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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If you haven’t watched Newsroom’s video showing Oranga Tamariki staff attempting to uplift a newborn baby yet you should do so. Although it's not the worst case as far as interventions go, it’s certainly not a good look for the Government. Because of this controversy there’s been a plethora of ...
Genesis Energy is planning to build the country's biggest PV solar farm:Power generator and retailer Genesis Energy says it is in advanced discussions to build New Zealand's biggest solar farm in northern Waikato. The company, which earlier reported a 15 per cent decline in operating earnings to $167.2 million, said ...
Transport is our second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Any credible effort to reduce emissions to net-zero has to target it. So what is the government doing? Subsidising some of the dirtiest, most inefficient vehicles on the roads:New Zealand's favourite cars - double cab utes - are largely exempt ...
You’ve really got to wonder what the NZ First Party was thinking and drinking last Friday? Not only did they hamstring the Greens by halting one of their main environmental policies, the electric vehicle fee-bate scheme, a policy that the public was led to believe was a done deal…but they ...
High Risk Call: Insensitive though it may seem to even pose the question: how will the electorate respond to what the Prime Minister’s opponents will undoubtedly characterise as an attack on New Zealanders’ freedom of speech? At more than twelve month’s remove from the terrible events of 15 March 2019, ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Climate change leads to more violence against women, girlsRape, domestic violence, forced marriages: A new ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 16, 2020 through Sat, Feb 22, 2020 Editor's Pick JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human raceLeaked report for world’s major fossil fuel financier says ...
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article ‘The Dangerous Denial of Sex by two scientists Colin Wright and Emma Hilton. Write is an evolutionary biologist at Penn State and Hilton is a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester. It is well worth reading the article in full. Here ...
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...
Winston Peters - Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NZ First PartyWe all know that politics can be pretty messy at times. Just look at the Dirty Politics saga in New Zealand, the misgovernment of the Australian bushfires or the recent Trump impeachment debacle in the US. In a ...
Last Monday SpaceX launched another clutch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, bringing up to 300 the number of these units intended to bring 5G internet to the whole globe. In this post I present a movie showing how all 300 such satellites will be zipping around our planet over ...
The recent floods in Southland have highlighted the issue of Rio Tinto's illegal toxic waste dump in Mataura. But according to Newsroom, there's an even worse mess in Ruakaka near Whangarei:A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to ...
It’s amazing just how many attack ads $100,000 buys you these days. The National Party has really been going to town lately, with their latest Twitter campaign making a number of questionable and blatantly false assertions, one being that poverty has worsened under the Labour led Government.The National Party's claim ...
OMV's exploratory drilling in the Great South Basin has failed to find oil. Good. Firstly, because we can't afford to burn the oil and gas we've already found, so there's just no point looking for more. And secondly, because offshore, deep-water drilling poses a risk of an environmental catastrophe, which ...
The government has announced it will strengthen whistleblower protections. The major change is "allowing people to report serious wrongdoing direct to an external authority if they wish", which fixes one of the big flaws in the Act. At present, whistleblowers must generally make their disclosure direct to the body they ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman CARLSBAD, CA. – When it comes to paying the electric bill, most people don’t give it a second thought – it’s something that in effect is “baked in.” But across California and several other states, local governments increasingly are ...
Excerpts from Being and Being Bought, by Kajsa Ekis Ekman, Spinifex Press, 2013. Part 4 Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book. This is the fourth part of a synopsis and brief commentary of the book by Daphna ...
The Democracy Virus: China’s authoritarian political system enables a level of social surveillance and control that liberal democratic societies cannot match. The Chinese Government makes full use of the latest digital technology to both punish – and reward – its citizens. The plans it formulates cannot be challenged, or hindered. Where ...
Another day, another IPCA report on criminal conduct by policy. This time they kicked a child in the head when he was handcuffed:Police chased him and yelled out for him to stop. When he turned to face the police, he threatened them with a hammer. That's when the officers tasered ...
The investigation of two of the five parties in Parliament for fraud around their election donations has pushed the issue of party funding back into the spotlight. And while there are obvious things we can do to tighten up the donations regime - a much lower declaration threshold, realtime disclosure ...
While the south of New Zealand has been struggling with too much rain in recent days, here in the north we are so very short of it (though Saturday’s forecast looks promising). Basically, we have had almost none since Christmas.As someone who relies on rain to wash the car, ...
Former National Party MP Jami-Lee RossIt comes as no surprise that Jami-Lee Ross has been named as one of the defendants in the X2 $100,000 National Party donations case currently before the courts. Click bait journalists who were chaffing at the bit to discredit the former senior whip had already ...
Stand Clear! Winston Peters is encouraging voters to think of RNZ as belonging to “The Media Party”. He wants them to see it as a politically partisan institution with its own, vicious attack-dogs in the electoral fight. If he succeeds, it will be, and probably should be, the end of ...
"You're going to need a longer runway" Gratton et al explore the ongoing effects of upward-creeping temperatures on aviation in Greece in the period since 1955 at a range of airports in that country. For longer runways impacts are measurable but with little impact on operations. For airports with shorter runways, ...
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...
Former National Party chief whip Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four people charged over National's multiple fraudulent donations. How unsurprising. Meanwhile, just days ago National leader Simon Bridges was trying to pretend the charges were nothing to do with his party. Yeah, right. When your chief whip effectively publicly ...
If you've been watching FYI for a while, you'll have noticed that the police have a bad habit of demanding ID from requesters. They have apparently been repeatedly told to stop doing this by the Ombudsman, but we all know what law enforcement thinks of the law, so thye keep ...
Collateral Damage: For the Green Phoenix to be reborn, the funeral pyre so patiently assembled by its identity politicians over the course of many fractious years – but with growing intensity over the past three – first has to be ignited. The terrible probability, of course, is that, in setting ...
If you follow politics in New Zealand you've likely noticed that the right wing have been going on and on about the Coalition Government failing to reduce poverty. In fact they’ve been incessantly claiming, in the absence of any conclusive data, that poverty has been getting worse.Yesterday, NewstalkZB reported:Mike Hosking: ...
The Herald reported over the weekend that an Auckland business owner is being targeted with asset forfeiture laws over a workplace death:A workplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of ...
Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected: National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance ...
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the new figures for COVID-19 (as we must now call the novel coronavirus – though I’m not sure the capitalisation is correct) from Hubei province:Image from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51495484The spike yesterday is a consequence of a using a different way of ...
Bob Jones has dropped his defamation case against Renae Maihi. Good. But at the same time, it perfectly exposes what the case was all about: not protecting Jones' reputation, but punishing someone who had dared to criticise him, and deterring others from doing the same. This rich pompous asshat dragged ...
As I've done for the past few years, I'm curating and presenting The Listening Lounge, the talk programme at Splore. On the morning of Saturday the 22nd at the Living Lounge stage, the korero goes like this.Yes, we're talking about drugs again, not just because I'm professionally interested in drug ...
What Were They Thinking? RNZ's CEO Paul Thompson (left) and Jim Mather, Chairman of the RNZ Board of Governors, attempt to justify the debacle arising out of their attempt to downgrade RNZ Concert to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee at Parliament on Thursday, 13 February 2020.WHAT IS ...
Dame Tariana Turia with former PM John KeyWhat is it about Tariana Turia’s grudge against the Labour Party? Not content with attacking the Government over Whānau Ora funding, which was increased by $80 million in 2019, she has now made it personal by saying that Jacinda Ardern is out of her ...
Back in 2017, right after being elected, Jacinda Ardern promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. Since then, her government has done nothing to make that happen, and now the policy has been officially "parked" for the election:West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the "no new ...
So the guy who advocated for public burning and beheading feels offended because someone called him a racist!Perhaps Bob Jones hasn't heard of the very old saying; Live by the sword, die by the sword?I mean for someone who often writes opinionated nonsense about Maori; this is a ridiculous case ...
The government today announced a major support package aimed at reducing homelessness. A thousand new transitional housing places, more support for people to find homes (or not lose them in the first place), all good stuff. The one problem with it is that they're going to start charging people in ...
Courtroom Drama: There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the ...
As of today, the novel coronavirus spreading in China is called COVID-19. Why does it matter? Around the office, we’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks about how 2019-nCoV needed its own name. First, it was getting annoying calling it by the above designation, and ‘novel coronavirus’ doesn’t ...
by Philip Ferguson Last month B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported: “In 2019, Israeli security forces killed 133 Palestinians, including 28 minors. Of the casualties, 104 were killed in the Gaza Strip, 26 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and three within ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) (Brett Hudson)Its basicly more "tough on crime" nonsense (its already illegal for unlicensed people to own guns) designed to wedge NZ First against its arsehole base. ...
In 2015 the world agreed to the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. Each country would offer a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) "that it intends to achieve", and "pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving [it]". And every five years, they'd improve on it, ratcheting up ambition until ...
In theory, the emissions trading scheme should reduce emissions. Making polluters pay for permits to pollute lets them save money by reducing pollution, giving them a financial incentive to do the right thing. But right from the start the ETS was broken with a system of free allocation, so polluters ...
Irish voters went to the polls on Saturday in parliamentary elections, and perhaps delivered a political revolution. Since independence, Irish politics has been dominated by two parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Basicly patronage networks with indistinguishable policies, their cleavage isn't ideology, but who killed whose father or grandfather in ...
Once again the Aotearoa Bike Challenge is on us, and once again I’m participating. In principle this is not hard because it does not represent a significant switch in behavior for me. I already bike nearly every day. The Bicycle The fascinating thing about cycling is the realisation that this ...
Lately there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding the origins and purpose of Skeptical Science. As John Cook wrote nearly a decade ago, Skeptical Science is primarily a website that debunks climate misinformation with peer-reviewed science. Despite the ever-worsening impacts from climate change, with record after record being broken in ...
Under Attack: By sacking not only RNZ Concert’s presenters, but also its producers and librarians, and reducing the station to an automated purveyor of classical music in-between parliamentary broadcasts, RNZ’s CEO, Paul Thompson, wasn’t simply announcing an operational shake-up, he was declaring war on one of the most important guardians of ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Australian smoke plume sets recordsThe recent wildfires in Australia sent one of ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Spokesperson for Finance, Fletcher Tabuteau has welcomed Statistics New Zealand’s latest report as a timely reminder of the value that this Coalition Government brings to every day New Zealanders: “This Coalition Government has meant a ...
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order Newly released Police data shows once again the number of fleeing drivers have continued to skyrocket with a record 512 incidents occurring in December – almost tripling the number of incidents occurring just ten years ago, says New Zealand First Law and ...
While the Provincial Growth Fund has provided $2 million to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia, Regional Economic Minister Shane Jones said he is greatly concerned that there are “issues” in implementing the projects. The Minister said the immediate solution was to pipe water from a bore ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland NZ First is calling on Rio Tinto to accept its responsibilities to the Southland community and enable the immediate removal of the toxic Aluminium Dross from the Mataura Paper Mill site. New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland, Mark Patterson ...
The Coalition Government has announced that a further $500,000 will be given to help residents in Southland and Otago to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. It follows prior government assistance of $200,000 earlier this month where the Southland Mayoral Relief Fund received $100,000 to support communities impacted by ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Broadcasting New Zealand First supports the commissioning of a business case to assess the viability of a new public media entity. “A strong media environment is critical for a healthy democracy. New Zealand First is a strong supporter of a diverse, independent media,” New Zealand First broadcasting spokesperson ...
Pounamou and technology industries in the West Coast region are set to receive more than $2 million in Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) funding. This was announced by the Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau during Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika. He said $800,000 would be given to Development West ...
Clayton Mitchell MP, New Zealand First spokesperson for Labour and Industrial Relations Unemployment and wage growth numbers released by Stats NZ today demonstrate a labour market in good shape with unemployment falling to 4.0%, the underutilisation rate falling to an 11 year low, and wage growth at a 10-year high ...
Hon. Ron Mark, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence Ron Mark, welcomes the official opening of Te Rau Aroha, a new museum at Waitangi Treaty Grounds as part of our Coalition Agreement. “It is a great honour to be part of an effective Government ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterGood morning,Let us start with important acknowledgements.First, this special day, in remembrance of the 28th Maori Battalion, is also to honour all those men and women who have risked their lives in the service of our country.Second, special guest Robert ...
Benefit settings rise in line with wages as of 1 April Main benefits will increase by over 3 percent, instead of 1.66 percent, on 1 April with the Government’s decision to annually adjust benefit rates to increases in the average wage. The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, said ...
Strengthening New Zealand’s political and business ties with India will be the focus of Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker’s visit to India this week. The Ministers are co-leading a high level business delegation to India to support increased people and economic engagement ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio continues to champion for greater Pacific participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers with the announcement of the Toloa Awards, with 8 recipients of the Toloa Community Fund and 13 Toloa Tertiary Scholarships. “The Toloa Programme encourages more Pacific peoples ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little will travel to Berlin tomorrow to represent New Zealand at a high-level summit on nuclear disarmament. This year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) celebrates 50 years since it entered into force. “New Zealand’s proud record and leadership on nuclear disarmament is unwavering, so it’s important we are present ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will visit two of New Zealand’s most important Pacific partners, Fiji and Australia, next week. The visit to Fiji will be the first by a New Zealand Prime Minister in four years and comes during the 50th anniversary of Fijian independence and diplomatic relations between our ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little and New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball, have today announced the appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the location, and the membership of the Establishment Advisory Group. Colin Carruthers QC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the CCRC for an ...
Māori Development Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Agriculture Minister Hon Damien O’Connor co-announced the first horticultural finalists for the Ahuwhenua Trophy celebrating excellence in the Māori agricultural sector. The three finalists are Ngai Tukairangi Trust from Mt Maunganui, Otama Marere Trust from Tauranga, and Hineora Orchard Te Kaha 15B Ahuwhenua ...
A new kete of resources to strengthen support for students with dyslexia will provide extra tools for the new Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) as they start in schools, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Minister launched the kete in Wellington this morning, at the first of three induction ...
The Government continues to make progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the First Reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and its referral to the Social Services and Community Select Committee. “Now is the opportunity for landlords, tenants and others who want ...
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Hon James Marape will visit New Zealand from 21-25 February, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have a warm and friendly relationship. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Marape here and strengthening the relationship between our two countries,” ...
Thousands of children have begun receiving a free lunch on every day of the school week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The Government’s free and healthy school lunch programme is under way for 7,000 students at 31 schools in Hawke’s Bay / Tairāwhiti and Bay of Plenty / Waiariki, extending ...
The Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni today announced a new approach that continues to broaden the Government’s social sector focus from a narrow, investment approach to one centred on people and wellbeing. Minister Sepuloni said redefining the previous approach to social investment by combining science, data and lived experience ...
The Government is strengthening the Protected Disclosures Act to provide better protection for whistle blowers, Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins said today. “The Protected Disclosures Act is meant to encourage people to speak up about serious wrongdoing in the workplace and protect them from losing their jobs or being ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ngā ...
Tougher penalties for gun crime are a step closer with the passage of firearms reform legislation through another stage in Parliament. The Arms Legislation Bill has tonight passed its Second Reading. “The changes have one objective - to prevent firearms falling into the wrong hands,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Introduction Mr Speaker We all know why we are here today. It has been a long journey. The journey did not actually begin on 15 March 2019. It began on 30 June 1997. Almost 23 years ago, Justice Sir Thomas Thorp told us what was wrong with our firearms legislation. ...
The Government’s work to put trades and vocational education back on the agenda took another major step forward today with the passing of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said. “This is a watershed day for trades and vocational education. These law changes formalise ...
Speeding up the return of Christchurch regeneration activities to local leadership is behind the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill introduced to Parliament today by Minister Megan Woods. “As we approach nine years since the February 2011 earthquake in Canterbury, and with the transition to local leadership well underway, the time ...
Hundreds of New Zealanders and international visitors will be able to get back out into nature with the Milford Track partially reopening next week, after extensive assessments and repairs, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. The popular Great Walk has been closed since 3 February after an extreme ...
Up to 110 new EV chargers nationwide in cities and regions 50 electric vehicles for ride-sharing The Government is helping deliver more infrastructure and options for low emissions transport through new projects, Energy and Resources Minister Dr Megan Woods says. Tauranga, Nelson, Levin, New Plymouth and Oamaru are just some ...
New Zealanders are increasingly better off under this Government as wages rise and families have more disposable income, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ reported today that average household disposable incomes after housing costs rose 4.9% in 2019. This was the highest rise in four years and came as ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
Today the Government is making progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in Parliament. “This Bill includes a series of reforms to improve the wellbeing of the 609,700 households that live in rented homes, and ...
A Government programme to wipe out pea weevil has achieved a world first, with Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor today announcing the successful eradication of the noxious pest from Wairarapa. This means the nearly four-year ban on pea plants and pea straw was lifted today. Commercial and home gardeners can again grow ...
Southland residents hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall can now access help finding temporary accommodation with the Government activating the Temporary Accommodation Service, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare announced today. “The Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) has been activated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to help ...
“Is that it?” That’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response to Simon Bridges’ much-hyped economic speech today. “Simon Bridges just gave the most over-hyped and under-delivered speech that I can remember during my time in politics,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s not surprising. Simon Bridges literally said on the radio this morning ...
A trial deployment of the Police Eagle helicopter in Christchurch will test whether the aircraft would make a significant difference to crime prevention and community safety. “The Bell 429 helicopter will be based in Christchurch for five weeks, from 17 February to 20 March,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The ...
The Government has kept up the pace of its work to promote New Zealand’s trade interests and diversify our export markets, with visits to Fiji and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. Building momentum to bring the PACER Plus trade and development agreement ...
The Coalition Government’s investment in a strong border and disrupting transnational organised crime produced record results for stopping drugs in 2019, says Minister of Customs Jenny Salesa. The illegal drugs were seized at the New Zealand border by Customs, and overseas by Customs’ international border partners before the drugs could ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off construction of a separated cycleway alongside Tamaki Drive. A two-way separated cycleway will be built along the northern side of Tamaki Drive, between the Quay Street Cycleway extension and Ngapipi Road. There will be a separate walking path alongside. Phil Twyford said giving ...
Owner-occupiers of unit and apartments living in earthquake-prone buildings will have certainty about the financial support they’ll be eligible for with the release of criteria for an upcoming assistance scheme, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. The Residential Earthquake-Prone Building Financial Assistance Scheme will help unit owners facing ...
Temporary restrictions on travel from China will remain in place as a precautionary measure to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The restrictions which prevent foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through, mainland China from entering New Zealand have been extended for a further 8 days. This position ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today that Tairāwhiti rangatahi will benefit from an investment made by the Government’s He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) scheme. The funding will go to the Tautua Village, Kauneke programme and the Matapuna Supported Employment Programme which will fund 120 rangatahi over two years. “Both programmes work ...
By Vasinatta Yama in Mt Hagen Eight prisoners at the Baisu Correctional Service prison near the Western Highlands provincial capital of Mt Hagen are dead following a massive jail breakout. Western Highlands Acting Provincial Police Commander David Kongui confirmed that two prisoners have surrendered, while an unknown number of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A foreign intelligence service sent a “sleeper” agent to Australia, who provided logistical support for visiting spies, the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, has revealed, in a speech pledging to intensify the fight against the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Apart from committing a crime, what do you have to do or say to be stripped of your order of Australia award? Where “a line” should be drawn is the question the Council for the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Stewart, Doctoral Candidate at BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University In the wake of last week’s horrific murder of a woman and her three children in Brisbane at the hands of her estranged partner, Social Services Minister Anne Ruston ...
Politicians who have appeared on Dancing with the Stars over the past 15 years say the publicity could backfire for would-be politician Hannah Tamaki if she puts on her dancing shoes. ...
Marlin’s Dreaming have a new single out ahead of their next, ‘least accessible’ album. Frontman Semisi Maiai sat down to talk about how a bunch of jocks from Dunedin became indie darlings.Semisi Maiai embodies the duality of man. He’s a barista and a basketballer; he’s a jock and an indie ...
Pacific Media Watch A University of Waikato researcher says some of the current colonial representations of climate change in the Pacific are obscuring Pacific voices and failing to recognise the importance of Indigenous knowledge in the fight against the changing climate. Dr Jessica Pasisi’s thesis, Niue Women’s Perspective and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne Bernie Sanders has easily won the Nevada Democratic caucus, cementing his status as front-runner for the Democratic nomination in the US presidential election. With 88% of precincts reporting, Sanders won ...
An announcement that the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) will be based in Hamilton makes “perfect sense” given the city’s location and strong transport links says Hamilton Mayor Paula Southgate. On Friday Justice Minister Andrew Little ...
Steel & Tube has recorded a large half-year loss, in line with forecasts, mostly because of a $37 million write-down in asset values. For the six months ended December the steel manufacturing company made a $36.9m loss. Chief executive Mark Malpass said the company expected an improved second half. "While ...
The Tiwai Point aluminium smelter has slumped to a large loss because of volatile prices and power costs. Pacific Aluminium, controlled by Rio Tinto, made a loss of $313 million for the year ended December compared with the previous year's profit of $207m. However, the underlying loss fell to $46m ...
The Government has extended its ban on travel from China by another eight days until early March, but may provide an exemption for international students, while the Treasury is considering global recession scenarios. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced Cabinet decided on Monday afternoon to extend its ban on travel ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Australia’s catastrophic bushfire season has done immense damage to Australia’s tourist industry. Then, just as heavy rain began to bring the situation under control, came the coronavirus outbreak in China – now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Hole, Senior Research Fellow, Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian National University Recent reports from scientists pursuing a new kind of nuclear fusion technology are encouraging, but we are still some distance away from the “holy grail of clean energy”. The technology developed ...
First the broadcaster was caught up in an online swindle using Facebook – now it’s the other media giant.“Hosking’s Latest Investment”, went the headline on the Google-served advertisement, complete with a photograph of the award-winning broadcaster, placed on a New Zealand news site. “New Zealand’s citizens are already raking in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will Steffen, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University Opposition leader Anthony Albanese’s announcement on Friday that a Labor government would adopt a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 was a big step in the right direction. But a bit of simple maths reveals ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Gurrieri, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, RMIT University Under Australia’s harsh sun, we’ve long slapped on sunscreen to protect ourselves from skin damage and cancer. Now the product, once known for protecting skin against harmful UV rays, is becoming part of beauty ...
Get data at the national level, by regional council area, territorial authority / Auckland local board area, statistical area 2 (SA2), and district health board area. Tables contain 2018, 2013, and 2006 Census data. Access data in NZ.Stat Use ...
Northland's biggest trucking operator has accused the Transport Agency of letting an employee wage a personal vendetta against him that's cost him millions of dollars. Stan Semenoff says the employee went after his scalp, but he's defeated the Agency and shown that it had no safety case to begin with. ...
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 contentPolitical donations scandals John Armstrong (TVNZ): Jacinda Ardern’s refusal to reprimand Winston Peters is nothing short of disgraceful Luke ...
Keep New Zealand Beautiful partners with Waste Management New Zealand to send educational book to New Zealand schools New Zealand not-for-profit organisation, Keep New Zealand Beautiful, has teamed up with Waste Management to distribute an educational storybook ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paxton Loke, Paediatric Allergist and Immunologist, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Some children grow out of their food allergies, but researchers don’t exactly know why. Here’s how to work with your allergy specialist if you suspect your child isn’t allergic any more. Read ...
The Māori Party candidate for Waiariki - Rawiri Waititi - believes the younger generation will be the key to the party getting back into Parliament this year. ...
The Sustainable New Zealand Party is struggling to demonstrate it has enough political sustainability to last until the election campaign heats up later this year. Within just a few months media attention has turned from its founding to its foundering. The New Zealand Herald seems not to have caught up ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling You’ve heard of dark matter. You’ve probably heard there’s a fair bit of it out there in space, and that astronomers don’t know for sure what it is. But, strange as dark matter is, there’s an ...
When NZME reports its annual results on Tuesday, attention will focus on its mooted purchase of rival Stuff Ltd and the revenue its paywalled nzherald.co.nz site has brought in ...
After 43 years on the telly, Fair Go knows exactly how to stick up for Kiwi consumers. Tara Ward talks to Sophie Baird, the woman changing New Zealand, one consumer complaint at a time. For over four decades, Fair Go has been our saviour. They’ve defended us when we’ve been ripped ...
ANALYSIS:By Asmiati Malik in Jakarta The Indonesian government plans to evaluate the efficacy of special funds for the West Papua region. These funds have been disbursed to the easternmost region, comprising the two provinces of Papua and West Papua, for nearly two decades. The funds, paid since 2002 to ...
Last week Nick Loosley, founder of food waste and food poverty charity Everybody Eats, was named the 2020 Kiwibank New Zealand Local Hero of the Year. He talked to Alex Braae about how a more sustainable approach to our food system can help feed those in need. There’s a theme of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natalie Skead, Professor, Dean of Law School, University of Western Australia In 2017, a business lecturer posted a photo on LinkedIn showing a completely empty university classroom, 15 minutes after the class had been scheduled to start. This is not an isolated ...
The coronavirus outbreak is set to cost Air New Zealand as much as $75 million, as it moved to cut more flights to lessen the impact. The airline has issued a revised forecast for its full year earnings, cutting its estimate of operating earnings by between $35m to $75m to ...
New Zealand's steps to shield itself from the Covid-19 coronavirus will not save the economy from feeling its effects. Hundreds of millions of dollars is likely to be shaved off the value of the economy for the first quarter, with estimates currently between 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points less than ...
By Evaristo Soares Martins in Dili Early elections cannot be allowed to “become the political culture” in Timor-Leste, says the leader of the opposition Fretilin party, Dr Marí Alkatiri. The former Prime Minister said he wants to see an end to the political impasse, prompted by the collapse of ...
By Sharlyne Eri in Lae A Papua New Guinean man who once resorted to crime to make a living is now running a bicycle repair business. Collin Kunan is a long-time resident of West Taraka, one of Lae’s urban settlements where petty crime is rife because of high unemployment. ...
Jamie’s away with the lads, Claire’s elbow deep in a dead man’s abdomen, and Roger wants to go back to the future. Tara Ward recaps episode two of season five of Outlander.Well, my thirstly little Outlander cherubs, that was something else, wasn’t it? It’s been many a moon since I watched ...
Opposition leader Simon Bridges says a National government will look at amending the law to allow Australians convicted of serious crimes in New Zealand to be deported. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carlo Perrotta, Senior lecturer, Monash University The spread of the coronavirus disease known as COVID-19 is a public health emergency with economic and social ramifications in China and across the world. While the impacts on business are well documented, education is also ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, University of Western Australia The extradition hearing to decide whether to send Julian Assange to the United States to be tried for publishing classified military documents on Wikileaks is expected to finally begin today in London. Assange is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernadette McSherry, Foundation Director, Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne In 2018, the Victorian Ombudsman, Deborah Glass, delivered a report about “the saddest case” she had ever seen. A 39-year-old woman with a developmental disorder had been locked in her prison ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick O’Connor, Associate Professor, University of Adelaide Among the vast number of native species damaged by the recent bushfire crisis, we must not forget native pollinators. These animals, mainly insects such as native bees, help sustain ecosystems by pollinating native plants. Native ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natalie Skead, Professor, Dean of Law School, University of Western Australia In 2017, a business lecturer posted a photo on LinkedIn showing a completely empty university classroom, 15 minutes after the class had been scheduled to start. This is not an isolated ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil G Sipe, Adjunct Researcher in Transport and Planning, The University of Queensland Over the past decade almost US$200 billion has been invested globally in mobility technology that promises to improve our ability to get around. More than US$33 billion was invested ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne In a recent ruling the Australian Press Council has given a signal to gossip magazines it is OK to make up and publish rubbish about people, so long as the ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern anticipates cabinet ministers will decide to extend the ban on foreign travellers arriving from mainland China which is due to expire tonight. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The transformation of the national electricity market has “progressed at a remarkable pace and scale” over the last year as it moves towards renewables, but security is a critical issue, according to the Energy Security ...
The Labour Party has selected Kerrin Leoni as their candidate for the electorate of Waikato. In a confirmation meeting held in Ngaruawahia on 23rd February, Ms Leoni, 39, was nominated unopposed as the electorate candidate, with the electorate covering ...
RNZ Checkpoint last week reported that the rodeo industry has killed two animals during the current rodeo season. Information recently obtained by animal rights organisation SAFE reveals two bulls were killed at ‘Mad Bull’ rodeo events in November and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern anticipates cabinet ministers will decide to extend the ban on foreign travellers arriving from mainland China - which is due to expire tonight. ...
Climate change will be a hot topic in Jacinda Ardern's meeting with the Fijian PM this week, but an elephant in the room for her talk with the Australian PM. ...
In today’s edition: plant-based diets add a new item to the rural-urban tension menu, Genesis plans NZ’s biggest solar farm and a major regulatory push on vaping.The Sunday Star-Timesdevoted its whole cover to a dramatic image under the headline ‘Is meat for the chop?’, while inside a Colmar ...
What’s the economic impact of draining a wetland, or depleting soil health? An economist is looking at the value of some of the mostly unseen ecological services nature performs. A lot of what occupies economist Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta’s mind is invisible processes. While environmentalists fighting for wetland protection, or ...
Coronavirus has created new economic uncertainties in China and beyond. There is no doubt the short-term impact on New Zealand’s businesses will be severe, but how exactly is difficult to foresee. The outlook for global trade already looks grim compared to our expectations late last year. CNN reported that Maersk, ...
Belinda Muller has managed major Kiwi sports teams in three different codes – netball, rugby and, now, cricket. The only difference, she's found, is the size of their balls. It was supposed to last just three days. A bit of a paperwork at a netball centre, to help out a ...
The Children’s Commissioner responds to a UN committee's decision about the torture of children at Lake Alice. David Williams reports Pressure is building on a police review of their file into Lake Alice psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks. The review was prompted by a landmark decision by the United Nations Committee against ...
ReadingRoom is devoting all week to the best-selling book in New Zealand right now, In The Clearing, the brilliant new thriller by Kiwi author JP Pomare, inspired by creepy Australian cult The Family. Today: The creepy opening chapter.— Amy’s journal — Here are two things I learnt today: 1. ...
Back to university today? Beware the flashy voluntourism brochures promising a chance to save the world, writes AUT lecturer Daniel Crouch.It was my first day as a lecturer, February 2018, and I was feeling pretty nervous as students filed in. Just before the nine o’clock start, a young woman approached ...
The rise of litigation funding in New Zealand puts politicians and business leaders on notice – their actions will now be policed by a powerful new sheriff, writes Chris Lee.In business, as in life, there may be a range of thought processes that quell the temptation to cheat. One would ...
Aucklanders are breaking records for water usage - at the same time as the city breaks records for days without rain. How secure is the city's future water supply if these droughts continue? Auckland's water use has gone through the roof this summer, breaking records of 560 million litres per ...
News broke today that Hannah Tamaki has been cast for the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars. Emily Writes explains why the religious leader and aspirant politician has no place on the show.In an exceptionally sad display of desperation, MediaWorks appears to have booked Hannah Tamaki, known for her ...
Political parties must, this election year, pledge to press forward with a massive build of “social” homes to tackle New Zealand’s human rights crisis in housing, a move that will also help reduce inequality, Peter Malcolm, spokesperson for the ...
Details of the Government's newly-announced vaping crackdown may keep New Zealanders smoking and paying exorbitant excise taxes, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union. Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "We welcome the decision not ...
News that the Government is set to regulate vaping is welcomed. However, heavily restricting where most vape flavours can be sold is a step too far and could lead to rising smoking rates, says the Vaping Trade Association of New Zealand (VTANZ). ...
Open mike 31/07/2014 
Open mike is your post.
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I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...2 days ago
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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.