XT Outages

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 1st, 2010 - 58 comments
Categories: telecommunications - Tags: ,

Last week thousands of Telecom XT network customers were without service, some for three days. This comes just weeks after a similar outage last December. It makes a mockery of Telecom’s claim of “five nines” (99.999% reliability).

A recent post at by Peter Griffin at Sciblogs (a site for NZ science bloggers) tears Telecom a new one over the outages

Telecom’s mobile network architecture is flawed to the extent that if one of its two RNC switches for the country fails, the other one cannot take over for the whole country. The XT network was meant to breathe new life into Telecom. Instead, it has come to symbolise what is wrong with the company.

…and much more. But bad as such fiascos look for our Titans of the private sector, when it comes to making a mess of our communications infrastructure the Government still has them beat:

Govt ‘asking for a disaster’ on broadband

Australasian telecommunications specialist Paul Budde laid into New Zealand’s $1.5 billion plan for ultra-fast broadband yesterday, saying he didn’t see how anybody could respond to a tender to take part in the project. Budde says he has grave doubts about the outcome of the initiative due to a lack of information about the shape of the network, applications and the regulatory environment. …

Budde is also critical of the local fibre company structure. He says telecommunications is about scale, and the proposed 33 local fibre companies will not be large enough to deliver affordable services.

“It’s totally ridiculous. It’s not going to work. You are asking for a disaster,” he says

Is NZ going to keep up in an increasingly wired world? Perhaps we the “consumers” should send some “market signals”. There are alternatives to Telecom. And there are alternatives to a National led government…

58 comments on “XT Outages ”

    • Bright Red 1.1

      That’s the first time anyone has sent me a link to Bromhead without including the words ‘how does this man get work?’

      To be fair, it’s one of his better ones in that it isn’t totally stupid or self-contradictory, and doesn’t miss the point. There’s even a bit of wit to it.

      Back in the 60s, Bromhead was drawing anti-feminist cartoons. Saw them at the National Library. They’re pretty weird stuff.

  1. Jim Nald 2

    John Key sold the idea of ultra fast broadband as part of National’s infrastructure policy to voters when he campaigned in 2008. But now real action and progress feel like they are moving slower than dial-up speed.

  2. Lanthanide 3

    I’ve always maintained that the broadband policy was a blatant vote-grab for the 15-35 year old males who download things of P2P networks and don’t have any interest in politics. They see National promising faster broadband and so vote for them, regardless of when, what cost or under what terms this broadband would be delivered (eg, new laws that crack down on piracy).

    • Dean 3.1

      Yes, because business doesn’t need fast broadband for telecommuting or handling larger volumes of traffic for any reason at all. They’re all quite happy with the current status quo and it’s ALL because of P2P traffic.

      What a moronic thing to say, Lanthanide.

      • felix 3.1.1

        Yeah what’s holding kiwi businesses back is the lack of videoconferencing.

        Definitely.

        • Dean 3.1.1.1

          Not just videoconferencing, but attachment sizes and the speed of transferring data.

          If you’ve never been in the position of having to have done so, I guess you would think it was pretty amusing.

          • felix 3.1.1.1.1

            Oh I understand the importance for the tiny minority companies who give a monkey’s. It’s just that I also understand the relative insignificance to the huge majority of businesses who never need to deal with large file transfers.

            The files I shunt around the place are anywhere from 50 to 150 MB so I’m not unaffected either. I just think you’re vastly overestimating the number of votes to be gleaned from concerned business people in this area.

            • Dean 3.1.1.1.1.1

              What’s the attachment size limit most ISPs enforce, felix?

              • felix

                No idea. No-one sends large files by attachment.

              • Lew

                No-one competent. Which means tens of thousands (millions!) of people do it every day. And they expect it to work. And in 2010, I reckon it should.

                L

              • infused

                I get asked every week why they can’t send an email over 10mb. Try actually dealing with small businesses felix.

                • lprent

                  Usually because the receiving mail server limits the size of attachments or has other limits. Frequently the anti-spam/virus checkers cause timeouts. But usually it isn’t the transmission of the data unless you have a lot of people clogging the internet link. Often that happens because they don’t check what connections are moving and have peer2peer connections running (which would soak up even much wider pipes)

                  In my experience, it isn’t the connections that is usually the problem. It is those other issues. However people tend to blame the pipes. There is a simple check for the pipe on ADSL – just look at speeds at the router. That is a function of how far you are from exchange/booster on ADSL.

                  Lyn sometimes has problems moving multi-gigabyte files – but that is because she uses http as the transport protocol. Resumable ftp would be a lot simpler.

                  • Dean

                    “Usually because the receiving mail server limits the size of attachments or has other limits. Frequently the anti-spam/virus checkers cause timeouts. But usually it isn’t the transmission of the data unless you have a lot of people clogging the internet link. Often that happens because they don’t check what connections are moving and have peer2peer connections running (which would soak up even much wider pipes)”

                    Receiving mail server attachment limits are a thing of the past. That’s just a nonsense that expired when the year 2000 rolled around. The only people who have this problem are the ones who have an ISP mailbox, and theres no excuse for that anymore.

                    ” But usually it isn’t the transmission of the data unless you have a lot of people clogging the internet link. Often that happens because they don’t check what connections are moving and have peer2peer connections running (which would soak up even much wider pipes)”

                    Traffic shaping and QOS doesn’t exist? News to me. Even a small or micro business can afford such things these days – they’re either cheap or essentially free.

                  • felix

                    I’m surprised that you can sit by and watch someone struggle with http transfers Lynn 🙂

                  • infused

                    Alot of those issues you describe would affect a home user, not a business user.

              • lprent

                Typically about 1-20MB on most mail servers. But it varies a hell of a lot. It is one of the reasons that you use your own mail servers.

                But the restriction is mainly there because of the processing times for anti-virus and anti-spam filters rather than then transmission speeds.

            • Richard 3.1.1.1.1.2

              In my experiences, heaps of business people like to email bloated excel spreadsheets and (less commonly) database files. Excel spreadsheets can fairly easily get into the 10-100MB size category.

              Another favourite, large attachment, is pdfs that have been created by scanning a document (rather than created electronically). Which is often caused by someone doing something like printing a document, signing every page, scanning the whole thing and then emailing it back again.

              Pdfs of catalogues, that have been created electronically, but contain lots of pictures suitable for high quality printing are quite common large size attachments too, as are powerpoint presentations.

              Of course, there are many strategies for keeping such documents to a manageable size, or ways other than email attachments of distributing them — but the average computer user doesn’t bother. They just expect email to work with large attachments.

      • Lanthanide 3.1.2

        Business already has access to “fast” broadband. Any business that wants to use it for “telecommuting” simply has to pay the price. These services are not cheap, and it is unlikely that rolling out a new billion dollar network is somehow going to be magically cheaper (they have to pay for the rollout somehow).

        Whenever you see anything about the new “super-fast” broadband, about the only concrete example of what it will be used for is streaming television to people’s homes. Whoop-de-do, that’s really going to improve our productivity by letting people sit on their couch.

        As Iprent points out, if you’re concerned about “attachment size” on your emails, then you shouldn’t be using whatever email address it is that you get from your ISP. “super-fast” broadband is unlikely to change that policy.

        What other people have pointed out in the past, is that the best bang for buck in terms of broadband penetration would be to concentrate on rural areas, where delivering broadband to farmers and small towns could actually improve their productivity significantly, especially in places where broadband is unavailable and connections are unreliable. However the plan that has been laid out by the National government focusses on the 20 (25?) largest communities in the country, and the rest get zippo.

        FYI, I actually work as a software developer for a company that designs switches and routers for the internet, so I do actually have a clue what I’m talking about.

  3. infused 4

    Well, the fiber in Wellignton is being laid by Citylink via Smartlynx3 for the Hutt. They are quite reliable to be honest.

    Two different things.

    Also, both outages were different issues. The fact that they have replaced hardware at all sites indicates some sort of hardware issue,

  4. RedLogix 5

    Spare a thought for the poor sods at the coal-face who have probably been working some very long, stressful hours dealing to this issue. As a techie myself I know just how hard it can be to resolve this kind of issue with complex new systems.

    It’s moments like this when you need seven arses, so as they can all be kicked at once.

  5. Steve 6

    The Govt should buy back Telecom. Only then we will find it is just as fucked as a train set. Telecome needs rebranding, renaming.
    “PELICAN” is a good name, then they can both stick their bills up their arse

  6. Draco T Bastard 7

    He says telecommunications is about scale, and the proposed 33 local fibre companies will not be large enough to deliver affordable services.

    And Labour aren’t any better – they keep going on about regional telecommunications companies. It’s the completely delusional “competition will save us!11!!!” BS.

    1 SoE, 1 network. Fixed. It is the most efficient structural model and that’s how Telecom has maintained its dominance.

    If all those billions of dollars of profits that have been siphoned out of Telecom over the last 20 years since the sale had been put back into the network like what was happening before the sale ($272m in 1985, $300 1987, etc) we wouldn’t have to be promising billions of dollars of subsidies to the private profiteers.

    • Dean 7.1

      “If all those billions of dollars of profits that have been siphoned out of Telecom over the last 20 years since the sale had been put back into the network like what was happening before the sale ($272m in 1985, $300 1987, etc) we wouldn’t have to be promising billions of dollars of subsidies to the private profitee”

      That’ll explain why it took 3 people to put a phone line on to a house in 1984-6, and why it took anywhere between 3-6 weeks, if not months. I can also remember my mother saving a little money from her DPB for WEEKS to be able to afford a 10 minute call from me to my grandmother in the UK.

      As someone who was affected (medical issue which a GP advised a phone call to the hospital may be necessary in order to save a life) by how badly Telecom (the post office back then) ran things, your simplistic cry for nationalisation holds little merit.

      I’m not defending the current state of Telecom – the XT outage is an absolute shocker. It’s just a good job you’ve got a choice as to who you use for your cell or landline. What’s more it’s cheaper too, and hasn’t become yet another government department turned into a revenue gatherer – just like Telecom/NZ Post used to be.

      • Draco T Bastard 7.1.1

        It’s not a simplistic cry. I was there, I was one of those people hooking up the phones and I was also there a couple of years ago. Want to know what’s changed in the intervening years? NOTHING except that the technology has improved and the culture of service has gone.

        Everything you say was wrong with Telecom prior to privatisation was fixed prior to privatisation by installing new technology. Exchanges that could leave a phone physically connected rather than having to disconnect them improved connection times by the simple fact that people didn’t need to be sent around to the exchange, cabinet and house to wire it up. Cabling became much cheaper as it went from steel and lead wrapped to plastic allowing more lines to be run for each house.

        Basically, what you’re complaining about is a lack of resources that nobody could do anything about until things became cheaper and when it did that lack of resources was taken care of as fast as it could be. Even with close to 20k people working it still takes a long time to wire up an entire country (which puts the lie to JKs $1.5b and 75% of households to have FTTH in 5 years when only ~ 2000 people are employed by telecommunications firms).

        What’s more it’s cheaper too, and hasn’t become yet another government department turned into a revenue gatherer just like Telecom/NZ Post used to be.

        There’s two reasons why it’s cheaper:
        1.) All the needed investment was done prior to the sale and there’s been minimal investment since (Gatung mentioned 15% of income – that included maintenance).
        2.) The price of things have come down. Analogue exchanges were big power hogs that cost a bundle. Digital ones? Use far less power and are much much cheaper. Think about your PC and how much it cost and then think about how much it cost for 1/10th (if you were lucky) the computing power that required an entire building to be housed in.

        The Post Office P&O branch (Telecom), btw, was never a cash cow for the government. All of it’s income went back into what it did – telecommunications. The Post Office and Postbank were losing money. Which just goes to show that you really have NFI what you’re talking about.

        • PaulD 7.1.1.1

          Your analogue v’s digital comparison isn’t valid. New exchanges take up far less space but the idle power requirements are similar to working load. The old analogue exchange doing nothing consumed nothing. Newer generations of digital will be an improvement especially if the users end up responsible for powering their end of the connection.

        • Dean 7.1.1.2

          “It’s not a simplistic cry. I was there, I was one of those people hooking up the phones and I was also there a couple of years ago. Want to know what’s changed in the intervening years? NOTHING except that the technology has improved and the culture of service has gone.”

          Why did it take 3 people to put on a phone line back then? I notice you’re conveniently avoiding that question, but if your memory goes back that far you’ll know that it was a union rule.

          “Everything you say was wrong with Telecom prior to privatisation was fixed prior to privatisation by installing new technology”

          That’ll explain why it wasn’t until they were privatised that costs came down.

          “The Post Office P&O branch (Telecom), btw, was never a cash cow for the government. All of it’s income went back into what it did telecommunications. The Post Office and Postbank were losing money. Which just goes to show that you really have NFI what you’re talking about.”

          This is the best part. You;re actually pretending that there was never ever any money made off the post office, but also that them losing money is somehow indicative of this.

          I’d like to introduce you to a concept – it’s called double entry accounting. You may have heard of it? The way it works is where you put your profits on one side of the ledger, and your losses on the other side. It’s why back in the day the government/post office insisted on charging what they did for toll calls while expecting people would think it was reasonable to wait so long for a phone line to be connected, and why they tried to hide it from everyone who was paying so much.

          “What choice? The service you buy is exactly the same no matter who you get it from and multiple companies with multiple bureaucracies is inherently more expensive. In other words, if we still just had one SOE and one network it would be cheaper still.”

          That’s why vodafone had a nationwide outage!

          Honestly, Draco. Have you actually read back what you typed to yourself?

          You’re honestly comparing Vodafone’s supply to Telecom’s XT and pronouncuing them to be exactly the same? You’re saying that Vodafone – despite the inherent issues theyve had with interconnect issues – who have consistently bettered pricing and availability of new technology – are the same service as Telecom?

          Wow. You really have no idea, do you.

          • Draco T Bastard 7.1.1.2.1

            but if your memory goes back that far you’ll know that it was a union rule.

            Again, more delusion on your part. There was no union rule and that wasn’t a work rule either. You got what was available – if that was a van with one person in (unlikely because most vans carried trainees) then you got one person. If you got three that was because that’s was what was available. A three person van was almost always a cable van so it’s unlikely you’d get that.

            That’ll explain why it wasn’t until they were privatised that costs came down.

            The costs would have come down either way. It’s just that it’s most likely costs would have come down more if it had remained an SOE. We certainly would have had a better network now as the profits would have gone back into the network rather than in profiteers pockets causing a massive dead weight loss.

            I’d like to introduce you to a concept it’s called double entry accounting. You may have heard of it? The way it works is where you put your profits on one side of the ledger, and your losses on the other side. It’s why back in the day the government/post office insisted on charging what they did for toll calls while expecting people would think it was reasonable to wait so long for a phone line to be connected, and why they tried to hide it from everyone who was paying so much.

            I’d like to introduce this thing called logic to you. It goes along the lines of this and this = conclusion. It amazingly enough has absolutely nothing to do with what you wrote here where you quite simply go this… conclusion!!!!. You’re missing all the connecting bits that actually make up an argument. Hell, from what you say I’d have to accuse every single business of deceit because they all use double entry book keeping.

            You’re honestly comparing Vodafone’s supply to Telecom’s XT and pronouncuing them to be exactly the same?

            The service is: mobile telecommunications – and that’s all it is. Both providers provide exactly the same service. Especially now that Telecom have shifted to using the same standards that Vodaphone and the rest of the world use.

            You’re honestly comparing Vodafone’s supply to Telecom’s XT and pronouncuing them to be exactly the same?

            No, I’m not. I’m saying that the service is exactly the same. You’re confusing the service with the delivery of that service which aren’t exactly the same.

      • Draco T Bastard 7.1.2

        It’s just a good job you’ve got a choice as to who you use for your cell or landline.

        What choice? The service you buy is exactly the same no matter who you get it from and multiple companies with multiple bureaucracies is inherently more expensive. In other words, if we still just had one SOE and one network it would be cheaper still.

      • PaulD 7.1.3

        The biggest improvement to Telecom and almost every other organisation since the mid 80’s was the computerisation of customer records. Before then applications for service existed as bits of paper that could and did go missing at every possible chance.

        • Draco T Bastard 7.1.3.1

          Computerisation in general. It added quite a few abilities that analogue couldn’t do and was far cheaper. As I said though, most of that was done before Telecom was sold which proves that the improvement would have come with privatisation or without it. The argument now is how much we would be better off if we hadn’t sold it (and we would be).

  7. Good point… I’m not sure where Telecom is heading… Not going to well at the moment.

  8. Our collection of small, remote, scattered communities far beyond the reach of public sewers and tapwater has had to provide itself with broadband because no-one else was going to – we’ve created a community-owned, non-profit wireless network which taps into dsl in a town 20km away and must be among the cheapest broadband in NZ. I regularly get >5MBps and 4GB/month costs me $20.

    Yet it took a community effort, some risky capital outlay in a system we weren’t sure was even going to work and some luck. We’ve had no public money or help whatsoever.

    We were shortlisted under the last Govt’s Broadband Initiative for a grant to extend our network to some really out of the way corners, but National canned that and are instead spending millions on providing ultra-fast broadband business districts despite research showing that ultra-fast broadband is of no greater value to business than a reliable 10MBps. The only real benefit of Ultra-fast broadband is on-demand TV or films, so National’s funding of it is like putting public money into launching satellites for Sky TV to use.

    What little is being directed into rural areas is now going towards subsiding the commercial operators rather than supporting community efforts like ours, exemplifying National’s favourite trick of using public money to facilitate private profit.

  9. Dean 10

    felix:

    “No idea. No-one sends large files by attachment.”

    Unfortunately for you, you are entirely incorrect.

    • felix 10.1

      Good for you Dean. If I am (and I might be, I’m only speaking from my own limited experience) then that rather undermines your entire argument.

      • Dean 10.1.1

        “No-one competent. Which means tens of thousands (millions!) of people do it every day. And they expect it to work. And in 2010, I reckon it should.”

        and

        “I get asked every week why they can’t send an email over 10mb. Try actually dealing with small businesses felix”

        Your experience is indeed limited, felix.

        Email attachement size shouldn’t be a limitation, but if youre prepared to argue that fast internet isn’t necessary because you know what you’re doing then you need to understand a whole lot more about how the average person uses computers.

        I look forward to you explaining why people who want to send large attachements somehow undermines the idea that they should be able to because they don’t “know what they are doing”, and why this means wanting a larger pipe on the internet a bad thing.

        • felix 10.1.1.1

          No surprises there – as I said my experience is limited and I must be fortunate to work with fairly competent people.

          I can’t for the life of me see why anyone would prefer to move large files by email but I’m not an IT prof so what do I know?

          To be clear: I’ve never stated that a bigger pipe isn’t necessary or that faster speeds aren’t desirable. I just don’t think there are as many people screaming out for it as you do.

          And as I said, I could well be wrong but I suspect you’re talking about fairly specific industries, a tiny minority of the business community.

          • Dean 10.1.1.1.1

            “And as I said, I could well be wrong but I suspect you’re talking about fairly specific industries, a tiny minority of the business community.”

            Panelbeaters, retail stores, accountants, publishers, manufacturers, writers, health professionals.

            I’m going to go with you could very well be wrong. Unless you see how the average person who doesn’t know much about computers determining the easiest way to do things is somehow interested in learning a way to get around the limitations of a crappy internet connection, I don’t think you’ve got a lot more to add here.

            “And as I said, I could well be wrong but I suspect you’re talking about fairly specific industries, a tiny minority of the business community.”

            Clearly you are wrong if you think it’s a tiny monority, who are all 18-35 whose vote got bought because theyre P2Pers.

            • felix 10.1.1.1.1.1

              I appreciate your sentiments but you’re really just stating an opinion as fact in response to my opinion stated as opinion. I don’t see that you’re adding much either but at least I know it.

              And actually I don’t think it’s necessarily correct to design everything to pander to the shortcomings of the stupidest users. We’re talking about real resources here. Why should people be encouraged to waste them rather than be encouraged to learn to use them efficiently?

              • BLiP

                Why should people be encouraged to waste them rather than be encouraged to learn to use them efficiently

                Think Microsoft.

              • Draco T Bastard

                but you’re really just stating an opinion as fact in response to my opinion stated as opinion.

                No, you stated an opinion what he stated was fact. People regularly send multi-megbyte files via email. They haven’t heard of ftp or any other technology that does it better. People write an email, add attachment and press send. They neither need nor want to know about the technology that makes it work or it’s limitations.

                Why should people be encouraged to waste them rather than be encouraged to learn to use them efficiently?

                That’s the society that we’ve grown up in – everything you want, now. It would be nice if we started looking at the waste that we do unthinkingly though.

              • felix

                The “opinion stated as fact” was referring to “Panelbeaters, retail stores, accountants, publishers, manufacturers, writers, health professionals.”

                I don’t think rattling off a list of “people I reckon need bigger pipes nao” constitutes a fact-based argument.

                I maintain that the potential for genuine productivity gains from vastly improved web access are limited to a relatively small and specific group of industries and so far no-one has shown me any evidence to the contrary.

                I remain open to seeing it though. I’d like everything bigger faster better more too.

  10. infused 11

    It’s the same reason most of my customers convert from adsl to citylink, fast, fast, fast, national data is free. Do a backup felix. Most people have anywhere from a few gb to 1tb of data these days. It’s a struggle. Unless you are centre CBD getting these sort of connections is next to impossible – and they are needed.

  11. Clarke 12

    I’ll tell you why this FTTH thing is a waste of time economically – because I’m in Wellington and already connected to CityLink at 25mb/s synchronous, and it has completely failed to transform my business.

    To put the connection in cost me $2.500 from the fibre running past in the street, as this is the price CityLink need to charge to make a dollar – and it’s hard to see how there are huge economies of scale in that number.

    The link has been 100% stable and is seriously fast, but the only positive impact on me financially has been the saving of $100/month in hosting fees as I’m now running a mail and web server in-house … although it’s not necessarily a smart decision, given I also lack the UPS and monitoring infrastructure of a proper data centre.

    The reason I put the fibre in was because I’m a geek, and CityLink had a fibre running past our office. But if I was a non-geek running (say) a panel beating business, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to my profitability. Watching gratuitous YouTube clips at lunchtime would definitely be faster, but since when is that a transformative economic strategy for the country?

    Conclusion: Key doesn’t have a clue what he’s up to with this FTTH nonsense.

  12. infused 13

    Must be a pretty piss poor mail server then lprent. Try using something like Brightmail Gateway.

    • lprent 13.1

      I’m using MDaemon on an old box from about 2003-4. But I was actually referring to various mail systems I’ve seen over the years. Exchange being about the worst.

      • infused 13.1.1

        Nothing wrong with Exchange. I look after around 20-30 exchange servers. Good hardware, configured properly, what’s the problem?

        Just like any other software.

        anti spam word: servers

        nice

  13. Dean 14

    “I appreciate your sentiments but you’re really just stating an opinion as fact in response to my opinion stated as opinion. I don’t see that you’re adding much either but at least I know it.”

    I’m sorry that I have real world examples of people who want to send files by email because they can’t be bothered to do it a more complicated way, and I’m sorry that you see it as an opinion rather than the way people actually do things.

    Mind you, you did assert that the only reason National campaigned on faster internet connections was to placate the P2P crowd, so I suppose you really don’t have an awful lot more to add rather than they should probably vote Labour?

    • felix 14.1

      Mind you, you did assert that the only reason National campaigned on faster internet connections was to placate the P2P crowd, so I suppose you really don’t have an awful lot more to add rather than they should probably vote Labour?

      You have me confused with someone else. I never said that and I don’t vote Labour.

      Sorry I missed your real world examples. I don’t really care if people don’t know how to use the net. The only point I’ve been trying to make (and you’ve been studiously avoiding) is that there is no apparent advantage in terms of productivity and profit for anyone but a very small minority of very specific companies. Nothing you’ve said has made any case to dispute this. If you think a panelbeater and an accountant are losing ground in the marketplace because they can’t figure out how to send 20MB files to each other then I don’t really know why I’m bothering discussing it with you.

      I’m not denying the convenience factor but I haven’t heard anything from you about actual productive gains.

      • spot 14.1.1

        “Productive gains” angle is a hard one, and I think you’re bang on, not every business will benefit, cos clearly not every business has a model that’s improved by it. But some will, and I guess the argument is that there’ll be some that don’t exist now but could.

        I think they’ll look at (or have done) a whole range of socio-economic metrics for this sort of stuff.

        You could probably construct and craft some numbers to fit any business case you want but it’d be good to see stuff like e-learning, home business/office, health and other public service delivery, ‘quality of life’, improved comms, and obviously all sorts of lifestyle type services.

        Personally I’m very interested in anything that can really support ‘regionalisation’ (if that makes sense) in NZ, and in doing so having a positive impact on local economies etc etc.

  14. tc 15

    Gosh aside from all the tech talk about attachments etc the fundamental point is if our infrastructure wasn’t third world you’d get away with much of the above as the network would have capacity to handle bad user behaviour….for which they’d pay.

    More to the point is we have a gov’t that thinks big bus can do no wrong, a big bus (telecom) who can do no right and in fact rewards it’s shareholders by not investing in infrastructure.

    Then a broadband plan hammered by all and sundry as unworkable being handled by JK’s head bully Joyce……billions being spent to improve what telecom shareholders should be funding, not you and me.

    This gov’t lack the brains and principles to solve our telco landscape….helen put the right minister (Cunliffe) onto it after the wrong one (Swain) but contrast that with NACT who have one plan B when ministers fail…..B is for Bully…come on down Joyce.

  15. tc 16

    maybe this thread should be renamed……..Standard IT advice, there’s some great stuff here from people who know their stuff answering people who need to know their stuff……..meanwhile the Grumpy Scot collects his bonus….Kaching !

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    “But, that’s the thing, mate, isn’t it? We showed ourselves to be nothing more useful than a bunch of angry old men, shaking our fists at the sky. Were we really that angry at Labour and the Greens? Or was it just the inescapable fact of our own growing irrelevancy ...
    22 hours ago
  • JERRY COYNE: A powerful University dean in New Zealand touts merging higher education with indigeno...
    Jerry Coyne writes –  This article from New Zealand’s Newsroom site was written by Julie Rowland,  the deputy dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland as well as a geologist and the Director of the Ngā Ara Whetū | Centre for Climate, Biodiversity & Society. In other ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • Ain't nobody gonna steal this heart away.
    Ain't nobody gonna steal this heart away.For the last couple of weeks its felt as though all the good things in our beautiful land are under attack.These isles in the southern Pacific. The home of the Māori people. A land of easy going friendliness, openness, and she’ll be right. A ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • Speaking for the future
    Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.MondayYou cannot be seriousOne might think, god, people who are seeing all this must be regretting their vote.But one might be mistaken.There are people whose chief priority is not wanting to be ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 day ago
  • How Should We Organise a Modern Economy?
    Alan Bollard, formerly Treasury Secretary, Reserve Bank Governor and Chairman of APEC, has written an insightful book exploring command vs demand approaches to the economy. The Cold War included a conflict about ideas; many were economic. Alan Bollard’s latest book Economists in the Cold War focuses on the contribution of ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    2 days ago
  • Willis fails a taxing app-titude test but govt supporters will cheer moves on Te Pukenga and the Hum...
    Buzz from the Beehive The Minister of Defence has returned from Noumea to announce New Zealand will host next year’s South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting and (wearing another ministerial hat) to condemn malicious cyber activity conducted by the Russian Government. A bigger cheer from people who voted for the Luxon ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    2 days ago
  • ELIZABETH RATA: In defence of the liberal university and against indigenisation
    The suppression of individual thought in our universities spills over into society, threatening free speech everywhere. Elizabeth Rata writes –  Indigenising New Zealand’s universities is well underway, presumably with the agreement of University Councils and despite the absence of public discussion. Indigenising, under the broader umbrella of decolonisation, ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on the skewed media coverage of Gaza
    Now that he’s back as Foreign Minister, maybe Winston Peters should start reading the MFAT website. If he did, Peters would find MFAT celebrating the 25th anniversary of how New Zealand alerted the rest of the world to the genocide developing in Rwanda. Quote: New Zealand played an important role ...
    2 days ago
  • “Your Circus, Your Clowns.”
    It must have been a hard first couple of weeks for National voters, since the coalition was announced. Seeing their party make so many concessions to New Zealand First and ACT that there seems little remains of their own policies, other than the dwindling dream of tax cuts and the ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 8-December-2023
    It’s Friday again and Christmas is fast approaching. Here’s some of the stories that caught our attention. This week in Greater Auckland On Tuesday Matt covered some of the recent talk around the costs, benefits and challenges with the City Rail Link. On Thursday Matt looked at how ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    2 days ago
  • End-of-week escapism
    Amsterdam to Hong Kong William McCartney16,000 kilometres41 days18 trains13 countries11 currencies6 long-distance taxis4 taxi apps4 buses3 sim cards2 ferries1 tram0 medical events (surprisingly)Episode 4Whether the Sofia-Istanbul Express really qualifies to be called an express is debatable, but it’s another one of those likeably old and slow trains tha… ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 days ago
  • The Hoon around the week to Dec 8
    Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro arrives for the State Opening of Parliament (Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:New Finance Minister Nicola Willis set herself a ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • New Zealand’s Witchcraft Laws: 1840/1858-1961/1962
    Sometimes one gets morbidly curious about the oddities of one’s own legal system. Sometimes one writes entire essays on New Zealand’s experience with Blasphemous Libel: https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/blasphemous-libel-new-zealand-politics/ And sometimes one follows up the exact historical status of witchcraft law in New Zealand. As one does, of course. ...
    2 days ago
  • No surprises
    Don’t expect any fiscal shocks or surprises when the books are opened on December 20 with the unveiling of the Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU). That was the message yesterday from Westpac in an economic commentary. But the bank’s analysis did not include any changes to capital ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49 2023
    113 articles in 48 journals by 674 contributing authors Physical science of climate change, effects Diversity of Lagged Relationships in Global Means of Surface Temperatures and Radiative Budgets for CMIP6 piControl Simulations, Tsuchida et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0045.1 Do abrupt cryosphere events in High Mountain Asia indicate earlier tipping ...
    3 days ago
  • Phone calls at Kia Kaha primary
    It is quiet reading time in Room 13! It is so quiet you can hear the Tui outside. It is so quiet you can hear the Fulton Hogan crew.It is so quiet you can hear old Mr Grant and old Mr Bradbury standing by the roadworks and counting the conesand going on ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • A question of confidence is raised by the Minister of Police, but he had to be questioned by RNZ to ...
    It looks like the new ministerial press secretaries have quickly learned the art of camouflaging exactly what their ministers are saying – or, at least, of keeping the hard news  out of the headlines and/or the opening sentences of the statements they post on the home page of the governments ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago
  • Xmas  good  cheer  for the dairy industry  as Fonterra lifts its forecast
    The big dairy co-op Fonterra  had  some Christmas  cheer to offer  its farmers this week, increasing its forecast farmgate milk price and earnings guidance for  the year after what it calls a strong start to the year. The forecast  midpoint for the 2023/24 season is up 25cs to $7.50 per ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago
  • MICHAEL BASSETT: Modern Maori myths
    Michael Bassett writes – Many of the comments about the Coalition’s determination to wind back the dramatic Maorification of New Zealand of the last three years would have you believe the new government is engaged in a full-scale attack on Maori. In reality, all that is happening ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago
  • Dreams of eternal sunshine at a spotless COP28
    Mary Robinson asked Al Jaber a series of very simple, direct and highly pertinent questions and he responded with a high-octane public meltdown. Photos: Getty Images / montage: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR The hygiene effects of direct sunshine are making some inroads, perhaps for the very first time, on the normalised ‘deficit ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • LINDSAY MITCHELL: Oh, the irony
    Lindsay Mitchell writes – Appointed by new Labour PM Jacinda Ardern in 2018, Cindy Kiro headed the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) tasked with reviewing and recommending reforms to the welfare system. Kiro had been Children’s Commissioner during Helen Clark’s Labour government but returned to academia subsequently. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago
  • Transport Agencies don’t want Harbour Tunnels
    It seems even our transport agencies don’t want Labour’s harbour crossing plans. In August the previous government and Waka Kotahi announced their absurd preferred option the new harbour crossing that at the time was estimated to cost $35-45 billion. It included both road tunnels and a wiggly light rail tunnel ...
    3 days ago
  • Webworm Presents: Jurassic Park on 35mm
    Hi,Paying Webworm members such as yourself keep this thing running, so as 2023 draws to close, I wanted to do two things to say a giant, loud “THANKS”. Firstly — I’m giving away 10 Mister Organ blu-rays in New Zealand, and another 10 in America. More details down below.Secondly — ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    3 days ago
  • The Prime Minister's Dream.
    Yesterday saw the State Opening of Parliament, the Speech from the Throne, and then Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s dream for Aotearoa in his first address. But first the pomp and ceremony, the arrival of the Governor General.Dame Cindy Kiro arrived on the forecourt outside of parliament to a Māori welcome. ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago
  • National’s new MP; the proud part-Maori boy raised in a state house
    Probably not since 1975 have we seen a government take office up against such a wall of protest and complaint. That was highlighted yesterday, the day that the new Parliament was sworn in, with news that King Tuheitia has called a national hui for late January to develop a ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    3 days ago
  • Climate Adam: Battlefield Earth – How War Fuels Climate Catastrophe
    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). War, conflict and climate change are tearing apart lives across the world. But these aren't separate harms - they're intricately connected. ...
    4 days ago
  • They do not speak for us, and they do not speak for the future
    These dire woeful and intolerant people have been so determinedly going about their small and petulant business, it’s hard to keep up. At the end of the new government’s first woeful week, Audrey Young took the time to count off its various acts of denigration of Te Ao Māori:Review the ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    4 days ago
  • Another attack on te reo
    The new white supremacist government made attacking te reo a key part of its platform, promising to rename government agencies and force them to "communicate primarily in English" (which they already do). But today they've gone further, by trying to cut the pay of public servants who speak te reo: ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • For the record, the Beehive buzz can now be regarded as “official”
    Buzz from the Beehive The biggest buzz we bring you from the Beehive today is that the government’s official website is up and going after being out of action for more than a week. The latest press statement came  from  Education Minister  Eric Stanford, who seized on the 2022 PISA ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago
  • Climate Change: Failed again
    There was another ETS auction this morning. and like all the other ones this year, it failed to clear - meaning that 23 million tons of carbon (15 million ordinary units plus 8 million in the cost containment reserve) went up in smoke. Or rather, they didn't. Being unsold at ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell On The Government’s Assault On Maori
    This isn’t news, but the National-led coalition is mounting a sustained assault on Treaty rights and obligations. Even so, Christopher Luxon has described yesterday’s nationwide protests by Maori as “pretty unfair.” Poor thing. In the NZ Herald, Audrey Young has compiled a useful list of the many, many ways that ...
    4 days ago
  • Rising costs hit farmers hard, but  there’s more  positive news  for  them this  week 
    New Zealand’s dairy industry, the mainstay of the country’s export trade, has  been under  pressure  from rising  costs. Down on the  farm, this  has  been  hitting  hard. But there  was more positive news this week,  first   from the latest Fonterra GDT auction where  prices  rose,  and  then from  a  report ...
    Point of OrderBy tutere44
    4 days ago
  • ROB MacCULLOCH:  Newshub and NZ Herald report misleading garbage about ACT’s van Veldon not follo...
    Rob MacCulloch writes –  In their rush to discredit the new government (which our MainStream Media regard as illegitimate and having no right to enact the democratic will of voters) the NZ Herald and Newshub are arguing ACT’s Deputy Leader Brooke van Veldon is not following Treasury advice ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Top 10 for Wednesday, December 6
    Even many young people who smoke support smokefree policies, fitting in with previous research showing the large majority of people who smoke regret starting and most want to quit. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s my pick of the top 10 news and analysis links elsewhere on the morning of Wednesday, December ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Eleven years of work.
    Well it didn’t take six months, but the leaks have begun. Yes the good ship Coalition has inadvertently released a confidential cabinet paper into the public domain, discussing their axing of Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs).Oops.Just when you were admiring how smoothly things were going for the new government, they’ve had ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago
  • Why we're missing out on sharply lower inflation
    A wave of new and higher fees, rates and charges will ripple out over the economy in the next 18 months as mayors, councillors, heads of department and price-setters for utilities such as gas, electricity, water and parking ramp up charges. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Just when most ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • How Did We Get Here?
    Hi,Kiwis — keep the evening of December 22nd free. I have a meetup planned, and will send out an invite over the next day or so. This sounds sort of crazy to write, but today will be Tony Stamp’s final Totally Normal column of 2023. Somehow we’ve made it to ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    4 days ago
  • At a glance – Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?
    On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
    5 days ago
  • New Zealaders  have  high expectations of  new  government:  now let’s see if it can deliver?
    The electorate has high expectations of the  new  government.  The question is: can  it  deliver?    Some  might  say  the  signs are not  promising. Protestors   are  already marching in the streets. The  new  Prime Minister has had  little experience of managing  very diverse politicians  in coalition. The economy he  ...
    Point of OrderBy tutere44
    5 days ago
  • You won't believe some of the numbers you have to pull when you're a Finance Minister
    Nicola of Marsden:Yo, normies! We will fix your cost of living worries by giving you a tax cut of 150 dollars. 150! Cash money! Vote National.Various people who can read and count:Actually that's 150 over a fortnight. Not a week, which is how you usually express these things.And actually, it looks ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    5 days ago
  • Pushback
    When this government came to power, it did so on an explicitly white supremacist platform. Undermining the Waitangi Tribunal, removing Māori representation in local government, over-riding the courts which had tried to make their foreshore and seabed legislation work, eradicating te reo from public life, and ultimately trying to repudiate ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Defence ministerial meeting meant Collins missed the Maori Party’s mischief-making capers in Parli...
    Buzz from the Beehive Maybe this is not the best time for our Minister of Defence to have gone overseas. Not when the Maori Party is inviting (or should that be inciting?) its followers to join a revolution in a post which promoted its protest plans with a picture of ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago
  • Threats of war have been followed by an invitation to join the revolution – now let’s see how th...
     A Maori Party post on Instagram invited party followers to ….  Tangata Whenua, Tangata Tiriti, Join the REVOLUTION! & make a stand!  Nationwide Action Day, All details in tiles swipe to see locations.  • This is our 1st hit out and tomorrow Tuesday the 5th is the opening ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Top 10 for Tuesday, December 4
    The RBNZ governor is citing high net migration and profit-led inflation as factors in the bank’s hawkish stance. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s my pick of the top 10 news and analysis links elsewhere on the morning of Tuesday, December 5, including:Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr says high net migration and ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Nicola Willis' 'show me the money' moment
    Willis has accused labour of “economic vandalism’, while Robertson described her comments as a “desperate diversion from somebody who can't make their tax package add up”. There will now be an intense focus on December 20 to see whether her hyperbole is backed up by true surprises. Photo montage: Lynn ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • CRL costs money but also provides huge benefits
    The City Rail Link has been in the headlines a bit recently so I thought I’d look at some of them. First up, yesterday the NZ Herald ran this piece about the ongoing costs of the CRL. Auckland ratepayers will be saddled with an estimated bill of $220 million each ...
    5 days ago
  • And I don't want the world to see us.
    Is this the most shambolic government in the history of New Zealand? Given that parliament hasn’t even opened they’ve managed quite a list of achievements to date.The Smokefree debacle trading lives for tax cuts, the Trumpian claims of bribery in the Media, an International award for indifference, and today the ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Cooking the books
    Finance Minister Nicola Willis late yesterday stopped only slightly short of accusing her predecessor Grant Robertson of cooking the books. She complained that the Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU), due to be made public on December 20, would show “fiscal cliffs” that would amount to “billions of ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    5 days ago
  • Most people don’t realize how much progress we’ve made on climate change
    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The year was 2015. ‘Uptown Funk’ with Bruno Mars was at the top of the music charts. Jurassic World was the most popular new movie in theaters. And decades of futility in international climate negotiations was about to come to an end in ...
    6 days ago
  • Of Parliamentary Oaths and Clive Boonham
    As a heads-up, I am not one of those people who stay awake at night thinking about weird Culture War nonsense. At least so far as the current Maori/Constitutional arrangements go. In fact, I actually consider it the least important issue facing the day to day lives of New ...
    6 days ago
  • Bearing True Allegiance?
    Strong Words: “We do not consent, we do not surrender, we do not cede, we do not submit; we, the indigenous, are rising. We do not buy into the colonial fictions this House is built upon. Te Pāti Māori pledges allegiance to our mokopuna, our whenua, and Te Tiriti o ...
    6 days ago
  • You cannot be serious
    Some days it feels like the only thing to say is: Seriously? No, really. Seriously?OneSomeone has used their health department access to share data about vaccinations and patients, and inform the world that New Zealanders have been dying in their hundreds of thousands from the evil vaccine. This of course is pure ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago
  • A promise kept: govt pulls the plug on Lake Onslow scheme – but this saving of $16bn is denounced...
    Buzz from the Beehive After $21.8 million was spent on investigations, the plug has been pulled on the Lake Onslow pumped-hydro electricity scheme, The scheme –  that technically could have solved New Zealand’s looming energy shortage, according to its champions – was a key part of the defeated Labour government’s ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • CHRIS TROTTER: The Maori Party and Oath of Allegiance
    If those elected to the Māori Seats refuse to take them, then what possible reason could the country have for retaining them?   Chris Trotter writes – Christmas is fast approaching, which, as it does every year, means gearing up for an abstruse general knowledge question. “Who was ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • BRIAN EASTON:  Forward to 2017
    The coalition party agreements are mainly about returning to 2017 when National lost power. They show commonalities but also some serious divergencies. Brian Easton writes The two coalition agreements – one National and ACT, the other National and New Zealand First – are more than policy documents. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Climate Change: Fossils
    When the new government promised to allow new offshore oil and gas exploration, they were warned that there would be international criticism and reputational damage. Naturally, they arrogantly denied any possibility that that would happen. And then they finally turned up at COP, to criticism from Palau, and a "fossil ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    6 days ago
  • GEOFFREY MILLER:  NZ’s foreign policy resets on AUKUS, Gaza and Ukraine
    Geoffrey Miller writes – New Zealand’s international relations are under new management. And Winston Peters, the new foreign minister, is already setting a change agenda. As expected, this includes a more pro-US positioning when it comes to the Pacific – where Peters will be picking up where he ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on the government’s smokefree laws debacle
    The most charitable explanation for National’s behaviour over the smokefree legislation is that they have dutifully fulfilled the wishes of the Big Tobacco lobby and then cast around – incompetently, as it turns out – for excuses that might sell this health policy U-turn to the public. The less charitable ...
    6 days ago
  • Top 10 links at 10 am for Monday, December 4
    As Deb Te Kawa writes in an op-ed, the new Government seems to have immediately bought itself fights with just about everyone. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Here’s my pick of the top 10 news and analysis links elsewhere as of 10 am on Monday December 4, including:Palau’s President ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago
  • Be Honest.
    Let’s begin today by thinking about job interviews.During my career in Software Development I must have interviewed hundreds of people, hired at least a hundred, but few stick in the memory.I remember one guy who was so laid back he was practically horizontal, leaning back in his chair until his ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    6 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: New Zealand’s foreign policy resets on AUKUS, Gaza and Ukraine
    New Zealand’s international relations are under new management. And Winston Peters, the new foreign minister, is already setting a change agenda. As expected, this includes a more pro-US positioning when it comes to the Pacific – where Peters will be picking up where he left off. Peters sought to align ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    6 days ago
  • Auckland rail tunnel the world’s most expensive
    Auckland’s city rail link is the most expensive rail project in the world per km, and the CRL boss has described the cost of infrastructure construction in Aotearoa as a crisis. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The 3.5 km City Rail Link (CRL) tunnel under Auckland’s CBD has cost ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago
  • First big test coming
    The first big test of the new Government’s approach to Treaty matters is likely to be seen in the return of the Resource Management Act. RMA Minister Chris Bishop has confirmed that he intends to introduce legislation to repeal Labour’s recently passed Natural and Built Environments Act and its ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    6 days ago
  • The Song of Saqua: Volume III
    Time to revisit something I haven’t covered in a while: the D&D campaign, with Saqua the aquatic half-vampire. Last seen in July: https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2023/07/27/the-song-of-saqua-volume-ii/ The delay is understandable, once one realises that the interim saw our DM come down with a life-threatening medical situation. They have since survived to make ...
    6 days ago
  • Chris Bishop: Smokin’
    Yes. Correct. It was an election result. And now we are the elected government. ...
    My ThinksBy boonman
    1 week ago
  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48
    A chronological listing of news and opinion articles posted on the Skeptical Science  Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Nov 26, 2023 thru Dec 2, 2023. Story of the Week CO2 readings from Mauna Loa show failure to combat climate change Daily atmospheric carbon dioxide data from Hawaiian volcano more ...
    1 week ago
  • Affirmative Action.
    Affirmative Action was a key theme at this election, although I don’t recall anyone using those particular words during the campaign.They’re positive words, and the way the topic was talked about was anything but. It certainly wasn’t a campaign of saying that Affirmative Action was a good thing, but that, ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • 100 days of something
    It was at the end of the Foxton straights, at the end of 1978, at 100km/h, that someone tried to grab me from behind on my Yamaha.They seemed to be yanking my backpack. My first thought was outrage. My second was: but how? Where have they come from? And my ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 week ago
  • Look who’s stepped up to champion Winston
    There’s no news to be gleaned from the government’s official website today  – it contains nothing more than the message about the site being under maintenance. The time this maintenance job is taking and the costs being incurred have us musing on the government’s commitment to an assault on inflation. ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    1 week ago
  • What's The Story?
    Don’t you sometimes wish they’d just tell the truth? No matter how abhorrent or ugly, just straight up tell us the truth?C’mon guys, what you’re doing is bad enough anyway, pretending you’re not is only adding insult to injury.Instead of all this bollocks about the Smokefree changes being to do ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • The longest of weeks
    Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.Friday Under New Management Week in review, quiz style1. Which of these best describes Aotearoa?a. Progressive nation, proud of its egalitarian spirit and belief in a fair go b. Best little country on the planet c. ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 week ago
  • Suggested sessions of EGU24 to submit abstracts to
    Like earlier this year, members from our team will be involved with next year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The conference will take place on premise in Vienna as well as online from April 14 to 19, 2024. The session catalog has been available since November 1 ...
    1 week ago
  • Under New Management
    1. Which of these best describes Aotearoa?a. Progressive nation, proud of its egalitarian spirit and belief in a fair go b. Best little country on the planet c. Under New Management 2. Which of these best describes the 100 days of action announced this week by the new government?a. Petulantb. Simplistic and wrongheaded c. ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 week ago

  • Ministers visit Hawke’s Bay to grasp recovery needs
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon joined Cyclone Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell and Transport and Local Government Minister Simeon Brown, to meet leaders of cyclone and flood-affected regions in the Hawke’s Bay. The visit reinforced the coalition Government’s commitment to support the region and better understand its ongoing requirements, Mr Mitchell says.  ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • New Zealand condemns malicious cyber activity
    New Zealand has joined the UK and other partners in condemning malicious cyber activity conducted by the Russian Government, Minister Responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau Judith Collins says. The statement follows the UK’s attribution today of malicious cyber activity impacting its domestic democratic institutions and processes, as well ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Disestablishment of Te Pūkenga begins
    The Government has begun the process of disestablishing Te Pūkenga as part of its 100-day plan, Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds says.  “I have started putting that plan into action and have met with the chair and chief Executive of Te Pūkenga to advise them of my ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Climate Change Minister to attend COP28 in Dubai
    Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will be leaving for Dubai today to attend COP28, the 28th annual UN climate summit, this week. Simon Watts says he will push for accelerated action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, deliver New Zealand’s national statement and connect with partner countries, private sector leaders ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • New Zealand to host 2024 Pacific defence meeting
    Defence Minister Judith Collins yesterday announced New Zealand will host next year’s South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting (SPDMM). “Having just returned from this year’s meeting in Nouméa, I witnessed first-hand the value of meeting with my Pacific counterparts to discuss regional security and defence matters. I welcome the opportunity to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Study shows need to remove distractions in class
    The Government is committed to lifting school achievement in the basics and that starts with removing distractions so young people can focus on their learning, Education Minister Erica Stanford says.   The 2022 PISA results released this week found that Kiwi kids ranked 5th in the world for being distracted ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Minister sets expectations of Commissioner
    Today I met with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to set out my expectations, which he has agreed to, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. Under section 16(1) of the Policing Act 2008, the Minister can expect the Police Commissioner to deliver on the Government’s direction and priorities, as now outlined in ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • New Zealand needs a strong and stable ETS
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