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- Due to nationwide shortage of buzzy bee toys, New Plymouth sends Prime Minister actual bees
The bees are reportedly “not calm, not calm at all.” Sort-of-but-not-technically-husband to the Prime Minister Clarke Gayford has confirmed that he and Jacinda Ardern have received a “lovely” gift to the tune of some 600 live bees from the town ...8 hours ago 
by Daphna Whitmore This deceptively slim book covers a lot of ground. The author, Ilan Pappe, is a well-known expatriate Israeli historian, critic and social activist. He is one of the ‘new historians’ arising in Israel who have challenged the ...11 hours ago- Not achieved
Back in 2010, the then-National government sacked the elected Canterbury Regional Council and replaced it with a group of unelected dictators. One of the key tasks of National's dictators was to implement the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, a collaboratively developed ...13 hours ago - The RMA and deterrenceOur environment is under threat. We have farmers polluting our rivers and sucking aquifers dry. Our own "defence" force is poisoning people's drinking water. Greedy property developers cut down protected native trees. And that's just a few recent examples. In ...16 hours ago
- Stopping the orcs in their tracksWhen the government was elected, they promised to end mining on conservation land. And they're delivering:An application to mine coal on public conservation land near Te Kuha in the Buller District has been declined, Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and ...17 hours ago
- Victoria Quarter walking & cycling improvements coming
The Victoria Quarter in the western city centre is an area that is rapidly developing and will be home to thousands more residents in the coming years. Yet despite this, there had been little planned to improve the appalling state ...20 hours ago - 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #24
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the ...24 hours ago - It’s not easy being Green and even harder being a Green Minister
Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage was subjected to some angry comments from party members on social media after her decision to allow (in principle) a large Chinese water bottling company to purchase land to extend their plant. The decision by ...1 day ago - MyThinks: newer and improveded
From time to time in the world of pseudojournalism, there comes a point when a lack of funds forces one to take stock and reassess one’s place in the world. Recently the crew at MyThinks has been doing a lot ...2 days ago - Judith Collins wins a Hypocrisy Award
. . On 8 June, Coalition government minister, Phil Twyford announced the formation of a new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. In a media statement, Minister Twyford said; “Addressing the national housing crisis is one of the biggest challenges ...2 days ago - 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #24
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week. Editor's Pick In a Warming World, Deadly Bacteria Are More Resistant to Antibiotics E. coli bacteria. Source: NIAID Tom Patterson became ill in 2015 ...2 days ago - Pregnant Auckland women hopeful their babies will be accidentally switched with the Prime Minister...
Pregnant women all around Auckland are crossing their fingers and hoping to experience the great miracle of medical malpractice Pregnant Auckland women due to give birth this weekend are excited at the possibility that their baby may be accidentally switched ...2 days ago - Mass rallies, occupations, protests in Argentina for women’s right to abortion
The Congress in Argentina has been discussing abortion law reform in that country. Mass action in support of reform has taken place in the streets, there have been school occuaptions and other action. Below is the mass march and rally ...3 days ago - Burger King workers’ strike, June 15The strike at Burger King in Queen Street, Auckland, Friday, June 15: ...3 days ago
- Shortland Street special to depict the hospital scrambling to deliver Prime Minister’s baby
PICTURED: A still from Monday night’s highly anticipated special Beloved New Zealand soap opera and renowned hospital show, Shortland Street, will commemorate the birth of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s baby with a special, feature-length episode in which the eponymous hospital ...3 days ago - Rally behind Burger King workersBurger King workers are taking on their bosses over pay and conditions, with strike action on Friday (June 15) and continuing pickets and protests. The following was sent out by Unions Otago earlier today: Unions Otago calls on all members ...3 days ago
- Te Kuha protection a “victory for the people, climate change, and great spotted kiwi”
PRESS RELEASE 16 June 2018 The decision to protect a section of the West Coast’s Mt Rochfort Conservation area from becoming a coal mine – announced today by the Government – will come as an enormous relief to a lot ...3 days ago - If Labour Wants Fewer Prisoners, Then It Needs To Create More Prison Space – Not Less.
3 days ago - The Symptom … And The Cure?
3 days ago - Flashback Saturday – Cycling: the benefits of complete networks
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was published in October 2014. A group of New Zealand researchers recently published an excellent paper on the costs and benefits of investing in a complete cycle network and ...3 days ago - New research, June 4-10, 2018
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. Climate change impacts Mankind The Inequality of Climate Change From 1.5 to 2°C of Global Warming (open access) "The Paris Agreement aims to keep global warming well below 2°C above ...3 days ago - Enabling Us to Assess Government Performance Better
Despite the hoopla at the time, the 1994 Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) was an extension of the 1989 Public Finance Act (PFA) which set out new standards for the government accounts. The accounts are retrospective describing what has happened. The ...3 days ago - Farmers covering up their epidemicThe government is currently trying to eradicate Mycoplasma Bovis, at huge expense to the taxpayer. But there's a problem: farmers are refusing to cooperate:A crucial part of the puzzle in working out how far the cow disease has spread is ...3 days ago
- Climate Change: National’s forked tongueSo, National says it wants to work with the government on climate change:National leader Simon Bridges has offered bipartisan support to the Government on climate change. Bridges wrote to the prime minister on Friday saying he wants to help find ...4 days ago
- Hard News: Friday Music: Radio With Pictures – communiques from the outside world
In Lee Borrie's oral history of Radio With Pictures, the first part of which is published this week on Audioculture, Bruce Russell recalls a Sunday night student ritual: you'd watch Radio With Pictures, and then you'd watch what everyone referred ...4 days ago - A living wage for public servantsThe government will be paying all public servants a living wage:All core public service employees are being given a pay rise to at least the living wage of $20.55. The new hourly rate, which works out to an annual salary ...4 days ago
- More lies from NZDFWhen NZDF was first forced to admit that their firefighting foam was poisoning water around their bases, they said it was a historical problem and that the foams hadn't been used for many years. They lied about that. Then when ...4 days ago
- Legal Beagle: Littering!I published my Select Committee submission on the Contempt of Court Bill yesterday. Part of the reason it was both late and short was that I decided that my submission on the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill was probably ...4 days ago
- Guest Post: A Letter to Shane Ellison – CEO of Auckland Transport
This is a Guest Post by Lance Wiggs. It first appeared here and is republished with permission. Dear Shane You’ve begun your role as the Chief Executive Officer of Auckland Transport at a moment of crisis, with hundreds of Auckland ...4 days ago - Greens in mortal danger4 days ago
- Legal Beagle: The Contempt of Court BillI have just filed a Select Committee submission on the Contempt of Court Bill. My submission was made a lot easier by the submission prepared by Leonid Sirota and Edward Willis, which raised almost all of the issues with the ...4 days ago
- The legal fight to leave the dirtiest fossil fuels in the groundTar sands are the dirtiest fossil fuels. These are low-quality heavy tar-like oils that are mined from sand or rock. Much of the mining occurs in Alberta Canada, but it is also mined elsewhere, in lesser quantities. Tar sands are the ...4 days ago
- Slash
We – and by “we” I mean all of us – have been awfully slow to learn some important lessons. We still believe that it is permissible to despoil our environment and destroy and waste our natural resources, ...4 days ago - Big things are happening on the Korean Peninsula, whether you like who is involved or not…
You don’t have to “like” Trump, or the DPRK, or its leader Kim Jong-Un, and it doesn’t mean you have to condone anything legitimately called out (stress on the concept of legitimate here) and done by them – just don’t ...4 days ago - Marx Bicentennial. . .This year is Marx’s bicentennial. He was born in 1818 (May 5). And March 14 was the 135th anniversary of his death. This year is also the 170th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto. Below are some of the pieces we ...4 days ago
- “Shared values”
Whenever New Zealand leaps to join Australia in another foreign war, the politicians always talk about our countries' 'shared values". Well, this is an example of the Australian values we are supposed to "share": That's an Australian SAS truck in ...4 days ago - Climate change: Melting fasterBad news on the climate change front: Antarctica is melting much faster than we expected, and the rate of melting has tripled in the last five years:Ice in the Antarctic is melting at a record-breaking rate and the subsequent sea ...5 days ago
- Magical World Cup Gala Concert
I have attended several concerts in public squares during European summers and always enjoyed them. Great atmosphere. But thanks to international broadcasting and modern smartphones I woke up this morning to this concert and it was magical. Red square on ...5 days ago - An “investigation”Last year, Stuff published The Valley, an in-depth investigation into NZDF's actions on Afghanistan. It alleged that, among other things, SAS soldiers had deliberately abused civilians in order to provoke "insurgents" into combat, and that a "very senior officer" had ...5 days ago
- A terrible ideaWhen the then-Labour government first advocated American-style asset forfeiture laws way back in 2004, I highlighted the danger that they would begin to see it as a way of raising revenue - effectively incentivising police to make dubious seizures in ...5 days ago
- What’s Wrong With The Progressive Movement’s Bloody Ships?
5 days ago - FIFA Pitch: The most intriguing off-field stories of the 2018 World Cup
An Egyptian love triangle, a shock sacking, and the fear of racism and homophobia in host country Russia are enduring narratives ahead of this year’s tournament. Russian ballet dancers stage a protest for gay rights. Photo: AFP ...5 days ago - What does PT look like in a decade, by the numbers
Auckland was once considered a case study of what not to do with transport. Our singular focus on motorway building with almost no attention towards improving public transport saw PT usage rates in the region plummet before starting to recover ...5 days ago - More questions from the Nicky Hager caseThe mea cupla is fulsome and the apology - however hard won - is on the record. Nicky Hager has won an important victory for the rights of journalists to go about their business without intrusive oversight from the police, ...6 days ago
- Members’ DayToday is a Members' Day. Unfortunately it looks to be a boring one. First up is a two-hour debate on the government's investment strategy in place of the usual general debate, which will take an extra hour out of members' ...6 days ago
- The harsh reality of governmentYesterday Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage granted a consent under the Overseas Investment Act for a Chinese water bottling company to buy land near Whakatane, effectively allowing them to suck the Otakiri Springs dry for foreign profit. Green Party members ...6 days ago
- DoC covers up for corporate spiesThompson and Clark Investigations, New Zealand's most evil private spy agency, is in the news again - this time for getting DoC to cover up official information for it:The Department of Conservation (DOC) withheld official information after demands from security ...6 days ago
- What would you need to do to fix Albany?
So the Auckland Plan has been adopted and Albany has been confirmed as a “node“, alongside Manukau and Westgate. This begs the question of what we might need to do to Albany, for it to actually fulfil its potential? This ...6 days ago - A modest proposal for solving the ‘special education’ crisis by next Tuesday
The story of Ava Crager isn’t at the top end of discrimination and neglect against children with disabilities in New Zealand. After all, it resulted in her missing a single week of school, when there are children who miss months ...6 days ago - Benefits of curbing climate change far outweigh costsThose who oppose policies to cut carbon pollution and slow climate change always claim that doing so will be too expensive and cripple the economy. They argue that instead we should maximize economic growth so that we can pay for ...6 days ago
- More dirty dairyingOh look, its a Federated Farmers official convicted of spewing shit into a waterway:A hefty fine has been handed down to former Southland Federated Farmers president Allan Baird, whose inaction on his dairy farm was "careless". Baird and his two ...7 days ago
- Consent granted for overseas purchase of Whakatane water bottling plant
As Land Information Minister I and the Associate Finance Minister are sometimes required to decide whether or not overseas persons, including overseas owned companies, can buy areas of rural land in New Zealand of more than five hectares. The law ...7 days ago - Pick your poison.
Two decades ago New Zealand uncoupled the security and trade strands in its foreign policy. The decision stemmed from the removal of New Zealand’s preferential trade status with the UK in the early 1970s and the fallout to the embrace ...7 days ago - AT’s Car Park Buildings – The Fiasco of the Proposed Takapuna Gasometer Car Park?
This is another guest post from reader taka-ite. You can read his first one on Manukau’s Ronwood Ave carpark here. The Writer The writer has been a resident of Takapuna for about eight years. He is a fervent proponent of ...7 days ago - AwkwardWinston Peters is set to become acting Prime Minister this weekend. And he's chosen this moment to launch a new lawsuit against senior public servants who will in effect be working for him over breaching his privacy during the 2017 ...7 days ago
- Justice for Nicky HagerIn October 2014, as part of a political investigation into the book Dirty Politics, police raided and searched the home of journalist Nicky Hager. The raid has spawned a series of ongoing court cases which have in turn exposed illegal ...7 days ago
- What They Do In The Shadows: Winston Saves Labour From Itself.
7 days ago - Why the police’s apology to Nicky Hager mattersReaders able to remember events of more than a fortnight ago (or, events prior to Fortnite, for that matter) will recall the 2014 election campaign and those never-quite-peak-cray days of Dirty Politics.read more ...7 days ago
- Fare evasion enforcement cranking up a gearAuckland Transport have announced that from next week, enforcement on fare evaders will be cranked up a gear. From 18 June, Transport Officers can issue infringement notices to passengers who fail to tag on with their AT HOP card or ...7 days ago
- Resisting the latest Media beatup: confused messaging yes, but no, Govt is NOT “about to fall over...
“This is an amateur botchup” Simon Bridges, current National Party leader has said, and “shows this is a Government that does not know what it is doing.” Simon Says. Simon rants. Simon saw his opportunity, and went for it. Because ...1 week ago - It’s Time To Stop Subsidising New Zealand’s Least Efficient Employers.
1 week ago - Forget the 1970s, Labour’s Fair Pay Agreements will take New Zealand back to the 1890s!
1 week ago - Auckland’s expensive PT fares
Auckland’s high public transport fares have been highlighted again with the Herald reporting: Auckland has the third most expensive public transport in the world, according to a report by Deutsche Bank. In Auckland you will need to shell out US$122.90, ...1 week ago - This is what happens when you rely on reactionariesLast month, the government indicated that it planned to repeal National's "three strikes" law in the first phase of its justice reforms. Now, their coalition-partners NZ First have said "no":New Zealand First has put the brakes on Labour's plan to ...1 week ago
- Time to deal with this criminal industrySurprise, surprise! It turns out that the fishing industry - a pervasively criminal industry which has been caught time and time again lying about how much fish it is catching - has been resisting proper oversight:Newshub can reveal that in ...1 week ago
- Wireless Docs Season 3 Filmmakers Announced
Wireless Docs enters its third season with the announcement of six new documentary films. Production is currently underway, with the first doc Pig Man to be released in next month. A further request for season four ...1 week ago - Act’s crazy harbour crossing isn’t much worse than what NZTA are planning
ACT’s candidate for the Northcote byelection, Stephen Berry, may not have won but caused quite a bit of discussion with his rather crazy motorway plan that we first discussed a few weeks ago. It would have cut a gigantic swathe ...1 week ago - Sunday reading 10 June 2018
Welcome back to Sunday reading. Sorry it’s been a little on and off lately. Here are the interesting things I’ve collected over the last couple of weeks. Please leave your links in the comments section. There have been a lot ...1 week ago - 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #23
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week. Editor's Pick Artificial Intelligence—A Game Changer for Climate Change and the Environment AI is continually improving climate models. Photo: Los Alamos National Lab ...1 week ago - Judith Collins rips into Labour over housingHousing Spokesperson for the election-winning National Party, Judith Collins, has today ripped into the Labour coalition over its plans to create a new Ministry for Housing and Urban Development. Collins, who appeared unafraid to mix even the most unrelated of ...1 week ago
- Flashback Saturday – Location Affordability in New Zealand cities
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in July 2014. Several weeks ago I attended the annual New Zealand Association of Economists conference in Auckland. Geoff Cooper, Auckland Council’s Chief Economist, had organised ...1 week ago - Hard News: BourdainThe email record shows that I worked pretty keenly to get an interview with Anthony Bourdain in 2005. I had been wholly captured one summer holiday by Kitchen Confidential, then loved A Cook's Tour, the book and the TV series. ...1 week ago
- New research, May 28 – June 3, 2018A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. Climate change Overcoming early career barriers to interdisciplinary climate change research Projected climate over the Greater Horn of Africa under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming (open access) Temperature, precipitation, wind ...1 week ago
- More spying from Thompson and ClarkNew Zealand's most evil private security agency has been at it again - this time abusing their access to the Motor Vehicle Register to spy on protestors:The MVR contains details of every vehicle and its owner. Details can be obtained ...2 weeks ago
- Climate change: Why we need to worry about methane
In its Our Climate Your Say discussion document released yesterday, the government attempted to back away from its previous promises of net-zero emissions by 2050. Instead, they'd like to ignore methane - basicly so they can keep giving farmers, our ...2 weeks ago
Climate change: Why we need to worry about methane
In its Our Climate Your Say discussion document released yesterday, the government attempted to back away from its previous promises of net-zero emissions by 2050. Instead, they'd like to ignore methane - basicly so they can keep giving farmers, our ...
2 weeks ago
Climate change: Why we need to worry about methane
In its Our Climate Your Say discussion document released yesterday, the government attempted to back away from its previous promises of net-zero emissions by 2050. Instead, they'd like to ignore methane - basicly so they can keep giving farmers, our ...
2 weeks ago
Climate change: Why we need to worry about methane
In its Our Climate Your Say discussion document released yesterday, the government attempted to back away from its previous promises of net-zero emissions by 2050. Instead, they'd like to ignore methane - basicly so they can keep giving farmers, our ...
2 weeks ago
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