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- New Zealand celebrates separation of child from mother
One country’s humanitarian tragedy is another country’s happy miracle. An historic day, said the media. A happy day, said Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters. Fine day across the South, said Metservice. Though Peters later clarified he wasn’t talking about the ...5 hours ago - Hundreds of journalists rushed to hospital following major incident
Journalists are being treated with snacks, WiFi, and reachable power outlets. Several hundred journalists are in Auckland Hospital today following a major incident in the city. The journalists were admitted to the hospital early this morning, wearing tags and barcodes ...9 hours ago - The EU needs to stand up against its racists
The European Union is founded on values of "respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities". Those values are under threat from several of ...9 hours ago - Hard News: They want to blow it all up
In recent weeks, it has been more difficult than ever to assess and comprehend all the stupid, awful deeds and words of President Donald Trump. The tantrum and chaos of the G7 meeting bleeds into his preposterous accounts of the ...10 hours ago - State of the Union: The ‘when a child is born’ version
As Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters stand poised to fulfill very different dreams, neither of them will be terribly happy with where the government stands on the brink of this wee bit of history.read more ...11 hours ago - A childish tantrumThat's the only way to describe events in Parliament last night. Faced with the opposition filibustering two time-sensitive bills, the government moved urgency, then attempted to amend the instruction to the committee to prevent any debate on what was being ...12 hours ago
- New Zealand’s Very Own Pinkertons.
12 hours ago - Hard News: I Am: An authentic autism family experienceWatching this week's episode of TVNZ's new I Am strand, I Am Living With Aspergers, the story of David RS Greer and his family, pushed a lot of buttons for me.To be clear, neither of our ASD sons has ever ...13 hours ago
- Is the middle class squeezed or spoilt?
If your household brings in $100,000 and you still struggle to make ends meet, is it your own fault or an indictment on today’s cost of living? Bonnie Sumner investigates The average New Zealand income is $100,000 but ...13 hours ago - Can Auckland lead the world?
Last week I took a look at how public transport ridership in Auckland might grow over the next decade, if it continues current strong growth rates and lines up with the transport modelling predictions in ATAP. On a per ...17 hours ago - The United States has gone rogue!
Under President Donald Trump (and his growing swamp of a government) the United States of America has now become a fully identifiable "rogue nation" that ignores basic human rights and international agreements.While the US constitution provides protections for civil and ...1 day ago - David Seymour asks why the government needs to provide holidays when you can already buy them online
Seymour suggested employees could choose to take all of their annual holidays on the same day, which could even have the added bonus of helping them not lose their job. ACT Party leader and star of recent Three mockumentary series ...1 day ago - As nation waits for baby, medical experts say it might just stay in there forever
Doctors say if the baby hasn’t arrived at the end of the week, it probably won’t. Three days have passed since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was due to give birth to the greatest baby known to have ever been born ...1 day ago - Well done Canada. NZ? High time to move out of the Dark Ages for once…
Canada just sent a strong signal on recreational cannabis use. And in the UK, even the some of the most hard Conservative voices, yes, even those of Theresa May’s own Cabinet are urging serious reform, insofar as medical use ...1 day ago - NZ must speak out for its valuesAt the moment, the USA is separating children from their parents and putting them in concentration camps. This is utterly abhorrent to most New Zealanders. So what is our government saying about it? Nothing: Winston Peters is coming under pressure ...1 day ago
- Sanity in CanadaCanada has taken a major step towards ending America's insane "war on drugs", by legalising recreational cannabis use:Recreational cannabis use in Canada is to become legal after the Senate approved the legislation. The measure is expected to come into effect ...1 day ago
- A return to the banality of evil.
When Hannah Arendt wrote about the “banality of evil” in Nazi Germany, she was referring not to the leaders but to the thousands of bureaucrats, soldiers, civil servants, cops, tax collectors and everyday citizens who went along with the Nazi ...1 day ago - Can Auckland just ‘do a Christchurch’ to solve the Housing Crisis?
Fresh from saying there is no crisis in Auckland housing now Steven Joyce is saying it’s just like post-earthquke Christchurch: “In Christchurch you had a shock in the market. There’s a real shortage of housing, a real shortage of land, ...1 day ago - HealthCarePlus Newsletter Winter 2018
HealthCarePlus is a not-for-profit incorporated society that assists participating union members and their families access to competitive health cover. Read the latest HealthCarePlus newsletter here. ...1 day ago - One way of fixing itThe USA - which is currently kidnapping the children of refugees and sticking them in concentration camps - has consistently complained that the UN Human Rights Council is not fit for purpose. For a start, it criticises Israeli human rights ...2 days ago
- Mycoplasma bovis, foot and mouth, National Party, and other nasty germs
. . Intro The Mycoplasma bovis crisis confronting New Zealand is a story that will be dissected and commented on for decades to come. This was not simply a matter of a bacteria infecting cattle. This was a story ...2 days ago - Midweek Reading 20 June 2018
There were a couple of news articles that caught my attention over the weekend. Public Transport in Christchurch The Press ran a great piece on Saturday about the trade-off between driving and public transport. Commuting by bus could save Christchurch ...2 days ago - Are NZ’s “breaking news” cycles showing disturbing, partisan tendencies at present, and far le...
Are certain Media outlets almost bitter that National lost the election? For some observers, based on the screaming headlines coming out, it really does come across that way… But there’s also a deeper strain of stilted and constrained debate, commentary ...2 days ago - Cosy corruptionSince Thompson and Clark have been in the news over their undemocratic and bullying behaviour around Southern Response, people have been looking hard at what parts of government they've been doing business with and what exactly they're doing. And the ...2 days ago
- Who will help the helplines?
While Youthline and Lifeline struggle to stay afloat, leaving calls for help unanswered, the government is funding a brand new helpline. Illustration: Lee Smith-Gibbons / The Wireless A teenage girl sends a text to 234. She's suicidal. The ...2 days ago - Guest Post: Co-Housing Part One
This is a guest post by Biddy Livesey who is a housing policy analyst, researcher, and future resident of Cohaus. Part One: Introduction to collective housing development: Cohousing Our cities are changing. The cost of land is increasing, the way we ...2 days ago - Time for the government to pay upYesterday, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation voted to take strike action. While they'd been offered a half billion dollar pay package by DHBs, this was mostly focused on divide and rule and raising salaries for those already at the top ...2 days ago
- Can The Nurses Win On Their Own?
3 days ago - Let’s do thisWestpac has been modelling the effects of the government's proposed capital gains tax, and concluded that it would be effective in lowering house prices:House prices would fall, rents would rise but home ownership would improve if a capital gains or ...3 days ago
- If you take care of your character, your reputation will take care of itselfWhen lawyers read news like Sir Bob Jones threatening defamation proceedings because a tweet called him a racist we feel a strange mix of emotions. read more ...3 days ago
- Cycling is on the rise
Every year Auckland Transport have an independent company survey Aucklanders about walking and cycling. They’ve just released the 2018 numbers and they’re fantastic. In total 1,459 took part in this year’s survey and are said to be representative of the Auckland ...3 days ago - A choice of master
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 ...3 days ago - 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 ...3 days 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 ...3 days ago- Not achievedBack 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 ...3 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 days ago - Burger King workers’ strike, June 15The strike at Burger King in Queen Street, Auckland, Friday, June 15: ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 days ago - If Labour Wants Fewer Prisoners, Then It Needs To Create More Prison Space – Not Less.
6 days ago - The Symptom … And The Cure?
6 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 ...6 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 ...6 days ago - Enabling Us to Assess Government Performance BetterDespite 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...6 days ago
- Hard News: Friday Music: Radio With Pictures – communiques from the outside worldIn 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...7 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 ...7 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 ...7 days ago - Greens in mortal danger1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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, ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week ago
- What’s Wrong With The Progressive Movement’s Bloody Ships?
1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...
1 week 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 ...
1 week 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 ...
1 week ago
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