Radio New Zealand’s decision to conduct a review of its Israel-Palestine coverage post-7 October 2023 is commendable. We believe the presented report does not meet a credible standard in terms of breadth, methodology and analysis.
Money does not grow on trees, it grows on houses. It is pure magic!
National has engaged in the most crass form of beneficiary bashing in opposing Government changes to the benefit system announced in the budget and passed under urgency.
Elements in the media clearly think that the payment of a modest amount to families with young babies will cause them to breed babies for a business.
Jacinda’s baby is going to be big news soon.
And now for something completely different.
Essential reading, two pieces highlighting institutional racism today. Someone needs to ask the Maori Party how proud they are to be propping up this government.
Bill English didn’t know the cost of the parental leave bill that he vetoed on the grounds of cost, and he didn’t care enough about it to speak to the matter in Parliament last night.
“We request that you withdraw the financial veto certificate against the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill.” You can sign the petition here.
So – like Canterbury, like Auckland, the democratic process can get stuffed as far as National are concerned.
Sue Moroney’s bill to extend paid parental leave passed its second reading last night – bravo to all those who supported it! The Nats’ threat to veto is profoundly anti-democratic, overriding the will of Parliament.
The Nats are obsessed with the reproductive rights of those they deem “unfit”. Once again they are floating the idea of compulsory controls.
Last night in Parliament Labour MP Sue Moroney’s bill extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks passed its first reading by one vote, with only National and ACT opposed.
In South Korea the colliding intersection between economics, tradition and demographics is probably at its most extreme. However the same kinds of effects are being seen all over the developed world, and increasingly in parts of the underdeveloped world – and here.
Under Unitec’s new vision students will be known as Customers. Student services will be outsourced (overseas)
Aspiration statementTo be a world leader in contemporary applied learning and an agent of positive economic and social change.
I have foolishly never taken Cameron Slater very seriously except when his attacks have been obviously for the benefit of the National Party. I actually believed that the misinformed and bigoted viewpoints that prevail in his posts were his genuine opinions. It fits his character to drone on about “The Breastapo” “Sucking on the Taxpayers’ Tit”. To discover that such posts were actually written and paid for on behalf of Fonterra actually shocked me.
It’s a classic National manoeuvre. Ask them a straightforward question like “is there support for all newborn babies in New Zealand?” and get a straightforward “Yes” – with several significant caveats that altogether add up to No.
The ratings/sales driven ethos of the corporate MSM skews the coverage of the election campaigns of parties of the “left” and the “right”. Focus on individuals, implying they represent large sections of the population. The left are leading the agenda on inequality.
Another good policy announcement from David Shearer.
Have you done this yet?
John Key’s excuse for the planned veto of the extension of paid parental leave is that it would put the 2014/15 surplus at risk. There’s several reasons that’s bullshit, the main one being: why is going just under or just over some arbitrary line in the Crown’s books the Nats’ one aim for the economy? The truth is, Key’s using the surplus as an excuse for not doing the right thing.
Happy International Women’s Day; the fight for equality still has some way to be won…
On Planet Key natural body processes are ignored, and nature has been tamed into a golf course. It’s a place where mothers don’t lactate or have a heightened sensitivity to their babies’ cries; a place disconnected from the chaotic consequences of climate change.
The government is vulnerable around Sue Moroney’s Paid Parental Leave Bill. The Nats don’t want it to pass, but they risk losing support from women. A government veto of an entire Bill is on experimental ground, and Bill English has shifted his reasons for not supporting the Bill. Updates: BusinessNZ submission
Paid Parental Leave, Charter schools, compulsory early childhood education for beneficiaries: for NAct it’s all about money, and they use ‘shonky’ figures to justify their ‘shonkey’ policies and vetos. This is ostrich and patriarchal behaviour, ignoring the evidence of the wider benefits to communities and society of good quality child care, education and Paid Parental Leave.
There’s been a lot of coverage of breastfeeding “controversies” in the last couple of months.
We’ve reposted Queen of Thorns’ take on it…
Labour’s people-centred economic policy got a huge boost last week, courtesy of the Members’ Bill lottery. Paid parental leave extended, holidays Mondayised, minimum wage raised, and assets fenced off from sale. The first two have gone to Select Committee. They are worth supporting.
Bennett is running misdirection for the Parata. Not letting bad parents have more kids is nothing new. It’s just the existing powers courts have to order CYFS to take newborns into custody and to ban people from contact with kids. With the meaningless addition of making these orders before a woman is pregnant. Good talkback bait though. Bennett’s just trolling again. Which is all she seems good for.
Here’s a quick way to reduce your carbon footprint: don’t have kids and save 80 years worth of human greenhouse gas output per child… This is my Voluntary Human Extinction Movement post.
With the debate raging about free contraception for women and their teenage daughters, inevitably the conclusion is that irresponsible teenager girls are making poor decisions. Why do they get pregnant? That’s the easy part – teens not using contraception, of course. Why teenage pregnancy is an intractable problem is a much more complex question.
At first glance it seems strange to have Sue Bradford, a former Green MP, against what is a very ‘green’ policy – free contraception. But she has a point when she talks about beneficiaries feeling forced into sterility they don’t want. Meanwhile, what’s with the right’s obsession with targeting women having babies while on a benefit?
The Government is planning to offer free long-term contraception for beneficiaries and their daughters. At one level its a sensible idea. But it comes with too much baggage attached. The Nats have already made such a mess of it that they can’t make this proposal with any credibility.
John Key and Bill English couldn’t find $150million over four years for increased parental leave that would hugely benefit future children. Horrors – we would have to borrow! But they could find $100million straight away to pay international investment banks including Australian company Lazard’s to advise on asset sales that robs our children’s future and that nobody else wants. It’s a matter of priorities – money gets money, kids get nothing.
Will our children think of the welfare state, the tiger and the rhino as part of a mythologised Arcadia?
Last week, David Farrar demanded to know where the government is getting $62m for youth mental health services… Actually he didn’t (they’re stealing it from other health funding) but he is demanding Labour explains where it would get $125m a year for extending paid parental leave. I guess he just really wants to make sure it’s feasible. Lets help him out with some options
Sue Moroney’s 6 months of Paid Parental Bill looks like being a second Labour private member’s bill that will proceed against National’s wishes.
