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
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It may be that we have all misinterpreted the somewhat surprising “bromance” between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. It has been all too easy to assume that it is Kim who is cosying up to Trump rather than the ...
by Michael Roberts So the full circle is completed. The corrupt pro-business conservative New Democracy party in Greece that was ousted by the anti-capitalist Syriza party in 2015 has been returned to office in yesterday’s general election, with an outright ...
When the Australian government passed a series of new spy laws over the last few years, they pinky-promised that they wouldn't use them to spy on journalists and subvert freedom of the press. They lied:The anti-encryption laws passed by the ...
From 1975 to 1989, the spy agencies of South America's right-wing military dictatorships cooperated in Operation Condor, a joint campaign of extermination against the continent's left. Roughly 400,000 people were imprisoned, 30,000 disappeared, and 60,000 murdered - kidnapped, tortured, executed, ...
When she was standing for office, Jacinda Ardern promised she would take abortion out of the Crimes Act. And to be fair, there was some early action on that, with an immediate referral of the issue to the Law Commission ...
When the government introduced the Zero Carbon Bill, people rightly asked what they planned to do to reduce transport emissions, which basicly had no policy at all other than the ETS. Today, they responded, announcing a "feebate" system which would ...
At almost every level, the problem with medicinal cannabis is a lack of good information. In the US, FDA regulations make it hard to research. Most doctors aren't familiar with what research there is and most patients don't know either. ...
Redline is critical of Corbyn for his political weaknesses, but he’s no anti-Semite. There is no substance to the McCarthyist witch-hunt being run by the right wing, and the pro-Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour Party in the UK. ...
The government's billion trees program is the sort of policy which could make a real difference to our emissions and the fight against climate change. But climate scientist Jim Salinger isn't convinced:The Forestry Minister Shane Jones' one billion trees won't ...
Last month the government was celebrating another surplus. Meanwhile, children are starving:One in five children are living in households where putting food on the table is a struggle, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health. It found ...
Show Me The Money! The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Auckland mayoral challenger, Tamihere, has some solid points to make. ...
If we are to avoid making the earth uninhabitable, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to practically nothing over the next decade. But that will still leave us with the problem of the carbon we have already emitted, which ...
Former Waikato DHB CEO Nigel Murray allegedly misused public funds, spending more than $120,000 of public money on unjustified travel. He was forced to resign and the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation. But despite the SFO finding that the ...
Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, is being advised – not least by his deputy (as well as by some of his would-be successors) – that he must come “off the fence” on the Brexit issue if he wants to bolster ...
The End of Life bill has been read a second time and is now heading for the House for further debate. Personally, I support the proposal. I don't ever epect to take advantage of the Bill's provisions myself, but as ...
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more ...
Below is a translation of the editorial in the June 24 round of weekly workplace bulletins issued all over France by the revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvriere. Last Saturday, 8,000 people took to the streets of Belfort (eastern France) to ...
Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing ...
Back in May the government released its Zero Carbon Bill. While much of the bill was welcome, there was one big exception: it contained a secrecy clause, requiring the Climate Change Commission to maintain secrecy over practically everything it does. ...
by Phil Duncan This past week has marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall Inn riots in Christopher Street, New York, the event generally regarded as kicking off the gay liberation movement. Quite a few articles have ...
Southland - land of coal-burning dairy farmers - has become the first region in the country to explicitly vote against declaring a climate emergency. Their reason? They didn't want to "devalue" the word "emergency". Its an argument addressed powerfully in ...
New Zealand has a problem with police chases: officers going after fleeing drivers like rabid dogs, without any consideration for proportionality or public safety, often with fatal results. And according to an in-depth article in the Guardian today, the UK ...
The first full week of the firearms buy-back and amnesty has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time. “Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country, ...
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...
Million-dollar start to gun collection eventsPolice Minister Stuart Nash says a solid start has been made to the gun buyback and amnesty after the first weekend of community collection events. “Gun owners will walk away with more than ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has praised Police and gun owners after the first firearms collection event saw a busy turnout at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch. “Police officers and staff have put a tremendous effort into planning and logistics for the ...
Seventy-eight new Police constables are heading out to the regions following today’s graduation of a new recruit wing from the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the record high number of new Police officers being recruited, ...
Media statement on behalf of Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie and Donna Marie Tai Tokerau Hall: Māori Television has admitted publishing false allegations about former High Court justice, Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie, and his wife, Donna Hall, and it has ...
Announcement today by the Prime Minister of further gun law reform is being shrouded by fear, so that scrutiny of the law is seen as an affront to the victims of the horror attack in March. The Prime Minister acknowledged ...
Misgivings about the practicality and cost of a firearms register is likely to dominate feedback from rural areas on the second round of proposed Arms Act amendments, Federated Farmers says. ...
School Strike 4 Climate NZ organisers Sophie Handford and Raven Maeder delivered a clear message to over 600 local government mayors, chairs, chief executives and councillors at the recent LGNZ conference : make climate change a priority. ...
The Police Association, Te Aka Hāpai backs the government’s emphasis on public safety as the driver of its second tranche of amendments to New Zealand’s firearms law, announced today. ...
The growing housing shortage crisis about more than supply and demand- it is about inequity. Recently released analysis by Kiwibank shows that last year’s “severe” shortage of housing has worsened, with the shortfall growing from 100,000 to 130,0000 ...
One of the country’s largest district health boards has a severe shortage of hospital specialists, says the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is joining opposition to possible regulations on the strength of nicotine vaping liquid. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “The Government would certainly benefit from regulations on the strength ...
The Meat Industry Association (MIA) is calling for significant changes to the Zero Carbon Bill with a new analysis using the Government’s preferred modelling indicating that the proposed methane targets are excessive if all other gases go to net zero. ...
Victoria University Feminist Organisation and ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa, in conjunction with the VUW Feminist Law Students, Organise Aotearoa, Fem Force, and with the support of VUW Student Association announced they are sponsoring a march ...
With the Government's firearm buyback scheme starting to draw over 30,000 police man hours away from fighting crime, the safety of law abiding citizens is being compromised. ...
Social Credit Party leader Chris Leitch is calling on the sale of Westland Milk to Chinese company Yili to be put on hold pending an approach to the Government by Westland Milk for funding assistance. ...
Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa seems intent on ensuring the Government’s vaping legislation will heavily target flavours and nicotine levels – a move that would be completely counterproductive to helping Kiwis quit smoking and achieving ...
A new website has launched in response to recent RNZ reporting about Police in Dunedin unlawfully entering people’s homes and breath-testing them. “I was disgusted when I saw what they cops were doing in Dunedin. Their behaviour undermines all of ...
The Head of the New Zealand Maori Council has called for the Government to hold an immediate investigation into the global cosmetics company Sephora after they were caught dumping waste hundreds and thousands of waste paper products embedded with ...
Hundreds of whanau and Maori leaders gathered at a hui in Mangere last weekend where they voted unanimously for an inquiry into Oranga Tamariki. The historic meeting called for a child welfare framework to be developed by Maori, for Maori. ...
Simon Shepherd: The government says its agreement with farmers, that they should pay for agricultural emissions, is historic. But there's no agreement on how. One proposal says farmers should pay a 5 per cent emissions tax. Another suggests farmers ...
The O’Brien Institute for Public Health at Calgary University has just released their report on fluoridation. This institute has, up to now, been staunchly in favour of fluoridation. However, yesterday, with regards to fluoride’s effect on the brain, ...
July 19 (BusinessDesk) - The government is looking to tighten control and impose harsher penalties after the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak revealed cracks in the country's stock management system. ...
Kia Anga Mua Ngā Hapū o Ngāpuhi (KAM) has reached a pivotal milestone following a hui yesterday at Waitangi with the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little. ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the Government spent $133,530 on producing its ‘Wellbeing Budget’ document, a cost blowout largely driven by spending on graphic design and photography. The $133,530 price tag compares to $86,268 ...
Kahungunu Māori Language Awards. Nominations closed on 5 July 2019, and were judged by the Senior Management Team of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated. The judges wish to acknowledge the very high calibre of all nominations received making it a very ...
High Court of Australia Judge, Justice Stephen Gageler, will address recent criticism of court judgment delays in Australia, at the University of Canterbury (UC) on 23 July at 6.15pm. ...
This summary is provided to assist in the understanding of the Inquiry’s proceedings but does not constitute the official record. The full Minute is available at the link below. ...
The Tertiary Education Commission is laying charges under section 292A of the Education Act 1989 against three individuals for making a false representation for the purpose of receiving, or continuing to receive, free tertiary education from a tertiary education ...
New Zealand food businesses today welcomed a trio of new food safety tools, designed to make it faster, easier and more affordable to follow the rules and keep consumers safe. ...
AUT research shows that Māori children are almost four times more likely than those of European descent to be placed out of home by child protection services ...
The Government announced today that grants of up to $2,500 for energy efficient heaters are now available as part of the Government’s Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. ...
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...
Information sessions on proposals for The Medicinal Cannabis Scheme take place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next fortnight. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the proposed scheme. ...
“Our children are our most vulnerable, most innocent victims and we do not want to see any more children harmed by these ‘known sex offenders’. The safety of our community must be the paramount consideration.” ...
“The announcement that Fonterra will immediately stop installing any new coal boilers or increasing capacity to burn coal is the signal that the biomass fuel supply industry welcomes” said Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association. ...
18 July 2019-- Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and ...
The increase in demand for cage-free eggs is set to continue according to animal rights organisation SAFE, who says the egg industry should expect this and prepare. ...
Wellington, New Zealand – 350 Pacific made a formal submission to the New Zealand Government’s Environment Parliamentary Select Committee on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCWs) based in ...
There used to be a school of thought on the centre right side of politics that the best way to neuter the Greens as a political force would be to let them have a spell in government. Then, according to ...
Today (18 July) is Nelson Mandela International Day when the United Nations highlights the importance of humane conditions of imprisonment. In New Zealand our prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. At 214 prisoners per 100,000 people, we have the fifth ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa will take legal action over the lengthy delay in implementing pay increases for teachers. Novopay announced yesterday that teachers would have to wait until 11 September to see pay increases that they won when they settled ...
EDS has filed its submission on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. The Bill sets targets for greenhouse gas reductions, provides for the government to set a series of carbon budgets, and sets up a new, independent, Climate ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has identified an absurd case of mission creep at Wellington City Council: the decision to spend $21,750 on two Consumer NZ investigations into different brands of bike lights. ...
The Motor Trade Association is welcoming the release of the Government’s new draft road safety strategy. MTA Chief Executive Craig Pomare says the association is pleased to see vehicle safety has been made a priority in the Road to Zero ...
The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704 ...
The government's silence on the fact that the country's second-largest milk processor is on the brink of becoming 25% Chinese Government owned has been deafening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, has cleared Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop of breaching the government’s code of ministerial standards with their ...
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 contentForeign affairs – Australia Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern in ...
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of Big Little Lies, which generated as much social media conversation as its first season did critical acclaim, for better and worse.Light spoilers for the second season of Big Little Lies.Big Little Lies felt like the ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie Indonesia recently hosted a bold public relations window-dressing expo in Auckland presenting itself as a “Pacific” nation while attempting to provide an unconvincing impression of normality in the two Melanesian provinces known collectively as West ...
Taxing vacant land would be too complex to implement and achieve little - it would be better for the Government to push local councils to implement rates based on land value rather than capital value. ...
The Māori Affairs Select Committee has recommended that anyone wanting to use the word 'Parihaka' for commercial purposes must get permission from the Parihaka Papakainga Trust. ...
European politics is a strange business. Where voters can choose candidates, who disappear after the elections. Where right-wing governments nominate left-sounding candidates. ...
Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who ...
ByRNZ Pacific West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there. State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are ...
In 2003 the Silver Ferns won the Netball World Cup, breaking the Australian Diamonds’ 16-year winning streak. In 2019, they’ve just done the same thing. Leana de Bruin was a rookie in that 2003 team, and talked to The Spinoff ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University A Perth man who pleaded guilty to distributing an intimate image of his ex-girlfriend without her consent has been sentenced to a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Charles Sturt University The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code ...
One of the many unspoken rules of British life is that when one is drinking at the pub with others, one buys rounds. For the naive New Zealander, it’s stressful AF, says Elle Hunt.At the pub one Friday night in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland Dry, moist, productive, hacking, chesty, whooping, barking, throaty. These are just some of the terms people use to describe their cough. While we’re deep ...
What if you could grow a house from seed or 3D print a new subdivision in a week? The housing sector is ripe for disruption – could technology be the magic bullet we need?Jo Aitken sounds like she’s pitching an ...
The architect of the incredible turnaround the Silver Ferns have enjoyed is now off-contract. So now that the World Cup has been won, how can Netball NZ keep Noeline Taurua on the books? Radio NZ’s Ravinder Hunia recounts the journey ...
By RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years. According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him ...
More must be done to tackle critical skill shortages in project management and leadership, the head of the Registered Master Builders Association says. ...
Fifteen tracks, 22 guests, one album. The Spinoff Music listens to Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project and considers why each track really shouldn’t work – and the sometimes surprising reasons why they do.1. Beautiful People – KhalidKhalid and Ed ...
Emily Writes on her journey from reasonable trepidation to sweet love for the video game Minecraft.It was barely a week after I said to my sister “I don’t let the boys play any games” that my children’s Minecraft obsession began. ...
New Zealanders with life-shortening congenital conditions will have early access to their KiwiSavers after a man with Down Syndrome convinced the government to change the rules. ...
Sephora store employees may have swept some confetti down Auckland city’s drains on Saturday, and people got angry… at an entire generation. On Saturday, French cosmetics giant Sephora opened its first New Zealand store on Auckland’s Queen Street. Excited makeup enthusiasts ...
More than 20,000 Aucklanders don’t have access to regular showers or the ability to wash their clothing. Alice Webb-Liddall tags along on a shift with Orange Sky, who are giving homeless people back these basic needs.On an overcast Friday morning ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University If the first week of the 46th Parliament was heavily ceremonial – dominated by the new governor-general, a raft of first-time MPs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University In a world run ragged by multiple crises and an unravelling of American global leadership, military confrontation in the Gulf poses risks ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Dalton, Conjoint Senior Lecturer School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle Over recent months, the news has been saturated with headlines claiming we’re experiencing a “killer flu season”. Researchers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, PhD Candidate – Wildlife Cameraman, The University of Queensland Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalise on the billion-dollar success of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Over the past few weeks, artists from around Australia have been creating small artworks depicting the endangered black-throated finch and sending them ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Sydney New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made a “captain’s call” in recent months that raised the ire of many parents, teachers and education groups. She ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Beer, Dean, Research and Innovation, University of South Australia Australia’s biggest city is abuzz with news of yet another housing development declared unsafe for human habitation. This time it is apartments ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Many claim leadership positions around farming emissions, concerns rise about deported gang members in small towns, and superyacht predictions panned.Now apologies if you feel like this is repetition – we did ...
Against all odds, the Silver Ferns have won netball's World Cup for the first time in 16 years. And fittingly, one of the legends of the game sealed their incredible victory. ...
What are you getting out of your daily commute? University of Auckland Associate Professor Kim Dirks considers the health implications for getting from A to B. ...
If Beijing’s actions have any bearing on what will happen when the agreement of ‘one country, two systems’ expires, the Hong Kong people are unlikely to succumb quietly. ...
Six things councils can do right now to make the ’emergency’ worth more than the paper it’s written on.Councils are declaring climate emergencies across the country, but with only a decade to cut carbon emissions in half, it’s time for ...
Newsroom literary editor Steve Braunias passes his verdict on the annual list of the 100 favourite books of New Zealanders who filled out a Whitcoulls form. ...
Orchestral music performance is an art form, but how do you engage with something you’ve never experienced before? Samiyah Alghamdi and Anna Knox attend NYO Celebrates in Wellington and unpack what they hear.The National Youth Orchestra and the National Youth ...
Racist dog whistling 
In the wake of the March 15 mass-murder, the government moved swiftly to ban semi-automatic firearms, weapons for which there is really no case for being allowed to own in New Zealand. and now, it has announced phase two of ...12 hours ago
I have been unimpressed with Western corporate media coverage of the tensions involving Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. They repeat the line that Iran is the source of current tensions, that it is a major sponsor of terrorism, that ...2 days ago
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Much like Tuvalu, the manmade climate change Cult love to tell people the Maldives is almost totally underwater. In fact the dishonest Maldives Govt d on the same bandwagon, believing they would receive billions of dollars aid from other Countries ...2 days ago
As the entry on Wikipedia shows (and no, one doesn’t necessarily have to regard Wikipedia as the be-all and end-all of truth, because it isn’t on a great many things, to agree with the following): “…a fallacious argument that concludes ...2 days ago
by Daphna Whitmore The story of how the world awoke to a big injustice is starting to be told. The Pacific Games held this month in Samoa is another chapter. On the podium was Laurel Hubbard, the giant transgender weightlifter, ...3 days ago
Our conversations and push against specific supremacist and ultra-Nationalist groups, and the pseudo-intellectual underpinnings of them, need to mature at all levels. But in doing so, it’s going to have to include a more thorough and brutally honest self-examination ...3 days ago
Something I missed: not only did Youth MPs declare a climate emergency; they also launched a campaign to lower the voting age to 16:Youth Parliament week in Parliament has seen the establishment of Make it 16, a campaign to ...4 days ago
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...5 days ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...6 days ago
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On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...7 days ago
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...7 days ago
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...2 weeks ago
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The first full week of the firearms buy-back and amnesty has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time. “Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country, ...20 hours ago
Media statement on behalf of Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie and Donna Marie Tai Tokerau Hall: Māori Television has admitted publishing false allegations about former High Court justice, Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie, and his wife, Donna Hall, and it has ...9 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, has cleared Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop of breaching the government’s code of ministerial standards with their ...3 hours ago
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of Big Little Lies, which generated as much social media conversation as its first season did critical acclaim, for better and worse.Light spoilers for the second season of Big Little Lies.Big Little Lies felt like the ...9 hours ago
Cross-party consensus on gun law reform was a one-time wonder. ...9 hours ago
ANALYSIS: By David Robie Indonesia recently hosted a bold public relations window-dressing expo in Auckland presenting itself as a “Pacific” nation while attempting to provide an unconvincing impression of normality in the two Melanesian provinces known collectively as West ...9 hours ago
Taxing vacant land would be too complex to implement and achieve little - it would be better for the Government to push local councils to implement rates based on land value rather than capital value. ...9 hours ago
The Māori Affairs Select Committee has recommended that anyone wanting to use the word 'Parihaka' for commercial purposes must get permission from the Parihaka Papakainga Trust. ...10 hours ago
European politics is a strange business. Where voters can choose candidates, who disappear after the elections. Where right-wing governments nominate left-sounding candidates. ...11 hours ago
A decade on from his darkest hour, can the NZ First leader again defy the odds and keep his political career alive? ...11 hours ago
Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who ...12 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there. State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are ...12 hours ago
In 2003 the Silver Ferns won the Netball World Cup, breaking the Australian Diamonds’ 16-year winning streak. In 2019, they’ve just done the same thing. Leana de Bruin was a rookie in that 2003 team, and talked to The Spinoff ...12 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University A Perth man who pleaded guilty to distributing an intimate image of his ex-girlfriend without her consent has been sentenced to a ...12 hours ago
The second tranche of proposed far-reaching changes includes a gun register, tighter licensing rules, and five-year licences. ...13 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Charles Sturt University The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code ...13 hours ago
One of the many unspoken rules of British life is that when one is drinking at the pub with others, one buys rounds. For the naive New Zealander, it’s stressful AF, says Elle Hunt.At the pub one Friday night in ...14 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland Dry, moist, productive, hacking, chesty, whooping, barking, throaty. These are just some of the terms people use to describe their cough. While we’re deep ...14 hours ago
The government is planning an overhaul of biosecurity funding, but a lack of detail is making farming sectors nervous. ...14 hours ago
What if you could grow a house from seed or 3D print a new subdivision in a week? The housing sector is ripe for disruption – could technology be the magic bullet we need?Jo Aitken sounds like she’s pitching an ...15 hours ago
The architect of the incredible turnaround the Silver Ferns have enjoyed is now off-contract. So now that the World Cup has been won, how can Netball NZ keep Noeline Taurua on the books? Radio NZ’s Ravinder Hunia recounts the journey ...15 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years. According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him ...16 hours ago
More must be done to tackle critical skill shortages in project management and leadership, the head of the Registered Master Builders Association says. ...16 hours ago
Emily Writes on her journey from reasonable trepidation to sweet love for the video game Minecraft.It was barely a week after I said to my sister “I don’t let the boys play any games” that my children’s Minecraft obsession began. ...18 hours ago
Sephora store employees may have swept some confetti down Auckland city’s drains on Saturday, and people got angry… at an entire generation. On Saturday, French cosmetics giant Sephora opened its first New Zealand store on Auckland’s Queen Street. Excited makeup enthusiasts ...19 hours ago
More than 20,000 Aucklanders don’t have access to regular showers or the ability to wash their clothing. Alice Webb-Liddall tags along on a shift with Orange Sky, who are giving homeless people back these basic needs.On an overcast Friday morning ...20 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ashlee Curtis, Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Deakin University The Victorian government introduced 24-hour public transport on Friday and Saturday nights in Melbourne from January 1 2016. Services mostly run every hour ...21 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University If the first week of the 46th Parliament was heavily ceremonial – dominated by the new governor-general, a raft of first-time MPs ...21 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, PhD Candidate – Wildlife Cameraman, The University of Queensland Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalise on the billion-dollar success of ...21 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Over the past few weeks, artists from around Australia have been creating small artworks depicting the endangered black-throated finch and sending them ...21 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Sydney New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made a “captain’s call” in recent months that raised the ire of many parents, teachers and education groups. She ...21 hours ago
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Many claim leadership positions around farming emissions, concerns rise about deported gang members in small towns, and superyacht predictions panned.Now apologies if you feel like this is repetition – we did ...22 hours ago
Against all odds, the Silver Ferns have won netball's World Cup for the first time in 16 years. And fittingly, one of the legends of the game sealed their incredible victory. ...23 hours 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.