In 2015 the Government passed changes to the Employment Relations Act. Some of the changes were clearly ideological and designed to weaken the position of unions. The Government pressed on with the charges even though Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly said at the time that the…
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I recently followed Asher Woolf on twitter. I understand that is a nom de plumb. She is a Green Activist based in Melbourne, Australia and her profile says that she is a founder of the Cryptoparty. Wikipedia confirms this and states that the Cryptoparty is…
Sometimes people forget to say thank you. A small but common discourtesy and meanness. So let me make this minor adjustment to the world. Robert Guyton wrote a good number of posts here in the two months before Christmas. I've never met the man. I…
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George Monbiot writes, There’s nothing they need, nothing they don’t own already, nothing they even want. So you buy them a solar-powered waving queen; a belly button brush; a silver-plated ice cream tub holder; a “hilarious” inflatable zimmer frame; a confection of plastic and electronics…
Peter Leitch, aka Mad Butcher has been in the news lately. A passing comment to a young Maori Woman Lara Bridger has made the news and after two days the story is still going strong. She was upset that he told her that Waikeke Island is a…
We're taking some time out for the holidays. Hope you are able to do the same - enjoy! Open Mike will continue, but other posting will be low volume if at all. Things will pick up again some time in January. Election year. Change the…
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The social context is the same but the raw numbers for New Zealand are different - significantly higher and from a much lower population base than the England Jonathan Pie is referring to in the video below. As for homeless services in NZ...someone else is…
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The Briefing Papers assesses NZ's time at the UN Security Council, which came to an end on 31 December. Here are extracts from pieces by commentators Grant Duncan and Paul Buchanan: Failing to make a difference? New Zealand on the UN Security Council Grant Duncan…
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For all you conspiracy theorists out there ... Kim Dotcom is thinking of resurrecting the Internet Party and having another go at the elections. https://www.twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/813904805311574016 I have some sympathy for him. Even though he is a wealthy businessman with some dubious business practices in his…
It's possible to be positive about 2017. Now, this is tricky since I don't wish to defend the current government in election year. But it's possible. Our society will continue to be stable, culturally tolerant, and highly attractive to the world. That's rare anywhere. New…
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My first degree about 35 years ago was in earth sciences. And one of my lifelong passions has been reading the history, prehistory, and evolutionary history of humans. I picked up the classic habit of those skills - a better appreciation of timescales than individual lifetimes.…
The Herald has announced Leisa Renwick as its New Zealander of the year. I do not want to disparage what she did. She was suffering from Melanoma, managed to beat the condition through the use of personal resources to fund the use of cutting edge…
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