New Zealand’s New Low Carbon Economy Stays Difficult
Southland Mayor Gary Tong has justified felling a forest to construct a coal mine by saying “[w]e all want to make a cleaner, greener planet, but we can’t do it in five minutes.”
Social issues
uncategorized
The Labour Conference
Labour is this year holding its Conference on line. There will be some attention on a proposal to allow a supermajority of Caucus to avoid members and affiliates from having a say in a future Parliamentary leader.
We are all in this together
Increasing levels of angst at the current lockdown can be related to privilege.
COP26 is on
The show is now on for Conference of Parties 26 (COP 26), where countries show each other how they will achieve the Paris […]
The Entrust election debacle
National aligned C&R has shown how bad it is at running elections by running an election where less than one in ten eligible people voted.
Happy Labour Day
Happy Labour day everyone, particularly essential workers including health workers who have to work today.
Get a haircut and get a real job
While our eyes are peeled on the 90% vaccination target, the ground under our feet is shifting.
Slater smears again
The Herald’s publication of an attack on Ardern by a wedding venue owner appears to have been sourced from Cameron Slater and brings into stark relief the Herald’s twin business model of funding serious journalism by both subscriptions and the use of click bait.
Don’t be lax, get your vax
Posted for the big drive today for vaccinations for news and comments. Image borrowed from Waipareira who are doing great work out west.
Terra Incognita
The future can seem scary but we do not face it alone.
Right now Sonny Fatupaito is an essential worker
News that the head of Waikato’s Mongrel Mob chapter was given an essential workers exemption to travel to and around Auckland recently has attracted derision from the usual quarters. But right now Sonny Fatupaito’s help is essential.
The AUKUS Shell-game
While the agreement between the 19th Century anglophone maritime powers the US and the UK to admit Australia to the exclusive nuclear submarine club gained all the headlines, another much more significant and imminent agreement was reached between the US and Australian governments on expanding US bases in Australia in the AUSMIN statement. The US gains another unsinkable aircraft carrier.
Goodbye Gladys
Mike Hosking’s go to female Politician Gladys Berejiklian has resigned in disgrace after the Independent Commission against Corruption announced a formal inquiry into her involvement in preferential grants given to organisations in her former boyfriend’s seat from which it is alleged he attempted to receive a commission.
Covid does not give a fuck about your plans
This week we have seen reckons from John Key, Act and National on how we should be loosening up Covid lockdown restrictions. Yesterday’s 45 new cases shows how dangerous it is to think that dealing with Covid is a simple management exercise.
Highway to the Danger Zone
I never thought I would see the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of the United States military essentially being a witness against the previous President of the United States. Yet here we are.
Government introduces law to assist tenants
Barry Soper and the Property Council are up in arms about proposals to ensure that all commercial tenants should only pay a fair proportion of their rental if their use of the premises has been affected by responses to the Covid pandemic.
About the latest Colmar Brunton poll
The latest Colmar Brunton poll confirms that National’s polling is in the doldrums and David Seymour’s preferred PM rating is twice that of Judith Collins.
Where Is The Real Green Party?
Where’s the hairy knuckle-dragging woke when you need them?
New Zealand Superconductors
Just to note a little sadness at the sale of New Zealand’s High Temperature Superconductor business out of Scott Technology (a robotics specialist company based in Dunedin sold to a Brazilian meat company a few years back).
The politics of the New Lynn attack
Early days so far but the New Lynn attack will spark a debate about the adequacy of the country’s terrorism suppression laws and about citizenship rights.
Fuck-knuckles, cock and piss, balls does not breach BSA guidelines
The Broadcasting Standards Authority have ruled that the use of the words “Fuck-knuckles, cock and piss, balls” by student radio station 95bfm does not breach standards of good taste and decency.
Matt King caught blowing anti vaccination dog whistle
Former National MP Matt King has been publicly posting anti vaccination propaganda under the ruse of only wanting a conversation.
Peak Globalisation
The first great era of globalisation from roughly 1840 through to 1914 took place inside a framework that we can now view as […]
The importance of Jacinda’s 1 pm press conferences
Jacinda Ardern has resumed the 1 pm briefings where she communicates effectively the country’s current situation and what the plan is. But National and some elements of the media are complaining, presumably that she is doing too good a job.
Farewell Dr Michael Cullen
Dr Michael Cullen has died, and with him goes a real standard-bearer for Labour for three decades.
RIP Michael Cullen
Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen has died.
The antidote page for all those chickens
This is the page that I read at least once a week. With a clean brevity it gives me almost all of the strategic summary information about the progress of the vaccinations in NZ. Even it’s title is clean and clear. COVID-19: Vaccine data. But I’m trained in operations and rather more interested in reality rather than the average untrained pundit or politician who run around like a Chicken Little saying the equivalent of “the sky is falling” every other week. Thankfully they were ignored.
Here again, but Delta gives less latitude. So give less latitude.
We’re back in a Covid-19 lock down. Until we get to a very high level of vaccinations >80-90%, something that no state has yet achieved, this is our only realistic defence against outbreaks. Delta is way more infectious than previous variants. It infects the vaccinated to act as spreaders. Don’t know about anyone else. But this time I intend to exert my right to give less social latitude to idiots.
We are stuck
New Zealand has one of the most concentrated and oligopolistic economies in the world, and also one of the least commercially protected societies. […]
Judith’s last stand?
Judith Collins has decided to attack the Government on the use of the Te Reo name for New Zealand even though the last National Government regularised its use.
We Need Better Politicians!
With the right people in power, we will get the answers we deserve, and our problems will melt away and scatter in a warm worriless wind.
Nurses refuse pay offer
NZNO members who work in district health boards (DHBs) have voted by clear majority to reject the latest offer in their negotiations with the DHBs, saying it fails to address the chronic and systemic safe staffing issues in a way that would ensure and protect the future of the health system.
What If Boris Is Right?
Now that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has “opened up” the United Kingdom from many of the Covid19 strictures that it had undergone, there is a lot at stake to his reputation and indeed to the lives and livelihoods of its citizens.
Act likes some rights but not others
Following on from its campaign to protect freedom of expression Act has come out with policy on gangs which if enacted would involve some pretty egregious attacks on freedom of association and movement and due process.
The billionaire race into space
UK billionaire Richard Branson has won the rich man’s pissing competition by being the first billionaire into space even though 12 months ago he was urgently seeking Government grants while at the same time paying no tax because of his tax residency status.
The Covid Crisis – the perils of half hearted responses
The New South Wales’ half hearted response to community outbreak has seen infected numbers increase while in the UK Boris Johnson is planning to remove all restrictions something top scientists describe as “dangerous and premature”.