John Roughan had a thoughtful but misguided piece in Saturday's Herald: Has 'middle NZ' made no progress? ...I watched Seven Sharp's item on the resigning Mayor of New Plymouth with a certain sadness. The poor fellow has had enough of the isolation and abuse he…
Bernard Hickey writes the best economic analysis in NZ. Here's yesterday's contribution: Bernard Hickey: Too many visas, not enough pay ... Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler is tasked with under-standing how supply and demand affects wages and prices in the economy and last week he…
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The Canary has been the UK's outstanding new online media outlet of the last 12 months. It is independent, co-operative, democratic and socialist in operation. But it is also a fully commercial enterprise. The people who work there do so co-operatively, share directly in the…
So often we lose sight of the fact that local government is about much, much more than rates. It’s about the water that comes out of the tap – and whether it’s contaminated with campylobacter. It’s about the kinds of houses that get built in…
Extracts from a long piece by Rutger Bregman in The Guardian: Socialism is a great product. When will the left give it the hard sell? It’s a perplexing question: why has so little changed since 2008? If your recall is a little hazy, 2008 was…
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The Syrian War has dragged on for years and may have now caused approximately 400,000 deaths according to a visiting UN official. Although accurate figures are impossible to come by, 50,000 to 100,000 of these deaths are from casualties suffered by Assad's decimated military forces.…
The Havelock North gastro outbreak is big - Timeline: Havelock North's water contamination crisis More than 4000 people in Havelock North have been brought down with gastric illness - New Zealand's worst-ever waterborne disease outbreak. The outbreak might also have killed a person, after test…
Well known leftie rag Metro had a timely piece by Graham Adams last week: A government on the ropes John Key is taking a sustained beating over homelessness, house prices and immigration. It may yet be fatal. Homelessness delivered a serious body blow to the…
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Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
America, champion of capitalism, hope of the brave etc, can still do math: Justice Department says it will end use of private prisons The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less…
Julie Anne Genter from the Greens has raised an important issue. It appears that many Kiwisaver funds have investments in the manufacturers of cluster bombs. Put to one side the morality of this sort of investment there are also legal issues which cannot be ignored.…
Whitebait season opened this week. Not for the last time. Yet. Graphic by Stella McQueen, via Alison Ballance "We've seen this increase in a number of our fresh water fishes becoming endangered. So 1990 20% of our forty native fishes were endangered. Now around 75% of…
Why is New Zealand saying it’s slowly losing confidence in National? It’s not high childhood poverty, suicide, jailing, obesity, or domestic violence; we’ve had high levels of all of that for decades. By a whole bunch of measures, New Zealand is fine. Apparently, only 6%…
Now here's some radical new thinking on the housing crisis! 'Tents and warehouses' suggested for homeless Real estate company Colliers International suggested the government house homeless people in tents and warehouses in an urgent report for the Ministry of Social Development. Radical and unworkable, a…
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Charles Hugh Smith's blog "Of Two Minds" is an excellent read for those of you who are beginning to look outside the mainstream for different political and economic perspectives, including the motivations and activities of the so-called "Deep State". His latest blog entry "The Ultimate…
Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
An excellent piece by Matt Nippert, Caleb Tutty, Olivia Carville in The Herald is generating a lot of discussion this morning: Dirty secrets of KiwiSaver revealed A Herald investigation into KiwiSaver funds has found pervasive holdings - totalling more than $100 million - by members…
A right-wing think tank blurts: Interest-free student loans a 'poor use of $6 billion taxpayers' dollars': report The Government has written off $6 billion in interest on student loans in the last decade but a new report says the policy is a poor use of…
Yesterday in The Herald: Desperate Saitu family share story of child poverty in South Auckland. The situation is so bad that The Guardian has continued its coverage for a second day: Unicef and charities urge New Zealand to act on child poverty Unicef and children’s…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
Ko au te wai ko te wai te au I am the water, the water is me Christchurch Dilemmas is a rolling series of documentaries about issues facing Christchurch five years on. Made by independent, award-winning filmmaker Gerard Smyth with backing from NZ On Air and…
I/S at No Right Turn does great analysis of legislation. His coverage of the new spying laws has been excellent. Here he is on National's clumsy and misguided attempt to re-impose official secrets: Against anti-whistleblower laws Yesterday the government introduced new spying legislation into Parliament.…
To the complete surprise of absolutely no one: Land-bankers fail to build affordable housing Affordability requirements in up to half of Auckland's special housing areas look set to lapse because developers have not even applied for consents ahead of the areas disappearing next month. The…
Today the Household Labour Force Survey is released. The method used to calculate the headline unemployment figure has changed since the previous release. This caused some discussion on Twitter yesterday, and Grant Robertson posted the following on Facebook: Tomorrow the latest Household Labour Force Survey…
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