The final sentence, instancing baby boomers in a cheap throwaway shot. Why does he instance baby boomers? Why not leave it at just instancing residents' views. I find this a nasty piece of disrespectful ageism.
Well, one thing is that he is a former 'spin doctor for a National Treaty Negotiations minister, Chris Finlayson.'
"Much needed housing projects in leafy central Auckland suburbs are routinely scrapped by the authorities for much less – for blocking a baby boomer resident's views, or to save sagging old mid-century shopfronts."
The final few words of this take on it are "history and good planning" it gave me the chance to think about what is happening, like, probably, a lot of people I didn't know what to think of it or even have view.
After reading this I thought, why not Avondale Racecourse? Why not the golf clubs? Maybe this is uncomfortable but it does raise questions. Surely there is a solution.
Letting the Tamakis try and feed off this and protecting all other areas of Auck that are only used by a few or used rarely shouldn't be part of Auckland's future.
I notice a good picture of Ben Thomas in his article. I wonder if that is actually the main feature and intention of writing it though there is also a good aerial photo of the Stonefields volcanic cone.
The resource consent decision report describes the impact homes for other people to live in would have on Peter Lange: “He described the pleasure of sitting in his front bedroom or balcony and enjoying ‘the sunsets across the silhouetted parapets of the Edwardian shop fronts, to the Waitakeres beyond.’ He considered the imposition of a five storey building would seriously compromise this amenity.”
Yes, Mr Lange is certainly a 'resident' but that word is not shorthand for the attitudes that have been associated for many decades with the "Me" generation.
So, by the end of dinner, they decided to take on the government, the developers and the Auckland Council.
They settled on SOUL as the name for their protest group. It stands for Save Our Unique Landscape and their aim was to stop nearly 500 homes being built near their village, their ancient burial caves, the historic Ōtuataua Stonefields and their ancestral maunga, Te Puketāpapatanga-a-Hape and Ōtuataua.
For me – I am enjoying watching the ebb and flow of mana – this is how it works, live, in real time – ebb and flow. No one has to be worried because it is still moving, until it settles into the new spot it is fluid. Fixed positions, movement, change, solidity, unbreaking, ever flexible – we are getting a masterclass.
I am enjoying watching the ebb and flow of mana – this is how it works, live, in real time – ebb and flow. No one has to be worried because it is still moving, until it settles into the new spot it is fluid. Fixed positions, movement, change, solidity, unbreaking, ever flexible – we are getting a masterclass.
I don't think one more mm should be sold and in fact a lot should be GIVEN back gabbyduck. I'd give back a few other things too – mark my words on that one alright gabbs, I'd give back a FEW other things too I would, yes siree, indeed, say no more.
People have been describing this as the revolution of our generation, and the biggest Māori movement of this time, so it's really disappointing that she's not here," she said.
The call is now out for the protest crowd to get bigger as they wait for the Prime Minister to join the party.
There was something almost smug in the Prime Minister’s voice when she was asked if the government would intervene at Ihumatao. Oh no, she said – that’s an iwi dispute – nothing to do with the government – whew!
She was backed up by a phalanx of Maori Labour MPs – spineless to a person – who said it wasn’t the government’s role to get involved in internal iwi politics.
Never mind that the government set up special housing areas and approved the land for housing. Never mind that the government’s state forces – the police – are being used to drive people off the land on behalf of a private company. Never mind that the whole of New Zealand history has been built on the same scenario we see at Ihumatao.
And never mind that the colonial wars of the past have been based on the same crown logic the Prime Minister is using today.
If you've ever felt that you're not being given the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth by our elected representatives, both at central and local government level, you can take some comfort that your suspicions are well founded.
It’s not news that people doing PR and communications for the state heavily outnumber the journalists who report on the agencies employing them. But the numbers crunched by RNZ’s Phil Pennington show the gap has become a chasm – and the figures weren't easy to get.
Most government departments are having to increase the resources needed for Freedom of Information requests – most of those will probably be called communications staff . . .
I believe that some of the egregious requests should be countered by public release of both the questions and answers, and also for each request provide a "quick estimate" of person-hours spent on preparing the information. First by making more information public, questioners will only get a slight "scoop" advantage, if the requester is named (as it should be at least for all MPs and for corporations) it may give a guide to those who are seeking to bury initiative by tying up resources, but most importantly it may lead departments to review regular reporting so that systems automatically provide better public information
There is a cost to open and transparent government . . at least the emphasis now is on compliance rather than withholding information
It arises from two different National party imperatives. First they want smaller government, but they also need to be seen to increase spending. How to do that? Criticise any small part of any sector, and promise more money. No need for the criticism to be justified cancer is good because people die from it, so we are not doing enough. (Forget about all the other reasons for death, including the expensive "just getting older") Also forget about where the money comes from – if asked, point to anything the government is doing – the Regional Development Fund will do – as an example of less important spending.
The reality is that Pharmac has a mandate to look at all causes of need for treatments, and to balance those needs fairly, taking into account proven effects. The occasional political meddling is often related to a big company having a new (and nearly tested) wonder drug – sadly performance doe not always match rhetoric, but the purpose here is not to spend more money, but to be seen to be doing (or in this case promising for the future) something.
The reality for cancer treatment is that we already have a fairly concentrated system that puts specialists together in places where patients can be directed to give critical mass. We will never have a cancer specialist team on the West Coast – specialists want to see more than 2 or 3 patients a year . . . We know from the past that political decisions have not always matched clinical preferences – some of the past decisions to promise funding before an election have not survived dispassionate assessment of clinical results for a new drug.
So, 1. Where is the money coming from? Does this defer tax cuts?
2. My uncle has Heart disease / Parkinsons / Multiple Schlerosis / Dementia – what are you going to do for him and others like him? Or will treatment for them be cut to pay for the promise?
3. We are told to trust the market and to trust the medical profession – why do you think a political decision to "pick a winner" will result in better health outcomes overall. Is this just an election bribe? Does the National Party no longer believe in the benefits of a free market?
This is not about strengthening the hand of the state – $50 million a year for 4 years (presumably from 2021 when this little blurt from Simon may well have been forgotten . . .) will not make up for the cuts to the total health budget over the previous 9 years. This is a "look over there" action intended to distract. Even the basic premise that people all over New Zealand deserve to have specialist care in their neighbourhood is a nonsense – major centres are the only places with ready transport from elsewhere and enough patients to run complex speciality departments – it was I think under National that pediatric cancer services were concentrated in a small number of places. What National does believe in is crony capitalism, using money to temporarily buy support while encouraging the "self-reliance" of private health insurance . . .
The ideology dictates that government not only should not get in the way of the ‘free market’ but also that it should set policy that actively encourages and protects the ‘free market’. The government is to serve and protect markets in which individuals make rational decisions and choices that are in their best interest. What the ideology assumes is the sum of these individual actions delivers the best possible outcome for the greater good. In fact, it is claimed that this is the only ideology that can achieve this outcome. What is often downplayed or outright ignored is that people don’t make strictly rational decisions and choices and that they are heavily influenced by marketing, advertising, PR, and spin, et cetera. The ideology further ignores that choice is an allusion and in fact an illusion because it encourages mergers & acquisitions into large dominant market players and monopolies. The same market ‘principles’ feed back into the market itself in which companies and corporates make decisions that are in their (shareholders’) best interest. The madness of this ideology is that many not just believe but are convinced that the cumulative effect of an infinite number of selfish actions is a selfless benefit to all.
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
It is clear that National has not learned and moved on from their mistake to ride roughshod over PHARMAC’s decision-making process and fund Herceptin as an Election promise in 2008.
This is yet another cynical promise of frivolous spending of Taxpayers’ money sold as ‘life-saving’.
A guaranteed extra windfall of $50 million each year (!) for pharma industry thanks to the generosity of Simon Bridges and his buddies in National. How many bridges did Bridges promise again?
I’d suggest that PHARMAC adopts a no-cure-no-pay policy for expensive drugs. Given that only a fraction of patients respond to these expensive treatments and given that all treated patients are exposed to potentially severe side effects of the drugs, it makes no sense to charge the full price (not cost) to each and every patient. Unfortunately, they cannot tell who will benefit and who won’t.
Thus, set a very conservative base re-fund and then for each month or year of clinical benefit to the patient pay a little more to the point at which a patient is disease-free and/or considered cured. As soon as a patient relapses, the payments stop indefinitely. That would be true value-for-money. At the moment, it is largely a gamble with people’s lives and finances with the only real winners being the pharma industry.
Would be a useful policy if we implement fast-tracking for unproven drugs. Insurance for reducing the up-front barriers. Maybe in a 'partnership agreement' with the pharma companies?
The gold standard in clinical registration trials for anti-cancer drugs is overall survival but this can take years to measure. Unfortunately, surrogate or secondary endpoints such as progression-free survival don’t always predict for overall survival.
Pharma provide (new) drugs free to patients who participate in clinical trials but it is important to note that not all trials are equal.
The other point to consider is that trial results often are more positive than when used in the general patient population. There are a number of reasons for that.
Because of the side effects and the general lack of predictive diagnostics, I think there has to be a sound evidence-base before PHARMAC fully funds new treatments. Partly, because it could go at the expense of other expenditure on proven treatments, be it for cancer or non-cancer.
New drugs offer great promise in some cases but also come with great(er) uncertainty. IMO, this should definitely be reflected in a lower cost price to PHARMAC.
In some ways, it is the pharma’s best interest to treat as many patients as possible regardless of whether they’ll benefit or not. Patient selection based on predictive diagnostics increases the chances of clinical benefit to the patient but reduces the potential market size for the pharma.
The main issue is that the best drug should be tailored to a specific patient (best match) with the greatest chance of a beneficial outcome for the patient, which is where personalised medicine is heading, and this could be coupled to the pharma’s profit. Currently, the two are often uncoupled from each other and pricing is set by the pharma and how much ‘the market’ can tolerate and is willing to accept. It has an element of preying on the desperate and giving them hope …
Results need to be made public and there needs much more transparency and accountability from and by the pharma industry especially since we, the Taxpayers, pay for it.
Sometimes, you get the feeling that the ‘ethics’ of Big Pharma and Tobacco Industry are virtually indistinguishable. Of course, their number one priority is to satisfy their shareholders.
Regulators should make it mandatory to publish all results of all trials through peer-review. Patients shouldn’t be used as Guinea pigs to boost profits.
After market approval, all adverse events need to be collated in a central register that is open and searchable. This needs an international global approach.
I am not the only commenter here who has expressed bitter disappointment at the nation being stuck with yet another Minister of Health who is clearly unequal to the task of enabling the necessary reboot of our Public Health and Disability system.
That is, of course, if the Current Mob were speaking true when they declared their intention to be transformational and address the failings and inequities that have been allowed to flourish under the past four administrations.
A cynical person might suspect that the underlying intent is to push this nation inexorable down the path to a system where those who can go private and those who can't….suffer and die.
Choices are certainly a bitch, aren't they. Salaried medical specialists are probably in just the category that would have benefited from National's further cuts to income tax that the new government reversed. Instead the increased the minimum wage, increased benefits, stopped spending so much money on making WINZ staff proxy police and got them to actually help people in need (and surprise surprise suddenly without changing the law suddenly staff found that many people were actually eligible for a benefit). They put money into repairing and building social housing, and money into reviewing education for skills training so we don;t have to import more; they settled long overdue wage agreements with nurses and teachers. In half a term quite a bit has been achieved. Meanwhile we are looking forward to the possibility of another world recession; our debt position as a country is much higher than desirable, and a pre-election promise has led to our continuing with low income tax rates for companies and individuals, with some blatant loopholes that further reduce spending options.
I agree that there was a lurch towards private provision of health services under the Key/English governments – and yes there is a gap in earnings between private and public specialists. I well remember a news item shortly before the 2017 election where Bill English proudly attended a major extension of Bowen Hospital in Wellington; accompanied I think around the same time by the purchase by a private provider of an MRI machine – but don't worry, the public sector can contract to use it when it is not being used for private patients . . . So I too would like the public sector to "close the gap" in a lot of ways, but if priority were to be given to salaried medical specialists, what other part of spending would you be happy to reduce, Rosemary?
Sure, but that wasn’t the question, was it? It would have been more honest and clearer to reframe the question and explain why but you didn’t, did you?
You do sound a tad like Amy Adams “sniping” about or at the Budget, don’t you?
Edit:
You are an attack machine Rosemary McD. Only your problems and those of other disabled people should be looked at, nobody else matters. And talking down the ELOC (End of Life Choice) Bill is a narrow position. Less money spent on interfering with natural death; limiting the drawn-out 'life' of terminally ill means more available for those actually living, not just existing. I am as despairing as you are of intelligent and fair behaviour as needed and wanted by people who need help with their plans for their future.
Health must be a nightmare portfolio….the reality is there will never be enough resources and choices will be made. …whether the best (or right?) will be a never ending debate….it will depend on where you view it from.
"Health", ie the "Ministry of", has become an autonomous corporate monster. Regardless of which colour flies atop the Beehive, the Ministry will continue along the path laid out over two decades ago. Underfund the system and provide dysfunctional leadership. Blame and accuse those charged with providing frontline services for not being able to function as required when they're running to stand still. Contract out core services to profiteers. Allow the creation of an separate profession called 'health management and administration', whose sole role appears to be to draw $$$ away from actual treatment and care and into the salaries of those who without knowing the first thing about running a busy ward march in and start telling the medical staff how to run a busy ward….Brian Easton describes these parasites here…https://pundit.co.nz/content/who-was-accountable-for-the-shambles
A brave Prime Minister would address the Nation and say.."Look folks, our Public Health and Disability system is in deepest shit.. Decades of mismanagement has resulted in such a deficit that we have only two choices….a) give up and limp along on existing funding and under the cloud of strained relationships and encourage those who can afford it to take out private health insurance (as was the plan in the first place), or b) we do a massive reboot, a sizeable and meaningful cash injection that will truly be an investment for future generations…but this option requires us to impose and extra 2% of tax on every earner, ringfenced as an addition to the current Vote Health appropriations. This tax shall stay in place until we're out of the pooh."
Id go for 'b' as well….but would note the result would still be well short of providing everything demanded.
Health care will always be triaged….some honest discussions about what are must haves and what would be good if able are needed, but I doubt any politician of any hue is willing to risk that
David Clark seems to believe long-standing workforce issues can't somehow be solved by bringing in more trained medical specialists (from offshore) or is it a case of the Government not wanting to spend the money required to do that?
Great article worth another read in these times – we all have this tendency – some more than others – listen please, just listen.
But the truth is, she didn’t misunderstand me at all. She understood what was happening perhaps better than I did. When she began to share her raw emotions, I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say, so I defaulted to a subject with which I was comfortable: myself.
That is good MM. Shutting up and finding ways to affirm their thoughts or occasionally indicate a different way, 'Have you thought of trying…' is the best. Sometimes thoughts get so scrambled that talking through them with a trusted person gives a clarity.
What a bloody laugh as I woke up today (sunday) 28th july to see lame brain Simon Bridges saying;;
“I believe in climate change is a real threat to our nation” to Tova O;Brien, and then he tries to nail the point home by saying quote “we have two electric cars”
If that incredible statment wasn;t enough, then he says about the National Party policy was to build new roads????
What the fuck@@@@@
Is he brainless? it would seem as he is as more roads are not the way forward to lower the climate emissions!!
Using more rail is, as rail uses six times less fuel to move the same amount as trucks do, and rail uses no tyres and only “steel on steel wheels, for low friction and only has steel particulates emissions.
Vehicle tyres emit large amounts of tyre dust pollution made from oil distilates similar to plastic,
That causes cancer and nervous system damage, with 1,3,Butadience styrene,
"It is the number one issue that comes up from interviewing Treaty claimants. In negotiations, a group or individual is given a mandate, and then put under incredible pressure to get the settlement over the line.
"But in the end there is no negotiation, from a Māori view, it is all defined in terms set by the Crown, or in this case a developer, and mostly involving financial settlements.
"It leads to disputes within and/or between iwi or hapū, and leads to outcomes in favour of the Crown."
Do you think that this presents a good opportunity to revisit the whole settlement issue? Peeni Henare made it clear this morning that returning land in private ownership will render all previous settlements invalid. That could well be a legitimate outcome, do you have a perspective on that?
The strategy only works when the target group allows it to do so. Unity defeats division. Mutu ought to get real instead. If she really believes the four-year stand-off between niece & uncle was caused by the crown, she ought to produce evidence of that. She hasn't even tried to do so, has she?
The polling bump (thankfully very small) he got from "send her back" suggested that there is in fact a group of deplorables on the fence about whether he is sufficiently racist for their taste. Trying to lock down their support might be why he's going after Cummings now.
If National didn't limit itself to promising action to the citizens about decent drinking water and severe limitations on pollution in waterways then he wouldn't need to bribe voters with cancer drug offers (most of which don't cure). The appearance of concern after the fact is a sorry sight and leads to disdain, recognising the degeneracy of National from voters of principle.
Socialism in one country (Russian: социализм в отдельно взятой стране, tr. sotsializm v otdelno vzyatoy strane, literally socialism in a single country) was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin in 1924 which was eventually adopted by the Soviet Union as state policy.
So the pretence fools you that easily? He had to kill 30 million of his own people to try and get the rest to believe in the sham, and it still didn't work. Reality trumps delusion. Every time.
You made a stupid fucken statement. Stalin, and indeed virtually all so-called 'communist' countries describe themselves as 'socialist'.
'Socialism' is the phase before true 'communism' is achieved.
You obviously don't fucken know that and that shows what a dumb shit you are unqualified to comment on anything to so with the communist movement and Marxism Leninism.
30 million killed? ……sound like a naive stupid school girl.
Now answer me this. If Stalin really was such a monster, why is he so widely admired even now, in the very country he was supposed to have committed the vast majority of his crimes.
If Stalin really was such a monster, why is he so widely admired even now, in the very country he was supposed to have committed the vast majority of his crimes.
You really appear to not know much history. Perhaps you should look at the effects of mass level propaganda when the media is held and controlled by the state. It was a thing in the mid-20th century after the technology became available for it to be achieved.
If you studied the period with a little more depth, the you’d look less like a complete idiot. You might even be capable of making an argument without all of the dick pulling you just did.
I’d suggest you don’t use that kind of abuse approach to replying again. Next time I see you do it, I’ll demonstrate exactly how useless you are at it. You do appear to be a pretty incompetent dimwit – wannabe student?
If Stalin really was such a mass murdering monster then it would be in the lived memories of those few still alive who lived during his time, or at least it would have been passed down to the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of those who did.
To think that we living in the West are not subject to those same mass delusions created by the corporate media that you accuse those living in non Western countries of being subject to by their own respective media is to be completely absurd.
To think that the opinion of a Russian of his own history is less valid than a Westerner who only reads Anne Appelbaum and Robert Conquest is simply quite arrogant.
If you looked at the article I linked to in my first post, it is Western researchers themselves who have found that many many people, a majority in some former Eastern bloc countries, people who actually lived under the socialist system, find it was better in those days than what they have now.
And if life in the former Soviet Union was really such a horror show, why did Putin restore the Soviet Anthem with only the words re-written, surely nothing is more redolent of past times, good or bad, than great music.
And anecdotally, I have heard the same from Eastern Europeans who now live in New Zealand.
"Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, supporting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help."
If Stalin really was such a mass murdering monster then it would be in the lived memories of those few still alive who lived during his time, or at least it would have been passed down to the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of those who did.
It was. This isn’t exactly hard to find if you look around for material from the Khrushchev thaw period between 1953 and about 1957/8 arguably later – but really the thing pretty much died after the Hungarian repression.
If you haven’t seen it, then I’d say that you probably have just been avoiding it.
To think that we living in the West are not subject to those same mass delusions created by the corporate media that you accuse those living in non Western countries of being subject to by their own respective media is to be completely absurd.
What makes you think that we aren’t? Tell you do you ever listen to anyone else apart from your own self-referential bullshit. After all I was born in 1959. My adolescence was backgrounded with the stupidity of the Vietnam war, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and all of those old soldiers who’d never talk about the first or second world wars and what they saw entering the charnel houses of Europe and Japan.
If you looked at the article I linked to in my first post, it is Western researchers themselves who have found that many many people, a majority in some former Eastern bloc countries, people who actually lived under the socialist system, find it was better in those days than what they have now.
So? My grandparents were young adults and my parents were children grew up in post-1930s depression and in WW2 and the reconstruction in the 1940s and 50s. They’d happily tell you that that world was a better place then it was when I was doing army and university in the late 1970s. In fact the only ancient person that I have ever come across who seemed to think that when they grew up was shite was my great grandmother. But she was in service in her teens and really on the arse-end of society.
Generally relying on the rose tinted recollections of the past or the even dark tinted recollections of the mentally ill or abused is simply not useful. You have a hell of a problem trying to get a un-self-selected sample because people will either want to talk about it or not depending how it is framed at them. The most significiant way of running those kinds of samples is to look at the silences – that is always where the interesting stuff is kept. The treatment of teen pregnancies in NZ being a good local example. Or the way that people don’t talk about the GULAG in the USSR. Or the silence related to the work-to-death slavery that the Japanese did in Mongolia and China in the 1930s and 40s.
To think that the opinion of a Russian of his own history is less valid than a Westerner who only reads Anne Appelbaum and Robert Conquest is simply quite arrogant.
Personally I don’t have an opinion on history. I just study it. That is something that is quite different from the kind of myth repetition that you’re referring to (and are doing yourself). History is something that I have been doing as a hobby (with a bit of uni time as well) for about 48 years after I switched from fiction to non-fiction as my main reading material.
Personally I’m not interested in dumb-arse propaganda, and it certainly doesn’t do you any favours when you try to shout it down peoples throats. Especially people who are clearly bigger skeptics than you are.
The gulag systems are about as well documented as the Japanese internment camps of the US after 1941, or the way that we used Somes Island and a few other places here or just about every other reasonably well run camp system. By their very nature, prison camp systems are at documented and accounted for because they’re pretty costly to run. Most of the time their records survive for historians. The exceptions are usually where there is an attempted coverup, like the Nazi concentration camps or the Cambodian death camps before they got over-run by advancing forces.
The gulag system wasn’t over run. It was just run-down post-Stalin. The documentation of the system (albeit somewhat cleaned up) was done in the speech by Khrushchev in 1956. The material that was prepared on was a series of studies of the gulag system by the USSR communist party hierarchy and its use in the late 1930s during the largest part of the largest purges. As a ‘skeptic’, you can probably assume that in itself was a sanitised version.
Perhaps you should find it and actually study a translation of the speech and the investigation of the 17th party congress and its aftermath. Sanitised or not, it was pretty searing indictment of a system that you seem to be trying to say never existed. Which I find to be a rather willfully self-delusional bit of stupidity.
Yes, people often do look to the past with rose tinted glasses, but not if they were supposed to have gone through the horrors of 'stalinism' as portrayed in the West.
I was responding to rather less informed commentators than yourself, people such as Dennis Frank who comes up with the fantastical 30 million nonsense, or people like Appelbaum or Timothy Snyder.
Yes, one could have gone through perhaps the 1930s depression and still have somewhat fond memories of community bonding, say, or character building.
That's different from going through the Holocaust – not many old European Jews from WWII era qill say, 'well we sure had things better in those days!' You don't get parades in Israel with Nazi banners, nor, I am sure would the Horst Wessel move people to tears.
Similarly if Stalin really did commit the sort of crimes claimed for him by the Western corporate media, he would be hated by the people he ruled, mainly Russians. Not repeatedly voted as the greatest 'Russian'
NoteStalin's popularity wildly eclipses Khruschev who is seen as a fool and a liar and particularly Gorbacheve are seen as a traitor.
Stalin, while not perfect, surely was one of the greatest men of the 20 thcentury.
And if you want to hear / learn about our propaganda towards Russia ….. This doco mentions 1947 as the year when Russia became a 'official enemy', to be attacked by every means apart from troops.
I've always wondered how many of 'stalins famine' was down to 'scorched earth' warfare' //// and the huge amount of working aged men killed in Russia…..
….Our propaganda seems to say none,,,,, and stalin killed them all…
But Even Stalin was not as bad as neo=lib western 'shock thearapy'… which is probably why the Russians hold the views they do.
Under Yeltsin, Russia’s economy collapsed some 60%, the male life expectancy plummeted from 68 years to 56, millions were reduced to living on subsistence farming for the first time since Stalin as wages went unpaid for years at a time. Russia was on its way to going extinct—but about 3-5% of the population (plus or minus 3%) was making out like bandits. https://pando.com/2015/05/17/neocons-2-0-the-problem-with-peter-pomerantsev/
In the end, Yeltsin won by old school fraud — in Chechnya, for example, where Yeltsin’s war had killed 40,000 people and displaced half the population, elections showed 1,000,000 Chechens voted (even though less than half a million adults remained in Chechnya at the time of voting), and that 70% of them voted for Yeltsin, their exterminator. That helped deliver the numbers that the West needed to see—enough for the New York Times to declare it "A Victory for Russian Democracy"—parroting the laughably cheerful assessment of President Clinton and his team.
It seems Yelstin got a 200% voter turn out in Chechnya … … now that is impressive :0
Leading thinkers discuss the protest at Ihumātao
Magic Talk, Thursday 25 July 2019, 10:15 a.m.
AMANDA: It's the gravy train. They're being rewarded for their behaviours.
PETER WILLIAMS: Thanks for that, Amanda! Good morning, Chris.
CHRIS: Yeah g'day. Just looking at the calibre of these protestors: what would their EMPLOYERS have been thinking?
PETER WILLIAMS:[chortling conspiratorially] What are you trying to say, Chris? What are you trying to say?
CHRIS: Have they even GOT jobs? That lady from Britain you had on earlier, she needs to get her head out of the clouds. I was talking to my friend the policeman, and he says that NINETY PER CENT of the crime is Maori, and it's getting worse, and it's getting WORSE, and it's getting WORSE. …..
In 2017, the UN reported that a “child under five” in Yemen “dies every 10 minutes” from “preventable causes”. The war has already displaced over 3.6 million people and created the world’s largest recorded cholera epidemic. Cholera, which is the result of contaminated food and drinking water, results in intense vomiting and diarrhoea. If left untreated, it can kill. According to French investigative news outlet Disclose, coalition airstrikes have bombed 659 farms, 229 boats and 91 sites “supplying drinking water, including reservoirs, wells, water pumps, and also irrigation canals and water treatment plants”.
Today is the day humans have used all that Papatuanuku can produce in a year was used up in 7 months we will all have to become minimalist to survive.
Lance that is awesome the 200 Mobil doctor clinic that services is NEEDED in Te taiwhiti.
Sam Eco Maori thinks that your championing all the tamariki in foster care been given a KIWIs Saver account that would set them up for life ka pai.
Lance that was a awesome eureka moment the mobile healthcare clinic thanks. Its been a while since Eco Maori had a Eureka moment ma te wa. It would be nice if the big companies sponsored this Fontana Gull Mobile Pack and save Countdown The Warehouse Eco Maori lays a challenge for you to sponsor this great out of the square Idea
Its hard to get a doctor's appointment in rual Aotearoa the wait can be 1 to 2 weeks to see a doctor Eco Maori knowns that it pays to trear a ailment immediately if not the case just gets worse next minute hangi .q
That was well said the African American who gave trump a great serve very cool.
Winston I agree that colmar brunton poll is just use to manipulate and lie to the VOTERS.
Good to see you on the Show Winston.
Duncan you need to Google your self.
I agree Winston the Coalition Government is cleaning up a big national MESS.
There you go people playing games with imagration figure to try and make the government look bad.
The Black Caps did Aotearoa proud its not there fault that the system is bent by putea chin up guys.
Bryce statistics lie when they are massaged by right wing money to try and boost their m8 rating ie national.
Elijah your words hit a brick wall kia kaha Tangata whenua O Aotearoa get more respect than other minoritie culture get from the ruling class but we still have a lot of crap heaped on us one just has to look at the fiasco that is going on around Eco Maori to see that's a FACT.
I think it's is about time that the car manufacturers should have a solution for babies being left in car very great idea.
That man who lost his twins accidentally leaving them in a hot car. He was working in a most probably a under staffed and over worked people I say it was fatigue over worked that caused him to forget his babys he will be shattered.
I have already given my tau toko of Lance great Idea come on if it saves you money David and saves lives why not back it .
There you go Our Coalition Governments has invested more than a billion dollar into the welbing of the needy don't rock te waka to much we might get swamped.
Look like most of my Ngati Porou Whanau have a higher IQ than most as that is only a small amount of people at that protest about CYPS in Turanga A kiwa .
Condolences to Sean Whanau for their great lose Eco Maori seen quite a bit of Sean in Maori leaders circles.
I its good
Te Ao Maori News its lucky Eco Maori has a few skills up his sleeve as the sandflys tried to block my post to Maori TV.
Some muppets called shonky royalty YEA RIGHT did you hear him put his foot in his mouth he said Jacinda is a morals based person thats great for Jacinda but Eco Maori says because shonky made that statement live on TV he has admitted to having NO MORALS.
I,, Winston national are talking alot of hog wash about the putea being invested in cancer drugs and treatment they are desperate have you ever seen a political party pull all the fossil out of the cupboard to try and lift there poll ratings keep those back benches WARM.
simon you're just rambling words. The Coalition government has made more good choices and changes in 2 years than national did in 8
Sandy the Baltimore issue trump is just a bully he thinks he can control everyone
Seenothing your statement shows you don't have enough respect for Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa.
If there was no Organized Crime in NZ what about all the Pee addicts I see around NZ I see a spike in these people in Port cities Why because thats where the shit is getting into NZ.
Politics is about compromise, right? And framing it so the voters see your compromise as the better one. John Key was a skilful exponent of this approach (as was Keith Holyoake in an earlier age), and Chris Luxon isn’t too bad either. But in politics, the process whereby an old ...
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 ...
It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result of his non-disclosure could even see ...
The relentless drone coming out of the Prime Minister and his deputy for a million days now has been that the last government was just hosing money all over the show and now at last the grownups are in charge and shutting that drunken sailor stuff down. There is a word ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to riot-torn New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. Today’s flight will carry around 50 passengers with the most ...
Precious declaration saysYours is yours and mine you leave alone nowPrecious declaration saysI believe all hope is dead no longerTick tick tick Boom!Unexploded ordnance. A veritable minefield. A National caucus with a large number of unknowns, candidates who perhaps received little in the way of vetting as the party jumped ...
Rex Ahdar writes – The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper ...
That is the only way to describe an MP "forgetting" to declare $178,000 in donations. The amount of money involved - more than five times the candidate spending cap, and two and a half times the median income - is boggling. How do you just "forget" that amount of money? ...
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also spoke about the problems Joe … Continue reading → ...
Hi,Two years ago I briefly featured in Justin Pemberton’s Web of Chaos documentary, which touched on things like QAnon during the pandemic.I mostly prattled on about how intertwined conspiracy narratives are with Evangelical Christian thinking, something Webworm’s explored in the past.(The doc is available on TVNZ+, if you’re not in ...
The Government is leaving the entire construction sector and the community housing sector in limbo. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English-led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll ...
New Zealand’s relationship with China is becoming harder to define, and with that comes a worry that a deteriorating political relationship could spill over into the economic relationship. It is about more than whether New Zealand will join Pillar Two of Aukus, though the Chinese Ambassador, more or less, suggested ...
Been hoping we would see something like this from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is excellent.The present Bill goes further than the National Development Act 1979 in stripping away procedures designed to ensure that environmental issues are properly considered. The 1979 approach was not acceptable then and this present approach is ...
He’s Got The Moxie: Only Willie Jackson possesses the credentials to meld together a new Labour message that is, at one and the same moment, staunchly working-class, union-friendly, and which speaks to the hundreds-of-thousands of urban Māori untethered to the neo-tribal capitalist elites of the Iwi Leaders Forum.IT’S ONE OF THE ...
Tree-huggers may well accuse the Government of giving them the fingers, after Energy Minister Simeon Brown announced new measures to protect powerlines from trees, rather than measures to protect trees from powerlines. It can be no coincidence, surely, that this has been announced at the same as Fisheries Minister Shane Jones ...
Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper who could take over the Labour ...
Barrister Gary Judd KC’s complaint to the Regulatory Review Committee has sparked a fierce debate about the place of tikanga Māori – or Māori customs, values and spiritual beliefs – in the law.Judd opposes the New Zealand Council of Legal Education’s plans to make teaching tikanga compulsory in the legal curriculum.AUT ...
Alwyn Poole writes – In New Zealand we have approximately 460 high schools. The gaps between the schools that produce the best results for students and those at the other end of the spectrum are enormous.In terms of the data for their leavers, the top 30 schools have ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be ...
Brian Eastonwrites – The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am ...
The split opening up in Israel’s “War Cabinet” is not just between PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his long-term rival Benny Gantz. It is actually a three-way split, set in motion by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. It was Gallant’s open criticism of Netanyahu that finally flushed Gantz out into the open. ...
On Thursday 17 May, the Mayoral Proposal for Auckland’s Long Term Plan 2024-2034 was passed by Auckland Council, 20 to 1. It is set to be formally adopted by the Governing Body at its June 27th meeting. The entire process took 8 hours, with the vast majority of that time ...
Pakanga o muaTukua, ka ngaroPuritia taku ringaNgaro ana te ara ki pae rauThere's a battle aheadMany battles are lostBut you'll never see the end of the roadWhile you're travelling with meLate yesterday morning I headed to Wynyard Quarter to see Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick give their pre-budget State of ...
Maybe the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister expected the worst, so they mounted a stout defence of the Budget tax cuts to their party faithful at a party conference over the weekend. In turn, they were greeted with applause, which, though it may have been less than wildly enthusiastic, ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 12, 2024 thru Sat, May 18, 2024. Story of the week “The legislation I signed today [will] keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and ...
TL;DR: Here’s six links that stood out to me in the last day in Aotearoa’s political economy to 6:06am on Sunday, May 19:Aotearoa-NZ is the seventh worst in the OECD’s homelessness rankings, just behind the United States and just ahead of Australia. BlackRock thinks rate hikes actually worsen inflation because ...
Halfway up a historic tower in York, we are neither up nor down. At the top you will have views of a city steeped in antiquity, made and remade by Romans, Normans, Vikings, Tescos. Below, you will find a retired minister happy to tell you all about this most astonishing ...
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 in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Does breathing contribute to CO2 ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Te Pāti Māori have launched a petition to stop the repeal of Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. This announcement comes prior to the first reading of the Section 7AA repeal bill in Parliament today. “Section 7AA forces the Government to adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi with respect ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
The Coalition Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which will improve tenancy laws and help increase the supply of rental properties, has passed its first reading in Parliament says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “The Bill proposes much-needed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 that will remove barriers to increasing private ...
Standing here in Cassino War Cemetery, among the graves looking up at the beautiful Abbey of Montecassino, it is hard to imagine the utter devastation left behind by the battles which ended here in May 1944. Hundreds of thousands of shells and bombs of every description left nothing but piled ...
I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill Mr. Speaker, I move that the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the Bill. Thank you, Mr. ...
The Bill to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has had its first reading in Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the care and safety of children in care, says Minister for Children Karen Chhour. “When I became the Minister for Children, I made ...
Kia ora koutou, good morning, and zao shang hao. Thank you Fran for the opportunity to speak at the 2024 China Business Summit – it’s great to be here today. I’d also like to acknowledge: Simon Bridges - CEO of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. His Excellency Ambassador - Wang ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing them ...
The Coalition Government will introduce legislation this year that will enable roadside drug testing as part of our commitment to improve road safety and restore law and order, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In ...
The Government has announced a series of immediate actions in response to the independent review of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “Kāinga Ora is a large and important Crown entity, with assets of $45 billion and over $2.5 billion of expenditure each year. It ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is pleased that Pseudoephedrine can now be purchased by the general public to protect them from winter illness, after the coalition government worked swiftly to change the law and oversaw a fast approval process by Medsafe. “Pharmacies are now putting the medicines back on their ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Da jia hao. Good morning everyone. Prime Minister Luxon, your excellency, a great friend of New Zealand and my friend Ambassador Wang, Mayor of what he tells me is the best city in New Zealand, Wayne Brown, the highly respected Fran O’Sullivan, Champion of the Auckland business ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The National Party insists there has been no conflict of interest in David Macleod's chairing the committee considering the contentious fast-track bill. ...
Joel MacManus endures five hours of fear and hatred as some of New Zealand’s most controversial figures – and a sitting MP – gather to fight against trans rights. Note: This article contains quotes that may offend. They have been included to present an accurate report of what was said ...
It raises valid concerns about Kāinga Ora, but there’s little to suggest the new direction for state housing charted in Sir Bill English’s report will address Aotearoa’s chronic shortage of affordable rental housing, argues Alan Johnson.Given previous National governments’ indifference or even hostility toward the idea of state housing, ...
Comment: The public has seen the PM’s ruthless side, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where a member of the coalition faces the same punishment The post Christopher Luxon the disciplinarian appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Education is facing a bunch of changes, but the important ones are not banned cell phones or ‘woke’ foods. The Government has ordered teachers to adopt ‘structured literacy’ to get children reading. That means Reading Recovery, a system New Zealand pioneered and spread to the world, along with ‘whole language’, ...
What a difference a year has made for Caroline Powell. After coming last at the Badminton Horse Trials in 2023, Powell triumphed at this year’s event earlier this month, on board her sometimes-feisty Irish-bred mare Greenacres Special Cavalier – much to her astonishment. Now she hopes to succeed at the ...
The publishing sensation of 2024 is wartime memoir The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson, which tells the amazing story of a woman who operated behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France. Sales went through the roof as soon as it was published: in its first week it became ...
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Comment: NZ’s main political parties need to reach a consensus on how to adjust to China’s dominance and coercion The post Bridging the Aukus chasm appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: Jacinda Ardern’s leadership significantly enhanced New Zealand’s profile on the global stage. In the first five months of her second term of government, between December 2020 and April 2021, her name appeared 24 times in the Washington Post, 10 in the New York Times, 27 in the Times and ...
By Maia Ingoe, RNZ News journalist A NZ Defence Force plane carrying 50 New Zealanders evacuated from New Caledonia landed at Auckland International Airport last night. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it would be working with France and Australia to ensure the safe departure of several evacuation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Snow, Research Scientist, CSIRO CSIRO How often do you check your local weather forecast? How about your local climate projections for 2050? For many farmers, the answer to the first question is all the time. But the answer to the ...
Pacific Media Watch A Māori supporter of Pacific independence movements claims the French government has “constructed the crisis” in New Caledonia by pushing the indigenous Kanak population to the edge, reports Atereano Mateariki of Waatea News. A NZ Defence Force Hercules is today evacuating about 50 New Zealanders stranded in ...
COMMENTARY:By Gordon Campbell The split opening up in Israel’s “War Cabinet” is not just between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his long-term rival Benny Gantz. It is actually a three-way split, set in motion by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. It was Gallant’s open criticism of Netanyahu that finally flushed ...
Reacting to today’s Budget Speech from Labour’s Finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “It is encouraging to see that one of Labour’s stated priorities is to focus on creating ‘a level ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Turner, System Lead, Sustainable Economies, Climateworks Centre atk work/Shutterstock In the budget last week, the government was keen to talk about its efforts to turn Australia into a renewable superpower under the umbrella of the Future Made in Australia policies. ...
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RNZ Pacific A New Zealand author, journalist and media educator who has covered the Asia-Pacific region since the 1970s says liberation “must come” for Kanaky/New Caledonia. Professor David Robie sailed on board Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior until it was bombed by French secret agents in New Zealand in July 1985 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Renwick, Professor of Agricultural Economics, Lincoln University, New Zealand Fonterra caught the business world by surprise last week with plans to sell off its consumer brands and businesses – including supermarket mainstays such as Anchor, Fresh’n Fruity and Mainland. The move ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Small, Senior lecturer, Above the Bar School of Educational Studies and Leadership, University of Canterbury With an air force plane on its way to rescue New Zealanders stranded by the violent uprising in New Caledonia, many familiar with the island’s history ...
A New Zealand government plane is heading to New Caledonia to assist with bringing New Zealanders home. Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today confirmed it was the first in a series of proposed flights. Peters said the flight would carry around 50 passengers with the most pressing needs from Nouméa ...
Regional councils must focus on building meaningful and enduring relationships with iwi and hapū to support better freshwater management, says the Auditor-General in a new report. ...
Chris Glaudel, Deputy Chief Executive of Community Housing Aotearoa, sees the announcement as a step towards addressing New Zealand’s high and rising levels of homelessness by improving our approach and system to delivering affordable homes. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ali Mamouri, Research fellow, Middle East studies, Deakin University The death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash this week occurred during one of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s most challenging periods. Raisi, a prominent figure in the political elite, ...
The end of universal flu shot funding for under-12s is a step backwards for New Zealand child health, say experts from the University of Auckland and the University of Otago. New Zealand’s decision to no longer offer free influenza vaccines for all children under 12 will likely wipe out recent ...
The PSA is taking action to force the Ministry of Education to comply with its legal obligations to do everything it can to find other roles for staff it is laying off because of the Government’s spending cuts. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Waling, Senior Lecturer & Research Fellow, Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University Netflix There has been much excitement in the lead up to the first four episodes of Bridgerton’s season three, featuring leading couple Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and ...
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Peter Jackson is bringing Lord of the Rings back to Wellington, producing two new Gollum films in Wellington. Madeleine Chapman (Gollum) argues with Madeleine Chapman (Smeagol) about it. First of all, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Of course it’s great news!I don’t know, it gives me ...
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The Government’s Environmental Select Committee is refusing to engage meaningfully when it matters the most over new fast tracking environmental legislation, says Ngāti Ruanui. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexis Anja Kallio, Deputy Director (Research), Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University Many young people in contact with the justice system come from backgrounds of extreme poverty, parental abuse or neglect, parental incarceration and disrupted education. These complex traumas often manifest as addictions ...
The agency was found to be underperforming and ‘not financially viable’, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A damning report A government-ordered ...
Asia Pacific Report For more than 76 years, Palestinians have resisted occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing, culminating in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Yet in the midst of this catastrophic seven months of “hell on earth”, it is a paradox that there exists an extraordinary oasis of peace and nature. ...
You’ll never set foot in one. But its emissions still effect you. Shanti Mathias reports on a campaign to make private jet owners pay for their emissions in some way. The private jet passengers saunter down the red carpet, wearing sunglasses and heels; paparazzi cameras flash. The sky is blue, ...
Quality teachers back on the front line can only be a good thing. One of the difficult things we teach in senior English classes at secondary school is the development of an idea. This involves deepening your argument, without instead “going sideways” and merely adding examples while repeating the same ...
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Opinion: As an indication of the eye-watering sums involved for the mega-prison plans announced two weeks ago by Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell, consider that $932 million has already been spent on a separate facility due to open at Waikeria next year – that’s about $1.5 million for each of the ...
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The intensity of it, ironically, can feel like bullying. Social media activism is reaching something of a peak with the war in Gaza, using the hashtag Blockout2024. It started at this year’s MetGala when influencer and model Haley Kalil was caught on video muttering ‘let them eat cake’ – suddenly ...
It’s 2011 and I am 43 years old. My partner, Christine, and I got together when I was 36. We had been friends for about 10 years before that. One of the first things I asked Christine was whether she wanted to have kids. I had just come out of ...
An opinion piece from one Ben Thomas on Ihumãtao.
The final sentence, instancing baby boomers in a cheap throwaway shot. Why does he instance baby boomers? Why not leave it at just instancing residents' views. I find this a nasty piece of disrespectful ageism.
Well, one thing is that he is a former 'spin doctor for a National Treaty Negotiations minister, Chris Finlayson.'
"Much needed housing projects in leafy central Auckland suburbs are routinely scrapped by the authorities for much less – for blocking a baby boomer resident's views, or to save sagging old mid-century shopfronts."
The final few words of this take on it are "history and good planning" it gave me the chance to think about what is happening, like, probably, a lot of people I didn't know what to think of it or even have view.
After reading this I thought, why not Avondale Racecourse? Why not the golf clubs? Maybe this is uncomfortable but it does raise questions. Surely there is a solution.
Letting the Tamakis try and feed off this and protecting all other areas of Auck that are only used by a few or used rarely shouldn't be part of Auckland's future.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/114554464/the-real-reason-why-fletchers-is-building-at-ihumtao
(the link seems to have Ihumãtao. spelt incorrectly but does work)
Can we have a link for the Ben Thomas article please.
My apologies, Sacha.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/114556346/opinion-heres-why-the-government-cant-return-ihumtao-to-iwi
All good, thanks. I will probably regret it. 🙂
Actually that's a pretty good summary of why govt has been so unwilling to get involved.
I notice a good picture of Ben Thomas in his article. I wonder if that is actually the main feature and intention of writing it though there is also a good aerial photo of the Stonefields volcanic cone.
Thomas is referring to this particularly egregious situation: https://thespinoff.co.nz/auckland/30-08-2018/this-ludicrous-dominion-road-decision-is-proof-the-planning-system-is-broken/
Yes, Mr Lange is certainly a 'resident' but that word is not shorthand for the attitudes that have been associated for many decades with the "Me" generation.
Mr Lange lives in the same little cluster of housing that got a bit of attention a couple of months ago, yeah?
Over the other side of the same street, I think.
Backgrounder
For me – I am enjoying watching the ebb and flow of mana – this is how it works, live, in real time – ebb and flow. No one has to be worried because it is still moving, until it settles into the new spot it is fluid. Fixed positions, movement, change, solidity, unbreaking, ever flexible – we are getting a masterclass.
This
is beautiful.
Thank you.
Why shun the soil enriched by your ancestors mardymardy?
I don't think one more mm should be sold and in fact a lot should be GIVEN back gabbyduck. I'd give back a few other things too – mark my words on that one alright gabbs, I'd give back a FEW other things too I would, yes siree, indeed, say no more.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/07/ihum-tao-protester-numbers-surge-into-thousands-as-ministers-enter-fray.html
Gfoffloffle issues the party invites around here chum.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/07/27/divide-and-rule-is-the-first-choice-weapon-of-government-the-second-is-the-police-and-the-third-is-the-army/
Eric the ripper' involved in 'pump and dump'…surely not!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/114555844/eric-watson-named-in-fbi-search-warrant-documents-in-relation-to-insider-trading-case
Cannasouth IPO comes to mind.
If you've ever felt that you're not being given the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth by our elected representatives, both at central and local government level, you can take some comfort that your suspicions are well founded.
The Bullshit Brigade have taken over.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018705810/running-the-numbers-on-public-service-pr
It’s not news that people doing PR and communications for the state heavily outnumber the journalists who report on the agencies employing them. But the numbers crunched by RNZ’s Phil Pennington show the gap has become a chasm – and the figures weren't easy to get.
So much for open and transparent government.
SSDD
It's odd that more PR people = less info. At least the bullshit's on glossy paper.
Comms staff in risk-averse organisations are mostly focused on restricting information, not spreading it.
Most government departments are having to increase the resources needed for Freedom of Information requests – most of those will probably be called communications staff . . .
I believe that some of the egregious requests should be countered by public release of both the questions and answers, and also for each request provide a "quick estimate" of person-hours spent on preparing the information. First by making more information public, questioners will only get a slight "scoop" advantage, if the requester is named (as it should be at least for all MPs and for corporations) it may give a guide to those who are seeking to bury initiative by tying up resources, but most importantly it may lead departments to review regular reporting so that systems automatically provide better public information
There is a cost to open and transparent government . . at least the emphasis now is on compliance rather than withholding information
Good explainer on Nats proposing another $50m/year (about 5%) for Pharmac to make drug companies happy: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/07/national-promises-200-million-cancer-fund.html
It arises from two different National party imperatives. First they want smaller government, but they also need to be seen to increase spending. How to do that? Criticise any small part of any sector, and promise more money. No need for the criticism to be justified cancer is good because people die from it, so we are not doing enough. (Forget about all the other reasons for death, including the expensive "just getting older") Also forget about where the money comes from – if asked, point to anything the government is doing – the Regional Development Fund will do – as an example of less important spending.
The reality is that Pharmac has a mandate to look at all causes of need for treatments, and to balance those needs fairly, taking into account proven effects. The occasional political meddling is often related to a big company having a new (and nearly tested) wonder drug – sadly performance doe not always match rhetoric, but the purpose here is not to spend more money, but to be seen to be doing (or in this case promising for the future) something.
The reality for cancer treatment is that we already have a fairly concentrated system that puts specialists together in places where patients can be directed to give critical mass. We will never have a cancer specialist team on the West Coast – specialists want to see more than 2 or 3 patients a year . . . We know from the past that political decisions have not always matched clinical preferences – some of the past decisions to promise funding before an election have not survived dispassionate assessment of clinical results for a new drug.
So, 1. Where is the money coming from? Does this defer tax cuts?
2. My uncle has Heart disease / Parkinsons / Multiple Schlerosis / Dementia – what are you going to do for him and others like him? Or will treatment for them be cut to pay for the promise?
3. We are told to trust the market and to trust the medical profession – why do you think a political decision to "pick a winner" will result in better health outcomes overall. Is this just an election bribe? Does the National Party no longer believe in the benefits of a free market?
Yes, it is always ideologically interesting watching the Nats strengthen the hand of the state while claiming otherwise.
This is not about strengthening the hand of the state – $50 million a year for 4 years (presumably from 2021 when this little blurt from Simon may well have been forgotten . . .) will not make up for the cuts to the total health budget over the previous 9 years. This is a "look over there" action intended to distract. Even the basic premise that people all over New Zealand deserve to have specialist care in their neighbourhood is a nonsense – major centres are the only places with ready transport from elsewhere and enough patients to run complex speciality departments – it was I think under National that pediatric cancer services were concentrated in a small number of places. What National does believe in is crony capitalism, using money to temporarily buy support while encouraging the "self-reliance" of private health insurance . . .
The ideology dictates that government not only should not get in the way of the ‘free market’ but also that it should set policy that actively encourages and protects the ‘free market’. The government is to serve and protect markets in which individuals make rational decisions and choices that are in their best interest. What the ideology assumes is the sum of these individual actions delivers the best possible outcome for the greater good. In fact, it is claimed that this is the only ideology that can achieve this outcome. What is often downplayed or outright ignored is that people don’t make strictly rational decisions and choices and that they are heavily influenced by marketing, advertising, PR, and spin, et cetera. The ideology further ignores that choice is an allusion and in fact an illusion because it encourages mergers & acquisitions into large dominant market players and monopolies. The same market ‘principles’ feed back into the market itself in which companies and corporates make decisions that are in their (shareholders’) best interest. The madness of this ideology is that many not just believe but are convinced that the cumulative effect of an infinite number of selfish actions is a selfless benefit to all.
Selfishness itself is the main beneficiary of NZ's last few decades – now the embedded default for public discourse.
This:
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
Herman Melville
US novelist & sailor (1819 – 1891)
Another small but predictably disgusting piece of selective shroud-waving from the Nats.
It is clear that National has not learned and moved on from their mistake to ride roughshod over PHARMAC’s decision-making process and fund Herceptin as an Election promise in 2008.
https://www.pharmac.govt.nz/about/our-history/hard-choices/
This is yet another cynical promise of frivolous spending of Taxpayers’ money sold as ‘life-saving’.
A guaranteed extra windfall of $50 million each year (!) for pharma industry thanks to the generosity of Simon Bridges and his buddies in National. How many bridges did Bridges promise again?
I’d suggest that PHARMAC adopts a no-cure-no-pay policy for expensive drugs. Given that only a fraction of patients respond to these expensive treatments and given that all treated patients are exposed to potentially severe side effects of the drugs, it makes no sense to charge the full price (not cost) to each and every patient. Unfortunately, they cannot tell who will benefit and who won’t.
Thus, set a very conservative base re-fund and then for each month or year of clinical benefit to the patient pay a little more to the point at which a patient is disease-free and/or considered cured. As soon as a patient relapses, the payments stop indefinitely. That would be true value-for-money. At the moment, it is largely a gamble with people’s lives and finances with the only real winners being the pharma industry.
No cure no pay?
Interesting idea.
Well, more like no-cure-much-less-pay. There’s a good post on this topic but time …
Would be a useful policy if we implement fast-tracking for unproven drugs. Insurance for reducing the up-front barriers. Maybe in a 'partnership agreement' with the pharma companies?
Perhaps better to call them not-yet-proven drugs?
The gold standard in clinical registration trials for anti-cancer drugs is overall survival but this can take years to measure. Unfortunately, surrogate or secondary endpoints such as progression-free survival don’t always predict for overall survival.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progression-free_survival
Pharma provide (new) drugs free to patients who participate in clinical trials but it is important to note that not all trials are equal.
The other point to consider is that trial results often are more positive than when used in the general patient population. There are a number of reasons for that.
Because of the side effects and the general lack of predictive diagnostics, I think there has to be a sound evidence-base before PHARMAC fully funds new treatments. Partly, because it could go at the expense of other expenditure on proven treatments, be it for cancer or non-cancer.
New drugs offer great promise in some cases but also come with great(er) uncertainty. IMO, this should definitely be reflected in a lower cost price to PHARMAC.
In some ways, it is the pharma’s best interest to treat as many patients as possible regardless of whether they’ll benefit or not. Patient selection based on predictive diagnostics increases the chances of clinical benefit to the patient but reduces the potential market size for the pharma.
The main issue is that the best drug should be tailored to a specific patient (best match) with the greatest chance of a beneficial outcome for the patient, which is where personalised medicine is heading, and this could be coupled to the pharma’s profit. Currently, the two are often uncoupled from each other and pricing is set by the pharma and how much ‘the market’ can tolerate and is willing to accept. It has an element of preying on the desperate and giving them hope …
Results need to be made public and there needs much more transparency and accountability from and by the pharma industry especially since we, the Taxpayers, pay for it.
As I said, it is a great topic for a post.
Good luck getting the industry to be more open, though the European regulators may solve that one for us eventually.
Sometimes, you get the feeling that the ‘ethics’ of Big Pharma and Tobacco Industry are virtually indistinguishable. Of course, their number one priority is to satisfy their shareholders.
Regulators should make it mandatory to publish all results of all trials through peer-review. Patients shouldn’t be used as Guinea pigs to boost profits.
After market approval, all adverse events need to be collated in a central register that is open and searchable. This needs an international global approach.
Sometimes, you get the feeling that the ‘ethics’ of Big Pharma and Tobacco Industry are virtually indistinguishable.
Careful there Incognito, that's a line straight from the book I'm reading at the moment about adverse reactions to the HPV vaccine.
Given what else is going on in this world of ours is anyone surprised?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&amp;objectid=12253391
“It counts among its members German police officers, military personnel — and even the elite anti-terror squad Spezialeinsatzkommand.”
The dad penny's been busy.
https://twitter.com/_pamcampos/status/1154725314666422272
[…]
https://twitter.com/_pamcampos/status/1154732456957943808
https://twitter.com/_pamcampos/status/1154738132241264640
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1154725314666422272.html
working link to the german police neo-n cell
Stray amp; snuck into the link
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12253391
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12253391
Outgoing head of ASMS tells Clark to " "Toughen up David; the fires are burning and you are running out of time."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/114548766/outgoing-health-union-boss-slams-health-minister-david-clark
I am not the only commenter here who has expressed bitter disappointment at the nation being stuck with yet another Minister of Health who is clearly unequal to the task of enabling the necessary reboot of our Public Health and Disability system.
That is, of course, if the Current Mob were speaking true when they declared their intention to be transformational and address the failings and inequities that have been allowed to flourish under the past four administrations.
A cynical person might suspect that the underlying intent is to push this nation inexorable down the path to a system where those who can go private and those who can't….suffer and die.
But hey, the EOLC Bill will ease their departure.
See, they have got a plan after all.
Choices are certainly a bitch, aren't they. Salaried medical specialists are probably in just the category that would have benefited from National's further cuts to income tax that the new government reversed. Instead the increased the minimum wage, increased benefits, stopped spending so much money on making WINZ staff proxy police and got them to actually help people in need (and surprise surprise suddenly without changing the law suddenly staff found that many people were actually eligible for a benefit). They put money into repairing and building social housing, and money into reviewing education for skills training so we don;t have to import more; they settled long overdue wage agreements with nurses and teachers. In half a term quite a bit has been achieved. Meanwhile we are looking forward to the possibility of another world recession; our debt position as a country is much higher than desirable, and a pre-election promise has led to our continuing with low income tax rates for companies and individuals, with some blatant loopholes that further reduce spending options.
I agree that there was a lurch towards private provision of health services under the Key/English governments – and yes there is a gap in earnings between private and public specialists. I well remember a news item shortly before the 2017 election where Bill English proudly attended a major extension of Bowen Hospital in Wellington; accompanied I think around the same time by the purchase by a private provider of an MRI machine – but don't worry, the public sector can contract to use it when it is not being used for private patients . . . So I too would like the public sector to "close the gap" in a lot of ways, but if priority were to be given to salaried medical specialists, what other part of spending would you be happy to reduce, Rosemary?
Cut the military spend, tax the top 1 to 10 percent (income earners) more and increase that tourist entry levy to at least a hundred dollars.
Only one out of three is a reduction of spending!?
That's simply because the revenue doesn't have to solely come from cuts elsewhere.
Nevertheless, it’s strange how when it comes to health there's no money but when it comes to Mycoplasma bovis there's a blank cheque.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/06/grant-robertson-signs-blank-cheque-to-tackle-mycoplasma-bovis.html
Sure, but that wasn’t the question, was it? It would have been more honest and clearer to reframe the question and explain why but you didn’t, did you?
You do sound a tad like Amy Adams “sniping” about or at the Budget, don’t you?
Edit:
You are an attack machine Rosemary McD. Only your problems and those of other disabled people should be looked at, nobody else matters. And talking down the ELOC (End of Life Choice) Bill is a narrow position. Less money spent on interfering with natural death; limiting the drawn-out 'life' of terminally ill means more available for those actually living, not just existing. I am as despairing as you are of intelligent and fair behaviour as needed and wanted by people who need help with their plans for their future.
Health must be a nightmare portfolio….the reality is there will never be enough resources and choices will be made. …whether the best (or right?) will be a never ending debate….it will depend on where you view it from.
"Health", ie the "Ministry of", has become an autonomous corporate monster. Regardless of which colour flies atop the Beehive, the Ministry will continue along the path laid out over two decades ago. Underfund the system and provide dysfunctional leadership. Blame and accuse those charged with providing frontline services for not being able to function as required when they're running to stand still. Contract out core services to profiteers. Allow the creation of an separate profession called 'health management and administration', whose sole role appears to be to draw $$$ away from actual treatment and care and into the salaries of those who without knowing the first thing about running a busy ward march in and start telling the medical staff how to run a busy ward….Brian Easton describes these parasites here…https://pundit.co.nz/content/who-was-accountable-for-the-shambles
A brave Prime Minister would address the Nation and say.."Look folks, our Public Health and Disability system is in deepest shit.. Decades of mismanagement has resulted in such a deficit that we have only two choices….a) give up and limp along on existing funding and under the cloud of strained relationships and encourage those who can afford it to take out private health insurance (as was the plan in the first place), or b) we do a massive reboot, a sizeable and meaningful cash injection that will truly be an investment for future generations…but this option requires us to impose and extra 2% of tax on every earner, ringfenced as an addition to the current Vote Health appropriations. This tax shall stay in place until we're out of the pooh."
I'd go for b.
Id go for 'b' as well….but would note the result would still be well short of providing everything demanded.
Health care will always be triaged….some honest discussions about what are must haves and what would be good if able are needed, but I doubt any politician of any hue is willing to risk that
Big shoes to fill now that Ian is stepping down.
Thanks for the link, Rosemary.
David Clark seems to believe long-standing workforce issues can't somehow be solved by bringing in more trained medical specialists (from offshore) or is it a case of the Government not wanting to spend the money required to do that?
Great article worth another read in these times – we all have this tendency – some more than others – listen please, just listen.
That is good MM. Shutting up and finding ways to affirm their thoughts or occasionally indicate a different way, 'Have you thought of trying…' is the best. Sometimes thoughts get so scrambled that talking through them with a trusted person gives a clarity.
What a bloody laugh as I woke up today (sunday) 28th july to see lame brain Simon Bridges saying;;
“I believe in climate change is a real threat to our nation” to Tova O;Brien, and then he tries to nail the point home by saying quote “we have two electric cars”
If that incredible statment wasn;t enough, then he says about the National Party policy was to build new roads????
What the fuck@@@@@
Is he brainless? it would seem as he is as more roads are not the way forward to lower the climate emissions!!
Using more rail is, as rail uses six times less fuel to move the same amount as trucks do, and rail uses no tyres and only “steel on steel wheels, for low friction and only has steel particulates emissions.
Vehicle tyres emit large amounts of tyre dust pollution made from oil distilates similar to plastic,
That causes cancer and nervous system damage, with 1,3,Butadience styrene,
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/MMG/MMG.asp?id=455&tid=81
So grow some brain Simon as you are once again showing your ignorance.
Wonderful comments from academic Margaret Mutu on Ihumātao, "divide and rule" approach.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12252876
Do you think that this presents a good opportunity to revisit the whole settlement issue? Peeni Henare made it clear this morning that returning land in private ownership will render all previous settlements invalid. That could well be a legitimate outcome, do you have a perspective on that?
I tend to go along with the thinking that this is a special case. The iwi were shut out of decision making and simply don't want the land developed.
That is quite different to the pakeha fear that this would now mean all private land is up for grabs to be given back.
Ok – I think it's not so much 'pakeha fear' as a legal nightmare unless the 'special case' aspect is extremely well established as exactly that.
The strategy only works when the target group allows it to do so. Unity defeats division. Mutu ought to get real instead. If she really believes the four-year stand-off between niece & uncle was caused by the crown, she ought to produce evidence of that. She hasn't even tried to do so, has she?
What kind of people are attracted to an overt racist? … oh, right…people suffering from economic anxiety.
/
https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/status/1155221137930051585
The polling bump (thankfully very small) he got from "send her back" suggested that there is in fact a group of deplorables on the fence about whether he is sufficiently racist for their taste. Trying to lock down their support might be why he's going after Cummings now.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-elijah-cummings-brutal-bully-rodent-infested-district_n_5d3c4ec1e4b0c31569eb6234
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/395386/health-expert-renews-call-for-study-on-nitrates-in-drinking-water
and
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/395379/bridges-promises-cancer-agency-200m-for-drugs
If National didn't limit itself to promising action to the citizens about decent drinking water and severe limitations on pollution in waterways then he wouldn't need to bribe voters with cancer drug offers (most of which don't cure). The appearance of concern after the fact is a sorry sight and leads to disdain, recognising the degeneracy of National from voters of principle.
Interesting:
Workers in eastern Europe and former Soviet states prefer socialism:
Former Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s approval rating has hit a record high of 70 percent amongst Russians, according to a study published by the Levada polling centre. (Stalin’s approval rating among Russians hits record high, The Moscow Times, 16 April 2019) ……
https://www.cpgb-ml.org/2019/07/26/news/workers-eastern-europe-former-ussr-prefer-socialism/
Don't need Putin's bots to win elections in Russia when you have Putin's bats to do the job for you.
Thousand arrests at Moscow rally
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49125045
https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1155205677809373186
https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1155280981059887105
Imagine you telling Stalin his system was socialism. You'd disappear real fast.
Fuck you are an ignorant fool….
Socialism in one country (Russian: социализм в отдельно взятой стране, tr. sotsializm v otdelno vzyatoy strane, literally socialism in a single country) was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin in 1924 which was eventually adopted by the Soviet Union as state policy.
So the pretence fools you that easily? He had to kill 30 million of his own people to try and get the rest to believe in the sham, and it still didn't work. Reality trumps delusion. Every time.
Oh fuck off. Don't deflect.
You made a stupid fucken statement. Stalin, and indeed virtually all so-called 'communist' countries describe themselves as 'socialist'.
'Socialism' is the phase before true 'communism' is achieved.
You obviously don't fucken know that and that shows what a dumb shit you are unqualified to comment on anything to so with the communist movement and Marxism Leninism.
30 million killed? ……sound like a naive stupid school girl.
Now answer me this. If Stalin really was such a monster, why is he so widely admired even now, in the very country he was supposed to have committed the vast majority of his crimes.
You really appear to not know much history. Perhaps you should look at the effects of mass level propaganda when the media is held and controlled by the state. It was a thing in the mid-20th century after the technology became available for it to be achieved.
If you studied the period with a little more depth, the you’d look less like a complete idiot. You might even be capable of making an argument without all of the dick pulling you just did.
I’d suggest you don’t use that kind of abuse approach to replying again. Next time I see you do it, I’ll demonstrate exactly how useless you are at it. You do appear to be a pretty incompetent dimwit – wannabe student?
If Stalin really was such a mass murdering monster then it would be in the lived memories of those few still alive who lived during his time, or at least it would have been passed down to the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of those who did.
To think that we living in the West are not subject to those same mass delusions created by the corporate media that you accuse those living in non Western countries of being subject to by their own respective media is to be completely absurd.
To think that the opinion of a Russian of his own history is less valid than a Westerner who only reads Anne Appelbaum and Robert Conquest is simply quite arrogant.
If you looked at the article I linked to in my first post, it is Western researchers themselves who have found that many many people, a majority in some former Eastern bloc countries, people who actually lived under the socialist system, find it was better in those days than what they have now.
And if life in the former Soviet Union was really such a horror show, why did Putin restore the Soviet Anthem with only the words re-written, surely nothing is more redolent of past times, good or bad, than great music.
And anecdotally, I have heard the same from Eastern Europeans who now live in New Zealand.
Thread +++
"Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, supporting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help."
Mao Zedong, Dec 1939
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_24.htm
It was. This isn’t exactly hard to find if you look around for material from the Khrushchev thaw period between 1953 and about 1957/8 arguably later – but really the thing pretty much died after the Hungarian repression.
If you haven’t seen it, then I’d say that you probably have just been avoiding it.
What makes you think that we aren’t? Tell you do you ever listen to anyone else apart from your own self-referential bullshit. After all I was born in 1959. My adolescence was backgrounded with the stupidity of the Vietnam war, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and all of those old soldiers who’d never talk about the first or second world wars and what they saw entering the charnel houses of Europe and Japan.
So? My grandparents were young adults and my parents were children grew up in post-1930s depression and in WW2 and the reconstruction in the 1940s and 50s. They’d happily tell you that that world was a better place then it was when I was doing army and university in the late 1970s. In fact the only ancient person that I have ever come across who seemed to think that when they grew up was shite was my great grandmother. But she was in service in her teens and really on the arse-end of society.
Generally relying on the rose tinted recollections of the past or the even dark tinted recollections of the mentally ill or abused is simply not useful. You have a hell of a problem trying to get a un-self-selected sample because people will either want to talk about it or not depending how it is framed at them. The most significiant way of running those kinds of samples is to look at the silences – that is always where the interesting stuff is kept. The treatment of teen pregnancies in NZ being a good local example. Or the way that people don’t talk about the GULAG in the USSR. Or the silence related to the work-to-death slavery that the Japanese did in Mongolia and China in the 1930s and 40s.
Personally I don’t have an opinion on history. I just study it. That is something that is quite different from the kind of myth repetition that you’re referring to (and are doing yourself). History is something that I have been doing as a hobby (with a bit of uni time as well) for about 48 years after I switched from fiction to non-fiction as my main reading material.
Personally I’m not interested in dumb-arse propaganda, and it certainly doesn’t do you any favours when you try to shout it down peoples throats. Especially people who are clearly bigger skeptics than you are.
The gulag systems are about as well documented as the Japanese internment camps of the US after 1941, or the way that we used Somes Island and a few other places here or just about every other reasonably well run camp system. By their very nature, prison camp systems are at documented and accounted for because they’re pretty costly to run. Most of the time their records survive for historians. The exceptions are usually where there is an attempted coverup, like the Nazi concentration camps or the Cambodian death camps before they got over-run by advancing forces.
The gulag system wasn’t over run. It was just run-down post-Stalin. The documentation of the system (albeit somewhat cleaned up) was done in the speech by Khrushchev in 1956. The material that was prepared on was a series of studies of the gulag system by the USSR communist party hierarchy and its use in the late 1930s during the largest part of the largest purges. As a ‘skeptic’, you can probably assume that in itself was a sanitised version.
Perhaps you should find it and actually study a translation of the speech and the investigation of the 17th party congress and its aftermath. Sanitised or not, it was pretty searing indictment of a system that you seem to be trying to say never existed. Which I find to be a rather willfully self-delusional bit of stupidity.
Mr Prentice.
I think you miss the point, to put it politely.
Yes, people often do look to the past with rose tinted glasses, but not if they were supposed to have gone through the horrors of 'stalinism' as portrayed in the West.
I was responding to rather less informed commentators than yourself, people such as Dennis Frank who comes up with the fantastical 30 million nonsense, or people like Appelbaum or Timothy Snyder.
Yes, one could have gone through perhaps the 1930s depression and still have somewhat fond memories of community bonding, say, or character building.
That's different from going through the Holocaust – not many old European Jews from WWII era qill say, 'well we sure had things better in those days!' You don't get parades in Israel with Nazi banners, nor, I am sure would the Horst Wessel move people to tears.
Similarly if Stalin really did commit the sort of crimes claimed for him by the Western corporate media, he would be hated by the people he ruled, mainly Russians. Not repeatedly voted as the greatest 'Russian'
NoteStalin's popularity wildly eclipses Khruschev who is seen as a fool and a liar and particularly Gorbacheve are seen as a traitor.
Stalin, while not perfect, surely was one of the greatest men of the 20 thcentury.
And also, you may find this interesting:
For more informed comment on Russia and Putin than anyone at this site …. I recommend this video ….
It explains quite well the a) Power …. and b) Popularity of Putin in Russia .
And if you want to hear / learn about our propaganda towards Russia ….. This doco mentions 1947 as the year when Russia became a 'official enemy', to be attacked by every means apart from troops.
I've always wondered how many of 'stalins famine' was down to 'scorched earth' warfare' //// and the huge amount of working aged men killed in Russia…..
….Our propaganda seems to say none,,,,, and stalin killed them all…
But Even Stalin was not as bad as neo=lib western 'shock thearapy'… which is probably why the Russians hold the views they do.
It isn't a record high. When he was in power it was 100% approval.
It seems Yelstin got a 200% voter turn out in Chechnya … … now that is impressive :0
Leading thinkers discuss the protest at Ihumātao
Magic Talk, Thursday 25 July 2019, 10:15 a.m.
AMANDA: It's the gravy train. They're being rewarded for their behaviours.
PETER WILLIAMS: Thanks for that, Amanda! Good morning, Chris.
CHRIS: Yeah g'day. Just looking at the calibre of these protestors: what would their EMPLOYERS have been thinking?
PETER WILLIAMS: [chortling conspiratorially] What are you trying to say, Chris? What are you trying to say?
CHRIS: Have they even GOT jobs? That lady from Britain you had on earlier, she needs to get her head out of the clouds. I was talking to my friend the policeman, and he says that NINETY PER CENT of the crime is Maori, and it's getting worse, and it's getting WORSE, and it's getting WORSE. …..
ad nauseam, omnia mane….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/07/magic-talk-is-outlet-for-racist-bilge.html
Build a wall.
Send in the marines.
Oh no.
"I'm popularly supported" claims the current Nat frontperson: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/395285/simon-bridges-on-surviving-in-leadership-role-i-m-popularly-supported
The suffering in Yemen continues.
https://twitter.com/MohammedHojily/status/1155146695568711680
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Today is the day humans have used all that Papatuanuku can produce in a year was used up in 7 months we will all have to become minimalist to survive.
Lance that is awesome the 200 Mobil doctor clinic that services is NEEDED in Te taiwhiti.
Sam Eco Maori thinks that your championing all the tamariki in foster care been given a KIWIs Saver account that would set them up for life ka pai.
Lance that was a awesome eureka moment the mobile healthcare clinic thanks. Its been a while since Eco Maori had a Eureka moment ma te wa. It would be nice if the big companies sponsored this Fontana Gull Mobile Pack and save Countdown The Warehouse Eco Maori lays a challenge for you to sponsor this great out of the square Idea
Its hard to get a doctor's appointment in rual Aotearoa the wait can be 1 to 2 weeks to see a doctor Eco Maori knowns that it pays to trear a ailment immediately if not the case just gets worse next minute hangi .q
That was well said the African American who gave trump a great serve very cool.
Winston I agree that colmar brunton poll is just use to manipulate and lie to the VOTERS.
Good to see you on the Show Winston.
Duncan you need to Google your self.
I agree Winston the Coalition Government is cleaning up a big national MESS.
There you go people playing games with imagration figure to try and make the government look bad.
The Black Caps did Aotearoa proud its not there fault that the system is bent by putea chin up guys.
Bryce statistics lie when they are massaged by right wing money to try and boost their m8 rating ie national.
Ka kite ano
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/Xo7WjnC8ekQ
Kia Ora Newshub.
Elijah your words hit a brick wall kia kaha Tangata whenua O Aotearoa get more respect than other minoritie culture get from the ruling class but we still have a lot of crap heaped on us one just has to look at the fiasco that is going on around Eco Maori to see that's a FACT.
I think it's is about time that the car manufacturers should have a solution for babies being left in car very great idea.
That man who lost his twins accidentally leaving them in a hot car. He was working in a most probably a under staffed and over worked people I say it was fatigue over worked that caused him to forget his babys he will be shattered.
I have already given my tau toko of Lance great Idea come on if it saves you money David and saves lives why not back it .
Ka kite ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
There you go Our Coalition Governments has invested more than a billion dollar into the welbing of the needy don't rock te waka to much we might get swamped.
Look like most of my Ngati Porou Whanau have a higher IQ than most as that is only a small amount of people at that protest about CYPS in Turanga A kiwa .
Condolences to Sean Whanau for their great lose Eco Maori seen quite a bit of Sean in Maori leaders circles.
I its good
Te Ao Maori News its lucky Eco Maori has a few skills up his sleeve as the sandflys tried to block my post to Maori TV.
Some muppets called shonky royalty YEA RIGHT did you hear him put his foot in his mouth he said Jacinda is a morals based person thats great for Jacinda but Eco Maori says because shonky made that statement live on TV he has admitted to having NO MORALS.
I,, Winston national are talking alot of hog wash about the putea being invested in cancer drugs and treatment they are desperate have you ever seen a political party pull all the fossil out of the cupboard to try and lift there poll ratings keep those back benches WARM.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
simon you're just rambling words. The Coalition government has made more good choices and changes in 2 years than national did in 8
Sandy the Baltimore issue trump is just a bully he thinks he can control everyone
Seenothing your statement shows you don't have enough respect for Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa.
If there was no Organized Crime in NZ what about all the Pee addicts I see around NZ I see a spike in these people in Port cities Why because thats where the shit is getting into NZ.
Ka kite ano