Robertson to win Wellington Central candidacy

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 9:02 pm, November 11th, 2007 - 74 comments
Categories: labour - Tags: labour

Charles Chauvel has withdrawn his nomination for Wellington Central.

This leaves Grant Robertson the uncontested Labour candidate, likely to be confirmed on November 17th.

Chauvel will instead seek to re-enter Parliament by means of the Party list.

74 comments on “Robertson to win Wellington Central candidacy ”

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Bryce Edwards 1

11 November 2007 at 10:37 pm

It certainly sounds like the party hierarchy (ie H1 and H2) have put Chauvel in his place. I can imagine they didn’t think much of his threats to resign from the Labour Party when he didn’t make Cabinet in the recent reshuffle.

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz
mardypants 2

11 November 2007 at 11:58 pm

I haven’t had first-hand dealings with Charles but know several others that have and they’ve all spoken very highly of him. He mis-spoke recently, his enthusiasm got the better of him and it looks like he’s paid a price.

That aside, I’m not unhappy with the outcome. I’ve had a fair bit to do with Grant Robertson and think he’s easily one of the most talented and decent blokes I’ve worked with.

He’s certainly got plenty of smarts, but it’s not just his brain that I think makes him a strong candidate, it’s the fact that he’s honest, open-minded and genuine. He’s apparently crap at cricket, not that you’d know it since he’s on about it enough, and despite having seen every other NZ band since ’78, he’s not exactly tuneful… but, he’s a great partner and mate and will make a fine parliamentarian.
Santa Claws 3

12 November 2007 at 9:39 am

Well, I guess Chauvel is hoping for a better list place than 44th this time, and needing to wait for an aging MP to be bought out of parliament before he can get in.

After all, he ticks all the boxes for Labour list status

– Unionist (Hotel Workers Union even)
– Princes St veteran, therefore experienced in the dirty underbelly of Labour)
– Long term connection to H1
– Labour party member since 15 (and many roles in The Party)
– Lawyer
– Homosexual (and Rainbow Section co-chair)
– Father of 2yo son
– Recipient of Labour favours (Meridian Energy director 2002-2005 – good thing he bailed for the election and didn’t get tarred with the disconnection brush)
– Managed to reduce Dunne’s majority in OB to ‘only’ 7,702
– Stood against Bill Birch (!)
– Son of Pacific Islander

Its hard to think of a more perfect Labour MP CV – I guess Maori rather than Tahitian descent would be better, but thats hardly something that can be changed.
mardypants 4

12 November 2007 at 9:46 am

Thanks for doing the deep under-cover Santa. Heaven help Labour if they attract such talented and experienced candidates. Far better to have blow-ins like Key?
Robinsod 5

12 November 2007 at 1:33 pm

DPF – Claws! I didn’t see you on teh telly but I’ll try to find it on the interweb eh? I see you’ve got your research unit to get the Chavel fact sheet out asap. Do you have one on me yet?
Santa Claws 6

12 November 2007 at 1:58 pm

Mardypanties – Nothing much you couldn’t find on Chuck’s offical website. I assume you know the link?

Robespierre – I see you’ve been bailed after the weekend.

Really, I wonder if a lifetime spent in the Labour and Union backrooms is a suitable qualification to run the country? The voters of Ohariu Belmont obviously didn’t think so.

At least Chauvel has done something else with his legal career though. I see that well known leftie, Prof Hodge is proposing that a real lawyer be AG. Maybe Chauvel would have the balls to actually do the job, compared to Cullen’s habit of dumping the tough decisions on the SG.

Here’s a list that Matt McCarten provided of HWU honcho’s who’ve made it into parliament

Taito Phillip Field
Rick Barker
Lianne Dalziel
Mark Gosche
Mark Peck
Laila Harre
Matt Robson
Willie Jackson
Dave Hereora
Sue Moroney
Darien Fenton
Charles Chauvel

What a dynamic crowd who have really done wonders for NZ eh?

Here’s McCarten’s comment

“Now of course it would have been the greatest coup ever to have these MPs regularly meeting as a group, strategising on tactics to win benefits for working people. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen. In fact some of them despise each other.”

Oh dear!
Matthew Pilott 7

12 November 2007 at 2:09 pm

“Really, I wonder if a lifetime spent in the Labour and Union backrooms is a suitable qualification to run the country? The voters of Ohariu Belmont obviously didn’t think so.”

Only an ignorant muppet would think this comment holds any semblance of intelligence.

Chauvel took a whopping bite out of Dunne’s majority in the last election. To do that against what is probably the safest seat for any incumbent in NZ isn’t something to piss on, unless you’re thick as pigshit.
Michele Cabiling 8

9 January 2008 at 11:08 am

Mardypants wrote:

“Heaven help Labour if they attract such talented and experienced candidates. Far better to have blow-ins like Key?”

Matthew Pilott quotes Santa Claws:

“Really, I wonder if a lifetime spent in the Labour and Union backrooms is a suitable qualification to run the country? The voters of Ohariu Belmont obviously didn’t think so.”

then makes the predictable leftard personal attack: “Only an ignorant muppet would think this comment holds any semblance of intelligence.”

The Labour Party caucus in recent years boasts two MPs (Dover Samuels and Jim Sutton) who have ever employed another New Zealander with their own money. The balance consists of teachers and trade unionists. Some, like Phil Goff, have been both.

How representative are these people of ordinary New Zealanders who operate small businesses and work for a living? Not very, I venture to suggest!

These are people who produce or create nothing, and have always lived off others, irrespective of productivity or personal ability. Teachers (including university lecturers) live off the taxpayer in comfortable sinecures from which they are not dismissed for poor performance. Union reps live off the union dues of members, and mostly appear to travel around in member-funded cars from one talk-fest and slap-up lunch to another.

For both these groups, wealth is not something to be created which is what those of us who live in the real world understand, but something to be stolen from the productive and redistributed.
Phil 9

9 January 2008 at 11:17 am

I disagree Matthew – there are lots of safer seats around the country. I can think of one or two where (to paraphrase Jeffrey Archer in ‘First among equals’) they don’t count the Labour party vote – they weigh it.
The PM’s electorate, perhaps? Anything in South Auckland? Oh, then there is Southland and Ilam for the Nats, Jonkey’s place too…

Additionally, in the three years leading up the the election, that particular part of Wellington (Oh-Belmont) went through some reasonable demographic change (plus, I moved in!).
I also suspect that a number of voters saw a vote for CC not as necessarily a vote for Labour, but as a vote of ‘no confidence’ in Peter Dunne – my partner at the time was one of those.
Michele Cabiling 10

9 January 2008 at 11:54 am

Anyone Labour puts up will lose ignominiously to former ACT MP and soon-to-be National Party candidate, Stephen Franks.

What we need are more “citizen-politicians” who have made their mark in private enterprise and want to “put something back” (Franks is a corporate lawyer who gave up a high six figure annual income for a backbencher’s salary when an ACT MP) rather than professional politicians off the Labour-Union Axis production line.

Steve Franks is hugely competent, a family man not a faggot, and a helluva nice guy to boot. A future Attorney-General anyone!!!
Matthew Pilott 11

9 January 2008 at 12:12 pm

“These are people who produce or create nothing, and have always lived off others, irrespective of productivity or personal ability. Teachers (including university lecturers) live off the taxpayer in comfortable sinecures from which they are not dismissed for poor performance. Union reps live off the union dues of members, and mostly appear to travel around in member-funded cars from one talk-fest and slap-up lunch to another.

For both these groups, wealth is not something to be created which is what those of us who live in the real world understand, but something to be stolen from the productive and redistributed.”

Right, let’s do away with teachers and see how well the country does. (ok I know (hope!!) that’s not what you mean, but I think your statement on teachers needs some qualification). Teaching performs best universally as a cooperative enterprise. In a competitive system, the best teachers would recieve the best pay, requiring greater fees for their services. That would prepetuate underperformance in areas where parents were unable to stump fees for the best education, leaving their children with the same limited prospects to pass onto their children.

Teachers do not create wealth as I understand you see it. They do not make goods, or provide a service to paying customers in a free market. They are, however, wealth enablers, and vital in their own right; not some form of parasitic class as you appear to describe.

I’d be interested in your ideas though, in regards to teacher performance, and why you feel theachers believe wealth is something to be stolen. My perception is that many teachers take low-paying jobs in order to help children and young adults, quite often for their appreciation of teh job and its satisfaction. This goes some way to ameliorate the limited income, but its a far cry from your perception!

If you compare the contract of a worker who is not fortunate enough to own their own business, with the legal requirements for employment, you’ll find that unions have done quite a lot for the average worker in this country. I won’t bother to contradict your stereotyping of Union activities, not worth trying to counter that perception!

Phil, I agree with that – CC was a virtual unknown competing against Mr O-B, so was unlikely to make the in roads he did purely by his own virtues. Still, to have performed as well as he did means he did a lot right in presenting a viable alternative to Dunne.

You are also right about his not being the safest seat in the country, it’s probably on a par with some of those you mentioned though.

Oh. leftard. Brill :p Equating with retard, one can only assume. Nice and, ah, impersonal?? Hello pot, hello kettle.
Matthew Pilott 12

9 January 2008 at 12:23 pm

Steve Franks is hugely competent, a family man not a faggot, and a helluva nice guy to boot.

That type of comment ain’t going to do you any favours. Funny, with your other posts you seemed too rational and intelligent to be a homophobe. What a shame.

I really hope Franks gets nominated in Central, Robertson will easily destroy him.

But while we’re at it, instead of Right ex-laywers wouldn’t we do better with people who were on the minimum wage in industries such as the service industry? These people represent more of NZ than someone on a six-figure salary, and would work to improve the lot of those in their previous position.
Matthew Pilott 13

9 January 2008 at 12:35 pm

Crap. Take two:

“Steve Franks is hugely competent, a family man not a faggot, and a helluva nice guy to boot.”

That type of comment ain’t going to do you any favours. Funny, with your other posts you seemed too rational and intelligent to be a homophobe. What a shame.

I really hope Franks gets nominated in Central, Robertson will easily destroy him.

But while we’re at it, instead of Right ex-laywers wouldn’t we do better with people who were on the minimum wage in industries such as the service industry? These people represent more of NZ than someone on a six-figure salary, and would work to improve the lot of those in their previous position.
Phil 14

9 January 2008 at 2:01 pm

The last MP to come into parliament on or near minimum wage (a benefit?) was Alamein Kopu… yeah, she did a great job, didn’t she?

That said, I agree completely that parliament should be more representative of the true ‘flavour’ of voters… the problem is that in order to get on a party list with a remote chance of getting into parliament, you need to A) have done something pretty special in your career and be willing to take a massive pay cut or B) know the right people in the right places, at the right time.

Sadly, your average secretary or plumber just isn’t going to cut the mustard most of the time.
Michele Cabiling 15

9 January 2008 at 2:12 pm

Matthew Pilott wrote:

“Teachers do not create wealth as I understand you see it. They do not make goods, or provide a service to paying customers in a free market. They are, however, wealth enablers, and vital in their own right …”

Consider today’s state school teacher. Many should never have been allowed to matriculate from high school, let alone be awarded a university degree or teaching diploma.

Gramscian Marxists colonised the academy more than 30 years ago with the deliberate intention of using our universities as factories of ideological reproduction.

Once they attained critical mass in verious departments, particularly those specialising in the study of society, their dominance on faculty hiring committees enabled them to systematically exclude those holding other views.

A cursory glance at the course outline for a teaching degree discloses little focus on pedagogy and a curriculum heavily loaded [the analogy of a full bowel springs to mind] with Marxist race/gender/class strutural analysis. Alternative world views are simply not presented and students are told by their instructors that they are clever for accepting the programming, and all too frequently leave the academy viewing themselves as academically anointed “agents of social change.”

The curriculum typically consists of one-sided politically correct class participation in conversation which can be heard at any leftard-dominated wine and cheese evening. Graduate teachers have an exaggerated self-estimation of their capacities whilst being educationally limited to functioning as angry social activists.

I, for one, would not want my children subjected to the state school indocrination process.
Michele Cabiling 16

9 January 2008 at 3:31 pm

Matthew Pilott wrote:

“[W]ith your other posts you seemed too rational and intelligent to be a homophobe.”

Interesting how a principled opposition to what is, on all the evidence (since deleted by the moderators) a dirty, dangerous pathological sexual addiction, merits a label rather than an argument.

Are you a sodomite, Matthew?
Matthew Pilott 17

9 January 2008 at 4:04 pm

Interesting how a principled opposition to what is, on all the evidence (since deleted by the moderators) a dirty, dangerous pathological sexual addiction, merits a label rather than an argument.

Are you a sodomite, Matthew?

No. Do you think it’s fair to assume as much should someone object to the term ‘faggot’? Do you consider using a juvenile term such as that a ‘principled stand’?

Are you seven years old, Michele?

P.S. i doubt the moderators deleted your comment, every time such an event has happened before (rarely, at that) there is a note to say that such an action has taken place.

That captcha – it could fool a seven year old!
Psycho Milt 18

9 January 2008 at 4:13 pm

Warning, Matthew: Michele has a serious, positively frightening obsession with sodomy. Don’t encourage him!
Michele Cabiling 19

9 January 2008 at 4:25 pm

Please note, Sucko Milt, I am female.

Sodomy is unnatural behaviour.

That which is normal is that which functions according to its design. The anus is an organ of excretion, not procreation.

As Joe Sobran puts it, “How bright do you have to be to work out the consequences of inserting a life giving organ into the poop chute?”

End of story.
Kimble 20

9 January 2008 at 4:42 pm

“wouldn’t we do better with people who were on the minimum wage in industries such as the service industry? These people represent more of NZ than someone on a six-figure salary, and would work to improve the lot of those in their previous position.”

Wow, I dont think you could have said anything more retarded.

Thats who we need writing our laws! Fry cooks and toilet cleaners! I mean, they are obviously the most qualified.

Hell, more New Zealanders have an IQ around 100-105 than any other 5 point bracket. By your argument THEY should be running the country!
Kimble 21

9 January 2008 at 4:44 pm

“Sodomy is unnatural behaviour.”

How about if two guys just suck each other off? Is that unnatural too?

You know what else is unnatural? Practically everything in modern society.
Psycho Milt 22

9 January 2008 at 4:46 pm

Please note, Sucko Milt, I am female.

We all can be, on the internet. Forgive my skepticism.
Matthew Pilott 23

10 January 2008 at 9:46 am

Kimble, I was trying to make a point that it’s pretty much obscene to say we need politicians of X experience; best we judge them upon their individual merits, work experience being one of a multitude of factors. To be honest, I don’t see a lawyer as someone who would have contributed to society any more than a teacher.

However your lowly cooks and toilet cleaners might have a better idea of how a law would affect New Zealanders in general, as opposed to Michele’s 6-figure-salary lawyer!! They’d just ned more help in drafting the law 😉

Michele, back in the dark ages, a wonam who was able to count and reason was considered unnatural and a witch. Fortunately for you, that phase has passed, I guess people grew out of the idea that women should be ignorant and subservient.

Maybe you’ll grow out of your ideas too, but I shan’t hold my breath.

As for accusing me of being a sodomite, if you’d said anything equally stupid I would probably react similarly. For example if you’d said you’d support Franks because he’s white and not a nigger or chink, or that he’s normal height and not some midget to be tossed about, or because he’s a gool ol’ Hummin and not one of dem aliens I’d still suggest it’s not a good way to interact with people.

After which I can only assume you’d accuse me of being black, asian, a midget and an alien, respectively. Not what I’d call intelligent discourse.

As for homosexuality being unnatural, well if God decided 1 in 10 people were going to be gay, who am I to argue?

So how is that diet of organic fruit and veg from your own garden going? Given everything else we eat is unnatural, and, well, supermarkets don’t grow in the wild so I don’t suppose you use them.

Speaking of it, why are you using a computer? I can’t think of anything more unnatural than a powered series of components that alows you to communicate with people anywhere in the world. C’mon, keep true to your homophobic self Michele, face-to-face from now on – it’s the only natural way!
Kimble 24

10 January 2008 at 12:11 pm

“To be honest, I don’t see a lawyer as someone who would have contributed to society any more than a teacher.”

That is because you lack imagination.

“lowly cooks and toilet cleaners might have a better idea of how a law would affect New Zealanders in general, as opposed to Michele’s 6-figure-salary lawyer!!”

All you are doing is taking the experience of hundreds of thousands of people, attributing it to one mythical person, and then saying that this “person” would be best placed to know how a law would affect those other hundreds of thousands of people.

Tell me why a cook or a cleaner would have any better idea than a lawyer how a change to New Zealands monetary system would affect ‘ordinary’ New Zealanders.

“Michele, back in the dark ages, a wonam who was able to count and reason was considered unnatural and a witch.”

Bullshit. You dont even know why they are called the Dark Ages, do you?

“I guess people grew out of the idea that women should be ignorant and subservient.”

Yup. Queens = subservient and ignorant.
Matthew Pilott 25

10 January 2008 at 1:05 pm

“All you are doing is taking the experience of hundreds of thousands of people, attributing it to one mythical person, and then saying that this “person” would be best placed to know how a law would affect those other hundreds of thousands of people.”

This is basically my point Kimble – you can’t say that a lawyer on a six figure salary is better than a cleaner on minimum wage, it is a base generalisation. You must judge a candidate on their individual merits.

However, if we’re in the business of generalisations, there are a lot more cooks and cleaners than wealthy lawyers, so their life experiences would be similar to a greater number of people. I won’t get into generalising as to their abilities to make changes or comprehend the effects for obvious reasons.

I’ve used the term dark ages in the widely percieved contemporary context, not the classical academic context of the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages. That’s why I didn’t capitalise ‘Dark Ages’, to make the distinction, but I suppose I could have chosen a better term.

Yes there were Queens. The weren’t, last I checked, among a majority of females in the past. Nor was their status representative thereof…
Kimble 26

10 January 2008 at 1:42 pm

“so their life experiences would be similar to a greater number of people.”

You assume that their life experience is a positive. It could just as easily be a negative.

Would you want your reckless driving case to be decided by a jury of people who have recently lost a child to a drunk driver?

The very policies that a cook or cleaner may put in place (based upon their life experiences) could perpetuate their circumstances.
Kimble 27

10 January 2008 at 1:43 pm

The queen example proves that subservience and enforced ignorance wasnt based upon gender. Men were just as often oppressed. It wasnt gender specific.
Matthew Pilott 28

10 January 2008 at 2:49 pm

“The very policies that a cook or cleaner may put in place (based upon their life experiences) could perpetuate their circumstances.”

They’d probably have to like their ex-circumstances in order to do that intentionally, and have very poor advisors and information to do so accidentally..?

This level of conjecture actually makes for a rather pointless convesation…
Michele Cabiling 29

10 January 2008 at 3:35 pm

Matthew Pilott wrote:

“As for homosexuality being unnatural, well if God decided 1 in 10 people were going to be gay, who am I to argue?”

For starters, the “one in ten” fallacy originated with sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey, who although married, and thus technically bisexual, was actually far more enthusiastic about sodomy and masochism than about making it with his wife.

Kinsey’s stated agenda in the 1950s was to undermine the existing Judeo-Christian consensus of American society, thus normalising his own perversion.

In “Kinsey: Sex and Fraud” Dr Judith Reisman identifies a number of deliberate and egregious errors in Kinsey’s data gathering process which point up the fact that Kinsey commenced his studies of human sexual behaviour with strong priors.

Kinsey was warned by noted social researcher, Dr Abraham Maslow [Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — for anyone who has studied Psychology or Marketing] that in conservative 1940s and 1950s America there was a self-selection bias built into the research Kinsey was conducting, and that those volunteering to reveal their sexual behaviour to the Kinsey team would therefore report a higher incidence of unconventional behaviour than a randomly chosen sample.

Kinsey’ sample was also deliberately contaminated with male prostitutes, prison habituees and mental patients, thus skewing the results in favour of the conclusion Kinsey wished to present to the public. Reisman suggests that around 33 percent of the Kinsey’s male sample fell into this category.

The “one in 10” claim is therefore politically useful to the Lavender Lobby, but factually vacuous.

More reliable estimates of the numbers of gay males range from 1 – 3 percent, despite the efforts of the New Zealand Labour Party to make it compulsory.
Michele Cabiling 30

10 January 2008 at 4:08 pm

Repeat after me: “that which is normal is that which functions according to its design!”

Jay and Young (two gay researchers) found around 99% of homosexual males engage in oral sex; 91% engage in anal sex; 82% engage in “rimming” (touching the anus of one’s partner with one’s tongue and inserting the tongue into the anus); 22% engage in “fisting” (inserting one’s fist into the rectum of the partner); 23% engage in “golden showers” (urinating on each other); 4% engage in “scats” (the oral ingestion of faeces)and in “mud rolling” (rolling on the floor where faeces have been deposited).

With the exception of oral sex, the vast majority of straights would no more consider engaging in the other behaviour reported above than flying to the moon. Yet the evidence shows that gay males routinely do these things.

Modern science unequivocally warns of the health perils of buggery as an unsanitary and pathological act, of either a hetero or homosexual kind. Under the best of clinical conditions the rectum is a hostile area subject to fissure, tearing and the transmission of highly contagious diseases.

It is not designed for the intromission of penises, fists, forearms or rimming, but the expulsion of disease-ridden excrement. On these central considerations, medical opinion is very decided! Sexual diseases arising from anal intercourse are well-documented, but now recent research from the UCLA AIDS research centre demonstrates that anal cytology predicts anal precancer In HIV-positive gay men. Their findings show that HIV-positive men who have sex with men are up to 90 times more likely than the general population to develop anal cancer.

The structure and function of the male and female human reproductive systems are fully complementary. Anatomically the vagina is designed to receive the penis. It is lined with squamous epithelium and is surrounded by a muscular tube intended for penile intromission.

The rectum, on the other hand, is lined with a delicate mucosal surface and a single layer of columnar epithelium intenuea primarily for the reabsorption of water and electrolytes. The rectum is incapable of mechanical protection against abrasion and severe damage to the colonic mucosa can result if objects are inserted into the rectum that do not belong there.

The anus and rectum, unlike the vagina contain no natural lubricating function. Thus insertion of foreign objects or inadequate dilation of the anus before insertion of a large object can result in tissue laceration. The internal and external anal sphincters are elastic rings of muscle which generally remain tightly constricted except during defecation. The anal sphincters are also intended for material to pass through them in a direction that leads out of the body. When an attempt is made to insert something in the reverse direction, the muscles of the sphincter reflexively constrict.

From the perspective of pathology and pathophysiology, the sexual practices of homosexual men have resulted in a diverse and expanded concept of sexually transmitted disease and associated trauma. Four general groups of conditions may be encountered in homosexually active men: classical sexually transmitted diseases (gonorrhea, infections with chlamydia trachomatis, syphilis, herpes simplex infections, genital warts, pubic lice, scabies); enteric diseases (infections with Shigella species, Campylobacter jejuni, Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis non-A, non-B, and cytomegalovirus); trauma (fecal incontinence, hemorrhoids, anal fissure, foreign bodies, rectosigmoid tears, allergic proctitis, penile edema, chemical sinusitis, inhaled nitrite burns, and sexual assault of the male patient); and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

In addition to infections and trauma, tumours are a definitive risk for homosexual men. Homosexual behaviour in men is a risk factor for anal cancer. Squamous-cell anal cancer is also associated with a history of genital warts, an association suggesting that papillomavirus infection is a cause of anal cancer. Anal warts are commonly found among individuals who practice anal intercourse and only rarely found among heterosexuals practicing vaginal intercourse.

The enteric disorders referred to above are transmitted by “rimming” and by the gay male practice of engaging in oral sex with an unwashed penis that has already been in a rectum.

Gays are also extremely promiscuous in a manner that would stagger most straights. According to gay researchers Bell and Weinberg’s “Homosexualities” around 23 percent of gay white males reported having 1, 000 or more lifetime sexual partners. Some reported as many as 10, 000. Some 53.3 percent recorded 500 or more lifetime sexual partners.

More telling, upwards of 70 percent of those partners were men who were unknown to one another, and with whom the men surveyed had sex just once. “Hook ups” in other words.

The natural and intended purpose of sex is two-fold: [1] procreation; and [2] “good relationship” ie creating the pair bond needed for couples to remain together while raising their offspring.

In “Homosexualising America,” Robert Altman gloats that gays have changed the way in which straights view sex. What he means (and the statistics above bear this out)is that gays have spearheaded a widespread attitudinal change such that sex for many people is no longer about “good relationship” but simply about “feeling good” or “if you have an itch, scratch it.”

On all the evidence, homosexuality is a dirty, dangerous, pathological sexual addiction that is an obscene parody of normal, natural sexual relations.

“It’s all about love and commitment” witters the Lavender Lobby. That’s because they know that few straights would see anything romantic in the idea of sticking their tongue into someone else’s rectum.
Matthew Pilott 31

10 January 2008 at 4:35 pm

Sweet Jesus…

Without delving so deeply into the physiology of the sexual details, as you seem to relish, you’re happy to discriminate against people based upon this? Who/how you fuck is the basis for your chosen electoral representative, regardless of ability? Does one need to be good in the sack to get your vote?

Not to imply you’re a prude, but there’s a lot of sexual behaviour out there that heterosexual couples engage in that you would clearly consider unnatural. I take it you’d vote against anyone who engaged in any form of sexual congress that wasn’t missionary with the lights out?

Finally do you consider it a sickness, something that can be cured, or something that is inherent without volition in a certain percentage of society?

I.e. are they to be condemned in your judgement?

Oh & ain’t it a laugh that females emit a pheromone that naturally repells men after sex – part of male’s natural instinct to spread his genetic material far and wide. You are aware that monogamy hasn’t been proven to be natural per se? I guess you must be a ‘swing’ voter? 😉
Michele Cabiling 32

10 January 2008 at 4:59 pm

“Not to imply you’re a prude, but there’s a lot of sexual behaviour out there that heterosexual couples engage in that you would clearly consider unnatural. I take it you’d vote against anyone who engaged in any form of sexual congress that wasn’t missionary with the lights out?”

You exhibit a willful intention to disregard what I say above:

“The natural and intended purpose of sex is two-fold: [1] procreation; and [2] “good relationship” ie creating the pair bond needed for couples to remain together while raising their offspring.”

Any sexual activity between a man and a woman uses their genitals for their natural and intended purpose. It doesn’t necessarily have to be full intercourse, let alone in one position or with the lights out. Oral sex, mutual masturbation, props, sex games and toys may well contribute to pair-bonding outcomes and indeed do on many occasions.

It is when inanimate obects or body parts become fetishised that normal sexual behaviour becomes a perversion.

As already noted above , the natural function of the anus means that using it for sexual purposes is similarly perverse, irrespective of whether those engaging in the behaviour are gay or straight.

On all the evidence, a tiny minority of straights have ever engaged in rimming, fisting and sodomy. Most people I talk to, especially other women, express considerable disgust if anal intercourse comes up as a topic (“Eeeew!” is the most common response).

That there are those who actually engage in rimming and fisting, that’s so far off the radar for most people that they are not even aware such things exist as sexual possibilities.

The handful of people I know who admit to having had anal sex admit to trying it once, usually under the influence of alcohol, and say they didn’t like it and will be sticking to conventional methods from now on.

Remember the Playboy (derived from Kinsey) Philosophy of “outlet sex” where sex is seen a a purely physical activity on a par with taking a dump to be undertaken with anyone available? Aussie comedian, Kevin “Bloody” Wilson expresses this in typical Aussie style as: “If a sheila lays down and me dick stands up, I’ll fuck anybody at all!”

No, monogamy isn’t “natural” in that we can be sexually attracted to any number of people on a physical level, but since 80 percent of sex is emotional, most of us prefer the full monty with someone we care about, not the fleeting scratching of an itch with someone of no importance.

If you struggle with monogamy don’t project that on others. As outlined above, “It’s the culture,stupid!”
Jum 33

10 January 2008 at 5:39 pm

Michele Cabiling

You really are a nasty piece of work – a sort of cross between a Judith Collins and a Muriel what was her name again. The one who said poor people should make a few holes in a rubbish sack to use as a raincoat. Oh that’s right – Newman. Are you one of them. Are you an anagram for arsehole?

You still haven’t answered my questions on Spain’s banning of hitting children.

Silly me – I thought I was having a genuine debate with people on this website – you cretins are too gross for words. Yuk. I must go and wash my hands and the keyboard in case what you and your nasties have is catching.
Michele Cabiling 34

10 January 2008 at 6:30 pm

So, Jum, we have seen that you have:

[1] Issues with males and masculinity;

[2] Sexual (and probably underlying sexuality) issues; and

[3] Issues with bodily functions.

My guess is you suffer from what we might call “princess syndrome” or “MSDS [my shit don’t stink] Syndrome,” meaning when anything associated with bodily functions comes up in conversation, it triggers an instant distancing reaction, because being reminded of these things interferes with cerebral or imaginative identities.

How you manage to change a tampon or wipe your ass whille carrying around all those hangups is beyond me. I guess you must wait outside the toilet while someone else goes in to take care of business for you, and you compelled your whipped husband change all the diapers, right?

I’m simply reporting facts, and if that hurts your virgin eyes, go dig up an old copy of Janet & John, which is guaranteed to contain nothing so disturbing.

I feel sorry for your kids given your warped attitudes to gender relations, sexuality and bodily functions. No doubt mine will have to pick up the tab should the learned social pathologies of yours come to impact the community in future years.

Your facile personal abuse of Muriel Newman cuts no ice with me or anyone but the deliberately dim. Having chaired her Whangarei electorate committee for several years I can attest that she’s 100 times the woman and the human being you are.

Before marrying her second husband, Muriel raised two children on the DPB, while concurrently achieving a black belt in Nam Wai Pai kung fu, then graduating with a PhD. in Mathematics from Rutgers University in the United States.

See, you don’t know shit!

You emetic!
Santi 35

10 January 2008 at 6:39 pm

Jum, you’ve been vanquished. Acknowledge defeat and retreat immediately.
Psycho Milt 36

10 January 2008 at 7:20 pm

I warned you guys – it’s a frighteningly intense obsession with rectums Michele has.

It brings to mind Richard Pryor’s line: “How come all you honkies are so tight-assed?” Michele must have hung around only tight-assed honkies if she’s never met anyone who’s figured out the anus is an erogenous zone. No rim jobs? Not even a finger? Er, but the mouth is OK? Is there like, a list of acceptable activities posted somewhere so we can try and figure it out?
mardypants 37

10 January 2008 at 9:20 pm

I’d honestly thought this kind of appalling bigotry had been largely expelled from our society; I’m sadden to discover there’s still people who believe it their right to pass judgment on others because of who they love.

[captcha: nounces quiche… meh]
Matthew Pilott 38

10 January 2008 at 10:13 pm

Psycho Milt, you did indeed. The wonders of the internet – you can get these types of views without actually having to meet the person. I like to hear ideas from as diverse a crowd as posible, although I suppose there’s only so much one can take (in the context of the above, perhaps that was the wrong turn of phrase!!).

I’d like to see the officially published list of Natural Acts according to Michele Cabling however, I imagine it would be, err, quite in depth.

Michele, you’re mixing business with pleasure here:

“No, monogamy isn’t “natural” in that we can be sexually attracted to any number of people on a physical level, but since 80 percent of sex is emotional, most of us prefer the full monty with someone we care about, not the fleeting scratching of an itch with someone of no importance.”

Given your propensity to brand acts unnatural, I find it surprising you’d vote for anyone who is married, for example. While 80% of the pleasure of sex may be emotional (the difference between males and females is marked here, ut that’s another kettle of fish), the point of sex is not to have pleasure. It is to reproduce. Males instinctively try to share their genetic material far & wide. That is what is natural. The Judeo-Christian idea of monogamy and mariage is, in that context, a perversity upon the natural world. You could say it’s as bad as…well I’ll leave the gory details to your imgination.

Now, I don’t actually believe in what I have said above (marriage and monogamy being a perversity), for the reason that we are a civilised society, and have evolved into a state where stability in the family is amenable to the raising of children, amongother things. Just one way in which society surplants what is “natural”.

There are numerous sociatal constructs that have normalised what is not natural on a biological, psychological and physiological level. It is an acceptance of these, I believe, that leads to the reaction Mardypants had to your views, as an example.

What you’ve done here is to bore down upon a single act you consider unnatural, and create an idea around it. The flaw is in your perception of ‘unnatural’ – as Kimble said so succinctly, “You know what else is unnatural? Practically everything in modern society.” Do you hate everything ‘unnatural’? Are you picking and choosing for political expediancy, or some personal crusade perhaps?
Michele Cabiling 39

10 January 2008 at 10:55 pm

Every act of heterosexual intercourse, whether intended for pleasure or procreation, uses our sex organs for their natural and intended purpose.

The mechanics of sodomy have been well documented by me in previous posts, so I see no need to recap for the benefit of the deliberately dim.

A simple joke will suffice.

Randy comes home from work to find Cyril pushing a turd around the bath with his hand. “What are you doing, Cyril?” askd Randy. “I’m teaching Junior how to swim,” replies Cyril.

Heterosexual intercourse creates life. Homosexual intercourse creates nothing but bacterial life. End of story boys …
Matthew Pilott 40

10 January 2008 at 11:30 pm

A simple joke won’t suffice actually; however, it’s edifying (on one level) to see you resort to jokes and toilet humour.

You consider homosexual intercourse unnatural, but can’t define what is or is not ‘natural’ outside of this dubiously limited context. There are countless other examples of unnatural acts, a few examples of which I have given.

I therefore await your crusade against marriage, consumption of MSG, and people driving vehicles at speeds faster that that which they can run for starters, as based upon your value system, people who engage in these acts are performing something for wich they were not intended, and are therefore to be denigrated, ridiculed, abused and, presumably, are unfit for public office.

I’m not being deliberately dim (might I note you have ignored the entire content of my post), I’m merely trying to demonstrate what an unfortunately narrow view of the world you have chosen to express here (forgive the understatement), and presumably hold dear.
Jum 41

11 January 2008 at 12:09 am

I’ve changed my mind. You people are actually a bit of a laugh. Haven’t changed my mind about Muriel, tho. I can understand from the description why she’s got a thing about black polythene bags. You for instance, Michele.

What!!! Muriel accept the DPB. What a hypocrite. All that bleating about people living off the smell of an oily rag and now, even worse, I have to picture you two casting electorate spells over a cup of hot chocolate urine, with turd marshmallows I guess or horned toads’ legs. Whatever.

The idea that you two jekyll and hydes are/were working in a political arena that may influence my life is way too scary.
Jum 42

11 January 2008 at 8:56 am

SANTI

‘Vanquished’? That word suggests a time of idealism and chivalry. Michele has neither.She’s vicious and vacuous and predictable when she’s losing.

MICHELE’s

pompous arse extended diatribes are boring and unnecessary. They are nothing to do with the matter in hand. Speaking of hands – she’s doing a snow job or is it a blow job in your world, with blow ins like Key.

Michele and Key can (e)vacuate together.
Jum 43

11 January 2008 at 9:52 am

Michele Cabiling

How many MOTIONS did you and Muriel pass when you were on da committay, passing rasulooshunssssssssss?

Sorry

I guess I didn’t wash my hands fast enough.
Michele Cabiling 44

11 January 2008 at 11:44 am

Jun wrote:

“Muriel accept the DPB. What a hypocrite.”

Muriel accepted the DPB as a temporary expedient because she was dumped by a deadbeat dad and left on her own with two small children. Rather than seeing the DPB as a lifestyle, she used it as a hand-up not a handout — the manner in which it was originally intended. Rather than taking it as an unconditional ENTITLEMENT, Muriel met her reciprocal RESPONSIBILITIES by raised her children to be unversity graduates, not inter-generation dole bludgers.

Over the course of her subsequent career (PhD. in Mathematics from a prestigious US university, successful business owner, President of the Northland Chamber of Commerce, Member of Parliament) I’m sure that she has paid way more in taxes than she ever received from the welfare state.

No hypocrisy there.

All in all a good investment by Nanny State, I’d have thought.

It seems like you have something against successful women, Jum. Could it have something to do with envy perhaps? Feelings of personal inadequacy and lack of fulfillment in your own life?

“I have to picture you two [Michele and Muriel] casting electorate spells over a cup of hot chocolate urine, with turd marshmallows I guess or horned toads’ legs.”

Must be some kind of Freudian slip. I have to picture you feverishly praying to the Goddess that advances in medical technology allow you to clone yourself twice, so you can dance around a cauldron.
Phil 45

11 January 2008 at 11:57 am

Jum/Michelle

Are you two parts of the same split personality disorder a-la “Criminal minds” last night?
Michele Cabiling 46

11 January 2008 at 12:08 pm

1. Jum wrote:
“MICHELE’s pompous arse extended diatribes are boring and unnecessary. They are nothing to do with the matter in hand.”

In Ancient Greece, major issues were decided by direct particpatory democracy. Accordingly, oratory ability was highly prized in terms of being able to influence the outcome of political debate.

A school of “anti-philosophy” called “Sophism” arose teaching inferior intellects how to demagogue the arguments of better-armed opponents.

As Friedrich Hayek puts it, this enables the demagogue to: “gain the support of the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are ready to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.”

To adequately address any topic requires serious engagement, something that doesn’t readily translate into a “sound bite.”

Attacking the style of my posts rather than their substance is simply sophistry.
Michele Cabiling 47

11 January 2008 at 12:10 pm

Jum wrote:

“How many MOTIONS did you and Muriel pass when you were on da committay, passing rasulooshunssssssssss?

“Sorry I guess I didn’t wash my hands fast enough.”

Obviously obsessed with maintaining what Freud describes as “the immaculate anus” and probably something to do with receiving the wrong kind of toilet training as a child.

All I can say is that you strike me as a candidate for some serious psychoanalysis.
Michele Cabiling 48

11 January 2008 at 12:15 pm

Phil wrote:

“Jum/Michelle

Are you two parts of the same split personality disorder a-la “Criminal minds” last night?”

More like polar (NOT bipolar) opposites.

1. Educated v Uneducated.

2. Married to a real man not a pussywhipped feminist lackey.

3. Libertarian, not statist.

4. Confortable with my body and sex, not someone with a diseased imagination about such matters.

5. Able to argue dispassionately for the inherent rationality of my ideas, not a quivering bundle of primitive emotions, who has internalised a particular world view, and therefore has a hysterical hissy fit when it it is questioned.
mardypants 49

11 January 2008 at 1:28 pm

Michele, I share your hope that Franks is nominated for the National Party. Although I agree with him on very few matters, he is a good candidate albiet somewhat of a chameleon. What I find excruiating is your insistence on some sort of hyper-conservative Christian filter for NZ politics. You’re entitled to your view, but please don’t insist that others agree; the world is a far more diverse place than you appear willing to accept.

I also hope you’ve got a key role in his campaign. I respect the fact that you’re very open in your beliefs, I genuinely respect this. There is a place for such beliefs in our broad democracy, however I’m not at all sure the good people of Wellington, or the Wellington National Party for that matter, would feel well represented by you or by Franks if, in fact, he shares your world view (which I doubt he’d state publicly).

Lets leave aside the issues of sexuality which, thankfully, are not qualifications for elected office and instead focus on the qualities the different candidates might being to parliament.
Jum 50

11 January 2008 at 2:16 pm

As usual, National/Act clones band together to produce the same gut spilling garbage directed at people who disagree with their, at best, bovine views.

1. Educated? All you do is quote other people and then try to ridicule anyone who disagrees with you, especially when you know they have a valid point.

2. Hee Hee…. send PHIL over here and tell my husband he’s not a real man and all 6 foot and a bit of him will turn Phil into a split personality – but no, he won’t. He’s not a violent man but he would clearly display his dislike for anyone who tries to tell him he’s pussy whipped. He’s one of the few men I do have any respect for.

Notice I said send Phil. You’re obviously one of those people who pick fights and then send your ‘real’ husband to deal with it. I guess Phil is your closet ‘real’ man for posting purposes.

Add Michael Cullen to that list of men I respect. He and Helen Clark make a good team and I look forward to a long and happy working partnership between them as the government of a real man’s and real woman’s choice.

3. The only time people admit to being libertarian is when they’re not being badly affected by it.(sort of like going on the DPB but only for a little while and not that anyone else should, because only I had this really bad relationship, sob).

4. Comfortable with our bodies and sex – now there is an interesting subject Michele. My personal belief has always been ‘sex between/among consenting adults has no boundaries providing no one gets damaged by it’. I guess the difference between you and me is that I don’t need to use every sexual word in the alphabet to prove that. And thus if I consider it okay for homosexuals to have sex that actually makes me more understanding about differences in people than you Michele. Maybe you’re the one who needs Uncle Freudie, or even PsychoMilt – now that would be an interesting session.

5. Calling me an emetic is not dispassionate Michele. It’s probably quite witty but definitely not dispassionate. I’ve found, when dealing with types like you on blog sites, I have to reduce down to your style/substance in order to communicate. My apologies for that.

I should thank you also – you’ve given me some excellent insights into your political world.
Jum 51

11 January 2008 at 2:34 pm

Phil

Criminal Minds is one of the best profiling shows on television. How people tick interests me greatly and I have seen some of the most telling profiles emerge on this blog. I have also gained insight into how the political parties National/Act behave. It’s not a pretty sight and certainly Act would not be welcomed as a party of choice to lead NZ from reading those posts.

I both Jum Michele and would prefer not to be lumped together whether in split fashion or otherwise.
Jum 52

11 January 2008 at 2:43 pm

Phil

Correction

Both Jum and Michele would prefer not to be lumped together, whether in split fashion or otherwise.
Michele Cabiling 53

11 January 2008 at 3:12 pm

Mardypants wrote:

“What I find excruiating is your insistence on some sort of hyper-conservative Christian filter for NZ politics.”

Where did that come from? As already stated, principled opposition to dirty, dangerous, pathologically promiscuous sexual behaviour is not restricted to “hyper-conservative Christians.” Never at any point have I invoked Bible-based arguments in support of my position.

“Lets leave aside the issues of sexuality which, thankfully, are not qualifications for elected office and instead focus on the qualities the different candidates might being to parliament.”

The oft-heard argument from the political and lifestyle left is that a person’s sexual preference [‘sexuality’ wrongly implies a person is ‘born gay’] is of no importance when it comes to assessing their suitability for public office.

I do not accept this position. Edmund Burke stated: “”A representative owes the people not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion.”

That means ALL the people, not a narrow interest group he/she believes themself anointed to represent.

Friedrich Engels, in a letter to Karl Marx about a book penned by 19th Century German gay actvist Karl-Hans Ulrichs, wrote “The pederasts start counting their numbers and discover they are a powerful group in our state. The only thing missing is an organisation, but it seems to exist already, though it is hidden.”

In “The Pink Swastika,” Lively and Abrahams state: “the implicit goal of homosexual political activism is to legitimise homosexual conduct and relationships in a society. This necessarily requires a society to abandon its commitment to marriage as the exclusive domain of acceptable sexual conduct.

“The abandonment of this standard logically opens the door to every other form of sexual promiscuity. Clearly, such a transformation of
attitude is now occurring … What we will find is that this transformation is not the result of random social forces, but of deliberate and systematic political activism
by the ‘gay’ movement.”
Jum 54

11 January 2008 at 3:16 pm

If the DPB had not been available to dear Muriel and she had to stay with her husband – oh dear, could have been a whole different story.

Actually, I’ll have to think about that. If we didn’t have the DPB, we wouldn’t have had Muriel in Parliament. Hmmmm.

Nah, however much I’d like to be rid of Muriel and her coven, I would not have seriously dismantled the DPB – there are far too many more deserving women out there, and some men.
Jum 55

11 January 2008 at 3:31 pm

Mardypants

Please leave Michele alone – she’s doing a great job for Greens, Maori, United Future, New Zealand First, Progressive, Labour…, the gays, et cetera.

Mind you with all this quoting from other people, does Michele actually know who she is. Have we had an actual sentence that doesn’t involve some other alive or dead person’s viewpoint?
Matthew Pilott 56

11 January 2008 at 3:35 pm

“That means ALL the people, not a narrow interest group he/she believes themself anointed to represent.”

I would imagine that the anti-gay lobby is far fewer in number than those who are neutral (i.e. have no objection to a human being based upon their sexuality) or pro-gay. Run a rampant homophobe against a homosexual for public office and I suspect you’ll get your answer.

“This necessarily requires a society to abandon its commitment to marriage as the exclusive domain of acceptable sexual conduct.

“The abandonment of this standard logically opens the door to every other form of sexual promiscuity. Clearly, such a transformation of attitude is now occurring”

Boo-bloody-hoo, the Judeo-Christian stranglehold on sexual activites might end, along with it, one can only imagine, civilised society, the world, and potentially the universe. We’ve got some real conspiracy theorists on our hands, though, if they believe that it is only the gay lobby that has caused a transformation in restrictive traditional and conservative values.
Michele Cabiling 57

11 January 2008 at 4:13 pm

Jum wrote:

“He’s [my husband] one of the few men I do have any respect for.”

That’s telling, isn’t it. Any man who can co-exist in the same space as a sour, bitter misandrist like you may as well have handed you a razor and invited you to cut it off.

I guarantee “respect” for your husband lasts only for as long as he continues to leave the toilet seat down on command.

Oh, he’s “whipped,” all right!

“You’re obviously one of those people who pick fights and then send your ‘real’ husband to deal with it.”

Really? I don’t seem to be too much on the back foot to you in an intellectual sense, so why would I need to up the ante to physical violence?

“My personal belief has always been ‘sex between/among consenting adults has no boundaries providing no one gets damaged by it’.”

What about the fact that gays are are physically and psychologically damaged by the sexual practices they elect to engage in. These consist primarily of oral-genital or oral-anal contact and anal intercourse. Such practices are inherently dangerous because of the proclivity to produce occult and overt physical trauma, often spreading sexually transmitted disease.

The rectum is particularly vulnerable to sexual trauma, where breaks in the protective membrane barrier facilitate blood exchange and, in turn, the transfer of infectious agents. Furthermore, certain male homosexual practices, such as “fisting,” i.e. the insertion of the entire hand into the recipient’s anal canal, are likely to cause more serious injuries. Surgery has been required for some rectal injuries cause by insertion of “sex toys,” such as vibrators.

Infection rates for HIV are highest among homosexual men compared to intravenous drug users and heterosexual men and women, and may approach 50% in urban environments. HIV infection and AIDS is by far the leading cause for early mortality in this group. High-risk behaviours will continue to be associated with serious life-threatening consequences and significantly shortened life expectancies among gay and bisexual men.

Homosexual men are also at increased risk for certain malignancies, including lymphoma and anal cancer. Research has shown that human papilloma virus (HPV) infection in gay men is primarily responsible for their high rate of anal cancer. The incidence of anal cancer among homosexual men now exceeds that of cervical cancer in women. Co-existent HIV infection increases the risk even more.

As a Libertarian I believe everyone is entitled to go to hell in their own way as long as they do so in private with other consenting adults and there is no collateral damage to non-consenting third parties.

However, I still reserve the right, as a thinkng being, to pass comment as I see fit on the viability of that behaviour. Homosexuality is undoubtedly a dangerous, pathological and unsanitary lifestyle, not to mention biologically redundant behaviour. It is impossible to take seriously the suggestion there is no functional difference between sperm swimming towards eggs or sperm swimming towards faeces.

I regard myself as under no political or moral obligation to fund the medical treatment of self-inflicted ailments suffered by those electing to engage in promiscuous anal sodomy. Its consequences are documented, known in advance, and therefore shouldn’t be passed on to others in the community who don’t engage in that behaviour.

Open question: “If you needed a blood transfusion, would you prefer to have blood from a gay man who says he always uses condoms, or from married heterosexual who says he’s faithful to his wife?”
Michele Cabiling 58

11 January 2008 at 4:35 pm

Jum wrote:

“Mind you with all this quoting from other people, does Michele actually know who she is. Have we had an actual sentence that doesn’t involve some other alive or dead person’s viewpoint?”

Thats called an ad hominem attack, not a reasoned rejoinder to anything I’ve stated. Educated people often use quotes in marshalling and supporting an argument. But of course you wouldn’t know that ….

Perhaps it makes you feel insecure that others possess superior erudition?

Matthew Pilott wrote:

“Boo-bloody-hoo, the Judeo-Christian stranglehold on sexual activites might end, along with it, one can only imagine, civilised society, the world, and potentially the universe. We’ve got some real conspiracy theorists on our hands, though, if they believe that it is only the gay lobby that has caused a transformation in restrictive traditional and conservative values.”

Let’s broadden your understanding of the mechanics of political manipulation a little:

The shifting paradigm of sexual morality is a source of much controversy in Western culture, and homosexuals, though less than 3 percent of the population, are at the centre of this controversy.

The secular civil rights of consenting adults are increasingly coming into conflict with the traditional Judeo-Christian foundation for the family and society. This is no accident.

The notion that particular groups of people meet together secretly or in private to plan various courses of action, and that some of these plans actually exert a significant influence on particular historical developments is typically rejected out of hand and dismissed as the figment of a paranoid imagination.

What we do know for sure is that Marxist-Leninists have for decades agitated among various minority groups in order to bring about the breakdown of our existing society and its replacement with a model of their own choosing.

The three main roadblocks to its goal of a secular and socialist world order are private property (which provides material independence from state power), the family (which affords loyalties prior to the state), and religion (which claims authority above that of the state).

Homosexual activism was long ago identified by Marxist-Leninists as a social force that could be harnessed and directed to undermine the traditional family and the Judeo-Christian foundation of Western culture.

Marx had claimed that society is evolving inexorably toward socialism through a process called dialectical materialism. An existing condition (thesis) comes into conflict with a new condition (antithesis) that is attempting to emerge. Out of the dialectical conflict between these two opposing forces a new, higher condition (synthesis) emerges. This is then put through the process again as the new thesis, until socialism is achieved.

Lenin expanded Marx’s dialectical analysis from its early focus on economic relationships to take in social and political relationships, thus widening the role of the revolutionary as a change agent. The task of the revolutionary was now to identify and exploit pressure points for dialectical conflict, thus undermining the legitimacy of the existing social and political order, and hastening the eventual triumph of socialism.

Groups who can be helped by Communists to see that they are “marginalised” from capitalist society due to their race, gender, class and sexual preference have long proved particularly fertile ground for those looking to promote dialectical conflict. Marxist-Leninists, worldwide, have practised for decades a process of agitating amongst such groups in order to achieve social breakdown and eventual socialist control.

The notion that homosexuals are an oppressed group or class first gained broader currency through the efforts of university professors influenced by Antonio Gramsci, one of the many disreputable Communists enshrined as intellectual icons by the academic left.

As an innovative Stalinist in the 1930s, Gramsci pondered the historic inability of Communist parties to mobilise workers to seize the means of production and overthrow the capitalist ruling classes. He saw that Western society, steeped in traditions of freedom and liberty, would never succumb to a frontal assault and its workers were too busy accumulating capital to be cannon fodder for a socialist revolution.

Gramsci responded by expanding Marx’s ranks of the oppressed from the working classes alone to include other “marginalised groups” such as women, racial minorities and homosexuals. Due to the ideological supremacy of the existing powerful groups in society, said Gramsci, these groups lacked consciousness of their own oppression. By internalising the value systems and world views of the privileged groups, they had consented to their own marginalisation.

For a revolutionary social transformation to occur, the revolution must therefore first take place at the level of consciousness. Gramsci saw intellectuals as having a key role in delegitimising and unmasking the dominant belief systems of the predominant groups to empower “marginalised groups.” He urged radicals to acquire “cultural hegemony” by which he meant capturing the institutions that produce society’s governing ideas. Helping “marginalised groups” to an awareness of their own class oppression would be the key to controlling and transforming the society itself. Universities were to be first-line political weapons in this “war of position.”

Marxist intellectuals first slithered into the academy in the 1930s. They covertly increased their numbers over succeeding decades, and by the 1960s were a significant presence at universities throughout the Western world. After achieving critical mass in the liberal arts faculties, particularly those dealing with the study of society itself, they systematically excluded anyone holding viewpoints outside the leftist spectrum.

Many academics now see themselves not primarily as educators, but as agents of an “adversary culture” at war with the world outside the university. Their agenda is to produce students who will go forth from the academy as “agents of social change,” committed to achieving “social justice” for the “marginalised groups” Gramsci had identified.

For three decades students have been taught that rather than living in free societies, they are trapped in a wicked caste system of race, gender and sexuality crying out for revolutionary change. There are few, if any dissenting voices. Under the saturating drumbeat of this “cultural pessimism,” many intellectuals from “dominant groups” were induced to “switch sides” as Gramsci had envisaged.

After their consciousness-raising by Marxist academics, intellectuals from “subordinate groups” and those from “dominant groups” induced to throw in their lot with the “oppressed” moved from the academy directly into government, the media, entertainment, the trade unions, the churches, the education system and other opinion-shaping activities or careers. Once there, they worked tirelessly to promote the Marxist-Leninist agenda. As a result, the values of a free society have been subjected to three decades of unrelenting attack from within.

Two kinds of intellectuals are pushing the notion of homosexuals as a “marginalised” or “oppressed” group. The first is a numerically small hard-core left wing activist class that derives a sense of intellectual superiority from knowing it is manipulating the situation. The second consists of large numbers of passive enablers who have unwittingly embraced socialist doctrines, largely because their leftist professors ensured that they were never exposed to intellectual alternatives.

The person most responsible for bringing “gay rights” to the forefront of Western social discourse is an obscure American “civil rights” campaigner named Harry Hay. In the 1930s, Hay renounced his family’s privileged social status to become a Marxist-Leninist agitator. He married a political colleague; the couple adopted two children and for years worked together to advance the Communist cause in various parts of America. Throughout his youth and marriage, Harry Hay fought off homosexual inclinations. By 1950, he had abandoned his wife and children to fully embrace a homosexual lifestyle.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Communist Party of the U.S.A. (of which Hay and several gay friends were members) frowned on homosexuality in Marxist-Leninist ranks. But Hay and his friends remained unconvinced that their sexual preference necessarily represented a liability to the advancement of socialism.

Hay had read Gramsci. He’d also read Alfred Kinsey’s groundbreaking Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948) and been struck by Kinsey’s finding that around 10% of men Kinsey surveyed had been “exclusively homosexual” for at least some significant part of their lives. If Kinsey’s 10% figure was even close to accurate, Hay reasoned, homosexuals must represent a large and significant group that could be mobilised to advance the socialist cause. Hay soon concluded that the general public’s sympathy could be aroused for gay people if homosexuals were painted as yet another “oppressed minority” in need of liberation and government advocacy.

In 1950, Hay and a number of fellow Marxist-Leninist intellectuals founded the Mattachine Society, America’s first “homosexual activist” organization. Its ostensible goals were to educate the public about homosexuality and work for the repeal of the (at that time) 48 States’ so-called “sodomy laws” (which viewed homosexual behaviour as a criminal offence).

Capitalising on still-unsevered social connections, Hay and his fellow Mattachines traversed America addressing various audiences and spread their views still further through an ever-widening circle of influential publications. Inspired by the Mattachines, several lesbian intellectuals founded a “sister” organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, in 1955.

In line with Marxist-Leninist “Popular Front” doctrine, Harry Hay’s claim that homosexuals were both a sexual and a political “minority” welded together sexuality and politics. With constant repetition, Hay’s propaganda claim — “homosexuals are an oppressed minority” — has come to resonate strongly with many “useful idiots” looking to engage in moral preening for their commitment minority “civil rights.”

But “civil rights” was just a fish hook to attract the support of respectable people, who are then persuaded that the social suffering of homosexuals can be alleviated only by the radical social change gay activists are demanding.

Gay activists regard legal recognition of same-sex partners as the first step in securing gay marriage and adoption rights, thus relegating heterosexual marriage to just another lifestyle option among many. Publications meant for a homosexual readership today openly state that the gay activist agenda is to subvert and destroy heterosexual marriage.

Behind this push is the Marxist-Leninist propaganda claim that the formative family normalises heterosexual relations, thus marginalising alternative sexualities. Gay activists (whether they know it or not) are being used as a cat’s-paw to advance the Marxist-Leninist agenda of eradicating the formative family as the basic building block of a capitalist civil society.

Gay activism is therefore highly dangerous to the established social order. If gay activist demands are met, the Marxist anti-family agenda moves a step closer to completion.
Jum 59

11 January 2008 at 5:31 pm

Michele

Your statement about choosing between a gay and a straight is nowhere near as good as the line in the film Carrington where the lawyer asks gay pacifist Lytton Strachey, ‘if a German was raping your sister what would you do then and Lytton replies “I would attempt to come between them”. Now that is what I call an immortal and funny line. Way better than your earlier joke. At least mine is refined.

Personally if I had to choose between you, who is supposedly straight, and a gay, I’d go for the gay. After the nasty unfounded comments you continue to make about my husband and me, and since I believe that the holistic attitude of the person is in part responsible for the overall health of their body, you would poison me far more than any gay.

Since they test blood, there should not be a problem.

I would also defend your right Michele to speak your piece but don’t tell me I’m a lesser person than you just because we disagree.

Sour and bitter – oh plusseeese, Michele. You really are a nasty person. I suggest you start a daily regime of watching Spongebob Squarepants 4pm on 2 and get a better take on life.

Toilet seats look better down. It’s a fact. My husband was putting the toilet seat down long before I met him. In fact he’s reminded me to do the same a couple of times. You really are scraping the bottom now.

You are scaremongering with fisting this and cancerous that. Shouldn’t you also be discussing gonorrhoea and syphilis and all those other exciting words that YOU can give and get Michele?

I don’t remember suggesting that semen swimming towards eggs is the same as swimming towards faeces.

Next I suppose you’ll be telling me that rape of a woman is more acceptable than anal sex between two men. Then you’ll be telling me that female genital mutilation is more acceptable than anal sex between two men.

Surgery has also been necessary after giving birth. Next you’ll be telling me that’s unnatural.

When we talk of damage to gays, again the attitude towards them is just as damaging. Being gay comes back to the nature, nurture argument. Whichever you believe does not interest me and we probably agree (ohh did I say that!) on the whole process of gay sex being rather uncomfortable to say the least.

Read carefully what I said “providing no one gets damaged by it”. What do you think that means Michele? Damage is when one person gets hurt physically or mentally. That does not necessarily happen during a homosexual act. But, you were so busy spouting your mindless rubbish – no you definitely weren’t ‘thinking’ then – that you did not read my words.
Jum 60

11 January 2008 at 8:10 pm

Michele

Educated people like you use other people’e thoughts, ideas and opinions to speak for you.

Educated people like me look at the same information let it sift through my life experiences and then formulate my own opinion.

No, Michele, sigh, I am not in the least bit jealous of the educational route you took. Your opinions will be the same as all the other people in your educational sphere.

You have no original single thought, just a hodgepodge of other people’s that you all learned by rote. That’s why your party’s foreign based ideology is so dangerous for New Zealand. You’re not a thinker, you’re a user of other people’s intellect, and also in a practical way , eg in the use of cheap Labour for bigger profit, eg which is why you’ll scrap the ECA improvements IF you get into power.

Your arrogance is overwhelming and to think you people have the nerve to accuse our Prime Minister Helen Clark of arrogance. I just shake my head at the wonder of you and your types’ hypocrisy and moral corruption.

What does worry me is that your narrow sphere of mental education may be in a position to influence my life and that of my family.
Michele Cabiling 61

11 January 2008 at 9:07 pm

Ju, wrote: “No, Michele, sigh, I am not in the least bit jealous of the educational route you took. Your opinions will be the same as all the other people in your educational sphere.”

My opinions are despite, rather than due to, my education.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the academy is full of Gramscian Marxist who began colonising western universities decades ago. Upon attaining critical mass in many departments, especially those specialising in the study of society, they were able to use their dominance on faculty hiring committees to systematically exclude others who didn’t share their political opinions.

Universities are now factories for the reproduction and dissemination of radical leftist ideology. Outside of the hard sciences and practical professions, there is no penalty for being wrong, and Marxism and the ideologies it spawned continue to flourish in the academy, despite the lessons of history in the wider world. As Erich Hoffer famously stated: “Intellectuals don’t function at room temperature.”

It’s now possible to go all the way to PhD. level in the Humanities and never be taught by a single conservative professor. Whole schools of thought that completely debunk leftist ideology may as well not exist. How many ACT or National voters would you expect to find in a NZ sociology department, and if one did apply, to you think he’d be offered a job?

The leftists wank on about “diversity,” yet practice intellectual apartheid. Students are brainwashed into accepting radical leftist ideology, yet would laugh at you if called “Marxists.” They are told by their professors they are clever and virtuous for accepting the programming, and happily move into the wider world in self-congratulation mode, though only equipped to be clerks or angry social activists.

Students graduate largely ignorant of the ideas and perspectives that would equip them intellectually question the radical leftist agenda. The works of von Mises, Hayek, Aron, Oakeshott, Sowell, Popper, Strauss, Bloom, Bastiat, and other anti-socialist thinkers are virtually unknown on the left — excluded from the canons of the Marxist-dominated universities.

Despite the collapse of the socialist empire following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the marginalisation of conservative ideas in the academic culture has proved so pervasive that they may as well not exist.

As far back as 1922, Ludwig von Mises wrote a 500 page treatise proving that socialism would not work. As close as any analysis could, von Mises anticipated the social, political and economic debacle that would characterise the next seventy years of socialist history.

History has confirmed the correctness of von Mises’s insights, and just as dramatically refuted his left wing opponents, yet his intellectual contributions remain as unrecognised today as they were before Communism fell.

While the intellectual tradition that gave rise to von Mises’s insights is marginalised at every Western university, Marxism and its variants flourish, and provide the principal texts for the next generations of intellectuals.

Von Mises’s writings are invisible, yet the works of Stalinists, ignorant of even the most basic economic realities of how societies function, are familiar to most undergraduates.

In the humanities and social sciences, the discredited traditions of Marxism have become the intellectual wellspring of the main schools of current academic theory — critical studies, cultural studies, historicism, structuralism, post modernism, queer theory, and radical feminism. The comparable schools of conservative and libertarian thought barely exist within university walls.

And you have the nerve to accuse me of having been captured and brainwashed by my professors!

Perhaps you are looking in the mirror.

“Uneducated you are!” as Yoda would say.
Jum 62

11 January 2008 at 10:24 pm

Michele Cabiling

Life’s a bitch and then ya die – I’d hate to think we hadn’t finished this ‘conversation’ by then. I must admit, the visual feast you portrayed in paragraph one had me laughing in my chair. It reminded me of Harry Potter and his school chums racing in to ‘vanquish’ (this was a good novel for that word)the nasty Voldemort and the dementors.

I am slightly suspicious Michele in that you have made it plainly obvious that you think I am a stupid ‘sour bitter…’ and yet you are devising these poetic feasts for me to read. WHY? Wouldn’t anyone pay you enough attention when you were young – boarding school perhaps?

Let me come back to you tomorrow on your post. I’m watching The Worst Christmas of my Life and I won’t be sour and bitter enough if I post tonight.
Jum 63

12 January 2008 at 4:25 pm

Michele

Luckily I saved this particular blog because it seems to have disappeared off the radar and I would hate you to think I had abandoned you in your hour of need.

I’ve just delivered my poor deranged (as per your last insult about my mothering abilities)capitalist son to his part time job. Terrible isn’t it that he’s forced out to work because his mother and father refuse to supply all his wants, only his needs. Shame on us. And my daughter next. Is there no end to my despotism? And no driving until after 18. I have to drive them everywhere. Is there no end to my sadism. Shoot me now.

No Spongebob Squarepants to lift my spirits until Monday avo’. Only the news about some male despot keen to rid his country of his own people by killing, maiming, torturing and raping them – Pakistan, America (although they do it in someone else’s country), Africa, and all of them with a good religious upbringing, all ‘dementors’ in their funny little ways, sucking the spirit out of people – which brings me back to you Michele.

Hence my sour ugly bitter self is back. I’m back here communicating with you because I always keep my word.

Probably the worst thing I can insult anyone with is that they are boring and I observed the symptoms of being bored in connection with you last night in that I did not blog into the middle of the night with you. Still, a good night’s rest does wonders.

I’ve also thought further about boarding school and wonder ‘was there fagging? Is your bottom obsession something to do with having your head dunked down the toilet too many times?

And speaking of dementors in describing the first part of your usual ‘somebody said this and somebody studied that’ diarrhoea diatribe –

PARAGRAPH ONE. Harry Potter and his enlightened fellow students entering Hogwarts to free it from the creationist Voldemort (Yesteryear’s Brian Tamaki) and his demented dementors (today’s Gordon Copeland, Larry Baldock, Bob McCoskrie, the convicted paedophile Graham Capill), all of who(m) certainly wouldn’t have let you in Michele except to make the tea. We could have gone back still further, Michele, to the 1890s, the original nanny state, ruled by men, where railways and everything else was owned by t’gummint, and Premier/Prime Minister/King Dick Seddon, the man who gave women the vote through a giant ‘boob’ he made, and thanks to a couple of men who could see a rosier future with equality for women.

PARAGRAPH TWO. Not quite right about the intellectuals don’t function at room temperature. Genius doesn’t function at room temperature. Intellectuals are people who either think and make decisons to make improvements – ‘the greatest good for the greatest number'(that is Helen Clark) or quote studies to denigrate. (starts with M, ends with a very small e.)

PARAGRAPH THREE.
sentence one – should I assume from your comment that conservatives aren’t humane?
sentence two – you talk about ‘schools of thought that debunk leftist ideology’. Thought is not proof and a good analyst creates a level playing field to find the truth. You use ‘thought’ on both sides or ‘ideology’ on both sides. I know you didn’t because you see ‘thought’ as being morally loftier and ‘ideology’ as being swampmuck. I also use the word ‘ideology’ on National’s damaging and disastrous experiments because I want people to feel my anger at their historical stupidity and inability to learn from their mistakes.
sentence three – I can’t answer that unless I know those people. Most people keep their political beliefs to themselves. I would have thought that if you feel these places are overrun with lefties then as a good act supporter you would seek a job there to change it from the inside. What worries me once again about National/Act is that it would never be for ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’.

Part 2 after I have done my mothering duties.

Do your children keep you as busy as mine do me, Michele?
Jum 64

12 January 2008 at 4:33 pm

Michele

Before I go, I suggest a DNA marriage between you and D4J. Hopefully the baby would have your obvious ability with words but they’d be shorter in shape and post size.
Michele Cabiling 65

12 January 2008 at 6:37 pm

Amy worthwhile explanation can be condensed (after its been made in long-hand.

Quite simply, most people are approval seekers. If they are repeatedly told that their badge of membership of “club virtue” is the adoption of certain views and values, they will adopt them virtually (or even entirely) unquestioned

I refer you to this link and suggest you check it out in order to broading your understanding of deliberate academic brainwashing:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a33b0424856.htm

Now for another one of those illustrative academic quotes that educated people use, this one from Friedrich Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” [you HAVE read this book, right?}.

Hayek refers to: “[T]he docile and the gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are ready to accept any ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.”

If you have been through the modern academy, especially if you have studied in the liberal arts field, chances are you are not educated at all, but simply a bundle of conditioned reflexes.

Since your knee jerk reaction is that all the evils of the world are down to males, capitalism and business owners, you’re a classic case in point, Jum, which is why I regard you as uneducated.

You have internalised a particular world view and therefore have an emotional resistance to having it questioned. Because you are unable to argue dispassionately for the inherent rationality of your idead, you will always be a third rate intellect.

Because you have created a self-referencing system of values in order to synthesise a personality for yourself, anything that disturbs your small, complacent world is waved away with labels.

As Oscar Wilde reminds us: “If you cannot answer a man’s argument, do not panic. You can always call him names.”
Jum 66

12 January 2008 at 8:38 pm

Michele

You are quoting Oscar Wilde at me which I find very strange considering his personal sexual tastes, to take umbrage about me calling you names. That was my introduction to your character in the first place a) about buggery and b) when you started by vilifying me and then moved on to my husband and children.

You make some strange allusion to me being an approval seeker in that I follow certain societal regimes which seem to benefit my family. The only approval I seek is my own. The only reason I am on this blog is to look at other people’s opinions and beliefs and how I might adopt them, if they are worthwhile. Any chance of considering any of yours disappeared by the end of the first blog of yours that I read.

You are a piece of work, Michele and I am having to finally admit that you are not sufficiently at peace with yourself to discuss anything dispassionately with people who disagree with you.

Look back over your posts – not one of them has been dispassionate. They have all been about one study or another. None of them convinced me that you know anything about real life. You’re a charlatan, Michele.

I’ll tell you about a study I read of in the papers – men conducted a study about dust, yes, money spent on a dust study – no, not to find out how to get rid of it, or how to stop it causing Asthma, not to prevent it collecting in corners but WHO notices it.

The answer they wanted from their study is that women notice dust more so they are better suited to housework. In NZ more women do housework. It was a predictable result.

Their purpose was to retain the internalised world view that women are more suited to housework. I thought it was quite clever of them, albeit a money waster.

You seem to think I blame men and capitalism and business owners for all the problems in the world. I always put blame where blame is due, but just as in the case of the dust study – more men have held more positions of power in our history and therefore have been to blame for more bad policy than women.

Business owners
are responsible for my children’s part time jobs. As long as both sides treat each other fairly and the business pays a decent wage for a fair day’s work, I have no problem with that.

But if a government of National/Act pulled the same stunt it did with the Employment Contracts Act, it gives business an unfair advantage to treat workers like serfs. And they did. That’s why people like you give rise to bile within my ‘internalised self’.

Capitalism implodes if it isn’t continually creating more product and forcing people to buy it. I remember seeing a television play years ago where these robotic men in lookalike grey uniforms were delivering a lounge suite and taking the other perfectly okay one away, while the householders were crying out, we can’t afford it. We don’t want it. That to me is the plague of productivity that you and John Key want to unleash upon the world. Useless stuff for people who don’t want it and can’t afford it and brainwashing marketing tactics to ‘persuade’ them that they do. Ohh, that’s now isn’t it, thanks to Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson.

People like you have no idea of fairness or the greatest good for the greatest number, when you gain power. You want cheap labour for your businesses. I have no intention of allowing you to use my children as cheap labour. I know they work hard for their money. They are learning how to survive the world that National/Act set up which puts greed at the heart of all thinking.

You are like a petrified forest in your thinking Michele. You insult my comfortable world and political and lifestyle beliefs and yet you have nothing to persuade me otherwise.

I can see that going through your posts in a detailed, thoughtful and hopefully humorous way sometimes was a waste of time, so I’ll just swap insults with you which is something you are quite gifted at.

What a waste of my time. Since you seem to get more satisfaction from insulting people, I guess it won’t be a waste of yours.

Oh by the way, there is an interesting documentary on prime Friday 18 January – the write up was hilarious.

I quote ‘ True stories un cut: The Perfect Penis, a documentary about men who will go to desperate lengths for unregulated surgery to give them what nature hasn’t’.

Weellll, Michele, it seems that women aren’t the penis envy group at all. Because of the ridiculous macho posturing about men’s grapple, grapes, I could go on, there are men who envy other men; there are some men who will never be at peace with their bodies. I blame women like you who keep talking about women having penis envy and now you’ve hurt the very people you seem to think are perfect.
Psycho Milt 67

13 January 2008 at 9:30 am

Now for another one of those illustrative academic quotes that educated people use, this one from Friedrich Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” [you HAVE read this book, right?}.

The true mark of educated gentlefolk everywhere is of course their ability to brag about the books they’ve read…
Kimble 68

13 January 2008 at 3:07 pm

“They’d probably have to like their ex-circumstances in order to do that intentionally,”

Yup, just like the perpetuation of domestic violence, people have to LIKE their previous circumstances to recreate them.

” and have very poor advisors and information to do so accidentally..?”

Ban the import of semi-high emission cars leads to older, higher emission cars being used for longer. Examples of unintended consequences abound in every government.

And if the advisers are the ones pointing them in the right direction, why not simply elect the advisers?
Michele Cabiling 69

13 January 2008 at 4:09 pm

Jum wrote:

“Their purpose was to retain the internalised world view that women are more suited to housework.”

Well if the cap fits, wear it …

“I always put blame where blame is due, but just as in the case of the dust study – more men have held more positions of power in our history and therefore have been to blame for more bad policy than women.”

That’s funny, I thought the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world …

Maybe all those poor benighted “sisters” who collude in their own class oppressions by internalising the world view of their oppressors still stubbornly resist a feminist consciousness raising.

I guess if they can whip their husbands and male offspring into not leaving the toilet seat up on pain of castration that’s “progress,” right? Not much to show for four decades of feminism …

“Useless stuff for people who don’t want it and can’t afford it and brainwashing marketing tactics to ‘persuade’ them that they do.”

In a free society people are at liberty to do things you or I might consider stupid with their own money. My mom always said: “a fool and his money are soon parted.” In a free society, people are free to succeed and free to fail. The consequences of being a dumbass rightly fall where they lie, and it’s “liberals” like you who think it’s “compassionate” to insulate people from corrective reality by allowing them to socialise the consequences of their bad decision-making.

“People like you have no idea of fairness or the greatest good for the greatest number, when you gain power.”

The wealth of ignorant leftard knee-jerking in that statement will take several paragraphs to deconstruct.

“The greatest good for the greatest number”? Whose good, and who decides? The world is full of leftards who think they know what’s best for everyone, and therefore have a right to impose it on others by force.

Leftards claim people are poor because they are “exploited” by “greedy capitalists.” Not only is this bollocks, but for the most part, people are poor not because of what others have done “to” them, but because of what they haven’t done for themselves.

“Poverty” in terms of a lack of material wealth is the natural state of social existence simply because it requires no effort to achieve it. Poverty is not caused by those who choose to elevate themselves above it, but becomes visible when there is wealth created with which to compare it.

This leads perception-bound and economicallay ignorant leftards to view the creation of wealth by some as the cause of poverty in others. Contrary to leftard redistributive dogma, the elimination of poverty can only come about through the creation of wealth. This requires intelligence, initiative, risk, effort, hard work — and a response to public need that no government could ever dare to match.

As Adam Smith famously noted, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

In a free society, irrespective of how selfish people might be on a personal level, they must be “other-centred” and provide goods and services that people want to buy. Otherwise, they don’t eat (unless of course they can compel others to feed them by electing a government to plunder the productive on their behalf).

To illustrate the leftard mentality towards poverty, consider two castaways on a deserted island, Peter and Paul. While Paul chooses to wait to be “saved”, Peter plants a garden, builds a hut, and saves his produce for harder times. Begrudgingly, Peter shares some small percentage of his produce to keep Paul from starving, but gives Paul no more than is necessary to save him from starvation. Paul has no hut, no stored food, and no means of production (i.e., a garden) to produce more food.

A leftard would view this situation and the first thing he would see would be an economic disparity. Peter is “wealthy while Paul exists in poverty! And poor Paul must rely on charity for his subsistence! A social injustice!”

Instead of rightly condemning Paul for failing to take responsibility for his own survival, a leftard would morally condemn Peter for being productive, and for not being concerned enough with the plight of Paul. It is understandable that leftards must do this.

In order to justify robbing Peter to pay Paul, it is important that Peter be morally denigrated. After all, robbing Peter for his virtue might even offend a leftard. Thus, it is a pre-requisite of being a leftard that productivity and wealth creation be viewed in a negative moral light.

“You want cheap labour for your businesses.”

The wages in any particular labour market are set by the interaction of supply and demand in that labour market. This is a function of the number of qualified people who want to work at the wages on offer. The market is neither “fair” nor “unfair” but a fact of life.

In a free society, people are not obliged to take any particular job. They are not obliged to stay in a job if they dislike the terms or conditions of employment.

To illustrate, if your kids think they aren’t paid enough at Burger King or the boss is a slave driver, they are at liberty to move to McDonalds, try the checkout at Foodtown, or borrow their parents’ lawnmower and start their own business mowing the lawns of neighbours.

Minimum wage laws inpose an abovemarket wage rate on employers, substituting the visible hand of government for the “invisible hand” of the free market. Like all statist meddling with free markets, this has unintended and deleterious consequences.

The beneficiaries of such short-sighted government actions are those fortunate enough to find work at the artificially inflated minimum wage rate. Employers will work around it either by putting in more hours themselves, making existing staff work harder, substituting a cheaper input (eg a machine) for overprices labour, or simply by going out of business.

Those who suffer are the unskilled who would have been employed at the market wage rate but can’t find a job at the minimum wage rate. Perception-bound leftards are unable to see that the vast majority of those who start in unskilled entry-level jobs are students supporting their studies, or people who once they acquire works skills (punctuality, intiative, obedience to authority)move onwards and upwards into better-remunerated, higher-skilled employment.

Leftards are never concerned with the actual OUTCOME of the policies they advocate, but with GOOD INTENTIONS, i.e. the opportunities for moral preening that flow from taking a particular world view.

Harking back to the example above, if 100 people would have been taken on at the market wage rate, and only 60 at the leftard-imposed minimum wage, are we better off in terms of your “greatest good of the greatest number” criterion?

What has in fact occurred is that 40 people have just lost the opportunity to get their feet on the first rung of the job ladder — so that do-gooders who pay no personal price for being wrong (because they can socialise the consequences via the welfare system) can give themselves a big pat on the back for belonging to “club virtue.”

Come back and talk to me when you are economically literate and not before.
Robinsod 70

13 January 2008 at 4:52 pm

You are a parody Michele, aren’t you? I mean nobody in their right mind would come out with the rubbish you do and put their real name to it? Right?

But.

Just in case you’re not (lord help us!) the idea of you claiming economic literacy is astounding. If this is your idea of intelligent debate then you better hope we don’t get the meritocracy you seem to yearn for ‘cos baby, you’ll get eaten (and not in the good way).
Psycho Milt 71

13 January 2008 at 5:49 pm

I particularly like the way Michele’s obsession with the anus and rectum segues into the toilet seat serving as a metaphor for male/female relationships. If it is a parody, it’s very well thought out.

Links to post

Chauvel does a Captain Oates « KiwiBlogBlog: posted on 12 November 2007 at 12:09 am
Kiwiblog » Blog Archive » Robertson wins Wellington Central nomination: posted on 12 November 2007 at 7:38 am
KHIMICH: posted on 12 November 2007 at 8:01 am

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What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
2 days ago

Photos from the road
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
2 days ago

RMA reforms aim to ease stock-grazing rules and reduce farmers’ costs – but Taxpayers’ Union w...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
2 days ago

Luxon Strikes Out.
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
2 days ago

In many ways the media that the experts wanted, turned out to be the media they have got
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
2 days ago

The Waitangi Tribunal Summons; or the more things stay the same
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
2 days ago

Both Parliamentary watchdogs hammer Fast-track bill
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General, John Ryan, has joined the ...
The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
2 days ago

India makes a big bet on electric buses
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Spengeman People wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
Skeptical Science
2 days ago

Bernard’s pick ‘n’ mix of the news links at 6:36am on Tuesday, April 23
TL;DR: These six news links stood out in the last 24 hours to 6:36am on Tuesday, April 22:Scoop & Deep Dive: How Sir Peter Jackson got to have his billion-dollar exit cake and eat Hollywood too NZ Herald-$$$ Matt NippertFast Track Approval Bill: Watchdogs seek substantial curbs on ministers' powers ...
The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
2 days ago

What is really holding up infrastructure
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
PolitikBy Richard Harman
2 days ago

“Pure Unadulterated Charge”
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
David FarrierBy David Farrier
2 days ago

Bernard's six-stack of substacks for Monday, April 22
Tonight’s six-stack includes: writes via his substack that’s he’s sceptical about the IPSOS poll last week suggesting a slide into authoritarianism here, writing: Kiwis seem to want their cake and eat it too Tal Aster writes for about How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs. writes via his ...
The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
3 days ago

The media were given a little list and hastened to pick out Fast Track prospects – but the Treaty ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
3 days ago

Just trying to stay upright
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
3 days ago

“Unprecedented”
Today, former Port of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson went on trial on health and safety charges for the death of one of his workers. The Herald calls the trial "unprecedented". Firstly, it's only "unprecedented" because WorkSafe struck a corrupt and unlawful deal to drop charges against Peter Whittall over Pike ...
No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
3 days ago

Bryce Edwards: Time for “Fast-Track Watch”
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
3 days ago

Gordon Campbell on fast track powers, media woes and the Tiktok ban
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Gordon CampbellBy lyndon
3 days ago

The Government’s new fast-track invitation to corruption
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Point of OrderBy gadams1000
3 days ago

Maori push for parallel government structures
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
3 days ago

An announcement about an announcement
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
3 days ago

All the Green Tech in China.
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
3 days ago

Western Express Success
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
Greater AucklandBy Matt L
3 days ago

Bernard’s pick ‘n’ mix of the news links at 7:16am on Monday, April 22
TL;DR: These six news links stood out in the last 24 hours to 7:16am on Monday, April 22:Labour says Kiwis at greater risk from loan sharks as Govt plans to remove borrowing regulations NZ Herald Jenee TibshraenyHow did the cost of moving two schools blow out to more than $400m?A ...
The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
3 days ago

The Kaka’s diary for the week to April 29 and beyond
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
3 days ago

2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
Skeptical Science
4 days ago

Bryce Edwards: The Government’s new fast-track invitation to corruption
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
4 days ago

Thank you
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
4 days ago

Determining the Engine Type in Your Car
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How to Become a Race Car Driver: A Comprehensive Guide
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How Many Cars Are There in the World in 2023? An Exploration of Global Automotive Statistics
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How Long Does It Take for Car Inspection?
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

Who Makes Mazda Cars?
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How Often to Replace Your Car Battery A Comprehensive Guide
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

Can You Register a Car Without a License?
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the Rule If you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

Mazda: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Reliability, Value, and Performance
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

What Are Struts on a Car?
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

What Does Car Registration Look Like: A Comprehensive Guide
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How to Share Computer Audio on Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How Long Does It Take to Build a Computer?
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How to Put Your Computer to Sleep
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

What is Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT)?
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

iPad vs. Tablet Computers A Comprehensive Guide to Differences
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How Are Computers Made?
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How to Add Voice Memos from iPhone to Computer
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

Why My Laptop Screen Has Lines on It: A Comprehensive Guide
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How to Right-Click on a Laptop
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

Where is the Power Button on an ASUS Laptop?
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How to Start a Dell Laptop: A Comprehensive Guide
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

Bryce Edwards: Serious populist discontent is bubbling up in New Zealand
Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
5 days ago

How to Take a Screenshot on an Asus Laptop A Comprehensive Guide with Detailed Instructions and Illu...
In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

How to Factory Reset Gateway Laptop A Comprehensive Guide
A factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

The Folly Of Impermanence.
“You talking about me?” The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
Bowalley Road
5 days ago

A crisis of ambition
Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
5 days ago

Have 308 people in the Education Ministry’s Curriculum Development Team spent over $100m on a 60-p...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
5 days ago

'This bill is dangerous for the environment and our democracy'
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
5 days ago

The Bank of our Tamariki and Mokopuna.
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
5 days ago

The worth of it all
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
5 days ago

What is the Hardest Sport in the World?
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

What is the Most Expensive Sport?
The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Gareth’s WorldBy admin
5 days ago

Release: Working together on consistent support for veterans this Anzac Day
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Labour Blog
1 day ago

Release: Penny drops – but what about Seymour and Peters?
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Labour Blog
1 day ago

Release: Budget blunder shows Nicola Willis could cut recovery funding
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
Labour Blog
2 days ago

Further environmental mismanagement on the cards
The Government’s resource management reforms will add to the heavy and ever-growing burden this Government is loading on to our environment. ...
Greens
2 days ago

Release: RMA changes will be a disaster for environment
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour Blog
2 days ago

Release: Labour supports urgent changes to emergency management system
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
Labour Blog
2 days ago

Release: Labour calls for New Zealand to recognise Palestine
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Labour Blog
3 days ago

Release: Three strikes law political posturing of worst kind
The Government is bringing back a law that has little evidential backing just to look tough, Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
Labour Blog
3 days ago

Release: Government cuts unbelievably target child exploitation, violent extremism, ports and airpor...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
Labour Blog
3 days ago

Three strikes has failed before and will fail again
Resurrecting the archaic three-strikes legislation is an unwelcome return to a failed American-style approach to justice. ...
Greens
3 days ago

Release: Environmental protection vital, not ‘onerous’
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Labour Blog
3 days ago

Release: Govt cuts doctors and nurses in hiring freeze
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Labour Blog
6 days ago

Fast-track submissions period must be extended
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
Greens
6 days ago

Release: Progress on climate will be undone by Govt
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
Labour Blog
6 days ago

Release: Dark day for Kiwi kids as a third of Govt cuts affect them
News that 1000 jobs at the Ministry of Education and Oranga Tamariki could go is devastating for future generations of New Zealanders. ...
Labour Blog
1 week ago

Release: Alarm as Government signals further blow to school lunches
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Labour Blog
1 week ago

Release: Quick, submit – stop Govt’s dodgy approvals bill
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Labour Blog
1 week ago

Government throws coal on the climate crisis fire
The Government’s policy announced today to ease consenting for coal mining will have a lasting impact across generations. ...
Greens
1 week ago

Release: Public transport costs to double as National looks at unaffordable roading project instead
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
Labour Blog
1 week ago

Release: Cost of living in Auckland still not a priority
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Labour Blog
1 week ago

Greens look to fast-track submissions on harmful law
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Release: Govt should stop making people’s lives harder and build more homes
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Labour Blog
2 weeks ago

Release: Melissa Lee missing in action on media
The action Melissa Lee promised to protect democracy and the media sector is missing, Media and Communications spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
Labour Blog
2 weeks ago

Landlord Government leaves little hope for renters
The Government’s announcement on tenancy rules prove that it does not care about renters. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Opportunity to build a more sustainable economy
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Significant step forward in fixing cruel and unjust past
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Missed opportunity but NZ will surely one day recognise the right to a sustainable environment
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Release: Don’t cut our lunches – clear message sent to Government
Tens of thousands of people are demanding the Government commits to fully funding free and healthy school lunches. ...
Labour Blog
2 weeks ago

Release: Govt makes U-turn on Suicide Prevention Office
Labour welcomes the Government’s U-turn on the closure of the Suicide Prevention Office, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Labour Blog
2 weeks ago

CCC issues warning over further climate delay
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Luxon targets lame and lousy example of leadership
If talk is cheap, Chris Luxon’s “targets” are bankrupt. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Luxon targets are lousy example of leadership
If talk is cheap, Chris Luxon’s “targets” are bankrupt. ...
Greens
2 weeks ago

Release: Commitment to disability communities missing from Govt priorities
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Labour Blog
2 weeks ago

Methane target review is dangerous duplication
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
Greens
3 weeks ago

Anzac Commemorative Address – Dawn Service, Gallipoli, Türkiye
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 hour ago

PM announces changes to portfolios
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 day ago

New catch limits for unique fishery areas
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 day ago

Minister welcomes hydrogen milestone
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
2 days ago

Urgent changes to system through first RMA Amendment Bill
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
2 days ago

Overseas decommissioning models considered
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
2 days ago

Release of North Island Severe Weather Event Inquiry
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
2 days ago

Justice Minister to attend Human Rights Council
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
3 days ago

Patterson reopens world’s largest wool scouring facility
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
3 days ago

Speech to the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective Summit, 18 April 2024
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
3 days ago

Government to introduce revised Three Strikes law
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
3 days ago

New diplomatic appointments
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
3 days ago

Humanitarian support for Ethiopia and Somalia
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
3 days ago

Arts Minister congratulates Mataaho Collective
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
4 days ago

Supporting better financial outcomes for Kiwis
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
4 days ago

Trade relationship with China remains strong
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
4 days ago

PM’s South East Asia mission does the business
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
5 days ago

$41m to support clean energy in South East Asia
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
6 days ago

Minister releases Fast-track stakeholder list
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
6 days ago

Judicial appointments announced
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
6 days ago

Education Minister heads to major teaching summit in Singapore
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
6 days ago

Value of stopbank project proven during cyclone
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
6 days ago

Anzac commemorations, Türkiye relationship focus of visit
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
6 days ago

Minister to Europe for OECD meeting, Anzac Day
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
6 days ago

Comprehensive Partnership the goal for NZ and the Philippines
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
7 days ago

Government commits $20m to Westport flood protection
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
7 days ago

Taupō takes pole position
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Cost of living support for low-income homeowners
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Government backing mussel spat project
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Government focused on getting people into work
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Clean energy key driver to reducing emissions
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Earthquake-prone buildings review brought forward
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Thailand and NZ to agree to Strategic Partnership
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Government consults on extending coastal permits for ports
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Inflation coming down, but more work to do
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

School attendance restored as a priority in health advice
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Unnecessary bureaucracy cut in oceans sector
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Patterson promoting NZ’s wool sector at International Congress
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

Removing red tape to help early learners thrive
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

RMA changes to cut coal mining consent red tape
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
1 week ago

‘It bucked our lads up wonderfully’: the lightning-quick battle that marked the birth of the US-...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918. Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 hour ago

GCSB refuses to release details of spy deal 'to protect interests'
The spy agency is refusing to release a copy of its deal with a foreign agency to run a secret operation out of this country. ...
Radio NZ – political
2 hours ago

Die In for Palestine Marks ANZAC day
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Scoop politics
2 hours ago

Ancient nomads you’ve probably never heard of disappeared from Europe 1,000 years ago. Now, DNA an...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD). Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
4 hours ago

Don’t mention the war: On grandparents and Anzac biscuits
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits. First published in 2021. All my ...
The SpinoffBy Amanda Thompson
4 hours ago

If plastic manufacturing goes up 10%, plastic pollution goes up 10% – and we’re set for a huge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Willis, Postdoctoral Researcher, CSIRO Xavier Boulenger/Shutterstock In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
5 hours ago

Governor-General's Anzac Day Dawn Service Address
With our collective remembrance, and steadfast belief in our common humanity, we strengthen our hope and resolve to do what we can to foster dialogue and understanding, and to heal divisions in our pursuit of peace. ...
Scoop politics
5 hours ago

Angling-Conservation Group Sees Fast Track Bill As Undemocratic
Principal reasons for the opposition is the loss of the public’s democratic right to have “a fair say” and the vital need for a government free from corruption, said Casey Cravens of Dunedin, president of the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater ...
Scoop politics
5 hours ago

Remembering the great TrueBliss vs Bardot national anthem sing-off
Never mind the scoreboard – in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup decider, the real trans-Tasman battle was won before kickoff. First published in 2016. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the ...
The SpinoffBy Jamie Wall
5 hours ago

Help Me Hera: Do I even want the public sector job I might be about to lose?
I’m on the wrong side of 40, I never pursued creative work and now my job is killing my soul. Help! Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz Dear Hera, May I start with the least original conversation opener you’re likely to hear around the motu at the moment, particularly in Wellington: ...
The SpinoffBy Hera Lindsay Bird
7 hours ago

ANZAC Day Wreath Calls For No Future Deaths From AUKUS
“Never again - No AUKUS” was the message of the wreath laid at this morning’s national ANZAC Day commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park this morning by the Stop AUKUS group. ...
Scoop politics
8 hours ago

Swimmer does everything and more to get to Paris
Until this month, Auckland swimmer Hazel Ouwehand had never met a qualifying time in an Olympic event for a New Zealand team, even as a junior. Now she’s very likely off to the Paris Olympics after swimming well under the qualifying standard in the 100m butterfly twice – both in ...
NewsroomBy Dave Crampton
10 hours ago

Seize the day
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell. First published in 2022. The high school’s head girl and ...
The SpinoffBy David Hill
10 hours ago

The first, forgotten Anzacs, more than 50 years before Gallipoli
Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association. First published in 2018. When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of ...
The SpinoffBy Scott Hamilton
10 hours ago

Poem for Anzac Day: ‘Hoki Mai’ by Tayi Tibble
A poem by Wellington writer Tayi Tibble. Hoki Mai She kisses him goodbye with her eyes still wet and alight from their last swim in the Awatere river. At the train station celebration, she leads the Kapa Haka but her voice keeps breaking under and over itself like waves. ...
The SpinoffBy Tayi Tibble
11 hours ago

Poem for Anzac Day: ‘My World War I Poem’ by Bill Manhire
A poem from Bill Manhire’s 2017 book of verse Some Things to Place in a Coffin. My World War I Poem Inside each trench, the sound of prayer. Inside each prayer, the sound of digging. Image courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum. ...
The SpinoffBy Bill Manhire
11 hours ago

Book of the Week: Talia Marshall on living legend Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku
There are three books I have wolfed down in one sitting over the last two years. Colleen Maria Lenihan’s gorgeous and sad debut Kōhine, Noelle McCarthy’s memoir Grand about becoming her mother and then unbecoming her, and now Hine Toa, a staunch yet gentle self-portrait by living legend Ngāhuia te ...
NewsroomBy Talia Marshall
11 hours ago

Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 25 April
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question? Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 25 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NewsroomBy Newsroom Puzzles
11 hours ago

Daily crossword, Thursday 25 April
The post Daily crossword, Thursday 25 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NewsroomBy Newsroom Puzzles
11 hours ago

High Court overturns Waitangi Tribunal summons to Minister for Children Karen Chhour
The minister was due to give evidence on Friday regarding the government's plans to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act ...
Radio NZ – political
19 hours ago

Sydney University students set up Gaza solidarity camp as war marks 200 days
Asia Pacific Report Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States. The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of ...
Evening ReportBy Asia Pacific Report
20 hours ago

Most bees don’t die after stinging – and other surprising bee facts
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong Australian teddy bear bees are cute and fluffy, but get a look at that massive (unbarbed) stinger! James Dorey Photography Most of us have been stung by a bee and we ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
20 hours ago

How Anzac deaths changed the way we mourn to this day
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Roberts, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Aussie~mobs/Flickr Victor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915. Victor Farr ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
20 hours ago

Sugar gums have a reputation as risky branch-droppers but they’re important to bees, parrots and p...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Gregory Moore I had the good fortune to care for the sugar gum at The University of Melbourne’s Burnley Gardens in Victoria where I worked for ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
20 hours ago

Inflation is slowly falling, while student debt is climbing: 6 graphs that explain today’s CPI
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
20 hours ago

Our housing system is broken and the poorest Australians are being hardest hit
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University Just when we think the price of rentals could not get any worse, this week’s Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare has revealed low-income Australians are facing a housing crisis like ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
20 hours ago

‘It bucked our lads up wonderfully’: the lightning-quick WWI battle that marked the birth of the...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918. Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
21 hours ago

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
21 hours ago

First Nations Anzacs sacrificed life and limb for Country. Why aren’t their stories shown onscreen...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cally Jetta, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead; College for First Nations, University of Southern Queensland Australian War Memorial Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, as well as sensitive historical information ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
21 hours ago

NZ’s Media Minister Melissa Lee demoted after Newshub crisis
RNZ News Melissa Lee has been ousted from New Zealand’s coalition cabinet and stripped of the Media portfolio, and Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues portfolio in a reshuffle. Climate Change and Revenue Minister Simon Watts will take Lee’s spot in cabinet. Simmonds was a minister outside of cabinet. ...
Evening ReportBy Asia Pacific Report
21 hours ago

Our tall, wet forests were not open and park-like when colonists arrived – and we shouldn’t be b...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University laurello/Shutterstock Some reports and popular books, such as Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth, have argued that extensive areas of Australia’s forests were kept open through frequent burning by ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
21 hours ago

Aces in their places: Luxon plays coy over ministers' competence
Analysis - Christopher Luxon framing the demotion of two ministers as the portfolios getting "too complex" is a charitable way of saying they weren't up to the job. ...
Radio NZ – political
21 hours ago

Politics with Michelle Grattan: Economist Chris Richardson on an ‘ugly’ inflation result and the...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra With Jim Chalmers’s third budget on May 14, Australians will be looking for some more cost-of-living relief – beyond the tax cuts – although they have been warned extra measures will be modest. As ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
22 hours ago

Melissa Lee’s media Hail Mary comes up short
Analysis: Melissa Lee has lost the media portfolio and her spot in Cabinet after multiple failed attempts to find solutions for a media industry in crisis. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced Lee would be losing her spot in Cabinet along with her media and communications ministerial portfolio. The job ...
NewsroomBy Laura Walters
22 hours ago

Northland council continues four-year Māori ward fight in face of government changes
A council that played a key role in getting Māori ward polling removed is now lobbying against government plans to reinstate binding referendums. ...
Radio NZ – political
22 hours ago

Education Ministry cuts: Roles providing support for disabled kids among those proposed to be axed
Leaked documents show which divisions will bear the brunt of hundreds of proposed job cuts at the Ministry of Education. ...
Radio NZ – political
22 hours ago

Land Information New Zealand proposes 57 job cuts
It is the latest department to announce job cuts as part of the government's cost-cutting measures. ...
Radio NZ – political
23 hours ago

Watch: Government's 'wheels are falling off already', Hipkins says, after ministers d...
The Labour leader says the demotion of two ministers today shows the PM "didn't have particularly good judgement". ...
Radio NZ – political
24 hours ago

The stories of Australia’s Muslim Anzacs have long been forgotten. It’s time we honour them
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Wilmot, Senior Lecturer, Film, Deakin University Among the many Australian who served during the second world war, there is a small group of people whose stories remain largely untold. These are the Muslim men and women who, while small in number, ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
24 hours ago

National emergency response facing 26 separate inquiries: What have we learned
The country's emergency response is besieged by inquiries, despite years of reviews and efforts to make laws that deliver. ...
Radio NZ – political
24 hours ago

Sexual assault victims give evidence in court, but alleged perpetrators don’t have to. Bruce Lehrm...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Saunders, PhD Candidate, University of Canberra There has been much analysis and praise of Justice Michael Lee’s recent judgement in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Channel Ten. Many people were openly relieved to read Lee’s “forensic” and “nuanced” application of law ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 day ago

What’s the difference between ADD and ADHD?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathy Gibbs, Program Director for the Bachelor of Education, Griffith University zEdward_Indy/Shutterstock Around one in 20 people has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It’s one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood and often continues into adulthood. ADHD is diagnosed ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 day ago

Watch: Government's 'wheels are falling off already', Hipkins says, after minsters de...
The Labour leader says the demotion of two ministers today shows the PM "didn't have particularly good judgement". ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

Anti-Poverty Groups Urge New Minister For Disability Issues To Reverse Funding Cuts
The Fairer Future coalition of anti-poverty groups say Whaikaha must be properly funded going forward, and that to argue that poor financial management of the new Ministry is a red herring by the Prime Minister. ...
Scoop politics
1 day ago

New Media Minister Must Rule Out State Intervention In Private Media
The Taxpayers’ Union is today congratulating Hon. Paul Goldsmith on his appointment as Minister for Media and Communications and urges him to rule out state intervention in the private media sector. ...
Scoop politics
1 day ago

OPM leader’s open letter condemns Australia’s ‘treachery’ over Papua
Asia Pacific Report The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence. The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day ...
Evening ReportBy Asia Pacific Report
1 day ago

‘Emily Dickinson made me into a writer’: Lauren Groff on the power of reading
Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits and quirks of New Zealanders at large. This week: writer and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024, Lauren Groff. The book I wish I’d written If I wish I’d written a ...
The SpinoffBy The Spinoff Review of Books
1 day ago

Watch live: Chris Hipkins speaks after ministers Melissa Lee, Penny Simmonds lose portfolios
The Labour leader speaks from Parliament after the prime minister's sudden Cabinet reshuffle. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

What kind of diner are you? 6 types of diners who avoid plant-based meat dishes
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Fechner, Research Fellow, Social Marketing, Griffith University mavo/Shutterstock Imagine having dinner at a restaurant. The menu offers plant-based meat alternatives made mostly from vegetables, mushrooms, legumes and wheat that mimic meat in taste, texture and smell. Despite being given that ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 day ago

Auckland University Criminologist Slams ‘Racist’ Three Strikes Law
“Three Strikes is a dead-end policy proposed by a dead-end government. The Three Strikes law ignores the causes of crime, instead just brutalising people already crushed by the cost of living.” ...
Scoop politics
1 day ago

Australia-born judge facing potential deportation from Kiribati
By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist An Australian-born judge in Kiribati could well face deportation later this week after a tribunal ruling that he should be removed from his post. The tribunal’s report has just been tabled in the Kiribati Parliament and is due to be debated by MPs ...
Evening ReportBy Asia Pacific Report
1 day ago

Can Body-Worn Cameras Work In Australia And New Zealand? Lessons From Milestone’s Denmark Survey
With its clear mandate for police use, political nuances, and nuanced public trust, Denmark's insights provide valuable considerations for Australia and New Zealand. ...
Scoop politics
1 day ago

Media Minister Melissa Lee demoted from Cabinet, Penny Simmonds stripped of portfolio
Melissa Lee has been stripped of the Media portfolio, while Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues role. Follow as the PM explains. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

Climate change and human rights: how a landmark legal victory in Europe could affect NZ
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vernon Rive, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images A seven-year campaign by a group of over 2,000 Swiss women – average age 73 – recently ended with a European Court of Human Rights decision variously ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 day ago

Page-turning rural gothic: Ash by Louise Wallace, reviewed
Books editor Claire Mabey reviews poet Louise Wallace’s debut novel. A famous poet once said to me that he’s always suspicious when a poet publishes a novel. I never really understood why but maybe it’s something to do with cheating on your first form. Louise Wallace is a poet. She’s ...
The SpinoffBy Claire Mabey
1 day ago

Lower catch limits in force for Fiordland, Chatham Islands
New catch limits in Fiordland mean recreational fishers will only be able to take much smaller bags of finfish and shellfish. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

New emergency management legislation delayed after bill pulled by Government
The bill was introduced by the previous government in June last year. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

‘It was my Eras tour’: Meet the world’s biggest TrueBliss fans
For a few months at the turn of the millennium, TrueBliss burned bright as the biggest pop stars in the country. Alex Casey chats to two superfans who still hold the flame. During a humble backyard wedding in Nelson, 1999, one of the cordially invited guests had to excuse themselves ...
The SpinoffBy Alex Casey
1 day ago

No more Census forms? Stats NZ mulls form of future surveys
The traditional Census form could become a thing of the past, as Stats NZ starts to rely more heavily on administrative data. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

The voices that vanish in a decimated newsroom
How will the recent wave of job cuts impact ethnic diversity in the media? In November last year, I was working a very busy day in the newsroom of a large online news site, interviewing whānau about their concerns over the imminent closure of one of the few puna reo ...
The SpinoffBy Eda Tang
1 day ago

Half our colleagues suffer pain and discomfort from periods. But they’re still a taboo subject at ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ruth Knight, Researcher, Queensland University of Technology Have you ever felt sick at work? Perhaps you had food poisoning or the flu. Your belly hurt, or you felt tired, making it hard to concentrate and be productive. How likely would you be ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 day ago

'We're going to be banning gang patches' – Police Minister adamant
Despite heavy criticism and an ongoing select committee process, the Police Minister says the Government will forge ahead with a ban on gang patches. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

Is it possible to ‘objectively’ judge music? We asked 5 experts
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Whiting, Lecturer – Creative Industries, University of South Australia Shutterstock Everyone has a favourite band, or a favourite composer, or a favourite song. There is some music which speaks to you, deeply; and other music which might be the current ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 day ago

Gloomy vibe from infrastructure sector as RMA changes unveiled
A new survey says ‘outlook not great’ for those charged with building infrastructure, while RMA changes delight farmers and depress environmentalists, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. First RMA changes announced ...
The SpinoffBy Anna Rawhiti-Connell
1 day ago

From Gallipoli to Gaza: remembering the Anzacs not as a ‘coming of age’ tale but as a lesson for...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olli Hellmann, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waikato Getty Images When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also ...
Evening ReportBy The Conversation
1 day ago

The end of the Census? Stats NZ to look at whether survey is still needed
The traditional Census survey could become a thing of the past as Stats NZ starts to rely more heavily on administrative data. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

Leaked document reveals millions of dollars of cuts at Te Whatu Ora
A leaked document shows the Canterbury/Waitaha arm of health agency Te Whatu Ora is scurrying to save $13.3 million by July. The “financial sustainability target”, which was “allocated” to Waitaha, is consistent with what’s happening in other districts, says Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. ...
NewsroomBy David Williams
1 day ago

Hiring freeze leaves Oranga Tamariki with no lawyers in Gisborne or Southland
The ministry's lawyers work with vulnerable children across the country, often in the youth and family courts. ...
Radio NZ – political
1 day ago

Is KiwiBuild finally on its last legs?
A look at the state of the previous government’s affordable housing scheme, and what could come next. Remind me: What’s KiwiBuild again? First announced in 2012, KiwiBuild was a flagship policy of the Labour Party heading into both its 2014 and 2017 election campaigns. With Jacinda Ardern as prime minister, ...
The SpinoffBy Stewart Sowman-Lund
1 day ago

Labour has forgotten it was in government
Labour in opposition will be shocked to learn which party had six years in power but squandered any chance to make real change. Grant Robertson’s valedictory speech was a predictably entertaining trip down memory lane. The acid-tongued incoming Otago University chancellor administered a sick burn to the coalition government. He ...
The SpinoffBy Hayden Donnell
1 day ago

Lessons identified must become lessons learned for emergency preparedness
Opinion: It cost too much, apparently, to implement a ‘common operational picture’ The post Lessons identified must become lessons learned for emergency preparedness appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NewsroomBy Lianne Dalziel
1 day ago

The state of Taiwan’s silicon shield
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is seen some as its ‘silicon shield’ against invasion – but how will overseas expansion affect that protection? The post The state of Taiwan’s silicon shield appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NewsroomBy Sam Sachdeva
1 day ago

Quake rules in for a shake-up
There’s relief for building owners bending under the weight of earthquake strengthening rules – and costs – that came into force seven years ago. Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk has announced a scheduled 2027 review of the earthquake-prone building regulations will now start this year. Owners will also get ...
NewsroomBy Tom Kitchin
1 day ago

Kiwis are learning how to fight climate change – polls
Bucking a common misconception, NZers no longer say recycling is the most effective action they can take to reduce climate pollution The post Kiwis are learning how to fight climate change – polls appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NewsroomBy Marc Daalder
1 day ago

Daily crossword, Wednesday 24 April
The post Daily crossword, Wednesday 24 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NewsroomBy Newsroom Puzzles
1 day ago

Robertson to win Wellington Central candidacy

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