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- New research, February 11-17, 2019
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. Climate change Temperature, precipitation, wind Change Point Analysis of Global Temperature Records Improved decadal prediction of Northern-Hemisphere summer land temperature Impact of Atmospheric Heat and Moisture Transport on the ...9 hours ago - Another MP quits Labour …
Ian Austin, defending a wafer thin majority of 22 (twenty two) has decided to effectively end his parliamentary career by resigning the Labour whip, and sitting as an independent MP.He cited a "culture of extremism, antisemitism and intolerance" as his ...10 hours ago - Flashback Saturday: Large Intersections
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in June 2015. Last week, I took a high-level look at the opportunity cost associated with Auckland’s car-centric transport system. Simply put, cars use up lots ...11 hours ago - Tax Working Group recommends The Big Short
The Big Short is a 2015 movie that experimented with telling audiences what was going on instead of putting it on screen. In a bizarre move apparently outside their mandate, the Tax Working Group tasked with recommending important tax reforms ...24 hours ago - Legacy investments versus speculative investments.
Among the arguments about instituting a capital gains tax in NZ (common in many parts of the developed world) is the claim that much property is family residence or inheritance in nature. The argument goes that it is unfair to ...1 day ago - RELIEF: New Zealand businesses won’t have to pay capital gains on these family homes
The Government has moved swiftly to reassure kiwis they won’t have to pay capital gains on family homes like these. Businesses across New Zealand are welcoming the recommendations of the Government’s Tax Working Group this evening, saying they’re pleased that ...1 day ago - The Sizzle and the Sausage
In the course of a discussion of a related matter a retired public servant commented to me:read more ...1 day ago - Remove the FBT from public transport
Yesterday the government’s Tax Working Group released their final report of recommendations for changing our tax system. While the media have fixated on the prospect of Capital Gains Tax, a quick skim through the report threw up something quite relevant to ...2 days ago - Capital Gains Tax – now it’s a numbers gameAnd so now, as was always inevitable, it comes down to political courage. Has Jacinda Ardern and her coaltion got the will and the numbers to introduce a proper capital gains tax?read more ...2 days ago
- For a capital gains tax
The Tax Working Group has reported back, and (as expected) recommended taxing capital income. And they make the point that this is fundamentally about fairness:The Tax Working Group has confirmed its support for a broad-based tax on capital gains, suggesting ...2 days ago - Their own faultAnother day, another employer whining about "worker shortages". This time, its Wellington's public transport operators, NZ Bus and Transdev:Six Wellington train services have been scrapped indefinitely, while bus commuters can expect cancellations for at least the next six months as ...2 days ago
- Complaint causes discomfort for engineers
This is a guest post from Bevan Woodward Recently I lodged a complaint with Engineering NZ relating to the common practice of road engineers who trade-off the safety of pedestrians to avoid minor inconvenience for motorists. I believe that such practice contravenes ...3 days ago - A vested interestWhy are National squealing so loudly about a capital gains tax? Look at how many houses they own, says Newsroom. Their article details the blatant conflict of interest of most National MPs, who are loaded with hoarded houses and business ...3 days ago
- More dirty dairyingAnother Waikato farmer has been convicted of dirty dairying: Nagra Farms Limited and director Naginder Singh received five convictions each from Judge Melanie Harland in the Hamilton District Court on Monday. The Waikato farming company that supplied Fonterra has been ...3 days ago
- Climate change: Local governments in denialThames is on the front line of climate change. The town already suffers from coastal flooding, and in the event of even modest sea-level rise, half of it will be underwater every spring. And just this week they were in ...3 days ago
- What Role Should Celebrities Play in Our Lives?
We live, like it or not, in the age of the celebrity. High achievers in entertainment or sport have always commanded attention and headlines, but the reach, in today’s society, of film and television, and particularly of the social media, ...4 days ago - Malaysian Regional Rapid Rail
This is a Guest Post by Nick R. The Malaysian rail network is remarkably similar to New Zealand’s. So similar in fact they actually run some old New Zealand Rail carriages on a tourist train the length of the country. ...4 days ago - A Green New Deal for Aotearoa
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has caused much angst amongst many conservative republicans in the US by promoting a Green New Deal (GND). The deal is attractive to progressives and those on the left because it is a package or political manifesto that ...4 days ago - They can’t take it with them when they goSimon Bridges, leader of the party of the rich, is spreading the usual scare stories about how taxing capital income will see people leaving New Zealand. Its supposed to suggest that the tax will be ineffective, that people will leave ...4 days ago
- Hard News: Always asking the wrong questions about cannabis
"How many shops will there be? How many shops will there be? How many shops will there be? How many shops will there be? How many shops will there be?" Duncan Garner demanded of Chloe Swarbrick MP towards the end ...4 days ago - “More ambitious”?Newsroom reports on the OGP IRM report into our last Open Government Partnership Action Plan. They highlight the IRM' assessment of progress as "marginal" and their criticism that the "commitments" were chosen so they "would get completed in that time ...4 days ago
- Just Like “Rogernomics”, A Capital Gains Tax Would Traumatize The New Zealand Economy.
4 days ago - Jan-18 Ridership
Just over a week after we saw the results for December. Now the high level ridership numbers for January are out and they are looking good. January is typically the quietest month of the year thanks to a number of ...5 days ago - A day at Waitangi, and at the beach
The Prime Minister says she hopes every New Zealander, at least once in their lifetimes, gets a chance to go to Waitangi for Waitangi Day. Firstly, because it’s a special place to be, and secondly so they can see how ...5 days ago - UnlawfulThat's the view of a UK House of Lords committee on the country's arms sales to Saudi Arabia:The UK is on “the wrong side of the law” by sanctioning arms exports to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and ...5 days ago
- The media frenzy about the NZ-PRC relationship got me to thinking, but as I got to thinking I found myself meandering off of my original train of thought. You see, at first I was pondering the one-sided, hectoring nature of ...5 days ago
- Martina Navratilova comes out for fairness in sports
In an article in The Times, 17 February 2019, Martina comes out strongly for fairness in sports. The current rules on trans athletes reward cheats and punish the innocent Letting men compete as women simply if they change ...5 days ago - Climate change: The threat of methaneMore climate change bad news: methane may fry us:Dramatic rises in atmospheric methane are threatening to derail plans to hold global temperature rises to 2C, scientists have warned. In a paper published this month by the American Geophysical Union, researchers ...5 days ago
- The 1080 referendum questionThe Clerk of the House has determined the final form of the question for the proposed citizen's inititated referendum on 1080:Should New Zealand stop using all cruel and inhumane poisons, such as 1080, brodifacoum, and PAPP, to kill wildlife, because ...5 days ago
- A transit oriented development at Smales Farm?
The Northern Busway has been one of Auckland’s most successful transport investments. In the 11 years since it opened it has become the best and most used public transport corridor in probably all of the country. AT peak times in ...6 days ago - 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #7
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... 16-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Cheers 'Beginning of ...6 days ago - The Chinese “Message”.The indications that China is displeased with New Zealand cannot be mistaken. China is a country where nothing of this kind happens by accident; the government’s reach into every aspect of Chinese life is virtually unlimited. Nothing happens without the ...6 days ago
- Political Sadism, Or Moral Inertia? Explaining David Clark.
7 days ago - 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 10 through Sat, Feb 16, 2019 Editor's Pick What we can learn about climate change from the Titanic Kate ...7 days ago - A new ‘centrist’ party?It's a day ending in 'Y' so that means there must be some new feverish speculation about the British Labour Party splitting.Today it comes courtesy of The Guardian, a paper with a proud record of taking any possible negative story ...1 week ago
- Flashback Saturday: The Victoria St Linear Park: Why it is vital, but not really a park.
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Patrick was originally published in October 2016. This is one of a series of posts I intend to do about about the city streetscape we ought to be able to expect as a ...1 week ago - Nikki Kaye – playing politics with children’s health
. . It is a given that most politicians will do whatever it takes to win voters to get elected. It’s pretty much why their reputation is often at the same level as telemarketers and sex-workers (which, fair to say, ...1 week ago - “How many are coming from your job?”: notes on the Wellington Trades Council
by Don Franks The Vietnam war continued. Muldoon was yet to dominate New Zealand’s parliament, there was no internet and the Waitangi Tribunal did not exist. ...1 week ago - Process Heat In New Zealand: CANA Submission Guide
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Agency (EECA) and MBIE are calling for submissions on their paper Process Heat in New Zealand: Opportunities and barriers to lowering emissions. We’d love you to make a submission, because 60% of process heat in ...1 week ago - Why is Labour subsidising bad employers?The government has declared a seasonal labour shortage for Hawke's Bay, effectively subsidising employers with cheap migrant labour. But why do they have a labour shortage? Perhaps those same employers' attitude to wages have something to do with it...Fruit may ...1 week ago
- Fair pay will not destroy the economy
One would think the proposal to advance fair pay via industry standards will mean the end of the world when reading some commentators. The angst from many employers is predictable when the normal state of employment affairs for the last ...1 week ago - Spare a thought for Anne-Marie.Put yourself in the following position: You are a professor at a NZ university, a NZ citizen who although well-known in your academic sub-field is virtually unknown outside of academia. Your research interests focus on the foreign policy of an ...1 week ago
- New research, February 4-10, 2019A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. Climate change mitigation Upscaling from the grassroots: potential aggregate carbon reduction from community-based initiatives in Europe Climate change communication An assessment of public perceptions of climate change risk in ...1 week ago
- Not one hectare more!Yesterday the government announced that it was ending the farmer's rort of high country tenure review, under which over 350,000 hectares of public land has been corruptly privatised for next to nothing (and then frequently flicked on for 500 times ...1 week ago
- Mixed Messages.
Incoming Calls: While she’s contemplating the ever-widening ramifications of the United States’ and the United Kingdom’s increasingly reckless endangerment of so many of this country’s longstanding diplomatic, military and trade relationships, she might also consider asking herself how New Zealand’s ...1 week ago - Commentary Is Free – But Facts Are Sacred.
1 week ago - Mad dogsLast night the police were asked to help a mentally ill person in Hawke's Bay. They were meant to help him. Instead, they killed him: A man - who police had been trying to locate because of fears for his ...1 week ago
- Wheelly good growth on the cycleways
February is bike month and often the busiest month time of the year for people riding bikes. As such it’s a good time to look at the numbers to see how we’re progressing. Are the bike lanes empty, like Mike ...1 week ago - Meditating on Nelson and Population GrowthIn terms of ambience and style, Nelson City reminds me of the New Zealand I grew up in half a century and more ago. I do not mean that it is not a modern city. The shops reflect today’s customers ...1 week ago
- The law means nothingDisposing of public records without authorisation is a crime. Destroying them to prevent their release under the OIA is an aggravating factor in that crime. But when push comes to shove, it seems that the Chief Archivist isn't actually interested ...1 week ago
- Trump thinks winter weather invalidates climate change…
The post Trump thinks winter weather invalidates climate change… appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa. ...1 week ago - “The most transparent government ever” – again1 week ago
- The end of tenure review?High country tenure review is organised corruption, which has seen the privatisation of huge swathes of our country. Hundreds of millions of dollars of public land has been effectively given to farmers for free, and then flicked on for enormous ...1 week ago
- China flexing it’s economic muscle again?. . Reported in the NZ Herald today (10 February 2019), this curious incident; . . The story continued; Shortly after 11.30am this morning, Hundman was sent a txt from Air NZ saying “As you were advised onboard, the aircraft ...1 week ago
- Victoria’s Secret
Victoria’s traffic fatalities dropped by 17.8% last year, to 213. This means their traffic authority, VicRoads, is on track for meeting its interim Vision Zero target of fewer than 200 lives lost in 2020. Each one of the lives lost ...1 week ago - Politically expedient “moderation!” has simply allowed far bigger storms to gather power
As we look around the world, we see movements for change (and often the individuals that spur them by extension) that are often called out as wanting to go “too fast, too soon!”. We’re at the point however where that ...1 week ago - Climate Damages: Uncertain but Ominous, or $51 per Ton?This is a re-post from Triple Crisis by Frank Ackerman. Second in a series of posts on climate policy. Find Part 1 here. According to scientists, climate damages are deeply uncertain, but could be ominously large (see the previous post). Alternatively, according to ...1 week ago
- It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my fi...On Wednesday something happened in Parliament that was on its face a clever but petty political move designed to capture headlines, yet at a deeper level ought to concern anybody interested in how New Zealand governs itself. Forgive me while ...1 week ago
- New Fisk1 week ago
- More censorship with Speak Up For Women’s posters taken downOn February 11 the campaign group Speak Up for Women received notification from Phantom Billstickers that their poster campaign calling for public consultation on the controversial Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill would be removed from over 60 sites ...1 week ago
- Bold proposal puts people at the heart of vocational education
Staff can turn their attention to opening doors for students and communities with creative teaching, learning, and research under bold changes proposed today for vocational education says the Tertiary Education Union. ...1 week ago - A good questionThe government is currently waiting to formally consider and release the advice from its Tax Working Group, which is widely expected to recommend a capital gains tax. But Green co-leader James Shaw has pre-empted it by asking whether they deserve ...1 week ago
- VET reform – our voice mattersTogether we have made sure that students, iwi, communities, and staff are at the heart of bold changes proposed for the vocational education sector. And we need to keep working together to ensure life-long learning is accessible to New Zealanders ...1 week ago
- Basic humanity in Australia?Australia's anti-refugee policy is based on cruelty. According to the Australian government, refugees claiming their rights under international law are a "threat", which can only be deterred by imprisoning them without trial forever in concentration camps, neglecting them, allowing them ...1 week ago
- Is Israel Democratic?An interesting thing happened after I wrote last week’s first blog post about Venezuela ( http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2019/02/on-the-venezuelan-mess/). A gentleman from the Israel Institute of New Zealand wrote me at my business email address to request a correction or retraction for something ...1 week ago
- A Duplicitous Minister?
In a ‘Breakfast’ interview with Fran Kelly on ABC Radio National, the Minister for Energy, Angus Taylor, made a number of statements which are either wrong or misleading. A record of the interview is available here. 1. The Minister claims that a ...2 weeks ago - Queens Wharf to be closed to the public again
“Today, Queens Wharf becomes the public’s wharf,” said then Auckland Regional Council (ARC) Chairman Mike Lee in 2010 when the red gates were flung open, once again allowing the public to access the prime piece of Auckland’s waterfront, ending its ...2 weeks ago - Democracy on trialTwelve Catalan political leaders went on trial in Madrid today. Their crime? Advocating peacefully for an independent Catalonia and organising a referendum on the issue. The Spanish government calls this "sedition" and "rebellion". But what it really is is democracy. ...2 weeks ago
- Open Government: MarginalThat's the verdict of the Open Government Partnership's Independent Reporting Mechanism on New Zealand's OGP progress for the last two years:Although this report reflects high commitment completion, change in government practice stood as marginal overall. Notably, the government’s early efforts ...2 weeks ago
- Intimations of MortalityThe last week has been a momentous one for my wife and me. I had a birthday at the beginning of the week; my reaction to turning 80 is one of restrained enthusiasm – it is at least better than ...2 weeks ago
- Climate change: Our future is burningLike many, I've spent the last week watching the Nelson fire in horrified fascination as the Australian-style spectacle of a huge long-lasting fire threatening an urban area played out. But while it looks like we were lucky this time, the ...2 weeks ago
- Good riddanceMurray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe is finally over: The controversial Saudi sheep deal been shut down, which the Government says will save about $1 million. [...] But Trade Minister David Parker said the deal has now been axed. "We're ...2 weeks ago
- Feb-19 AT Board Meeting
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for their first formal meeting of the year. Here are some of the highlights from the papers going to the board. Closed Session The closed session is usually where most of the interesting items ...2 weeks ago - Newshub poll: If this is the winter of Bridge’s discontent, he can’t be too discontented...2 weeks ago
- Harrowing Statistics: The Left’s Supposed To Shrink The Social Hell Of Joblessness – Not Expand ...
2 weeks ago
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