The Breaking Views blog is administered by the New Zealand Centre for Political Research at NZCPR.com. The views expressed are those of the author alone.
Most Canadians know some facts about the quality of lives of the people in these communities, but let’s refresh our minds with a few statistics.
First Nations have the highest rates of incarceration, homelessness, poverty, and welfare dependency. They also have the highest rates of infant mortality, suicides, and the lowest life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group in Canada. As well, reserve communities have the highest rates of sexual abuse, single motherhood, and alcohol and drug abuse.1
So the border worker didn’t get a jab despite missing two appointments – and now the border worker hadn't even been tested since last year.
It's good to know the Government and Health Ministry can still surprise us, even as a growing number of us thought the levels of ineptitude couldn't possibly get any worse.
Remember last year and the outrage over the port workers who weren't getting tested?
Remember the woman at the centre of the last lockdown, the border worker at Sky Chefs, who had missed her test?
Remember all the promises made about tightening things up - or as Bloomfield and Hipkins were so often heard to say - this is the system learning?
Learning what? How to out-do yourself in terms of incompetency?
The headline on an RNZ report summed up
her commitment: Mahuta vows to clear obstacles to creating Māori council wards
She has been dismayingly successful, from the perspective of citizens anxious to buttress democratic electoral and governance arrangements against the fast-spreading erosion when special provisions for Maori are introduced.
Here is Garrick Tremain's latest cartoon commentary!
China, India & Brazil reluctant to cave in to US pressure on climate
In this newsletter:
1) COP Out? Boris Johnson battles to save COP26 climate conference
The Sun, 14 April 2021
Why Net Zero won't happen
In this newsletter:
1) Emerging nations join forces to oppose ‘carbon border tax’
Times of India, 10 April 2021
2) Emerging economies share ‘grave concern’ over EU plans for a carbon border levy
EurActiv, 12 April 2021
Democracy is a model under threat from many quarters, and losing around the world.
It is easy to forget how recently democracy has become mainstream. In Britain women over the age of 21 only got the vote in 1928 and in the US, universal suffrage only became accessible to all Afro-Americans in the last 55 years, because, prior to the 1960s voting reforms, there was serious voter suppression in parts of the country. Some former East European countries like Hungary have retreated from the democratic model and others like Greece and Italy have struggled to deal with major economic challenges.
The government is lucky, as it turns out, that Covid is still front-and-centre because if it wasn’t - and it won't always be - a great deal more time would be currently spent on the economy.
Kiwibank tell us the sugar-rush of spending is over. That mad dash we made post-lockdown last year to buy anything and everything is now finished. The household spending tracker was down nine percent in the March quarter - that is a massive fall.
The March quarter, by the way, is January, February and March. When the GDP numbers come out for that quarter next month, it will almost certainly show we went backwards, which then means we were officially in recession. A double-dip recession. They’ve done it not once, but twice.
Only six councillors voted against an arrangement to allow one representative from each of Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngāti Toa Rangatira to sit on most council committees and subcommittees with full voting rights from 1 July.
The council will reimburse each tribe by paying an annual fee, equivalent to the remuneration of a full time elected member, which is currently $111,225.
It is with deep sadness that we learn of the death of HRH Prince Philip, who passed earlier today. The GWPF offers its condolences to Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family on the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip, an environmental campaigner and fellow climate realist, will be profoundly missed.
New study ties solar variability to the onset of decadal La Nina events
In this newsletter:
1) The Sun’s climate role confirmed
GWPF Observatory, 6 April 2021
2) New study ties solar variability to the onset of decadal La Nina events
Not that I want to gloat, again, OK I’m fully gloating, winning two bets in a row against my husband is just a little bit thrilling. The fact he misread the government not once but twice, is something I can’t just ignore. Especially when he bet against me, twice.
So we first of all had the announcement of the announcement as I bet there would be, then yesterday we had, as I rightfully bet again, a bubble opening on the 19th, just in time for school holidays. Two nil to me. I’m on a roll.
COP26 climate summit may have to be postponed again
In this newsletter:
As we slide into the Easter weekend, we mustn’t forget clocks go back an hour on Sunday. There goes the long lighter days, the BBQ’s and eating outside, the late night warm walks, as we head into the cooler months and darker evenings.
It’s controversial daylight saving, for many reasons. I like when it changes back personally, as an early shift worker who gets up in the dark anyway, it just means it’s darker earlier at night when we go to bed.
So it feels like night time comes around quicker. Long summer nights make it hard for early shift workers to tootle off to bed, you kind of feel cheated. Like you’re missing out on stuff. It’s also good for parents of small children too, the darker nights – in terms of settling littlies into bed and not having to worry about black out blinds or convincing them it’s night time when the sun’s still shining outside.
In message to Joe Biden, India embarks on new coal boom
In this newsletter:
1) China warns Boris & Biden: Cave to our demands or forget about your climate agenda
GWPF & BBC News, 31 March 2021
The lockdown pattern here sees a lockdown (full or partial) being vigorously enforced for a few days and then a slacking off until you begin to wonder “What lockdown?”. Except for cafés and restaurants, everything seems to be working again.
The [near]-full lockdown of a couple of months back initially saw people having to flash a downloaded permit to get into the supermarkets on their phones before being allowed in. We were short of supplies that the smaller stores don’t stock, such as fresh meat and frozen chicken pieces, so I went to a large supermarket I often frequent. I don’t have one of those accursed ‘phone’ things so I asked to see a member of the managerial team whom I told that he was discriminating against me because I am a human being and not an android controlled by a little plastic and silicon box. He laughed and told me to wait a few minutes because there was a policeman hanging around ensuring that the rules were being observed, but once he was gone I would be OK to come in. “Ten minutes, alright?” Sure, mate. Half an hour later, loaded up with goodies…
Asking the Ministry of Education to draft a compulsory New Zealand History curriculum for school children was always fraught with risk.
The Ministry has disavowed knowledge-based curricula – to the extent that the much-vaunted National Curriculum fits on a scanty 64 A4 pages. It covers the entire social sciences for years 1-13 in a single page.
A Lincoln University philosopher said it does, according to one report of the proceedings.
Indigenous Digital Philosopher, Karaitiana Taiuru says, “We’re kanohi ki te kanohi, you know their mauri, you can touch something and get the mauri and the internet, it’s nothing, it’s te kore and it’s hard to try and quantify that. But if you use the internet for the right purposes then it will have mauri.”
Here at Point of Order we trust we are putting the internet to the right purpose by drawing attention to the cultural and spiritual thrust of the recently released Tourism Future Taskforce Interim Report. It says:
This is a taskforce and report that from day one has been inspired by the Te Ao Māori perspective.
The wisdom and guidance received from Māori leadership has been incredibly significant to the thinking along the journey towards these [the taskforce’s] recommendations
The concept of “mauri” looms large in the taskforce’s vision for the tourist industry.
Anyone
over the age of 70 years in New Zealand today (especially if you are male and
of European descent), can be forgiven for feeling that somehow, after a
lifetime of struggle, commitment to, and hard work in the interests of our
country, New Zealand, we have suddenly become “the enemy”!
Green Party MPs, almost to a person, condemn “old white men” as somehow being responsible for all of the ills of modern-day New Zealand society. Julie-Ann Genter’s infamous statement to a class of school children in Christchurch (aged around 10 years) that “old white men” needed to move aside from their domination of boards (she did not specify which boards-charities, SOEs, closely- held family companies, Stock Exchange listings), as some kind of cleansing process after which organisations would be refreshed and renewed.
It’s remarkably simple; when you’re saturated by a language it’s very easy to learn it as you’re exposed to it all the time. I can see now how people become bi-lingual in countries which promote two languages.
Did you know Te Papa was bi – lingual, or rather I should say it is Maori with English translation? On my walks along the waterfront I pop into it now and then and promise myself to learn 20 new words on each visit.
The Police are in the news at the moment for several reasons – one, they have new cars, and two, Napier’s Mayor fears they’re stretched to their limits in her region, weighed down with gang violence issues. She wants more Police for her area, and has written to the Police Minister to say so.
Good luck getting a response on that.
Hers is not the only region feeling short of a Police presence. Wellington, recently accused of becoming too dangerous to walk the streets of the CBD at night, is making moves to try to combat anti-social behaviour by committing to a ‘social contract’ and looking to take collective action.
Another appropriate quote that could be added in today’s
corrupt political climate is one used by JFK - “the only thing necessary for
the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing!”
When these memorable lines are added together, they provide
a powerful lesson for keeping us safe.
Make no mistake, l believe that evil does exist in our
society, most of it in subtle forms that are too often overlooked because we
are encouraged to accept an environment that peacefully co-exists with the
consequences.
Let me explain.
The pace of the vaccine rollout, the privacy details of those being vaccinated getting breached, the MIQ fees that remain unpaid.
I mean, do we even care anymore or have we just given up?
We’ve been told a goal of 2 million New Zealanders vaccinated by the middle of the year. We know the speed of the global vaccine rollout is critical. We know NZ has secured 10 million doses - but how fast are we jabbing?
What’s happened is this year the capital’s CBD has suddenly
become an attractive destination for maori gangs. And why? Because the bloody
unbelievably idiotic Welfare Department is putting them up at taxpayers expense
in central city hotels. This is sheer madness.
This filth is now everywhere on our CBD streets, threatening pedestrians. I’ve heard numerous stories including incidents from my own staff.
Climate Change Commission
PO Box 24448
Wellington 6142
hello@climatecommission.govt.nz
New Zealand Centre for Political Research Submission
on the Climate Change Commission’s Draft Emissions Budget
Dear Sir,
Thank you for providing the opportunity to submit on the Climate Change Commission’s draft emissions budget.
This submission is on behalf of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, a public policy think tank established in 2005 by former Member of Parliament Dr Muriel Newman.
We propose to address three issues of major concern.
1. The emissions budgets are not evidence-based
Another example for you this morning on the weaknesses of democracy especially at local body level.
The Whangārei mayor is against fluoridation of water. Is the Whangārei mayor a medical professional? Looking her up, she appears not to be.
I’m not even sure she represents the view of the people who elected her.
But that’s democracy isn’t it? We appoint or anoint people with experience and skill in little if anything and expect them to run important stuff.
What makes her fluoridation objection so ironic is the fact she’s from Northland and it is Northland that would appear to have the disproportionate amount of trouble in the social areas - one of them being dental health.
The housing announcement yesterday, apart from being a total broken promise from the government in terms of the bright line test, is essentially penalising mum and dad investors. And those are the investors running the rental homes providing tenants with much needed accommodation.
And the concern here is that the costs go up for those tenants, and that due to the government pinging them if they sell within 10 years, that landlords will hold onto rental properties for longer. And when they do that, you don’t get a cooler housing market, you get fewer houses up for grabs. What’s galling here is the brazenness with which this government has back tracked.
The Prime Minister campaigned on not introducing a Capital Gains Tax.. she was adamant, it was one of her biggest election promises. Not on her watch, she said. Grant Robertson is on the record ruling it out, saying it would never come to pass. And yet, here it is. A Capital Gains Tax in all but name.
