Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, June 9th, 2015 - 101 comments
Advocates of Kiwisaver and other funded “retirement savings” schemes perpetuate the fundamental misunderstanding that “conventional” in New Zealand’s case “neo-liberal” economists, speculators, finance companies, politicians and those with a lot of share holding wealth in non-productive enterprises like to perpetuate.
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, June 4th, 2015 - 96 comments
Even an anonymous editorial in The Herald supports The Greens’ proposal for discussions with National on climate change. Key needs to acknowledge the facts, get some guts, and stop playing politics with the issue.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, June 1st, 2015 - 37 comments
A record of the Dunedin consultation meeting on NZ’s emission targets. It was an extraordinary evening. So many people spoke with concern, with intelligence, with anger, with compassion, with emotion. Some spoke with hope, some without.
Please – make a written submission before Wednesday.
Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, May 31st, 2015 - 53 comments
“Is this a glimpse of Earth’s future?”
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, May 31st, 2015 - 199 comments
Some thoughts on how Labour and the Greens need to manage relations in the hope that they can form a future progressive Government.
Written By: - Date published: 5:01 pm, May 29th, 2015 - 5 comments
Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, May 28th, 2015 - 103 comments
It has emerged that the New Zealand Government has paid money to a Saudi businessman allegedly to settle a legal dispute that does not exist but more probably to persuade the Saudi Government to enter into a free trade agreement. Update – and maybe there was a threat of legal action but because of the actions of National, not Labour.
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, May 22nd, 2015 - 78 comments
“It was an emotional meeting and I felt in turns angry, frustrated, helpless, very sad, and disillusioned. I also felt privileged to be in the company of so many knowledgeable, passionate people.”
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, May 20th, 2015 - 134 comments
We the people only learned of Treasury projections on the costs of inaction on climate change (up to $52 billion) because someone screwed up a redacted document. We were never meant to know. And National’s Minister for Climate Change Issues statement on the matter is that Treasury should have done a better job of hiding this vital information from the public.
Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, May 19th, 2015 - 13 comments
The government is “consulting” we the people on New Zealand’s climate change target. You can use Generation Zero’s Fix Our Future site to make a submission. Do it!
Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, May 16th, 2015 - 46 comments
Simon Bridges wants to ease Auckland’s congestion by investing more into local roads and less in rail. And by the looks of things he wants to politicise transport funding in a way that has not occurred for decades.
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, May 16th, 2015 - 46 comments
The Auditor General has decided that Katherine Rich, head of the Food and Grocery Council which includes Coca Cola as well as Alcohol and Tobacco interests has no conflict in being a member of the Health Promotion Agency, a quango with the role of supporting healthy lifestyles.
Written By: - Date published: 6:22 am, May 15th, 2015 - 46 comments
All the best to those coping with the wild weather or its aftermath. We’ll see lots of photos of floods and damage, but no discussion of the increasing risks of extreme weather.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 pm, May 12th, 2015 - 1 comment
Nepal has been hammered again. Here’s how to donate.
Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, May 11th, 2015 - 180 comments
A significant milestone has been passed.
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, May 10th, 2015 - 2 comments
The award winning documentary Hot Air, on the politics of climate change in New Zealand, by Alister Barry & Abi King-Jones, is now free to view on Youtube.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, May 8th, 2015 - 45 comments
From the I kid you not files Mike Hosking believes that Auckland Council is to blame for the housing crisis, not immigration, not favourable tax conditions for landlords, not the global financial crisis and not the lack of restrictions on home ownership. And he believes that Nick Smith should step in and Roll Auckland Council.
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, May 8th, 2015 - 11 comments
113 more jobs to go at Solid Energy’s Stockton Mine. Bill English killed Solid Energy, these job losses are his.
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, May 3rd, 2015 - 30 comments
Ports of Auckland’s recent behaviour outlines a major weakness with Auckland super city. Corporate interests are able to take precedence over the wishes of our democratically elected representatives.
Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, May 2nd, 2015 - 42 comments
Not that I wish any ill on Californians, but in the grand scheme of things it is probably good for our global chances of action to limit climate change that such a clear example of the damaging effects are playing out in the USA’s back yard.
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, April 30th, 2015 - 58 comments
If we can’t even do simple things like refuel safely there is no way that we can guarantee the safety of deep sea drilling off the coast of NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, April 30th, 2015 - 32 comments
The Pope is calling for action on climate change. Naturally, he is being attacked for it.
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, April 28th, 2015 - 18 comments
New Zealand’s policy on climate change has been one of inaction. A key plank in this is our emissions profile. Roughly 50% of our greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. We couldn’t do anything about them. Instead farmers increase emissions and turn our lakes and streams into toxic sewers. But AgResearch scientists now have a solution for the emissions.
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, April 26th, 2015 - 17 comments
As is all over the news this morning, Nepal and surrounding areas have been hit by a severe quake.
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, April 17th, 2015 - 18 comments
With Crosby Textor by his side, John Key has since learned to employ all manner of specialist PR techniques including ad homs, blame-shifting, distraction, use of Dirty Politics proxies to defuse the situation, and false equivalence, all woven together in an intricately performed semantic shuffle designed to provide wiggle room for when he does get caught.
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, April 15th, 2015 - 57 comments
There is more information and a petition here
Written By: - Date published: 3:21 pm, April 11th, 2015 - 112 comments
Well knock me over with a feather. The disaster that is NZ’s greenhouse gas emissions has broken out of the ghetto of Twitter and Parliament TV, and made it on the front page of the (digital) Herald.
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, April 7th, 2015 - 74 comments
Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, April 5th, 2015 - 50 comments
No, not a typo. Just in case you’re short of things to worry about, you can add soil to the list.
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, April 5th, 2015 - 66 comments
An excellent piece by Rod Oram on the RMA and the government’s attempts at spin.
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, April 3rd, 2015 - 47 comments
The California drought gives us a case study in how the effects of climate change are going to play out.
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