Why is there a role, and why do we have to be on it?
There has been some talk on this blog of electoral reform. Most of the talk has come from a more centrist and therefore more conservative point of view, usually around forcing compulsory voting backed up by punitive fines. (As in Australia).
I would like to suggest that instead of the punitive path we go in the opposite direction, that we free up the process.
If you can prove you’re a citizen of the age to vote then you should be allowed to.
Drivers licence, passport, or other verifiable ID should be enough to allow you to exercise your democratic right.
Then you just rock up on the day and vote.
This in fact was one of the original demands of the Egyptian revolution.
I was moved to reconsider this option by an opinion piece on Stuff.co. nz
We often see criticism of the US voter discrimination that sees black people hit particularly hard by election rules that disadvantage them.
But New Zealand has similar built in electoral disadvantage. I was reminded of this when at the last local body elections my voting forms didn’t arrive. My partner had received theirs. At first I thought it was because my name appeared later in the alphabet. But when time was almost out I made inquiries and found that my name and details had been removed from the role. I rang the electoral office in Wellington and inquired why, I was told I hadn’t returned the standard enrollment package updating my details. I said, but it plainly says on the letter that if your details haven’t changed don’t send this form back. The person on the other end of the phone agreed that it what it said and that my name should not have been removed from the role, they offered no other reason why I was cut off.
Anecdotal reports from friends and family revealed a couple more cases of people being mysteriously removed from the electoral role.
But apart from these odd anomalies and mistakes there is the wider question of how and why many lower paid people are being dumped from the role.
With the recent end of Housing New Zealand and the removal of state house tenants’ tenure and the imposition of the “90 days notice” of eviction. And the change from housing being a right under Housing New Zealand to a charitable benefit under the control of WINZ, many more lower paid New Zealanders are facing housing insecurity and being moved on more often at the discretion of their landlord just as private rental tenants are. In fact state house tenants now have less rights to their houses than private renters. The over whelming trend is for lower paid renters to change address more often, each time automatically sees them dumped from the electoral role.
(there is also the idiocy of the mass mailing out of re-enrollment forms to people’s previously last known address. What on earth is this supposed to achieve?)
There are other reasons that people are not on the role and the writer to stuff mentions them. Another one that wasn’t mentioned is that many people on low incomes are actively avoiding debt collectors, and don’t want their details easily publicly available, should someone be denied the right to vote because of that? Or someone avoiding a bad ex-boyfriend, should that cost them their vote?
Forget about punitive solutions that blame the victim let’s abolish the intrusive and invasive electoral role and open the electoral mandate to everyone without fear or favour.
Well written Jenny, spoiled a little by the use of the word role instead of ROLL in your opening line,
The major flaw i see in your proposal being if there is no electoral roll how do we arrive at electorate Members of the Parliament,(you presuppose honesty, but, your laissez fairre prescription would allow myself residing in the Rongatai electorate to nip across to the west of the city and vote in the Ohariu electorate),
Again concerning honesty, would not the voting system have to be computerized, without an electoral roll what is to stop, again say myself, from rolling round all the electorates casting votes as i went,
i am in favor of compulsory voting, along with the compulsion i believe the school curriculum should be altered to include civics where the reasons why we all should vote are explored and explained…
PS Jenny, most of your concerns surrounding the ‘churn’ of citizens moving constantly throughout New Zealand, in the context which you have laid out, could be easily addressed by having WINZ as part of all clients files have a flag show whether the client was or was not enrolled and if not an instant enrollment could occur in this setting,
Obviously the ability for WINZ computers to ‘talk’ to the computer? which holds the data base of enrollments would be a necessity but would be little different in the current ability for WINZ to match data with other Government data bases…
When I moved from Dunedin to Auckland I got a letter from the Electoral commission demanding that I update my electoral details. I assume that they got my new address from WINZ.
I also know people who were dropped off the rolls around Wellington despite not having shifted butt in some years. Looks like the electoral office had a system failure that it has not come clean about so that people can check and re-enrol. OIA perhaps but they really should just front up and let everyone know and reinstate the dropped names.
No. The electoral roll can only be viewed in hard copy – at libraries and post offices. This is to stop misuse of electronic/online rolls. I.e. people using them for spam emails, etc.
I was dropped off the roll earlier this year despite having moved to my present address at the end of 2005 and having no problems up until I was asked to re-enrol. I thought it weird at the time, but complied with the request and am now back on. My husband wasn’t asked to re-enrol.
If you can prove you’re a citizen of the age to vote then you should be allowed to.
That would be what the electoral role is for rather than going through the rigmarole every time you went to a voting station.
Drivers licence, passport, or other verifiable ID should be enough to allow you to exercise your democratic right.
The problem with that idea is that not everyone has those things. What you’d need is a citizenship card that everyone has. I’m certainly not averse to such a thing but I’m sure that a lot of people would be.
Playing devil’s advocate, the real concern would be if everyone had cards, a government could impose, for example, restrictions of movement on the populace. Presenting a card to travel inter city could lead to track and trace of all citizens. I know cell phones probably do the same, but not everyone has to have a mobile.
it’s like drivers licenses: went to photo id (slightly less reliable than written details, but ok), and you suddenly had to carry them all the time. Then it became a traffic duty stat to just stop drivers and ask to see their license.
And what if your citizen card gets nicked? No vote, or just shedloads of paperwork?
For us who can’t afford the paperwork, barcodes on the forehead or chips under the skin.
Lucky they won’t have those nasal implant trackers like in Total recall for a few more years yet.
On seeing the headline earlier I thought that’s not a bad idea if it sets off an alarm should kids go out of bounds or worst case scenario, abducted during school hours, but on reading it was a bonus point reward scheme, I couldn’t help wonder what my local school could spend $7000 on to improve outcomes and educations.
Teachers would use portable scanners to add points to a student’s online good behaviour chart with a reward when a certain amount of points was accumulated.
The teachers could do that without a bracelet. But, really, why are they even considering an online database of a kids behaviour? Nothing online disappears and so the children will have that weight hanging around their necks for the rest of their lives.
Also heard an anecdotal report of Maori electoral roll voters turning up at a poll booth, only to be told that they had to go to the one down the street as they didn’t have Maori electorate voting papers. The redirection required another 1km journey.
I would have thought this would have been against election rules.
I teach tertiary students. Most are aged between 18 and 25.
Of all those eligible to vote at the 2011 election they said they all voted. Of that group one is probably not going to vote this year. His reason was it doesnt make a difference.
Of those eligible for the first time this year, half said they dont intend voting. Dont care, doesnt make a difference. None know anything the parties are offering. Some have not received enrolment papers. I directed them to rockenrol.me
It is not scientific, obviously, but wanted to share
The reason for the censorship as imposed by the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria is that coverage may negatively effect Australia’s international relations and may impugn the reputation of specified individuals who are not the subject the charges in the proceedings. That seems entirely disengenuous in that the demonstration of open justice would, in fact, impact positively on Australia while, chances are, the individuals who’s reputations the Court is so concerned about are among those who have benefitted most from the corruption. Its the classic case of the street soldiers taking the fall while the Dons sit back and enjoy the loot.
For those who have not been following the RBA scandal, the corruption goes back to at least 1998 . At that time, two agents of the RBA visited Iraq in order to sell the regime new technology being employed in the printing of bank notes. The attempt broke both Australian and international law because of the sanctions against doing business with Iraq which were then in place. The RBA was among the statutory bodies reponsible for ensuring that the sanctions were not violated. However, a multi-million dollar deal was cooked up to facillitate the deal by filtering payments through Jordan. At the last moment, the crime was scuttled by diplomats who caught wind of it. While that deal fell through, agents for the RBA went on to sell the new-technology bank notes to countries around the world and, in doing so, sweetened most of the deals with massive bribes paid to officials and politicians. There’s a familiar note to this new development in that among the material being censored is the affadavit of one Gillian Elizabeth Bird, another diplomat and the person just recently appointed to the UN by the Australian government. It would seem she has named names.
The criminal prosecution of the executives who managed the corruption has been dragging on since 2011. As far as I can see (IANAL) the case has been stalled since August 2012 while the federal government appealed an earlier court decision to allow media coverage and public attendance during the trial. It seems now that the case will go ahead. Meanwhile, the henchman have all had their names already published, yet the main cuplrits and benefactors get to keep their crimes.
I’m looking at you . . .
Graeme Thompson
Mark Bethwaite
Dick Warburton
Bob Rankin
Tony Negus
Greg Medcraft
. . . as well as:
Mohammad Najib Abdul Razak, currently Prime Minister (since 2009) and Finance Minister (since 2008) of Malaysia;
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (also known as Pak Lah), a former Prime Minister (2003 – 2009) and Finance Minister (2003 – 2008) of Malaysia;
Puan Noni (also knows as Ms/Madame Noni, or Nonni), a sister-in-law of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi;
Mahathir Mohamed, a former Prime Minister (1981 – 2003) and Finance Minister (2001 – 2003) of Malaysia;
Daim Zainuddin, a former Finance Minister of Malaysia (1984 – 1991; 1999 – 2001);
Rafidah Aziz, a former Trade Minister of Malaysia (1987 – 2008);
Hamid Albar, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs (1999 – 2008) and Minister of Home Affairs (2008 – 2009) of Malaysia;
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (also known as SBY), currently President of Indonesia (since 2004);
Megawati Sukarnoputri (also known as Mega), a former President of Indonesia (2001 – 2004) and current leader of the PDI-P political party;
Laksamana Sukardi, a former Indonesian minister (2001 – 2004; in Megawati Sukarnoputri’s goverment);
Truong Tan San, currently President of Vietnam (since 2011);
Nguyen Tan Dung, currently Prime Minister of Vietnam (since 2006);
Le Duc Thuy, a Former Chairman of the National Financial Supervisory Committee (2007 – 2011) and a former Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (1999 – 2007); and
Nong Duc Manh, a former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (2001 – 2011).
In Oz its dawning on them that they are no better than some of those dodgy regimes they’ve been sneering at with this, especially malaysia who keating had a pop at as PM. Indonesia can do as they please as theres too much oil and gas in that mix for any other action.
You only have to look at their treatment of refugees which is being blacked out to their msm to see a loss of humanity and empathy across the ditch.
Among Tonys CT assisted agenda is attack public broadcasting, education and dismantle fund manager reforms to allow the fat cats to keep fleecing contributors on top of a budget shocker stalling in the senate thats been stacked with mining money senators under PUP.
“Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.”
Yep, this killing by the Jewish nation state is a genocide.
But it is more than that. As I mentioned last week, it is also infanticide.
Gaza is a concentration camp being subjected to genocide and infanticide.
And the rumours of Jewish young folk being called up to serve from here in NZ because it is going to be a long long murdering rampage are clearly true.
+100 vto…and is the NZ govt going to regard these New Zealanders who fight for the Israelis as terrorists…remember John Key condoning the drone attack on a young New Zealander?
By Robert Fisk
“It’s not just radicalised Islamists – what about foreign fighters who flock to the IDF?
Is the Government interested in UK citizens who have been fighting in Israeli uniform in Gaza in the past couple of weeks?…
Let me be frank. Dozens of British supporters of Israel do serve in the Israeli army. The same applies for Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. And they don’t necessarily gravitate to being war criminals. This may not be what an Arab would say – and it is certainly not what Israelis would suggest. But there is plenty of evidence – from 1982 in Lebanon, from 1996 in Qana, from 2008-9 in Gaza and again in Gaza these past two weeks – that individual Israeli soldiers and pilots have committed acts which, under international law, are war crimes…
“a blot on the world as we know it”..like the Cat in the Hat…a jiggery pokery statement…could mean whatever you want… or everything you dont want ! ( I wonder if Texter /Crosby helped him dream that one up?)
for some reason the Link to Robert Fisk above at 3.1.1 does not seem to be working (on my browser at least)…so try again
…Robert Fisk writes for the British newspaper ‘The Independent’…Robert Fisk is a multiple award-winning journalist on the Middle East, based in Beirut.
“Last week 29 of the UN Human Rights Council’s 47 members voted to set up an inquiry into possible war crimes committed by Apartheid Israel during it’s latest bloody purge of the Palestinian people….
Yes, vto. You’re comment a few days ago that said something like ‘tomorrow the IDF will kill x children’, really nailed the determined nature of this attack on civilians.
They must have guidelines at the Herald to achieve this kind of redirect.
Derek Cheng does a superb job of downplaying criticism for Simon Bridges both with his headline: Spending on oil barons draws criticism, and his opening sentences (which after all, are the ones that show when viewing online).
“The Green Party is angry that the Government forked out $22,000 on food and drink and $37,000 on luxury accommodation.”
You wouldn’t know from that leading sentence that the amount discussed was actually $237,000.
Further confusion is in his breakdown of the spending that lists a variety of expenses except for the largest, $96,000 for “event and project management”.
Three reasons come to mind for this kind of division:
1. Skim readers will read the list of expenses and think … that doesn’t seem so much… especially when they are looking for a breakdown of $237,000 and read only $141,000 worth.
2. The largest expense is also the most questionable – does no-one in Simon Bridges office know how to organise a knees up?
3. Who provided the “event and project management”? Is this why Derek Cheng put this expense in the prose, rather than bullet point?
I figured that employers in NZ with our present high unemployment and the government and WINZ pushing people to apply for 5 plus jobs a day would actually be getting really pissed off with applicants. Especially the applicants that turned up on their doorstep demanding an interview which would be happening because WINZ pushes people to get out there and door knock.
“The Herald understands Mr Mark is being courted both as a list candidate and as a potential successor to leader Winston Peters, in part because of his good relationship with National as the two parties consider a potential post-election deal’
His good relationship with National as the two parties consider a potential post-election deal?
BUGGER THAT!
P.S:
Winston, I doubt if my aunt will vote NZF first now. NZF-Last now UNLESS it was just a mischief making article by a spinalist!
wow doesn’t take long for the knives to come out, wasn’t so long ago the Left were claiming Winstonfirst as part of their voting bloc…
For what is worth the left put up a valient attmpt but theres no shame in being beaten by a superior, more popular team, you lot on the left did your best and you should be proud of that
Beaten?
Puck you, you silly man! Has the election campaign begun in earnest yet? The election is on Sept 20 dork. Seven weeks away. I would like to see your face on the night of Sept 20 when you and the RWNJobs will realise that Key/National will not be in a position to form a government at all! There WILL be a Labour led coalition government next. Mark my words, Rogue!
Even Winston wasting 4.999% of the vote wont get labour over the line. Lets assume the following party votes – not my view but kind of an average of what a lot of commentators on this site are suggesting/hoping for and consistent-ish with polls:
More wasted vote means it gets easier for national – look what happens if national stays at 47% but the conservatives get 4%.
The vote isn’t really about getting labour up to 30% or 35% its more about getting the national share down to 45% or less – anything above 46-47% then Nats likely to win because of three overhang seats. And if Winston gets in he’ll most likely go with National because of his allergy to the greens and IMP which makes the right bloc even bigger. At 5% on the above numbers he’d take 3 seats from national, 2 from labour, 1 from greens. That would also make Winston Peters our next treasurer or minister of foreign affairs.
Interesting and original analysis, nadis. You’ve put a bit of work and thought into this. And quite right about the implications of a higher wasted vote. Nicely done.
Slippery the Prime Minister’s ”ruling out” of doing an electorate deal with Colon and the Conservatives is either a gamble that National believe they have the numbers to be able to form the next Government post-election,
Or, National have some sense of surety that NZFirst will opt after the election to enter a coalition with National rather than Labour/Green,
That of course presupposes that NZFirst will actually attain the 5% of party vote necessary, and, on this point i have some pretty large doubts,
i find that article in Granny today to be rather odd to say the least, Peter’s has been at His usual pains to attempt to hide any preference from the electorate, snake-oil salesmanship on display to the max where voters are invited to cast a ballot on blind faith as if there were no left nor right existing in the political realm,
Pointing out to its readers the ‘appearance’ that some form of deal has already been struck between NZFirst and National has the ability to do as much damage to NZFirst’s vote as any gains made if as it would seem the intention was to attract floating ‘soft’ right wing votes to that parties cause,
Tactical voters from 2011, an unmeasured number who only voted NZFirst last election as an ambit to stymie ‘National Governing alone’ with the assurance of the PM that that party was ‘ruled out’ will not be voting NZFirst again in 2014,
Such an article, the unwritten text saying that Winston Peters is being less than honest with His ‘deals only considered after the vote’ has the ability to scare off from NZFirst prior refugees from Labour with a wish, held by many within Labour as well, for a coalition which the party enjoyed with the previous Helen Clark Government,
Along with the Labour refugees, the 2011 Tactical vote, and, a small % of vote that Colons Conservatives have managed to chisel from NZFirst i am picking a result for Peters and company that matches the 2008 result, so near yet so far, 4.5% on election night…
Interestingly, or not, i have long spelled out here at the Standard my opposition to the Labour policy surrounding the raising of the age of entitlement to superannuation,but, even tho i oppose such with some fervor i would never consider voting for NZFirst to in effect stymie this aspect of Labour policy,
Having said that i know my mother, a lifelong Labour voter did just that, and, far from being comfortably tucked up in their boxes a lot of that particular demographic are now comfortably retired enjoying the small benefits of their gold cards,
As an aside, someone a few days ago produced a comment which strongly intimated that there has been flexibility introduced to the policy which addresses some of the concerns surrounding manual workers and those who become to sick to work at a late age,
The underlying Neo-liberalism inherent in this policy cannot tho be escaped especially in light of the recent David Parker comment hinting at future tax cutting by a Labour Government,
Obviously as i mention above there are within the Labour Caucus and the support base those who pine for the comfort of a Labour/NZFirst coalition which largely sidelines the Greens with some medium sized concessions,
Just as obviously there are those among us who would find another Government of this vein anathema to achieving any ‘real’ gains in repairing the 30 odd years of damage such neo-liberal ideology has inflicted upon the body of society,
Thus the marriage of InternetMana has been seen as a masterstroke of some genius and obviously, by the size of the crowds at the 2 roadshows so far, that view is not confined simply to the pages of the Standard,
If all that DotCom gets to take out of the 2014 election is a ”take that you prick” directed at Slippery the Prime Minister the same as the collective evidence the DotCom’s waved John Banks’s way then i am sure He will be well pleased,
For the harder edge of the left tho, InternetMana might be the gift that just keeps on giving, more MPs’ in the House means far more exposure for the message along with the all important ability to build the Party base,
And, we now have a choice, a large whiff if you will of the chance to in effect leverage the whole political discourse to the left, these numbers by themselves while hardly screaming ”impressive”, Labour 33%, Green 12%, InternetMana 5% when addition is applied as an equation without equivocation simply say 50%,
unless labour + NZ first is a majortiy, labour can’t rely on Winston. He will not go into a coalition that contains the greens and to suggest he might is wishful thinking.
Whilst I agree with you that Winston will probably try and avoid the Greens; he hasn’t actually ruled it out this time (unlike previous elections) so there is the possibility that he might do a deal that involved the Greens, though obviously with some concessions.
That said if the Greens get over 2x Winston’s vote (as is quite likely) then Winston might just have to suck it up and live with some Green policy (which is probably why he hasn’t ruled them out.) Yes he could go with National instead, but that appears to be an unholy union of about 5 parties, albeit with Winston being the biggest by far of the coalition partners, and the others being National sock puppets. I don’t think that Winston will like that option much either. He would jump into a Nat+NZF >50% coalition (with the dregs giving the breathing room) if the alternative was Lab + Green + NZF >50% but I personally don’t think that either option will be on the table. the 50% on either side is going to require the minors (with Winston as their king)
Today’s Roy Morgan says that you are, i invite you to guess the rest…(you obviously haven’t read the Ron Marks remarks attributed to Him in today’s Granny Herald either)…
I try to avoid the Herald ever since it has stopped being a useful source of news and more a propaganda tool. I have now read them, and read Winston’s rebuttal/denial. Sure it may all be smoke and mirrors, but it looks more like to me a play to pull in some Nat-soft voters to give Winnie more of a say in any post election deals. As I say he is looking at being third fiddle in a left government, but that still may be more palatable to him than being top cat in the hodge-podge of rats and mice that a right coalition might be. Making a play to drag in some soft Nat voters strengthens his position on both sides post-election. Winston needs to be closer to 10% to be a serious player in a Left coalition, and being ~10% with national at 40 works for him too. In fact argument can be made that at this juncture for him to have the most power post election he needs to take National voters whilst hoping for a continued resurgence of labour voting. Winston would want to be the Sole kingmaker (like 96) not one among many (even if it is the biggest among many)
My point was that Winnie also hasn’t ruled out being with the Greens post-election; which I assume he hasn’t ruled out because his political nous has talked to him and said that such a stance might lose him votes. Plausible deniability on a deal with National (which is highly likely to not have happened as any leak of an actual deal ruins the play) means a drop in left voters but a rise in right voters, hopefully more than he loses. This strengthens Labour and NZF and weakens Nat – which puts NZF in a stronger position post-election.
Winston knows how to play the NZ electorate like a harp
The fact that you think Winston can graft 10% of the vote from the point of the latest Roy Morgan which ascribes to NZFirst 5% of that vote suggests you do not do it very well and again as previously intimated, you are (fill in gap),
If we ascribe to Winston that 5% of the Roy Morgan what then of Colons Conservatives, do you think that their 2.7% from the last election when they had NO electorate deal with Slippery the Prime Minister will have simply evaporated because the PM has said No Deal this time round,
Treated to a miserly 1% by the latest Roy Morgan i would suggest considering the millions spent by the Conservatives this election will be considerably more than were spent at the 2011 contest that Colon and the moon-beam crowd will pull at least the same amount of the vote as they did in 2011,
Part of that vote will be chiseled from the NZFirst %, the other part from National, tough for Winston, if that 5% is correct in terms of current support then i would suggest that Colon the Conservative, in a glorious act of revenge upon Slippery the PM will blow NZFirst’s electoral chances with a side dish of leaving the National Party without a dance partner for the next waltz, and thus a very large party in opposition…
you’ve forgotten Winstons third option which is to go with neither party. Just because he wont go with National means he has to go with Labour/Greens/IMP.
If this is an indication of where Whyte wants to take things then we’re going to need a bit more than Susan Devoy talking about things she doesn’t understand:
“She went on to say that treating everyone exactly the same, as Dr Whyte was arguing for, “will not necessarily make everyone exactly the same and anyone who thinks so is incredibly naive”.”
It’s almost as if Devoy’s saying she thinks it would be good if everyone were the same just that it’s a pretty hard thing to achieve. Pretty lightweight stuff. Whyte’s a piece of work. Judith Collins will be thinking Devoy’s appointment strikes the perfect balance.
Argentina chose to borrow under US law. No-one held a gun to their head.
BNP admitted to deliberately and wilfully circumventing US sanctions. If there is one thing to get the Feds excited it is deliberately trading with terrorist states or entities (as defined by the USG).
The US is being quite even-handed, they are extracting multi-billion dollar fines from every bank they can, domestic or foreign without discrimination. Good on them. Think of it as a thank-you from the banks for the bailout (both directly and via liquidity measures) they have received from the USG since 2008.
Argentina chose to borrow under US law. No-one held a gun to their head.
A statement which totally ignores the long long history of the USA holding guns to the heads of South American governments who choose not to fit in with the world financial and central banking system.
Forcing down the Ecaudorean president’s plane over European air space last year was just another example.
Fortunately, this kind of move by the USA simply accelerates the move away from the USD denominated financial system which I suggest is in its final 10 years of dominance right now.
“Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows a large fall in support for National (46%, down 5% – the lowest since May) now with a significantly reduced lead over a potential Labour/Greens alliance (42%, up 3.5%) just two months before the New Zealand Election on September 20.
Support for Key’s Coalition partners has changed little overall with the Maori Party 1.5% (up 0.5%), Act NZ (0.5%, unchanged) and United Future 0.5% (unchanged).
Support for the Labour Party is 30% (up 6.5%), but the Greens are down 3% to 12%. Potential ‘king-makers’ NZ First is 5% (down 1%), the Internet-Mana Party alliance is 2.5% (up 1%). Support for the Conservative Party of NZ is 1% (unchanged) and support for Independent/ Others is 1% (up 1%).”
hooton has repeatedly said that/poured that bucket of reality over national..(except then it was six points below where they were last time..10% behind is a serious amount/lag..)
..and when watching questiontime i like reading the backbenchers’ faces…
..and aside from the end-of-term hijinks today..
..they have this week looking very very glum..
..this observation cheered me to some degree..
(..as..right or wrong.. i read it as bad news internal-polling..or the like..)
..and i hafta say..that as a political-junkie..while ideologically i wd like more certainty to what i want..this is the most cliff-hanging/fascinating election i can remember..
..the different permutations churn around and around..
..and the packed halls for internet-mana meetings cheer me no end..
..with the certainty they will well out-perform the ‘experts’/pundits opinions..bedding further in day-by-day..
To be honest not all that good but if it keeps the GIMPs (note that doesn’t include Labour) away from the treasury benches its the price you have to pay in an MMP environment
(1) a derrogatory term for someone that is disabled or has a medicial problem that results in physical impairment.
(2) An insult implying that someone is incompetent, stupid, etc. Can also be used to imply that the person is uncool or can’t/won’t do what everyone else is doing.
(3) A sex slave or submissive, usually male, as popularlized by the movie Pulp Fiction.”
After the final question at QT David Shearer asked for leave to table an email which showed that maybe McCulley had mislead the House over the timing of that Diplomat email. David gave just that it was an email relating to….. I can only guess that it has great significance to the saga but… House has just risen so no access to recourse?
+Holding individuals to account is a key component of our job’ says Bank of England deputy governor
+ Some executives could find they have to pay back money after 10 years
+ Other measures being considered include scrapping ‘golden hello’ bonuses for senior executives
+Britain has also already passed a law making reckless behaviour by bankers a criminal act punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Hopefully 15 years then Brain Fade Key will have to pay back his ill gotten millions earned by selling false interest rates as head of Merrill Lynch currency trades . insider trading was at its peak when Brain Fade Key has conveniently forgotten how rotten Merrill Lynch was while he was their!
Wow, that changes everything. Thanks, Thor42, I’m convinced. You know what’s really bad? Hamas forcing those babies to throw themselves in front of peaceful Israeli rockets. The bastards.
The United States issued a firm condemnation of the shelling of a United Nations school in Gaza that killed at least 16 Palestinians on Wednesday, but also confirmed it restocked Israel’s dwindling supplies of ammunition….
The Israeli military requested the addition ammunition on 20 July . The US defense department approved the sale three days later, Kirby said.
Two of the requested munitions were sourced from a secret stockpile the US keeps in Israel for emergencies. White House approval was not required to release the weaponry War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel (WRSA-I)
Shouldn’t you be over at colonel bunnies place with the other deluded old men talking about ni-CLANG’s in the whitehouse ignoring constutional shit and molon labe shit and shooting shit and shit and stuff…
I’m so happy for you. You must save heaps on Viagra when you can watch hospitals being bombed and kids being killed on youtube. You could even spend the money you save for a ticket to the Sderot cinema.
Good on you ianmac – Pretty extensive roadshow although the Westcoast is missing out it seems – never mind, I’m going to Nelson – I wonder if any other standardistas will be there.
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. . Former Police, Corrections, and Justice Minister in the previous John Key government, Judith Collins, has been ridiculed on social media after posting a comment on Twitter that was patently untrue; . Wrong!! National did not remove Prisoners’ ability to vote. Parliament voted through a Private Member’s Bill ...
Speaker Trevor Mallard was left to look after Jones, while his usual caretaker, Winston Peters, underwent surgery. A truly adorable scene from Parliament yesterday has gone viral, after Speaker Trevor Mallard cradled an extremely drunk Shane Jones in his arms while the House was in session. Loud “awwww”s could be ...
Western media have defended their decision not to cover the fires so as not to give them any oxygen. Social media outrage continues to grow around the sentiment that mainstream western media is devoting too little coverage to an ongoing series of fires in the Amazon rainforest, and in doing ...
A Long Time Ago, In A Parallel Universe Far, Far Away: The political journalist scratched his head in confusion. Only then did he notice the name of the building: ‘The Jacinda Ardern Presidential Library and Public Resource Centre’. Making his way inside to the information desk, he asked the librarian ...
Too Much Of Nothing: In many respects it is the power of a free press to keep history’s images vivid and clear that renders it so important to the life of our democracy. It was the Czech writer, Milan Kundera, who said it best: “The struggle of man against power ...
Spark is bracing for a customer backlash as rugby fans all across the country struggle to get a picture on their wireless router. With the Rugby World Cup fast approaching, an elderly Taranaki couple are furious after being told that they still won’t be able to watch the tournament, even ...
Several explosions have been reported across Auckland, as well-meaning environmentalists have already begun purchasing too much petrol Starting from next week, customers will no longer need a car to purchase petrol directly from the pump, a development that two major fuel providers are billing as an opportunity to help fight ...
A new study claims to find that a mother’s exposure to fluoridated water during pregnancy may decrease the IQ of male children – but is it correct? (Photo: Getty Images) Anti-fluoride campaigners are promoting ...
Yesterday the Greater Wellington Regional Council unanimously declared a climate emergency. They've also set themselves a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, though this only applies to their direct emissions. Still, its a good step, and as usual it invites the question: where is Parliament? When are we going ...
That's the only way to describe the government's plans for a Parliamentary Budget Office to allow opposition parties to get an independent costing of their policies. When the idea was first floated back in 2016 as an office within Treasury, I thought that wasn't independent enough and argued that it ...
Today is a Member's day, and after the third reading of Hamish Walker's KiwiSaver (Oranga Tamariki Guardians) Amendment Bill, Parliament will be continuing the committee stage of David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. The bigots have put up another pile of amendments in an effort to delay or wreck ...
Television advertising has a huge impact on our lives. Even if we don’t recognise that, we know it has to be true, since otherwise why would advertisers spend so much on it? Its significance, however, is greater than simply the influence it has on what we purchase and consume. It ...
by Jan Rivers More than 30 years ago a Commission of Inquiry was held in New Zealand to investigate, amongst other things, whether women with cervical cancer were aware that they had been part of a research project and whether they were properly informed of the treatment options ...
Everyone Wants To Be Fuhrer: When fascist groups are discussed, the image conjured-up in the minds of most New Zealanders is one of pathetic misfits. This negative impression is reinforced by the latter’s idiotic embrace of the swastika. Even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the baleful legacy ...
by Philip Ferguson This weekend just past marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the most famous of the great 1960s music festivals. It was held over the weekend (Friday-Monday) of August 15-18, 1969. Woodstock was a highpoint of the US ‘counter-culture’, and also the beginning of its end. When exploring the ...
It looks like the government has won over the public on its vehicle feebate scheme:A feebate scheme that would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from buyers of higher-emission cars into the pockets of people buying EVs and other more fuel-efficient vehicles has been winning favour with submitters, the Government ...
When people suggest lowering the voting age, others argue that the young are too uneducated or silly to exercise the duties of citizenship. Australian John Quiggin has just blown that argument out of the water:Looking at the array of ignorant and vindictive old men attacking Greta Thunberg and other young ...
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...
Back in May, Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki launched another political party. Despite consisting entirely of followers of their religion, they grandly called it "Coalition New Zealand", in a vain effort to suggest it was something broader. But when they applied for registration, submitters opposed the name, as ...
The following article is excerpted and translated from two articles in recent issues of Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the revolutionary workers group active in France. We don’t necessarily agree with everything in it – for instance, the 1956-62 war for independence involved rather more revolutionary forces than ...
The Pacific is on the front line of climate change, and if we don't cut emissions quickly, some countries are literally going to be underwater. Because of this, small Pacific states had tried to use this week's Pacific Islands Forum meeting to get Pacific countries to agree to ending coal ...
To Limit Another's Rights Is To Limit One's Own: Is it too much to expect senior members of our Government to be capable of explaining that we protect the rights of human-beings precisely because not even the most depraved act can cancel-out the fact that its perpetrator is also a ...
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...
This section builds on Part 1 of this series to provide a theoretical basis for the final instalment (part 3 – to come). Self-determination: law or resurgence — or both? International law promotes the principal of equal treatment and self-determination, which includes peoples’ rights to freely pursue their social, cultural and ...
Everyone was outraged yesterday to learn that the Christchurch shooting accused had been able to send mail from prison to his Nazi fans, apparently pushing more hate. "How could this possibly happen", people asked. Simple: because New Zealand is a civilised country, and so we let prisoners send and receive ...
If we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, we need to rapidly decarbonise our transport fleet. The good news: its starting to happen:The number of electric vehicles on New Zealand's roads have nearly tripled in the past two years. There are currently 15,453 registered electric vehicles (EVs), up ...
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
National’s Election promises are similar to 2017 statements BUT…. • Recognises compliance is the number one issue for small medium business (SMEs); ...
Aug. 26 (BusinessDesk) - The National Party is floating a cut to New Zealand's 28 percent company tax rate among a suite of possible tax changes it would promise going into the 2020 election. ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has been provided with the soon to be released coronial data on suicide in New Zealand. The fact is the suicide rate has risen again and is out of control. The Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council (and former ...
Family First NZ is welcoming the Government’s intention to tackle the harms of pornography, and are also continuing to call for a truly independent Expert Panel to investigate and provide solutions for families. ...
"For too long central government has layered additional responsibilities onto local government with little consultation or acknowledgement of the essential work councils do. Combined with the lack of support and funding, this top down attitude ...
Joining local Green candidates at their campaign launch on Sunday at the Highbury Whanau Centre Green Party Co-Leader Marama Davidson will say, “I’m very proud to join Green candidates Teanau Tuiono, Renee Dingwall and Brent Barrett in calling ...
The Campaign for Better Transport ( CBT ) is pleased to hear the government has announced the start of train services from Hamilton to Papakura but is concerned about some of the features of the proposed service. ...
Family First NZ is supporting a call by the Police to raise the drinking age, which echoes previous calls by the NZ Medical Association, but says that other factors around price, availability, penalties and addiction services must be part of the ...
West Papua solidarity activists met yesterday and resolved to call on the Prime Minister to step up to help resolve the escalating crisis in West Papua. ...
Landmark Report Released into Maori Aging and Disabilities “Manaaki Pakeke” – New Zealand Maori Council calls for a policy shift and greater focus The New Zealand Maori Council has released a comprehensive policy statement challenging the ...
MANATŪ TAONGA MINISTRY FOR CULTURE AND HERITAGE MEDIA RELEASE 25 August 2019 Privacy breach identified with the Tuia 250 Voyage Trainee website Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage is investigating a serious digital privacy breach involving ...
‘Original Sin’ of Land Confiscation at Ihumātao is a wrong that can be put right by Government says Justice & Peace Commission of Catholic Diocese of Auckland ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference on August 19 that her government is likely to impose new restrictions on prisoners’ rights to send letters. She said the law could be changed in “weeks.” ...
Heart-warming images of House Speaker Trevor Mallard cradling a baby in Parliament have been welcomed around New Zealand, but the Public Service Association warns most families can only dream of such support in the workplace. ...
Applying New Zealand’s international human rights commitments, particularly those in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, can help in resolving the situation at Ihumātao, Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt says. ...
Climate campaigners impersonating bank staff have taken to the streets this week to expose ANZ Bank’s sponsorship of the fossil fuel industry. In the series of satirical actions in Wellington, Dunedin, and Auckland, the ‘bank staff’ promoted ...
Auckland Action Against Poverty joins the Children’s Commissioner , The Green Party , The New Zealand Drugs Foundation , Child Poverty Action Group and other organisations in the calls for an immediate end to the drug testing benefit sanctions. ...
Negotiations between Port Otago workers represented by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) and the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) and management failed today and the unions have issued notice of an overtime ban from Saturday 7th September. ...
Queenstown Lakes District Council’s comments that it has applied for a consent to pollute waterways to avoid 'prosecutions by the Otago Regional Council' are unacceptable,’ Fish & Game New Zealand Chief Executive Martin Taylor says. ...
On March 15, the real world impact of online hate became abundantly, horrifically clear. As a shooter opened fire at two Christchurch mosques, the online image board 8chan anticipated, celebrated and amplified his killing spree. ...
Friday, 23 August: Government delegates from around the world, including New Zealand, are meeting in New York for the third of four meetings at the United Nations to agree a Global Oceans Treaty that could help to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030. Greenpeace ...
The excuses about a reportedly unwanted $57,000 payrise for Dunedin City Council CEO Sue Bidrose are laughable, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance has launched the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” committing to no more than 2% annual rate hikes over the next Council term, and has written to all Mayoral and Council candidates asking them to sign. The pledge will ...
This Saturday, Pakuranga Hunt Day at the Ellerslie Racecourse will see anti-horse racing protesters demonstrating at the corner of Ascot Avenue and Greenlane East. ...
Mayoral candidate John Tamihere will meet with Pacific Island leaders and community elders today at Puhunui Reserve in South Auckland to commit to a Pasefika Cultural Centre. ...
Cruel and invalid Forced Swim Tests carried out at Victoria University of Wellington, will be exposed at the University Open Day today, so prospective students can be warned about the flawed and unethical research being conducted at the institute. ...
The organiser of the annual YWCA Equal Pay Awards has expressed her disappointment with the latest Gender Pay Gap figure for New Zealand workers. The figure rose slightly from 9.2% in 2018 to 9.3% for the quarter ended 30 June 2019. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to pass on information to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques now that the period for submissions has been extended to 27 September. ...
An application was filed in the Employment Relations Authority in Wellington today, seeking an injunction to prevent the Board of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation from removing the President from office. ...
The Government’s commitment to support literacy and numeracy training in the workplace is a strong signal from Government on recognising the importance of upskilling, reskilling and increasing productivity alongside their commitment to address the challenges ...
“The infrastructure sector sees a major role for the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga in lifting the nation’s sagging infrastructure performance,” says Paul Blair, incoming CEO of Infrastructure NZ. ...
The AA is calling on the Government to bring forward critical highway projects while time is spent properly developing the plans for a rapid transit system in Auckland. ...
Between 2015/16 and 2017/18, DHBs spent $280 million treating patients due to adverse drug reactions, reveals the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union in its latest briefing paper on health productivity . ...
The Pay Equity Coalition Auckland (PECA) is pleased the gender pay gap has decreased slightly. Statistics released today show the gap is now 11.9%, nearly 2 percent less than last year. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to make sure they pass on any information they have to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques before submissions close tomorrow (Friday). ...
The big electricity companies consider solar energy “disruptive” and want pricing to suppress it. In contrast, advocates of local energy say that solar, energy efficiency, and other local energy solutions are the cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions. ...
The Earthquake Commission and Shine Lawyers are delighted to announce that EQC has reached an agreement with the Gibling family, agreeing to cover the cost of repairs of remaining earthquake damage on their property. ...
Four months into the inquiry, the Royal Commission is gathering significant information and continues to receive valuable submissions from the public, from current and former State servants, experts and community groups. ...
While Fish & Game New Zealand is pleased to see Federated Farmers Environment Spokesperson Chris Allen say that 'we all want good, fresh water', he conveniently overlooks some key facts. ...
What: Wellington demo “Save the Amazon Forest/Salve a Amazônia!” When: Friday, 6 September 2019 from 12:30-13:30 Where: Embassy of Brazil in Wellingtona ...
Rt Hon Trevor Mallard, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, welcomes the visit of His Excellency Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, President of the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grahame Dowling, Honorary Professor, University of Technology Sydney One of my banks invited me to a customer lunch a few weeks back so that it could announce its commitment to the new Banking Code of Conduct. Here was a chance for it ...
In the space of days a waitress was racially abused in Auckland and a deaf student mocked by his peers in Canterbury. In both cases there were apologies. In both cases those apologies fall short, writes Christine AmmunsonWhat a stink week. Within days and in two different cities, we had ...
Record low borrowing costs are a precious opportunity for business owners who now need to make savvy decisions about what to do with the cash.The experts may have been caught off-guard when the Reserve Bank opened fire on interest rates earlier this month, but the fact of the matter is ...
For years, New Zealand has bemoaned the gap between much of our television drama and the cutting edge out in the world. That gap might finally be closing, writes Duncan Greive.He’s just a minor character, eating an ice cream. It doesn’t seem all that revolutionary, but in the context of ...
Ruby Porter on the first novel by acclaimed Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong. I came across Ocean Vuong’s poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds last year. I read it twice in one day. I was staying outside of New York, at the time, and taking the train in each morning. I ...
A War Story is one more attempt in a long line of art to make sense of 9/11 – this time from a uniquely Kiwi perspective.The coordinated terrorist attacks on September 11 2001 cut a razor-sharp divide between the relatively carefree time before and everything after, bleeding into ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Privacy breach at Ministry for Culture and Heritage Audrey Young (Herald): How latest privacy breach ...
Auckland mayoral rival John Tamihere is pitching himself as a low-cost candidate but the incumbent Phil Goff says Mr Tamihere lacks a basic understanding of finances. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elyse Methven, Lecturer in Law, University of Technology Sydney As the state election loomed last year, the NSW government rushed through a new crime targeting drug suppliers. A person who supplies a prohibited drug for profit can now be prosecuted for homicide ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Talbot-Jones, Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington Last week, voter enrolment for the 2019 local government elections closed in New Zealand and concerns about low voter turnout resurfaced. During a panel discussion run by Auckland Council, the idea was raised to pay ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Dunk, Research Fellow, University of Sydney Last week, one of the world’s leading medical journals declared the medical community must act now to limit the health effects of climate change. In a stark editorial, readers of the New England Journal of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Goss, School Education Program Director, Grattan Institute Australia’s young high achievers are turning their backs on teaching. They want to make a difference in their careers, and they are interested in teaching, but when it comes to the crunch they choose ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash University Since 2000, planning authorities in Australia have overseen a massive rezoning of inner-city industrial land to make way for mixed-use residential development. They claim central industrial space is obsolete in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Owen, PhD Candidate, Monash University Last week, menstrual pad brand Libra launched their Blood Normal commercial in Australia, running it during prime time television shows including The Bachelor, The Project, and Gogglebox. Australia is a little late to the party: Blood ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Govt rejects idea to ban petrol car imports in 2035, firefighters say they’re facing a workforce crisis, and Tamihere pledges rate freeze.A strange sort of stoush erupted at the end of last week around petrol and diesel car sales. On Friday, Newsroom reported ...
Kiwi boxer Troy Garton, who defied medical advice to produce one of the most remarkable performances in NZ sport, now has her sights set firmly on the Tokyo Olympics. ...
Victoria University of Wellington's Anne Goulding discusses the paradox of New Zealanders wanting to safeguard our personal data, while frequently and freely giving it away. ...
Lisa McMillan is an adrenaline junkie. Instead of skydiving or driving race cars, she collects rooms full of naked strangers. Josie Adams went along to the Naked Dinner and found it stimulated all the wrong hormones.In a tealight-lit lounge in a rented Symonds Street flat, I milled around with 23 ...
Brazil’s rainforests are ablaze, and even from the distance of New Zealand, many of us are losing sleep. For the climate and for humanity, we can do something profound and simple, writes Kena DuignanI’ve asked my dad to look after my kids yesterday so I could write this, after a ...
Meng Foon has been a fixture in Gisborne local government for more than two decades. Today he starts a new role, as race relations commissioner. Alice Webb-Lidall heads over to his Gisborne home for dinner, to find out what he’ll miss as mayor, and how he’ll approach his new jobThis ...
In the final of our series on the loss of faith in free market economics we ask New Zealand business leaders how they’re grappling with the almighty power of a technology that barely existed 20 years ago. Hands up who’s read the Financial Markets Authority’s website. Come on, be honest.No, of ...
Is New Zealand in danger of becoming a bio-tech backwater because of our strict GE rules, or should we retain them to sell our clean image overseas? ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie Indonesia’s harsh policies towards West Papua ought to be scrapped. Whatever happened to the brief window of enlightenment ushered in by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2015 with promises of a more “open door” policy towards foreign journalists and human rights groups? They were supposed ...
The House - The grammar of being an MP is harder than you might think. MPs in Parliament choose their words with care, and it just got more complicated. ...
As a format it predates almost all reality TV, and that’s precisely why it works in 2019, writes Duncan Greive.There’s something deeply comforting about watching Celebrity Treasure Island. It is a very pure form of escapism, largely because it explicitly recalls a world without the internet, and before everything started ...
Residents in Los Angeles and Orange County warned to check for symptoms after an infected NZ teen visited theme parks including Disneyland and Universal Studios earlier this month.Californian health authorities have issued warnings to residents and visitors after a New Zealand teenager was found to have spent five days in ...
When you crave fresh, bright flavours but summer veges seem far away, throw together this simple salad.Growing up we often ate this salad, or one very similar to it. My mum is a fantastic cook and this dish is one she still makes to this day – though I must ...
Analysis of New Zealand media headlines reveals a lot of people slamming a lot of other people.Slamming is at epidemic levels in New Zealand news. Drawn from just the last month, we present a selection of slamming.On July 27A union boss slammed David ClarkOn July 29Police slammed a dangerous photographerOn ...
Vana Manasiadis wrote a collection of poetry in the wake of her mother’s death. In this essay, ahead of her appearance at the Going West festival, she argues that as a nation Aotearoa needs to learn to make space for mourning. When Mum died in Athens, I cried loudly and publicly ...
The giant hand that captivated, delighted and disgusted the nation is now settling into its new Wellington home. For City Gallery Wellington’s blog, Spinoff arts editor Megan Dunn talked to Ronnie van Hout, the man who made Quasi.“Quasi is in the wrong place,” wrote art critic Warren Feeney in 2016, ...
At school camp, the children are banned from having phones, laptops, lollies, chocolate, money, cotton clothing or independent thoughts. They, are, however, allowed home baking – but it’s gotta be hearty. How hearty are you? We are packing for a school camp. If you’re thinking that the middle of winter is ...
Phil Goff’s rival has already pledged an 0800-Jacinda homeless hotline and an 18-lane harbour bridge. What’s next? The two most important people in the 2019 campaign for the Auckland mayoralty faced each other down on Wednesday night across the desk in the NZME debate: Bernard Orsman and Simon Wilson. Correction: it ...
Split Level View Finder: Theo Schoon and New Zealand Art is the exhibition that sparked a protest over issues of cultural appropriation and institutional representation. Theo Schoon is a divisive historical figure. But is his art any good? Martin Patrick reviews.British novelist L.P. Hartley once wrote that “the past is ...
Ahead of debuting her solo show at New Zealand Fashion Week, Korean-NZ couture designer Cecilia Kang talks about growing up ‘feminine’, being influenced by the LGBTQ+ community, and why an ‘administrative error’ at Fashion Week left her so shaken up. ‘I like something big,” says Cecilia Kang, gesturing to the giant ...
The Labour Party is distancing itself from one of its members who is strongly pro-Beijing and has caused controversy in the Chinese community by standing for local office in Auckland. ...
Faced with staff shortages, equipment failures, cancer risks, and a jump in critical calls that can leave them traumatised, some firefighters are wondering if it’s time to hang up the hose. Gareth Shute reports on the dissatisfaction inside Fire and Emergency New Zealand.The state of our nation’s fire service is ...
“She comes over. You’re my mother, she says. Yes, I say. I don’t know you, she says”: a mother and child seaside story by Wellington author Jan Pryor. Photo by Peter Black. ...
Open mike 31/07/2014 
Open mike is your post.
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Why is there a role, and why do we have to be on it?
There has been some talk on this blog of electoral reform. Most of the talk has come from a more centrist and therefore more conservative point of view, usually around forcing compulsory voting backed up by punitive fines. (As in Australia).
I would like to suggest that instead of the punitive path we go in the opposite direction, that we free up the process.
If you can prove you’re a citizen of the age to vote then you should be allowed to.
Drivers licence, passport, or other verifiable ID should be enough to allow you to exercise your democratic right.
Then you just rock up on the day and vote.
This in fact was one of the original demands of the Egyptian revolution.
I was moved to reconsider this option by an opinion piece on Stuff.co. nz
“When 10 per cent of the population doesn’t vote, it’s apathy.” “But you can’t dismiss 30 per cent.”
I agree.
We often see criticism of the US voter discrimination that sees black people hit particularly hard by election rules that disadvantage them.
But New Zealand has similar built in electoral disadvantage. I was reminded of this when at the last local body elections my voting forms didn’t arrive. My partner had received theirs. At first I thought it was because my name appeared later in the alphabet. But when time was almost out I made inquiries and found that my name and details had been removed from the role. I rang the electoral office in Wellington and inquired why, I was told I hadn’t returned the standard enrollment package updating my details. I said, but it plainly says on the letter that if your details haven’t changed don’t send this form back. The person on the other end of the phone agreed that it what it said and that my name should not have been removed from the role, they offered no other reason why I was cut off.
Anecdotal reports from friends and family revealed a couple more cases of people being mysteriously removed from the electoral role.
But apart from these odd anomalies and mistakes there is the wider question of how and why many lower paid people are being dumped from the role.
With the recent end of Housing New Zealand and the removal of state house tenants’ tenure and the imposition of the “90 days notice” of eviction. And the change from housing being a right under Housing New Zealand to a charitable benefit under the control of WINZ, many more lower paid New Zealanders are facing housing insecurity and being moved on more often at the discretion of their landlord just as private rental tenants are. In fact state house tenants now have less rights to their houses than private renters. The over whelming trend is for lower paid renters to change address more often, each time automatically sees them dumped from the electoral role.
(there is also the idiocy of the mass mailing out of re-enrollment forms to people’s previously last known address. What on earth is this supposed to achieve?)
There are other reasons that people are not on the role and the writer to stuff mentions them. Another one that wasn’t mentioned is that many people on low incomes are actively avoiding debt collectors, and don’t want their details easily publicly available, should someone be denied the right to vote because of that? Or someone avoiding a bad ex-boyfriend, should that cost them their vote?
Forget about punitive solutions that blame the victim let’s abolish the intrusive and invasive electoral role and open the electoral mandate to everyone without fear or favour.
YEah, I think if our details could be kept out of a public register then more people would vote.
Well written Jenny, spoiled a little by the use of the word role instead of ROLL in your opening line,
The major flaw i see in your proposal being if there is no electoral roll how do we arrive at electorate Members of the Parliament,(you presuppose honesty, but, your laissez fairre prescription would allow myself residing in the Rongatai electorate to nip across to the west of the city and vote in the Ohariu electorate),
Again concerning honesty, would not the voting system have to be computerized, without an electoral roll what is to stop, again say myself, from rolling round all the electorates casting votes as i went,
i am in favor of compulsory voting, along with the compulsion i believe the school curriculum should be altered to include civics where the reasons why we all should vote are explored and explained…
PS Jenny, most of your concerns surrounding the ‘churn’ of citizens moving constantly throughout New Zealand, in the context which you have laid out, could be easily addressed by having WINZ as part of all clients files have a flag show whether the client was or was not enrolled and if not an instant enrollment could occur in this setting,
Obviously the ability for WINZ computers to ‘talk’ to the computer? which holds the data base of enrollments would be a necessity but would be little different in the current ability for WINZ to match data with other Government data bases…
When I moved from Dunedin to Auckland I got a letter from the Electoral commission demanding that I update my electoral details. I assume that they got my new address from WINZ.
I also know people who were dropped off the rolls around Wellington despite not having shifted butt in some years. Looks like the electoral office had a system failure that it has not come clean about so that people can check and re-enrol. OIA perhaps but they really should just front up and let everyone know and reinstate the dropped names.
I have just looked on line.
Is it possible to check you enrolment on line?
I could not see it.
No. The electoral roll can only be viewed in hard copy – at libraries and post offices. This is to stop misuse of electronic/online rolls. I.e. people using them for spam emails, etc.
Worth noting that you can of course check your own personal details online, but not other peoples…
https://enrol.elections.org.nz/app/enrol/#/check
and worth stating again that there is an unpublished roll too…
http://www.elections.org.nz/voters/get-ready-enrol-and-vote/unpublished-roll
Thanks Tiger.
I should have been more assiduous.
I was dropped off the roll earlier this year despite having moved to my present address at the end of 2005 and having no problems up until I was asked to re-enrol. I thought it weird at the time, but complied with the request and am now back on. My husband wasn’t asked to re-enrol.
That would be what the electoral role is for rather than going through the rigmarole every time you went to a voting station.
The problem with that idea is that not everyone has those things. What you’d need is a citizenship card that everyone has. I’m certainly not averse to such a thing but I’m sure that a lot of people would be.
“What you’d need is a citizenship card that everyone has. I’m certainly not averse to such a thing but I’m sure that a lot of people would be.”
The only issues I’d have with a id card is what information was on it and who gets to check it.
I figure it would contain your social security details at a minimum and passport, drivers license when/if you get them.
Still no worries with that.
Playing devil’s advocate, the real concern would be if everyone had cards, a government could impose, for example, restrictions of movement on the populace. Presenting a card to travel inter city could lead to track and trace of all citizens. I know cell phones probably do the same, but not everyone has to have a mobile.
it’s like drivers licenses: went to photo id (slightly less reliable than written details, but ok), and you suddenly had to carry them all the time. Then it became a traffic duty stat to just stop drivers and ask to see their license.
And what if your citizen card gets nicked? No vote, or just shedloads of paperwork?
For us who can’t afford the paperwork, barcodes on the forehead or chips under the skin.
Lucky they won’t have those nasal implant trackers like in Total recall for a few more years yet.
As an aside, this ones for the kiddies: Microchip bracelets to track behaviour:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/60406398/school-plans-microchip-bracelets.html
How disturbing is that!
On seeing the headline earlier I thought that’s not a bad idea if it sets off an alarm should kids go out of bounds or worst case scenario, abducted during school hours, but on reading it was a bonus point reward scheme, I couldn’t help wonder what my local school could spend $7000 on to improve outcomes and educations.
That is really disturbing.
The teachers could do that without a bracelet. But, really, why are they even considering an online database of a kids behaviour? Nothing online disappears and so the children will have that weight hanging around their necks for the rest of their lives.
RealMe kinda does that already. I found it pretty painless to set up and really useful for getting a new passport and also enrolling at uni.
https://www.realme.govt.nz/
Also heard an anecdotal report of Maori electoral roll voters turning up at a poll booth, only to be told that they had to go to the one down the street as they didn’t have Maori electorate voting papers. The redirection required another 1km journey.
I would have thought this would have been against election rules.
You need a roll because that is how we check that there is one person one vote.
I teach tertiary students. Most are aged between 18 and 25.
Of all those eligible to vote at the 2011 election they said they all voted. Of that group one is probably not going to vote this year. His reason was it doesnt make a difference.
Of those eligible for the first time this year, half said they dont intend voting. Dont care, doesnt make a difference. None know anything the parties are offering. Some have not received enrolment papers. I directed them to rockenrol.me
It is not scientific, obviously, but wanted to share
What’s going on in Australia? Wikileaks’ latest revelation about the news black-out concerning the endemic corruption at the Reserve Bank of Australia is bad enough, but not sufficiently reported so far, IMHO, is that it seems those actually responsible for the corruption may escape justice because of it.
The reason for the censorship as imposed by the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria is that coverage may negatively effect Australia’s international relations and may impugn the reputation of specified individuals who are not the subject the charges in the proceedings. That seems entirely disengenuous in that the demonstration of open justice would, in fact, impact positively on Australia while, chances are, the individuals who’s reputations the Court is so concerned about are among those who have benefitted most from the corruption. Its the classic case of the street soldiers taking the fall while the Dons sit back and enjoy the loot.
For those who have not been following the RBA scandal, the corruption goes back to at least 1998 . At that time, two agents of the RBA visited Iraq in order to sell the regime new technology being employed in the printing of bank notes. The attempt broke both Australian and international law because of the sanctions against doing business with Iraq which were then in place. The RBA was among the statutory bodies reponsible for ensuring that the sanctions were not violated. However, a multi-million dollar deal was cooked up to facillitate the deal by filtering payments through Jordan. At the last moment, the crime was scuttled by diplomats who caught wind of it. While that deal fell through, agents for the RBA went on to sell the new-technology bank notes to countries around the world and, in doing so, sweetened most of the deals with massive bribes paid to officials and politicians. There’s a familiar note to this new development in that among the material being censored is the affadavit of one Gillian Elizabeth Bird, another diplomat and the person just recently appointed to the UN by the Australian government. It would seem she has named names.
The criminal prosecution of the executives who managed the corruption has been dragging on since 2011. As far as I can see (IANAL) the case has been stalled since August 2012 while the federal government appealed an earlier court decision to allow media coverage and public attendance during the trial. It seems now that the case will go ahead. Meanwhile, the henchman have all had their names already published, yet the main cuplrits and benefactors get to keep their crimes.
I’m looking at you . . .
Graeme Thompson
Mark Bethwaite
Dick Warburton
Bob Rankin
Tony Negus
Greg Medcraft
. . . as well as:
As always thank you BLiP. Fascinating …
Yes indeed blip.
In Oz its dawning on them that they are no better than some of those dodgy regimes they’ve been sneering at with this, especially malaysia who keating had a pop at as PM. Indonesia can do as they please as theres too much oil and gas in that mix for any other action.
You only have to look at their treatment of refugees which is being blacked out to their msm to see a loss of humanity and empathy across the ditch.
Among Tonys CT assisted agenda is attack public broadcasting, education and dismantle fund manager reforms to allow the fat cats to keep fleecing contributors on top of a budget shocker stalling in the senate thats been stacked with mining money senators under PUP.
All cheered on by murdoch amongst others.
‘Pinpoint’ targeting turns to ‘in the vicinity of…’
There is no excuse .
Yep, this killing by the Jewish nation state is a genocide.
But it is more than that. As I mentioned last week, it is also infanticide.
Gaza is a concentration camp being subjected to genocide and infanticide.
And the rumours of Jewish young folk being called up to serve from here in NZ because it is going to be a long long murdering rampage are clearly true.
Evil bastards
+100 vto…and is the NZ govt going to regard these New Zealanders who fight for the Israelis as terrorists…remember John Key condoning the drone attack on a young New Zealander?
By Robert Fisk
“It’s not just radicalised Islamists – what about foreign fighters who flock to the IDF?
Is the Government interested in UK citizens who have been fighting in Israeli uniform in Gaza in the past couple of weeks?…
Let me be frank. Dozens of British supporters of Israel do serve in the Israeli army. The same applies for Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. And they don’t necessarily gravitate to being war criminals. This may not be what an Arab would say – and it is certainly not what Israelis would suggest. But there is plenty of evidence – from 1982 in Lebanon, from 1996 in Qana, from 2008-9 in Gaza and again in Gaza these past two weeks – that individual Israeli soldiers and pilots have committed acts which, under international law, are war crimes…
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/its-not-just-radicalised-islamists–what-about-foreign-fighters-who-flock-to-the-idf-9634260.html
Key has said it is a blot
what is a blot?
Like a blot on the landscape, a horrible maro or stain that is difficult to erase
hmmm
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11302051
Now that Israel has achieved its objectives he is prepared to call for a halt… To save the inncocent children of course
Has he called in the ambassador for Israel to express concern about this blot?
Although it’s not a big enough blot for sanctions or anything, so…
“a blot on the world as we know it”..like the Cat in the Hat…a jiggery pokery statement…could mean whatever you want… or everything you dont want ! ( I wonder if Texter /Crosby helped him dream that one up?)
for some reason the Link to Robert Fisk above at 3.1.1 does not seem to be working (on my browser at least)…so try again
…Robert Fisk writes for the British newspaper ‘The Independent’…Robert Fisk is a multiple award-winning journalist on the Middle East, based in Beirut.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/its-not-just-radicalised-islamists–what-about-foreign-fighters-who-flock-to-the-idf-9634260.html
‘Has Apartheid Israel committed war crimes?’
By Martyn Bradbury / July 31, 2014 / 3 Comments
“Last week 29 of the UN Human Rights Council’s 47 members voted to set up an inquiry into possible war crimes committed by Apartheid Israel during it’s latest bloody purge of the Palestinian people….
Yes, vto. You’re comment a few days ago that said something like ‘tomorrow the IDF will kill x children’, really nailed the determined nature of this attack on civilians.
Ooops stupid autopilot fingers and I missed the edit window *your
“..No – Teens Don’t Smoke More Pot In Medical Marijuana States.
A new national report dispels the common prohibitionist argument..”
(cont..)
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/no-teens-dont-smoke-more-pot-medical-marijuana-states
They must have guidelines at the Herald to achieve this kind of redirect.
Derek Cheng does a superb job of downplaying criticism for Simon Bridges both with his headline: Spending on oil barons draws criticism, and his opening sentences (which after all, are the ones that show when viewing online).
“The Green Party is angry that the Government forked out $22,000 on food and drink and $37,000 on luxury accommodation.”
You wouldn’t know from that leading sentence that the amount discussed was actually $237,000.
Further confusion is in his breakdown of the spending that lists a variety of expenses except for the largest, $96,000 for “event and project management”.
Three reasons come to mind for this kind of division:
1. Skim readers will read the list of expenses and think … that doesn’t seem so much… especially when they are looking for a breakdown of $237,000 and read only $141,000 worth.
2. The largest expense is also the most questionable – does no-one in Simon Bridges office know how to organise a knees up?
3. Who provided the “event and project management”? Is this why Derek Cheng put this expense in the prose, rather than bullet point?
Molly ”event and project management” was probably provided by contracting out the task, this could also be termed ”Phone a friend”…
A ridiculous new law making Australian unemployed apply for 40 jobs a month isn’t being appreciated by employers over there
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/28/industry-concerned-about-coalitions-40-job-applications-a-month-plan
and this:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/australia-news-blog/2014/jul/29/i-applied-for-40-jobs-in-nine-minutes
I figured that employers in NZ with our present high unemployment and the government and WINZ pushing people to apply for 5 plus jobs a day would actually be getting really pissed off with applicants. Especially the applicants that turned up on their doorstep demanding an interview which would be happening because WINZ pushes people to get out there and door knock.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11301700
From the article, here is the disturbing bit:
“The Herald understands Mr Mark is being courted both as a list candidate and as a potential successor to leader Winston Peters, in part because of his good relationship with National as the two parties consider a potential post-election deal’
His good relationship with National as the two parties consider a potential post-election deal?
BUGGER THAT!
P.S:
Winston, I doubt if my aunt will vote NZF first now. NZF-Last now UNLESS it was just a mischief making article by a spinalist!
Be that as it may Ron Marks a good man, I’d consider giving NZFirst my party vote if he was leader
u wd vote for attilla the hun..there..p.r..
..if he came back and promised u some more more neo-lib/ayn rand..
..eh..?
..it’s been so good to/for you..eh..?..that ‘neo-lib/ayn rand’..
Which is all we really need to know that he’s the last person we need in parliament.
Winston needs to come clean for all concerned, Key rubbed his nose in it well and truly in 2008 but his real home remains National.
nice to have for the left;
Winston First 4.8%–please voters
Colonservatives–less than Winston around 3 % please voters
wow doesn’t take long for the knives to come out, wasn’t so long ago the Left were claiming Winstonfirst as part of their voting bloc…
For what is worth the left put up a valient attmpt but theres no shame in being beaten by a superior, more popular team, you lot on the left did your best and you should be proud of that
Beaten?
Puck you, you silly man! Has the election campaign begun in earnest yet? The election is on Sept 20 dork. Seven weeks away. I would like to see your face on the night of Sept 20 when you and the RWNJobs will realise that Key/National will not be in a position to form a government at all! There WILL be a Labour led coalition government next. Mark my words, Rogue!
Well done for keeping up that optimism 🙂
Even Winston wasting 4.999% of the vote wont get labour over the line. Lets assume the following party votes – not my view but kind of an average of what a lot of commentators on this site are suggesting/hoping for and consistent-ish with polls:
Nats 47%
Lab 30%
Greens 13%
NZ1 4.999%
IMP 4% (with 1 electorate seat)
Other minors 1%
Dunne and Act and MP win 1 seat with essentially 0% party vote.
Equating this to seats you get:
Nats: 60 seats
Dunne: 1 seat
Act: 1 seat
MP: 1 seat
Right= 63 seats
Labour: 38 seats
Greens: 17 seats
IMP: 5 seats
Left= 60 seats
More wasted vote means it gets easier for national – look what happens if national stays at 47% but the conservatives get 4%.
The vote isn’t really about getting labour up to 30% or 35% its more about getting the national share down to 45% or less – anything above 46-47% then Nats likely to win because of three overhang seats. And if Winston gets in he’ll most likely go with National because of his allergy to the greens and IMP which makes the right bloc even bigger. At 5% on the above numbers he’d take 3 seats from national, 2 from labour, 1 from greens. That would also make Winston Peters our next treasurer or minister of foreign affairs.
Interesting and original analysis, nadis. You’ve put a bit of work and thought into this. And quite right about the implications of a higher wasted vote. Nicely done.
i really think that peters is underestimating the number who voted for him last time..
..because there was no chance of him propping up national..
..that certainty is now gone…
..a vote for peters cd well be a vote for key….(don’t forget..peters is a tory..)
..lab/grns/int-mana are the only ‘safe’-votes for anyone desiring change from what is happening now…
..and i think it is very important this message/warning is repeated often in the run up to the election..
(..we wouldn’t want peters getting away with running a con-job on unsuspecting progressive voters…eh..?..)
..especially those of that persuasion who voted for peters last time..
..when that non-national guarantee was firmly in place…
..they must be warned off voting for him again..
+1 phillip
Yep. Sounding like Winston is trying to pull another 1996.
Slippery the Prime Minister’s ”ruling out” of doing an electorate deal with Colon and the Conservatives is either a gamble that National believe they have the numbers to be able to form the next Government post-election,
Or, National have some sense of surety that NZFirst will opt after the election to enter a coalition with National rather than Labour/Green,
That of course presupposes that NZFirst will actually attain the 5% of party vote necessary, and, on this point i have some pretty large doubts,
i find that article in Granny today to be rather odd to say the least, Peter’s has been at His usual pains to attempt to hide any preference from the electorate, snake-oil salesmanship on display to the max where voters are invited to cast a ballot on blind faith as if there were no left nor right existing in the political realm,
Pointing out to its readers the ‘appearance’ that some form of deal has already been struck between NZFirst and National has the ability to do as much damage to NZFirst’s vote as any gains made if as it would seem the intention was to attract floating ‘soft’ right wing votes to that parties cause,
Tactical voters from 2011, an unmeasured number who only voted NZFirst last election as an ambit to stymie ‘National Governing alone’ with the assurance of the PM that that party was ‘ruled out’ will not be voting NZFirst again in 2014,
Such an article, the unwritten text saying that Winston Peters is being less than honest with His ‘deals only considered after the vote’ has the ability to scare off from NZFirst prior refugees from Labour with a wish, held by many within Labour as well, for a coalition which the party enjoyed with the previous Helen Clark Government,
Along with the Labour refugees, the 2011 Tactical vote, and, a small % of vote that Colons Conservatives have managed to chisel from NZFirst i am picking a result for Peters and company that matches the 2008 result, so near yet so far, 4.5% on election night…
Not forgetting that some of the very old oldies from 2008 would sadly be no more now. RIP.
Interestingly, or not, i have long spelled out here at the Standard my opposition to the Labour policy surrounding the raising of the age of entitlement to superannuation,but, even tho i oppose such with some fervor i would never consider voting for NZFirst to in effect stymie this aspect of Labour policy,
Having said that i know my mother, a lifelong Labour voter did just that, and, far from being comfortably tucked up in their boxes a lot of that particular demographic are now comfortably retired enjoying the small benefits of their gold cards,
As an aside, someone a few days ago produced a comment which strongly intimated that there has been flexibility introduced to the policy which addresses some of the concerns surrounding manual workers and those who become to sick to work at a late age,
The underlying Neo-liberalism inherent in this policy cannot tho be escaped especially in light of the recent David Parker comment hinting at future tax cutting by a Labour Government,
Obviously as i mention above there are within the Labour Caucus and the support base those who pine for the comfort of a Labour/NZFirst coalition which largely sidelines the Greens with some medium sized concessions,
Just as obviously there are those among us who would find another Government of this vein anathema to achieving any ‘real’ gains in repairing the 30 odd years of damage such neo-liberal ideology has inflicted upon the body of society,
Thus the marriage of InternetMana has been seen as a masterstroke of some genius and obviously, by the size of the crowds at the 2 roadshows so far, that view is not confined simply to the pages of the Standard,
If all that DotCom gets to take out of the 2014 election is a ”take that you prick” directed at Slippery the Prime Minister the same as the collective evidence the DotCom’s waved John Banks’s way then i am sure He will be well pleased,
For the harder edge of the left tho, InternetMana might be the gift that just keeps on giving, more MPs’ in the House means far more exposure for the message along with the all important ability to build the Party base,
And, we now have a choice, a large whiff if you will of the chance to in effect leverage the whole political discourse to the left, these numbers by themselves while hardly screaming ”impressive”, Labour 33%, Green 12%, InternetMana 5% when addition is applied as an equation without equivocation simply say 50%,
Lets do it….
unless labour + NZ first is a majortiy, labour can’t rely on Winston. He will not go into a coalition that contains the greens and to suggest he might is wishful thinking.
Whilst I agree with you that Winston will probably try and avoid the Greens; he hasn’t actually ruled it out this time (unlike previous elections) so there is the possibility that he might do a deal that involved the Greens, though obviously with some concessions.
That said if the Greens get over 2x Winston’s vote (as is quite likely) then Winston might just have to suck it up and live with some Green policy (which is probably why he hasn’t ruled them out.) Yes he could go with National instead, but that appears to be an unholy union of about 5 parties, albeit with Winston being the biggest by far of the coalition partners, and the others being National sock puppets. I don’t think that Winston will like that option much either. He would jump into a Nat+NZF >50% coalition (with the dregs giving the breathing room) if the alternative was Lab + Green + NZF >50% but I personally don’t think that either option will be on the table. the 50% on either side is going to require the minors (with Winston as their king)
Today’s Roy Morgan says that you are, i invite you to guess the rest…(you obviously haven’t read the Ron Marks remarks attributed to Him in today’s Granny Herald either)…
I try to avoid the Herald ever since it has stopped being a useful source of news and more a propaganda tool. I have now read them, and read Winston’s rebuttal/denial. Sure it may all be smoke and mirrors, but it looks more like to me a play to pull in some Nat-soft voters to give Winnie more of a say in any post election deals. As I say he is looking at being third fiddle in a left government, but that still may be more palatable to him than being top cat in the hodge-podge of rats and mice that a right coalition might be. Making a play to drag in some soft Nat voters strengthens his position on both sides post-election. Winston needs to be closer to 10% to be a serious player in a Left coalition, and being ~10% with national at 40 works for him too. In fact argument can be made that at this juncture for him to have the most power post election he needs to take National voters whilst hoping for a continued resurgence of labour voting. Winston would want to be the Sole kingmaker (like 96) not one among many (even if it is the biggest among many)
My point was that Winnie also hasn’t ruled out being with the Greens post-election; which I assume he hasn’t ruled out because his political nous has talked to him and said that such a stance might lose him votes. Plausible deniability on a deal with National (which is highly likely to not have happened as any leak of an actual deal ruins the play) means a drop in left voters but a rise in right voters, hopefully more than he loses. This strengthens Labour and NZF and weakens Nat – which puts NZF in a stronger position post-election.
Winston knows how to play the NZ electorate like a harp
The fact that you think Winston can graft 10% of the vote from the point of the latest Roy Morgan which ascribes to NZFirst 5% of that vote suggests you do not do it very well and again as previously intimated, you are (fill in gap),
If we ascribe to Winston that 5% of the Roy Morgan what then of Colons Conservatives, do you think that their 2.7% from the last election when they had NO electorate deal with Slippery the Prime Minister will have simply evaporated because the PM has said No Deal this time round,
Treated to a miserly 1% by the latest Roy Morgan i would suggest considering the millions spent by the Conservatives this election will be considerably more than were spent at the 2011 contest that Colon and the moon-beam crowd will pull at least the same amount of the vote as they did in 2011,
Part of that vote will be chiseled from the NZFirst %, the other part from National, tough for Winston, if that 5% is correct in terms of current support then i would suggest that Colon the Conservative, in a glorious act of revenge upon Slippery the PM will blow NZFirst’s electoral chances with a side dish of leaving the National Party without a dance partner for the next waltz, and thus a very large party in opposition…
you’ve forgotten Winstons third option which is to go with neither party. Just because he wont go with National means he has to go with Labour/Greens/IMP.
Possible, but I don’t see Winston giving up the baubles of power
McCully is incompetent or lying (or both). Either way he should resign-see this on the (alleged) Malaysian rape case:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11301663
Not incompetent
need/want encrypted phone calls on yr i-phone..?
http://boingboing.net/2014/07/30/ios-app-signal-promises-free.html
the app is open-source/free…
If this is an indication of where Whyte wants to take things then we’re going to need a bit more than Susan Devoy talking about things she doesn’t understand:
“She went on to say that treating everyone exactly the same, as Dr Whyte was arguing for, “will not necessarily make everyone exactly the same and anyone who thinks so is incredibly naive”.”
It’s almost as if Devoy’s saying she thinks it would be good if everyone were the same just that it’s a pretty hard thing to achieve. Pretty lightweight stuff. Whyte’s a piece of work. Judith Collins will be thinking Devoy’s appointment strikes the perfect balance.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11301695
I disagree. I think she was saying in order for everyone to be equal you have to give some folks assistance to get there
@Tracey 4.13
That shows a generous and trusting spirit Tracey about Susan Devoy Race Relations Commissioner. I hope you are right.
And by the way – why is Jamie Whyte bald like wotsname – Rodney Hide? Is it a rule that you have to be a skinhead in the ACT enclave?
I think she was too, Tracey. I also suspect she didn’t realise what she was saying, with her speech having been written by her staff.
So do you think Devoy’s up to the task of dealing with the sort of evil manipulation Whyte and his mates are all about? That was my point.
No I don’t. We are making the same point.
Yes, sorry about that. The comment was supposed to be to Tracey @ 4.13.
Finkelstein on Gaza: Ceasefire or Surrender
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/60409431/exgreen-claims-colincraigconz-spoof-site.html
And?
Argentina defaults on sovereign debt.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-30/argentina-defaults-according-to-s-p-as-debt-meetings-continue.html
the behavior and pseudo jurisdiction of US courts suggest the running of extortion rackets for companies trading in US dollars
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21606279-french-bank-deserved-clobbering-americas-legal-system-looks-extortion
Argentina chose to borrow under US law. No-one held a gun to their head.
BNP admitted to deliberately and wilfully circumventing US sanctions. If there is one thing to get the Feds excited it is deliberately trading with terrorist states or entities (as defined by the USG).
The US is being quite even-handed, they are extracting multi-billion dollar fines from every bank they can, domestic or foreign without discrimination. Good on them. Think of it as a thank-you from the banks for the bailout (both directly and via liquidity measures) they have received from the USG since 2008.
A statement which totally ignores the long long history of the USA holding guns to the heads of South American governments who choose not to fit in with the world financial and central banking system.
Forcing down the Ecaudorean president’s plane over European air space last year was just another example.
Fortunately, this kind of move by the USA simply accelerates the move away from the USD denominated financial system which I suggest is in its final 10 years of dominance right now.
Latest Roy Morgan …
“Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows a large fall in support for National (46%, down 5% – the lowest since May) now with a significantly reduced lead over a potential Labour/Greens alliance (42%, up 3.5%) just two months before the New Zealand Election on September 20.
Support for Key’s Coalition partners has changed little overall with the Maori Party 1.5% (up 0.5%), Act NZ (0.5%, unchanged) and United Future 0.5% (unchanged).
Support for the Labour Party is 30% (up 6.5%), but the Greens are down 3% to 12%. Potential ‘king-makers’ NZ First is 5% (down 1%), the Internet-Mana Party alliance is 2.5% (up 1%). Support for the Conservative Party of NZ is 1% (unchanged) and support for Independent/ Others is 1% (up 1%).”
Just one poll I know …
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5711-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-intention-july-31-2014-201407310230
great news!…the NACTS are on the slippery slidey slope now!….they are going to lose!
….and this would explain all the right wing trolls hanging around and having a go for no good reason yesterday and today…
Rouge.
infused: Key is rouge cheeked but Roy Morgan not a rogue!
and that polling will have been done before this latest round of nat fuck-ups..
..and nice to see act on 0.5%..
..and conservatives on 1%..
..and if banks gets a discharge without conviction 2morrow..
..i am presuming the howls of outrage will also not do good things to national/the rights’ poll-ratings..
Like I’ve always said, election is too close to call: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5711-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-intention-july-31-2014-201407310230
National is now 10 points lower in the polls than it was 51 days before 2011 election.
lol
Like you’ve always said? but but but ipredict…
iPredict has always indicated too close to call too.
Then why do plenty of RWNJ commentators on here like to say that ipredict shows a definite NAT government after the next election?
really? fisi must have been fibbing. There’s a surprise.
hooton has repeatedly said that/poured that bucket of reality over national..(except then it was six points below where they were last time..10% behind is a serious amount/lag..)
..and when watching questiontime i like reading the backbenchers’ faces…
..and aside from the end-of-term hijinks today..
..they have this week looking very very glum..
..this observation cheered me to some degree..
(..as..right or wrong.. i read it as bad news internal-polling..or the like..)
..and i hafta say..that as a political-junkie..while ideologically i wd like more certainty to what i want..this is the most cliff-hanging/fascinating election i can remember..
..the different permutations churn around and around..
..and the packed halls for internet-mana meetings cheer me no end..
..with the certainty they will well out-perform the ‘experts’/pundits opinions..bedding further in day-by-day..
..harre/sykes/minto in parliament…
(doesn’t that have a pleasant ring to it..?..)
moderation..?
..did i misspell hoots’ name..?
I wonder if this poll reflects Nationals daily polling and explains Key making overtures in Winnie’s direction.
National + Winston = 51% + a vote each from Dunne and Act = good for NZ 🙂
How do you feel about National forming a coalition with Winston?
He is whatever it takes guy. He doesnt care that key flip flops more than a schnapper on the poop deck
The ends justifies the means
A code to feel honourable by
To be honest not all that good but if it keeps the GIMPs (note that doesn’t include Labour) away from the treasury benches its the price you have to pay in an MMP environment
which meaning were you using..?
“.. gimp
(1) a derrogatory term for someone that is disabled or has a medicial problem that results in physical impairment.
(2) An insult implying that someone is incompetent, stupid, etc. Can also be used to imply that the person is uncool or can’t/won’t do what everyone else is doing.
(3) A sex slave or submissive, usually male, as popularlized by the movie Pulp Fiction.”
..you class act you..eh…?
🙄
Green…internet…mana…party…
Just got sent this link and love it. Oh and he is not threatening a libel case – Seems some politicians can take a joke.
http://catsthatlooklikedavidcunliffe.tumblr.com/
that’s funny..i like the eggs that look like joyce..
After the final question at QT David Shearer asked for leave to table an email which showed that maybe McCulley had mislead the House over the timing of that Diplomat email. David gave just that it was an email relating to….. I can only guess that it has great significance to the saga but… House has just risen so no access to recourse?
Rogue bankers face bonus clawback – even if they have spent the money
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2711473/About-time-Rogue-bankers-face-bonus-clawback-spent-money.html#ixzz391CTQJqC
+Holding individuals to account is a key component of our job’ says Bank of England deputy governor
+ Some executives could find they have to pay back money after 10 years
+ Other measures being considered include scrapping ‘golden hello’ bonuses for senior executives
+Britain has also already passed a law making reckless behaviour by bankers a criminal act punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Hopefully 15 years then Brain Fade Key will have to pay back his ill gotten millions earned by selling false interest rates as head of Merrill Lynch currency trades . insider trading was at its peak when Brain Fade Key has conveniently forgotten how rotten Merrill Lynch was while he was their!
and kennedy graham struck exactly the right note in his speaking to his motion on gaza..
..i actually think graham wd make a brilliant speaker..
..he wouldn’t take no shit..from anyone..
..he wd run a very tight ship..
..and he wd be able to put that death-stare of his that he has so perfected –
..and at the very least..in the next parliament he shd at least be the speaker who sits in for the speaker..
..i can’t think of anyone doing a better job..
Oh dear.
Hamas has posted two videos that completely contradict each other.
Video one – “Human shields have proven effective in Gaza” –
Video two – Hamas denies using human shields in Gaza –
And just as a bonus – a third UNRWA-run school has been found to be storing rockets……..
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/29/THIRD-Rocket-Arsenal-Found-At-UN-School-In-Gaza
Wow, that changes everything. Thanks, Thor42, I’m convinced. You know what’s really bad? Hamas forcing those babies to throw themselves in front of peaceful Israeli rockets. The bastards.
Lucky the Israelis don’t need to use vacant facilities to store weapons that kill civilians by the hundreds. They have the U.S. to do that for them.
Shouldn’t you be over at colonel bunnies place with the other deluded old men talking about ni-CLANG’s in the whitehouse ignoring constutional shit and molon labe shit and shooting shit and shit and stuff…
I’m so happy for you. You must save heaps on Viagra when you can watch hospitals being bombed and kids being killed on youtube. You could even spend the money you save for a ticket to the Sderot cinema.
Come and see what the buzz is around the IMP, come and see for yourself.
Wow Marty. Even in Blenheim on 14th. Will go and see if they sway my allegiance.
Good on you ianmac – Pretty extensive roadshow although the Westcoast is missing out it seems – never mind, I’m going to Nelson – I wonder if any other standardistas will be there.