Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, ugly and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Lucky we have a marae that cares……..
‘Social agencies desperate to help their clients have joined the queues of people turning up at a south Auckland marae that opened its doors to the homeless.’
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, ugly and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
‘Housing New Zealand is evicting several tenants in Hamilton, just as Aucklanders are being offered $5000 to move into state homes there and in other provincial cities.
Angela Eastham, 49, who faces eviction this Friday, has multiple sclerosis and cares for a 21-year-old son with a brain injury and a 23-year-old autistic daughter.
Another family with four school-aged children faces eviction within 48 hours if Housing NZ wins a Tenancy Tribunal case this Thursday. The evictions come just days after Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett announced a scheme to pay up to $5000 for Aucklanders seeking social housing to move to the provinces from June 20.
She said Hamilton, Huntly, Ngaruawahia, Whanganui and Gisborne all had vacant state houses available.’
Musical chairs game by Paula Bennett. Unfortunately the wording is too true, Someone from Paula Bennett’s department announced that they will be offering the option of chairs placed near a public toilet and shower block for people evicted from houses. Some will even have sunlounges offering a shade for protection from the weather.
The comment from Bill English was that the National government is cognisant of the difficulties which some people are experiencing, and does not want to see them having to sleep in the streets and under bridges with no amenities.
/sarc
This is the Auckland marae that has acted to assist with emergency housing.
All those people so angry about the homeless situation could have a look to see what they can do in the interim to help until we can get real NZ politicians into Parliament instead of these marathon competitors in the Hunger Games.
If someone connected with the marae could start a GiveaLittle page for them, it would ease the burden on them to have some money as they are going to be run off their feet and putting so much time and resources into it that their own lives and families will suffer. They need help at Te Puea Memorial Marae. Can someone who knows them help them to do so, I think they would be accepted without difficulty. And while it is in the news, and people have it at the top of their minds, I think would be the most effective time to do it.
Meanwhile NZ the Neo liberal paradise has been rated the 4th most prosperous country in the world across the balance of 89 variables by the Legatum Institute global annual survey, 1 ahead of the left poster child Sweden.
News flash Paul having palpitation as he searches for new daily header to reflect reality
Why are Nordic countries rated so highly then, with nz, thus all very similar over 89 variables, are not the Nordic countries the poster child’s for social democracy Thus nz can hardly be a neo liberal nightmare and they not
Over a third of coral is dead in parts of the Great Barrier Reef, scientists say
‘We knew this was coming.
For months, coral reef experts have been loudly, and sometimes mournfully, announcing that much of the treasured Great Barrier Reef has been hit by “severe” coral bleaching, thanks to abnormally warm ocean waters.
Bleaching, though, isn’t the same as coral death. When symbiotic algae leave corals’ bodies and the animals then turn white or “bleach,” they can still bounce back if environmental conditions improve. The Great Barrier Reef has seen major bleaching in some of its sectors — particularly the more isolated northern reef — and the expectation has long been that this event would result in significant coral death, as well.
Now some of the first figures confirming that are coming in. Diving and aerial surveys of 84 reefs by scientists with the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Australia — the same researchers who recently documented at least some bleaching at 93 percent of individual reefs — have found that a striking 35 percent of corals have died in the northern and central sectors of the reef.’
To repeat…. because it needs repeating every night people repeat sleeping outside.
No wonder we don’t have enough houses to house the vulnerable… this government has sold them for fucks sake …… and let a couple hundred thousand more people into the country as well …
what the fuck did John Key expect?
What a complete dumbarse dope
. . . .
unless it was intentional ….. so that house prices would be driven high and the incumbent re-elected…. in that case it makes John Key a ……. traitor ……. amongst more and worse …..
. . . .
this entire situation is abominable and Key and his National Party members and supporters truly astounding.
Rising house prices which leads to increasing mortgages that feed in to the economy to produce a rising GDP and thus he, and National, would be able to proclaim a growing economy.
The reality is that a few people are getting richer on paper while the real economy collapses beneath them.
What if gorillas are a dying species and really precious to the earth. And we are fecund and destructive and harming other species. Perhaps we should shoot the boy, and his parents who are less alert than meerkats, and not as concerned in looking after their young as spiders.
Not all that hard. Somewhere around the “shoot the boy” and parent-blaming, your comment got routed through the “low probability of valuable content” filter and thereby avoided serious consideration 🙂
But but the reasoning is all factual. But the low probability of value content attention applies to anything really serious on blogs these days, hardly anyone can run their minds off the old familiar rails and gaze at a different landscape. they might encounter themselves. They don’t want to face that, and turn instead to the small and large brutalities on television, say Game of Thrones.
Hey, look, gorillas are one of the few non-human life-forms that approach my pet test for a sentience level we have a duty to preserve, which is “can they write a story about what they did on their summer holiday”.
But the fact is that an agitated gorilla can easily kill a kid by accident, even if it actually means to protect the sprog. And no parent is perfect at stopping their sprog doing something silly. Let’s say the gorilla was a human being who you couldn’t talk to for whatever reason, was growing agitated and was dragging a kid around by his ankle? Yeah, I wouldn’t judge a cop who shot the adult, or one who didn’t. It’s a shitty call to have to make, but sometimes there’s no winning move where everybody walks away unharmed.
“Distraction” is the wrong word, I think. It implies that people would watch and care about continued stories on Syrian refugees.
Many would just switch over to something else. It’s the difference between “hey, look over here, don’t look over there!” and “Bored now. What else will I look at?”
What has happened to the stunning news that Hilary Clinton/Clinton Foundation quite possibly will be indicted on Racketeering charges, it was breaking news yesterday and the FBI have said if the charges do not go ahead they will release their findings publicly anyway. Why aren’t our MSM all over this, even for just headline purposes, its not like they aren’t in the business of trying to break news. This will change completely the face of the upcoming presidential elections. It seems this is being swept under the carpet.
Another event which was swept under the carpet is the under/overpaying of accommodation supplement payments by our own government, and discovering it too close to an upcoming election and choosing to sweep it under the carpet. Is this becoming a common practice among our people in power?
I was listening to a podcast a few months ago about sexual abuse by Bill Clinton being covered up, and they recommended anyone who was in doubt about the Clinton’s shady dealings to read “Clinton Cash”, by Peter Schweizer.
It basically outlines how they profited into the millions by blurring the lines between charity, business and politics.
“General Sir Richard Shirreff is a high ranking retired British military General. He warns that nuclear war with Russia could happen within a year, if NATO doesn’t beef up its defence presence in the Baltic states.”
“Who is being aggressive? For the past few years the drumbeat for a conflict with Russia has been building almost to the point of hysteria. Now there is talk of a war – including a nuclear war – that could destroy civilization. On this edition of CrossTalk we ask who benefits from such dangerous talk.
CrossTalking with John Laughland, Nebojsa Malic, and Hall Gardner.”
‘Chomsky to RT: US and its NATO intervention force may spark nuclear war’
Gee, that’s a tough question, but my money’s on the one that invaded its neighbour’s territory and thereby made its other neighbours shit themselves. That seems pretty aggressive. Maybe if the fear of being forcibly absorbed into a Russian empire hadn’t been proved justified quite so often for these neighbours, they wouldn’t be clamouring for NATO protection in the wake of this latest instance – but what would I know?
That’s a pretty compelling argument you make there, One Two, but, comprehensive though it is, there are nevertheless a few things you could clarify for me:
1. Did the Russian Federation not annex Crimea and I just imagined it?
2. Russian military not fighting the Ukrainian military inside Ukraine, then?
3. Poland and the Baltic republics actually not keen for NATO to protect them from similar antics and just faking their concern, maybe?
4. Poland and the Baltics lack previous experience of being forcibly absorbed into a Russian empire and all the historians are wrong?
“A Czech veteran opposed to the “aggressive missions” of the US in Europe has decided to take a stand against the major drills across central and Eastern Europe by launching a semi-naked protest.
Martin Zapletal, a member of a group of Czech and Slovakian soldiers opposed to Nato, described the US soldiers as “aggressors, killers and occupiers” as Dragoon Ride II paraded through the country over the weekend…
1. Did the Russian Federation not annex Crimea and I just imagined it?
ANSW: Over 80% of the residents of Crimea, including the Tartars, voted to return to Russia.
Further, you gotta be dreaming if you think that Russia was about to let Sevastapol turn into a NATO base.
2. Russian military not fighting the Ukrainian military inside Ukraine, then?
ANSW:
Russian regular troops who asked were given leave from their units to fight a Ukraniain military that was attacking civilian towns and apartment blocks, in Eastern Ukraine, yes.
3. Poland and the Baltic republics actually not keen for NATO to protect them from similar antics and just faking their concern, maybe?
ANSW: NATO cannot protect these countries. The Baltic states in particular are totally indefensible. Further NATO is supposed to increase the security of its members – instead its actions moving armed forces right to Russia’s borders reduce the security of its member states.
Romania, due to the presence of the new US ABM system, has now made itself a strategic target in Russian military contingency plans.
4. Poland and the Baltics lack previous experience of being forcibly absorbed into a Russian empire and all the historians are wrong?
ANSW: Maybe you should remember your history. The Germans killed approx 27M Soviet citizens. That’s why the Soviet Union occupied those countries, as a buffer zone against future European aggression. Which is what Russia is facing right now.
Speaking of history, maybe you should also remember how France tried to sack Moscow under Napolean. European aggression against Russia has been the norm in history, not the other way around.
1. So, no I’m not imagining it.
2. So, yes Russia does have its military fighting Ukrainians in Ukraine.
3. Whether NATO will actually be able to protect those countries or not is irrelevant to the fact that they want somebody to protect them.
4. The people living in those countries find Soviet propaganda less credible than you do, obviously. I’ll take their word for it over yours any day. Also: these countries’ experience of Russian imperialism goes back way before Soviet times. They know their history a little better than you do.
You’re a fool if you believe the mood of the ordinary people on the streets of Riga and Vilnius is the same as the bought by USD political elite of those countries.
BTW people in the former eastern bloc countries have massively sensitive propaganda BS detectors because of their Warsaw Pact experience. Whereas us in the west, we’re stupid enough to believe that we’re not being propagandised so we don’t tend to look out for it.
Which is odd, because on The Standard, the theme of a highly biased pro-establishment narrative mass media, is taken for granted.
Been out doing vox pops, have you? Everything I’ve seen suggests no love for the Soviets and their modern counterparts in Poland or the Baltic republics. And they do indeed have powerful bullshit detectors, which is exactly why they don’t trust Putin and are looking to the defence of their countries.
But it will not allow Russia or China to run affairs even 1,000km from their own borders.
Your conspiracy theory that the Americans are “running affairs” in eastern Europe is merely comical; your belief that Russia and China have some kind of right to imperial power not comical at all.
Thats neatly countered Colonial Viper. You have been following your history.
Did you study it at uni or is it an interest of yours?
Our entire political team down here in Dunedin has an interest in history. You need to know some history or else contemporary politics becomes meaningless without context.
My interest is informal; I never studied history at university (my background is engineering and technical).
It certainly is important to look beyond the facile arguments that the RW come up with. Do you really know your stuff so well that it is 99% right?
I am convinced that the guts of it is right – minimum 85% to 90% right. Mostly it is just relaying things that the western style of propaganda (= propaganda by omission).
I like to read and listen to pieces by journalists and experts like Pilger, Hedges, Cohen, Wilkerson, Leveretts. These people are not pro-Russian, but they are definitely pro-reality.
Sigh. Germany putting 150 divisions there was “massing troops along the Russian border.” NATO having one armoured brigade rotate between six of Russia’s neighbours and maintaining around four divisions nowhere near Russia as a ready-reaction force, on the other hand, is not. You should spend less time on Russian propaganda sites, it’s leading you to present delusional fantasies as though they were facts.
Then try doing it. You’re fawning over someone who’s an apologist for a very ugly right-wing nationalist authoritarian regime in Russia.
Again, you are wrong here PM. Putin is a democratically elected and very centrist leader in Russia, and he is extremely popular for it, with personal approval ratings in the low to mid 80% range.
Try and find me a western leader with approval ratings anywhere near that figure. John Key was in the 60% range for a while, I guess.
And if you were at all genuinely concerned about “ugly right wing nationalist authoritarian regimes” you would be kicking the shit out of the government in Kiev, and their Stepan Bandera inspired paramilitary supporters, who have been using heavy weapons and terror tactics against their own citizens in eastern Ukraine for the last 3 years.
Sigh. Germany putting 150 divisions there was “massing troops along the Russian border.” NATO having one armoured brigade rotate between six of Russia’s neighbours and maintaining around four divisions nowhere near Russia as a ready-reaction force, on the other hand, is not.
Correct.
That singly NATO armoured brigade, I presume it is up to 2000 combat troops plus support personnel, has an effective fighting time span in a serious scrap with the Russians of under 12 hours. Being generous there. It’ll probably be 180 minutes or so.
The real threat to Russia is from the Romanian based US ABM system which uses interceptor missiles which can be nuclear tipped, and no one would ever know the difference. Not even the Romanians at the base. (Putin specifically mentioned this in a speech a couple of days ago).
That’s the real strategically destabilising factor that NATO has put on Russia’s door step.
NATO is supposed to make the environment more secure for its members; in fact it is doing exactly the opposite.
Putin is a democratically elected and very centrist leader in Russia…
So is Assad in Syria, according to you and Chooky.
…and he is extremely popular for it…
So was Hitler. These things in themselves mean little. Putin is in fact running a kleptocracy with no democratic or media oversight, in which nationalist authoritarianism is the dominant political approach and collaboration with the official Church hierarchy to promote order, obedience and conservative values is the dominant ideological approach. In political terms, he has more in common with General Franco than with any leaders of western democracies.
So was Hitler. These things in themselves mean little. Putin is in fact running a kleptocracy with no democratic or media oversight
Putin is an extremely popular leader – more popular than even our John Key – and United Russia won their internationally monitored elections fair and square.
And bear in mind that most of the Russians who do not support Putin…are people who think that he isn’t hard line enough and that he isn’t Communist enough.
Yes Putin is running a system where billionaire oligarchs have a lot of say in what happens in Russia…but sorry mate so does every western FVEY nation.
As for media oversight – you clearly have no idea. There is a strong Atlanticist leaning private sector mass media in Russia, both TV and in print.
And my understanding is that newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are available on line in Russia, translated into Russian on the same day.
Bottom line is that the Russians do some pretty shite underhanded things for $$$, and their mid and local levels of government are often corrupt and utterly inefficient, but guess what, every country has shit that it needs to deal with.
A brief respite came Thursday — the day he cleared the number of delegates needed to be the nominee — when Trump gave his only scripted speech of the week at an energy conference in Bismarck, N.D. Standing between two teleprompters, Trump seemed to find his confidence not only as a winner but as the Republican nominee that many want him to be. Trump argued that returning to more use of coal and lifting environmental regulations are keys to making the nation wealthy again.
Rumour.. McDonald Trump will announce either Glenn Beck or Ronald Mcdonald as his running mate.
(To paraphrase Obama..”For Fox News people..that’s a Joke.”)
Watched some TV the other night for the first time in a long time, and…
…why anti-smoking ads (presumably) on the grounds its effects will afflict others, and why no high alcohol content ads on the grounds (presumably) that spirits won’t be doing you any favours (unlike ‘lolly water’ apparently) and yet – buy a car, a SUV, a 4WD or a whatever and fly to Australia or wherever for only $149 or whatever because carbon’s fine and global warming’s a big fat nothing, or maybe, if it’s not, we got it covered…(?)
…while 1000 homes in Auckland blank out off the back of some fairly normal wind and rain – again.
Chris Trotter did a piece on Labour, as he often does, taking the pulse, looking for rashes, and checking the health of eyes, ears, and throat, all important features in a capable and active politician.
These, interesting paragraphs – A genuinely “broad church” party of the Left would balance off Andrew Little with Hone Harawira, Jacinda Ardern with Laila Harré, Stuart Nash with John Minto, Kelvin Davis with Annette Sykes, Grant Robertson with Julie Anne Genter and Annette King with Metira Turei. The whole spectrum of alternative power: from Soft Centrists to Hard Leftists; would be covered.
That Labour’s fatal apostasy [the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief or principle] has made such a caucus impossible is the besetting tragedy of progressive New Zealand politics. Its embrace of neoliberalism in the mid-1980s left Labour with the political equivalent of syphilis. Sadly, every one of the many attempts to administer the Penicillin of genuine progressivism (God bless you Jim, Rod, Laila!) was rejected. Consequently, Labour’s bones have crumbled and its brain has rotted. Small wonder that the other opposition parties are reluctant to get too close! https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2016/05/an-opposition-worthy-of-name.html
This coming year has got to sort out the sheep from the goats. We have to draw on the principles and the name of Savage and be resolute. This is the time of the Hunger Games, not the Disabled Games where if a competitor stumbles the others turn round to give aid in a spirit of friendly competition. The neo liberals won’t stop until they advance their theory and prove that it works, or doesn’t, and whoever gets hurt in the process will be considered to be not of the right stuff. Try looking at Cold Lazarus by Dennis Potter. Some will probably be on Youtube.
We have people against us who are ruthless, and prepared to divide off society into us and them, who will repeat the Highland Clearings on a huge scale, or who may start a crisis ending in war so they can repeat the Nasti experiment.
One of the most terrifying things of that was that it could happen at all, arising from a civilised country with great philosophers. Our minds are so plastic that they can adapt to any thought and rationalise it.
edited
If increasing taxes has no discernible effect on reducing smoking rates, then why keep doing it?
It seems that the diminishing returns have basically fallen to zero, so the reason for increasing the tax isn’t about reducing smoking. Is it down to:
A. racism?
B. another hit on the punishment pinata of poor life choices/bene bashing?
C. milking addicts for cash (Tax Cuts anyone)?
D. being seen to be doing something, cos if it worked before, it’ll work forever??
E. Tariana & the Maori Party wanted it?
I don’t know, but based on the research presented it seems suspect.
I didn’t see it, but wouldn’t be surprised. After all, the current government’s already made cigarettes worth robbing a dairy for, so it’s not like Labour bunging another tenner on the price would make things worse – might as well rake in the cash.
For extra points, King could spend the additional money collected on a commission of enquiry into why poor people don’t have any cash.
Back when you could buy individual cigarettes and they were only 900% excise tax by weight, an increase in tax would result in a reduction in use (initially in number of cigarettes/day, but then reduction in weight per rollie).
But the law of diminishing returns means that the effects are no longer as obvious. I’d also be intrigued if there’s any research as to the size of the tobacco black market – it grows just as capably as dope in NZ.
The G7’s problems show that many of us have recognised that trade deals have made the world a playground for the super-rich – they are part of our staggeringly unequal economy. But the G7 is unable to think beyond the interests of the world’s elite. It’s up to us to reclaim our democracy as citizens, and the movements against TTIP and Ceta are the frontline.
What? Frozen? In 2014 this was the news:
RNZ in ‘decent shape’ despite funds freeze | Stuff.co.nz http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/…/RNZ-in-decent-shape-despite-funds-freeze
May 8, 2014 – Despite suffering frozen funds for the past six years, RNZ chief executive Paul … RNZ chairman Richard Griffin said financial constraints meant the broadcaster …
RNZ had about 500,000 regular listeners but wanted to double that in 10 years.
Forty per cent of RNZ’s listeners were older than 65, and mostly Pakeha.
30 May 2016
More ice for Radio NZ in Budget « LiveNews.co.nz
livenews.co.nz/2016/05/30/more-ice-for-radio-nz-in-budget/
1 day ago – Budget 2016 once again left our only public broadcaster, Radio NZ (RNZ), worse off. After eight years of funding freezes, you have to wonder if RNZ is being … The Government, however, has frozen RNZ’s budget at 2008 levels, which means … The current National-led Government may be actively de-prioritising its role, but …
Comment – from Geoff Simmons economist for Morgan Foundation on NBR (originally on Gareths World.) ‘Pass the parcel on’ >… and
(Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson on Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.) The budget freeze on Radio NZ continues, the clear decline in public interest journalism elsewhere. It must be time for a rethink of this sector.
Meanwhile, there is almost $500m extra for defence and intelligence. Priorities…
apparently the govt calling for public submissions for what should be printed on plain packaged tobacco lol does this mean us smokers are gonna be treated to reading hate messages from all the health snobs out there ?…such as die you bastards how dare you try an take the easy way out when we all have to live forever !!You gotta laugh by calling for submissions they make the whole process sound like its democracy in action rather than a fascist subjugation of the rights of 500 thousand newzealanders !! you gotta laugh when prob at least a third of the population is on a form of happy pill acceptable because youre local quack dispenses it and while rot gut fizzy drink is peddled in enormous quantities to the poorest members of our society at a cheaper than cheap price and the consumtion of this muck despite health officials repeatedly stating the very serious connection to obesity not a word is said against it .It just shows the power of lobbyists ie the maori party ash etc and the short sighted righteousness of the health snob.
We can afford another embassy in South America. The one in Colombia will cost some tens of millions over two years, and give us about five down there.
I remember the touching scene when David Lange returned to the one in India closed down by the cheese parers, and the previous caretaker was still in a little hut keeping guard waiting for our return.
Now we are adding Colombia to our set though we only do some tens of millions of trade with them each year. I hope the trade will match the cost. Or perhaps the USA sees it as a strategic point in their fight against drugs and General Mayhem (or one of the Generals somewhere), They might have said to us you are a good little ally and you can open an embassy and keep us covered on events through 5Eyes. Heres something towards the cost.
“Marxist economist and game theorist Yanis Varoufakis confided in crowds gathered at a Welsh arts festival on Monday that he has some admiration for the late ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, despite largely viewing her legacy as damaging…
He had been invited to discuss the origins of the eurozone crisis, the relentless Troika (European Central Bank-International Monetary Fund-European Commission) austerity that followed, and a potential path ahead for Europe and Greece.
Reflecting on commentary Thatcher once gave on the European Central Bank (ECB), he said it was the “most pertinent” ever made.
“It was a very nuanced and sophisticated criticism – who controls interest rates in Europe controls the politics of Europe, and that money cannot be depoliticized,” he added…
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All of the Government’s five options for improving Auckland’s links include or prioritise tunnels and bridges for cars, double-cab utes and trucks ahead of walking, cycling and rail. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Labour Government has brought forward plans to start building and/or drilling a second Waitematā harbour ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes: Green’s co-leader Marama Davidson just keeps digging the hole she is in deeper. First she showed her bitter antipathy towards white CIS (same gender as birth) men. Then she walked it back to all men. On Tuesday night on TV1 News she said, “…overwhelmingly it ...
as Auckland’s cantankerous mayor stumbles from one crisis to the next, the hope is not that Wayne Brown will learn on the job – that’s almost certainly a lost cause – but that Aucklanders will manage to come together and limit the damage that he threatens to inflict on the ...
Wow, it’s the end of March already. Here are a few of the smaller items that caught our attention over the last week. We need better trucks Newsroom reported on a Ministry of Transport report showing just how dirty our current truck fleet is. A heavy diesel truck costs ...
Listening to RNZ yesterday, I heard that the government was making a major announcement about a second crossing of the Waitematā. I was fairly surprised.I’d have thought with it being election year the last thing the government would want to be talking about was a massive Auckland transport project. Especially ...
I cracked open a fortune cookie with a family group after dinner. My loved ones got warm, inspiring messages such as my son’s: ‘You will be successful in business and society’. Nice. I got this one: “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.” By coincidence, I had already drafted a ...
THOMAS CRANWELL: When ideology turns violent – the political and media backing behind the Posie Parker mob Thomas Cranwell writes – ——————————– Similar to other countries, the transgender movement in New Zealand is not a grassroots organisation but instead is an increasingly ...
It is a lovely autumn morning.The sun is shining. The birds in Kōwhai park are twittering.There is music playing on Today FM.You can hardly tell that the children at Kia Kaha primary school are being greenhouse gassed.It is not just happening at Kia Kaha Primary School.It is happening to all ...
Poor old Mike Hosking! In today’s Herald, such is his visceral antipathy to our current government, that he is reduced to wrestling with himself in trying to understand how it is that despite its many failings – in his eyes at least – the Labour government is somehow ahead in ...
Air pollution kills, and dirty diesel vehicles are a major source of it. Cleaning them up has enormous social benefits in avoided deaths and hospitalisations. How much? Billions of dollars: A report quietly released by the Ministry of Transport in July shows tighter regulation of vehicle imports for air ...
Via one of my lovely Twitter sources, the sardonic and interesting @johubris … the following ‘poll question’ has been recently distributed: “Thinking about your life and your country now, what is the most important issue that you want to see the New Zealand Government addressing?” This qualifies as push-polling, which ...
On Tuesday night, former Forestry Minister Stuart Nash was sacked for corruption, after the Prime Minister discovered he had disclosed confidential cabinet discussions to his donors. Its since emerged that Jacinda Ardern's office knew of this disclosure, but didn't act on the obvious breach of the Cabinet manual, and didn't ...
Buzz from the Beehive Whoa, there – we can’t keep up! Suddenly, the PM’s ministerial team has unleashed a slew of press statements. Sixteen announcements have been posted on the Beehive website since our last check. This burst of activity (we wondered) might be the result of them responding positively ...
Big transport news today with the government beginning public engagement on options for the Waitemata Harbour Connections project. This project has had an incredibly long history, with previous versions somehow managing to be incredibly expensive, detrimental to most of the transport outcomes we are trying to achieve in Auckland, and ...
If ever there was an example of complacency about corruption and integrity in New Zealand politics it’s the fact that the Prime Minister’s Office knew back in 2021 that Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash was feeding privileged Cabinet information to business donors but did nothing about it. This is one of ...
Open access notables "Despite the potential for positive methane–climate feedbacks from global wetlands, most Earth System Models (ESMs) and Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) that informed the last Assessment Report of the IPCC do not directly incorporate this process."Publishing in Nature Climate Change, Zheng et al. unpack the implications of this ...
Among its ‘go slow’ on climate measures, the Government chose to delay tighter regulation of vehicle imports for air pollution for six years because it would have increased vehicle purchase costs. Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government continues to backtrack on moves to reduce emissions, with three news items ...
Stuart Nash’s downfall appears to have had its beginnings with one of the players from the “Dirty Politics” scandals of 2014. Simon Lusk, a close associate of Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater, one of the key figures in Nicky Hagar’s “Dirty Politics” expose, has been associated with Stuart Nash. Lusk has ...
Worried if this election will be shellacked by “the culture war”? That arrived ages ago. And, one side is definitely in panic mode, even if that’s not being admitted right now. Because of that, they’re reverting yet again to straight up… culture wars. Yes, fellow traveler, the Party who ...
All About Climate is a Youtube channel dedicated to communicating climate science and combating misinformation about global warming. It is run by Roshan Salgado D'Arcy - or 'Rosh' for short. He is a geology graduate with an MSc in climate change and is currently reading for a PhD in the communication of ...
ChatGPT is an interesting little beastie. I have only really started experimenting with it recently – not because I have any interest in using it for my own writing projects, but because I enjoy pushing and prodding the AI in strange directions. I have spent an inordinate amount of ...
The science of climate change is clear: we need to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, and we cannot burn even a fraction of those already discovered. So naturally, Labour is offering oil companies more exploration permits: The Government is offering companies another opportunity to search for ...
There are two keyboards in my office. I hammer at one a lot more than the other.But some days — today, for instance, after a few days of steeping myself in toxicity —that other keyboard can really come into its own.I learned to play the piano as a kid, went ...
Is the government imploding? Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has had to sack one of his more effective (and likeable) ministers, while another (from the Green Party) has insulted many of the adult population. For his part, Hipkins had appeared to be shaping up well since he took over the ...
Mobbed! As Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s (Posie Parker’s) opponents surged forward, her only protecters were a handful of burly security guards who surrounded their client and began forcing a path through what was now a howling mob. At least one video recording shows the diminutive Keen-Minshull, a terrified rag-doll, eyes dulled by ...
Buzz from the Beehive It looks like Marama Davidson must revile white sis males – or some other group of our population – three more times before she gets the heave-ho as one of Chris Hipkins’ ministers. That’s the conclusion to be drawn from the PM’s treatment of Stuart Nash, ...
For a serial offender like Stuart Nash, it was inevitable that another skeleton would emerge from his closet, and end his ministerial career. This one though, was a whopper. Previously, Nash had tried to tell the Police how to do their job. He had also tried to tell the courts ...
Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash was sacked last night for violating Cabinet Collective Responsibility rules, when it was revealed he disclosed sensitive Government information to business supporters who had donated money to him. The breach of the Cabinet Manual was enough to land him in trouble, but the fact that it ...
Some good news last week with the Council confirming that Te Hā Noa – Victoria St Linear Park will go ahead and with construction starting on 11 April – though with a few fishhooks. Te Hā Noa, a renewed Victoria Street, is the next big project in Auckland Council’s Midtown ...
Stuart Nash’s assurances to Prime Minister Chris Hipkins that there were no further examples of him breaching the Cabinet Manual became meaningless with the release of emails from Nash sharing Cabinet discussions with business people. The Prime Minister had no choice but to sack Nash as a Minister with immediate ...
Hi,Just a quick online-only update after yesterday’s newsletter, How Michael Organ Weaponised the Family Court... and Sean Plunket. First up — wow. Thanks for all the support, and to all those who shared their own personal stories in the comments. And welcome to any new Webworm readers.I just wanted ...
Let that sink in for a moment - Christopher Luxon, who has spent the last year demonising Māori, wants Marama Davidson to apologise to white men.You will likely have seen the video, or read about it. Marama Davidson rushing along Princes St on Saturday evening, the road that runs between ...
Stuart Nash, the great-grandson of former Prime Minister Sir Walter Nash, has lost his political career. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Stuart Nash was sacked for telling donors what happened in Cabinet. Wellington’s City and Regional Councils are going cold on light rail plans. Wayne Brown is under ...
NZ First Leader Winston Peters is sympathising with Stuart Nash and defending him but dodging questions on whether he would be welcome in New Zealand First. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins last night sacked Nash from the Cabinet after an email he had sent to two of his campaign donors ...
So, after interfering with the police, and then interfering with immigration decisions, Stuart Nash has finally been sacked: Stuart Nash has been sacked as a minister, after Stuff revealed he had emailed business figures, including donors, detailing private Cabinet discussions. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed the people Nash emailed ...
Nearly 25% of mortgages in Auckland are deemed at risk in a 1-in-100 year flood event. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Once a year, every year, from now on, in our not-so-slow-cooking climate crisis, there will be a moment when the most important number in Aotearoa’s own personal, national ...
Item One: About a confected crisis Please bear with me for a moment, readers outside Auckland, I wish to sound the klaxon. Auckland, we have until 11pm today to have our say. About what? About this, as copied and pasted from Pippa Coom’s Facebook page:The "austerity" budget is built on ...
Buzz from the Beehive Yet again, the statement we were looking for could not be found on the Beehive website. Nor was it on the Scoop or Green Party websites. But – come to think of it – we are probably wasting our time by searching. Our quest is for the ...
The following is from a speech given by Arundhati Roy at the Swedish Academy on March 22, 2023, at a conference called Thought and Truth Under Pressure and reprinted from Literary Hub. I thank the Swedish Academy for inviting me to speak at this conference and for affording me the privilege ...
After almost two decades of racism, Australia is finally getting off its "stop the boats" bullshit. But don't worry, racists - Michael Wood has your back!The Government wants to increase the time it can detain without a warrant people seeking asylum en masse from four days to 28 ...
Last year, the Education and Workforce Committee recommended that the government legislate for pay transparency to prevent employers from secretly discriminating. This ought to be a bread and butter issue for Labour - discrimination sees women (and particularly Māori and Pasifika women) paid significantly less than men. But since then ...
Thomas Cranmer writes – ———— An unruly mob in Albert Park has catapulted New Zealand into the global headlines with ugly images that may become iconic in the debate about the dangers of transgenderism. ———— Bravo Kellie-Jay Keen. She did the job that needed to be done. For all the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global warming is melting the Arctic ice cap, and that’s having unforeseen effects on the world’s weather — even thousands of miles away from the North Pole. Some climate scientists have begun to link increasingly common heat waves in Europe to what is ...
Hot on the heels of the demotion of former police Minister Stuart Nash for breaching the Cabinet Manual, Radio New Zealand has revealed the close links between lobbyists and politicians- an area of New Zealand politics that is completely unregulated. The evidence in Guyon Espiner’s series Mate, Comrade, Brother, the ...
Over a million New Zealanders will receive a little extra to help with the cost of living as a result of our 1 April changes. Around the world, inflation is causing costs to rise and we’re feeling it here at home. In tough times, we need to support those who ...
With benefit changes coming into effect tomorrow, the Green Party is calling on the Government to lift benefits to liveable levels to make sure everyone has what they need to thrive. ...
Following decades of work by the Green Party alongside the organics sector, people will finally be able to be confident that products labelled organic have met standards. ...
The Green Party supports immediate Government action to close the pay gap as called for in an open letter released today by the Human Rights Commission and 50 other organisations. ...
The Green Party is today welcoming the release of the Government’s waste strategy, but says it has a big gap without action on the container return scheme for beverage containers. ...
The Government’s decision to introduce ‘mass arrivals’ legislation goes against the values we all share of Aotearoa as a place where all people are treated fairly, the Green Party says. ...
MINISTER DAVIDSON MUST RESIGN AFTER 'VIOLENCE' COMMENTS Marama Davidson should stand down as ‘Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence’ for the clear and outrageous statement she made at the Posie Parker protest that ‘white straight men’ are the cause of violence. Her offensive, racist, and sexist remarks ...
In response to Newshub and Amelia Wade’s obvious and ham-fisted attempt at a typical and predicted political hit job. As any politically aware reporter would know, any Cabinet subcommittee has a duty and obligation as a part of any government to respond to any UN declaration, in this case ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today and in your busy lives turning up to this meeting. Forty five years ago, in Howick, often described as racist, and where few Maori lived because it had been a ‘Fencible’ settlement at the time of the Anglo-Maori ...
The Green Party has marked the National Party’s new education policy and given it a fail, especially for its failure to address the underlying drivers of school performance. ...
“This is it; 2023 will be the last opportunity New Zealand has to get a government that will confront the climate emergency with the urgency it demands,” says the Green Party’s co-leader and climate change spokesperson, James Shaw. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised in their State of the Planet speech today. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party after the election must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised today. ...
You will never truly understand, from the pictures you’ve seen in the newspapers or on the six o-clock news, the sheer scale of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. ...
We’re boosting incomes and helping ease cost of living pressures on Kiwis through a range of bread and butter support measures that will see pensioners, students, families, and those on main benefits better off from the start of next month. ...
The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government. ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, departs for Europe today, where she will attend a session of the NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting in Brussels and make a short bilateral visit to Sweden. “NATO is a long-standing and likeminded partner for Aotearoa New Zealand. It is valuable to join a session of ...
A secure facility that will house protected information for a broad range of government agencies is being constructed at RNZAF Base Auckland (Whenuapai), Public Service, Defence and GCSB Minister Andrew Little says. The facility will consolidate and expand the government’s current secure storage capacity and capability for at least another ...
From today, 1.8 million flu vaccines are available to help protect New Zealanders from winter illness, Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall has announced. “Vaccination against flu is safe and will be a first line of defence against severe illness this winter,” Dr Verrall said. “We can all play a part ...
Associate Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage Willow-Jean Prime has congratulated Professor Rangi Mātāmua (Ngāi Tūhoe) who was last night named the prestigious Te Pou Whakarae o Aotearoa New Zealander of the Year. Professor Mātāmua, who is the government's Chief Adviser Mātauranga Matariki, was the winner of the New Zealander ...
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta has announced further sanctions on political and military figures from Russia and Belarus as part of the ongoing response to the war in Ukraine. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Alekseevna Lvova-Belova ...
A new public housing development planned for Whangārei will provide 95 warm and dry, modern homes for people in need, Housing Minister Megan Woods says. The Kauika Road development will replace a motel complex in the Avenues with 89 three-level walk up apartments, alongside six homes. “Whangārei has a rapidly ...
New Zealand welcomes the substantial conclusion of negotiations on the United Kingdom’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor announced today. “Continuing to grow our export returns is a priority for the Government and part of our plan to ...
Ngā Iwi o Taranaki and the Crown initial Taranaki Maunga collective redress deed Ngā Iwi o Taranaki and the Crown have today initialled the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Deed, named Te Ruruku Pūtakerongo, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little says. “I am pleased to be here for this ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Barbara Edmonds has announced the 2023 Pacific Language week series, highlighting the need to revitalise and sustain languages for future generations. “Pacific languages are a cornerstone of our health, wellbeing and identity as Pacific peoples. When our languages are spoken, heard and celebrated, our communities thrive,” ...
880,000 pensioners to get a boost to Super, including 5000 veterans 52,000 students to see a bump in allowance or loan living costs Approximately 223,000 workers to receive a wage rise as a result of the minimum wage increasing to $22.70 8,000 community nurses to receive pay increase of up ...
Over 8000 community nurses will start receiving well-deserved pay rises of up to 15 percent over the next month as a Government initiative worth $200 million a year kicks in, says Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall. “The Government is committed to ensuring nurses are paid fairly and will receive ...
Tākiri mai ana te ata Ki runga o ngākau mārohirohi Kōrihi ana te manu kaupapa Ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea Tihei mauri ora Let the dawn break On the hearts and minds of those who stand resolute As the bird of action sings, it welcomes the dawn of a ...
The Government is introducing a scheme which will lift incomes for artists, support them beyond the current spike in cost of living and ensure they are properly recognised for their contribution to New Zealand’s economy and culture. “In line with New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreement with the UK, last ...
New Zealand is welcoming a decision by the United Nations General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to consider countries’ international legal obligations on climate change. The United Nations has voted unanimously to adopt a resolution led by Vanuatu to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion on ...
More Police officers are being deployed to the frontline with the graduation of 59 new constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. “The graduation for recruit wing 364 was my first since becoming Police Minister last week,” Ginny Andersen said. “It was a real honour. I want to ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta met with Vanuatu Foreign Minister Jotham Napat in Port Vila, today, signing a new Statement of Partnership — Aotearoa New Zealand’s first with Vanuatu. “The Mauri Statement of Partnership is a joint expression of the values, priorities and principles that will guide the Aotearoa New Zealand–Vanuatu relationship into ...
The Government has passed new legislation amending the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) levy regime, ensuring the best balance between a fair and cost effective funding model. The Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill makes changes to the existing law to: charge the levy on contracts of ...
The Government has passed the Organic Products and Production Bill through its third reading today in Parliament helping New Zealand’s organic sector to grow and lift export revenue. “The Organic Products and Production Bill will introduce robust and practical regulation to give businesses the certainty they need to continue to ...
The Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill, which will make it easier for New Zealanders to safely prove who they are digitally has passed its third and final reading today. “We know New Zealanders want control over their identity information and how it’s used by the companies and services they ...
The full Cyclone Gabrielle Recovery Taskforce has met formally for the first time as work continues to help the regions recover and rebuild from Cyclone Gabrielle. The Taskforce, which includes representatives from business, local government, iwi and unions, covers all regions affected by the January and February floods and cyclone. ...
Changes have been made to legislation to give subcontractors the confidence they will be paid the retention money they are owed should the head contractor’s business fail, Minister for Building and Construction Megan Woods announced today. “These changes passed in the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Act safeguard subcontractors who ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood has unveiled five scenarios for one of the most significant city-shaping projects for Tāmaki Makaurau in coming decades, the additional Waitematā Harbour crossing. “Aucklanders and businesses have made it clear that the biggest barriers to the success of Auckland is persistent congestion and after years of ...
The Government has passed new legislation that ensures New Zealand’s civil aviation rules are fit for purpose in the 21st century, Associate Transport Minister Kiri Allan says. The Civil Aviation Bill repeals and replaces the Civil Aviation Act 1990 and the Airport Authorities Act 1966 with a single modern law ...
A Bill aimed at helping to reduce delays in the coronial jurisdiction passed its third reading today. The Coroners Amendment Bill, amongst other things, will establish new coronial positions, known as Associate Coroners, who will be able to perform most of the functions, powers, and duties of Coroners. The new ...
The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Secretary to conduct a review into communications between Stuart Nash and his donors. The review will take place over the next two months. The review will look at whether there have been any other breaches of cabinet collective responsibility or confidentiality, or whether ...
The new Recovery Visa to help bring in additional migrant workers to support cyclone and flooding recovery has attracted over 600 successful applicants within its first month. “The Government is moving quickly to support businesses bring in the workers needed to recover from Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods,” Michael ...
Bills to ensure non-teaching employees and contractors at schools, and unlicensed childcare services like mall crèches are vetted by police, and provide safeguards for school board appointments have passed their first reading today. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No. 3) and the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill have now ...
Wānanga will gain increased flexibility and autonomy that recognises the unique role they fill in the tertiary education sector, Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis has announced. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No.3), that had its first reading today, proposes a new Wānanga enabling framework for the three current ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta will travel to Vanuatu today, announcing that Aotearoa New Zealand will provide further relief and recovery assistance there, following the recent destruction caused by Cyclones Judy and Kevin. While in Vanuatu, Minister Mahuta will meet with Vanuatu Acting Prime Minister Sato Kilman, Foreign Minister Jotham ...
The Government is backing Police and making communities safer with the roll-out of state-of-the-art tools and training to frontline staff, Police Minister Ginny Andersen said today. “Frontline staff face high-risk situations daily as they increasingly respond to sophisticated organised crime, gang-violence and the availability of illegal firearms,” Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government has provided Police with more tools to crack down on gang offending with the passing of new legislation today which will further improve public safety, Justice Minister Kiri Allan says. The Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill amends existing law to: create new targeted warrant and additional search powers ...
The Government today announced far-reaching changes to the way we make, use, recycle and dispose of waste, ushering in a new era for New Zealand’s waste system. The changes will ensure that where waste is recycled, for instance by households at the kerbside, it is less likely to be contaminated ...
New legislation passed by the Government today will make it harder for gangs and their leaders to benefit financially from crime that causes considerable harm in our communities, Minister of Justice Kiri Allan says. Since the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 came into effect police have been highly successful in ...
This evening I have advised the Governor-General to dismiss Stuart Nash from all his ministerial portfolios. Late this afternoon I was made aware by a news outlet of an email Stuart Nash sent in March 2020 to two contacts regarding a commercial rent relief package that Cabinet had considered. In ...
Legislation to enable more build-to-rent developments has passed its third reading in Parliament, so this type of rental will be able to claim interest deductibility in perpetuity where it meets the requirements. Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods, says the changes will help unlock the potential of the build-to-rent sector and ...
A law passed by Parliament today exempts employers from paying fringe benefit tax on certain low emission commuting options they provide or subsidise for their staff. “Many employers already subsidise the commuting costs of their staff, for instance by providing car parks,” Environment Minister David Parker said. “This move supports ...
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Closer Economic Relations (CER), our gold standard free trade agreement between New Zealand and Australia. “CER was a world-leading agreement in 1983, is still world-renowned today and is emblematic of both our countries’ commitment to free trade. The WTO has called it the world’s ...
The Government is making procedural changes to the Immigration Act to ensure that 2013 amendments operate as Parliament intended. The Government is also introducing a new community management approach for asylum seekers. “While it’s unlikely we’ll experience a mass arrival due to our remote positioning, there is no doubt New ...
The Government welcomes progress on public sector pay adjustment (PSPA) agreements, and the release of the updated public service pay guidance by the Public Service Commission today, Minister for the Public Service Andrew Little says. “More than a dozen collective agreements are now settled in the public service, Crown Agents, ...
The Government has introduced the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill to further support the recovery and rebuild from the recent severe weather events in the North Island. “We know from our experiences following the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes that it will take some time before we completely understand the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joey Moloney, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute Shutterstock Australia’s A$3.3 trillion superannuation system is supposed to boost people’s retirement incomes. The government says as much in its proposed leglislated objective for superannuation. The system is supported by billions of dollars of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Peter Dutton and his demoralised team, shocked beyond belief by their Aston drubbing, say the party has to “rebuild”. But there are no obvious foundation stones for this mammoth task. Ideally, the party ...
Tea drinkers of Aotearoa, your new favourite dunking bikkie is here. There are several things I love about this recipe. The first is that they make a delicious dunking biscuit, the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea shared with friends. The second is that the recipe is ...
Part two of writer Marty Smith’s reporting from her flood-damaged home.Read part one here. Sunday 12 March, 21 days after the floods.Google Maps shows a pale blue line for the flat-lined bridge between Taradale and Waiohiki and sends you instead over the Expressway to Merge Like A Zip, ...
Bard Billot on the booted out broadcasterSpartans, prepare for glory! The hardy army of Today FM Spartans Camps out on the harsh lands of talk radio. The long months of the campaign Have worn down their resolve, For though they have loyally broadcast Their snappy banter and hot ...
The danger of National's policy is that it undoes much of an informal pact with Labour to depoliticise education at a time of real struggleOpinion: The National Party’s recently released education policy narrowly channels nearly every tired and cliched right-wing approach to schooling. If you have been in education for ...
A refurbished, expanded and more earthquake-proof building is a still few years away. Can it live up to the impeccable postmodernist vibes of its predecessor?A long time ago, my non-Wellington then-boyfriend was visiting the windy city and asked the barber what he recommended in town. “Dunno mate,” the barber ...
Doing the cryptic crossword isn’t simply a hobby. It’s a way of life, a love affair – even a full-blown obsession. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Illustrations by Asia Martusia King. Clue: Mafia boss consumed first dish free of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The rout of the Liberals in Aston is a disaster for Peter Dutton. The party has defied history – in the worst possible way. This is the first time in more than a century ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Morgan Hancock/AAP With 44% of enrolled voters counted in today’s Aston federal byelection, the ABC has Labor expected to win ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Morgan Hancock/AAP With 44% of enrolled voters counted in today’s Aston federal byelection, the ABC has Labor expected to win ...
Analysis - When is a cabinet minister not a cabinet minister? The faulty logic of Stuart Nash has landed him and Labour in a heap of trouble but opened the door to serious reform of the Official Information Act, Tim Watkin writes. ...
Jubi News in Jayapura Indonesia’s Papua police chief Inspector-General Mathius D Fakhiri has called for action to ensure that “security disturbances” in the Puncak Jaya highlands do not widen in the face of escalating attacks by pro-independence militants. “For Puncak, we will take immediate action,” he said. According to General ...
What are you going to be watching this month? We round up everything coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ+. The biggies Party Down (all seasons on TVNZ+ from April 1) Thirteen years is a long time between drinks and ...
Ginny Andersen has landed a hot-potato portfolio and has been in Cabinet less than two months - the opposition will be eager to test her mettle this election year. ...
The executive producer of Modern Family has issued an incendiary claim about New Zealanders cheering and clapping in public. Hayden Donnell gets to the bottom of things.The sitcom Modern Family is remembered as a “warm-hearted story about the unbreakable bonds of family”; a tale of radically different people overcoming ...
As rain kept falling across January, February and into March, all band members cold do was sit at home cancelling festivals and posting sad Facebook messages to fans. The first post landed on January 3. As wild weather began hitting the country, campers around Northland packed up their tents ...
Because pro-social behaviour emerges so often after disaster, community empowerment should be central to disaster mitigation and recoveryOpinion: Cyclone Gabrielle caused major damage across the North Island. This unprecedented climate event created great uncertainty. People are wondering if, or when, they can return to their homes, the extent to ...
"We, women, loving you; you, men, finding new women to love": a Francophile love story in NZ Louis woke up and found out Marine was not lying next to him in bed. He checked his phone – 5:30am. The aurora shone a bright gold on the windows of the detached ...
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. This week, we looked at how co-governance really works, Labour's record on climate action, what the new AUKUS nuclear submarine deal means for New Zealand, Posie Parker's visit to Auckland and the free speech debate, and the damage processed foods are ...
The radio workers were caught by the unexpected speed of the decline of NZ's consumer economy, since Christmas – and they won't be the last. Jonathan Milne reports. When broadcaster Tova O’Brien uttered the resounding words, "they’ve f***ed us", they resonated beyond the 1 percent audience share of a small talk radio operation ...
A New Zealand Battery Project centred on Lake Onslow in Central Otago is up against a cheaper North Island alternative Studies into whether a massive pumped-hydro scheme at Lake Onslow is New Zealand’s best bet for a secure energy future may have only four more months to run. While the ...
This is The Detail's Long Read - one in-depth story read by us every weekend. This week, it's Jungle Warfare, written by Ellen Rykers and published in New Zealand Geographic's March/April 2023 edition. You can find the full article, with photos by Adrian Malloch, here. Hundreds of pest plant species—many of them garden escapees—run rampant in ...
The Red, White & Brass star talks spectacle, honouring family sacrifices and his debut lead role over a Tongan lunch in Otāhuhu.Name a creative pursuit and 28-year-old Tongan New Zealander John-Paul Foliaki will give it a go. That is, if he hasn’t already. Foliaki plays the lead role, Maka, ...
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Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, ugly and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Lucky we have a marae that cares……..
‘Social agencies desperate to help their clients have joined the queues of people turning up at a south Auckland marae that opened its doors to the homeless.’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/305224/social-workers-go-to-marae-for-help
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, ugly and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
‘Housing New Zealand is evicting several tenants in Hamilton, just as Aucklanders are being offered $5000 to move into state homes there and in other provincial cities.
Angela Eastham, 49, who faces eviction this Friday, has multiple sclerosis and cares for a 21-year-old son with a brain injury and a 23-year-old autistic daughter.
Another family with four school-aged children faces eviction within 48 hours if Housing NZ wins a Tenancy Tribunal case this Thursday. The evictions come just days after Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett announced a scheme to pay up to $5000 for Aucklanders seeking social housing to move to the provinces from June 20.
She said Hamilton, Huntly, Ngaruawahia, Whanganui and Gisborne all had vacant state houses available.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11647724
Nat led HCC recently flogged their rental housing….join the dots folks.
Musical chairs game by Paula Bennett. Unfortunately the wording is too true, Someone from Paula Bennett’s department announced that they will be offering the option of chairs placed near a public toilet and shower block for people evicted from houses. Some will even have sunlounges offering a shade for protection from the weather.
The comment from Bill English was that the National government is cognisant of the difficulties which some people are experiencing, and does not want to see them having to sleep in the streets and under bridges with no amenities.
/sarc
https://www.facebook.com/Te-Puea-Memorial-Marae-Manaaki-Tangata-1622950467990826/timeline
This is the Auckland marae that has acted to assist with emergency housing.
All those people so angry about the homeless situation could have a look to see what they can do in the interim to help until we can get real NZ politicians into Parliament instead of these marathon competitors in the Hunger Games.
If someone connected with the marae could start a GiveaLittle page for them, it would ease the burden on them to have some money as they are going to be run off their feet and putting so much time and resources into it that their own lives and families will suffer. They need help at Te Puea Memorial Marae. Can someone who knows them help them to do so, I think they would be accepted without difficulty. And while it is in the news, and people have it at the top of their minds, I think would be the most effective time to do it.
Meanwhile NZ the Neo liberal paradise has been rated the 4th most prosperous country in the world across the balance of 89 variables by the Legatum Institute global annual survey, 1 ahead of the left poster child Sweden.
News flash Paul having palpitation as he searches for new daily header to reflect reality
Legatum Institum is a think tank of the neoliberal cult.
Of course it likes New Zealand.
Why are Nordic countries rated so highly then, with nz, thus all very similar over 89 variables, are not the Nordic countries the poster child’s for social democracy Thus nz can hardly be a neo liberal nightmare and they not
Over a third of coral is dead in parts of the Great Barrier Reef, scientists say
‘We knew this was coming.
For months, coral reef experts have been loudly, and sometimes mournfully, announcing that much of the treasured Great Barrier Reef has been hit by “severe” coral bleaching, thanks to abnormally warm ocean waters.
Bleaching, though, isn’t the same as coral death. When symbiotic algae leave corals’ bodies and the animals then turn white or “bleach,” they can still bounce back if environmental conditions improve. The Great Barrier Reef has seen major bleaching in some of its sectors — particularly the more isolated northern reef — and the expectation has long been that this event would result in significant coral death, as well.
Now some of the first figures confirming that are coming in. Diving and aerial surveys of 84 reefs by scientists with the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Australia — the same researchers who recently documented at least some bleaching at 93 percent of individual reefs — have found that a striking 35 percent of corals have died in the northern and central sectors of the reef.’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/05/29/a-whole-new-ballgame-scientists-find-35-percent-coral-death-in-parts-of-great-barrier-reef/
Climate Change Infographic
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3059791/infographic-of-the-day/climate-change-charted-as-a-haunting-death-spiral
To repeat…. because it needs repeating every night people repeat sleeping outside.
No wonder we don’t have enough houses to house the vulnerable… this government has sold them for fucks sake …… and let a couple hundred thousand more people into the country as well …
what the fuck did John Key expect?
What a complete dumbarse dope
. . . .
unless it was intentional ….. so that house prices would be driven high and the incumbent re-elected…. in that case it makes John Key a ……. traitor ……. amongst more and worse …..
. . . .
this entire situation is abominable and Key and his National Party members and supporters truly astounding.
Fuck the National Party
+1000
I’m guessing migrants tend to vote National too.
Rising house prices which leads to increasing mortgages that feed in to the economy to produce a rising GDP and thus he, and National, would be able to proclaim a growing economy.
The reality is that a few people are getting richer on paper while the real economy collapses beneath them.
And some ‘happy’ news for stunned mullet and red delusion.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/80532662/new-zealand-rowers-looking-good-for-rio-olympics-after-world-cup-medal-haul
Remember, don’t look. Keep the tinted windows down.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BxFLanNCIAALuMe.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjkfqbXVAAAnbo3.png:large
happy I am living rent free in your head Paul, saying that it is very drafty in here, plenty of vacant space 😀
Keep the tinted windows down.
Lock up your gated community.
Your repeating yourself Paul ( you have used tinted windows) simply saying the same rubbish moronically day after day does not make it so
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/07/reducing-food-waste-would-mitigate-climate-change-study-shows
The third biggest GHG emitter is food waste. Who knew?
You know, the ‘free-market’ is supposed to eliminate waste. So far, though, all I’ve seen is increasing amounts of it.
I would guess its a first world problem .
Some of us are deceived and distracted by the daily struggles of living in our current zeitgeist. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Sorry for the dead Gorrilla, but at least it distracts from Syrian children drowning in the Club Med Sea.
I reckon if someone had gone up to the cage (like the child’s mother) and asked, then the gorilla would have simply given the boy back …………..
we eternally under-estimate the non-human kingdom inhabitants..
What if gorillas are a dying species and really precious to the earth. And we are fecund and destructive and harming other species. Perhaps we should shoot the boy, and his parents who are less alert than meerkats, and not as concerned in looking after their young as spiders.
Now it’s hard to be objective isn’t it.
Not all that hard. Somewhere around the “shoot the boy” and parent-blaming, your comment got routed through the “low probability of valuable content” filter and thereby avoided serious consideration 🙂
But but the reasoning is all factual. But the low probability of value content attention applies to anything really serious on blogs these days, hardly anyone can run their minds off the old familiar rails and gaze at a different landscape. they might encounter themselves. They don’t want to face that, and turn instead to the small and large brutalities on television, say Game of Thrones.
Hey, look, gorillas are one of the few non-human life-forms that approach my pet test for a sentience level we have a duty to preserve, which is “can they write a story about what they did on their summer holiday”.
But the fact is that an agitated gorilla can easily kill a kid by accident, even if it actually means to protect the sprog. And no parent is perfect at stopping their sprog doing something silly. Let’s say the gorilla was a human being who you couldn’t talk to for whatever reason, was growing agitated and was dragging a kid around by his ankle? Yeah, I wouldn’t judge a cop who shot the adult, or one who didn’t. It’s a shitty call to have to make, but sometimes there’s no winning move where everybody walks away unharmed.
“Distraction” is the wrong word, I think. It implies that people would watch and care about continued stories on Syrian refugees.
Many would just switch over to something else. It’s the difference between “hey, look over here, don’t look over there!” and “Bored now. What else will I look at?”
We’re guilty of shooting first ask questions later too. Build motorways, imprison poachers, pollute rivers, etc etc.
What has happened to the stunning news that Hilary Clinton/Clinton Foundation quite possibly will be indicted on Racketeering charges, it was breaking news yesterday and the FBI have said if the charges do not go ahead they will release their findings publicly anyway. Why aren’t our MSM all over this, even for just headline purposes, its not like they aren’t in the business of trying to break news. This will change completely the face of the upcoming presidential elections. It seems this is being swept under the carpet.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
Another event which was swept under the carpet is the under/overpaying of accommodation supplement payments by our own government, and discovering it too close to an upcoming election and choosing to sweep it under the carpet. Is this becoming a common practice among our people in power?
I was listening to a podcast a few months ago about sexual abuse by Bill Clinton being covered up, and they recommended anyone who was in doubt about the Clinton’s shady dealings to read “Clinton Cash”, by Peter Schweizer.
It basically outlines how they profited into the millions by blurring the lines between charity, business and politics.
Now check this out….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVvZ59Se0WA&feature=youtu.be
Peter Schweizer. Good friend of the mad Glenn Beck and equally crazy Sarah Palin.
Take a grain of salt!
Schweizer’s a serial bullshitter.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/04/20/clinton-cash-author-peter-schweizers-long-histo/203209
The Clintons are career criminals
+100
+100
Distraction update;
Gooners trougher sidekick mrs soper has been slagging off ngarawhaia and giving the waikato times an excuse to front page a nothing story.
If you really cared, instead of looking for an excuse for a bleat, you would have spelt Ngāruawāhia properly.
To counter RNZ cold war propaganda interview against Russia below (remember NATO destroyed Libya):
‘Top brass warns NATO on course for war with Russia’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201802711/top-brass-warns-nato-on-course-for-war-with-russia
“General Sir Richard Shirreff is a high ranking retired British military General. He warns that nuclear war with Russia could happen within a year, if NATO doesn’t beef up its defence presence in the Baltic states.”
…and the contrary view to give some balance:
‘Who’s aggressive?’
https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/344555-russia-conflict-war-benefits/
“Who is being aggressive? For the past few years the drumbeat for a conflict with Russia has been building almost to the point of hysteria. Now there is talk of a war – including a nuclear war – that could destroy civilization. On this edition of CrossTalk we ask who benefits from such dangerous talk.
CrossTalking with John Laughland, Nebojsa Malic, and Hall Gardner.”
‘Chomsky to RT: US and its NATO intervention force may spark nuclear war’
https://www.rt.com/news/203055-us-russia-war-chomsky/
‘Chomsky: NATO is a U.S.-run intervention force’
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/202967-cold-nuclear-war-nato/
‘Who’s aggressive?’
Gee, that’s a tough question, but my money’s on the one that invaded its neighbour’s territory and thereby made its other neighbours shit themselves. That seems pretty aggressive. Maybe if the fear of being forcibly absorbed into a Russian empire hadn’t been proved justified quite so often for these neighbours, they wouldn’t be clamouring for NATO protection in the wake of this latest instance – but what would I know?
You know nothing, as you pointed out!
That’s a pretty compelling argument you make there, One Two, but, comprehensive though it is, there are nevertheless a few things you could clarify for me:
1. Did the Russian Federation not annex Crimea and I just imagined it?
2. Russian military not fighting the Ukrainian military inside Ukraine, then?
3. Poland and the Baltic republics actually not keen for NATO to protect them from similar antics and just faking their concern, maybe?
4. Poland and the Baltics lack previous experience of being forcibly absorbed into a Russian empire and all the historians are wrong?
‘Czech veteran moons US convoy in anti-Nato protest (VIDEO)’
https://www.rt.com/news/344863-czech-veteran-moons-usarmy/
“A Czech veteran opposed to the “aggressive missions” of the US in Europe has decided to take a stand against the major drills across central and Eastern Europe by launching a semi-naked protest.
Martin Zapletal, a member of a group of Czech and Slovakian soldiers opposed to Nato, described the US soldiers as “aggressors, killers and occupiers” as Dragoon Ride II paraded through the country over the weekend…
1. Did the Russian Federation not annex Crimea and I just imagined it?
ANSW: Over 80% of the residents of Crimea, including the Tartars, voted to return to Russia.
Further, you gotta be dreaming if you think that Russia was about to let Sevastapol turn into a NATO base.
2. Russian military not fighting the Ukrainian military inside Ukraine, then?
ANSW:
Russian regular troops who asked were given leave from their units to fight a Ukraniain military that was attacking civilian towns and apartment blocks, in Eastern Ukraine, yes.
3. Poland and the Baltic republics actually not keen for NATO to protect them from similar antics and just faking their concern, maybe?
ANSW: NATO cannot protect these countries. The Baltic states in particular are totally indefensible. Further NATO is supposed to increase the security of its members – instead its actions moving armed forces right to Russia’s borders reduce the security of its member states.
Romania, due to the presence of the new US ABM system, has now made itself a strategic target in Russian military contingency plans.
4. Poland and the Baltics lack previous experience of being forcibly absorbed into a Russian empire and all the historians are wrong?
ANSW: Maybe you should remember your history. The Germans killed approx 27M Soviet citizens. That’s why the Soviet Union occupied those countries, as a buffer zone against future European aggression. Which is what Russia is facing right now.
Speaking of history, maybe you should also remember how France tried to sack Moscow under Napolean. European aggression against Russia has been the norm in history, not the other way around.
+100…well said CV
Over the last 70 years Washington DC has gotten used to run affairs in foreign nations 10,000km from its own borders.
But it will not allow Russia or China to run affairs even 1,000km from their own borders.
1. So, no I’m not imagining it.
2. So, yes Russia does have its military fighting Ukrainians in Ukraine.
3. Whether NATO will actually be able to protect those countries or not is irrelevant to the fact that they want somebody to protect them.
4. The people living in those countries find Soviet propaganda less credible than you do, obviously. I’ll take their word for it over yours any day. Also: these countries’ experience of Russian imperialism goes back way before Soviet times. They know their history a little better than you do.
You’re a fool if you believe the mood of the ordinary people on the streets of Riga and Vilnius is the same as the bought by USD political elite of those countries.
BTW people in the former eastern bloc countries have massively sensitive propaganda BS detectors because of their Warsaw Pact experience. Whereas us in the west, we’re stupid enough to believe that we’re not being propagandised so we don’t tend to look out for it.
Which is odd, because on The Standard, the theme of a highly biased pro-establishment narrative mass media, is taken for granted.
Been out doing vox pops, have you? Everything I’ve seen suggests no love for the Soviets and their modern counterparts in Poland or the Baltic republics. And they do indeed have powerful bullshit detectors, which is exactly why they don’t trust Putin and are looking to the defence of their countries.
But it will not allow Russia or China to run affairs even 1,000km from their own borders.
Your conspiracy theory that the Americans are “running affairs” in eastern Europe is merely comical; your belief that Russia and China have some kind of right to imperial power not comical at all.
Thats neatly countered Colonial Viper. You have been following your history.
Did you study it at uni or is it an interest of yours?
It certainly is important to look beyond the facile arguments that the RW come up with. Do you really know your stuff so well that it is 99% right?
Our entire political team down here in Dunedin has an interest in history. You need to know some history or else contemporary politics becomes meaningless without context.
My interest is informal; I never studied history at university (my background is engineering and technical).
I am convinced that the guts of it is right – minimum 85% to 90% right. Mostly it is just relaying things that the western style of propaganda (= propaganda by omission).
I like to read and listen to pieces by journalists and experts like Pilger, Hedges, Cohen, Wilkerson, Leveretts. These people are not pro-Russian, but they are definitely pro-reality.
Thanks for that CV. I have paid attention to your thoughts which seemed far seeing. So good to know the provenance!
It certainly is important to look beyond the facile arguments that the RW come up with.
Then try doing it. You’re fawning over someone who’s an apologist for a very ugly right-wing nationalist authoritarian regime in Russia.
actually I would have thought this description applied to you …
” someone who’s an apologist for a very ugly right-wing nationalist authoritarian regime”
‘NATO masses troops along Russian border, war becomes possible scenario – peace movement leader’
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/344551-nato-planes-montenegro-conflict/
NATO masses troops along Russian border…
Sigh. Germany putting 150 divisions there was “massing troops along the Russian border.” NATO having one armoured brigade rotate between six of Russia’s neighbours and maintaining around four divisions nowhere near Russia as a ready-reaction force, on the other hand, is not. You should spend less time on Russian propaganda sites, it’s leading you to present delusional fantasies as though they were facts.
Again, you are wrong here PM. Putin is a democratically elected and very centrist leader in Russia, and he is extremely popular for it, with personal approval ratings in the low to mid 80% range.
Try and find me a western leader with approval ratings anywhere near that figure. John Key was in the 60% range for a while, I guess.
And if you were at all genuinely concerned about “ugly right wing nationalist authoritarian regimes” you would be kicking the shit out of the government in Kiev, and their Stepan Bandera inspired paramilitary supporters, who have been using heavy weapons and terror tactics against their own citizens in eastern Ukraine for the last 3 years.
Correct.
That singly NATO armoured brigade, I presume it is up to 2000 combat troops plus support personnel, has an effective fighting time span in a serious scrap with the Russians of under 12 hours. Being generous there. It’ll probably be 180 minutes or so.
The real threat to Russia is from the Romanian based US ABM system which uses interceptor missiles which can be nuclear tipped, and no one would ever know the difference. Not even the Romanians at the base. (Putin specifically mentioned this in a speech a couple of days ago).
That’s the real strategically destabilising factor that NATO has put on Russia’s door step.
NATO is supposed to make the environment more secure for its members; in fact it is doing exactly the opposite.
Putin is a democratically elected and very centrist leader in Russia…
So is Assad in Syria, according to you and Chooky.
…and he is extremely popular for it…
So was Hitler. These things in themselves mean little. Putin is in fact running a kleptocracy with no democratic or media oversight, in which nationalist authoritarianism is the dominant political approach and collaboration with the official Church hierarchy to promote order, obedience and conservative values is the dominant ideological approach. In political terms, he has more in common with General Franco than with any leaders of western democracies.
Putin is an extremely popular leader – more popular than even our John Key – and United Russia won their internationally monitored elections fair and square.
And bear in mind that most of the Russians who do not support Putin…are people who think that he isn’t hard line enough and that he isn’t Communist enough.
Yes Putin is running a system where billionaire oligarchs have a lot of say in what happens in Russia…but sorry mate so does every western FVEY nation.
As for media oversight – you clearly have no idea. There is a strong Atlanticist leaning private sector mass media in Russia, both TV and in print.
And my understanding is that newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are available on line in Russia, translated into Russian on the same day.
Bottom line is that the Russians do some pretty shite underhanded things for $$$, and their mid and local levels of government are often corrupt and utterly inefficient, but guess what, every country has shit that it needs to deal with.
+100 greywarshark
Chooky
Thanks for defending me from the psycho melt-down.
‘Kusturica: Why does NATO still exist? To fight terrorism? It’s laughable!’
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/emir-kusturica-europe-russia-296/
‘NATO’s “Humanitarian Intervention” in Libya: A Premeditated Geostrategic Operation’
http://www.globalresearch.ca/natos-humanitarian-intervention-in-libya-a-premeditated-geostrategic-operation/5482662
Coal, lots and lots of coal.
/
A brief respite came Thursday — the day he cleared the number of delegates needed to be the nominee — when Trump gave his only scripted speech of the week at an energy conference in Bismarck, N.D. Standing between two teleprompters, Trump seemed to find his confidence not only as a winner but as the Republican nominee that many want him to be. Trump argued that returning to more use of coal and lifting environmental regulations are keys to making the nation wealthy again.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/even-in-victory-donald-trump-cant-stop-airing-his-grievances/2016/05/29/a5f7a566-2526-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html
Rumour.. McDonald Trump will announce either Glenn Beck or Ronald Mcdonald as his running mate.
(To paraphrase Obama..”For Fox News people..that’s a Joke.”)
Watched some TV the other night for the first time in a long time, and…
…why anti-smoking ads (presumably) on the grounds its effects will afflict others, and why no high alcohol content ads on the grounds (presumably) that spirits won’t be doing you any favours (unlike ‘lolly water’ apparently) and yet – buy a car, a SUV, a 4WD or a whatever and fly to Australia or wherever for only $149 or whatever because carbon’s fine and global warming’s a big fat nothing, or maybe, if it’s not, we got it covered…(?)
…while 1000 homes in Auckland blank out off the back of some fairly normal wind and rain – again.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/80503311/strong-winds-down-trees-cut-power-to-auckland-homes
Words failing…
John Key knows money is created out of thin air. He has done it for 20 years and is still at it! Here is how it’s done.
Chris Trotter did a piece on Labour, as he often does, taking the pulse, looking for rashes, and checking the health of eyes, ears, and throat, all important features in a capable and active politician.
These, interesting paragraphs –
A genuinely “broad church” party of the Left would balance off Andrew Little with Hone Harawira, Jacinda Ardern with Laila Harré, Stuart Nash with John Minto, Kelvin Davis with Annette Sykes, Grant Robertson with Julie Anne Genter and Annette King with Metira Turei. The whole spectrum of alternative power: from Soft Centrists to Hard Leftists; would be covered.
That Labour’s fatal apostasy [the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief or principle] has made such a caucus impossible is the besetting tragedy of progressive New Zealand politics. Its embrace of neoliberalism in the mid-1980s left Labour with the political equivalent of syphilis. Sadly, every one of the many attempts to administer the Penicillin of genuine progressivism (God bless you Jim, Rod, Laila!) was rejected. Consequently, Labour’s bones have crumbled and its brain has rotted. Small wonder that the other opposition parties are reluctant to get too close!
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2016/05/an-opposition-worthy-of-name.html
This coming year has got to sort out the sheep from the goats. We have to draw on the principles and the name of Savage and be resolute. This is the time of the Hunger Games, not the Disabled Games where if a competitor stumbles the others turn round to give aid in a spirit of friendly competition. The neo liberals won’t stop until they advance their theory and prove that it works, or doesn’t, and whoever gets hurt in the process will be considered to be not of the right stuff. Try looking at Cold Lazarus by Dennis Potter. Some will probably be on Youtube.
We have people against us who are ruthless, and prepared to divide off society into us and them, who will repeat the Highland Clearings on a huge scale, or who may start a crisis ending in war so they can repeat the Nasti experiment.
One of the most terrifying things of that was that it could happen at all, arising from a civilised country with great philosophers. Our minds are so plastic that they can adapt to any thought and rationalise it.
edited
Labour-Green Announcement 3.10 pm. Looking up, feeling better.
New Zealand’s leading Maori tobacco researcher says National’s tobacco tax increases racist?
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11647467
And Labour welcomed this?
Isn’t that a kick in the face for the strong support Maori gave Labour at the last election?
Thoughts?
It’s a good point raised.
If increasing taxes has no discernible effect on reducing smoking rates, then why keep doing it?
It seems that the diminishing returns have basically fallen to zero, so the reason for increasing the tax isn’t about reducing smoking. Is it down to:
A. racism?
B. another hit on the punishment pinata of poor life choices/bene bashing?
C. milking addicts for cash (Tax Cuts anyone)?
D. being seen to be doing something, cos if it worked before, it’ll work forever??
E. Tariana & the Maori Party wanted it?
I don’t know, but based on the research presented it seems suspect.
Mostly C, to a lesser extent E. I presume Labour supports it because it intends doing quite a bit of C when it’s the government again.
Didn’t King suggest the possibility of Labour doing that (further tax increases on tobacco) the other day?
I didn’t see it, but wouldn’t be surprised. After all, the current government’s already made cigarettes worth robbing a dairy for, so it’s not like Labour bunging another tenner on the price would make things worse – might as well rake in the cash.
For extra points, King could spend the additional money collected on a commission of enquiry into why poor people don’t have any cash.
we are going to tax you for your own well being
Dairy owners are very concerned about their well being.
Will Labour use the extra tax intake to also increase the police budget?
Corrections will also require more.
Might have to let prisoners smoke again for the $$$
I hear they smoke tea-leaves mixed with nicotine patches.
Good points. A bit of analysis applied to the no tobacco meme can go a long way. Perhaps try another path.
What psycho milt said, but also a bit of D.
Back when you could buy individual cigarettes and they were only 900% excise tax by weight, an increase in tax would result in a reduction in use (initially in number of cigarettes/day, but then reduction in weight per rollie).
But the law of diminishing returns means that the effects are no longer as obvious. I’d also be intrigued if there’s any research as to the size of the tobacco black market – it grows just as capably as dope in NZ.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/30/ttip-trade-deal-agreements-ceta-eu-canada
The G7’s problems show that many of us have recognised that trade deals have made the world a playground for the super-rich – they are part of our staggeringly unequal economy. But the G7 is unable to think beyond the interests of the world’s elite. It’s up to us to reclaim our democracy as citizens, and the movements against TTIP and Ceta are the frontline.
Eight year freeze to funding of Radio NZ.
Maori TV get 4 million boost.
He who pays the piper….
What? Frozen? In 2014 this was the news:
RNZ in ‘decent shape’ despite funds freeze | Stuff.co.nz
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/…/RNZ-in-decent-shape-despite-funds-freeze
May 8, 2014 – Despite suffering frozen funds for the past six years, RNZ chief executive Paul … RNZ chairman Richard Griffin said financial constraints meant the broadcaster …
RNZ had about 500,000 regular listeners but wanted to double that in 10 years.
Forty per cent of RNZ’s listeners were older than 65, and mostly Pakeha.
30 May 2016
More ice for Radio NZ in Budget « LiveNews.co.nz
livenews.co.nz/2016/05/30/more-ice-for-radio-nz-in-budget/
1 day ago – Budget 2016 once again left our only public broadcaster, Radio NZ (RNZ), worse off. After eight years of funding freezes, you have to wonder if RNZ is being … The Government, however, has frozen RNZ’s budget at 2008 levels, which means … The current National-led Government may be actively de-prioritising its role, but …
Comment – from Geoff Simmons economist for Morgan Foundation on NBR (originally on Gareths World.) ‘Pass the parcel on’ >… and
(Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson on Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.)
The budget freeze on Radio NZ continues, the clear decline in public interest journalism elsewhere. It must be time for a rethink of this sector.
Meanwhile, there is almost $500m extra for defence and intelligence. Priorities…
Tim Watkin leaving as Producer of TV3 The Nation, joining RNZ.
apparently the govt calling for public submissions for what should be printed on plain packaged tobacco lol does this mean us smokers are gonna be treated to reading hate messages from all the health snobs out there ?…such as die you bastards how dare you try an take the easy way out when we all have to live forever !!You gotta laugh by calling for submissions they make the whole process sound like its democracy in action rather than a fascist subjugation of the rights of 500 thousand newzealanders !! you gotta laugh when prob at least a third of the population is on a form of happy pill acceptable because youre local quack dispenses it and while rot gut fizzy drink is peddled in enormous quantities to the poorest members of our society at a cheaper than cheap price and the consumtion of this muck despite health officials repeatedly stating the very serious connection to obesity not a word is said against it .It just shows the power of lobbyists ie the maori party ash etc and the short sighted righteousness of the health snob.
Anything that stops a teen starting is all good with me.
We can afford another embassy in South America. The one in Colombia will cost some tens of millions over two years, and give us about five down there.
I remember the touching scene when David Lange returned to the one in India closed down by the cheese parers, and the previous caretaker was still in a little hut keeping guard waiting for our return.
Now we are adding Colombia to our set though we only do some tens of millions of trade with them each year. I hope the trade will match the cost. Or perhaps the USA sees it as a strategic point in their fight against drugs and General Mayhem (or one of the Generals somewhere), They might have said to us you are a good little ally and you can open an embassy and keep us covered on events through 5Eyes. Heres something towards the cost.
Colombia is a colony of the USA, don’t know why we would need extra representation there.
Unless it’s a cover for a FVEY base of operations.
Praise for Thatcher from an unusual source
‘Varoufakis: Thatcher’s criticism of ECB was sophisticated, pertinent’
https://www.rt.com/uk/344964-varoufakis-thatcher-praise-ecb/
“Marxist economist and game theorist Yanis Varoufakis confided in crowds gathered at a Welsh arts festival on Monday that he has some admiration for the late ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, despite largely viewing her legacy as damaging…
He had been invited to discuss the origins of the eurozone crisis, the relentless Troika (European Central Bank-International Monetary Fund-European Commission) austerity that followed, and a potential path ahead for Europe and Greece.
Reflecting on commentary Thatcher once gave on the European Central Bank (ECB), he said it was the “most pertinent” ever made.
“It was a very nuanced and sophisticated criticism – who controls interest rates in Europe controls the politics of Europe, and that money cannot be depoliticized,” he added…