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- Welcome, Little Neve Te Aroha!
Britain’s post-war Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, was reputedly “a modest little man” who, as Churchill’s famous jibe had it, “had a great deal to be modest about.” But, as the years have passed, his reputation has grown, and ...2 hours ago - The Living WageAn American friend once shared with me the answer she had given to her family back home who wanted to know why she had decided to settle in New Zealand. “Because,” she had said, “in New Zealand, there is enough ...4 hours ago
- One Basket Or Two? Jeanette Fitzsimons Considers How To Treat Methane In The Zero Carbon Bill
The Government has started consultation on the Zero Carbon Bill and is seeking input on issues such as the targets, the role of the Commission, and who should be responsible for adaptation. One controversial issue is whether all gases should be ...4 hours ago - 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week. Editor's Pick 2018 Arctic sea ice melt season just got a big headstart Pack ice after sunset in East Greenland near Kulusuk. ...10 hours ago - Flashback Saturday: Why it’s not possible to build our way out of congestion
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was published in October 2014. Wired magazine recently published a good, succinct explanation of induced traffic. It’s worth reading in full as it hits upon an incredibly important, often ...1 day ago - New research, June 11-17, 2018
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. Climate change mitigation Climate change communication Climate Hypocrisies: A Comparative Study of News Discourse What makes them believe in the low-carbon energy transition? Exploring corporate perceptions of the credibility ...1 day ago - How’s the Government Doing?
Coming to office a month after the election, the new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised ‘transformative’ rather than incremental government. The promise contrasted with the record of the predecessor Key-English government which had some wins but I doubt that even ...2 days ago - The IGIS advisory panel mess
Back in April, Stuff published the news that our spies had been without proper oversight for over a year, due to the failure of the previous government to appoint members to the Inspector General of Intelligence and security's statutory advisory ...2 days ago - Protected: Guide to making a submission on the Zero Carbon Bill
This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: The post Protected: Guide to making a submission on the Zero Carbon Bill appeared first on Blog | Green Party of Aotearoa New ...2 days ago - Equality with the stars
It’s easy to have woman working and stay at home dad when the woman is being paid over $470,000 a year; but what about poor families? by Don Franks NZ Prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s bearing of a baby ...2 days ago - Talking Point: 2018 Budget a Green success
Originally published in the Hawke’s Bay Today The Budget was not perfect or hugely transformative, but it’s better than what we’ve had in the last nine years. I would say there are fair criticisms, and some are completely unfounded. Political ...2 days ago - How do we cope with fewer cows?Originally published in the Hawke’s Bay Today Simon Bridges recently lambasted Environment Minister David Parker in what is perhaps the worst floundering and platitude-filled interview I have ever seen. The only real criticism the National leader had (and repeated in ...2 days ago
- Uncapped
When they were in government, National stuck an arbitrary cap on the size of the public service, ostensibly to keep costs down. It was a dishonest sham: Ministers still expected agencies to do more and more work, and so they ...2 days ago - What the Greens needs in a co-leaderOriginally published on Newsroom (16 Feb 2018) Do the Greens need a Metiria Turei heir-apparent, or a more radical option? Damon Rusden examines a co-leadership race between two very “intelligent and charismatic” women If you happened to miss the 2017 election, one ...2 days ago
- Greens between a rock and a hard placeOriginally published in Newsroom There’s a line in a song from American hard rock band Guns N’ Roses that goes: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” And this is exactly what has happened with the Greens and their decision to give some of ...2 days ago
- New Zealand’s young conservatives
As the birth of Jacinda Ardern’s baby paints New Zealand as a truly progressive country, James Borrowdale meets the young Kiwis unimpressed by today’s socially liberal attitudes. “I don’t really understand what the feminist movement is advocating ...2 days ago - Staff meetings to take place on the future of ITPs
Tertiary Update – Vol 21 No 12 Staff at institutes of polytechnics and technology up and down the country will soon have an opportunity to shape the future of the sector, thanks to a series of meetings co-facilitated by the Tertiary ...2 days ago - Job cuts and library closure confirmed at University of AucklandSandra Grey, national president of the Tertiary Education Union, reflects on the decision of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland to axe 45 full-time equivalent jobs from Libraries and Learning Services. With 40 people losing their jobs and a whole library ...2 days ago
- Increase in level 1 to 4 student numbersData released by the Tertiary Education Commission shows student numbers have increased over the last year for courses at levels 1 and 2, and the competitive component of levels 3 and 4. However, the overall number of equivalent full-time students (EFTS) declined by ...2 days ago
- MPs told to increase student and staff seats on councilsEarlier this week the Tertiary Education Union told MPs on the Education and Workforce Select Committee that restoring student and staff voice to tertiary education institution councils was a welcome step forward, but more needs to be done. Sandra Grey, national president ...2 days ago
- Breaking down the RLTP numbers
We were pretty excited back in April when we saw the outcome of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, which will see significant development of our transport network, and especially our public transport system, over the next decade. That was backed ...2 days ago - The debate on imperialism. . .A number of participants in the Imperialism study/discussion group initiated by Redline have been involved in debating David Harvey’s view of imperialism recently through the Review of African Political Economy. Thanks to Walter Daum for sending us the links. We ...2 days ago
- 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 ...3 days 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 ...3 days ago - The EU needs to stand up against its racistsThe 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 ...3 days 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 ...3 days ago - State of the Union: The ‘when a child is born’ versionAs 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 ...3 days 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 ...3 days ago
- New Zealand’s Very Own Pinkertons.
3 days 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 ...3 days 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 ...3 days 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 ...3 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days ago - Life after PhDThis is a re-post from ClimateSight To continue my tradition of trying out all the Commonwealth countries, since my last post I have moved to the UK and begun a postdoc at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. The UK is far nicer than Australians will ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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 ...4 days 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, ...4 days ago - HealthCarePlus Newsletter Winter 2018HealthCarePlus 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. ...4 days 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 ...4 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 ...4 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 ...4 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 days ago
- Can The Nurses Win On Their Own?
5 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...5 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...6 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 ...7 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week ago - Mass rallies, occupations, protests in Argentina for women’s right to abortionThe 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 ...1 week ago
- Burger King workers’ strike, June 15The strike at Burger King in Queen Street, Auckland, Friday, June 15: ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...1 week ago - If Labour Wants Fewer Prisoners, Then It Needs To Create More Prison Space – Not Less.
1 week ago - The Symptom … And The Cure?
1 week 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 ...1 week 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 ...
1 week 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 ...
1 week 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 ...
1 week ago
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