We may think that we now live in more enlightened times where the scourge of racism is finally being dealt to and racist behaviour by politicians is no longer considered acceptable.
But recent events suggest to me that racist memes are still being used by the calculating to stir up political support from the bewildered.
Admittedly it is not as bad as previous embodiments of racist activity. People are not regularly being killed or their houses or churches burned, at least by the politicians saying these things. But there are an awful lot of people out there that seem to get fired up by this sort of stimulation …
A classic example of race baiting has occurred recently in Australia. Victoria, which currently has a State Labor government, has an election later on in the year. Clearly the Liberals would love to win back power. So the Turnbull Government has made a big thing about gangs of young Africans causing problems in Melbourne and how Melbournians are afraid to go out at night. Peter Dutton, whose level of odiousness almost matches that of Trump, has front footed the attack. And things have been egged on by Rupert Murdoch owned papers.
Dutton chose to use the right wing playbook. He attacked the Andrews Government for appointing “weak” judges and suggested that the non existing law and order problem was all because of liberals (small l).
There is a problem with some of the judges and magistrates [Premier] Daniel Andrews has appointed and some of the bail decisions that have been made, been criticised even by Daniel Andrews’ own ministers,” Mr Dutton told Adelaide radio yesterday.
“It is not a problem in Adelaide, not in Brisbane, not in Sydney. It’s a problem concentrated in Victoria.”
Victoria is having a debate about gangs. Specifically, it is debating whether it is appropriate to call groups of young people who are predominantly from African backgrounds a “gang” and, so named, what should be done about it.
It’s also having a debate about race, which is being waged in the comment sections of front-page articles on gang violence, and on social media, where comments like “stop immigration until this mess is sorted” populate Victoria police’s official Facebook page.
Both debates are linked to a perceived increase in large-scale violent offences committed by young people of African appearance, most of whom have been linked to Melbourne’s Sudanese migrant community.
Media coverage of the issue, led by the News Corp tabloid the Herald Sun, has dubbed Victoria “a state of fear” and reported that it could undermine the incumbent Labor government’s chances in the November state election.
On Monday the prime minister weighed in, saying at a press conference in Sydney that “growing gang violence and lawlessness in Victoria” was “a failure of the Andrews government”.
However, police say that crime from African “street gangs” is an ongoing, not growing, problem, and also that calling these groups “gangs” might be overstating the issue.
The Murdoch media have been complicit in what has happened and embarrassingly for them were caught out trying to create an incident involving Sudanese youth so they could report it. From the Guardian:
A scuffle described by the media last week as “the latest gang flare-up” involving African teenagers was in fact entirely provoked by the journalists who reported it, according to Victoria police.
The article, published by the Daily Mail on 3 January, was billed as an exclusive and headlined “Police SPAT ON and abused as officers arrest African teenagers outside a shopping centre in Melbourne’s west in broad daylight – in latest gang flare up”.
According to Victoria police, there was no “gang” involved and no “flare-up” until the aggressive behaviour of the Daily Mail photographer provoked a group of teenagers who were innocently socialising at the shopping centre.
Two days after the article was published, the Victoria police executive director of media and corporate communications, Merita Tabain, wrote a confidential email to the editors of Melbourne’s main media outlets expressing concern that aggressive behaviour by journalists might “exacerbate the current tensions”. She gave the incident at the Tarneit Central shopping centre as an example.
Tabain wrote that the incident had been provoked by the photographer’s decision to “move in to take closeup photos of a group of African teenagers socialising”.
Is there an actual problem? Sudanese offending is believed to comprise 1.5% of total offending. Although this is bigger than the actual proportion of the Sudanese community of the total population the overall amount is small.
And socio economic reasons may be the cause for any spike in offending. A disproportionate number of Sudanese youth are unemployed, the Sudanese community has a much younger average age, are generally poorer and suffer from an enhanced lack of engagement in work and school. These factors may explain the enhanced level of Sudanese involvement in reported crime. But the claim of out of control Sudanese youth gangs is, in the words of Victoria Chief of Police Graeme Ashton complete and utter garbage.
So the overwhelming effect I get from the allegations is “Meh”. But this has not stopped the idiots from sparking up.
Can I recommend that you go to the #AfricanGangs hashtag on twitter. The tweets are almost overwhelmingly a celebration of Africans living in Australia who are achieving great things, just like the early settlers of other cultures moving to a foreign nation.
And I can’t help but wonder if the activity is timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the Bourke Street incident where six people were killed after Dimitrious Gargasoulas allegedly intentionally drove into them. Gargasoulas was Australian born of Greek Tongan descent who had been granted bail a few days earlier after an allegation of speeding and failing to stop. From the Wikipedia description he was clearly unwell. But mix in race and a cry for law and order and a claim that the judiciary are soft and time it so it will be topical just before the anniversary of a really sad event. Does Peter Dutton have no depth that he will sink to?
But just when you thought that no politician could sink lower than Dutton Donald Trump describes most of the developing countries as Shithole. Put aside his misogynist views, his lack of understanding, his overt belligerence, his anti environmental crusade, his attack on the poor and support for the rich and the threat he poses to world peace these comments should result in his removal from office. In a properly functioning democracy …
But this is a weakness of the democratic system. Pedalling lies and threatening racial tolerance for political gain should result in automatic failure, every time. That it does not, and that it is seen to be a legitimate political tool by the right means that we have a problem.
These contemptible human beings (they are not worthy of being called people) are being emboldened all around the world by this “shithole”, Donald Trump.
Decades ago my late Dad used to say… when America starts to go downhill, they’ll take the rest of us down with them. And that is exactly what is happening.
My daughter had a knife held to her throat and was threatened with death while a Sudanese 16 year old youth groped her in Central Melbourne during daylight work hours, while she was carrying our her job. i have NO SYMPATHY for these assholes. The aggression against the Sudanese is because of their fucked up religious views of women amongst other things. An no those views are not to be tolerated in a modern society.They do not give a rats arse about western values. And no Australia and NZ do not need these fucking people . Now out will come all the dearly deluded members of NZ’s oh so tolerant left telling me what a racist I am. I am an atheist and an old fashioned working class feminist . Fuck these people we don’t need em!
The Sudenese in Australia are generally young, sometimes with parents but very few grandparents. It’s not surprising that their crime rate is high because the young are more likely to be in trouble with the law. On top of that, many are refugees that have had horrific experiences in country to country war and in civil war that has left them troubled.
Accepting what you say at face value do you accept Shona there are assholes in all cultures and to concentrate on the ethnic background of an attacker distorts the picture? After all Australians are the largest group of people involve in Australian crime followed by kiwis …
The problem is one of what your expectations of migrants are once they arrive.
Until the 1970s migrants mostly arrived by ship and had little to no expectation of return to or regular contact with their native countries and cultures. Since the advent of cheap passengers flights and the internet, immigrants can form self-imposed ghettos of permanent first-generation migrants, Somali or Sudanese or whatever who never integrate and indeed, are told by white-guilt liberals they have every right to continue living just like they did in their shithole wasteland Sudan in nice, verdant Sandringham, or whatever.
When you have a self-imposed ghetto full of people whose antediluvian religious views (and I don’t give a shit if they are ultra-orthodox Jews who won’t pay tax or slut-shaming Amish who beat their children or misogynistic Muslims from Sudan) are in direct conflict with the values and social mores of their host society you are going to get serious problems. Nation states are historically meant to be heavily racially homogeneous groups with a shared culture and even a cursory glance at history shows what a terrible job they do at being multi-racial and multi-cultural (Just ask an Austro-Hungarian, or a Yugoslav, or a Transylvanian or a Czech or a Hutu…).
We spend a large amount of time condemning colonialism for creating unstable African nations containing religious and ethnic groups who hate each other, yet somehow we think it is bad to say to migrants from countries with polar opposite cultural and social views they must conform to and assimilate our values or be deported/barred from ever coming here. It is an exercise in liberal schizophrenia that is tearing societies apart, not making new migrants welcome.
Shona, that was a shocking thing to happen to your daughter. You have a right to be angry and bitter. In your shoes, I would want them cut up into bits and fed to the pigs. But I don’t think mickysavage was referring to such human animals. His concern – and mine – is related to institutionalised racism for political gain as practiced by Donald Trump… and being copied elsewhere in the world.The last time that happened in the 1930s and 1940s millions lost their loves.
If the post is about the overall behaviour of certain people, one or a few anecdotes indicate that they have some people in their group who will commit good, or bad things, violence, fraud etc. But the individual anecdote has a place at the side of the main analysis, not taken as a central point, otherwise there is no overview and no tentative judgment can be made.
A cousin of mine was raped at knife point in the South of USA by a couple of whites.
Am I now meant to think that all white Americans are like that due to their race, nationality, religion? I mean look at the fundamentalist, racist, sexists, class hating people in the USA. (And that includes so many in power.)
And my son was stabbed fourteen times by a NZ born white crohn’s disease sufferer who was unemployed and is now in jail. I’m unaware of any religious or misogynist views held by this asshole but obviously he’s from a group that is also not needed in this country (using your logic).
Agreed it is why i don’t consider myself part of the modern left anymore and if the standard are going to start bleating on like the rest then i will cut them out of my news cycle.
Because as always diversity hits the working class the hardest and its not just the “white” working class complaining. Local aborigines say the Sudanese young are behaving like ingrates turning their community into the same kind of place they fled from yet no one seems to even care what they have to say.
My daughter is regularly harassed, and even ‘touched up’ whilst heading home to her apartment off Cuba St. Usually by bar patrons-supposedly drinking in a sophisticated kind of way….’cos ya know-they really can handle their piss.
They’re predominantly white males-and usually fugly specimens at that.
Just as well that because of surf lifesaving and rowing, she is capable of totally flooring most of them.
“Flooring people” is harder than it sounds, and without training she might break her hand.
Far better to develop some innate abilities through practice and diligence, like any other sport. There are great Wing Chun and Taijiquan teachers in Wellington. Not some “self-defense” class, either: seek out a master.
I have no time for Peter Dutton and his ilk, but New Zealand citizens put in the same situation should support their own communities and support the Police. There’s a few towns in New Zealand that for example are dominated by crime and it’s really hard to organize against them. That would be whether they were immigrants or not.
Ad, the story you linked to is for members only. What was it about?
I do have a bit of a problem with your suggestion that people should involve themselves in direct action to support each other and the police. While in some circumstances this might be justified, the fact is that it’s easy to misjudge the dynamics of an event, especially if you only witness part of it or hear one side of it, and especially if the wider framing includes media demonising or dehumanising of one group of people while consistently portraying another group as victims. The people who assume that any group young people who are of African descent is a “gang”, for example, could easily intervene based on this assumption and actually be part of the problem. There’s a fine line between this kind of citizens’ direct action and vigilantism.
It was about Melbourne Police arrests of the Apex gang and a core of about 60 individuals. Here’s a quick explainer from an open site on gangs in Melbourne:
I am not proposing direct action. But I get pretty tired of activists on the left decrying the Police in New Zealand. We might want to look at extracting the log in our own eye in Kaitaia and other gang-dominated small towns for example before trying to wash the dust off someone else’s face.
“Pedalling lies and threatening racial tolerance for political gain should result in automatic failure, every time. That it does not, and that it is seen to be a legitimate political tool by the right means that we have a problem”
This type of Intolerance extends beyond racism to target various groups (generally poor people) – and in my view is designed to create division within populations – because while we’re hating each other, the Trumps of the world and our political leaders get to do what they will and we all get to forget who is causing the problems and blame each other instead.
Sadly in New Zealand “pedalling lies” is a tool that has been used by the right and left for decades – And actually I fail to see who the ‘left’ actually are these days, they’re much of a sameness and all implicated in promoting lies to justify and force harmful policy on disadvantaged groups – usually poor and brown people – maybe we overlook racism in our own backyard too?
Australia has a problem. The same one New Zealand does: racists. We need to get into their homes and communities, identify the instigators, and get them out of Parliament.
Start with anyone who bleats about political correctness. It’s simple code that means: “I am a racist.”
That sounds like you would use any lame excuse to label someone a racist.
Intolerance of and attacks on people with different views to your own can be as dirty as any racist (who typically are intolerant and attack or ostracise people they don’t like).
I so agree. I get very beady eyed about people who start bleating about society being ‘too pc’. They seem to me to have the pip because their favourite sexist/racist/etc meme which they have used to justify rotten behaviour has come under the spotlight and has been identified and described for what it is
To an extent but I think you’re over-generalising.
Confronting sexist/racist/whateverist language is important, but there’s also a danger of oversanitising language, and shutting down reasonable discussion using -ists as justification.
I think the BSA was right to dismiss the complaints for Hosking saying ‘for God’s sake’ (during an election debate), and for someone else saying ‘for Christ’s sake’.
Beautifully said Fairy Godmother and JanM above !
For a long time now I’ve thought that anti-PC is in reality the new PC……subscribed to by ignorant/lazy pricks as a distraction from their shame about their manifest inadequacies.
How could we think that racism was vanishing. We live in a culture of neo liberalism that has brought back classism, raised materialism above religion and consciousness of others worth, and the need to serve one another for their benefit, mutual benefit and the good of the whole community. It has wiped away equality-oriented policies and thoughts, replacing them with competitiveness. Push yourself, advocate for yourself and your superiority over all others. This link shows the epitome of the modern
educated go-ahead person focussed on business advantage, they have no time for consideration of real life and racism and how others are being treated. (Everybusinessvideoever)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZjtnGqvDM8
You want to get more than you have? Get to and use other people around you or far; stand on their shoulders if need be. Don’t bother about gratitude or reciprocation for good acts.
Neo lib teaches the simple psychology, as a tenet of its beliefs, that everyone does something to satisfy themselves, some innate urge. So no need to consider others, they are all following their own path in life. Concentrate on yourself, use your advantages, slide into line before others in the queue – say, hey look over there – and get in. Leave the others standing, if they have problems because of race, that gives you an advantage, seize it. /sarc
Does Peter Dutton have no depth that he will sink to?
Apparently not but we shouldn’t be surprised by the actions of this RWNJ. It’s pretty much their MO as we learned here from Dirty Politics.
Pedalling lies and threatening racial tolerance for political gain should result in automatic failure, every time. That it does not, and that it is seen to be a legitimate political tool by the right means that we have a problem.
It should do but our system has been designed from the top to protect those at the top.
+1000 Draco T Bastard the system have been designed by the top to protect the top and that has to change. I still say that the word race should be wiped from our minds books and Computers and we use culture instead to identify all the beautiful unique people on Papatuanukue. I readed work from good writers and the use culture instead of race its the Ass holes of the World that use race to divide US the 99% of the world so they can carry on ripping US off. Ka kite ano
It’s pleasing that we don’t have any racist slurs flung around by our MPs.
Imagine if we had someone like the bigot mentioned in this story, who claimed that housing in his country was being all bought up by Chinese who weren’t residents.
His method of deciding they were Chinese was that the had “Chinese sounding names”. https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/twyford-s-racist-cynical-chinese-property-buyer-statistics-de-bunked-q00964
Lucky that none of our New Zealand MPs are like that isn’t it?
Meh – both Australia and Canada have found significant impacts from Chinese buyers on their housing markets. We have increasing numbers of Chinese speaking real estate agents, and Chinese language real estate adverts. NZ real estate companies are now advertising in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. No controls on foreign buyers are in evidence.
Given these indicators it would be frankly extraordinary if the NZ market were not feeling the impact of a rise in Chinese buying. But by all means repeat the Gnat attack meme – their sudden false concern about racism certainly trumps ordinary NZer’s legitimate expectations of housing availability.
I think I’m going to generate a post about why OECD-country conservative movements are crushing the left with immigration policies and immigration discourse, and what if anything the left can do about it. Just needs an NZ immigration policy announcement to hang it off.
I’m waiting for it Ad. Recall also my comment on the Jim Anderton post re MoBIE.
I hope and pray for a better approach, and so far the signs are looking slightly better.
That’ll be the tricky part, because the typical left-wing response to people unhappy about mass immigration from completely foreign cultures is “Your bigotry is unacceptable.” The accused bigots then vote for people not declaring them to be bigots. I’m detecting a Gordian knot here…
So why aren’t there any good stats on whom was buying house in Auckland. Buying and selling houses in NZ is easy money. Iv seen a house brought and sold 3 times in 12 months with everyone getting a mark up. Why are there no stats on this subject well national was covering this up. It is not wise to let the foreigns buy up all OUR Assets. 15 years ago I read a article that pridicted New Zealand would become the Dairy farm of the world and The holiday home for the rich and famous .lf New Zealand became the holiday home for the rich and famous most of the people will be put on the bread line as everything will become to expensive for the 99% I say foreign should only be able to lease land. And can only buy land after being a resident for 10 years Ka kite ano
Totally agree with Shona. New Zealand should be for New Zealanders, not refugees from the world’s many shithole dumps. National lost votes because of their daft mass immigration policy (including mine), and Labour and co will do so also, if they insist on importing masses from all and sundry. FFS, we have an almost country wide housing crisis, huge unemployment, groaning cities, crowded schools and resources, but we want to bring in more and more? National didn’t listen and Labour won’t ever. Tone deaf when it comes to what kiwis want. No Islam here, pulease. Multi cultural simply means loss of our way of life, and death by one thousand cuts. Our pollies are UN sellouts, both sides, including Winnie.
In the 1870s recent immigrants were criticised by those who been original European immigrants from the 1840s and 1850s now living in North Canterbury. They were described as ‘sweepings from the gutters of European cities.” My ancestor was one of these. He stood up in a public meeting in Loburn and defended these people saying he was one of them. He was chaired from the meeting.
Documented history. I am so proud of this ancestor. A son of his was a champion dog-trialist, a grandson of his was a great wartime hero, another grandson a Shield winning Rugby coach, and so on, and so on. Descendants of one who had to borrow the money to emigrate away from the unemployment of 1860/70s rural England.
As the Statue of Liberty says, “Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
His descendants married into families of English, Irish, Scottish, Indian, Japanese, Maori descent. Canterbury always was a little mono-cultural…………
Tanz, you were out-of-date and indeed plain wrong, even 150 years ago.
NZ IS a shit-hol dump for many people and you Tanz with your skewed attitudes are an enabler of this. Anyone who is for the present economic practices at present in NZ, must take responsibility for helping bring this about. The fact that you and all the other RWs and fellow travellers of National won’t take responsibility is a sad observation that lefties must take on board.
Labour must ameliorate the conditions but wouldn’t be able to change them greatly in three years. One of the things they need to do is to try and limit immigration of rich foreigners to this country by ensuring that money invested here has taxed profits, and that investments made here are not just on land and buildings to absentee landlords.
Controlling immigration should also include NZ companies and the government not allowing the poor people from overseas shitholes to be fleeced by either their own people who have set up business in hypocritical, lying NZ presenting itself as a great and good country, but with a dark underbelly of sharp practices, or actually fleeced by NZ government and NZ business.
If you could bring yourself to actually think around and behind the problems you see Tanz rather than take soapbox stands shouting out your pre-programmed messages it would be worth your time to write here and ours to read what you have to say.
Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
‘a programme to combat racism’
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
‘theories of racism’
On this definition i don’t believe Trump to be racist but then I’ve also never met the guy so i don’t know what hes like
But when it came to shooting the suspects, police officers were more likely to fire without having first been attacked if the suspects were white. Additionally, the study learned that black and white civilians in the shootings were equally likely to be carrying a weapon.
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The Herald have been running a number of articles on Light Rail this week Light Rail to Kumeu On Tuesday, it was presented with some surprise that light rail will eventually reach Kumeu Major changes are on the way for ...
by Don Franks“Auckland’s phoney homeless make $100 a day on the streets” is a Herald piece by Amanda Saxton, about a few skid row alcoholics who assemble early each morning to sit together and drink.A group of apparently ...
Like many of us, I feel a deep connection to our oceans. The rich marine life that surrounds our shores is what makes our place in the world so special and why we’re so passionate about protecting it. There are ...
Ocean waters are rising because of global warming. They are rising for two reasons. First, and perhaps most obvious, ice is melting. There is a tremendous amount of ice locked away in Greenland, Antarctica, and in glaciers. As the world warms, ...
We’ve put together a quick guide so you can make a submission on the Zero Carbon Bill. Making a full submission is a much better contribution than simply signing a form on a website (although if you don’t have time, ...
Adjusting to tertiary study, feelings of loneliness and academic anxiety have been identified as major triggering factors of depression, stress and anxiety amongst students, in a new study released by the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA). The Kei Te Pai? report ...
A new government-backed campaign has been launched to help eliminate family and sexual violence, and suicidal behaviour among Pasifika young people in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Atu-Mai violence prevention programme has been developed to equip Pasifika young people and their families with the ...
Sandra Grey, national president of the Tertiary Education Union, reflects on what the future holds for the provision of tertiary education in Northland. It’s been a rocky road in recent years for staff, students, and communities reliant on tertiary education provided ...
An event readers may be interested in: Street Talks: Transforming Public Transport with Auckland’s New Network – with Anthony Cross 5:30pm – 7:00pm Wednesday 18th July, Whare Wānanga, Papa Tuarua/ Second Floor, Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero/ Central Library, Lorne Street Auckland has made ...
Renters United this morning launched The Plan to Fix Renting, a set of policy proposals building on last year's People's Review of Renting. Things like giving renters security of tenure by banning no-cause evictions and requiring landleeches to give reasons ...
Patrick wrote last month about Greater Auckland’s submission on a draft report by the Productivity Commission: “Low-Emissions Economy”. Our full submission is available here. We looked at three chapters of the report – Land Use, Transport, and The Built Environment. ...
Silencing staff, cutting the Faculty of Education and Social Work in the midst of a nationwide teacher shortage, and refusing to listen to serious concerns about the direction he is taking the University of Auckland. It is time we talked about Vice-Chancellor ...
The hype of driverless cars has been strong in recent years. However, a recent article by transport expert Christian Wolmar suggests that things might not be progressing as well as the earlier hype suggested. Wolmar visited an autonomous vehicle exhibition ...
Now I'm up for a free speech stoush as much as the next person, however I can't help but see the debate that has arisen in the past week about the now-abandoned show in New Zealand by a pair of ...
The following interview was published on leftwingbooks.net This is the English version of an interview with Torkil Lauesen that Gabriel Kuhn conducted for the German daily junge Welt. Torkil Lauesen ...
Taranaki is one of the country's biggest dairying districts. And somewhat surprisingly, the Taranaki Regional Council appears to be taking on dirty dairying, with prosecutions and fines:A dairy farmer collapsed in the dock and cried into her husband's arms after ...
The UK Information Commissioner looks likely to fine Facebook £500,000 over its enabling of Cambridge Analytica:Facebook is set to be fined £500,000 by the UK’s privacy watchdog after it concluded the social media giant broke data laws. The California-headquartered company ...
They're thought of as the scourge of the internet, but Aimie Cronin finds trolls aren't always dangerous and, in fact, can sometimes be helpful. The Wireless/Luke McPake In June 2015, David Farrier wrote an opinion piece called ‘It’s ...
This is a guest post by Biddy Livesey who is a housing policy analyst, researcher, and future resident of Cohaus. Post Three – Planning for collective housing development: Consenting Cohaus In this third post on cohousing, we consider how cohousing is ...
The current turmoil in British politics, with leading Cabinet members resigning over the progress, or lack of it, in the talks over Brexit, will have left many readers in this part of the world confused as to what it ...
Our democracy should be accessible for everyone. One of the fundamental things about civil society is that it’s supposed to be by the people, for the people. Currently, it’s harder than it should be for some people to take part. ...
People want and deserve to know where their food comes from. That is the intention behind my member’s bill (originally Steffan Browning’s) the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill which has re-opened for submissions. There is ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little today announced the process for the appointment of a new Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Race Relations Commissioner and Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner. ...
Two new policing initiatives are being launched in Auckland with the objective of preventing crime, improving community safety, and reducing reoffending. Police Minister Stuart Nash will today launch an iwi community justice panel, Te Pae Oranga, at Hoani Waititi Marae ...
Like many of us, I feel a deep connection to our oceans. The rich marine life that surrounds our shores is what makes our place in the world so special and why we’re so passionate about protecting it. There are ...
Our democracy should be accessible for everyone. One of the fundamental things about civil society is that it’s supposed to be by the people, for the people. Currently, it’s harder than it should be for some people to take part. ...
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little acknowledges and welcomes the rangatira of Ngāti Tamaoho who came to Parliament for the significant third reading of their Treaty settlement legislation. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little and Under-Secretary Jan Logie have received the independent review into allegations of sexual misconduct, harassment and bullying at leading law firm Russell McVeagh. ...
Police recruitment is taking another significant step forward with the arrival of eighty new recruits who begin training today at the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash has extended a welcome to the recruits of Wing 319 ...
“We are alarmed at the impending arrival of white supremacists Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, and will aim to organise a non-violent anti-racist response to any public events in Auckland,” said Valerie Morse, member of Auckland Peace ...
Retraction and apology to Dr Rob Beaglehole 20 JULY 2018 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Statement by Jordan Williams: This morning the Taxpayers’ Union reacted to a Newshub story dated today regarding sugar labelling which featured a video of Dr Rob Beaglehole ...
Auckland Disability Law (ADL) supports removing the barriers for Disabled and Deaf People's participation in elections and the political process. The Election Access Fund Bill assists in that aim. That is why ADL supports the Bill, and have made a ...
Local Government New Zealand have visited the offices of the Taxpayers’ Union and advised that, while they support raising the waste levy, they don’t have a specific target in mind. This corrects a report from Radio New Zealand ( cited ...
The Health Minister’s new policy advisor, Dr Rob Beaglehole, is out of line in appearing on Newshub this morning to lobby for new sugar labelling rules wearing the hat of a Dental Association ‘spokesman’. ...
At nine years old, Mereana Love walked into her family’s Hamilton home after school with her two brothers to find her grandmother sobbing on the phone. Seeing the children, Love’s grandmother broke the news - 'Mum’s been in an accident. ...
Friday, July 20: Greenpeace Executive Director, Dr Russel Norman, and climate activist Sara Howell, appeared for sentencing today following action they took to stop the world’s largest oil and gas exploration ship searching for fossil fuels off the ...
Generation Zero celebrates the news that over 14,000 submissions were made to the Zero Carbon Bill during the last six weeks of consultation. Of the 14,000 submissions nearly 3,500 came through Generation Zero’s website. ...
Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little has signed off the Pike River Recovery Agency’s Concept Plan outlining three re-entry options. ...
The identity of a doctor who earlier this year pleaded guilty to eight charges of making an intimate visual recording can now be made public after the High Court upheld the District Court’s decision declining him name suppression. ...
Hannah Blumhardt and Liam Prince of The Rubbish Trip; Rachel Benefield, founder of Plastic Free Kāpiti; Wellington-based waste advocacy group Waste-ed; and Kristy Lorson, the owner of zero waste business EarthSavvy and the founder of the 19,000 ...
Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ) has appointed Julie Haggie to become its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). She will take up this appointment on 10 September. ...
WELLINGTON — The Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand is absolutely thrilled to announce Helen Clark will be a keynote guest at next month’s national conference in Wellington. ...
The Council of Trade Unions welcomes the Ministry of Social Development’s statement that helping Tranzit recruit for bus-driving jobs that are under dispute was inappropriate. CTU President Richard Wagstaff says the call, made yesterday, is the right one. ...
The east coast population of one of New Zealand’s favourite fish, tarakihi, has fallen by over 80% in the past 50 years and the stock is now overfished. LegaSea, the recreational fishing lobby group, is urging the Minister of Fisheries ...
“Auckland Peace Action will join with other activist and community groups across Auckland to resist racism if any public events involving right wing extremist speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux go ahead,” said Valerie Morse, member of Auckland ...
The Free Speech Coalition has now filed proceedings against Mayor Goff and Auckland Council under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This came after the Coalition presented the Mayor with an open letter suggesting he avoid the cost of ...
New Zealand’s provincial economies are poised to drive growth in the economy, building on the recovery in dairy prices during 2016, according to Infometrics latest economic forecasts. Spending activity in the regions is comfortably outpacing activity ...
“The Minister of Health needs to avoid the easy but wrong-headed option of structural change in his review of New Zealand’s public health and disability sectors,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists ...
Amnesty International welcomes the joint statement made this week by Immigration ministers from around the world committing to advancing community-based refugee sponsorship. ...
The New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation and District Health Boards met in Wellington yesterday to explore options to settle the current employment negotiations. ...
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation and District Health Boards met in Wellington yesterday to explore options to settle the current employment negotiations for the DHB Multi-Employer Collective Agreement for Midwives and Nurses. ...
Erebus National Memorial Delayed! The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has recently told Erebus families that the Erebus National Memorial will not be ready for the 40th anniversary of the accident on 28th November 2019. The scale and complexity ...
17 July 2018 Electricity Authority Chair Brent Layton today announced the appointment of James Stevenson-Wallace as the Authority's new Chief Executive. ...
Placing Soap in the Hands of Those in Need ‘ Hotel to Hands. From Around New Zealand to Around the World’ CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – For nearly thirty years, New Zealand owned and operated, Scenic Hotel Group has been committed ...
The majority of highly experienced senior doctors employed by ACC to assess medical claims have gone on strike this morning for improvements to their collective employment agreement. ...
Reaching net zero emission by 2040 should be legislated now, as championed by OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate and Health Council with other health sector organisations, says the NZ College of Public Health Medicine (NZCPHM). ...
The Free Speech Coalition can confirm it will this week be filing judicial review proceedings against Auckland Council for its ban on two Canadian speakers from Council-owned venues. The pro-free speech group believes the Council and/or Mayor acted in breach ...
The Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) wishes to once again express its solidarity with nurses who have been engaged in industrial action. ...
Local Government New Zealand has honoured Rotorua leader Cr Trevor Maxwell MZNM with the Minister of Local Government EXCELLENCE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Local Government. ...
Central and local government showed strong alignment on strategy for climate change adaptation as Local Government New Zealand President Dave Cull and Minister for Climate Change Hon James Shaw shared the stage today at the annual LGNZ Conference in Christchurch. ...
FIRST Union is pleased to announce retailer Kmart has stepped in where The Warehouse has failed, it has promised priority placement of 60 Red Shed workers at 14 of its stores nationwide. ...
A shared vision to reduce child poverty rates and social inequity is at the heart of a new funding arrangement between Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and the Peter McKenzie Project (an initiative of the J R McKenzie Trust). ...
Leading New Zealand doctor and health system disruptor Dr Lance O’Sullivan says rental properties owned by the government are in appalling third world conditions which is directly burdening the nation’s health system. ...
“ACC medical advisors are poised to walk off the job tomorrow because they’ve had a gutsful of their employer’s cavalier approach to their pay, conditions and well-being,” says Lloyd Woods, a Senior Industrial Officer at the Association of ...
SAFE is outraged to learn that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has, yet again, let animals down by giving a green-light to the Timaru pig farm exposed last week for breaking the law. ...
With the folding of TOP and the Māori Party’s struggle to re-enter Parliament, one thing’s become obvious; there just aren’t enough parties. Anna Bracewell-Worrall for Newshub suggests a few potentials. Currently there are five parties in Parliament. There ...
As winter passes and new life takes hold in New Zealand, indigenous guests from far abroad have arrived to exchange cultural knowledge. It’s more than 12,000 kilometres from Salem, Oregon, to Dunedin, Otago – an epic journey across the Pacific – ...
Glen Herud’s mission for an ethical dairying company isn’t over yet. In part two of his series documenting his attempts to launch Happy Cow Milk 2.0, Herud talks about single-use plastic in the dairy industry and the plan to get farmers ...
Peter Ellis, the former childcare worker who claims he was wrongfully convicted of child sex abuse, has a new advocate - National leader Simon Bridges. Bridges says Ellis’s case is the most obvious case of a miscarriage of justice in ...
We’re fighting a losing battle for patient safety, says this Auckland nurse – and it’s everyone’s problem.There’s been a lot of chin scratching by the political-pundit class in New Zealand about the nurses strike lately. Why, do they wonder, have ...
A “natural” seawall constructed out of giant bamboo poles built at the Semarang village of Demak Timbulsloko in an attempt to reduce “rob” flooding damage. Image: Del Abcede/PJR Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk“Rob” flooding in the Indonesian city of ...
Janine Southby has resigned as the coach of the Silver Ferns in the wake of a review into the team’s demise that shows her players had lost confidence in her months before the Commonwealth Games. The review findings reveal that Southby’s philosophy of ...
Alex Casey talks to Bajan-New Zealander Amber Maya about making music, going to school with Rihanna… and how to dispose a body.Okay. Let’s start with something easy. Who… are you? I am a performing artist from Barbados and New Zealand. I ...
We have heard from a lot of adults about the new Wellington buses. But what do kids think? Five-year-old Eddie gives his honest opinion.My name is Eddie.I went on the double decker bus today.I was doing a review about the ...
New verse by Kaipara poet Sam Hunt.Mum and Mary In the dream my motheris chatting with her friend, Mary, mother of Jesus – Mum andMary sharing a joint. Mary tends to rabbit onabout the cost of living, of everything ‘going up’;husband, Joseph, coming in latelysmelling of ...
The week’s bestsellers at the Unity Books stores in Willis St, Wellington and High St, Auckland.WELLINGTON UNITY1 Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble (Victoria University Press, $20)The first book of poetry to claim the number-one spot since the Hera Lindsay Bird phenomenon. “The ...
NZ on Air and Spinoff TV COMMENT: The funder of public broadcasting programmes, NZ on Air, is defending its $700,000 spend on the troubled The Spinoff TV current affairs series by pointing to its online content through the week, not just ...
Nothing goes better with cheap food than cheaper wine drunk quickly. Here are the 10 best BYO spots in New Zealand, as submitted by you. Ah, the BYO, most depraved of dining methods! Sinking seven standards with the fam and boofing ...
James Elliott is bemused, confused and bewildered in the wake of a tour de farce summit and a trans-Tasman deportation tiff As any working parent will agree, successfully wrangling the winter school holidays is a challenge that should be worthy ...
To celebrate the release of Chelsea Jade’s long-awaited debut album, Sam Brooks asks her everything about her (and other people’s) music.It’s the rare unambiguously sunny morning in Auckland when Personal Best drops. I’m sitting outside a big building, waiting for an interview, ...
French soldiers on parade on Bastille Day in Noumea, New Caledonia, last week. Image: Lee Duffield/PMC Event date and time: Friday, July 27, 2018 – 16:30–18:00LEAD-UP TO THE INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM FOR NEW CALEDONIAHas 30 ...
The United Kingdom's interest in joining the revamped TPP trade deal has sparked calls from National for New Zealand to put work and holiday visas on the table in free trade talks. ...
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to sibling entrepreneurs Brittany and Johanna Cosgrove of Nopesisters, the social enterprise championing ‘fashion for a cause’.ONE: How ...
“Both the board and college leaders have been crystal clear this behaviour cannot continue.”Otago University halls of residence Selwyn College has shut down its controversial tradition of second years secretly voting on and publicly awarding nicknames to freshers at their ...
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has weighed into the Eden Park chief executive affair, questioning the park trust's behaviour as a statutory body with government appointed directors. Clark, whose home is near the park, believes the way the trust has ...
Pacific Media Centre ISBN/code: ISSN 1175-0472 Publication date: Friday, July 20, 2018 Publisher: Pacific Media Centre GLOBAL PRESS FREEDOM SUMMIT INCLUDES PMCThe Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders recently hosted ...
A bottle of the (former) PM’s Pinot All Noir came into our correspondent’s possession via a shady route of backdoor deals and dirty politics… but no ponytails were harmed.This weekend, I sat in my rented Grey Lynn villa as the ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association withCallaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition:Environmentalists stack submissions up on Zero Carbon bill, courier driver conditions laid bare, and refugee quota increase on hold.Here’s an important update on the Zero Carbon bill – methane is almost ...
Peter Dunne asks why the Foreign Minister and Defence Minister have chosen to provoke China and Russia in their latest Defence Review. He sees it as a spurious, vainglorious and risky move for a small trading nation. In a time ...
If our adult mental health system needs to be restructured, our youth mental health system needs to be completely obliterated and rebuilt from the ground up.Content warning: suicideI’ve been a youth development worker for almost 10 years, and sitting in ...
Olympic silver medallists Alex Maloney and Molly Meech are trying to stay in sync for a very strong shot at the 49erFX world title in Denmark. Suzanne McFadden reports. Above a millpond ocean, without a zephyr of a breeze, Alex ...
Whangārei architect Jade Kake has made a career changing behaviour through design, decolonising Māori thought patterns and outcomes through altering the environment in which they take place. But her next project at Te Rewarewa is by far the most ambitious ...
Exhausted parents of children with severe allergies have been verbally beaten up on Facebook after sensational articles about birthday cake bans at pre-schools whipped some Stuff commenters into a frenzy. Spinoff Parents editor Emily Writes spoke to Malena Penney, a ...
Anthony Byrt reviews an exciting new study of Pablo Picasso, genius and visionary, who comedian Hannah Gadsby called out as a disgusting #metoo pig.One way to measure Picasso’s greatness is that he’s never far beneath the surface of our collective ...
In resetting targets for health, the challenge is to identify and articulate the underlying map, writes Paul DuignanWill health targets end up on target? Imagine that you are talking to an Air Force chief in a war somewhere. You have ...
Almost 30% of organic waste goes straight to landfill, sparking two leading businesses in the composting sector – Innocent Packaging and We Compost – to team up and launch The Full Package, the first citywide compost collection of its kind ...
Former Māori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell has resigned as the party's co-leader to take up a new position as the chief executive of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. ...
The editor of Dunedin’s student magazine may not like it, but the University of Otago’s hunt for Nessie was science communication at its finest, argues Ellen Rykers.In a recent column, Critic Te Arohi editor Joel MacManus lambasted the Loch Ness ...
The new chief executive of Eden Park was dismissed from a key role at a sports stadium in Melbourne for serious misconduct, including trading free tickets for his personal benefit, and "elements of dishonesty". Nick Sautner, a former Aussie rules star in ...
Whether you’re mining bitcoin or Googling yourself, you’re creating a lot of heat somewhere. A group of New Zealand scientists have found a way to take the heat off data centres. Each time you Google something, a data centre responds. This ...
Here’s everything you need to know about the very chilled-out, extremely popular tropical house DJ. Hang on a minute – I thought ‘tropical house’ was something they have at the botanical gardens. What is it?You know that Ed Sheeran song ...
Bougainville President John Momis … considering going to the United Nations for advice. Image: Ramumine By RNZ Pacific The President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville has raised concerns that the Papua New Guinea Government is not pulling its ...
AUT Policy Observatory’s Dr David Hall (from left, podium) with fellow “fair borders” panellists Dr Arama Rata, Andrew Chen and Dr Evelyn Masters at last night’s discussion. Image: Rhahul Bhattarai/PMC By Rahul Bhattarai Author and researcher David Hall has ...
The Commerce Commission says Christchurch International Airport may be planning to make excessive profits from security, freight storage, and some terminal lounges, though it's "broadly satisfied" with its planned earnings from most of its assets. In an initial finding published ...
The Financial Markets Authority may take regulatory action against three financial services firms after its latest probe into replacement life insurance. The market watchdog has been concerned about the sale of replacement life insurance for several years, largely around sales ...
The latest Broadcasting Standards Authority survey on offensive language is out, and it shows as a nation we’re becoming more progressive and nuanced about how and why we take offence. Some strong language to follow. Alas for broadcasters, that the word ...
Fill the void of those long, lonely winter nights with a dark beer – there’s one out there for you, we promise. There’s no denying that these are dark times, friends – both symbolically and literally. Yes, the world has gone ...
The road to health is long and winding but should it be paved with vitamin supplements? Madeleine Chapman dives into the world of monthly vitamin subscriptions.Seven-minute abs, that one trick for a slim waist, and the perfect fruit to get ...
Natural health company BePure provided the following statement to the Spinoff for our story about vitamins, which you can read here. We certainly empathise that the area of natural health and supplementation can be both confusing and be misleading with the ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Court action over Southern-Molyneux speech proceeds, courier work conditions exposed, and Northland activists target P-pipe stores.Legal action against Phil Goff and Auckland Council has gone ahead over the Southern-Molyneux venue banning, ...
Racist dog whistling 
From my office window I can see the single lane at the end of a motorway, usually filled with a queue of slowly moving cars. The conventional wisdom is that it should be two-laned to remove the blockage, but that ...10 hours ago
Is this about the most depressing display of “wokeness” that you could imagine? 4 quotes come to mind… Quote 1: James Baldwin, American author “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do…” Quote 2: George ...11 hours ago
As a former leader of two major Wellington organisations and the ACT Party, I have, for years, been championing free speech. Consider, if you will, a younger old white man, standing up in front of other old white man in ...14 hours ago
British police and intelligence agencies are using children as spies:British police and intelligence agencies are using children as spies in covert operations against terrorists, gangs and drug dealers. A committee of the House of Lords revealed the practice while raising ...15 hours ago
Writing a commentary on current affairs is always a fraught business; however considered one’s views, they are bound to be challenged by someone – even many, – and they can, by the time they are published, be totally discredited by ...16 hours ago
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For drivers, school holidays must seem almost magical with traffic seemingly vanishing for a few weeks. Commutes that might normally take an hour in mind-numbing congestion can, for a few weeks, be achieved in less than half that time. On ...1 day ago
You've probably been called a Nazi recently by someone who disagreed with you online. But how can you tell if you really are a piece of fetid fascist garbage? Take the test. ...1 day ago
Ocean Temperature – Part 2 We are coming back to the topic of sea-surface temperature measurements, which we have taken on in the article “Ocean Temperature – Part 1”. This time, we will discuss issues concerning satellite measurements. Pictet Mirrors ...2 days ago
People want and deserve to know where their food comes from. That is the intention behind my member’s bill (originally Steffan Browning’s) the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill which has re-opened for submissions. There is ...2 days ago
Professor Cohen is always good value and we should take these comments of his seriously. After all, there is nothing more serious today than the threat of war between the US and the Russian Federation. Yet we have politicians and ...2 days ago
This is a guest post by reader Heidi O’Callahan On Thursday 8th March this year, a truck heading east up Great North Rd from Waterview failed to negotiate the right-turn corner into Carrington Rd, at the heart of the Pt Chevalier ...2 days ago
It took no great insight to suppose that the main casualties of the report by the Office of the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor debunking the "meth contamination" hysteria would be the companies who for years made a profitable business ...3 days ago
by The Spark Since the spring (NZ autumn – Redline), the Trump administration has imposed a wave of tariffs on 1,102 imported goods, from aluminum and steel, that is, the building blocks of basic industry, to consumer items like washing ...3 days ago
Maunga Waitakere supplies drinking water to the wider region, and drives significant tourism value through its iconic scenery. With some Pākehā showing confusion over the recently established rāhui, now is the time to discuss the wider cultural life of the region. In ...3 days ago
In just three years Auckland’s waterfront is going to look dramatically different. The completion of a $268 million suite of projects on and around Quay St will transform the area, creating a people friendly space from Silo Park through to Britomart and ...3 days ago
This is a guest post from reader Takaite Background As 40% of Auckland’s carbon emissions are due to transport, if Auckland is to contribute its share to NZ’s carbon reduction targets this is an area where reductions have to be ...4 days ago
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When Elon Musk struck out on Twitter with his unsubstantiated (and now deleted) “pedo” comment over the refusal to use his latest gadget to help rescue the Thai boys and their coach the other week, he didn’t really sink to ...4 days ago
A great recent article takes a “deep dive” look at the steps San Francisco’s new mayor could take to fix their housing crisis. The new mayor – London Breed – is a breath of fresh air in a city with ...4 days ago
Eleven teams participated in a recent Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) project, examining the economic and environmental impacts of a carbon tax. The studies included “revenue recycling,” in which the funds generated from a carbon tax are returned to taxpayers either ...5 days ago
Here’s your chance to make a documentary. We’re excited to announce that The Wireless is now accepting proposals for a fourth season of Wireless Docs. We’ll be commissioning six new made-for-web documentary films to be released in ...5 days ago
One of the neat features of the Council’s GIS viewer is the ability to put on an overlay showing the land values per m² for the Auckland Region. Council valuations are conducted every three years and the 2017 data is ...5 days ago
Grisly attacks and brutal murders convinced New Zealand that criminals should be locked up for longer. Now, with jails bursting at the seams, the government wants to slash prisoner numbers. Will Kiwis panic, or get behind the changes? Susan Strongman reports. ...5 days ago
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. . Up till recently, I had believed that there were two facets comprising to create a neo-liberal economy (not “society” – neo-liberalism does not recognise community or society where individuals organise for a greater collective good). The first was ...6 days ago
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week. Editor's Pick Heat Records Falling Around the World in 2018 Above: A sampling of all-time high temperatures reported around the world in 2018 ...6 days ago
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in September 2014. Urban population density is a hot topic – some people complain that it’s getting too high in Auckland, while others worry that it’s ...7 days ago
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The Herald have been running a number of articles on Light Rail this week Light Rail to Kumeu On Tuesday, it was presented with some surprise that light rail will eventually reach Kumeu Major changes are on the way for ...1 week ago
by Don Franks “Auckland’s phoney homeless make $100 a day on the streets” is a Herald piece by Amanda Saxton, about a few skid row alcoholics who assemble early each morning to sit together and drink. A group of apparently ...1 week ago
Like many of us, I feel a deep connection to our oceans. The rich marine life that surrounds our shores is what makes our place in the world so special and why we’re so passionate about protecting it. There are ...1 week ago
We’ve put together a quick guide so you can make a submission on the Zero Carbon Bill. Making a full submission is a much better contribution than simply signing a form on a website (although if you don’t have time, ...1 week ago
Adjusting to tertiary study, feelings of loneliness and academic anxiety have been identified as major triggering factors of depression, stress and anxiety amongst students, in a new study released by the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA). The Kei Te Pai? report ...1 week ago
An event readers may be interested in: Street Talks: Transforming Public Transport with Auckland’s New Network – with Anthony Cross 5:30pm – 7:00pm Wednesday 18th July, Whare Wānanga, Papa Tuarua/ Second Floor, Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero/ Central Library, Lorne Street Auckland has made ...1 week ago
Patrick wrote last month about Greater Auckland’s submission on a draft report by the Productivity Commission: “Low-Emissions Economy”. Our full submission is available here. We looked at three chapters of the report – Land Use, Transport, and The Built Environment. ...1 week ago
They're thought of as the scourge of the internet, but Aimie Cronin finds trolls aren't always dangerous and, in fact, can sometimes be helpful. The Wireless/Luke McPake In June 2015, David Farrier wrote an opinion piece called ‘It’s ...1 week ago
This is a guest post by Biddy Livesey who is a housing policy analyst, researcher, and future resident of Cohaus. Post Three – Planning for collective housing development: Consenting Cohaus In this third post on cohousing, we consider how cohousing is ...1 week ago
People want and deserve to know where their food comes from. That is the intention behind my member’s bill (originally Steffan Browning’s) the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill which has re-opened for submissions. There is ...2 days ago
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These contemptible human beings (they are not worthy of being called people) are being emboldened all around the world by this “shithole”, Donald Trump.
Decades ago my late Dad used to say… when America starts to go downhill, they’ll take the rest of us down with them. And that is exactly what is happening.
My daughter had a knife held to her throat and was threatened with death while a Sudanese 16 year old youth groped her in Central Melbourne during daylight work hours, while she was carrying our her job. i have NO SYMPATHY for these assholes. The aggression against the Sudanese is because of their fucked up religious views of women amongst other things. An no those views are not to be tolerated in a modern society.They do not give a rats arse about western values. And no Australia and NZ do not need these fucking people . Now out will come all the dearly deluded members of NZ’s oh so tolerant left telling me what a racist I am. I am an atheist and an old fashioned working class feminist . Fuck these people we don’t need em!
Well said Shona.
That sounds like an awful experience for your daughter.
I know other women have experienced such behaviour by men from other ethnic groups, including pakeha/white/European men, etc.
The stats reported in the post do indicate that a very small percentage of overall offending is carried out by Sudanese young people in Melbourne.
The Sudenese in Australia are generally young, sometimes with parents but very few grandparents. It’s not surprising that their crime rate is high because the young are more likely to be in trouble with the law. On top of that, many are refugees that have had horrific experiences in country to country war and in civil war that has left them troubled.
FWIW I thought this show was pretty enlightening plus it has Melanie Lynskey in it.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/sunshine
Accepting what you say at face value do you accept Shona there are assholes in all cultures and to concentrate on the ethnic background of an attacker distorts the picture? After all Australians are the largest group of people involve in Australian crime followed by kiwis …
The problem is one of what your expectations of migrants are once they arrive.
Until the 1970s migrants mostly arrived by ship and had little to no expectation of return to or regular contact with their native countries and cultures. Since the advent of cheap passengers flights and the internet, immigrants can form self-imposed ghettos of permanent first-generation migrants, Somali or Sudanese or whatever who never integrate and indeed, are told by white-guilt liberals they have every right to continue living just like they did in their shithole wasteland Sudan in nice, verdant Sandringham, or whatever.
When you have a self-imposed ghetto full of people whose antediluvian religious views (and I don’t give a shit if they are ultra-orthodox Jews who won’t pay tax or slut-shaming Amish who beat their children or misogynistic Muslims from Sudan) are in direct conflict with the values and social mores of their host society you are going to get serious problems. Nation states are historically meant to be heavily racially homogeneous groups with a shared culture and even a cursory glance at history shows what a terrible job they do at being multi-racial and multi-cultural (Just ask an Austro-Hungarian, or a Yugoslav, or a Transylvanian or a Czech or a Hutu…).
We spend a large amount of time condemning colonialism for creating unstable African nations containing religious and ethnic groups who hate each other, yet somehow we think it is bad to say to migrants from countries with polar opposite cultural and social views they must conform to and assimilate our values or be deported/barred from ever coming here. It is an exercise in liberal schizophrenia that is tearing societies apart, not making new migrants welcome.
I expect them to behave like human beings. After all, that’s what the racists are doing.
Shona, that was a shocking thing to happen to your daughter. You have a right to be angry and bitter. In your shoes, I would want them cut up into bits and fed to the pigs. But I don’t think mickysavage was referring to such human animals. His concern – and mine – is related to institutionalised racism for political gain as practiced by Donald Trump… and being copied elsewhere in the world.The last time that happened in the 1930s and 1940s millions lost their loves.
If the post is about the overall behaviour of certain people, one or a few anecdotes indicate that they have some people in their group who will commit good, or bad things, violence, fraud etc. But the individual anecdote has a place at the side of the main analysis, not taken as a central point, otherwise there is no overview and no tentative judgment can be made.
A cousin of mine was raped at knife point in the South of USA by a couple of whites.
Am I now meant to think that all white Americans are like that due to their race, nationality, religion? I mean look at the fundamentalist, racist, sexists, class hating people in the USA. (And that includes so many in power.)
“Fuck these people we don’t need them(?)”
+111
And my son was stabbed fourteen times by a NZ born white crohn’s disease sufferer who was unemployed and is now in jail. I’m unaware of any religious or misogynist views held by this asshole but obviously he’s from a group that is also not needed in this country (using your logic).
Agreed it is why i don’t consider myself part of the modern left anymore and if the standard are going to start bleating on like the rest then i will cut them out of my news cycle.
Will you be ok, snowflake?
Will you?
Why do you say that RC?
The post acknowledges offending but opposes the racist dog whistle being used by the right because it is not backed up by reality.
Because as always diversity hits the working class the hardest and its not just the “white” working class complaining. Local aborigines say the Sudanese young are behaving like ingrates turning their community into the same kind of place they fled from yet no one seems to even care what they have to say.
My daughter is regularly harassed, and even ‘touched up’ whilst heading home to her apartment off Cuba St. Usually by bar patrons-supposedly drinking in a sophisticated kind of way….’cos ya know-they really can handle their piss.
They’re predominantly white males-and usually fugly specimens at that.
Just as well that because of surf lifesaving and rowing, she is capable of totally flooring most of them.
“Flooring people” is harder than it sounds, and without training she might break her hand.
Far better to develop some innate abilities through practice and diligence, like any other sport. There are great Wing Chun and Taijiquan teachers in Wellington. Not some “self-defense” class, either: seek out a master.
On the one hand we have Bill writing “You cowed?” decrying the unwillingness of citizens to protect each other.
On the other hand we have Mickey saying that we should worry more about the media framing and the reactions when violence goes down on the street.
May not be huge but it’s a dangerous gang that needs eradicating:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/gang-violence-in-melbourne-new-intel-on-core-apex-members/news-story/9873f9e18ac0a9c611601885b453e69d
I have no time for Peter Dutton and his ilk, but New Zealand citizens put in the same situation should support their own communities and support the Police. There’s a few towns in New Zealand that for example are dominated by crime and it’s really hard to organize against them. That would be whether they were immigrants or not.
Ad, the story you linked to is for members only. What was it about?
I do have a bit of a problem with your suggestion that people should involve themselves in direct action to support each other and the police. While in some circumstances this might be justified, the fact is that it’s easy to misjudge the dynamics of an event, especially if you only witness part of it or hear one side of it, and especially if the wider framing includes media demonising or dehumanising of one group of people while consistently portraying another group as victims. The people who assume that any group young people who are of African descent is a “gang”, for example, could easily intervene based on this assumption and actually be part of the problem. There’s a fine line between this kind of citizens’ direct action and vigilantism.
It was about Melbourne Police arrests of the Apex gang and a core of about 60 individuals. Here’s a quick explainer from an open site on gangs in Melbourne:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/explainer-does-melbourne-have-a-street-gang-problem-20180102-h0cku6.html
I am not proposing direct action. But I get pretty tired of activists on the left decrying the Police in New Zealand. We might want to look at extracting the log in our own eye in Kaitaia and other gang-dominated small towns for example before trying to wash the dust off someone else’s face.
“Pedalling lies and threatening racial tolerance for political gain should result in automatic failure, every time. That it does not, and that it is seen to be a legitimate political tool by the right means that we have a problem”
This type of Intolerance extends beyond racism to target various groups (generally poor people) – and in my view is designed to create division within populations – because while we’re hating each other, the Trumps of the world and our political leaders get to do what they will and we all get to forget who is causing the problems and blame each other instead.
Sadly in New Zealand “pedalling lies” is a tool that has been used by the right and left for decades – And actually I fail to see who the ‘left’ actually are these days, they’re much of a sameness and all implicated in promoting lies to justify and force harmful policy on disadvantaged groups – usually poor and brown people – maybe we overlook racism in our own backyard too?
Australia has a problem. The same one New Zealand does: racists. We need to get into their homes and communities, identify the instigators, and get them out of Parliament.
Start with anyone who bleats about political correctness. It’s simple code that means: “I am a racist.”
That sounds like you would use any lame excuse to label someone a racist.
Intolerance of and attacks on people with different views to your own can be as dirty as any racist (who typically are intolerant and attack or ostracise people they don’t like).
It seems as though you would use any lame excuse.
Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.
Albert Einstein.
🙄
People’s views go to their character as human beings, and if contemptible justify contempt, and if Nazi then any “attack” is pre-emptive self defense.
People’s ethnicity has nothing to do with their character. Did you not know that, Pete?
I agree with you about pc. I interpret it as polite and considerate and on the odd occasion have asked people if they prefer to be rude.
I so agree. I get very beady eyed about people who start bleating about society being ‘too pc’. They seem to me to have the pip because their favourite sexist/racist/etc meme which they have used to justify rotten behaviour has come under the spotlight and has been identified and described for what it is
To an extent but I think you’re over-generalising.
Confronting sexist/racist/whateverist language is important, but there’s also a danger of oversanitising language, and shutting down reasonable discussion using -ists as justification.
And there’s also a problem with being oversensitive to common and fairly harmless language as highlighted here: Hosking’s outburst deemed not offensive
I think the BSA was right to dismiss the complaints for Hosking saying ‘for God’s sake’ (during an election debate), and for someone else saying ‘for Christ’s sake’.
🙄
Equates racism to invoking the gods.
Calls out people for over-generalising about people who use the term “pc”.
Very meta.
Beautifully said Fairy Godmother and JanM above !
For a long time now I’ve thought that anti-PC is in reality the new PC……subscribed to by ignorant/lazy pricks as a distraction from their shame about their manifest inadequacies.
How could we think that racism was vanishing. We live in a culture of neo liberalism that has brought back classism, raised materialism above religion and consciousness of others worth, and the need to serve one another for their benefit, mutual benefit and the good of the whole community. It has wiped away equality-oriented policies and thoughts, replacing them with competitiveness. Push yourself, advocate for yourself and your superiority over all others. This link shows the epitome of the modern
educated go-ahead person focussed on business advantage, they have no time for consideration of real life and racism and how others are being treated. (Everybusinessvideoever)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZjtnGqvDM8
You want to get more than you have? Get to and use other people around you or far; stand on their shoulders if need be. Don’t bother about gratitude or reciprocation for good acts.
Neo lib teaches the simple psychology, as a tenet of its beliefs, that everyone does something to satisfy themselves, some innate urge. So no need to consider others, they are all following their own path in life. Concentrate on yourself, use your advantages, slide into line before others in the queue – say, hey look over there – and get in. Leave the others standing, if they have problems because of race, that gives you an advantage, seize it. /sarc
Apparently not but we shouldn’t be surprised by the actions of this RWNJ. It’s pretty much their MO as we learned here from Dirty Politics.
It should do but our system has been designed from the top to protect those at the top.
+1000 Draco T Bastard the system have been designed by the top to protect the top and that has to change. I still say that the word race should be wiped from our minds books and Computers and we use culture instead to identify all the beautiful unique people on Papatuanukue. I readed work from good writers and the use culture instead of race its the Ass holes of the World that use race to divide US the 99% of the world so they can carry on ripping US off. Ka kite ano
It’s pleasing that we don’t have any racist slurs flung around by our MPs.
Imagine if we had someone like the bigot mentioned in this story, who claimed that housing in his country was being all bought up by Chinese who weren’t residents.
His method of deciding they were Chinese was that the had “Chinese sounding names”.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/twyford-s-racist-cynical-chinese-property-buyer-statistics-de-bunked-q00964
Lucky that none of our New Zealand MPs are like that isn’t it?
I doubt he’ll make party leader. Unlike Don Brash, John Banks, and
John Key.
Lockie ‘small hands’ Smith, Melissa ‘crims will drive Lee, Paul ‘you’re Indian’ Goldsmith……
That wasn’t racist in any way. Just the data available and data simply isn’t racist.
Meh – both Australia and Canada have found significant impacts from Chinese buyers on their housing markets. We have increasing numbers of Chinese speaking real estate agents, and Chinese language real estate adverts. NZ real estate companies are now advertising in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. No controls on foreign buyers are in evidence.
Given these indicators it would be frankly extraordinary if the NZ market were not feeling the impact of a rise in Chinese buying. But by all means repeat the Gnat attack meme – their sudden false concern about racism certainly trumps ordinary NZer’s legitimate expectations of housing availability.
I think I’m going to generate a post about why OECD-country conservative movements are crushing the left with immigration policies and immigration discourse, and what if anything the left can do about it. Just needs an NZ immigration policy announcement to hang it off.
I’m waiting for it Ad. Recall also my comment on the Jim Anderton post re MoBIE.
I hope and pray for a better approach, and so far the signs are looking slightly better.
I’m sure you are.
Can’t recall what you said, but great to hear about your signs.
…and what if anything the left can do about it.
That’ll be the tricky part, because the typical left-wing response to people unhappy about mass immigration from completely foreign cultures is “Your bigotry is unacceptable.” The accused bigots then vote for people not declaring them to be bigots. I’m detecting a Gordian knot here…
So why aren’t there any good stats on whom was buying house in Auckland. Buying and selling houses in NZ is easy money. Iv seen a house brought and sold 3 times in 12 months with everyone getting a mark up. Why are there no stats on this subject well national was covering this up. It is not wise to let the foreigns buy up all OUR Assets. 15 years ago I read a article that pridicted New Zealand would become the Dairy farm of the world and The holiday home for the rich and famous .lf New Zealand became the holiday home for the rich and famous most of the people will be put on the bread line as everything will become to expensive for the 99% I say foreign should only be able to lease land. And can only buy land after being a resident for 10 years Ka kite ano
Totally agree with Shona. New Zealand should be for New Zealanders, not refugees from the world’s many shithole dumps. National lost votes because of their daft mass immigration policy (including mine), and Labour and co will do so also, if they insist on importing masses from all and sundry. FFS, we have an almost country wide housing crisis, huge unemployment, groaning cities, crowded schools and resources, but we want to bring in more and more? National didn’t listen and Labour won’t ever. Tone deaf when it comes to what kiwis want. No Islam here, pulease. Multi cultural simply means loss of our way of life, and death by one thousand cuts. Our pollies are UN sellouts, both sides, including Winnie.
He aha te mea nui o te ao?
Islam is an idea, which has been here for as long as Europeans have (if not before).
The first Muslims in New Zealand were an Indian family who settled in Cashmere, Christchurch, in the 1850s
Wikipedia.
You’re a bigot because you’re stupid and ignorant, but not all stupid ignorant people are bigots.
PS: I don’t want your slavish vile child-abusing Christianity here.
Who did you vote for?
I was convinced from previous posts you were a strong Nat fan.
New Zealand should be for New Zealanders, not refugees from the world’s many shithole dumps.
One could argue that a few hundred years ago it was, but that horse has long since bolted. Racists wouldn’t argue that, though, because racism.
he he – ‘you took the words right out of my mouth’
[my italics]
Idiot is incapable of complaining about multiculturalism in NZ without using East Asian cultural references.
Looks a bit like iron.
😆
In the 1870s recent immigrants were criticised by those who been original European immigrants from the 1840s and 1850s now living in North Canterbury. They were described as ‘sweepings from the gutters of European cities.” My ancestor was one of these. He stood up in a public meeting in Loburn and defended these people saying he was one of them. He was chaired from the meeting.
Documented history. I am so proud of this ancestor. A son of his was a champion dog-trialist, a grandson of his was a great wartime hero, another grandson a Shield winning Rugby coach, and so on, and so on. Descendants of one who had to borrow the money to emigrate away from the unemployment of 1860/70s rural England.
As the Statue of Liberty says, “Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
His descendants married into families of English, Irish, Scottish, Indian, Japanese, Maori descent. Canterbury always was a little mono-cultural…………
Tanz, you were out-of-date and indeed plain wrong, even 150 years ago.
NZ IS a shit-hol dump for many people and you Tanz with your skewed attitudes are an enabler of this. Anyone who is for the present economic practices at present in NZ, must take responsibility for helping bring this about. The fact that you and all the other RWs and fellow travellers of National won’t take responsibility is a sad observation that lefties must take on board.
Labour must ameliorate the conditions but wouldn’t be able to change them greatly in three years. One of the things they need to do is to try and limit immigration of rich foreigners to this country by ensuring that money invested here has taxed profits, and that investments made here are not just on land and buildings to absentee landlords.
Controlling immigration should also include NZ companies and the government not allowing the poor people from overseas shitholes to be fleeced by either their own people who have set up business in hypocritical, lying NZ presenting itself as a great and good country, but with a dark underbelly of sharp practices, or actually fleeced by NZ government and NZ business.
If you could bring yourself to actually think around and behind the problems you see Tanz rather than take soapbox stands shouting out your pre-programmed messages it would be worth your time to write here and ours to read what you have to say.
Racist is a term that should be considered carefully before being bandied about:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11888053
Your Dear White Supremacist Leader is a racist. Own it.
Are you trying to say Trump is not racist??
I’m saying that calling something racist doesn’t make it so
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/70225493/Could-the-Chinese-sounding-names-stunt-be-Labours-Orewa
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94543321/Peters-warns-of-consequences-after-Green-co-leader-calls-his-policy-racist
I’ll ask the question in a straightforward way.
Do you think Trump is a racist?
It’s a yes/ no question.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/racism
Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
‘a programme to combat racism’
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
‘theories of racism’
On this definition i don’t believe Trump to be racist but then I’ve also never met the guy so i don’t know what hes like
“People are not regularly being killed…”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-map-us-police-killings
Given the Police are overseen by Politicians, then to my mind, people are being killed on a racist basis by their elected leaders.
Meantime in NZ we know that Maori are more at risk of something going wrong in their treatment in hospital than non-Maori
http://salient.org.nz/2009/07/discrimination-and-maori-health/
http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/test-9
But when it came to shooting the suspects, police officers were more likely to fire without having first been attacked if the suspects were white. Additionally, the study learned that black and white civilians in the shootings were equally likely to be carrying a weapon.
And while zeroing in on the police department in Houston to get a more detailed picture, Mr. Fryer found that in situations of justifiable use of force, when, for instance, the officer is being attacked by the suspect, officers were 20% less likely to shoot at a black suspect. Accounting for other control factors in tense situations, Mr. Fryer saw similar results that there was either no difference between how blacks and whites were treated or that blacks were less likely to be shot.