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- That time Louise Mensch claimed I’m a Russian spy
(This being by far the craziest thing that has happened to me all year. Possibly all decade. As originally reported at Overland.) It started quite innocently, as these social media collisions always do. A friend and I were discussing on ...45 mins ago - Our Regional Public Transport Plan Submission
Today is the final day for submissions on the draft Regional Public Transport Plan (RPTP). You can read our first post on it here. Below is our submission on the RPTP (although there may be some tweaks today before we ...3 hours ago - The Unprepared
For those interested in the totality of New Zealand politics the most extraordinary story of the year may be the finding that our public service was, broadly, unprepared for the change of government.read more ...15 hours ago - Australia finally acts on corruption
After years of dismissing federal corruption as a "fringe issue" and complaining about state-level corruption investigations "persecuting" people, the Australian government is finally going to establish a federal anti-corruption agency:Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a new anti-corruption commission, having ...20 hours ago - Speaker: We shouldn’t have to look back on those moments and think: I was lucky
“It’s not a gender issue.”If you’ve read any online comments since Grace Millane’s horrific murder, you’ve no doubt seen that one.“And don’t meet Tinder dates alone.”“But it’s not a gender issue.”Only, it is.It’s tragic and it’s horrifying and every person ...21 hours ago - Downtown Parking price changes
Parking all day in Auckland Transport’s huge Downtown carpark is about to get a lot more expensive with news they’re raising prices from January 21. From January 21 the capped price for parking at the Auckland Transport-owned car park will ...22 hours ago - The GCSB appear to be breaking the law againWhen Parliament passed the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, one of the aims was ostensibly to give Ministers greater clarity over the spying activities they were being asked to authorise, so they could properly judge the necessity and proportionality of ...22 hours ago
- Hard News: Just quietly, this is a big dealIt's in the nature of politics that this morning's announcement about changes to drug laws is headed 'Crackdown on synthetic drug dealers'. The billing is not inaccurate: it's no secret that that the government has been seeking to the two ...24 hours ago
- Climate Change: Ignoring the cow in the roomEarlier in the year the government ran a consultation on improvements to the Emissions Trading Scheme, aimed at making it actually work. Yesterday, they announced their decisions. Most importantly, the total number of units available to the ETS will be ...24 hours ago
- Small is e-Beautiful
The electric revolution on our city streets, already underway, looks much more like a scooter than a Tesla. Why? Physics. And geometry: Size really matters for both energy consumption and spatial efficiency. And both drive affordability and therefore the speed ...1 day ago - On the passing of internet time.
Some years ago, New Zealand poet and scholar Michele Leggott was able to date a series of poems by Robin Hyde after noticing that one of the pages of the manuscript bore faint traces of another piece of writing. It ...2 days ago - A win for democracyFor the past few elections, local authorities have been obsessed with online voting as a way to cut costs. They were planning a trial at next year's local body elections. But now its been cancelled:The proposed trial of online voting ...2 days ago
- WINZ undermines KiwiSaverThe idea of KiwiSaver was to encourage new Zealanders to save for their retirement. But WINZ is undermining the scheme by demanding that people use their retirement savings rather than giving them benefits:The number of people looking to dip into ...2 days ago
- Member’s DayToday is the last Member's Day of the year, but it looks like it will be taken up with local business. First off, the government is ramming through its Muldoonist Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill, designed to ...2 days ago
- Normalising The Unthinkable.
2 days ago - Climate Change: Forfeiting the profits of fraudSince 2008, the New Zealand government has pursued a climate change policy based on fraud, using dodgy or outright fraudulent Russian and Ukranian "credits" to "offset" our ever increasing domestic emissions. And we've banked the "surplus" from that fraud, and ...2 days ago
- A Polish Joke – At The Planet’s Expense.
2 days ago - Dances With Elephants.
2 days ago - South Island Kaka thank DOC for its Efforts
See the stoat creating havoc in the Kaka’s nest in this video. Then look at the impact on nesting numbers after the aerial 1080 drop was completed – 30 times more nests! This is what the battle to save and ...2 days ago - Speaker: Cannabis: make it legal but don’t let anyone make money from itI don’t want big business marketing marijuana to my kids. This is what will happen in Canada with the recent purchase of a market-leading marijuana business by a major tobacco company. In Aotearoa, right now, we have a chance to do something different.I’m ...2 days ago
- Dec-18 AT Board Meeting
Yesterday Auckland Transport held their last board meeting for the year and it was an important one with some key decisions being made. The big one, was that the board have approved for consultation their draft speed bylaw. This is ...2 days ago - Hard News: Public Address Word of the Year 2018The years keep getting weirder, but one thing doesn't change: the Public Address Word of the Year is annually chosen by the people of the internet as the strange light fades into Christmas. Will this year's people's choice be a ...2 days ago
- At last – A fundamental shift in social policy
The child wellbeing strategy represents the most significant shift in social policy in over four decades because of its focus on children as a population group and its emphasis on addressing structural issues in promoting economic and social wellbeing. This ...2 days ago - Like health care, climate policy could tip elections
In the November 2018 midterm elections, Democrats won the U.S. House of Representatives popular vote by a margin of about 8.6 percent and gained 40 seats in that chamber. For perspective, President Obama won his convincing 2008 and 2012 elections by 7.2 ...3 days ago - Colombia: the real and bloody legacy of Belisario Betancur
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Belisario Betancur, the ex-president of Colombia (1982-1986) died in his bed on the 7th of December, 2018. He corpse hadn’t even time to go cold before he received and avalanche of eulogies from politician, ns and ...3 days ago - Colombia: the real and bloody legacy of Belisario Betancurby Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Belisario Betancur, the ex-president of Colombia (1982-1986) died in his bed on the 7th of December, 2018. He corpse hadn’t even time to go cold before he received and avalanche of eulogies from politician, ns and ...3 days ago
- If this is “terrorism”, we should all be terroristsYesterday, December 10, was human rights day. And the UK celebrated it by convicting 15 human rights protesters of "terrorism":In a prosecution that has been condemned by human rights groups, Alistair Tamlit and Benjamin Smoke and the other members of ...3 days ago
- Great streets for Grey Lynn: a beauty of a reboot!
This is a cross post from our friends over at Bike Auckland. Feedback is now open on the revamped designs for Grey Lynn, which include not only neighbourhood bikeways, but great stuff for pedestrians, more trees, and quality landscaping. Here’s Auckland ...3 days ago - Legal Beagle: Name suppression appealsI recently published a tweet thread, which I thought I might copy and past here, for anyone interested.=============I have long thought that the 20 working days allowed to appeal a refusal to make a suppression order is too long, when ...3 days ago
- AccountabilityOver the past months we've learned of a crisis in NZTA's oversight of vehicle warrants of fitness, with garages allowed to issue thousands of dodgy warrants to unsafe vehicles and the work of truck inspectors not checked. People have died ...3 days ago
- A convenient failureHow many children in state care have mental health issues or have attempted suicide? Conveniently, CYFS doesn't know:A psychiatrist says it's a "failing of the system" that Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, does not know how many children in ...3 days ago
- Protest worksFor the past month France has been brought to a standstill, as members of the yellow vest movement have protested against inequality, the cost of living, and president Emmanuel Macron. And today, a week after serious riots in Paris, Macron ...3 days ago
- AT’s Consultation Crunch
Consultation is an important part of the process for public agencies but getting it right is easier said than done. Sometimes the issues with consultation stem from what is included, sometimes from how the results are interpreted – only those ...3 days ago - Australia – Moving to Renewable Energy
Solar and Wind Australia’s six States and two Territories have always had primary responsibility for implementing policies on the transition away from fossil fuels to renewables as an energy source. As a result, there has been a significant increase in the ...3 days ago - Public Television
Around the turn of the century, I had the privilege and pleasure of serving on the board of Television New Zealand for a period of about ten years. I enjoyed the experience enormously and welcomed the chance to make my ...4 days ago - Public TelevisionAround the turn of the century, I had the privilege and pleasure of serving on the board of Television New Zealand for a period of about ten years. I enjoyed the experience enormously and welcomed the chance to make my ...4 days ago
- Climate Change: Punching above our weightNew Zealanders are usually proud when New Zealand ranks highly at something when measured per capita. But one measurement of that nature which we shouldn't be proud of: we're one of the worst countries in the world for per-capita greenhouse ...4 days ago
- Hard News: Music: A Teutonic TonicOne of the many challenges posed by Christmas is Christmas music. Christmas carols are all very well, but spending the day actually listening to carols? That way lies madness, or at least an unseasonable degree of suffering. In our house, ...4 days ago
- The First CRL Breakthrough
4 days ago - Climate Change: Fingers in their earsBack in October the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we have to limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, and that we had only 12 years left to do so. The stark description of ...4 days ago
- The British establishment’s propaganda problemFrom 1948 to 1978, the UK Foreign Office ran a secret domestic propaganda operation, the Information Research Department, which targeted UK trade unions and left politics under the guide of "countering communism". Forty years after that operation was shut down, ...4 days ago
- Hard News: A complicated pathway to wellnessHe Ara Oranga: Report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction was published last week and while it offers a substantial list of recommendations for the way such services should be conceived and delivered, I found what it ...4 days ago
- A victory for transparencyThis morning the government announced that it will be proactively releasing ministerial diaries from January next year:Government ministers are trying to shake the image of shady politicians holding secret meetings by opening up their diaries. The State Services Minister will ...4 days ago
- Letters of Low Expectations – tomorrow’s work at Auckland Council
It seems that almost every day we learn more about the urgent need for radical action to avert catastrophic climate change. Not only are the disastrous consequences becoming clearer, but after years of relatively stable emissions, they are actually increasing ...4 days ago - What we do
With the horrible, tragic case of Grace Millane in the news, we’ve been talking a lot about what women do – and what we shouldn’t have to – to be safe in our country. So I wrote on Twitter: My ...4 days ago - 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sunday, Dec 2 through Saturday, Dec. 8 Editor's Pick Can 2018’s extreme weather persuade skeptics that the climate is changing? A ...5 days ago - Raining On The White Tribe’s Parade
6 days ago - RIP Pete Shelley
...7 days ago - New research, November 26 – December 2, 2018A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. Climate change mitigation Emission scenario analysis for China under the global 1.5 °C target Climate change communication Attribution matters: Revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change ...7 days ago
- General Motors layoffs and how capitalism works todayThe increasingly parasitical nature of capitalism today is reflected today in a number of ways. One is the artificial nature of share ‘values’ and how workers’ jobs, pay and conitions are affected by this. Below is a piece dealing ...7 days ago
- General Motors layoffs and how capitalism works todayThe increasingly parasitical nature of capitalism today is reflected today in a number of ways. One is the artificial nature of share ‘values’ and how workers’ jobs, pay and conitions are affected by this. Below is a piece dealing ...7 days ago
- News from the COP24 Climate Change conference in PolandNZ slammed by Climate Action TrackerCANA’s Cindy Baxter, reporting from the COP24 conference, says that Climate Action Tracker has rated NZ’s current policies to be “highly insufficient” and our 2030 target “insufficient”, and we are also being criticised for ...7 days ago
- Same old same oldA couple of years ago, in response to a report showing pervasive criminality within the fishing industry, the Ministry of Primary Industries finally started talking about doing something about it, via remotely-monitored cameras on fishing boats. After much foot-dragging that ...7 days ago
- A Tom Scott cartoon on Saudi Arabia…
A Tom Scott cartoon… . . The only thing is… It’s not commenting on the murder of Washington Post journalist, Jamal Kashoggi… It’s post September 11, and was drawn 2001/02. Some things never seem to change. . Published on The ...1 week ago - AT not ambitious enough with electric buses
If Auckland Transport’s Low Emission Bus Roadmap is adopted by its board next week, all new buses in Auckland from 2025 onward and all buses by 2040 will need to have zero emissions. They also are targeting to have the City ...1 week ago - Twitter: reinstate Meghan Murphy
Sign the change.org petition to re-instate Meghan Murphy Meghan Murphy Meghan Murphy is one of Canada’s pre-eminent feminist journalists and the editor and publisher of “Feminist Current”. Feminist Current’s reach is international. For a decade Murphy has dedicated ...1 week ago - Twitter: reinstate Meghan MurphySign the change.org petition to re-instate Meghan Murphy Meghan Murphy Meghan Murphy is one of Canada’s pre-eminent feminist journalists and the editor and publisher of “Feminist Current”. Feminist Current’s reach is international. For a decade Murphy has dedicated ...1 week ago
- Australia: racism beats “national security”Today the Australian house of representatives is debating the government's super-important encryption backdoor legislation, which would require services like Signal to put a government backdoor in their software. Meanwhile, the Senate is debating an amendment which would require the government ...1 week ago
- PassedLast night Parliament passed the Employment Relations Amendment Act. The Act is disappointing, in that it only eliminates 90 day trials for large employers and restricts union access to workplaces. At the best, it returns the law to where it ...1 week ago
- Protecting the umpireWednesday’s flare-up in Parliament, which saw the Speaker ordering both National’s leader and Leader of the House out of the chamber while most of their party colleagues (read more ...1 week ago
- Climate Change: A threat to our securityIf we don't stop it, climate change threatens to cause famine, migration, war, and death. and now NZDF has recognised the obvious: that all of this is a threat to New Zealand's security:Climate change has been identified as one of ...1 week ago
- A history of the light rail project
There have been some slightly strange conspiracy theories floating around recently about how the City Centre to Mangere light rail project came into existence. I looked at the history recently but thought it would be worthwhile taking a more detailed ...1 week ago - Trump’s disbelief won’t stop dangerous climate change“I don’t believe it,” said Donald Trump when asked about the fourth national climate assessment, authored by 13 government agencies and hundreds of the US’s top climate scientists. His administration had tried to hide the report, publishing it on Black Friday ...1 week ago
- Media statement: Child poverty bill doesn’t address cause: InequalityFor immediate release Monday 3rd Dec 2018 CHILD POVERTY BILL DOESN’T ADDRESS CAUSE: INEQUALITY As Parliament prepares to pass the Child Poverty Reduction Bill this coming week, the income equality group Closing the Gap again urges MPs to tackle the ...1 week ago
- Tacitly encouraging local conspiracy theories.
I do not mean to bang on about the Anne Marie Brady case but since it is coming up on one year since the campaign of criminal harassment began against her, I feel compelled to mention how the Labour-led government’s ...1 week ago - Climate Change: Helping the marketThe government today announced a $100 million green investment fund to help new Zealand transition to a green economy: The Government has bankrolled a $100 million green investment fund which aims to invest with businesses to reduce emissions while also ...1 week ago
- NZ should sign the UN Global Compact on MigrationOne of the foundations of New Zealand foreign policy has been support for international institutions and international law. Now, the National Party is opposing that foundation over the UN Global Compact on Migration, saying that "it's not for the UN ...1 week ago
- The causes and economic consequences of rising regional housing prices (part 1)
This is a post from Peter Nunns I stepped down from Greater Auckland at the start of the year as my schedule was about to get a lot busier. First, I was going to have a baby in August. This has ...1 week ago - Après moi, le délugeConsequences of National's austerity, part 287: the public service forgot how to deal with (and was not funded for) a change of government:Public servants responsible for the transition between governments failed to support new ministers as no-one had planned for ...1 week ago
- Legal advice and freedom of informationThe UK government was found to have committed contempt of parliament today, and will be publishing its full Brexit legal advice as a result (and as a desperate attempt to keep government ministers out of the clock tower). Meanwhile, human ...1 week ago
- HealthCarePlus Newsletter Summer 2018
HealthCarePlus Spring 2018 Newsletter ...1 week ago - Making Charitable Gifts and Paying TaxesThe Christmas festive session is traditionally the time for charitable giving, when many of us recognise the need to ensure that the hungry can enjoy a Christmas dinner and that Father Christmas can bring presents on Christmas morning for kiddies ...1 week ago
- Making Charitable Gifts and Paying TaxesThe Christmas festive session is traditionally the time for charitable giving, when many of us recognise the need to ensure that the hungry can enjoy a Christmas dinner and that Father Christmas can bring presents on Christmas morning for kiddies ...1 week ago
- Kids in the City: Access
This three-part series of guest posts is written by Alex Bonham, a member of Women in Urbanism, who has worked as a Porse carer and is now researching “the playful city” for her doctorate. In this series of three posts ...1 week ago - Gavin Hawthorn: send him to (drug) court, but not to prison1 week ago
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