really is hard to care when most of the problem seems self made buy people flocking there and others indebting them selves to the eye balls.
This Catton girl has been SO naughty……..stroppy little poppy she is. But, as you say, best we all back off a bit. Just wait and see what a good and grateful girl she CAN be I’m sure.
Ekshilly, Je suis just a little bit unsettled what with this freedom of speech thing and its patent gratuitousness (clutching pearls to beat Maggie Smith)………”I mean this is ALL about the prime minister for goodness sake and while she didn’t use the words “traitorous hua”……..well, it’s a slippery slope and there ARE limits !”
Mr Key, FAR more proficient with fiction than she ever was simply does not deserve this sort of thing !
the Herald’s rich money-grubbing right wing owners would not approve of Catton’s comments so it is hardly surprising the Herald has not engaged with the issue raised by Catton, namely rich money-grubbing right wing people.
Kim Hill’s guest says destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan were “mistakes.”
Maziar Bahari needs to divest himself of his smug “friends.”
Radio NZ National, Saturday 31 January 2015
At 8:30 this morning Kim Hill interviewed Iranian Canadian journalist and film-maker Maziar Bahari, the author of Then They Came For Me, a memoir about his imprisonment, beating and interrogation in Iran for over 100 days in 2009. The memoir was the inspiration for Rosewater, a feature film directed by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. In 2013, Bahari launched the Persian/English website Iranwire.com, which focuses on current affairs, culture and politics. He is also involved in Journalism for Change, a platform devoted to citizen journalism, and in the worldwide campaigns Education is Not a Crime and Journalism is Not a Crime. He is visiting New Zealand this week as part of a global campaign leading up to Education is Not a Crime Day on 27 February. His documentary film To Light a Candle – about the denial of education to Bahá’ís in Iran – will also have its New Zealand premiere while he is here. http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday
Sounds great, right? Well, Maziar Bahari turned out to be an interesting speaker, and obviously a nice fellow. Unfortunately, though, his judgement and/or integrity is less clear, as I pointed out in the following email to Kim Hill….
Maziar Bahari’s carefully tailored words
Dear Kim,
Maziar Bahari described the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as “mistakes”, not crimes. He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.
Perhaps he needs to reassess his relationship with Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
Here you go, phillip—American “liberal” hypocrisy at its most ignorant and galling.
Note that the intro. to this clip claims that Stewart “opened his normally comedic Daily Show Wednesday night with somber words of support for the victims in the assault on Charlie Hebdo….
Even if he was referring just to the “international cadre of journalists”, describing that collection of sycophants, propagandists and war-mongers as Team Civilization would make even less sense than if he had meant the Western world in general.
It’s as absurd and insulting to our intelligence as the regular sight of Pentagon stooges talking about the victims of some bombing as “the bad guys”.
Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
He did. His style was intimate, warm, compassionate. If he had had the strength of character and the intelligence to simply condemn the killings, and express support for the dead cartoonists and the policemen, that would have been a decent, serious statement.
But he didn’t simply do that. Instead, he went on to talk of “Team Civilization”, as though the West is enlightened and democratic and civilized, as opposed to the frightening savages out of Africa and the Middle East.
For argument’s sake, let’s concede your point that he was talking specifically about the “international cadre of journalists”: if he was, that would be even more of an indefensible thing to say. The corporate media—from the BBC to Fox News to their parrots at TVNZ—are crucial components of the propaganda system. If Stewart is stupid and depraved enough to be confused about that, you should not be so gallant as to try to spin his stupidity and depravity into something else.
Seventy years ago, the likes of Stewart were condemning, with an eye to those in power, the killers of another racist journalist, Julius Streicher.
I’d have thought the bigger point was his declaration to the effect that it was not our business to make sense of it because there was no sense to it. That’s a very fucked approach to what was a very easily understood event.
Very well said, Bill. Here’s Norman Finkelstein addressing this ridiculous idea that atrocities are mystical and beyond analysis….
I took it as a wider team than “America and its allies”.
It looked to me like a comedian was reflecting upon people who will kill other people because of comedy, and referring to folks who do not shoot other people over comedy as “team civilization”.
well yes, I am – only because I don’t know. If you want to abuse people because they ask an honest question then that points to some serious character flaws.
How about this:
I apologise for asking you a polite question about a topic I don’t know much about, but one on which you claim to be an expert. I even googled what appears to be an impartial source and helpfully posted that link in order to facilitate a mature dialog with you. Turns out in fact you are an arrogant fuckwit.
Sami al-Hajj was an innocent Al Jazeera cameraman that the US Government detained for years at Guantanmo Bay with no charges laid.
The US tends to more target whistleblowers (Thomas Drake, Bill Binney, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriaku) and journalist-type individuals (Julian Assange) for harassment, charges and imprisonment.
Having said that if you look at the map and identify those nations which the USA explicitly supports with funding and arms:
Bahrain 6
Egypt 12
Israel and Occupied Territories 4 (Israel also killed several journalists last year)
Saudi Arabia 4
In the USA if you drift out too far from the editorial line you simply get your ass fired and become unemployable as opposed to imprisoned (eg Nasr, Clancy).
technically he’s been sentenced for 3 charges – accessory after the fact to a crime and helping the perpertrators evade prosecution, obstructing justice, and threatening to kill an FBI agent. He’s just pleaded guilty to those.
The US justice system has gone down the road of negotiating plea bargains form their targets, which means that the cases and evidence never see a jury or a judge.
Essentially they say to the target – you plead guilty to this and this, and we’ll put you away for three or four years. Or we’ll go after you with these other charges, and you will go away for 30 or 35 years.
Sorry, nadis, I shouldn’t have jumped at you like that. I (wrongly) assumed that you were playing the Te Reo Putake game of stonewalling and asserting that black is white and up is down.
I appreciate you are genuine in trying to find out more about this, but the “Committee to Protect Journalists” is about as reliable as Fox News—which is one of its “corporate media donors” along with the Associated Press, CNBC, and CNN. The CPJ has close ties to extreme right wing Cuban “exile” terrorist groups in Miami and New York.
Like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the CPJ is a suspect and deeply compromised organisation.
Fuck me, what a load of shit. The CPJ is highly respected, has a long and proud record of campaigning for journalists and indeed, saving the lives of many who have been imprisoned. Y’know, real journalists, not the imaginery ones in your head, Moz.
Have a read and feel ashamed at your dismal effort at slandering them:
Funding
According to the organization’s 2011 Annual Report, financial supporters include individuals, corporations, and foundations. The report does not include details on the largest financial supporters. Corporate media donors include the Associated Press, CNBC, CNN and Fox News.
“Highly respected”, indeed. Not highly respected by real journalists and people who bother to read more than the Grauniad and the Daily Mail, but “highly respected” by certain “corporate media donors”.
They are staunchly independant, [sic] do good work and save lives.
They are funded by a retinue of establishment pillars, including Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans. Their “surveys” are selective and partisan, just like you would expect from a “Committee” funded by Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans.
But please, go ahead and call the CPJ “independant”. It’s your (paper thin) credibility that’s on the line when you back such partisan sources.
You … not so much.
Okay, sling off at me if you want. After that, have a listen to Jeremy Scahill, who is definitely NOT the kind of American journalist who endorses Fox News and extreme right wing Cuban terrorists…..
As you know perfectly well, they are pursuing Julian Assange and Edward Snowden with implacable ferocity; Assange is currently in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and Snowden has found refuge in Russia.
Yes, I guess you could quibble and claim that Snowden is not a credentialed journalist in the way that such outstanding practitioners of the craft as John Roughan and Fran O’Sullivan are credentialed, but the fact remains: if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.
It’s not a quibble to point out that neither man is a journalist and neither man is locked up in the USA or the UK. If you have the names of journalists who are imprisoned up in those countries, please feel free to post them. If there are any then they need to have their cases publicised. Telling us their names would be a great start.
BZZZZT! Wrong answer. We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK, that’s journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Next contestant please. For ten pounds, can you tell me what is wrong with Moz? I’ll repeat the question: what is wrong with Moz? You may confer with your teammates or phone a friend.
I appreciate the levity, Te Reo, but you haven’t done anything to answer the challenge: what about James Risen?
Just so you get on with that task, we’ll pretend for a moment that Assange, Snowden and Manning are not in asylum, exile or prison for their role in exposing momentous crimes.
BZZZZT! We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Contestant, you have answered James Risen who is … (checks notes) … not imprisoned in the US or UK. No points. Do any of the other contestants know the names of journalists imprisoned in the US or UK? Take your time …
Well actually I have, and it turns out he isn’t imprisoned nor is he in jail which tends to invalidate the main thrust of your rant. In fact in the story you linked there is this:
“Mr. Holder pledged not to send reporters to jail, which would normally be the consequence of refusing to testify in a case like Mr. Sterling’s. Then, he indicated that he would not force Mr. Risen to reveal his sources, but would instead force Mr. Risen only to reveal limited information that he had already acknowledged.”
So not only has not been in jail, isn’t currently in jail, the US Attorney General has ruled out putting him in jail.
Right – I see your point exactly.
I have mixed views on Snowden and Assange. The bulk of what they released should not have been. The evidence of crime (i.e., Chelsea Manning’s helicopter video) – no problem, but stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement I’m less supportive of.
And on this:
“if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.”
Are you equally as strident about the worse behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
So despite your bold claim
“He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.”
Are you equally as strident about the worse [sic] behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
With the odd exception, my government does not usually support the crimes of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, etc. It routinely does so for the crimes of the United States and the United Kingdom.
You speak confidently about Snowden and Assange exposing “stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement.” What evidence do you have that they did that? I’d be intrigued if you put it up on this site for us, because neither the U.S. nor U.K. government could manage to do so.
I am as opposed to state power being abused in Russia, China, Turkey and Iran as I am to it being abused in Australia and New Zealand. Are YOU?
Can you please focus on providing evidence for your earlier (mis)-assertions, otherwise people will continue to believe you are a flake. Just trying to help you out.
But, yes, you’re both right—journalists can usually speak out without fear in the United States. Thank the radicals and liberals who framed the Constitution for that.
However, constitutional and legal protections can only go so far—when governments bring their powers to bear on an individual truth-teller, they will tear down the protections if they can get away with it, including such troublesome notions as legal sanctuary and asylum. Some in the Cameron regime even suggested storming the Ecuadorian embassy to get their hooks on Assange.
I guess that’s as close as we’re going to get to you acknowledging your mistake, Moz. Some weasel words and a link to a court case last decade. Ah, well, the real takeaway from this discussion is that you don’t feel obliged to hold yourself up to the standards you demand of others. The Greeks probably had a word for that (though it may have been sold off to the troika by now).
ps. If you’d thought about it harder, you could have resorted to pedantry by mentioning all those Murdoch employees currently doing porridge in the UK. Of course, they’re not in jail for journalism, but for actual crimes.
I see, Te Reo, that you’ve garnered some (belated) support from one of our friends—one with a rather insalubrious record of credulity. He posted his intelligent comment at 3:46 p.m., more than four hours after everyone had gone home.
It’s almost as if this example of you making shit up in a froth-frenzy (and then wriggling around trying not to admit you fucked up) will remain as yet another permanent record of your loose relationship with reality.
Is it me, or is something seriously happening to NZ and are we well and truly stuffing up this once clean green country that Keys likes to promote but still allows dairying to pollute.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening, Silence. Hardly a sound. The other thing I have noticed over the last few years, when I came to NZ over 45 year ago, the Myna’s used to line up at the side of the road to get the dead insects hit by cars, and jump out of the way ”just in time” before they were hit by a vehicle. The number of Myna’s doing that now, to me seems to have decreased.
In my non expert opinion, these two things, along with the Kauri die back and the devastation of the Cabbage tree by a virus concerns me that all is not well with the environment of NZ.
Yeah, I noticed that there are a lot less cicadas than usual. Cicadas and summer go hand in hand for me. I love them, always have. When summer kicks off I always listen out for the first cicada.
Cicada’s have a long in ground life cycle (5-7 years) and years where there are lower numbers can be traced back to adverse weather events during breeding. They also forecast ‘mast’ years by the same logic. I think from memory there was one in the Hutt Valley 4 or so years ago where literally thousands could be seen on a single lamppost.
Regarding the cabbage tree virus it is actually a long existing disease called Phytoplasma that proliferated with the arrival of a new vector in this case passion vine hoppers the same has happened with Phormium.
Kauri dieback is more interesting I cant help but suspect that the particular phytophera strain has long existed but has been inadvertently spread or subtle climate changes have allowed it to proliferate. Phytophera exists in all soils and is usually kept in check by other naturally occurring organisms like trichoderma.
Perhaps we are loving our kauri to death. I looked at available bookings to view the great kauri in Northalnd I think it was Tane Mahuta himself, but it was booked up for months. It is said that the numbers of people going through the kauri are probably transporting this nasty whatsit around. I looked at an old book the other day and there was one of the old super giant kauris in it and two people standing at the base were dwarfed and I don’t know how many people it would have taken to stretch arms round the trunk.
We have probably reached the stage where we have to limit visitors and make times for NZs to visit. It would be nice to get a chance. There are limits to viewing Tiritiri Matenga Island – it’s special and same with kauri. And keep pigs off – they are said to be another problem, and then they would draw hunters and their dogs after them.
There is an extensive board walk and board platform to view Tane Mahuta from – built in recent years – designed to protect the forest floor around the old giant.
What I think should be of more concern is that huge logging trucks trundle up and down the road beside that forest – I would think that causes much more damage reverberating from roadside thru to the forest – than people on a board walk.
Instead, an army of swarming frustrating flies has invaded New Zealand.
P.S :
I have made four fly traps using empty plastic coke bottles as shown in the link below. The fly attractants I have used/experimented include liver, honey, fish and , fermenting yeast.
While some flies have been attracted and get caught, I am still not satisfied as there are heaps of flies still flying about. I have read that different types of flies are attracted to different types of bait!
Question : Do any of you know which may be the best fly attractant to the contemporary flies we have?
Here is the info for a very simple home made fly trap! You are welcome!
Instead of taking the all-out nuclear option and viciously killing flies, have you ever thought of just trying to reason with them ? You know, being a decent human being by making an effort to appeal to their moral sensibilities ? Next time you see a couple of flies flying around like out-of-control boy-racers, just try telling them (preferably in an authentic Yorkshire accent) ‘Come on, luds, there’s no need for all this, there was never any need for it. Let’s just let bygones be bygones.” And if that doesn’t do the job then just corner one of them and have a quiet word along the lines of: “If this sort of behaviour continues, young man, then I’m going to have to have a serious talk with your father”. Works a treat every time. Flies are people too, remember.
Hm, that may be my last resort….Simple sweet talking sound bites to these filthy-free-market neoliberal buggers hovering around with such utterly gutterly misappropriating maddening minds.
I won’t be surprised if the crooks come with embedded mobile and GPS these days!
Your better with a pair of frogs in a terrarium, and using a butterfly net to catch the flies. Great light excise and quite addictive seeing how many you can scoop. Give us a laugh seeing (all arms & legs) & hearing them crashing about the foliage nailing their prey. You know when really content, as Mrs & Mr Froggy sing with delight. Amazes me how they can eat so many as the next morning very few are left.
There is bugger all flies aroung mine this year and being a farm house that’s a surprise. We’ve had a 30ish swallows living with us so i wonder if that’s the cause.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening,
Cicadas (species specific ) have long life cycles and have evolved over time to select periods determinable with prime numbers to constrain predation ie they tend to outlive their predators.
Usually at this time of year we are feeding our yellow bearded dragon lizard them, he goes crazy chasing them around his terrarium, something’s up their absence if strange. In the interim plenty of crickets from our back section. Out place is a zoo, all good makes a happy home.
Would you say that the water quality is of very great concern? I personally feel that there is being more and more taken from the qualifier and wonder why the Farmers and associated industry do not (want to?) realize that their water will one day be saline because of it. At the same time, water quality is being compromised at all levels with the excuse that it is OK to have a “certain amount” of pollutants go into streams and lakes. It already affects the health of people due to high nitrate concentration in the water table – our drinking water.
I think this is connected to all living things and beings.
I have to say, the Greek fight against the German led Troika is stirring all my romantic Byronic philhellenism!!!
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbors;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and Rome,
And get knocked on his head for his labors.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hanged, you’ll get knighted.
If a deal isn’t struck then Greece as a whole and the poorer parts particular will get economically smashed as Greece has a massive budget shortfall. Someone will blink first – Greece or the EU?
With EUR exit off the table I can’t see what options Greece has. They can’t fund current expenditure by themselves let alone service their debt. I’m assuming Tsipras has a plan, but so far with the cancelling of asset sales, re-hiring and raising pensions/salaries he has cocked his nose at the Germans who are paying his bills, while at the same time building a level of expectation within Greece that will be very difficult to wind back if necessary. Maybe he is just going nuclear and saying “we are going to default, so get your check book out”. If so, I think that is a miscalculation – I think the Germans would let Greece default and leave the Euro. It would actually make it stronger as it removes an outlier from an appropriate policy perspective.
What has been disappointing from a Syriza policy perspective is any talk about cracking down on corruption, tax evasion and the cosy corrupt monopolies that enrich the top end of Greece. If they addressed some of those issues the discussions with Germany would be lot easier plus Greece would have a ton more fiscal revenue.
This is how a police state protects “secrets”:
Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA and up to 80 years on circumstantial evidence
Sterling’s conviction should chill anyone who believes in investigative reporting in a free society
by MARCY WHEELER, Salon, 29 January 2015
The participants in the economy of shared tips and intelligence in Washington D.C., breathed a collective sigh of relief when, on January 12, the government announced it would not force James Risen to testify in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. “Press freedom was safe! Our trade in leaks is safe!” observers seemed to conclude, and they returned to their squalid celebration of an oppressive Saudi monarch.
That celebration about information sharing is likely premature. Because, along the way to the conviction of Sterling this week on all nine counts – including seven counts under the Espionage Act — something far more banal yet every bit as dear to D.C.’s economy of secrets may have been criminalized: unclassified tips.
To understand why that’s true, you need to know a bit about how the Department of Justice larded on charges against Sterling to get to what represents a potential 80-year maximum sentence (though he’s unlikely to get that). Sterling was accused — and ultimately convicted — of leaking two related things: First, information about the Merlin operation to deal flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran, as well as the involvement of a Russian engineer referred to as Merlin in the trial. In addition to that, the government charged Sterling separately for leaking a document (one which the FBI never found, in anyone’s possession): a letter Merlin included along with the nuclear blueprints he wrapped in a newspaper and left in the mailbox of Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. So the government convicted Sterling of leaking two things: information about the operation, and a letter that was used in the operation.
Then, having distinguished the operation from the letter, DOJ started multiplying. They charged Sterling for leaking the operation to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article about it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter about it: one leak, three counts of espionage.
Then they charged Sterling for improperly retaining the letter (again, FBI never found it, not in CIA’s possession, not in Sterling’s possession, and Merlin purportedly destroyed his version before anyone could find it in his possession). Then DOJ charged Sterling for leaking the letter to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article including it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter including verbatim excerpts from it (apparently Risen is a better investigator than the FBI, because he found a copy): one letter, four more counts under the Espionage Act. ….
I agree with Morrissey.
On top of the various examples he has presented, there is also the simple fact that the west has other powerful ways of controlling journalists.
You only get a job or get promoted if you say the right things.
Look at the Eleanor Catton affair to see the state of the media here and the role in suppressing dissent.
I recommend everyone watches Shadows of Liberty.
The story of Gary Webb shows what happens when a US journalist questions the system.
Sobering. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1543807/
The roots of one of our leafy tenants had cracked the pipe and, while the plumber chap was seeking out the best fitting replacement part, I sawed another chunk of exposed root away. “Sorry, mate,” I said as I patted the tree.
There’s more and more research suggesting that plants have a kind of sentience beyond what we normally consider. Nature is intelligent and it behooves us to behave as if that were true, for our own sakes as much as for nature’s.
“And saying sorry is also healthy”
That one seem especially important all things considered.
You, or at least the person who cut the tree root, is a brute.
That wasn’t the English word “mate” but the Maori word with the same spelling.
He was saying sorry because he had killed the poor tree. Very healthy indeed!
There’s probably another pun there on the word mate to do with what marty was talking about, mea culpa mea mate, to mangle it completely, but I’ve been online too long to come up with something better.
You,
or at least
the person who cut
the tree root,
is a brute.
That wasn’t the
English word
“mate”
but the Maori
word with the
same spelling.
He was saying sorry
because he had killed
the poor tree.
Very healthy
indeed!
as an aside maybe phils prose should be read as poetry 🙂
Talk to water too!
The following links say there is scientific evidence to show that water undergoes structural (not chemical) changes constantly depending upon different factors. Good happy thoughts or bad thoughts affect the structure of water doing good or harm to you. Take a look!
Structured Water : How music/words/thoughts affect structure of water[8 minutes]
Water effects :Sadhguru at IIT Madras (Part V) [9 minutes]
Water has memory: Very interesting doco [1 hour 25 min]
In the thread about Syriza’s victory I picked out this sentence from one of the articles, “To start from priorities and then define the method.” I think it is very important that parties on the left do just that if they want to be taken seriously. Andrew Little seems to get this, since he has listed four priorities he intends to discuss over his coming speeches, and I hope he does not waver from it.
If we look at how, say, the Capital Gains tax was presented last election, the order ran the other way – it was put forward as a method for curbing house-price inflation and addressing inequality. But people were expected to trust that the stated objectives would follow from the method. And this is my point – when you declare an aim you are making a commitment, and people can assume that you will adapt your method accordingly. When you declare a method, insisting that some desired objective will result from it, you are effectively asking for unwarranted trust, since your commitment stops at the method. For this reason, the method-before-aim order comes across as more of a pitch than a promise.
That’s very good. So with the CGT, it should be presented later as a solution to some other aim? eg we’re going to do x, y, z (eg build more houses), and here is how we pay for it.
Yes, if you put the intended result first, it can be assumed you will adjust your method if the one you have in mind doesn’t work. For example, let’s say, “We are going to build more houses and we will pay for it with a capital gains tax.” However, house sales slow down and we are not getting enough from the CGT, so we are obliged to look for another way of paying for the houses. Whereas if we say, “A CGT will result in more houses being built” and this doesn’t happen, we are committing ourselves only to the CGT but not the houses – if things don’t result as we said they would, well too bad. I think people sniff out the difference intuitively without the need to analyse the arguments.
The thing is, National do not have to meet any such standards – their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public. And National voters know that the pitch is merely to placate waverers and ward off criticism. Labour does not have, and cannot have, that luxury. They did have something like it in the eighties, when aspiring young men of the city gravitated their way, but then they had not yet lost the trust of working class and National had not won over the aspiring young men. Now, they have no choice but to say what they mean and mean what they say. Convincingly.
… their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public
Which of course is exactly what Labour has been doing in recent years. That is, trying to be National lite and adopt their type of strategy. Cunliffe tried to shift the paradigm but he didn’t have enough time or support to do it. Now Labour has a new leader who understands that for Labour to succeed it must be the other way around – a commitment to ordinary NZers and a pitch to potential cronies. He started down that road this week just gone.
I agree. I voted for Andrew, and I am glad I did. I like the fact that he has four priorities he intends to discuss in the next little while – the SME one being his state-of-the nation speech. You know where you are with someone who can clearly articulate their priorities.
If Labour starts back on CGT again, it is a vote killer. Most people in Auckland know what the problem is, immigration and high cost of materials and commercialisation of housing and low wages that are not keeping up with inflation. There are so many other ways to solve or relive the housing in Auckland. For example in the old days, you could have a granny flat on your property or rent out a basement or whatever to help with the rent/mortgage etc or to house other members of the family like your elderly parents etc. Not only did it help to provide additional income for lower income people it also allowed a cheaper nicer place for affordable accommodation in better areas for renters.
Now, no way. Has to be an apartment to be affordable which has Body corp fees, no pets normally, and not so good for children. To get through a legal granny flat there is a huge amount of red tape to get one in a domestic house.
(BTW Nothing to do with RMA and the National RMA reforms are to make unaffordable housing and to polluters to wreck the environment!) You can bet no one has suggested Granny flats in the unitary plan – that because in NZ, democracy is a business, full of lobbyists – they actually don’t want real people who want housing to have a say, just barristers of people who have land and want to develop it (which will not be for affordable housing but for unaffordable housing to make a profit) or politicians who don’t really know much about housing.
Currently to create a granny flat/minor unit on dwelling in Auckland, you need to pay approx $10,000 straight to council for 2nd unit, approx $12,000 for separate water meter, god knows for separate power etc etc. Quite frankly that is why you have no affordable housing. Because of the above to create an affordable unit that is council compliant would be about $40,000 before you actually do the work. AT say $300 a week for rent it would take about 3 years before you paid back the council and the utility connections alone. But in most parts of Auckland you are not allowed to have a granny flat anyway. If the council allowed Granny flats cheaply then you could make about 20% more housing in Auckland for the cost of conversion of a 2nd kitchen.
Utilising existing housing stock would be the easiest way in the short term to create more housing in rental shortage areas.
What is wrong with this country is that people only have 1 idea and then they just keep bringing it up to solve a problem that is different to the solution. It is simpleton politics.
65% of Kiwis or something like that own property, it is their key asset and they do not want to lose it by some politician in Wellington trying to solve a housing problem in Auckland, that will not be solved by CGT but instead impact them on their retirement of their biggest asset, all while the top 1% are paying practically no tax. If anything should be learn’t by Greece, don’t target middle class to pay the taxes of the mistakes of the super rich. They see red, (and don’t vote for it).
If you wanna kill housing price rises (and none of the top 5% with a big property portfolio does), you tamp down bank lending, and you put a big fuck off stamp duty on every residential property transaction a person undertakes over 1 transaction every 3 years.
Also we cannot have 1/3 of NZ’s population living in 0.3% of NZ’s land area.
I’m totally for stamp duty if there is a tax on property, to make sure even the super rich and immigrants pay it too. Not only would it be an immediate way to get taxes, you could target for the poor. i.e. under $250k no stamp duty. First home owners, no stamp duty, etc. But should be very low like 1/2 percent or something like that. That way when you buy your 10 million dollar mansion in Auckland, hey presto, $50,000 in revenue for NZ taxpayer and all collected by title transfer and no way to get out of it by clever accounting.
When you look at growing inequality – whereas it predicted that 1% of the world is going to own 99% of world’s assets, it is pretty clear that governments need to target the 1% owning all the assets. If you look at John Key, owns 50 million in assets but nobody really knows cos it’s in various trusts etc – that is who should be paying more tax and targeted.
Going on about the ‘greedy’ investors, ‘greedy baby boomers’ greedy landlords etc latest scapegoat, is missing the point. Why are some people owning 50 million in assets and gaining more and more every year? If that super rich group, paid more tax then maybe we could afford more for everybody else.
In Italy they actually targeted people driving about in Porsches and expensive cars, guess what, found a lot of them could not account for their cars, and many claimed subsidies and on the lowest tax bracket.
Labour and Greens need to stop whipping the PAYE middle class for tax and actually look at fair ways to target consumption such a stamp duty. Personally I would prefer someone (often coming into the country) to have to pay a small tax to purchase an expensive house. Even if stamp duty was on houses over 3 million – again it is stopping super expensive houses being speculated on and farm sales etc
Soon, in Auckland in places in the inner city they are going to reach that level with the constant speculation (often on the family home so not affected by any CGT if that came in) and that is actually locking out families that used to live in those areas.
There are many flexible and varied ideas which can be used. I generally agree that taxation via PAYE and GST is over used and taxation on capital/land/speculation/financial transactions under used.
Although to make a statement, I would introduce one more much higher PAYE threshold set at 10x the minimum wage = over $280,000 pa.
The total value of houses sales in NZ in 2014 was 40 billion. Assuming you get a 0.5% stamp duty on every one of those you’ll raise 200 million. Exclude all houses under 400,000 and you’ll raise 120 million.
120 million is equivalent to about 240 houses at the NZ median house price. Thats a rough idea of the demand impact of a stamp duty (studies into Tobin tax indicate the reduction in turnover is roughly equivalent to the tax raised. A heroic assumption but gives an idea)
Too inflexible and prone to failure in my view. Might be used as a short term emergency measure. Controlling down house prices over the longer term will require a range of powerful measures.
Price controls, subsidies, extra taxes etc may all work in the short term but eventually distort completely the market they are applied to. Imagine what would happen if the government mandated a maximum price of 29 cents per kilogram for bananas? Eventually two things would happen – supermarkets would sell no bananas, and there would be black market where you actually ended up paying higher prices.
The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.
Little bit hard to sell a house on the black market.
I’m all for
“”The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.”
And would add if we as a nation invested in small town nz in stead of letting them fade away less people would drift to the big smoke.
Well actually no its not hard. There would be plenty of ways to avoid the price cap – paying too much for chattels, settling in 6 months time but renting at a premium in the mean time, losing at high stakes poker etc. Why would a person sell their property for less than waht someone is prepared to pay? Don’t underestimate peoples capacity to innovate. I hesitate to call anything around economic behaviour a law, but the closest you get is individuals acting in their own best interest. It’s been that way for millions of years of evolution.
One of my children is thinking about buying a first home – unless something amazing pops up, I don’t think there is any harm in waiting. Economic cycles and all that – anyone with grey hair can think of plenty of times in the past where we have had similar fears about asset prices. And guess what, eventually they revert.
Fast fact: 80% of residential property development in Singapore is done by the public sector. That’s how important the Singaporean government views stable housing supply and pricing.
The Singaporean public sector develops everything from cheap social housing to million dollar luxury appartments.
I suspect that Singapore modelled its system off the NZ of the 1950s and 60s.
I’ve lived in Singapore – it’s a resource constrained (land + everything else) country and the deal the population has done with the govt is that they will give up a certain amount of civil rights in exchange for certainty around things like housing and minimum standard of living.
Not sure NZ’ers would embrace 1 or 2 room HDB housing.
Understood. It’s not exactly the Kiwi dream. Yet in the peculiar Auckland environment I think the market has shown that ‘cheap’ 2 bedroom 80m2 apartments will sell like hot cakes to young people and first home buyers.
Currently we have speculators making a killing in Auckland – tax ’em as well. The Nats really need to do something more in Auckland than make fancy (but useless) speeches.
I think the framing of the question is important. Essentially that survey asked: “Are you in favour of other people paying capital gains tax?” I’m surprised 100% weren’t in favour of that.
Speculators should be getting taxed under existing rules. If you buy an asset – any asset – for a trading or speculative purpose – any gains are taxed at your personal tax rate. The rules are in existence. All that needs to change is the threshold that is applied to assessment. At the moment it is something like 6 property transactions in a 2 year period. That could easily be lowered to capture more.
Just read this off a Facebook group that I belong to:
“….I heard a rumour this morning, and would like to know if theres any truth to it,if there is, then its an outrage.
Ok, the rumour is…. that all those 3 bedrooms that people are being kicked out of,and extra bedrooms added are not for larger families at all.They are ‘social housing’ in the broadest sense of the word,meaning they are to be ‘shared; in the same manner as a boarding house,anyone single without dependants is to be put in this ‘shared social housing’ the small ablution block style houses reserved for those with dependants.
If theres anyone on here thats matey with a local MP, could they please get that MP to check and see if this is correct,as my old neighbour was offered a place in one and was told this was the arrangement for adults with no dependants nowadays by her tenancy manager…..”
No, Marty, you’re wrong. I conceded—admittedly after a bit of squabbling—their point that not a lot of journalists are actually in jail in the United States—pointing out that this happy state of affairs is entirely due to the radicals and liberals who wrote the Constitution, and to generations of activists who have fought for the right to speak freely in America.
I also pointed out, with a few examples, that the United States regime has been, and is, a grave threat to journalists all over the world.
Thank you for your concern my friend – you would have had more luck quoting figures for people of colour wrongly imprisoned or maybe indigenous people wrongly and unjustly imprisoned, even today – maybe some of them were journalists too.
Interesting link on your web site there about the “American Dream” – or lack of it any more.
The stats there are very similar to ones I’ve seen here in NZ… one that really caught my eye about child poverty:
“#15 Right now, more than one out of every five children in the United States is on food stamps”
Great stuff, but too obvious for the current “administration” here I suspect.
I can tell. Pull your pants up. If one of your doomsdays does occur, I suppose your last words will be an orgasmic “I told you so” that, sadly for you, nobody else will hear.
In the meantime, how’s the NZ ebola epidemic going? Aren’t we all due to have it by now?
There is an anti Greece pro capitalist article in the Kiwi blog. I put the above link there and made the following comment.
“I hope our stupid, lying neo-liberal, profit-obsessed, narrow, myopic and money-hungry pro wealthy, pro corporate, capitalist National/ACT government changes its agenda and stops all its shallow, pro rich and anti people, anti nation policies such as for example, the sale of state houses immediately. The uncontrolled, mega rich corporate driven capitalist free market agenda is a fraud on the ordinary people, the less privileged, the ‘under class’ and the poor”
No-one will take you seriously because you are obviously hiding your lack of knowledge behind over the top jargon which is so exaggerated it is meaningless.
You sound like an exaggerated version of Wolfie Smith.
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The Government is stepping up action to deal with environmentally harmful products – including plastic packaging, tyres and e-waste – before they become waste. ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
It's been another week of creating jobs, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure up and down the country - all of which are helping to keep our economy moving post-COVID-19. ...
Transitional housing provides much needed support for Taumarunui whānau New emergency and transitional homes will help ease a housing shortage in Taumarunui and provide whānau with much needed support, say Māori Development Minister, Nanaia Mahuta and Whānau Ora Minister, Peeni Henare. The Ministers officially opened five two-bedroom units ...
Following the success of the phase out of single-use plastic shopping bags, the Government now has plans to phase out more single-use and problem plastics to reduce waste and protect the environment announced Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage. The proposals are to phase-out: some hard-to-recycle PVC and polystyrene ...
After 102 days we have our first cases of Covid-19 outside of a Managed Isolation or Quarantine facility in New Zealand. Shortly I will ask Dr Bloomfield to set out the details of the case. While we have all worked incredibly hard to prevent this scenario, we have also planned ...
An iwi-Crown approach programme to restore the Raukūmara forest on the East Coast of the North Island and boost employment opportunities for whānau, particularly rangatahi/young people, will receive $34 million funding, Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage has announced. “Raukūmara Pae Maunga is a partnership with Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou, and ...
Government agencies and partners are working closer together to provide more Māori Housing through the Te MAIHI o te Whare Māori – the Māori and Iwi Housing Innovation Framework for Action (MAIHI). MAIHI is a kaupapa Māori approach that drives a system change to give effect and impact on Māori ...
Site work is soon to begin on Te Ahu a Turanga: Manawatū Tararua Highway, the project to replace the former SH3 route through the Manawatū Gorge, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Phil Twyford was today in Woodville at the signing of a formal agreement by members of the Alliance ...
The Pacific Islands Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM) begins today and will focus on the major economic and social impacts of COVID-19 on the Pacific. FEMM is an important congregation of Economic Ministers and senior officials from around the region, and for the first time, the annual meeting will be ...
Cabinet has approved a formal apology and ex gratia payment to former soldier George Nepata, announced Defence Minister Ron Mark. This payment is to recognise the New Zealand Defence Force’s failure to provide Mr Nepata with a safe system of work in April 1989 when, as a result of an ...
A report undertaken by Ministerial Services into Iain Lees-Galloway’s ministerial expenditure has found no evidence of any inappropriate transactions or spending. Ministerial Services undertook a line by line review of all his expenditure, including staff and spouse expenses for the period 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2020. “I commissioned ...
Managed isolation charges for returnees will come into force from 12.01am Tuesday 11th August, after they passed their last cabinet milestone today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. “The new charging system balances the rights of New Zealanders to return home and helps reduce pressure on the managed isolation and quarantine ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna have welcomed the completion of phase one in the establishment of a travel bubble between New Zealand and the Cook Island. Negotiations on the text of an ‘Arrangement to Facilitate Quarantine-Free Travel ...
The Government has launched a new online, phone and onsite service to help New Zealanders connect to a range of employment support and products for workers and businesses affected by COVID-19, announced Minister of Education Chris Hipkins and Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. Connected.govt.nz is a one-stop-shop for jobseekers, ...
Security guards contracted to the Ministry of Social Development will be paid at least the Living Wage from next month supporting the Government’s commitment towards fair pay and employment conditions, announced Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “MSD was among the first government agencies to pay its employees the living ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today launched Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy - a way forward that envisions Aotearoa New Zealand as a place where ecosystems are healthy and resilient, and people embrace the natural world. “Many of New Zealand’s plants and wildlife species ...
“Pacific languages, cultures and identity are essential to the health, wellbeing and lifetime success of our Pacific peoples and their communities in Aotearoa. The strength and resilience of Pacific Aotearoa is not only vital to their own prosperity but integral to the prosperity of all New Zealanders, and is particularly ...
· $38 million to help schools cover unexpected costs related to COVID-19 · $69 million upgrade for online learning · $107 million contingency funding to support school construction suppliers facing additional costs due to the lockdown. The Government is releasing $214 million from the COVID-19 response and recovery fund to ...
Despite the Government installing safety upgrades around the country, people should still take care around rail crossings, said Transport Minister Phil Twyford launching Rail Safety Week. Phil Twyford said installing safety infrastructure is crucial, but we are encouraging people to be more careful around trains too. “We’re making good progress ...
The Government is providing a cash injection to help Palmerston North City Council complete a programme to provide 78 social housing units for vulnerable tenants. The $4.7 million to build 28 units in the Papaioea Place redevelopment comes from the $3 billion set aside for infrastructure in the Government’s COVID-19 ...
A pest free Banks Peninsula/Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū is one step closer with a $5.11 million boost to accelerate this project and create jobs, announced Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage in Canterbury today. “This is a game changer for this ambitious project to restore the native wildlife and plants on Ōtautahi/Christchurch’s doorstep ...
A Government grant of $6.4 million will expand the Pettigrew Arena in Taradale with new indoor courts of national standard. “The project is likely to take 18 months with approximately 300 people employed through the process,” Grant Robertson said. “The expansion will increase the indoor court space up to 11 ...
The Far North tourist destination of Mangonui is to receive Government funding to improve waterfront infrastructure, open up access to the harbour and improve water quality, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. A total of $6.5 million from the $3 billion set aside in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund ...
The Government has re-affirmed its commitment to supporting the hosting of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, which the ICC has delayed from 2021 to 2022. “This is obviously a disappointing decision for cricket players and fans around the world and for the White Ferns and their supporters here at ...
Cyclists and walkers will now have a safer way to get around Taupō, Tūrangi, and between Hamilton and Cambridge, with funding for shared paths and Te Awa River Ride, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. “The Te Awa River Ride is the latest part of massive growth ...
Six major cycle routes will be completed in Christchurch thanks to funding from the Government’s investment in shovel-ready infrastructure as part of the COVID-19 recovery Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. $125 million will be invested to kick-start construction and fund the completion of the following cycleway ...
Plans are underway for a brand new state-of-the-art hub for Whanganui’s justice and social agencies, following confirmation the ageing Whanganui Central Police Station is to be replaced. Police Minister Stuart Nash has announced $25 million in new infrastructure spending to improve facilities for the wider community, and for staff who ...
An adjustment payment has been made to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu under the relativity mechanisms in their 1995 and 1997 Treaty of Waitangi settlements, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The latest payments to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu are $2,700,000 and $2,600,000 respectively to ensure the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off the start of the Auckland NZ Upgrade Programme rail projects which will support over 400 jobs and help unlock our biggest city. Both ministers marked the start of enabling works on the third main rail line project ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $3.78 million in Wairoa will create much needed economic stimulus and jobs, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. PGF projects announced today include: $200,000 loan to Nuhaka Kiwifruit Holdings Ltd (operated by Pine Valley Orchard Ltd) to increase the productivity ...
Tenants in public and Māori housing may be benefiting from their own affordable renewable energy in future – a fund to trial renewable energy technology for public and Māori housing has today been announced by Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods and Associate Minister for Housing (Māori Housing) Nanaia Mahuta. ...
Hokianga will receive $2.7 million to redevelop four of its wharves and upgrade its water supply, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Far North District Council will receive $1.8 million from the Provincial Growth Fund for the work on the wharves. “The work will include the construction of ...
A $350 million Residential Development Response Fund is being established to support the residential construction sector and to minimise the economic impact from COVID-19, the Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods has announced. “The Residential Development Response Fund will help to progress stalled or at-risk developments that support our broader housing ...
As part of a broader plan to divert waste from landfill, the Government today announced $10.67 million for new infrastructure as part of the Resource Recovery Network across the Auckland region. “This key investment in Auckland’s community recycling network is part of the Government’s Infrastructure Reference Group ‘shovel ready’ projects ...
The Government is investing $45 million in the first stage of an ambitious urban development project for Tauranga that will employ up to 250 people and help the region grow, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the funding has been allocated out of the $3 billion ...
Getting low-emission trucks on the road is a step closer with investment in infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles, the Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has announced. The Infrastructure Reference Group has provisionally approved $20 million for New Plymouth company Hiringa Energy to establish a nationwide network of hydrogen-fuelling stations. ...
A new trades training centre to upskill the local workforce will be built in the South Waikato town of Tokoroa through funding from the Government’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Government will contribute $10.84 million from ...
The Government has agreed to repeal part of the Oranga Tamariki Act subsequent children provisions, Minister for Children Tracey Martin announced today. “There are times when children need to go into care for their safety – the safety and care of children must always be paramount,” Minister Martin said. “But ...
A $1.5 million boost to grow primary mental health and addiction services for Pacific peoples in Auckland, Hamilton and Canterbury will lead to better outcomes for Pacific communities, Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa says. Pasifika Futures has received funding to expand services through The Fono, Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest by ...
Twenty-two projects to boost the sustainability and climate resilience of New Zealand’s food and fibres sector have been announced today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The $18m funding will deliver practical knowledge to help farmers and growers use their land more sustainably, meet environmental targets, remain prosperous, and better understand ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson welcomes an initiative that assists employers to get mature workers into New Zealand small businesses. The disadvantages that older people face in the workplace was highlighted in the whole of Government Employment Strategy. In order to address this, a Mature Workers Toolkit has been developed and ...
New Zealand and Australia reaffirmed today the need for the closest possible collaboration as they tackle a global environment shaped by COVID-19, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said. “In these challenging times, our close collaboration with Australia is more vital than ever,” said Mr Peters. Mr Peters and his Australian ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Wilson, Professor of Public Health, University of Otago As New Zealand enters its second day at heightened alert levels to contain a community outbreak of COVID-19, we expect that it should only be a temporary setback. Four cases with no direct ...
Greens co-leader James Shaw has accused National of calling for the election to be delayed out of concern for their own self-interest, not democracy. ...
Māori are particularly vulnerable to conspiracy theories – especially ones that relate to the eradication of people – because that has been the reality for indigenous people. But if we’re going to protect our whānau from Covid-19, we need to engage, not block.If you’re Māori and on Facebook, chances are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bain Munro Attwood, Professor of History, Monash University The Conversation is running a series of explainers on key figures in Australian political history, looking at the way they changed the nature of debate, its impact then, and it relevance to politics today. ...
Confirmed cases of Covid-19 will now be sent straight to a managed quarantine facility by order of the Director-General of Health Thirteen new confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been identified - all linked to the four cases of community transmission that triggered a lockdown of Auckland this week. Under a new ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas McGee, PhD researcher, Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, University of Melbourne No child should be denied her rights because her parents are LGBTIQ+, and no family should have to endure the indignity we did. These are the words of ...
The Minister of Conservation has appointed five new councillors and a new Chair to the New Zealand Game Animal Council. “Grant Dodson has been appointed Chair of the Game Animal Council and takes over from Don Hammond who has been Chair since ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Varela, Research Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Many economists think that earnings in super funds should be taxed at a relatively low rate, compared to labour earnings and other types of earnings ...
What the deputy leader of the opposition has been implying lately is more than “nonsense” – it represents a threat to one of New Zealand’s most powerful and undervalued assets, writes Duncan Greive.Things started getting interesting last Friday. National’s deputy leader Gerry Brownlee appeared on RNZ’s Morning Report to discuss ...
Latest from the Beehive We drew a blank, when we paid our morning visit to the Beehive website. Nothing had been posted since Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage announced the Government’s plans to phase out more single-use and problem plastics to reduce waste and protect the environment. Hmm. Let’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Wilson, Professor of Public Health, University of Otago As New Zealand enters its second day at heightened alert levels to contain a community outbreak of COVID-19, we expect that it should only be a temporary setback. Four cases with no direct ...
By Patricia Kamo in Port Moresby A bus driver in Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby says it is hard to force passengers to wear masks when they walk in. It is one of the measures put in place after the lifting of the country’s 14-day restrictions. Driver Mark Duma, ...
By RNZ News Senior Labour MP Grant Robertson has rejected opposition National’s suggestion that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern step back from announcements on covid-19 alert levels so close to a New Zealand election. National Party leader Judith Collins says it should be health officials, not the Labour leader, announcing changes ...
In the second episode of Alice Snedden’s Bad News, Alice goes to an event at parliament to try to talk with a group of ‘gender critical’ feminists – but things don’t go quite as planned.You’ve probably heard the term used in relation to high-profile people like JK Rowling, but what ...
Evening Report Video: This week in A View from Afar with Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning, we continue with our debate of how leaders around the world are embracing authoritarianism, isolationism, and in some cases, an abandonment of the rule of international law. A View from Afar is ...
The government has failed to meet its target of increasing the total number of police by 1800 officers in three years. But there are 1280 more officers than this time three years ago. ...
Greens co-leader James Shaw is isolating at home after a Covid-19 test following a campaign trip to the location of New Zealand's latest community cases Climate Change Minister and Green Party co-leader James Shaw has undergone a precautionary Covid-19 test after developing "minor cold symptoms" following a trip to South Auckland ...
A new New Zealand-made drama about life in lockdown was dropped from Prime’s schedule, just days before it was due to start. What’s going on? Peter Salmon reckons the perfect time to watch a New Zealand drama about a second-wave Covid lockdown is during a second-wave Covid lockdown. Prime disagrees, having ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Jacinda Ardern is Prime Minister for a good reason. She is an excellent communicator. She got the message about mask-wearing almost bang-on in her speech yesterday. She was correctly reported as saying:Aucklanders should use a mask if they leave the house to access essential ...
In this Herald Premium article, the NZ Herald’s Matt Nippert and Keith Ng pick through forecasts and data to find an economy doing better than anyone predicted. As Auckland confronts a second round of community transmission, the gap between predictions and reality might hold clues which can help government and ...
Labour's Grant Robertson has called National's claims on Covid-19 "ridiculous nonsense" while its leader Judith Collins tells Morning Report his accusations are "outrageous". ...
Epidemiologist Simon Thornley says the new virus outbreaks and lockdown responses are proof that New Zealand must, as the WHO has recently said, learn to live with the virus. “An outbreak was inevitable, and therefore lockdowns were never a viable ...
The return to lockdowns is devastating news, on a variety of fronts. From the health perspective there must now be the deep worry that despite all the steps taken during the earlier lockdowns and the border restrictions and quarantines, there is community ...
Coronavirus is back in our community, bringing with it anxiety, fear and uncertainty. If you’re feeling like you can’t face going through it all over again, here are some coping strategies. Aucklanders are once again being asked to dig deep, emotionally speaking, in preparation for another lockdown and the accompanying uncertainty. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Turney, Professor, Earth Science and Climate Change, UNSW Geological and archaeological records offer important insights into what seems to be an increasingly uncertain future. The better we understand what conditions Earth has already experienced, the better we can predict (and potentially ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Associate Professor for the School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University If we can do our grocery shopping under lockdown, we can vote under lockdown too. As much as supermarkets and pharmacies, the general election is an essential service ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, University of Melbourne Indonesia is still struggling to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Its fatalities are the worst in Southeast Asia, but so far ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Marschner, Professor of Biostatistics, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney It’s hard to recall a time when we didn’t nervously await the announcement of Victoria’s daily COVID-19 case numbers each morning. It was certainly disconcerting when the state recorded more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Marshall, Academic, Landscape Architecture and Urban Ecology, University of Melbourne Volcanic plains stretching from Melbourne’s west to the South Australian border were once home to native grasslands strewn with wildflowers and a vast diversity of animals. Today, this grassland ecosystem is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Larsen, PhD candidate, Education & Psychology, University of New England Whether to hold a child back from starting school when they are first eligible is a question faced by many parents in Australia each year. If you start a child at ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Morris, Professor, Institute of Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney Many international students in private rental housing in Sydney and Melbourne were struggling before COVID-19 hit. Our surveys of these students before and during the pandemic show it has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dallas Rogers, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney Public housing estate redevelopments that displace residents to other suburbs are highly disruptive whereas projects that allow them to remain are suggested to be better. We tested this assumption through two ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Bell, Executive Director, The Conexus Institute; Associate Investigator, CEPAR, UNSW The past financial year has been one of the most volatile on record for stock markets, yet almost every Australian super fund has delivered similar returns. This not only demonstrates that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Suddendorf, Professor, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland Today, bags are everywhere — from cheap canvas ones at the supermarket to designer handbags costing up to US$2,000,000. But archaeological evidence shows we have been using mobile containers — bags and ...
Overly cautious politicians and bankers are forcing the Reserve Bank to look at even more extreme ways to stimulate our Covid-hit economy and revive inflation ...
Ardern: Newsroom social. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's warm and informal use of Facebook Live has helped convey vital COVID-19 messages in a clear and relatable way, according to a new academic study. Communication experts claim the honesty and ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 13, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ level two. More details here. Official information here. Get ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Collins calls for a delay in the election, an update on community transmission and testing, and businesses fearing the fallout of another lockdown.At this stage, the election is still scheduled to take place on September 19. But with the country’s largest ...
More than 50 people are in managed isolation at New Zealand's border facilities so they can attend the sentencing of the Christchurch gunman in person. ...
Criticism of the Government's Covid-19 response is far from new, and has often had merit. But the new National leadership's dark mutterings of a cover-up are taking New Zealand politics in a dangerous direction, Sam Sachdeva writes."We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, ...
Legendary press gallery doyen Ian Templeton assesses two new studies of former Prime Ministers Jim Bolger and Mike Moore As the 2020 election looms, Fridays with Jim by Wellington writer David Cohen is a timely book. Three-time Prime Minister Jim Bolger's reflections on leadership are insightful. More controversial may be those ...
An announcement on wage subsidies might be needed to avoid job losses - but not everybody agrees the Government should signal its intentions sooner rather than later, writes Dileepa Fonseka Crowds of people spilled out onto the street in Mangere East as the midday deadline for Auckland's entry into Level 3 ...
What’s the science behind the changed position on mask use? Farah Hancock reports. Auckland’s Level 3 lockdown will look different to the last lockdown. This time there will be masks. They’re mandatory for people on domestic flights leaving Auckland and “strongly urged” for everyone else when in public. The Government ...
In the first of a series on Muslim girls and women in sport in New Zealand, Ashley Stanley speaks to Noha Nasef, an ocean swimmer comfortable competing under full cover, who wants women wearing a hijab to be a normal sight in sport. Noha Nasef chose to take up open water swimming because ...
It looks like the dream finale of the Super Rugby Aotearoa season before a sellout Eden Park crowd will be off-limits for fans this Sunday, leaving Jim Kayes unfulfilled. It’s not the news a bunch of middle aged, success-starved Blues fans were hoping for. “Hi Richard,” began the note from the ...
The health workers and contact tracers are out on the front lines, but in the backrooms teams of mathematicians are running scenarios to figure out exactly what needs to be done, and how bad things could get. In big picture terms, fighting a pandemic is a numbers game, but with real ...
Yesterday’s announcement by the Reserve Bank that it will increase its money creation by an extra $40 billion dollars up to $100 billion over the next two years to buy government IOU’s off banks and rich investors sets an all-time record for money ...
The peerless Policy tool returns for its third edition, and it’s better than ever – fully geared to easily compare both parties and candidates across all the important issues.Campaigning might have been suspended for the rest of the week, along with much of normal life, but don’t let that stop ...
The novel coronavirus mutates as it travels between people and around the world. By sequencing the genome, we can try to work out which case is linked with another.As Aotearoa confronted its first cases of Covid-19 community transmission in more than 100 days, the director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, ...
Wellington company EightyOne has been banned from Twitter for its 'Trumbers' campaign criticising Donald Trump. To date more than 600,000 people have viewed 'Trumbers' on Twitter and it has been shared with the Republican Party and Donald Trump. As ...
Ambiguity, uncertainty and unpredictability are three key indicators for stress, and Aucklanders in particular are going through all of those right now The late-night announcement by the Prime Minister was a blow to the pit of the stomach of many. We thought we had this, and maybe some of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Royal Commission into Aged Care put the Secretary of the Federal Health Department, Brendan Murphy, firmly in his place when he tried to make an opening statement to attack claims by the senior counsel ...
“Your post goes against our community standards on nudity or sexual activity” was the terse message that Professor David Robie, director of the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre, RSF’s Oceania partner, received from Facebook whenever he tried to share an article about press freedom in Melanesia, especially the Indonesian provinces of ...
And is he about to launch a coup against Judith Collins? Just asking questions here.Jacindamania was meek by comparison. Just as Ardern captured a nation from the role of deputy leader of the opposition in 2017, so it is with Gerry Brownlee in 2020. Relentless grouchy, Gerrymania is in full ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Quinn, Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin announced Russia was the first country to register a vaccine offering “sustainable immunity” against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Developed by the Gamaleya Research ...
Power Play - Warnings another outbreak was bound to happen were not enough to prepare New Zealanders for the shock of seeing the country's largest city put back into level 3 lockdown. ...
Power Play - Warnings another outbreak was bound to happen were not enough to prepare New Zealanders for the shock of seeing the country's largest city put back into level 3 lockdown. ...
At lunchtime yesterday, Jacinda Ardern was easing into full campaign mode on the main street of Whanganui. Just a few hours later, news from Auckland turned her plans, and an election campaign, on its head. Justin Giovannetti reports from Whanganui and Wellington.Jacinda Ardern’s first day on the campaign trail outside ...
One bright spot amid the grimness of the Covid resurgence: the return of our series of charts, graphics and data visualisations of the pandemic by Chris McDowall.Over one hundred days, Covid-19 slowly slipped from my attention. I was aware of new cases reaching Aotearoa’s border, managed isolation breaches, relapses in ...
By RNZ News QR app codes are now mandatory for businesses and services, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield have revealed, as they announced new covid-19 cases in New Zealand. Dr Bloomfield said there was just one new confirmed case in managed isolation recorded today, ...
Justin Latif takes the temperature of his community in South Auckland, ground zero for the latest Covid-19 outbreak.Following the prime minister’s announcement on Tuesday evening, my messenger app began pinging with pictures and videos of people at the supermarket. But it wasn’t panic buying that I was seeing, rather there ...
Odessa To’o on Selina Tusitala Marsh’s picture book Mophead, which was just named the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year. I almost didn’t read this book because of the title. Mophead. Instantly recognisable as an insult for anyone with big hair, even though I’ve never been called it myself. The kids ...
Announcing the winners of the 2020 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. The supreme prize of the night, the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award, goes to Selina Tusitala Marsh for her super-personal picture book, Mophead.Mophead is memoir and clapback and wild doodle; it’s the story of ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Human rights activist and lawyer Veronica Koman says the Indonesian government has asked her to return scholarship money amounting to 773 million rupiah (about US$70,000) which she received to undergo her master’s degree in Australia in 2016, reports CNN Indonesia. According to Vero – as she ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW With mask wearing in public compulsory in Victoria and recommended in New South Wales, many Australians are buying, wearing or making face masks for the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Webber, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Scientists have been interested in the flora of New Guinea since the 17th century, but formal knowledge of the tropical island’s diversity has remained limited. To solve this mystery, our global team of 99 scientists from ...
Photographers John Sefton, in Auckland, and Lynn Grieveson in Wellington watched the return of Level 3 lockdown and Level 2 restrictions on Wednesday, a day of masks, businesses shutting or setting themselves up for limited access, supermarket queues and people exercising their relative freedoms. As the clock ticked down, Bunnings ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Taylor, Teaching Fellow, Bond University The Melbourne International Film Festival is currently running online, but one movie announced at their program launch won’t be streaming. At the end of July, Sandra Wollner’s The Trouble With Being Born was withdrawn after the ...
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says the Government will sequence the genomes of yesterday's four Covid-19 cases to help identify how the outbreak started. What does that mean? New Zealand has found itself suddenly plunged into a dire situation: Four new cases of Covid-19 in the community with no obvious link ...
Open mike 31/01/2015 
Open mike is your post.
The Waikato Regional Council is actually enforcing the RMA for once: Three Waikato farmers have been fined a total of $116,100 for illegally discharging farm effluent. [...] Gerard Wolvers from South Waikato, who has farmed for nearly 50 years, was convicted on three charges after an unknown amount of ...2 hours ago
The return of COVID-19 community transmission, with Auckland back in a level 3 lockdown and the rest of New Zealand at level 2, raises real questions about New Zealand’s upcoming general election.Polling day is scheduled for September 19 but the planned election process would actually start far earlier. All candidates were to be ...4 hours ago
Conspiracy theorist - Gerry BrownleeWhat on earth is going on with the National Party? Now that Crusher Collins is in charge, it seems like it’s their policy to say really dumb things just to get attention. Unfortunately it’s working, with most of the mainstream media bending over backwards to provide ...4 hours ago
The novel coronavirus mutates as it travels between people and around the world. By sequencing the genome, we can try to work out which case is linked with another. As Aotearoa confronted its first cases of Covid-19 community transmission in more than 100 days, the director general of health, Ashley ...5 hours ago
INT: ILAM ELECTORATE OFFICES – TUESDAY GERRY: Morning everybody. ADVISORS 1, 2, AND 3: Morning Gerry. GERRY: Now… this is a bit of a crisis meeting. Several rogue polls have come out putting the National Party on or around 40% ADVISOR 2: 26? ADVISOR 1: 12? ADVISOR 3: 29? GERRY: ...21 hours ago
Respecting the journal editorial process Each week we scan between 450 and 650 articles for relevance to Skeptical Science's remit: communication of the science of climate change itself the many affected branches of scientific inquiry by climate change. The 100+ journals we cover encompass a galaxy of expertise we cannot ...22 hours ago
Today’s content Community transmission Ben Thomas (Spinoff): What the Covid resurgence means for the election campaign Luke Malpass (Stuff): In this new lockdown, Labour competence will be key Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): NZ’s bubble bursts as Covid returns Jason Walls (Herald): ‘Extremely disappointed’: National Party leader Judith Collins blasts Govt; says it let Covid-19 back ...1 day ago
What to do to improve the public perception of the newly elected National party leader, when her performance so far has no doubt disappointed the expectations of her supporters? The answer is to get a National-supporting newspaper (the Herald) to organise a poll that could be guaranteed to provide an ...2 days ago
There are only a few days left to make a submission on Statistics New Zealand's consultation on sex and gender identity statistical standards. This represents a really important step for recognising the very real diversity of gender, including people with no gender, and ensuring everyone has the option to see ...3 days ago
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From some quarters, incessant scaremongering. From others, it’s a full-on tilt into touching the alarmist buttons a little too readily (uncertain times make for very captive audiences with this angle of attack). The (so-called) Opposition (and merely regarding them as that seems to be a far looser term now ...5 days ago
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bloody hell..!..is this the end-times..?
..rightwinger roughan has come out swinging..
..for beneficiaries..(!)
(i know..!..i know..!..colour me surprised too..!..)
ed:..well..!..knock me over with a feather..!..rightwinger roughan has come out in support of the ‘pariahs’..beneficiaries..
“..Boston and Chapple make a good case for increasing benefits by the rate of average wage rises.
It is strange that Labour did not make this change 10 or more years ago when it had budget surpluses –
– National should do now.
Ideally it would backdate the increases as far as surpluses might permit –
– giving benefits quite a boost in the next few years.
Pensions have long enjoyed increases pegged to wages –
– and it is not fair to treat superannuitants so much more generously than other state dependants –
– particularly children..”
(cont..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/ed-well-knock-me-over-with-a-feather-rightwinger-roughan-has-come-out-in-support-of-the-pariahs-beneficiaries/
and the other rightwinger o’sullivan..
..has come out with a plea for turei to also stand down..(!)
..o’sullivan thinks turei is too left..
..(and that she sometimes says nasty-things about key..)
..i won’t link to it..
..because it is a pile of steaming-horse-shit..
Yeah, I love how all the right wing journalists keep trying to advise the Green Party that if only they were more like National they would be able to be a minor part of government and then maybe they could get the occasional environmental policy enacted. Nothing too green of course, nothing that would stop Nats’ mates continuing to wreck the environment. The Herald editorial has a similar flavour to O’Sullivan’s piece. Unbelievably patronising with absolutely no understanding of how the Green Party operates.
The problem with rightwingers is they can’t comprehend the concept of having principals and sticking to them. For them it seems power is all that counts.
Getting into bed with National totally worked for Act and the Maori Party, NOT! The Greens not so stupid…
I guess only Nixon could go to China….
….only Nixon could go to China
That’s political class bilge if ever there was. Nixon “went to China” in order to drive a further wedge between the USSR and China. Don’t forget that at the time he went to China, Nixon was supervising the destruction of Indo-China.
As well as that, his backdoor emissary to the Chinese was Yahya Khan, the bloodsoaked leader of Pakistan. Because of Khan’s sterling work, the United
States refrained from speaking out against Pakistan’s murderous war on East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh.
The idea that the Democrats would somehow have lacked the credentials or political weight to undertake certain actions is as nonsensical as the notion that Obama is a great reformer who is held back by those ornery Republicans.
I guess only Nixon could go to China….
there are echoes of that..
No it’s not as they were, and still are, keeping to the neo-liberal BS that benefits should be low so as to keep wages low.
And yet what National will do is give tax cuts to the rich.
These long queues we are seeing for people trying to find a place to rent are only going to get bigger and bigger. So the political story will grow too.
Surely this should have an asset-sales scale campaign from a party or parties? Labour and Greens are so close on this.
Another day another Auckland housing story it really is hard to care when most of the problem seems self made buy people flocking there and others indebting them selves to the eye balls.
Politics is made by people working crowds.
Make it a Chch story then.
i agree…everyone who has not lived for at least 20 years in Auckland should move…somewhere else.
simple as that. If they can’t find jobs – pffft who cares. if they are elsewhere the govenrment and its water boys has got no more problems.
You can’t fit 1/3 of the population of NZ in 0.3% of the land area without the whole thing being a shit fight.
Unless you were going in on a income of $150k minimum you would be mad to move there.
@col you can if people stop with the mansions and the lawns
Sure, it can be done with affordable apartment buildings, subways and public transport, like any modern city of the world.
How right you are Granny Herald !
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11394465
This Catton girl has been SO naughty……..stroppy little poppy she is. But, as you say, best we all back off a bit. Just wait and see what a good and grateful girl she CAN be I’m sure.
Ekshilly, Je suis just a little bit unsettled what with this freedom of speech thing and its patent gratuitousness (clutching pearls to beat Maggie Smith)………”I mean this is ALL about the prime minister for goodness sake and while she didn’t use the words “traitorous hua”……..well, it’s a slippery slope and there ARE limits !”
Mr Key, FAR more proficient with fiction than she ever was simply does not deserve this sort of thing !
Pathetic Herald surprise surprise ……..
the Herald’s rich money-grubbing right wing owners would not approve of Catton’s comments so it is hardly surprising the Herald has not engaged with the issue raised by Catton, namely rich money-grubbing right wing people.
The Herald is conflicted all to hell
yes, Mr.Key, “50’s Shady n Grey”
Kim Hill’s guest says destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan were “mistakes.”
Maziar Bahari needs to divest himself of his smug “friends.”
Radio NZ National, Saturday 31 January 2015
At 8:30 this morning Kim Hill interviewed Iranian Canadian journalist and film-maker Maziar Bahari, the author of Then They Came For Me, a memoir about his imprisonment, beating and interrogation in Iran for over 100 days in 2009. The memoir was the inspiration for Rosewater, a feature film directed by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. In 2013, Bahari launched the Persian/English website Iranwire.com, which focuses on current affairs, culture and politics. He is also involved in Journalism for Change, a platform devoted to citizen journalism, and in the worldwide campaigns Education is Not a Crime and Journalism is Not a Crime. He is visiting New Zealand this week as part of a global campaign leading up to Education is Not a Crime Day on 27 February. His documentary film To Light a Candle – about the denial of education to Bahá’ís in Iran – will also have its New Zealand premiere while he is here.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday
Sounds great, right? Well, Maziar Bahari turned out to be an interesting speaker, and obviously a nice fellow. Unfortunately, though, his judgement and/or integrity is less clear, as I pointed out in the following email to Kim Hill….
Maziar Bahari’s carefully tailored words
Dear Kim,
Maziar Bahari described the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as “mistakes”, not crimes. He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.
Perhaps he needs to reassess his relationship with Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
“..unctuously..”..?
..or an exercise in irony..?
..(and is that your ‘reading’..?..)
..’cos going on stewarts’ past-form..
..i wd plump for the latter.
He was absolutely sincere about it. It was a teary-eyed homily after the Charlie Hebdo killings.
He did and said nothing similar after Israel targeted and killed journalists in Gaza last July.
yeah..?..u sure..?
..it has echoes of sth park..
..how about giving us the link..?
..so we can judge for ourselves..
Here you go, phillip—American “liberal” hypocrisy at its most ignorant and galling.
Note that the intro. to this clip claims that Stewart “opened his normally comedic Daily Show Wednesday night with somber words of support for the victims in the assault on Charlie Hebdo….
http://adage.com/article/media/jon-stewart-paris-attacks-team-civilization/296502/
morrissy..
..is stewart not referring to the international cadre of journalists..
..as ‘team civilisation’..?
..not america and its’ allies as ‘team civilisation’..
..as u claim..?
Even if he was referring just to the “international cadre of journalists”, describing that collection of sycophants, propagandists and war-mongers as Team Civilization would make even less sense than if he had meant the Western world in general.
It’s as absurd and insulting to our intelligence as the regular sight of Pentagon stooges talking about the victims of some bombing as “the bad guys”.
morrissey..you stated that stewart said that america and their allies were ‘team civilisation’..
..that is completely and utterly untrue..
..and i am astounded you made such a ‘reading’ from what stewart said..
.and shouldn’t you apologise to the readers here for misleading them/mis-representing stewart..?
..and why the fuck am i having to factcheck u all the time..?
,,why are u so fucken sloppy with yr facts..?
,.how do u think it can help yr credibility in any way to do that..?
“..It is absurd and insulting to our intelligence..”
He said it. Watch the video. What should I apologise for, exactly?
“.. Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”..”
Jon Stewart, who a few weeks ago unctuously referred to the United States and its allies as “Team Civilization”.
He did. His style was intimate, warm, compassionate. If he had had the strength of character and the intelligence to simply condemn the killings, and express support for the dead cartoonists and the policemen, that would have been a decent, serious statement.
But he didn’t simply do that. Instead, he went on to talk of “Team Civilization”, as though the West is enlightened and democratic and civilized, as opposed to the frightening savages out of Africa and the Middle East.
For argument’s sake, let’s concede your point that he was talking specifically about the “international cadre of journalists”: if he was, that would be even more of an indefensible thing to say. The corporate media—from the BBC to Fox News to their parrots at TVNZ—are crucial components of the propaganda system. If Stewart is stupid and depraved enough to be confused about that, you should not be so gallant as to try to spin his stupidity and depravity into something else.
Seventy years ago, the likes of Stewart were condemning, with an eye to those in power, the killers of another racist journalist, Julius Streicher.
I’d have thought the bigger point was his declaration to the effect that it was not our business to make sense of it because there was no sense to it.
That’s a very fucked approach to what was a very easily understood event.
I’d have thought the bigger point was his declaration to the effect that it was not our business to make sense of it because there was no sense to it. That’s a very fucked approach to what was a very easily understood event.
Very well said, Bill. Here’s Norman Finkelstein addressing this ridiculous idea that atrocities are mystical and beyond analysis….
I took it as a wider team than “America and its allies”.
It looked to me like a comedian was reflecting upon people who will kill other people because of comedy, and referring to folks who do not shoot other people over comedy as “team civilization”.
Just a thought.
Who are the journalists imprisoned in the USA and UK?
https://www.cpj.org/imprisoned/2014.php
Jesus H. Christ, are you SERIOUS?
well yes, I am – only because I don’t know. If you want to abuse people because they ask an honest question then that points to some serious character flaws.
How about this:
I apologise for asking you a polite question about a topic I don’t know much about, but one on which you claim to be an expert. I even googled what appears to be an impartial source and helpfully posted that link in order to facilitate a mature dialog with you. Turns out in fact you are an arrogant fuckwit.
Sami al-Hajj was an innocent Al Jazeera cameraman that the US Government detained for years at Guantanmo Bay with no charges laid.
The US tends to more target whistleblowers (Thomas Drake, Bill Binney, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriaku) and journalist-type individuals (Julian Assange) for harassment, charges and imprisonment.
Having said that if you look at the map and identify those nations which the USA explicitly supports with funding and arms:
Bahrain 6
Egypt 12
Israel and Occupied Territories 4 (Israel also killed several journalists last year)
Saudi Arabia 4
In the USA if you drift out too far from the editorial line you simply get your ass fired and become unemployable as opposed to imprisoned (eg Nasr, Clancy).
also just been reading about barrett brown – good summary here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/01/30/the-controversial-punishment-of-barrett-brown-a-deep-dive/
technically he’s been sentenced for 3 charges – accessory after the fact to a crime and helping the perpertrators evade prosecution, obstructing justice, and threatening to kill an FBI agent. He’s just pleaded guilty to those.
Another source of journalist tracking:
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-barometer-journalists-imprisoned.html?annee=2015
The US justice system has gone down the road of negotiating plea bargains form their targets, which means that the cases and evidence never see a jury or a judge.
Essentially they say to the target – you plead guilty to this and this, and we’ll put you away for three or four years. Or we’ll go after you with these other charges, and you will go away for 30 or 35 years.
Sorry, nadis, I shouldn’t have jumped at you like that. I (wrongly) assumed that you were playing the Te Reo Putake game of stonewalling and asserting that black is white and up is down.
I appreciate you are genuine in trying to find out more about this, but the “Committee to Protect Journalists” is about as reliable as Fox News—which is one of its “corporate media donors” along with the Associated Press, CNBC, and CNN. The CPJ has close ties to extreme right wing Cuban “exile” terrorist groups in Miami and New York.
Like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the CPJ is a suspect and deeply compromised organisation.
Fuck me, what a load of shit. The CPJ is highly respected, has a long and proud record of campaigning for journalists and indeed, saving the lives of many who have been imprisoned. Y’know, real journalists, not the imaginery ones in your head, Moz.
Have a read and feel ashamed at your dismal effort at slandering them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_Protect_Journalists
From your (sadly for you) very useful link….
Funding
According to the organization’s 2011 Annual Report, financial supporters include individuals, corporations, and foundations. The report does not include details on the largest financial supporters. Corporate media donors include the Associated Press, CNBC, CNN and Fox News.
“Highly respected”, indeed. Not highly respected by real journalists and people who bother to read more than the Grauniad and the Daily Mail, but “highly respected” by certain “corporate media donors”.
So fucken what. They are staunchly independant, do good work and save lives. You … not so much.
So fucken what.
Excellent! A first rate response to being exposed. Possibly the funniest and most bewildered “So what” since Garth George was similarly confronted by Jon Stephenson……
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1012/S00457/journalists-clash-on-media7-over-war-reporting.htm
They are staunchly independant, [sic] do good work and save lives.
They are funded by a retinue of establishment pillars, including Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans. Their “surveys” are selective and partisan, just like you would expect from a “Committee” funded by Fox News and extreme right wing Cubans.
But please, go ahead and call the CPJ “independant”. It’s your (paper thin) credibility that’s on the line when you back such partisan sources.
You … not so much.
Okay, sling off at me if you want. After that, have a listen to Jeremy Scahill, who is definitely NOT the kind of American journalist who endorses Fox News and extreme right wing Cuban terrorists…..
🙄
Cheers, nadis. I was wondering the same thing myself.
As you know perfectly well, they are pursuing Julian Assange and Edward Snowden with implacable ferocity; Assange is currently in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and Snowden has found refuge in Russia.
Yes, I guess you could quibble and claim that Snowden is not a credentialed journalist in the way that such outstanding practitioners of the craft as John Roughan and Fran O’Sullivan are credentialed, but the fact remains: if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.
Have you ever heard of James Risen? Thought not……
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/us/james-risen-in-tense-testimony-refuses-to-offer-clues-on-sources.html?_r=0
It’s not a quibble to point out that neither man is a journalist and neither man is locked up in the USA or the UK. If you have the names of journalists who are imprisoned up in those countries, please feel free to post them. If there are any then they need to have their cases publicised. Telling us their names would be a great start.
It’s not a quibble, it’s a lie. But obviously your mind is made up.
If Assange is not a journalist, then neither is James Risen. I note that you did not even bother to mention Risen’s case.
Of course, this is the “non-journalism” that compels the U.S. government and its legion of unpaid hounds to bay after Assange….
BZZZZT! Wrong answer. We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK, that’s journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Next contestant please. For ten pounds, can you tell me what is wrong with Moz? I’ll repeat the question: what is wrong with Moz? You may confer with your teammates or phone a friend.
I appreciate the levity, Te Reo, but you haven’t done anything to answer the challenge: what about James Risen?
Just so you get on with that task, we’ll pretend for a moment that Assange, Snowden and Manning are not in asylum, exile or prison for their role in exposing momentous crimes.
BZZZZT! We were looking for journalists imprisoned in the US or UK. Contestant, you have answered James Risen who is … (checks notes) … not imprisoned in the US or UK. No points. Do any of the other contestants know the names of journalists imprisoned in the US or UK? Take your time …
What’s your point? The US doesn’t officially torture people within its own borders either. It subcontracts it overseas.
Well actually I have, and it turns out he isn’t imprisoned nor is he in jail which tends to invalidate the main thrust of your rant. In fact in the story you linked there is this:
“Mr. Holder pledged not to send reporters to jail, which would normally be the consequence of refusing to testify in a case like Mr. Sterling’s. Then, he indicated that he would not force Mr. Risen to reveal his sources, but would instead force Mr. Risen only to reveal limited information that he had already acknowledged.”
So not only has not been in jail, isn’t currently in jail, the US Attorney General has ruled out putting him in jail.
Right – I see your point exactly.
I have mixed views on Snowden and Assange. The bulk of what they released should not have been. The evidence of crime (i.e., Chelsea Manning’s helicopter video) – no problem, but stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement I’m less supportive of.
And on this:
“if you speak the truth and reveal what the Government is trying to hide from its citizens in the United States, you can expect massive retaliation from the criminals you expose.”
Are you equally as strident about the worse behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
So despite your bold claim
“He also spoke about journalists who are locked up “in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China”—carefully not mentioning the United States or Great Britain.”
you cant come up with a single example?
Are you equally as strident about the worse [sic] behaviour of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran etc? Last time I checked the US government wasn’t sanctioning extra-judicial murder of domestic critics.
With the odd exception, my government does not usually support the crimes of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, etc. It routinely does so for the crimes of the United States and the United Kingdom.
You speak confidently about Snowden and Assange exposing “stuff which endangers people or hinders legitimate law enforcement.” What evidence do you have that they did that? I’d be intrigued if you put it up on this site for us, because neither the U.S. nor U.K. government could manage to do so.
I am as opposed to state power being abused in Russia, China, Turkey and Iran as I am to it being abused in Australia and New Zealand. Are YOU?
Yes.
Can you please focus on providing evidence for your earlier (mis)-assertions, otherwise people will continue to believe you are a flake. Just trying to help you out.
Just trying to help you out.
That remark was a bit snide and unfunny. Hmmmm….
Okay! Stop the play-acting, Te Reo! Your “nadis” persona is as irritating as it is dopey.
I can assure I am not TRP. Are you are going to back up your earlier (mis)-assertions or not?
I knew that. I was trying to annoy Te Reo.
Riiiight. Well spotted, Moz, two different people asking the same simple question* must be evidence of either a conspiracy or a Vulcan mind meld.
*and that question was ‘which journalists are imprisoned in the US and UK ‘ as you claimed. Answer came there none.
Here’s one. Don’t be put off by the fact he looks like Moss from The IT Crowd….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Wolf_(journalist)
But, yes, you’re both right—journalists can usually speak out without fear in the United States. Thank the radicals and liberals who framed the Constitution for that.
However, constitutional and legal protections can only go so far—when governments bring their powers to bear on an individual truth-teller, they will tear down the protections if they can get away with it, including such troublesome notions as legal sanctuary and asylum. Some in the Cameron regime even suggested storming the Ecuadorian embassy to get their hooks on Assange.
I guess that’s as close as we’re going to get to you acknowledging your mistake, Moz. Some weasel words and a link to a court case last decade. Ah, well, the real takeaway from this discussion is that you don’t feel obliged to hold yourself up to the standards you demand of others. The Greeks probably had a word for that (though it may have been sold off to the troika by now).
ps. If you’d thought about it harder, you could have resorted to pedantry by mentioning all those Murdoch employees currently doing porridge in the UK. Of course, they’re not in jail for journalism, but for actual crimes.
lol
I see, Te Reo, that you’ve garnered some (belated) support from one of our friends—one with a rather insalubrious record of credulity. He posted his intelligent comment at 3:46 p.m., more than four hours after everyone had gone home.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Or is it?
asynchronous communication is a bitch, ain’t it?
It’s almost as if this example of you making shit up in a froth-frenzy (and then wriggling around trying not to admit you fucked up) will remain as yet another permanent record of your loose relationship with reality.
Is it me, or is something seriously happening to NZ and are we well and truly stuffing up this once clean green country that Keys likes to promote but still allows dairying to pollute.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening, Silence. Hardly a sound. The other thing I have noticed over the last few years, when I came to NZ over 45 year ago, the Myna’s used to line up at the side of the road to get the dead insects hit by cars, and jump out of the way ”just in time” before they were hit by a vehicle. The number of Myna’s doing that now, to me seems to have decreased.
In my non expert opinion, these two things, along with the Kauri die back and the devastation of the Cabbage tree by a virus concerns me that all is not well with the environment of NZ.
Yeah, I noticed that there are a lot less cicadas than usual. Cicadas and summer go hand in hand for me. I love them, always have. When summer kicks off I always listen out for the first cicada.
Cicada’s have a long in ground life cycle (5-7 years) and years where there are lower numbers can be traced back to adverse weather events during breeding. They also forecast ‘mast’ years by the same logic. I think from memory there was one in the Hutt Valley 4 or so years ago where literally thousands could be seen on a single lamppost.
Regarding the cabbage tree virus it is actually a long existing disease called Phytoplasma that proliferated with the arrival of a new vector in this case passion vine hoppers the same has happened with Phormium.
Kauri dieback is more interesting I cant help but suspect that the particular phytophera strain has long existed but has been inadvertently spread or subtle climate changes have allowed it to proliferate. Phytophera exists in all soils and is usually kept in check by other naturally occurring organisms like trichoderma.
natural cycles can be adversely affected by humans messing with the ecologies, either local, or global (CC).
Perhaps we are loving our kauri to death. I looked at available bookings to view the great kauri in Northalnd I think it was Tane Mahuta himself, but it was booked up for months. It is said that the numbers of people going through the kauri are probably transporting this nasty whatsit around. I looked at an old book the other day and there was one of the old super giant kauris in it and two people standing at the base were dwarfed and I don’t know how many people it would have taken to stretch arms round the trunk.
We have probably reached the stage where we have to limit visitors and make times for NZs to visit. It would be nice to get a chance. There are limits to viewing Tiritiri Matenga Island – it’s special and same with kauri. And keep pigs off – they are said to be another problem, and then they would draw hunters and their dogs after them.
There is an extensive board walk and board platform to view Tane Mahuta from – built in recent years – designed to protect the forest floor around the old giant.
What I think should be of more concern is that huge logging trucks trundle up and down the road beside that forest – I would think that causes much more damage reverberating from roadside thru to the forest – than people on a board walk.
I suspect the trees may have grown used to the ground shaking after all these millennia; it’s the temperatures that’ll they’ll struggle with.
The most likely explanation is that it’s a good year for the wasps.
Instead, an army of swarming frustrating flies has invaded New Zealand.
P.S :
I have made four fly traps using empty plastic coke bottles as shown in the link below. The fly attractants I have used/experimented include liver, honey, fish and , fermenting yeast.
While some flies have been attracted and get caught, I am still not satisfied as there are heaps of flies still flying about. I have read that different types of flies are attracted to different types of bait!
Question : Do any of you know which may be the best fly attractant to the contemporary flies we have?
Here is the info for a very simple home made fly trap! You are welcome!
http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/How_to_make_a_fly_trap/
“I have made four fly traps”
Instead of taking the all-out nuclear option and viciously killing flies, have you ever thought of just trying to reason with them ? You know, being a decent human being by making an effort to appeal to their moral sensibilities ? Next time you see a couple of flies flying around like out-of-control boy-racers, just try telling them (preferably in an authentic Yorkshire accent) ‘Come on, luds, there’s no need for all this, there was never any need for it. Let’s just let bygones be bygones.” And if that doesn’t do the job then just corner one of them and have a quiet word along the lines of: “If this sort of behaviour continues, young man, then I’m going to have to have a serious talk with your father”. Works a treat every time. Flies are people too, remember.
“…the contemporary flies we have”
I prefer to think of them as Post-Modernist.
Hm, that may be my last resort….Simple sweet talking sound bites to these filthy-free-market neoliberal buggers hovering around with such utterly gutterly misappropriating maddening minds.
I won’t be surprised if the crooks come with embedded mobile and GPS these days!
Fans – if you have them – are an effective deterrent to flies.
Your better with a pair of frogs in a terrarium, and using a butterfly net to catch the flies. Great light excise and quite addictive seeing how many you can scoop. Give us a laugh seeing (all arms & legs) & hearing them crashing about the foliage nailing their prey. You know when really content, as Mrs & Mr Froggy sing with delight. Amazes me how they can eat so many as the next morning very few are left.
There is bugger all flies aroung mine this year and being a farm house that’s a surprise. We’ve had a 30ish swallows living with us so i wonder if that’s the cause.
Swallows are very effective insect catchers, so I’d say yes.
Normally when we have a hot dry weather you are deafened by the Cicada’s. This year the silence of the Cicada’s is deafening,
Cicadas (species specific ) have long life cycles and have evolved over time to select periods determinable with prime numbers to constrain predation ie they tend to outlive their predators.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.ms.cicada10may10-story.html
@ poission
Hi can you tell me anything about raising nz preying mantis successfully. They are in decline around here.
Usually at this time of year we are feeding our yellow bearded dragon lizard them, he goes crazy chasing them around his terrarium, something’s up their absence if strange. In the interim plenty of crickets from our back section. Out place is a zoo, all good makes a happy home.
Would you say that the water quality is of very great concern? I personally feel that there is being more and more taken from the qualifier and wonder why the Farmers and associated industry do not (want to?) realize that their water will one day be saline because of it. At the same time, water quality is being compromised at all levels with the excuse that it is OK to have a “certain amount” of pollutants go into streams and lakes. It already affects the health of people due to high nitrate concentration in the water table – our drinking water.
I think this is connected to all living things and beings.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/30/eleanor-catton-blasts-critics-jingoistic-national-tantrum
Eleanor Catton won’t shut up.
So fuck you Key, Plunket, Farrar, Ede, Hooton.
This is a quite sobering read; the brief biographies of some of the many women who have died fighting ISIS in Kobani:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/30/kurdish-women-died-kobani-isis-syria
Indeed, Te Reo. Which makes you wonder why the United States and United Kingdom continue to fund and support ISIS in Syria.
[Sorry RY but best if this site does not link to that site – MS]
yesterday’s blog … seriously worth the time.
Oh dear, yet another “prominent New Zealander” gets name suppression and as always the PM knows nothing!
@DTB .. how do you make the link that way please ? Much improved on my effort, thank you.
How do I put links in the comments cleanly
Prime Mr Forgetful Minister John Key
Yeah right!
LOL !
thx @DTB
Looks like the home of democracy is serious about once again defending itself against a polyglot empire far more powerful than they….
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/30/greece-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis-shun-officials-troika
I have to say, the Greek fight against the German led Troika is stirring all my romantic Byronic philhellenism!!!
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbors;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and Rome,
And get knocked on his head for his labors.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hanged, you’ll get knighted.
-Byron, 1820
But what comes next?
If a deal isn’t struck then Greece as a whole and the poorer parts particular will get economically smashed as Greece has a massive budget shortfall. Someone will blink first – Greece or the EU?
With EUR exit off the table I can’t see what options Greece has. They can’t fund current expenditure by themselves let alone service their debt. I’m assuming Tsipras has a plan, but so far with the cancelling of asset sales, re-hiring and raising pensions/salaries he has cocked his nose at the Germans who are paying his bills, while at the same time building a level of expectation within Greece that will be very difficult to wind back if necessary. Maybe he is just going nuclear and saying “we are going to default, so get your check book out”. If so, I think that is a miscalculation – I think the Germans would let Greece default and leave the Euro. It would actually make it stronger as it removes an outlier from an appropriate policy perspective.
What has been disappointing from a Syriza policy perspective is any talk about cracking down on corruption, tax evasion and the cosy corrupt monopolies that enrich the top end of Greece. If they addressed some of those issues the discussions with Germany would be lot easier plus Greece would have a ton more fiscal revenue.
2 words: military coup.
Taiparas needs to watch out for the generals.
In EU circles, the hushed whispers about military junta perhaps being the best option to carry out austerity measures will start up…
All through Greek austerity, the Greek military have still somehow been receiving new billion dollar toys
“2 words: military coup.”
Funny that, I can feel a Pinochet type Chile thing coming on.
The EU wont give Greece up yet. Though they will probably kick off with a ‘hearts and minds’ propaganda campaign.
This is the outline plan that Varoufakis, Holland and Galbraith have put together over the last couple of years.
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/
@ nadis -Well analyzed, glad that someone sees the bigger picture.
@ Sanctuary
Like
Guess which of these two women was called a “fiery
human rights crusader” by the New York Times
https://twitter.com/KeaneBhatt/status/561045999284916224
This is how a police state protects “secrets”:
Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA and up to 80 years on circumstantial evidence
Sterling’s conviction should chill anyone who believes in investigative reporting in a free society
by MARCY WHEELER, Salon, 29 January 2015
The participants in the economy of shared tips and intelligence in Washington D.C., breathed a collective sigh of relief when, on January 12, the government announced it would not force James Risen to testify in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. “Press freedom was safe! Our trade in leaks is safe!” observers seemed to conclude, and they returned to their squalid celebration of an oppressive Saudi monarch.
That celebration about information sharing is likely premature. Because, along the way to the conviction of Sterling this week on all nine counts – including seven counts under the Espionage Act — something far more banal yet every bit as dear to D.C.’s economy of secrets may have been criminalized: unclassified tips.
To understand why that’s true, you need to know a bit about how the Department of Justice larded on charges against Sterling to get to what represents a potential 80-year maximum sentence (though he’s unlikely to get that). Sterling was accused — and ultimately convicted — of leaking two related things: First, information about the Merlin operation to deal flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran, as well as the involvement of a Russian engineer referred to as Merlin in the trial. In addition to that, the government charged Sterling separately for leaking a document (one which the FBI never found, in anyone’s possession): a letter Merlin included along with the nuclear blueprints he wrapped in a newspaper and left in the mailbox of Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. So the government convicted Sterling of leaking two things: information about the operation, and a letter that was used in the operation.
Then, having distinguished the operation from the letter, DOJ started multiplying. They charged Sterling for leaking the operation to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article about it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter about it: one leak, three counts of espionage.
Then they charged Sterling for improperly retaining the letter (again, FBI never found it, not in CIA’s possession, not in Sterling’s possession, and Merlin purportedly destroyed his version before anyone could find it in his possession). Then DOJ charged Sterling for leaking the letter to Risen, then charged him for causing Risen to attempt to write a 2003 New York Times article including it, then charged him for causing Risen to publish a book chapter including verbatim excerpts from it (apparently Risen is a better investigator than the FBI, because he found a copy): one letter, four more counts under the Espionage Act. ….
Read more….
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/28/this_is_how_a_police_state_protects_secrets_jeffrey_sterling_the_cia_and_up_to_80_years_on_circumstantial_evidence/
“Department of Justice.”
Sort of like the “Ministry for Truth.”
And the Ministry of “Defence”.
Homework assignment for “nadis” and Te Reo Putake
Research the following topics and then argue how the United States is not a dire threat to journalists:
1.) Giuliana Sgrena
2.) Al Jazeera office, Baghdad, April 8, 2003
3.) Palestine Hotel, Baghdad, April 8, 2003
4.) Abu Dhabi strikes, April 8, 2003
Nice goalposts, Moz. Did you shift them all by yourself?
Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?
I agree with Morrissey.
On top of the various examples he has presented, there is also the simple fact that the west has other powerful ways of controlling journalists.
You only get a job or get promoted if you say the right things.
Look at the Eleanor Catton affair to see the state of the media here and the role in suppressing dissent.
I recommend everyone watches Shadows of Liberty.
The story of Gary Webb shows what happens when a US journalist questions the system.
Sobering.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1543807/
This is lovely
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11394630
Talking to trees and other plants is healthy imo. And saying sorry is also healthy. And calling a tree ‘mate’ is very healthy.
There’s more and more research suggesting that plants have a kind of sentience beyond what we normally consider. Nature is intelligent and it behooves us to behave as if that were true, for our own sakes as much as for nature’s.
“And saying sorry is also healthy”
That one seem especially important all things considered.
You’d get more sense out of a tree root than you would out of people like this….
or this….
You, or at least the person who cut the tree root, is a brute.
That wasn’t the English word “mate” but the Maori word with the same spelling.
He was saying sorry because he had killed the poor tree. Very healthy indeed!
very funny al – the tree didn’t die.
Cutting some roots won’t kill a tree (depending on the tree, how big it is, how many roots are cut etc).
Hey, I had just say down after a long, lazy, mildly alcoholic brunch.
Let me have an (albeit possibly a weak one) attempt at a joke.
Sorry. A 😉 always makes things clearer.
There’s probably another pun there on the word mate to do with what marty was talking about, mea culpa mea mate, to mangle it completely, but I’ve been online too long to come up with something better.
It would make a nice poem 🙂
You,
or at least
the person who cut
the tree root,
is a brute.
That wasn’t the
English word
“mate”
but the Maori
word with the
same spelling.
He was saying sorry
because he had killed
the poor tree.
Very healthy
indeed!
as an aside maybe phils prose should be read as poetry 🙂
If we could actually read it 😛
Nice poem, I agree.
Talk to water too!
The following links say there is scientific evidence to show that water undergoes structural (not chemical) changes constantly depending upon different factors. Good happy thoughts or bad thoughts affect the structure of water doing good or harm to you. Take a look!
Structured Water : How music/words/thoughts affect structure of water[8 minutes]
Water effects :Sadhguru at IIT Madras (Part V) [9 minutes]
Water has memory: Very interesting doco [1 hour 25 min]
Good luck to the Queensland Labour Party today.
If the LNP get another term, Queenslanders can kiss their power grid goodbye, among other things.
If anyone needs some light relief – here is something very funny
Richard Dawkins Reads Hate Mail From “Fans”
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/richard-dawkins-reads-hate-mail-fans
Hilarious…
Could do the same with whale oil views on lefties….
In the thread about Syriza’s victory I picked out this sentence from one of the articles, “To start from priorities and then define the method.” I think it is very important that parties on the left do just that if they want to be taken seriously. Andrew Little seems to get this, since he has listed four priorities he intends to discuss over his coming speeches, and I hope he does not waver from it.
If we look at how, say, the Capital Gains tax was presented last election, the order ran the other way – it was put forward as a method for curbing house-price inflation and addressing inequality. But people were expected to trust that the stated objectives would follow from the method. And this is my point – when you declare an aim you are making a commitment, and people can assume that you will adapt your method accordingly. When you declare a method, insisting that some desired objective will result from it, you are effectively asking for unwarranted trust, since your commitment stops at the method. For this reason, the method-before-aim order comes across as more of a pitch than a promise.
That’s very good. So with the CGT, it should be presented later as a solution to some other aim? eg we’re going to do x, y, z (eg build more houses), and here is how we pay for it.
Yes, if you put the intended result first, it can be assumed you will adjust your method if the one you have in mind doesn’t work. For example, let’s say, “We are going to build more houses and we will pay for it with a capital gains tax.” However, house sales slow down and we are not getting enough from the CGT, so we are obliged to look for another way of paying for the houses. Whereas if we say, “A CGT will result in more houses being built” and this doesn’t happen, we are committing ourselves only to the CGT but not the houses – if things don’t result as we said they would, well too bad. I think people sniff out the difference intuitively without the need to analyse the arguments.
Quite right Olwyn, but it’s like you are having to teach Labour, the oldest political party in the country, the bloody ABC’s.
The thing is, National do not have to meet any such standards – their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public. And National voters know that the pitch is merely to placate waverers and ward off criticism. Labour does not have, and cannot have, that luxury. They did have something like it in the eighties, when aspiring young men of the city gravitated their way, but then they had not yet lost the trust of working class and National had not won over the aspiring young men. Now, they have no choice but to say what they mean and mean what they say. Convincingly.
… their commitment is to their cronies and their pitch is to the public
Which of course is exactly what Labour has been doing in recent years. That is, trying to be National lite and adopt their type of strategy. Cunliffe tried to shift the paradigm but he didn’t have enough time or support to do it. Now Labour has a new leader who understands that for Labour to succeed it must be the other way around – a commitment to ordinary NZers and a pitch to potential cronies. He started down that road this week just gone.
I agree. I voted for Andrew, and I am glad I did. I like the fact that he has four priorities he intends to discuss in the next little while – the SME one being his state-of-the nation speech. You know where you are with someone who can clearly articulate their priorities.
If Labour starts back on CGT again, it is a vote killer. Most people in Auckland know what the problem is, immigration and high cost of materials and commercialisation of housing and low wages that are not keeping up with inflation. There are so many other ways to solve or relive the housing in Auckland. For example in the old days, you could have a granny flat on your property or rent out a basement or whatever to help with the rent/mortgage etc or to house other members of the family like your elderly parents etc. Not only did it help to provide additional income for lower income people it also allowed a cheaper nicer place for affordable accommodation in better areas for renters.
Now, no way. Has to be an apartment to be affordable which has Body corp fees, no pets normally, and not so good for children. To get through a legal granny flat there is a huge amount of red tape to get one in a domestic house.
(BTW Nothing to do with RMA and the National RMA reforms are to make unaffordable housing and to polluters to wreck the environment!) You can bet no one has suggested Granny flats in the unitary plan – that because in NZ, democracy is a business, full of lobbyists – they actually don’t want real people who want housing to have a say, just barristers of people who have land and want to develop it (which will not be for affordable housing but for unaffordable housing to make a profit) or politicians who don’t really know much about housing.
Currently to create a granny flat/minor unit on dwelling in Auckland, you need to pay approx $10,000 straight to council for 2nd unit, approx $12,000 for separate water meter, god knows for separate power etc etc. Quite frankly that is why you have no affordable housing. Because of the above to create an affordable unit that is council compliant would be about $40,000 before you actually do the work. AT say $300 a week for rent it would take about 3 years before you paid back the council and the utility connections alone. But in most parts of Auckland you are not allowed to have a granny flat anyway. If the council allowed Granny flats cheaply then you could make about 20% more housing in Auckland for the cost of conversion of a 2nd kitchen.
Utilising existing housing stock would be the easiest way in the short term to create more housing in rental shortage areas.
What is wrong with this country is that people only have 1 idea and then they just keep bringing it up to solve a problem that is different to the solution. It is simpleton politics.
65% of Kiwis or something like that own property, it is their key asset and they do not want to lose it by some politician in Wellington trying to solve a housing problem in Auckland, that will not be solved by CGT but instead impact them on their retirement of their biggest asset, all while the top 1% are paying practically no tax. If anything should be learn’t by Greece, don’t target middle class to pay the taxes of the mistakes of the super rich. They see red, (and don’t vote for it).
If you wanna kill housing price rises (and none of the top 5% with a big property portfolio does), you tamp down bank lending, and you put a big fuck off stamp duty on every residential property transaction a person undertakes over 1 transaction every 3 years.
Also we cannot have 1/3 of NZ’s population living in 0.3% of NZ’s land area.
I’m totally for stamp duty if there is a tax on property, to make sure even the super rich and immigrants pay it too. Not only would it be an immediate way to get taxes, you could target for the poor. i.e. under $250k no stamp duty. First home owners, no stamp duty, etc. But should be very low like 1/2 percent or something like that. That way when you buy your 10 million dollar mansion in Auckland, hey presto, $50,000 in revenue for NZ taxpayer and all collected by title transfer and no way to get out of it by clever accounting.
Good arguments; just remember that real estate agents take 3% to 4% of the sale price, sometimes for doing sweet FA.
When you look at growing inequality – whereas it predicted that 1% of the world is going to own 99% of world’s assets, it is pretty clear that governments need to target the 1% owning all the assets. If you look at John Key, owns 50 million in assets but nobody really knows cos it’s in various trusts etc – that is who should be paying more tax and targeted.
Going on about the ‘greedy’ investors, ‘greedy baby boomers’ greedy landlords etc latest scapegoat, is missing the point. Why are some people owning 50 million in assets and gaining more and more every year? If that super rich group, paid more tax then maybe we could afford more for everybody else.
In Italy they actually targeted people driving about in Porsches and expensive cars, guess what, found a lot of them could not account for their cars, and many claimed subsidies and on the lowest tax bracket.
Labour and Greens need to stop whipping the PAYE middle class for tax and actually look at fair ways to target consumption such a stamp duty. Personally I would prefer someone (often coming into the country) to have to pay a small tax to purchase an expensive house. Even if stamp duty was on houses over 3 million – again it is stopping super expensive houses being speculated on and farm sales etc
Soon, in Auckland in places in the inner city they are going to reach that level with the constant speculation (often on the family home so not affected by any CGT if that came in) and that is actually locking out families that used to live in those areas.
There are many flexible and varied ideas which can be used. I generally agree that taxation via PAYE and GST is over used and taxation on capital/land/speculation/financial transactions under used.
Although to make a statement, I would introduce one more much higher PAYE threshold set at 10x the minimum wage = over $280,000 pa.
The numbers aren’t great from a stamp duty.
The total value of houses sales in NZ in 2014 was 40 billion. Assuming you get a 0.5% stamp duty on every one of those you’ll raise 200 million. Exclude all houses under 400,000 and you’ll raise 120 million.
120 million is equivalent to about 240 houses at the NZ median house price. Thats a rough idea of the demand impact of a stamp duty (studies into Tobin tax indicate the reduction in turnover is roughly equivalent to the tax raised. A heroic assumption but gives an idea)
What if a government passed into law that house values could only rise at inflation
Too inflexible and prone to failure in my view. Might be used as a short term emergency measure. Controlling down house prices over the longer term will require a range of powerful measures.
Had a feeling it would be full of fish hooks but if we were ever to move to a steady state economy rampant house booms would need sorting.
Price controls, subsidies, extra taxes etc may all work in the short term but eventually distort completely the market they are applied to. Imagine what would happen if the government mandated a maximum price of 29 cents per kilogram for bananas? Eventually two things would happen – supermarkets would sell no bananas, and there would be black market where you actually ended up paying higher prices.
The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.
Little bit hard to sell a house on the black market.
I’m all for
“”The best way to reduce the Auckland housing shortage is by incentivising people to act in their best interests. Build a fast rail from Auckland to Whangarei and Auckland to Hamilton. Any new Govt sector jobs have to go outside Auckland. Make it easier to build new houses in Auckland. Encourage high density housing initiatives. Bring in Singapore style traffic congestion charging.”
And would add if we as a nation invested in small town nz in stead of letting them fade away less people would drift to the big smoke.
Well actually no its not hard. There would be plenty of ways to avoid the price cap – paying too much for chattels, settling in 6 months time but renting at a premium in the mean time, losing at high stakes poker etc. Why would a person sell their property for less than waht someone is prepared to pay? Don’t underestimate peoples capacity to innovate. I hesitate to call anything around economic behaviour a law, but the closest you get is individuals acting in their own best interest. It’s been that way for millions of years of evolution.
One of my children is thinking about buying a first home – unless something amazing pops up, I don’t think there is any harm in waiting. Economic cycles and all that – anyone with grey hair can think of plenty of times in the past where we have had similar fears about asset prices. And guess what, eventually they revert.
Singapore already owns part of Auckland city shares, so why not. Just remember, what goes up must come down. Its a matter of time.
Fast fact: 80% of residential property development in Singapore is done by the public sector. That’s how important the Singaporean government views stable housing supply and pricing.
The Singaporean public sector develops everything from cheap social housing to million dollar luxury appartments.
I suspect that Singapore modelled its system off the NZ of the 1950s and 60s.
I’ve lived in Singapore – it’s a resource constrained (land + everything else) country and the deal the population has done with the govt is that they will give up a certain amount of civil rights in exchange for certainty around things like housing and minimum standard of living.
Not sure NZ’ers would embrace 1 or 2 room HDB housing.
Understood. It’s not exactly the Kiwi dream. Yet in the peculiar Auckland environment I think the market has shown that ‘cheap’ 2 bedroom 80m2 apartments will sell like hot cakes to young people and first home buyers.
Cripes I basically agree with all you’ve written here.
Majority in favour of CGT historically – as long as it is not on family home – which was exactly what Labour was proposing prior to the election:
“Vote Compass asked tens of thousands of people whether landlords should pay more tax on the sale of their rental properties. Nearly half either agreed or strongly agreed, while a third weren’t happy” http://tvnz.co.nz/vote-2014-news/compass-support-capital-gains-tax-6063134
Currently we have speculators making a killing in Auckland – tax ’em as well. The Nats really need to do something more in Auckland than make fancy (but useless) speeches.
I think the framing of the question is important. Essentially that survey asked: “Are you in favour of other people paying capital gains tax?” I’m surprised 100% weren’t in favour of that.
Speculators should be getting taxed under existing rules. If you buy an asset – any asset – for a trading or speculative purpose – any gains are taxed at your personal tax rate. The rules are in existence. All that needs to change is the threshold that is applied to assessment. At the moment it is something like 6 property transactions in a 2 year period. That could easily be lowered to capture more.
Politicians get houses, we get bullshit:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/10809/
Just read this off a Facebook group that I belong to:
“….I heard a rumour this morning, and would like to know if theres any truth to it,if there is, then its an outrage.
Ok, the rumour is…. that all those 3 bedrooms that people are being kicked out of,and extra bedrooms added are not for larger families at all.They are ‘social housing’ in the broadest sense of the word,meaning they are to be ‘shared; in the same manner as a boarding house,anyone single without dependants is to be put in this ‘shared social housing’ the small ablution block style houses reserved for those with dependants.
If theres anyone on here thats matey with a local MP, could they please get that MP to check and see if this is correct,as my old neighbour was offered a place in one and was told this was the arrangement for adults with no dependants nowadays by her tenancy manager…..”
Are you meaning state houses?
Yes.
Thanks for raising this. It does sound like something they would do, but it also could be getting stretched by rumour.
I have raised an OIA to see if this does exist. I have also suggested the person who posted this go to the media to get this investigated.
What a lovely shiny new set of punishments for “difficult” “clients” that enables. Whoopee!
How to say: “I give up, I got nothing”
with a witty little graphic
So how DOES one concede that one has been shown up, out-pointed, exposed as a fraud, a scoundrel and a liar?
A useful convention occasionally employed on this site is to type a colon (:) then the word roll then another colon (:)
: roll :
Remove the gaps and you will end up with this pleasing little image: 🙄
which says so eloquently: “I concede, and I skulk back to my corner in disgrace.”
vide….
I dunno about that M – they gave you quite a few chances to answer the question or provide the evidence but alas twas for nought.
No, Marty, you’re wrong. I conceded—admittedly after a bit of squabbling—their point that not a lot of journalists are actually in jail in the United States—pointing out that this happy state of affairs is entirely due to the radicals and liberals who wrote the Constitution, and to generations of activists who have fought for the right to speak freely in America.
I also pointed out, with a few examples, that the United States regime has been, and is, a grave threat to journalists all over the world.
Perhaps you need to read a little more thoroughly and widely on this topic. Here’s a good place to start….
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/journalism-under-attack-and-not-just-ferguson
Thank you for your concern my friend – you would have had more luck quoting figures for people of colour wrongly imprisoned or maybe indigenous people wrongly and unjustly imprisoned, even today – maybe some of them were journalists too.
NZ ranked 7th highest cost of living
Ahead of high income countries like France, UK, Luxembourg, Finland.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-30/visualizing-cost-living-around-world
Interesting link on your web site there about the “American Dream” – or lack of it any more.
The stats there are very similar to ones I’ve seen here in NZ… one that really caught my eye about child poverty:
“#15 Right now, more than one out of every five children in the United States is on food stamps”
Great stuff, but too obvious for the current “administration” here I suspect.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-30/death-american-dream-22-numbers
Graphene Could Double Electricity Generated From Solar .
Early days yet, but a promising development for solar.
15 years to deploy 25,000 Benmore dams worth of generation mate. I’ll be waiting in anticipation.
I can tell. Pull your pants up. If one of your doomsdays does occur, I suppose your last words will be an orgasmic “I told you so” that, sadly for you, nobody else will hear.
In the meantime, how’s the NZ ebola epidemic going? Aren’t we all due to have it by now?
Greece sacks heads of privatisation agency immediately:
The reasons are here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/30/greece-politics-privatisation-idUSA8N0UD01M20150130
There is an anti Greece pro capitalist article in the Kiwi blog. I put the above link there and made the following comment.
“I hope our stupid, lying neo-liberal, profit-obsessed, narrow, myopic and money-hungry pro wealthy, pro corporate, capitalist National/ACT government changes its agenda and stops all its shallow, pro rich and anti people, anti nation policies such as for example, the sale of state houses immediately. The uncontrolled, mega rich corporate driven capitalist free market agenda is a fraud on the ordinary people, the less privileged, the ‘under class’ and the poor”
What do you think?
No-one will take you seriously because you are obviously hiding your lack of knowledge behind over the top jargon which is so exaggerated it is meaningless.
You sound like an exaggerated version of Wolfie Smith.
What ‘knowledge’ do you think I am hiding and lacking?
I made a succinct comment to encapsulate everything that I abhor about the RW and our present destructive government.
I had never heard of Wolfie Smith. Will watch some episodes on You Tube to see if he is good or bad!
Thanks for your response.
Myopic means short sighted. Make a list of the other words you don’t understand, and we can explain them to you.