I recently read this fascinating article in New Matilda which asked why are we still working? With the advent of technological advances our need to work had been predicted to reduce. Yet the reality for most of us is that it has increased. And even though it concentrates on Australian conditions the article neatly dovetails in part with my post from yesterday and how the local real estate market has caused much of the problem.
From the article:
As long ago as 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by now, people in technologically advanced societies wouldn’t need to work much at all. When Keynes said this, advances in technology were yielding extraordinary increases in productivity. The implications seemed obvious. If it took less time to produce what we needed, surely we’d work less.
It turns out that for much of the 20th Century average working hours in developed countries steadily fell. Then, around the 1970s, the trend plateaued. In some countries, it reversed and working hours began to climb again. This occurred at the same time women were entering the workforce in great numbers so total workforce participation also increased.
In Australia, by the new millennium, many full time employees were working more than their grandparents had.
The same result clearly applies to New Zealand. And even though technology increases were greater than had been anticipated why did the need for most people to work increase?
One theory was that as our desire for more and more material goods increased so did our need for money.
Gary Becker observed that our appetite for material goods has expanded along with our ability to produce them. Instead of working less hours, we opted for bigger houses with more gadgets, which we replace more often.
This process has been fuelled by a deluge of marketing, which persuades us to consume things we previously didn’t recognise a need for.
Another theory was that as productivity and automation increased in the well paying jobs the benefits were not distributed. Instead there was a vast proliferation of service industry jobs that only seemed to exist to provide work.
Consider this. Productivity growth has stalled in Australia. How can this be? Technology hasn’t stopped advancing. The time we should be winning back through productivity gains must be getting reabsorbed.
Productivity returns are highest in capital-intensive industries like mining and manufacturing. As those jobs disappear, either replaced by technology, or lost altogether, the workforce moves into labour-intensive industries like hospitality and professional services. This dilutes the gains in the other industries.
At the same time, unemployment has been trending up since 2008. Young people especially, are out of work. The number of underemployed people, who would work more if they could, is also high. More jobs are casual.
Increasing longevity has also played its part.
There’s another factor. Our lives are now longer relative to our working lives. We tend to start full-time work later, after years of study, and more of life is spent in retirement. Many jobless older people are struggling with the cost of living. Many would work more if they could.
Instead of everyone working less, what seems to be happening is that experienced workers, in professions which are still in demand, are working more, while the young, the old, and those with skills which no longer attract investment have difficulty finding work.
MIT academics Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson refer to this as the great decoupling. For many years, real GDP per capita and median income rose in tandem. Since the 1970s, wages as a percentage of GDP have fallen dramatically, while corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are now at their highest level, despite recurring economic shocks.
To put it simply, labour isn’t as important to growth as it used to be.
And things are not going to get better. Both the Australian Government and the New Zealand government are not even talking about the issue. Jobs will continue to be replaced by technology. Of course the state could be doing something but that would involve it adopting a larger role that would have to be paid for by increased taxes.
The terrible irony in this situation is that there is so much that needs to be done.
Among the underemployed graduates I personally know of, there is a psychologist, a soil chemist and a biodiversity specialist. Have we run out of things to do in the areas of mental health, agriculture and the environment?
What we don’t have, apparently, is sufficient money to invest in making full use of the talent that is available to face these challenges.
Why? What failure of collective enterprise could result in this absurd incongruity?
Capital, like technology, is largely blind to human need. Capital goes where the profit is. If there was profit in healing minds and saving species, some of it would go there. While there is more profit in alcohol, gambling and deforestation, more of it will go there.
The article then contains a call to collective action.
If a healthy society is something we want, we have to act collectively. Since few people are active major shareholders, for the time being that task tends to fall to governments.
Whether enacted via direct spending, or by creating incentives for private investment, government initiatives are funded from collective surplus – in other words, tax revenue or borrowing against future earnings increases. Despite political spin to the contrary, our tax is low compared to the OECD as a proportion of GDP.
The great decoupling has coincided with rising inequality. Those with money to invest get rich. Those with only labour to sell miss out. Capital doesn’t like to pay for labour, and it doesn’t like to pay tax either.
The article then comments on real estate investment.
Nevertheless, one group of people enriched themselves through property investment, pushing up the value of real estate around the country in the process. Another group of people became affluent with nothing more than a job that paid super and a home in a good location.
With commodity revenue pouring in from overseas, it was easy to believe we had discovered some kind of magic prosperity formula. But the surplus generated from commodities mostly wasn’t invested back into productive activity. Instead it was turned into tax cuts and other benefits. These had broad electoral appeal but favoured the wealthy, and encouraged further speculation.
The real estate boom didn’t make the country richer. Nor did it make housing more accessible. It simply transferred wealth from one group of people to another. In the process, it put a basic need out of reach of many, including young people, and diverted investment from the productive economy. It also lured a huge number of Australians into precarious debt.
The next passage deals with the future for the young and applies just as strongly to New Zealand as it does to Australia.
The current trend points to a time when a young graduate might start adult life with a HECS debt, go into credit card debt on a part-time job and a free internship, and eventually get into massive debt to own a flat her grandparents could have bought with ease.
She might even find a job in financial services, if they haven’t all been automated. It’s the sector that helps wealthy people turn their money into more money. It’s also where ordinary people go to borrow money for a house.
The basic problem is clearly identified as debt. Not government debt which in New Zealand even now is manageable despite 7 prolifigate years of National rule but private debt where each week many ordinary people pay the banks interest for the benefit of created loans.
Debt is profitable. Even during the great decoupling, as productive jobs disappear, and real wages fall, it’s proven possible to harness the aspirations of ordinary people for profit, without any of the effort or intelligence required for developing new productive capacity, by simply enticing a greater proportion of personal income into servicing debt.
And the solution? Essentially things have to change.
Change has come, whether we like it or not. If we respond intelligently, taking advantage of the potential we have developed through our education system, we may very well end up working less, but not in a divided society, with many of us struggling to survive.
Labour through its Future of Work Commission is leading a discussion of these issues. This Matilda article provides a neat snapshot of the problems and the potential solutions to this most difficult of issues.
Good gravy Mr Savage why are you making us think so hard on a Sunday?
Go out and get 18 holes under your belt.
I’m no longer confident “labour” is a useful lens for policy formation, since we are now so de-unionised and deregulated it’s really hard to see how big change is possible. Even inside 2 terms from 2017.
I’m as pessimistic that we will pull away from our addiction to real estate capitalism. Other than through the state essentially printing houses and grossly subsidizing them in one form or other.
We have to look to where policy is still possible. Otherwise tracking all these changes to automation etc is somewhat academic.
And after you’ve done 18 holes, crack open something cold and shut the freaking computer.
Only poor people need to work in jobs. Jobs produce profit for shareholders etc. If there are not enough poor people, then there’s a danger the whole profitable market shebang and the culture that underpins it, falls over or fades away.
So find ways to keep enough people poor and engaged.
Fashion…inbuilt obsolescence…speculation to put necessary stuff (like houses for us or food for many in other countries), financially, just out of reach.
Maybe unnecessarily privatise health and other stuff like education – just so that people need to earn a crust to avoid potentially unpleasant consequences (and cream the profit).
Invent nonsense jobs like human resources management positions and cake layer in a pile of lower/middle management positions anywhere and everywhere you can (and cream the profit).
Keep the culture of ‘job as source of dignity’ ticking along nicely and keep creaming that profit.
I’ve thrown this example often, but it bears repeating. 15 people with secure material well-being, successfully paying off 18 mortgages, putting substantial savings aside and all from working on average 8 hours per week each in remunerative activity. That was an actual existing reality and there is absolutely no reason why that can’t be a reality for everyone (assuming we’re stupid enough to want to preserve the nonsense that’s the market economy).
Why 18 mortgages? Are three of the 15 aspirational for a weekend bach? That could be afforded under the old system too and how we enjoyed those baches in the hols.
Sorry greywarshark, that should have read 18 houses – not 18 mortgages. Collective ownership model (housing collective) tied to a worker’s collective that operated from the same location.
Invent nonsense jobs like human resources management positions and cake layer in a pile of lower/middle management positions anywhere and everywhere you can (and cream the profit). I’ve thought about that before. Just as middle class people in third world countries often have vague roles within the military, our lot have similarly vague roles within the corporate structure. In both cases the roles are often as much social positions as jobs, and help to maintain a sufficient number whose interests are tied to those of the regime.
And make getting a benefit dependent on employment that doesn’t exist. I guess that’s what our current Labour party means when they say they’re the party for the workers. Dickheads.
Of course we could go back to a more ‘socialist’ times. I recall working for a govt department (infrastructure) in the 70s and always said the place could easily run on half the staff. The pay was modest, not much above minimum wages at the time, but work conditions great, good training, safe, secure, good friends, holidays, sick time etc. We wouldn’t become rich, but it was good times and well run, be it somewhat overstaffed, but better perhaps than having more on the dole. Then came rogernomics and ruth richardson eras. Efficiency and cost cutting the name of the game.
I see the numbers working in my old infrastructure job now only a tiny fraction what it was. Everything is run down, much outsourced to lowest tender, less safe, zero training, minimal security, every hour accountable. Most are now hating their jobs but with few real options to improve. They’re told they are lucky to have a job.
Now we’re older, I see that perhaps that slightly ‘less efficient’ 70s govt run workplace really had merits. At least people were employed, safe, well trained and had a purpose. Today, those same people are working longer for similar wages, little security. Disposable. There only for the rich offshore shareholders to extract that last ounce of profit. Not the bold promises new technology was supposed to provide.
I suspect the efficiencies means more for the company owners and shareholders, less for the rest of us. Soon, we’ll follow the US and Russia into more an oligarchy state where we, the workers, are but like serfs as in England of old. At least they knew who their real ‘masters’ were. Still poor working conditions and wages, but the expectations were at least clear.
Let’s hope my grandchildren or their children, do better but suspect it may mean the pitchforks coming out first, as it has before.
NZ is worse off now that we have sold off Telecom (formerly Post Office), Electricorp (formerly Ministry of Energy), BNZ, and the Ministry of Works.
The sales were a pointless exercise in neoliberal ideology. Having artificially fragmented our tiny markets for these essential services hasn’t caused efficiencies, it has allowed private interests to siphon vast profits from taxpayers. What a f*cking rort.
The sales were a pointless exercise in neoliberal ideology.
And more than that, they were theft from the commons. Transfer of wealth from the public to a tiny percentage of the private.
(And Labour still won’t commit to a programme of recovery, or re-nationisation. Unfortunately once the TPP is enacted it will all be academic as the TPP will render any nationalisation impossible due to threat of legal action.)
Pretty sure that Telecom, before the govt sold it, had changed a lot and was pushing forward with major upgrades in services and how it ran the various businesses (that also was before the govt fucked up the infrastructure ownership). Can’t really compare pre-80s telcos with current ones, the technology and culture means the industries are completely different from each other.
Now, if you’d compared NZPost back then and NZPost now, I’d have to say NZPost now is a company on a mission to be sold off. It operates as if it really doesn’t want customers, they’re an annoyance that have to be fitted into the business model. Which takes us back to the original comment. We could run core services as actual services, rather than as profit-generating businesses that see service as an expendable variable.
hi detrie,
well said.
i hear what you are saying, i would add that one of the many intangibles from the 70s organization you described is; the off spring of those ‘underemployed’ workers seeing their parent(s) going off to work.
I filled out Labour’s Future of Work Commission survey. It was a very odd survey and like many of the kind they had a lot of bias in areas and sadly I do not feel that it will produce any meaningful incites for Labour.
Good post though and I really think that is a very important question – why are people working harder than before and making it difficult to make ends meet?
Personally I think it is neoliberalism and globalism.
The ‘trickle down’ has not happened. Instead the obsene profits are used to reward the executives at the top and shareholders. Workers are told they are lucky to have a job, let alone being given a rise to keep place with the cost of living.
Immigration is used to keep a steady supply of competition and low wage work force. Social welfare is cut so that that option is not viable for most. Jobs are now not able to cover peoples expenses. It is happening all over the world. Here is a good article from the USA>
“Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
Companies can hire and fire perma-lancers at will. Is it any wonder the middle class is vanishing before our eyes?”
Productivity has increased hugely in the last 30 years but real wages have remained static. That is due to a) regressive taxation favouring capital over labour b) unfair labour laws c) a culture of corporate excess at the executive level d) the growth of easy credit and consequent debt burdens e) transnational corps leading to a race to the bottom of the labour market
It’s called class war, but that’s not acceptable in polite company.
The old class war may be over: the new politics of class is just beginning. The widening fracture between the wealthy elite and the rest is a huge threat to our social fabric…
Given the widening distance (economically, socially and geographically) between the super-rich and the rest of us, the solidifying barriers to entry into the upper echelons of professional and business employment, and the growing acceptability of demonising members of the “precariat” with the very least resources, the 21st century is likely to be marked by increasingly disruptive challenges to the social fabric. The old class war may be over: the new politics of class is only just beginning.
“we opted for bigger houses with more gadgets, which we replace more often”
This line of thinking blames the working class for problems created by the marketing idustry and companies obsessed with shortterm profit which can only be ensured by making crap which breaks down/artificial demand for the latest newest “upgrade”.
Another documentary for those who still have some holiday time on their hands:
The Lightbulb Conspiracy. Which IIRC has an interesting item on printers having a machine code page count, which when it reaches 18,000 pages stops the printer from working.
With house prices escalating as they have over recent decades – those who can scrape up enough cash for a deposit would be “foolish” not to buy. The mathematics of the investment seem speak for themselves. Either they continue to pay rent (and in doing so help pay off some one elses mortgage, or they bite the bullet and pay off their own with the expectation that should they sell in the future the price of the house will have increased sufficiently to cover the outstanding mortgage and their equity will have increased.
Of course this plays into the trading banks hands very well. They have been given the license to create almost as much money as they want and to reap rewards accordingly. With the acquisition of a huge sum of credit and the so-called “security’, in the form of a house, the price of which, one hopes, continues to appreciate, one is now able to extend that credit to purchase more goods – cars, the latest TV, throw away the old gizmo and buy a new one, (why not two!) and so on. The first problem with all this is one has to somehow or other pay for it – eventually. So “I owe I owe – so off to work I go!
The second problem is that with a growing world population and working population the competition for paying employment is increasing – And that has a direct effect on just how much one can demand in the way of renumeration – along with the apparent ever increasing price of housing largely forced up by the banks making money so readily available.
We need to rethink our whole economy and finance system and that is a world wide problem. The only other result will be a world wide crash of immense proportions similar to the great depression.
As the investment banker interviewed here says “If there is one rule in the city – you can’t make money out of nothing – except just this once we think we might!”
Have to agree with you Macro we need to rethink the finance system. First agasint the wall should be the the out of control derivatives market. The following graphic is a good illustration as to how f’d up things have become…
Re Richard Christie 3.1.1
This stealing/transfer from the commons comes to my mind so often when i hear the latest exploits from the Nasties and sometimes from Labour. The removal of crofters from Sutherland in Scotland because sheep and wool were the new gold rush saw small uneconomic units in crofts emptied of people and amalgamated. That drove many Scots to emigrate. The conditions and attitudes they fled from are being exhibited here.
The conditions that workers came here to avoid are creeping into our lives, and will continue all the way to great tragedy unless NZ people rise and get a Charter as they did in Britain with a statement of what they need for life to be livable. There was a swell of opinion in Britain when the Tolpuddle Martyrs who started a southern agricultural labourers union were sent as convicts to Australia, such that great sums of money and pressure was raised to have them returned. And more was available to buy the tenancy of a farm to give them the living the Chartists and wellwishers felt they deserved. The landed class continued to distrust and isolate them though.
How many wellwishers do we have in NZ towards our fellows? They are in their thousands, but what number thousand? They will have to declare their care, come forward and work together for betterment. Labour supporters have lost power over their leaders, who are stuck with superglue. But those supporting Labour themselves need support, as they have the vital numbers to do something.
I’m thinking that political thinkers of the left variety have to prop up Labour, and at the same time get alternatives going. Get behind a group of left thinking parties that will coalesce and work together for the good of the country and not just for their own particular sector of progressive policy, dissing all others. I think we have to accept that Labour will never live up to its name again, and will be at the margins of needed activity and policy. But if that is accepted, then if my premise is right, we need to not criticise much. Criticising when you want and expect improvement as a result is reasonable, but when that can’t be gained, then just helping them through their hoops would be the best move. Creating controversy for the Nasties to inflate is self-defeating.
If the Greens don’t fire you, adopt another NZ-thinking party, don’t waste time on single issue stuff. If we can get a left coalition in then we can get some things done which the people want, including medical marijuana and working conditions and hours, and trains that run, and some kindness and understanding to one another while we budget wisely where we can get the most bang for our buck, which will cut down on some of the authoritarian memes that are madly continued, like more people in prison etc. And always remembering that we have the USA, UK, and other life-denying cultures ready to use us for their scientific experiments, thinking Monsanto, Chinese eugenic plans.
Commoning is fundamental to the working class, even if capitalism has convinced many of us otherwise. “[V]arious forms of commoning, some traditional and some not, provided the proletariat with the means of survival in the struggle against capitalism. Commoning is the basis of proletarian class solidarity, and we can find this before, during, and after both the semantic and the political birth of communism.”
The removal of peasants from the land and their transformation into proletarians dispossessed of ownership of the means of production required a centuries-long battle of outlawing these traditions while building fences and jails. As the old rhyme notes,
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But lets the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
The privatization of the commons saw the rise of prisons, the police, and the creation of criminal codes defining crime as anything that offended propertied interest. One of Stop, Thief!’s most interesting chapters details Karl Marx’s transformation from liberal lawyer to revolutionary in his writings and research on the illegality of collecting firewood in German forests.
As can be expected, the clods of the Right will do whatever they can to write your piece off as mere junk mail.
However, the smug Greens that run this Standard Org Blog (by sheltering under the long history and very creditable success of Labour, including Clarke and Cullen) will continue to slag off the Labour Party as less than excrement.
One of your commentators refers to Labour as dickheads. It is not just a case of Why are We Working so Hard? Why are we saddled with the Greens so filthy and so depressive? No wonder they gather so few harmless followers.
They are the great depressives in politics . Nothing to offer anyone but abuse.
I hope your Article is widely read Micky Savage. A pity your fellow Greens won’t disseminate it widely.
Observer I am a proud member of the labour party! This is why I pushed the future of employment stuff because the party are on the right track in relation to this. But some of my best friends are green and the left has always had a loud passionate and somewhat tortured reltationshib between the different groupings.
Further to my thoughts on Labour. Present Labour is like a wealthy old aunt who has an uncertain temper and a sarcastic tongue but when she needs you you help her out.
She is family and in the end there might be some good come out of it, she mighn’t leave all her money to the Cats Home.
And read Observer (Tokoroa) for an example of the stultified thinking about politics among many. It’s like reading something from the 1900s.
The NZ Labour Party is somewhat incoherant on this topic.
For instance: certain Senior Labour MPs still think that the retirement age needs to be raised, and that workers need to be made to work longer and harder into their greying, worn out years.
Even as there are far too few decent paying, secure jobs for young Kiwis.
It’s illogical. Labour’s incoherence, in my opinion, comes from a combination of a lack of future vision, and a lack of willingness to break new ground.
IMO what needs to happen: the 4 day 32 hour working week at $20/hr minimum wage needs to be made standard, and penalty rates reintroduced for anything over that.
The magnitude of the challenges being faced is growing by the day. As is the gap between what is needed and what is currently being thought about in the Thorndon Bubble. And yep you are quite right, there needs to be a deliberate and planned transition. A transition which is given political impetus by Kiwis who can imagine something other than National and Labour’s minor ineffectual tinkering with the status quo.
It is the trouble with globalisation, the multinationals will then scuttle off to the country that does not have a minimum wage so the production of their stuff is cheaper.
yes their plan is to have wages and standards throughout the western world converge on the lowest common denominator.
This strategy of theirs has been obvious for 20 or more years. Just look at NAFTA.
The ruling class, left and right, Republican and Democrat, National and Labour, are all supporters of globalisation and neoliberalism as an unchangeable fact of life.
That is why we hear so much about apparently, those in the BRICS countries are ‘so happy’ about their lot in life, and they are ‘greatful for what they have’, and that ‘we should learn a few things from them’.
The powers that be more or less want to drag living standards in the west down to the level of the BRICS countries – no labour standards, unions, welfare net, or even decent housing.
fwiw, i have just resigned from my job, cooking in a wonderful rural cafe.
i am nearly 50 and have known my employer since she was 6 (she is now 27), and am a close friend of her dad.
i am fortunate to have had a lovely 21 yr old Chef, and it has been satisfying to have been involved in her development in the last year.
i have struggled with the lack of unity within a very young, small workforce.
most of the empolyees look up to the boss, are a cousin or just don’t wanna rock a boat. btw the boss spent the last 6 months working in the outback of oz and hasn’t worked any shifts.
for the last 3 months we have been understaffed on the busy shifts (sat and sun) generally by one or two people.
i dont view the skipper as evil, money hungry or ‘corporate’ minded.
it just seems to be the way of the world.
the staff rise to the occasion, the public tolerate the wait time and the shift ends and the next one will start the next day.
anyhow, i’ve had enough, worked too hard, too often. i plan (after helping a friend to develop his cafe’s outdoor area- cob pizza oven, bbq etc) to go into early childhood education/childcare.
back to the bottom in terms of wages, but i’d rather be in the sandpit than do another gluten free french toast.
Probably a fairly typical NZ small business except for the absentee boss.
S/he seems to be losing interest. It happens. Might be an opportunity to go into a partnership if the cafe is still making $$$
hi ropata,
i think you are spot on in the losing interest.
it is doing good $.
funny you mention the partnership thing.
it has not ocurred to me before.
i have started, run and sold a hospo business in the past.
that has made me gunshy of doing it again, however…
i am dead keen on the idea of a worker run business.
just when i was comfortable with the idea of some relaxed wage slavery in childcare, you plant the seed of a potentially beautiful future.
The trend to longer working hours – and also working harder and faster – is now well-entrenched in capitalism. Since the end of the long postwar boom (late 1940s to early 1970s), there has been no new, sustained boom and theer is no sign of one emerging. So the prospect of us working less hours, particularly over our lifetime, is not anywhere in sight.
Moreover, the trend now is also to raise the retirement age.
Additionally, being productive is a negative in our current system, it becomes a cost, wait that’s crazy.
selling a house to an overseas buyer should expand the currency supply, as currency is only representative of value and not of value itself.
So new money into the system, expansion of supply introduced as debt at OCR, you could look at this as a tax, but a tax above the supply : expansion =100% with interest/tax of OCR above expansion, placed on top, crazy. Our debt grows inline with growth, the harder we work, the more we produce the worse the overall debt becomes, flawed system or by design?
The above is exactly the same for all school leavers entering the workforce, all new created value in the system, the government, even before the banks play their fractional reserve games have consigned the country to debt slavery.
The regulation of currency supply is based on GDP, but using a debt mechanism and banks to introduce the currency is as a debt is wrong,
I used to think the universal income crowd was crazy, (the money for nothing ideology, but change that slightly to invest and profit and here we are)
You could increase money supply via the tax system, and direct payment of government services, it’s all in place, credit citizens inline with GDP increases, instead of an ever increasing debt, you have an ever increasing wealth creation, you know, like an investment.
Economy increases, currency expanded as a dividend( not debt) citizens share in economic growth directly, then spend that money in the local economy creating a feedback loop, things only get better.
Maybe constraints on exports/imports, pretty much opposite of Globalization,
Treasury does not adjust OCR as a tool to control inflation as it was designed, seem to do the opposite, they need watching.
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On Wednesday evening, as our television relays images of long lines of people queuing to vote, keep this in mind: since 2012, America has closed 20% of its polling places. Crucial swing states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Georgia have collectively lost 400 Election Day polling places since 2010. Five of ...
When do you know that a big international news story might be looking like An Historic Moment? When it gets a bunch of utterly superfluous New Zealand reporters inserted into it.I've been sympathetic to our media fretting about hanging on by a thread, but each time they despatch their microphone-holders ...
One of the achievements of the Labour-led government was the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2019. After decades of high-profile miscarriages of justice, and judges looking the other way on state conspiracies of silence and each other's fuckups, we finally got an outside body to cast an ...
I was two sentences in (and stuck on) a defence of Mike King, where I was going to highlight that he was merely the well-carved figurehead of a neoliberal-shaped problem that neither begins nor ends with him, when I stumbled across a most interesting article about corporate propaganda being disseminated ...
A new challenge and a new opportunity for research AI-generated disinformation threatens to make debunking climate misinformation even more challenging, swamping already scanty capacity. We are exploring ways to counter this burgeoning flood of harm by employing the same tools now employed by malefactors as a force for good. We've already published research ...
Don't speak, I know just what you're sayin'So please stop explainin'Don't tell me 'cause it hurtsDon't speak, I know what you're thinkin'I don't need your reasonsDon't tell me 'cause it hurtsSongwriters: Eric Stefani / Gwen StefaniDo you remember the first time you encountered Corporate Speak? Important-sounding buzzwords used to camouflage ...
Kia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, November 4: Budget cuts are storing up costs for future taxpayers and Governments. Scoop of the day: The Government is set to deliver another budget-cutting blow for ...
A few months ago we asked for your help, and you answered. Thanks to the generous support we received, you may have noticed a more consistent and diverse stream of content over the last few months – which is in large part due to us being able to pay for ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Mon, October 28, 2024 thru Sun, November 3, 2024. Topics covered this week Here are the main topics and the media outlets where they appeared in: Climate Change Impacts ...
For those of you who are new here, I’m Mountain Tui.National Geographic imageI’m the one that first started badgering NZ about Atlas Network - and it went mainstream easily from that: from Mihirangi Forbes asking David Seymour about it, to David Seymour and Chris Bishop lying, to the evidence easily ...
Hi,It’s a big election in three days. Like me, you’re probably sick of hearing about it, but like it or not — what America does tends to trickle down everywhere else. America farts and we’re all under the sheet being hotboxed against our will.I’ll do a fresh Webworm on election ...
I lose all my life like thisReflecting time and memoriesAnd all for fear of what I'll findIf I just stop and empty out my mindOf all the ghosts and all the dreamsAll I hold to in beliefThat all I ever amIs somehow never quite all I am nowLyrics Robert Smith.Today’s ...
Now, in the land of leaky buildings and the Warehouse-where-everyone-gets-a-bargain, there came an electionAnd this was the one known as the show-bloody-Labour-the-bloody-door electionAnd there came into this election the one known as ChrisAnd of fresh thought or original idea, Chris was full emptyBut this was all good broFor Chris was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are most glaciers ...
In 1992 James Carville, Bill Clinton’s lead strategist, hung a sign on the wall of the Democratic candidate’s campaign office in Little Rock, Arkansas. It had three lines on it to focus the team on the key vote-swinging issues and one of those lines would become so famous it’s turned ...
If you're down and out and you feel really hurtCome on over to the place where I workAnd all your loneliness, I'll try to sootheI'll play the blues for youLyrics: Albert King.Often, in these newsletters, I tell you about what is wrong. You know the sort of thing - oh ...
A new book challenges how we need to think about technological innovation.Last week’s column mentioned the three 2024 Nobel laureates in economics. The column focused only on the 2012 book Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson with little reference to Simon Johnson, although the three have worked ...
Earlier this year our volunteer editor Marc Kodack spotted an impressive answer to climate change solutions denial, "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles," which he included in our weekly climate research survey. Written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel ...
Quiz1. On what study was Mike King basing his assertion that Alcohol is not a problem for people with mental issues. It’s actually the solution ?a. Klein, Sawyer, Chomsky et al; Harvard, 2002b. Black Brown and Bleu; Yale, 1999c. Bloomfield, Verall, Ardern et al, Otago 2022d. Homer, Lenny, Carl and ...
Way back in 1839, the New Zealand Company bought the area that is now Nelson from local iwi and hapu. As part of the deal, they promised that Māori would retain their homes, fields, and burial grounds, and that in addition, 10% of the land in the planned township and ...
A US friend of mine wrote on social media about attending a Homecoming football game at her niece’s Red State university. Although the referees stunk and her team lost, my friend said that she enjoyed her visit, especially the halftime … Continue reading → ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on the latest climate news, including research showing the lethality of gas hobs and research on the health effects of climate ...
The RBNZ sees the potential for a spike in demand from landlords. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, November 1: The RBNZ has warned the Government’s tax changes ...
Are you so lonely?You don't even know meBut you'd like to stone meMr Writer, why don't you tell it like it is?Why don't you tell it like it really isWhy don't you tell it how it really isBefore you go on home?Writers: Stuart Cable, Richard Mark Jones, Kelly Jones, Marshall ...
Wow, we’re in November already and it’s a Friday so welcome to another round-up of interesting stories about what’s happening in Auckland and other cities. Feel free to add your links in the comments! This post, like all our work, is brought to you by a largely volunteer crew and ...
Hi,Thanks for all your feedback to Hayden Donnell’s fantasy of communal living. “Camping in summer is really the only time I get to experience village life and I love it so much,” said Michelle. “You’ve infuriated me by writing the article that’s been in my head only much better than ...
Long stories short, here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:A study looking at psychological distress associated with climate change has stimulated discussion about the insistent demands for ‘hope’ ...
New Zealand’s new free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council is a major win for both sides. Todd McClay, New Zealand’s trade minister, announced the long-awaited deal on Thursday with his counterparts in Doha, Qatar. It is a remarkable, yet also surprising sudden success: the genesis of the agreement ...
In a major international breakthrough, New Zealand has negotiated a free trade agreement with Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Peninsula countries, which includes a provision requiring them to uphold the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. Trade Minister Todd McClay signed the agreement in Doha overnight. The ...
Mike King’s latest comments about the relationship between alcohol and mental health – according to King, alcohol does more good than harm – raises red flags once again about this organisation, and the quality of the “counselling” it provides. Here’s what the scientific research says. The latest example of King’s ...
This afternoon, I turned to the fellow sitting near me and called out:“Guess what? A guy who runs a charity for mental health just said alcohol is a solution!”And his eyes popped out…his mouth opened ajar.That gave me some satisfaction - only because this person has zero care when it ...
Day after day of David Seymour being accorded media time and attention like he’s doing this stuff in good faith and advancing these ideas in earnest. Come on. He’s a cosplaying libertarian who is really just a glove puppet for anti-democratic capitalist pigs. Read more ...
Last week, the government had a big wank about police raids in Ōpōtiki, crowing about "gangs" and "drugs" and "law and order". Unfortunately the police did exactly the same shit they did in the Urewera terror raids 17 years ago, dragging people off in front of their kids and terrorising ...
No, I haven’t vanished from the Internet. Or died. Completed reads for October: The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei, by Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler Jurgen, by James Branch Cabell A very quiet reading month, and a very quiet writing month ...
Our suicide rates are skyrocketing again, and I’m going to spare you the faux-shock I could put on here, given that it would be frankly more surprising to me if our death toll had gone in the other direction. Preliminary data from 2023-24 shows that our annual suicide deaths have ...
Difficult Questions: Does denying human equality and rejecting the principles of colour-blind citizenship place you among the baddies? Yes, I’m afraid it does.THE DEMON OF UNREST documents the descent of the United States into civil war. The primary focus of its author, Erik Larson, is the period of roughly five months ...
Health and safety campaigner Sonya Rockhouse has come out in support of the joint open letter from the NZCTU, Business NZ and others. A new Xero Small Business Insights report shows that small businesses are cutting staff and keeping wages low, while the Salvation Army’s State of the Pacific Peoples ...
The focus on budgets is "going to cripple the health system".1. Cardiac specialist quits, saying Dr Lester Levy, the Part Time Health Commissioner, is "living in La La Land" and has no idea what's happening on the groundDr Dean BoddingtonDr Boddington, an electrical cardiologist, was the only person who did ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, October 31: US and European GDP growth figures overnight show the world’s largest economies, along with that of our nearest neighbour Australia, ...
Race hatred cannot stop usThis one thing we knowYour poll tax and Donald TrumpGreed has got to go!You’re bound to loseYou fascists bound to lose.Original Lyrics: Woody GuthrieThere are a lot of things this government doesn’t like. Te Reo - got to go, they said, it’s too confusing for our ...
Health and safety is core union mahi. Unions recognise that health and safety is a fundamental aspect of good work, and that every worker has the right to work that is safe and healthy, and to have a voice on the operation of their work. In this submission on MBIE’s ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Neha PathakDisasters can disrupt medical care both during and long after the event. (Photo credit: U.S. Air National Guard / Sgt. Jorge Intriago) Weeks after Hurricanes Milton and Helene tore paths of destruction across the Southeast, pictures of communities ...
When Nicola Willis gave the annual Finance Minister’s speech to the country’s top public servants last week, what she said must have landed like a bomb. “Now is the time for your best and boldest ideas,” she said at the Institute of Public Administration (IPANZ) event. Coming from a minister ...
Reader Jeff Howell is the best kind of social media friend to have. When there's outrage and denunciation needed he’s in there dishing it with verve; and when those storms pass you get happy Jeff, sharing his projects. His projects are awesome.Until a week or so ago it was a ...
Unsympathetic Characters: Christopher Luxon should be grateful that his principal opponent, Chris Hipkins, is as out of sympathy with the temper of the times as he is.CHRIS HIPKINS had both a good week and a bad week. He and his team were able to press home Labour’s attack on the ...
My Enemy’s Enemy Is My Friend: Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, at the opening of the Islamic Central Institute in Berlin, December 19, 1942. The elimination of the Jewish state has been the unwavering ambition of successive generations of Palestinian leaders.AMIDST ALL THE HORROR of the Israel-Hamas War, ...
Watching a Christopher Luxon press conference is a masterclass in gaslighting. You just know what he’s saying is disingenuous - if not outright deceptive and lies - but out he comes - with confidence and vigour - telling me black is white, and white is red.According to the Prime Minister, ...
Kia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, October 30: The Government’s move to allow qualified builders, plumbers and drainlayers to self-consent their work faces potential hurdles from reluctant insurers and bankers wanting protection against ...
We are blessed in Aotearoa with certain people that you might call National Treasures—those with great talents and a strong affinity for this place they are the custodians of. It’s not an official list; the people you think of might differ from those I think of.What are the attributes of ...
Over the long weekend rail shutdown a new project got underway, an upgrade to Henderson station but the plans highlight that improving the customer experience by making it easier to use public transport is not a part of Auckland Transport’s agenda. ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). From hurricanes like Helene and Milton, to typhoons like Gaemi, vast storms are causing devastation: destroying cities and tearing up lives. ...
For the State Highway One traveller, some sights remain dramatic no matter how many times you see them: Wellington harbour opening out at the bottom of Ngauranga Gorge; the first glimpse of Ruapehu; three quarters of the South Island. Also: the moment when you reach the top of the Brynderwyns and ...
Remember Casey Costello? The government's most ignorant Minister? First she was referred to the Chief Archivist after claiming that key advice on her cancer promotion policy had simply magically appeared on her desk one day, and that she had no idea where it came from. Then, when the Ministry of ...
Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader and MP for Te Tai Hauāuru, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is calling on the Mayor for New Plymouth, Neil Holdom, to do the right thing. “I am shocked at his decision to disregard the petition presented by Palestine Solidarity Taranaki calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire”, said ...
Labour welcomes the conclusion of a trade deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that was restarted under a Labour government after languishing for many years. ...
The Government should consider the outcome of an Auditor-General report into conflicts of interest before progressing the Fast track Approvals Bill through Parliament. ...
The Green Party is urgently calling on the Government to ban bottom trawling, following news a New Zealand bottom trawler caught 37kg of coral in international waters, prompting the suspension of all fishing in the area until 2026. ...
Spring is here which means the start of the A&P show season. Those treasured community days where town meets country. There's no rural-urban divide here, just a chance to meet up with family and old friends and celebrate all things that make rural New Zealand so special. I'm embarking on ...
The Government has very conveniently cherry-picked data from the latest MSD projections to justify its cruel agenda and punch-down policy when it comes to people living in poverty. ...
The Green Party was appalled to hear Prime Minister Christopher Luxon claim we are “doing everything we can” on climate change, while his government does nothing to address emissions in our most polluting sector. ...
Te Pāti Māori is calling out the Government and New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) for their inaction and disgraceful downplaying of the impact caused by the sunken HMNZS Manawanui in Samoa. “We demand the Government move without further delay to clean up its shit from the sunken HMNZS Manawanui in Samoa,” said co-leader Debbie ...
This week was the start of the bank inquiry hearings into banking competition. The inquiry was confirmed in the NZ First/National Coalition agreement. 140 submissions were received on the inquiry, and we will hear from over 60 submitters including all the major banks. ANZ, New Zealand's largest bank, was first ...
There is one topic that is the great human leveller, and that is of death and dying. One day, we will all have to face it, and I am of the belief that being able to pass away with grace and dignity is a vital, basic, human right. How we ...
Labour is backing Christchurch City Council’s decision not to do business with firms involved in Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories. ...
The Green Party acknowledges the historical importance of MP Teanau Tuiono’s Member’s Bill, Restoring Citizenship Removed By Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 Bill, passing its second reading in Parliament today. ...
Te Pāti Māori is enraged at the National government’s ruthless punishment of beneficiaries, all while jobs are disappearing. MSD data shows a 133% increase in sanctions over the past year, with over 14,000 sanctions in just three months. The kicker? The jobs this government insists people should find are nowhere ...
Te Pāti Māori MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi, says today’s police-sponsored terrorism in Ōpōtiki is a continuation of the State’s predatory behaviour towards the iwi of Te Whakatōhea. "Ōpōtiki is once again being intentionally targeted and is the direct byproduct of this Government’s 'tough on crime' legislative changes,” said MP ...
The Green Party is calling for Youth Justice Residences to close, following a protest in which a group of young people spent the night on the roof of an Oranga Tamariki justice facility. ...
Te Tiriti o Waitangi is our country’s founding document. It forms the basis of the relationship between Māori and the Crown – and the Aotearoa New Zealand we live in today. ...
The Government’s decision to award a $216 million tax break for Philip Morris’ heated tobacco products reeks of tobacco industry interference and needs to be thoroughly investigated. ...
The National Government is treading water on a much-needed review of the Retirement Villages Act, kicking any amendments down the road till the next parliamentary term in 2027. ...
Despite resounding public opposition, the fast-track legislation is being pushed through Parliament with provisions that could have real consequences for people and planet. ...
Labour welcomes the National Government’s decision to further pursue our access to the Canadian dairy market under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill which aims to improve access to palliative care for all New Zealanders, ensuring kiwis have better access to the compassionate palliative support they may need. The ‘Improving Access to Palliative Care Bill’ seeks to guarantee that every New Zealander has the right ...
Te Pāti Māori Co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer welcome today’s ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which found that a Hobson's Pledge advertisement regarding customary marine titles was misleading and socially irresponsible. The two-page wraparound ad, published in The New Zealand Herald, suggested that nearly the entire coastline ...
Entering politics is a privilege afforded to very few and, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Being an MP is a call to service. Whatever your politics you have a duty to show up. Whatever your party's policy, you have made a promise to those who ...
Changes to outdated relationships legislation has passed its third reading giving family violence survivors the power to quickly dissolve abusive marriages. ...
The Government is joining the next phase of the ‘Taste Pure Nature’ campaign that will position New Zealand beef and lamb as the highest-quality red meats of choice for Chinese consumers, Agriculture and Trade Minister Todd McClay announced at a signing ceremony in China today. “Today I am announcing that ...
Legislation to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system has passed its first reading in Parliament today, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “These changes will build on New Zealand’s current child protection system by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the agencies that oversee it, including greater ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board has confirmed next steps on the SH1 Wellington Improvements Road of National Significance (RoNS), including an expanded package to reduce Wellington’s gridlock and support economic growth, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Our Government is committed to delivering a second Mt Victoria Tunnel for Wellington to ...
The latest Conservation Board appointments will help to strengthen environmental efforts across Aotearoa New Zealand, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka says. Mr Potaka today announced 64 appointments to the country’s 14 Conservation Boards. “Conservation Boards play a vital role as liaison between DOC with their regions, making their community’s voice heard ...
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has welcomed the first steps from the Infrastructure Commission in developing New Zealand’s 30-year National Infrastructure Plan. The Commission today released a discussion document which outlines the Commission’s thinking in developing the 30-year plan, including looking at what’s needed over the next 30 years, what our ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour says that Medsafe’s annual performance statistics released today show that Medsafe are accelerating their approval process. “The data produced in Medsafe’s annual statistics show that in 2023/2024 Medsafe expedited their assessment process for almost every category of medicine,” says Mr Seymour. For innovative new medicines ...
New requirements for government agencies to pay their invoices faster and adopt labour-saving technology are an important part of our plan to rebuild the economy and support small businesses, Small Business and Manufacturing Minister Andrew Bayly and Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee say. “The Government is ambitious about lifting New ...
Namaste. Namaskar. Namaskaram. Vanakkam. Sat Sri Akal. Kem chho. Greetings to you all. It is my great privilege, as Minister for Ethnic Communities, to host this year’s Diwali Celebration at Parliament. I am truly excited to be with you all for Diwali as your Minister, and I warmly welcome each ...
The Government is continuing to transform maths education, by trialling a targeted maths acceleration programme to give more Kiwi kids confidence in mathematics. “After discovering just 22 per cent of Year 8 students are at the expected standard for maths, we launched our Make it Count Action Plan to give our ...
The Government’s creative sector strategy is designed to increase Kiwis’ engagement with culture and creativity and to boost its economic contribution, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Amplify has been released for public consultation and I encourage people to read the strategy and to share their feedback. “There’s an opportunity to ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has asked the Natural Hazards Commission (NHC) to make changes to how it delivers the On-sold support package to prevent a cost blowout while helping eligible homeowners repair their homes in a timely manner. The On-sold programme was set up by the Government in 2019 ...
Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay will lead a large trade delegation to the 7th annual China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai next week, followed by a visit to Guangzhou. This year, almost 70 New Zealand companies will participate in CIIE, to interact with over 3,400 exhibitors and 410,000 visitors. “This ...
Minister for Hunting and Fishing Todd McClay has today launched an Access Charter (the Charter) to ensure better access for recreational hunting and fishing on public conservation land (PCL) across New Zealand. “This Charter establishes guiding principles for the Department of Conservation (DOC) to provide clear and transparent decisions on ...
A beautiful new Pou Whenua at the beginning of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing will introduce visitors to the sacred landscape they are entering, says Conservation Minister Tama Potaka. Mr Potaka attended a blessing for the specially carved Pou Whenua at Mangatepopo, at the start of the track on 1 November. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today announced two new appointments to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) Board. Mary-Anne Macleod and Mike Rudge have both been appointed as members for three-year terms commencing 1 November 2024 and ending 31 October 2027. “Transport is a critical part of our Government’s plan ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is welcoming Pharmac’s funding of oestradiol gel, following global shortages of oestradiol patches earlier this year. “I’m well aware of the stress caused by the global shortage earlier this year. At the time I said I was confident Pharmac was working hard to find a ...
Foreign Minister and Racing Minister Winston Peters will visit Australia next week. “Australia is New Zealand’s closest partner, and we are pleased to make this second official visit there for 2024 following the first ever Foreign and Defence Ministers 2+2 Meeting between our two countries in Melbourne in January,” ...
Applications have now opened for tertiary education organisations to seek Government funding to develop New Zealand’s first postgraduate diploma programme for associate psychologists, Minister for Mental Health Matt Doocey announced today. “Investment in this new training pathway supports the Government’s target to grow our mental health and addiction workforce and ...
Associate Health Minister with responsibility for Pharmac David Seymour is pleased to see further increased availability of medicines for Kiwis following the Government’s increased investment in Pharmac. “Pharmac operates independently, but it must work within the budget constraints set by the Government,” says Mr Seymour. “When this Government assumed office, ...
New Zealand and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have concluded negotiations on a trade agreement that will open up significant opportunities for New Zealand exporters in the Gulf region, Minister for Trade and Agriculture Todd McClay announced from Doha today. Today’s announcement follows significant reengagement with the GCC following meetings ...
The Government is exploring how to modernise the law around people attending court remotely, to support access to justice and enhance court performance. Courts Minister Nicole McKee says the current law has not kept up with evolving court practices and public attitudes to the use of remote technology, nor been ...
Free breast screening has been extended for 70 to 74-year-old women living in the Nelson Marlborough district, ahead of a national roll-out late next year, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “Breast cancer is the most common cancer in New Zealand with about 3,400 women diagnosed with the disease ...
He toi whakairo, he mana tangata. The reappointment of one trustee and the appointment of four new trustees to the Te Māori Manaaki Taonga Trust Board will enable the legacy of Te Māori to be carried forward into the future, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka and Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith ...
Up to 300 affordable, healthy, community-tailored homes helping to support home ownership are set to be built in eastern Porirua, supported by Government funding for Our Whare Our Fale through the Building Homes for Pacific in Porirua initiative, Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti and Associate Housing Minister Tama ...
A new report that forecasts young people on benefits will spend an average of 20 more years relying on welfare underscores the need for the Government’s reforms, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. MSD’s latest Benefit System Insights report, released today, which estimates how many future years different ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay will hold trade discussions with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) trade ministers in Doha this week. Minister McClay will meet with all six GCC Trade Ministers, as well as the GCC Secretary General. “This will be my seventh visit to the region this year including two Ministerial ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti and Associate Minister David Seymour say it’s great news that podiatrists will soon be able to prescribe medicines, meaning patients with painful foot and leg conditions don’t have to make a separate trip to the doctor. “This simple step means a big change for people ...
The Government is addressing historic redress inequities for some survivors abused at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit. In 2001, the Crown reached a $6.5 million group settlement with 95 survivors subjected to abuse at the Lake Alice Unit. Law firm Grant Cameron & Associates (now GCA Lawyers) represented ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says that the Education Review Office’s (ERO) timely report on chronic school absence released today is further evidence of a truancy crisis. “Chronic absence has doubled since 2015. This report reinforces that action is needed to ensure this generation reaches its full potential,” says Associate ...
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee welcomes BusinessNZ’s report which addresses reducing the compliance burden on small businesses. “The challenges outlined in the report released today echo many of the concerns I have heard from businesses, which have informed my Anti Money Laundering/Countering Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) priorities,” she says. “I have ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge will be open for Christmas, with critical work currently underway to clear the large slips and dropouts that have caused significant disruption for Northlanders trying to get where they want to go quickly and safely, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Mangamuka Gorge ...
The Government is proposing further significant action to reform the building and construction sector to support more affordable homes and a stronger economy, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “If we want to grow the economy, lift incomes, create jobs and build more affordable, quality homes we need a ...
Dr Alan Bollard CNZM and Mr Bharat Guha have been appointed to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) board, Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds says. “I would like to welcome the two new members joining the TEC board,” Ms Simmonds says. “Dr Alan Bollard CNZM is an experienced public ...
Fast tracking applications for registration by eligible specialist doctors wanting to practice in New Zealand is in line with the Government’s push to improve the health outcomes for New Zealanders, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. This fast-track pathway applies to specialists trained in anaesthesia, dermatology, emergency medicine, general practice, ...
Tēnā koutou Nau mai haere mai ki tenei hui Thank you to Vice Chancellor Williams, and the University of Western Sydney, for inviting me to speak today. I speak to you today in my capacity as Attorney-General – the New Zealand Crown’s Senior Law Officer. In this capacity, I serve ...
Minister responsible for the security and intelligence agencies Judith Collins has welcomed new guidance that aims to protect New Zealand’s start-up and emerging technology sector from the threat of economic espionage. “We are a nation well-known for our ingenuity, and our willingness to openly collaborate in the spirit of enterprise ...
The Government has approved $23.1 million for four critical frontline volunteer service organisations to replace storm-damaged assets and provide training and equipment to improve New Zealand’s response to future emergency events, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey says. $14.6 million for Surf Life Saving New ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones will speak at Australia's largest annual mining event in Sydney this week to mark New Zealand’s return to the international industry stage. Mr Jones will attend the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) where he will update the sector’s most influential players on the work the ...
New Zealand will contribute $20 million to the Pacific Resilience Facility, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters have announced. “The Pacific Islands region faces severe challenges from natural disasters and climate change impacts and New Zealand is committed to doing its part to help meet them,” ...
Aucklanders will see a greater Police presence on public transport services to boost safety and reassure public transport workers and passengers, Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Transport and Auckland Minister Simeon Brown say. “Minister Brown and I are working together, alongside Police and Auckland Transport in response to the horrific ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Moina Spooner, Assistant Editor Cities are vital engines of economic growth, innovation and social progress. They shape the futures of nations and the lives of millions. In Africa, urbanisation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Cities are expanding rapidly to accommodate ...
COMMENTARY:By Donald Earl Collins She made it clear in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, again at her televised debate with Donald Trump a few weeks later, and in all her interviews since. Vice-President Kamala Harris, if or when elected the 47th United States president, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Orlando, Researcher: Digital Literacy and Digital Wellbeing, Western Sydney University Alex Photo Stock/Shutterstock If historical trends are anything to go by, most young people in the United States will not vote at this week’s presidential election. For example, at the ...
By Catrin Gardiner, Queensland University of Technology In the middle of the Pacific, Fiji journalists are transforming their practice, as newsrooms around Suva are requiring journalists to become multimedia creators, shaping stories for the digital age. A wave of multimedia journalists is surfacing in Fijian journalism culture, fostered during university ...
Debate over who provided the advice on heated tobacco products to the Associate Health Minister led to the Prime Minister being made to withdraw and apologise in Parliament this afternoon. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Shortis, Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University As Americans vote in one of the most important presidential elections in generations, the country teeters on a knife edge. In the battleground states that will likely decide ...
With election day but hours away, the candidates are completing their final campaign lap and pundits are desperately seeking other ways to say ‘on a knife edge’. Keep up to date with the latest here. It’s squeaky bum time in the land of the free, with the clock ticking inexorably ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock Australians today are more likely than previous generations to live with complex and chronic diseases, such ...
Commissioner Mersi needs to stop burying his head in the sand, and explain to Kiwis how his department are going to clean up the mess of the data they’ve already leaked: Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross said. ...
Alex Casey takes her rescue dog Maggie on a dog-friendly camping adventure and lives to tell the tale. Part of my bargaining in us adopting a dog this year was that I swore not to become one of those barmy people who takes their dog with them on holiday and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Sherlock, Lecturer, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University Like most public figures, Kamala Harris adapts her footwear to different occasions. While her wardrobe includes traditional choices such as formal black heels, it was her appearance in Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leigh Carriage, Senior Lecturer in Music, Southern Cross University The legendary composer, musical arranger and producer Quincy Jones has died at 91. Over his long career, Jones arranged and produced for a broad range of genres. His work blended the traditions of ...
The Government talks about the need to tackle our poor productivity performance, and the need for a longer-term plan to arrest our decline, but their actions continue to take us in the opposite direction ...
New messages released under the OIA show Rainbow acknowledged he ‘didn’t get the HRC job’ – then suddenly he did. Madeleine Chapman reports. “I didn’t get the HRC role but still very keen to help out,” wrote Stephen Rainbow to Act Party chief of staff Andrew Ketels in a text ...
By Victor Mambor in Jayapura Just one day after President Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration, a minister announced plans to resume the transmigration programme in eastern Indonesia, particularly in Papua, saying it was needed for enhancing unity and providing locals with welfare. Transmigration is the process of moving people from densely populated ...
Home Education follows the everyday lives of six families in Aotearoa educating their children at home. Today, education in a house bus with the Rasmussens.The new docuseries Home Education is filmed across Aotearoa, in and around the homes of six families who have taken schooling outside the ...
Price hikes, disappearing products and sourcing struggles – could this be the new normal for the chocolate industry? Last week, Whittaker’s announced its chocolate was changing. Its cacao will no longer be sourced exclusively from Ghana, with the global cocoa shortage forcing the company to get the key ingredient from “several” ...
“We thrive on proving people wrong.” | Watch the full series: http://thespinoff.co.nz/videos/home-education 🚌 The Rasmussens have travelled the country in a house bus for over a decade. Bridie is the ‘road-schooling’ mum to seven kids, all at different stages. She says the family runs into judgement all the time, but ...
Comment: The American presidential election on Wednesday (NZ time) looks like it is going down to the wire. Polls put Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump within the margin of error, both nationally and in key battleground states. As the votes are counted, governments across Asia and ...
"Publicly attacking a public servant for giving advice that you disagree with is unacceptable within our democratic system," said Kerry Davies, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. ...
While you might be reluctant to buy travel insurance, you’ll be glad to have it when things go wrong. As a natural catastrophiser, I spend a lot of time thinking about things that could go wrong – even on holiday. Perhaps I’ll be caught up in a life-threatening multi-car pileup ...
A white woman’s account of backpacking through southeast Asia? Groundbreaking. In a post-social media world, I find it impossible to regale you with my trip through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos without first doing some throat-clearing. “Doing” southeast Asia “on a shoestring” has become such a traveller’s cliche – so ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a 21-year-old flatting in Wellington explains how she gets by. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Wahine. Age: 21. Ethnicity: Māori. Role: Tutor at Victoria University. Salary/income/assets: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Dargaville, Director Monash Energy Institute, Monash University Shutterstock Both major parties in Australia see a significant role for gas as the world shifts to clean energy in a bid to avert dangerous climate change. The Albanese government says new sources ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC L3 Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney David MG/Shutterstock The United States Department of Agriculture last week reported that a pig on a backyard farm in Oregon was infected with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Message, Professor of Public Humanities and Director of the ANU Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University Visual images often last in historical and popular memory. This is especially the case in presidential campaigns in the United States, which offer a vast ...
The PM says he’ll work with whoever wins the White House, but the trade minister has previously expressed concern over higher tariffs, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund for The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Opinion: Wednesday November 6, NZ time, sees the majority of voting in the 2024 US presidential election. While it is unlikely we will have a confirmed result until later (Thursday is best case, but the result could take weeks, depending on how close it is), the next week promises to ...
Why are we working so hard? 
The blunt fact is that a collapse of an old order is playing out before our eyes and many in that country are going to be asked to make some choices. The obvious choice you’re probably thinking about… but also a few others that will still plague that country ...3 hours ago
Sometimes I remember how old A Phuulish Fellow actually is. Specifically, it’s been around long enough that I have made guesses about both the 2016 and the 2020 United States Presidential elections. https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/prediction-for-tomorrow/ https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/prediction-for-tomorrow-2020-edition/ Suffice to say, I was badly wrong in 2016. I was very close ...4 hours ago
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia ...8 hours ago
It’s election day — almost. Across the world, Americans will soon be waking up to do (if they haven’t already done) the thing everyone has been assuring them is the most important action they can possibly take this year: vote. It’s a big day. Bigger than it was 4 years ...9 hours ago
I have become momentarily intrigued by the concept of snow on the beach.This, according to Howeverythingworks, is the Uradome Coast where you can see snow-covered landscapes meeting the white sandy shore and the blue Sea of Japan.My several seconds of research tells me you can find something very much like ...10 hours ago
National has a hard-on for "boot camps" as part of its desperate attempt to grub "tough on crime" votes from sadistic geriatric pedophobes. That's bad enough, but its gets worse: the camps will be privatised. And they will be allowed to use force against children: A leaked ministerial document ...12 hours ago
Is Rwanda turning into a country that seeks regional dominance and exterminates its rivals? This is a contention examined by Dr Michela Wrong, and Dr Maria Armoudian. Dr Wrong is a journalist who has written best-selling books on Africa. Her latest, Do Not Disturb. The story of a political murder ...12 hours ago
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is deeply concerned about the future of investment in science, following the latest announcement of another 60 jobs cuts at Environmental Science and Research (ESR). The Government has now axed more than 500 jobs in the public science sector. “The Government doesn’t seem ...13 hours ago
Kia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, November 5: Strangely for a party that prides itself on being a mainstream bastion of ‘small c’ conservatism, National under PM Christopher Luxon is increasingly at risk ...14 hours ago
2024, directed by Hannah MacPherson This is going to be a wild tonal shift in the middle of a bunch of posts about horror movies, probably, because I have a Rotten Tomatoes list of the best horror films directed by women that I want to see more of, whereas Time ...14 hours ago
Go out and find a girlCome on, come on, and dance all nightDespite the heat it'll be alrightAnd babe, don't you know it's a pityThat the days can't be like the nightsIn the summer, in the citySong: John Sebastian, Mark Sebastian, Steve BooneThank YouTo begin today, a thank you. Yesterday, ...16 hours ago
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.By now we’re all aware of Mike King’s comments regarding use of alcohol to self-medicate mental health problems. On NewstalkZB, King stated:“Alcohol is not a problem for people with mental health issues. It’s actually the ...17 hours ago
Audio interview from RNZ with Community Board member Ali Jones. If you don’t live in Christchurch, and haven’t for the past fifteen years, you probably have a different understanding of the words “EQC” to what we do. For most people, EQC is the scheme they don’t think about that much, ...17 hours ago
Public transport fares are about to increase again, by an average of 5.2%, according to a paper to Auckland Council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee on Thursday by Auckland Transport. In addition, AT are going to be removing off-peak discounts and implementing some other structural changes to the fare system. ...19 hours ago
Ngā mihi maioha. A tremendous thank you to all who commented, supported and read my recent post. In appreciation.First, an update on the Prime Minister’s press conference yesterday with Stanford - rounding up the 3 key messages you may have missed.1. ERICA STANFORD FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF NZ SPREADS MISINFORMATIONEducation ...21 hours ago
On Wednesday evening, as our television relays images of long lines of people queuing to vote, keep this in mind: since 2012, America has closed 20% of its polling places. Crucial swing states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Georgia have collectively lost 400 Election Day polling places since 2010. Five of ...1 day ago
When do you know that a big international news story might be looking like An Historic Moment? When it gets a bunch of utterly superfluous New Zealand reporters inserted into it.I've been sympathetic to our media fretting about hanging on by a thread, but each time they despatch their microphone-holders ...1 day ago
I was two sentences in (and stuck on) a defence of Mike King, where I was going to highlight that he was merely the well-carved figurehead of a neoliberal-shaped problem that neither begins nor ends with him, when I stumbled across a most interesting article about corporate propaganda being disseminated ...1 day ago
Don't speak, I know just what you're sayin'So please stop explainin'Don't tell me 'cause it hurtsDon't speak, I know what you're thinkin'I don't need your reasonsDon't tell me 'cause it hurtsSongwriters: Eric Stefani / Gwen StefaniDo you remember the first time you encountered Corporate Speak? Important-sounding buzzwords used to camouflage ...2 days ago
Kia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, November 4: Budget cuts are storing up costs for future taxpayers and Governments. Scoop of the day: The Government is set to deliver another budget-cutting blow for ...2 days ago
For those of you who are new here, I’m Mountain Tui.National Geographic imageI’m the one that first started badgering NZ about Atlas Network - and it went mainstream easily from that: from Mihirangi Forbes asking David Seymour about it, to David Seymour and Chris Bishop lying, to the evidence easily ...2 days ago
Hi,It’s a big election in three days. Like me, you’re probably sick of hearing about it, but like it or not — what America does tends to trickle down everywhere else. America farts and we’re all under the sheet being hotboxed against our will.I’ll do a fresh Webworm on election ...2 days ago
I lose all my life like thisReflecting time and memoriesAnd all for fear of what I'll findIf I just stop and empty out my mindOf all the ghosts and all the dreamsAll I hold to in beliefThat all I ever amIs somehow never quite all I am nowLyrics Robert Smith.Today’s ...3 days ago
Now, in the land of leaky buildings and the Warehouse-where-everyone-gets-a-bargain, there came an electionAnd this was the one known as the show-bloody-Labour-the-bloody-door electionAnd there came into this election the one known as ChrisAnd of fresh thought or original idea, Chris was full emptyBut this was all good broFor Chris was ...3 days ago
In 1992 James Carville, Bill Clinton’s lead strategist, hung a sign on the wall of the Democratic candidate’s campaign office in Little Rock, Arkansas. It had three lines on it to focus the team on the key vote-swinging issues and one of those lines would become so famous it’s turned ...4 days ago
If you're down and out and you feel really hurtCome on over to the place where I workAnd all your loneliness, I'll try to sootheI'll play the blues for youLyrics: Albert King.Often, in these newsletters, I tell you about what is wrong. You know the sort of thing - oh ...4 days ago
4 days ago
A new book challenges how we need to think about technological innovation.Last week’s column mentioned the three 2024 Nobel laureates in economics. The column focused only on the 2012 book Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson with little reference to Simon Johnson, although the three have worked ...4 days ago
Quiz1. On what study was Mike King basing his assertion that Alcohol is not a problem for people with mental issues. It’s actually the solution ?a. Klein, Sawyer, Chomsky et al; Harvard, 2002b. Black Brown and Bleu; Yale, 1999c. Bloomfield, Verall, Ardern et al, Otago 2022d. Homer, Lenny, Carl and ...4 days ago
A US friend of mine wrote on social media about attending a Homecoming football game at her niece’s Red State university. Although the referees stunk and her team lost, my friend said that she enjoyed her visit, especially the halftime … Continue reading ...4 days ago
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on the latest climate news, including research showing the lethality of gas hobs and research on the health effects of climate ...5 days ago
The RBNZ sees the potential for a spike in demand from landlords. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, November 1: The RBNZ has warned the Government’s tax changes ...5 days ago
5 days ago
Hi,Thanks for all your feedback to Hayden Donnell’s fantasy of communal living. “Camping in summer is really the only time I get to experience village life and I love it so much,” said Michelle. “You’ve infuriated me by writing the article that’s been in my head only much better than ...5 days ago
New Zealand’s new free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council is a major win for both sides. Todd McClay, New Zealand’s trade minister, announced the long-awaited deal on Thursday with his counterparts in Doha, Qatar. It is a remarkable, yet also surprising sudden success: the genesis of the agreement ...5 days ago
In a major international breakthrough, New Zealand has negotiated a free trade agreement with Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Peninsula countries, which includes a provision requiring them to uphold the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. Trade Minister Todd McClay signed the agreement in Doha overnight. The ...5 days ago
This afternoon, I turned to the fellow sitting near me and called out:“Guess what? A guy who runs a charity for mental health just said alcohol is a solution!”And his eyes popped out…his mouth opened ajar.That gave me some satisfaction - only because this person has zero care when it ...5 days ago
Day after day of David Seymour being accorded media time and attention like he’s doing this stuff in good faith and advancing these ideas in earnest. Come on. He’s a cosplaying libertarian who is really just a glove puppet for anti-democratic capitalist pigs. Read more ...5 days ago
No, I haven’t vanished from the Internet. Or died. Completed reads for October: The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei, by Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler Jurgen, by James Branch Cabell A very quiet reading month, and a very quiet writing month ...6 days ago
Our suicide rates are skyrocketing again, and I’m going to spare you the faux-shock I could put on here, given that it would be frankly more surprising to me if our death toll had gone in the other direction. Preliminary data from 2023-24 shows that our annual suicide deaths have ...6 days ago
Difficult Questions: Does denying human equality and rejecting the principles of colour-blind citizenship place you among the baddies? Yes, I’m afraid it does.THE DEMON OF UNREST documents the descent of the United States into civil war. The primary focus of its author, Erik Larson, is the period of roughly five months ...6 days ago
The focus on budgets is "going to cripple the health system".1. Cardiac specialist quits, saying Dr Lester Levy, the Part Time Health Commissioner, is "living in La La Land" and has no idea what's happening on the groundDr Dean BoddingtonDr Boddington, an electrical cardiologist, was the only person who did ...6 days ago
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, October 31: US and European GDP growth figures overnight show the world’s largest economies, along with that of our nearest neighbour Australia, ...6 days ago
Race hatred cannot stop usThis one thing we knowYour poll tax and Donald TrumpGreed has got to go!You’re bound to loseYou fascists bound to lose.Original Lyrics: Woody GuthrieThere are a lot of things this government doesn’t like. Te Reo - got to go, they said, it’s too confusing for our ...6 days ago
Reader Jeff Howell is the best kind of social media friend to have. When there's outrage and denunciation needed he’s in there dishing it with verve; and when those storms pass you get happy Jeff, sharing his projects. His projects are awesome.Until a week or so ago it was a ...6 days ago
We are blessed in Aotearoa with certain people that you might call National Treasures—those with great talents and a strong affinity for this place they are the custodians of. It’s not an official list; the people you think of might differ from those I think of.What are the attributes of ...7 days ago
For the State Highway One traveller, some sights remain dramatic no matter how many times you see them: Wellington harbour opening out at the bottom of Ngauranga Gorge; the first glimpse of Ruapehu; three quarters of the South Island. Also: the moment when you reach the top of the Brynderwyns and ...1 week ago
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The Government is backtracking on existing commitments to do the right thing by homeowners let down by EQC (now the Natural Hazards Commission). ...2 days ago
A new report detailing the enormous social and economic costs of our dental system has reignited the Greens' call for free dental care. ...2 days ago
Spring is here which means the start of the A&P show season. Those treasured community days where town meets country. There's no rural-urban divide here, just a chance to meet up with family and old friends and celebrate all things that make rural New Zealand so special. I'm embarking on ...6 days ago
The Government is joining the next phase of the ‘Taste Pure Nature’ campaign that will position New Zealand beef and lamb as the highest-quality red meats of choice for Chinese consumers, Agriculture and Trade Minister Todd McClay announced at a signing ceremony in China today. “Today I am announcing that ...3 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Moina Spooner, Assistant Editor Cities are vital engines of economic growth, innovation and social progress. They shape the futures of nations and the lives of millions. In Africa, urbanisation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Cities are expanding rapidly to accommodate ...2 hours ago
Parliament is back with only a few weeks of debate left before summer and a lot of legislation to debate. Here are the bills up this week. ...4 hours ago
With election day but hours away, the candidates are completing their final campaign lap and pundits are desperately seeking other ways to say ‘on a knife edge’. Keep up to date with the latest here. It’s squeaky bum time in the land of the free, with the clock ticking inexorably ...11 hours ago
Commissioner Mersi needs to stop burying his head in the sand, and explain to Kiwis how his department are going to clean up the mess of the data they’ve already leaked: Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross said. ...12 hours ago
Comment: The American presidential election on Wednesday (NZ time) looks like it is going down to the wire. Polls put Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump within the margin of error, both nationally and in key battleground states. As the votes are counted, governments across Asia and ...15 hours ago
Good gravy Mr Savage why are you making us think so hard on a Sunday?
Go out and get 18 holes under your belt.
I’m no longer confident “labour” is a useful lens for policy formation, since we are now so de-unionised and deregulated it’s really hard to see how big change is possible. Even inside 2 terms from 2017.
I’m as pessimistic that we will pull away from our addiction to real estate capitalism. Other than through the state essentially printing houses and grossly subsidizing them in one form or other.
We have to look to where policy is still possible. Otherwise tracking all these changes to automation etc is somewhat academic.
And after you’ve done 18 holes, crack open something cold and shut the freaking computer.
Im over in Oz and I tend to be an early riser. Best way to start the day is to browse the interweb and try and say something about what I found …
Only poor people need to work in jobs. Jobs produce profit for shareholders etc. If there are not enough poor people, then there’s a danger the whole profitable market shebang and the culture that underpins it, falls over or fades away.
So find ways to keep enough people poor and engaged.
Fashion…inbuilt obsolescence…speculation to put necessary stuff (like houses for us or food for many in other countries), financially, just out of reach.
Maybe unnecessarily privatise health and other stuff like education – just so that people need to earn a crust to avoid potentially unpleasant consequences (and cream the profit).
Invent nonsense jobs like human resources management positions and cake layer in a pile of lower/middle management positions anywhere and everywhere you can (and cream the profit).
Keep the culture of ‘job as source of dignity’ ticking along nicely and keep creaming that profit.
I’ve thrown this example often, but it bears repeating. 15 people with secure material well-being, successfully paying off 18 mortgages, putting substantial savings aside and all from working on average 8 hours per week each in remunerative activity. That was an actual existing reality and there is absolutely no reason why that can’t be a reality for everyone (assuming we’re stupid enough to want to preserve the nonsense that’s the market economy).
Why 18 mortgages? Are three of the 15 aspirational for a weekend bach? That could be afforded under the old system too and how we enjoyed those baches in the hols.
Sorry greywarshark, that should have read 18 houses – not 18 mortgages. Collective ownership model (housing collective) tied to a worker’s collective that operated from the same location.
Invent nonsense jobs like human resources management positions and cake layer in a pile of lower/middle management positions anywhere and everywhere you can (and cream the profit). I’ve thought about that before. Just as middle class people in third world countries often have vague roles within the military, our lot have similarly vague roles within the corporate structure. In both cases the roles are often as much social positions as jobs, and help to maintain a sufficient number whose interests are tied to those of the regime.
And make getting a benefit dependent on employment that doesn’t exist. I guess that’s what our current Labour party means when they say they’re the party for the workers. Dickheads.
Of course we could go back to a more ‘socialist’ times. I recall working for a govt department (infrastructure) in the 70s and always said the place could easily run on half the staff. The pay was modest, not much above minimum wages at the time, but work conditions great, good training, safe, secure, good friends, holidays, sick time etc. We wouldn’t become rich, but it was good times and well run, be it somewhat overstaffed, but better perhaps than having more on the dole. Then came rogernomics and ruth richardson eras. Efficiency and cost cutting the name of the game.
I see the numbers working in my old infrastructure job now only a tiny fraction what it was. Everything is run down, much outsourced to lowest tender, less safe, zero training, minimal security, every hour accountable. Most are now hating their jobs but with few real options to improve. They’re told they are lucky to have a job.
Now we’re older, I see that perhaps that slightly ‘less efficient’ 70s govt run workplace really had merits. At least people were employed, safe, well trained and had a purpose. Today, those same people are working longer for similar wages, little security. Disposable. There only for the rich offshore shareholders to extract that last ounce of profit. Not the bold promises new technology was supposed to provide.
I suspect the efficiencies means more for the company owners and shareholders, less for the rest of us. Soon, we’ll follow the US and Russia into more an oligarchy state where we, the workers, are but like serfs as in England of old. At least they knew who their real ‘masters’ were. Still poor working conditions and wages, but the expectations were at least clear.
Let’s hope my grandchildren or their children, do better but suspect it may mean the pitchforks coming out first, as it has before.
NZ is worse off now that we have sold off Telecom (formerly Post Office), Electricorp (formerly Ministry of Energy), BNZ, and the Ministry of Works.
The sales were a pointless exercise in neoliberal ideology. Having artificially fragmented our tiny markets for these essential services hasn’t caused efficiencies, it has allowed private interests to siphon vast profits from taxpayers. What a f*cking rort.
The sales were a pointless exercise in neoliberal ideology.
And more than that, they were theft from the commons. Transfer of wealth from the public to a tiny percentage of the private.
(And Labour still won’t commit to a programme of recovery, or re-nationisation. Unfortunately once the TPP is enacted it will all be academic as the TPP will render any nationalisation impossible due to threat of legal action.)
Good point, the TPP will make the rogernomics theft practically irreversible.
TPPA = privatisation of NZ sovereignty.
I remember what it was like dealing with the NZ Post Office for telecommunications services and I’d rather shoot myself than go back.
Pretty sure that Telecom, before the govt sold it, had changed a lot and was pushing forward with major upgrades in services and how it ran the various businesses (that also was before the govt fucked up the infrastructure ownership). Can’t really compare pre-80s telcos with current ones, the technology and culture means the industries are completely different from each other.
Now, if you’d compared NZPost back then and NZPost now, I’d have to say NZPost now is a company on a mission to be sold off. It operates as if it really doesn’t want customers, they’re an annoyance that have to be fitted into the business model. Which takes us back to the original comment. We could run core services as actual services, rather than as profit-generating businesses that see service as an expendable variable.
hi detrie,
well said.
i hear what you are saying, i would add that one of the many intangibles from the 70s organization you described is; the off spring of those ‘underemployed’ workers seeing their parent(s) going off to work.
quietly i want to add, bring on the pitchforks.
A very thought provoking read.
I filled out Labour’s Future of Work Commission survey. It was a very odd survey and like many of the kind they had a lot of bias in areas and sadly I do not feel that it will produce any meaningful incites for Labour.
Good post though and I really think that is a very important question – why are people working harder than before and making it difficult to make ends meet?
Personally I think it is neoliberalism and globalism.
The ‘trickle down’ has not happened. Instead the obsene profits are used to reward the executives at the top and shareholders. Workers are told they are lucky to have a job, let alone being given a rise to keep place with the cost of living.
Immigration is used to keep a steady supply of competition and low wage work force. Social welfare is cut so that that option is not viable for most. Jobs are now not able to cover peoples expenses. It is happening all over the world. Here is a good article from the USA>
“Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
Companies can hire and fire perma-lancers at will. Is it any wonder the middle class is vanishing before our eyes?”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/29/the_sharing_economy_partner/
the capitalist class need people to work harder than before, for less than before, in order to maximise the economic surplus that they can skim off.
Old fashioned Marxian economic analysis makes the answer obvious and simple to understand.
Productivity has increased hugely in the last 30 years but real wages have remained static. That is due to a) regressive taxation favouring capital over labour b) unfair labour laws c) a culture of corporate excess at the executive level d) the growth of easy credit and consequent debt burdens e) transnational corps leading to a race to the bottom of the labour market
It’s called class war, but that’s not acceptable in polite company.
Hey Mickey looks like your namesake has just written an excellent book on this topic 😀
Mike Savage: Social Class in the 21st Century
“we opted for bigger houses with more gadgets, which we replace more often”
This line of thinking blames the working class for problems created by the marketing idustry and companies obsessed with shortterm profit which can only be ensured by making crap which breaks down/artificial demand for the latest newest “upgrade”.
Built in obsolescence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Another documentary for those who still have some holiday time on their hands:
The Lightbulb Conspiracy. Which IIRC has an interesting item on printers having a machine code page count, which when it reaches 18,000 pages stops the printer from working.
What is a “printer”?
With house prices escalating as they have over recent decades – those who can scrape up enough cash for a deposit would be “foolish” not to buy. The mathematics of the investment seem speak for themselves. Either they continue to pay rent (and in doing so help pay off some one elses mortgage, or they bite the bullet and pay off their own with the expectation that should they sell in the future the price of the house will have increased sufficiently to cover the outstanding mortgage and their equity will have increased.
Of course this plays into the trading banks hands very well. They have been given the license to create almost as much money as they want and to reap rewards accordingly. With the acquisition of a huge sum of credit and the so-called “security’, in the form of a house, the price of which, one hopes, continues to appreciate, one is now able to extend that credit to purchase more goods – cars, the latest TV, throw away the old gizmo and buy a new one, (why not two!) and so on. The first problem with all this is one has to somehow or other pay for it – eventually. So “I owe I owe – so off to work I go!
The second problem is that with a growing world population and working population the competition for paying employment is increasing – And that has a direct effect on just how much one can demand in the way of renumeration – along with the apparent ever increasing price of housing largely forced up by the banks making money so readily available.
We need to rethink our whole economy and finance system and that is a world wide problem. The only other result will be a world wide crash of immense proportions similar to the great depression.
As the investment banker interviewed here says “If there is one rule in the city – you can’t make money out of nothing – except just this once we think we might!”
Have to agree with you Macro we need to rethink the finance system. First agasint the wall should be the the out of control derivatives market. The following graphic is a good illustration as to how f’d up things have become…
http://money.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization/
Re Richard Christie 3.1.1
This stealing/transfer from the commons comes to my mind so often when i hear the latest exploits from the Nasties and sometimes from Labour. The removal of crofters from Sutherland in Scotland because sheep and wool were the new gold rush saw small uneconomic units in crofts emptied of people and amalgamated. That drove many Scots to emigrate. The conditions and attitudes they fled from are being exhibited here.
The conditions that workers came here to avoid are creeping into our lives, and will continue all the way to great tragedy unless NZ people rise and get a Charter as they did in Britain with a statement of what they need for life to be livable. There was a swell of opinion in Britain when the Tolpuddle Martyrs who started a southern agricultural labourers union were sent as convicts to Australia, such that great sums of money and pressure was raised to have them returned. And more was available to buy the tenancy of a farm to give them the living the Chartists and wellwishers felt they deserved. The landed class continued to distrust and isolate them though.
How many wellwishers do we have in NZ towards our fellows? They are in their thousands, but what number thousand? They will have to declare their care, come forward and work together for betterment. Labour supporters have lost power over their leaders, who are stuck with superglue. But those supporting Labour themselves need support, as they have the vital numbers to do something.
I’m thinking that political thinkers of the left variety have to prop up Labour, and at the same time get alternatives going. Get behind a group of left thinking parties that will coalesce and work together for the good of the country and not just for their own particular sector of progressive policy, dissing all others. I think we have to accept that Labour will never live up to its name again, and will be at the margins of needed activity and policy. But if that is accepted, then if my premise is right, we need to not criticise much. Criticising when you want and expect improvement as a result is reasonable, but when that can’t be gained, then just helping them through their hoops would be the best move. Creating controversy for the Nasties to inflate is self-defeating.
If the Greens don’t fire you, adopt another NZ-thinking party, don’t waste time on single issue stuff. If we can get a left coalition in then we can get some things done which the people want, including medical marijuana and working conditions and hours, and trains that run, and some kindness and understanding to one another while we budget wisely where we can get the most bang for our buck, which will cut down on some of the authoritarian memes that are madly continued, like more people in prison etc. And always remembering that we have the USA, UK, and other life-denying cultures ready to use us for their scientific experiments, thinking Monsanto, Chinese eugenic plans.
100% grey, go to the top of the class.
Review of Linebaugh’s “Stop, Thief! The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance” …
To; MickySavage
You have put together a fine Article.
As can be expected, the clods of the Right will do whatever they can to write your piece off as mere junk mail.
However, the smug Greens that run this Standard Org Blog (by sheltering under the long history and very creditable success of Labour, including Clarke and Cullen) will continue to slag off the Labour Party as less than excrement.
One of your commentators refers to Labour as dickheads. It is not just a case of Why are We Working so Hard? Why are we saddled with the Greens so filthy and so depressive? No wonder they gather so few harmless followers.
They are the great depressives in politics . Nothing to offer anyone but abuse.
I hope your Article is widely read Micky Savage. A pity your fellow Greens won’t disseminate it widely.
Observer I am a proud member of the labour party! This is why I pushed the future of employment stuff because the party are on the right track in relation to this. But some of my best friends are green and the left has always had a loud passionate and somewhat tortured reltationshib between the different groupings.
To: MickySavage
For mine Micky, you are an excellent writer. Your content is superb too. How on earth you contribute so much amazes me.
I apologise for not knowing you are a member of the Labour Party. Your constructive approach to important issues should have alerted me.
You are doing a powerful task !
😀
Further to my thoughts on Labour. Present Labour is like a wealthy old aunt who has an uncertain temper and a sarcastic tongue but when she needs you you help her out.
She is family and in the end there might be some good come out of it, she mighn’t leave all her money to the Cats Home.
And read Observer (Tokoroa) for an example of the stultified thinking about politics among many. It’s like reading something from the 1900s.
The NZ Labour Party is somewhat incoherant on this topic.
For instance: certain Senior Labour MPs still think that the retirement age needs to be raised, and that workers need to be made to work longer and harder into their greying, worn out years.
Even as there are far too few decent paying, secure jobs for young Kiwis.
It’s illogical. Labour’s incoherence, in my opinion, comes from a combination of a lack of future vision, and a lack of willingness to break new ground.
IMO what needs to happen: the 4 day 32 hour working week at $20/hr minimum wage needs to be made standard, and penalty rates reintroduced for anything over that.
A PM these days can’t just stand up and decree this is how it shall be.
How does a society transform to that scenario.?
What’s your road map?
The magnitude of the challenges being faced is growing by the day. As is the gap between what is needed and what is currently being thought about in the Thorndon Bubble. And yep you are quite right, there needs to be a deliberate and planned transition. A transition which is given political impetus by Kiwis who can imagine something other than National and Labour’s minor ineffectual tinkering with the status quo.
john key decreed a brighter future BM are you saying he wasn’t being truthfully
It’s a brighter future for NatCorp™, YanKey™©, and their clients
It is the trouble with globalisation, the multinationals will then scuttle off to the country that does not have a minimum wage so the production of their stuff is cheaper.
yes their plan is to have wages and standards throughout the western world converge on the lowest common denominator.
This strategy of theirs has been obvious for 20 or more years. Just look at NAFTA.
The ruling class, left and right, Republican and Democrat, National and Labour, are all supporters of globalisation and neoliberalism as an unchangeable fact of life.
That is why we hear so much about apparently, those in the BRICS countries are ‘so happy’ about their lot in life, and they are ‘greatful for what they have’, and that ‘we should learn a few things from them’.
The powers that be more or less want to drag living standards in the west down to the level of the BRICS countries – no labour standards, unions, welfare net, or even decent housing.
fwiw, i have just resigned from my job, cooking in a wonderful rural cafe.
i am nearly 50 and have known my employer since she was 6 (she is now 27), and am a close friend of her dad.
i am fortunate to have had a lovely 21 yr old Chef, and it has been satisfying to have been involved in her development in the last year.
i have struggled with the lack of unity within a very young, small workforce.
most of the empolyees look up to the boss, are a cousin or just don’t wanna rock a boat. btw the boss spent the last 6 months working in the outback of oz and hasn’t worked any shifts.
for the last 3 months we have been understaffed on the busy shifts (sat and sun) generally by one or two people.
i dont view the skipper as evil, money hungry or ‘corporate’ minded.
it just seems to be the way of the world.
the staff rise to the occasion, the public tolerate the wait time and the shift ends and the next one will start the next day.
anyhow, i’ve had enough, worked too hard, too often. i plan (after helping a friend to develop his cafe’s outdoor area- cob pizza oven, bbq etc) to go into early childhood education/childcare.
back to the bottom in terms of wages, but i’d rather be in the sandpit than do another gluten free french toast.
Probably a fairly typical NZ small business except for the absentee boss.
S/he seems to be losing interest. It happens. Might be an opportunity to go into a partnership if the cafe is still making $$$
hi ropata,
i think you are spot on in the losing interest.
it is doing good $.
funny you mention the partnership thing.
it has not ocurred to me before.
i have started, run and sold a hospo business in the past.
that has made me gunshy of doing it again, however…
i am dead keen on the idea of a worker run business.
just when i was comfortable with the idea of some relaxed wage slavery in childcare, you plant the seed of a potentially beautiful future.
thanks.
Good on ya 😇
The trend to longer working hours – and also working harder and faster – is now well-entrenched in capitalism. Since the end of the long postwar boom (late 1940s to early 1970s), there has been no new, sustained boom and theer is no sign of one emerging. So the prospect of us working less hours, particularly over our lifetime, is not anywhere in sight.
Moreover, the trend now is also to raise the retirement age.
Here are a few things on both these subjects, which folk might be interested in:
Whatever happened to the leisure society?: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/whatever-happened-to-the-leisure-society/
Pensions and the retirement age – the problem is capitalism, not an aging population: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/pensions-and-the-retirement-age-the-problem-is-capitalism-not-an-aging-population/
wow, great discussion, and Op.
Additionally, being productive is a negative in our current system, it becomes a cost, wait that’s crazy.
selling a house to an overseas buyer should expand the currency supply, as currency is only representative of value and not of value itself.
So new money into the system, expansion of supply introduced as debt at OCR, you could look at this as a tax, but a tax above the supply : expansion =100% with interest/tax of OCR above expansion, placed on top, crazy. Our debt grows inline with growth, the harder we work, the more we produce the worse the overall debt becomes, flawed system or by design?
The above is exactly the same for all school leavers entering the workforce, all new created value in the system, the government, even before the banks play their fractional reserve games have consigned the country to debt slavery.
The regulation of currency supply is based on GDP, but using a debt mechanism and banks to introduce the currency is as a debt is wrong,
I used to think the universal income crowd was crazy, (the money for nothing ideology, but change that slightly to invest and profit and here we are)
You could increase money supply via the tax system, and direct payment of government services, it’s all in place, credit citizens inline with GDP increases, instead of an ever increasing debt, you have an ever increasing wealth creation, you know, like an investment.
Economy increases, currency expanded as a dividend( not debt) citizens share in economic growth directly, then spend that money in the local economy creating a feedback loop, things only get better.
Maybe constraints on exports/imports, pretty much opposite of Globalization,
Treasury does not adjust OCR as a tool to control inflation as it was designed, seem to do the opposite, they need watching.