So we can do this….
Government hatches strategy to raise wild kiwi numbers to 100,000 by 2030
Predator control will be the focus of a strategy to reverse the decline in kiwi numbers, announced on Monday by Conservation Minister Maggie Barry.
Kiwi numbers currently fall by 2 per cent each year, but the Government wants to turn this into a 2 per cent annual gain, to swell numbers to close to 100,000 by 2030.
Wild kiwi numbers sit just below 70,000, with the annual decline caused mainly by predation from stoats and dogs. Only about 6 per cent survive to breeding age.
…but we can’t do this…
Government won’t commit to a poverty target because it’s too ‘difficult’ – John Key
Cut the 150,000 children living in poverty by 10 per cent by the end of next year?
It’s a target the new Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft wants the Government to back but Prime Minister John Key won’t put that number on it.
Key told RNZ on Monday that he wasn’t “rejecting” Becroft – someone the Prime Minister says is doing a good job and was appointed for his skill set – but disputes that a number and a target can be put on child poverty.
…we can save birds, but we can’t save poor children and the PM enjoys making that comparison quite clear…
You have to wonder what went through the Prime Minister’s mind when he thought it was a good idea to say it’s easier to count rodents than kids in poverty.
John Key might have been asked to compare the Government’s target of making New Zealand predator-free by 2050 to their reluctance to target the number of children living in poverty but there was nothing stopping him from saying it was an unrealistic comparison.
But no, Key went right ahead saying “it’s more binary in terms of whether there’s a rat, a stoat or a possum there or whether there isn’t because you can understand that”.
Translation: “We can count rodents easily – neglected, abused or sick children living in cold, damp houses not so much”.
And just to make sure nobody was confused, he went on to point out that the advice he got on measuring child poverty was “airy-fairy”.
…why would the PM be so crass? Because he knows via his polling that the rump of his vote blame poor people for having children they can’t feed. Key is delighting in making this point while more educated souls gasp and that’s probably deliberate. Key is reaching out to his own voting base’s bias by saving birds but leaving the poor to fend for themselves.
It’s symbolism National Party voters love.
But…but…but Martyn
John Key is rillexed abeared it an hez kimplete confdince inizz munsta.
Ultimately there’s a number of measures they could instute an if I show you one mezja, you’d show me anutha.
Ez he once told Sackur, mezjas kin orl be pritty meaninglisssss going forwid.
(And see how that clean green ummage hez turned eart aye! As Paul Henry would say…. it’s “paradise”)
Utlimately, there’s a number of levers he’ll be pulling an I’m sure Becroft will be bending orl the curves he ken ta get the nummas dearn.
John won’t wanna be intafearing in oprashunul metters either.
Trust him! he knows what he’s doing
The mentality will be this is New Zealand, we don’t have poverty like the slums of Mumbai or Manila, we simply have families who just make bad choices.
National voters, if they even give the matter any thought and I doubt they give a shit, will convince themselves the solution to poverty in NZ equals less smokes and KFC, maybe a few Sky channels less. Its about lifestyle choices, working hard, sacrifices and growing your own vegetables,. It’s simple!
“this is New Zealand, we don’t have poverty like the slums of Mumbai or Manila”. I doubt they would care even if we did…
They wouldn’t. They’d just come up with some other facile comparison that would allow them to continue to make things worse while they get richer.
We have people living here with long drop dunnies, no piped water, no electricity, sewage flowing in the street after a rain event, litter and dumped rubbish in streets and public places, leaky homes, poor or no access to healthcare, patchy cell phone coverage, street violence…
Or are there other features of slums, refugee camps, and ghettos we’re missing?
How bad does it have to be before this nya-nya competition dies the death?
don’t agree with you Xray we have relative poverty here not absolute poverty like they have in china, Bangladesh etc but we should not have any poverty here. Why should the poor suffer because of the greed of the rich crashing the market. Yet the same old blame the victim theory regarding people making bad choices is continually rolled out. And how and what influences peoples choices x ray possibly lack of education, race , ethnicity, racism ? it is because of people like you our country is going down the toilet fast. We give lots of aid to other countries are we telling them to have less children and take their contraceptive as they cant afford kids somehow I doubt it.
It seems as if the little fella Key was teased when he was a child by other kids with his mum being on the DPB and living in a state house, … something happened to the kids psyche back then to cause him to despise the less well off…
And when he moved to the USA etc he started getting affirmation and initiation into how the big boys play… like a gangs father figure he clasped onto them , and they saw in him a little weasel that could undertake their vicious dirty work… a relationship of mutual convenience…
And so we have the molded little fella back here to wreck and pillage and set up smokescreen issues as above while he takes out his self loathing for his own past on others,… Sugar Daddy Obama … who’s the next father figure / mother figure ….?
A true PM would have easily done both the environmental thing AND started moves to make ALL New Zealanders prosper 9 years ago if his promises meant anything at all.
And again , as I always do to put a thorn under the little fellas saddle , I include this yet again.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10468960/Aroha-of-McGehan-Close-flees-NZ
Remember many years ago, under another government, where they seriously suggested using cut out cardboard cops to scare away crims? Maybe this is another such “scheme”, to put out into the bush and forests many cut out card-board kiwis, looking oh so “real”?
Without more investment in conservation, and effective efforts to stop rodents and so kill native birds, all this will just be another token gesture, to look good in press releases and on TV footage, where the Minister will release a few Kiwis into the wild, to be slaughtered and eater by other animals soon after.
That brings back memories of a story of one of those cardboard cops being stolen from a shop in town at the time. Cardboard kiwis? No, this government is far more sophisticated, expect augmented reality kiwis, perfect for the consumerist zombie masses living behind their little screens. And those pesky homeless people and hungry children; there’s no poverty, they’re augmented by something attractive and profitable.
There is a link here.
To save the birds, they dump 1080, some of that ends up in drinking water catchments, supposedly 1080 can damage the reproductive system? I heard it somewhere ??
So DOC are helping reduce the number of children in poverty.
http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/saving-our-environment/native-plants-and-animals-/protecting-native-forests-1080/1080-frequently-ask
This is not a credible reference. For example, F%B still imply there that 1080 only affects mammals:
“It is used sparingly in these countries because of the need to protect their native mammals. Most 1080 is used in New Zealand because our only two native land mammals are bats.”
Even DOC has admitted that 1080 kills everything that breathes air, including native birds
http://web.archive.org/web/20111011062017/http://doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/media-releases/doc-takes-steps-to-prevent-kea-losses/
The reason NZ still uses 1080 is the same reason some countries still allow the use of DDT, PCBs, and other chemicals that have been banned here. The relevant decision-makers have been taken in by PR from the corporations that sell these chemicals, delivered through the toxic bait of groups like F&B, who don’t bother doing their own research or asking any awkward questions.
Stop using 1080 and watch as the native wildlife gets slaughtered.
Robert, 1080 degrades quickly in the water. DO you have any alternatives to poisoning possums? Because it’s either that or lose our forests.
The Natz govt. don’t care much for birds either with their 1080 mass droppings. Forest and Bird also support 1080 – GO FIGURE.
Social services and caring for children and others in need are not a priority for this elite govt, on its way out, but military shows of power and sucking up to the US military in our Auckland harbour gets massive attention and funds. Disgraceful govt.
Wrinkly faced; serial lying Jonky donky needs to be exposed and questioned more and more to help voters wake up. He is – ” a corporation in disguise of a man. “
No its not either 1080 or lose our forests. There are alternative means to control possums that will not kill birds and other wildlife.
1080 is a huge fraud and money making venture for idiot criminals.
It is outlawed in many countries and for good reasons.
We see less and less wild birds each year here in our rural area and other animals are being killed and this in not reported.
It is not a matter of the lesser of other evils. 1080 is the evil that we need to stop and then fund other effective and less harmful means.
I remain shocked that Forest and Bird still supports 1080. Their rationale stinks and has no merit. The health and well being of our environment and all living things needs more respect and support and we need less lies about predators and the benefits of the toxic and horrific 1080 ! !
Some people are making huge profits off of dumping 1080 all over our country and that is plan wrong on so many levels. You can not justify 1080 – no way.
No there isn’t. Unless you’re going to be looking to import more predators.
Actually we can’t save birds, and the government has got no intention of saving them. ‘Saving kiwis’ is just one more of a continuous stream of lies that have come from National over the years. The reality most people are yet to understand is that National couldn’t care less about kiwis or Kiwis. And the gang that constitutes national will continue to sacrifice everything to the ‘money machine’, including the next generation of humans and kiwis. Until they can’t.
The fact is, providing a long-term habitat for kiwis and providing long-term habitat for Kiwis are both totally incompatible with the government’s agenda of looting and polluting everything in order to keep the Ponzi financial system alive a little longer.
There is NO evidence current arrangements will even last until 2030, and plenty of evidence they won’t:
http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/2016/09/26/a-better-graph/
Using Key’s (binary) logic, how can we discern whether a farm is in drought or not.
Sooner or later, If you can’t care for the environment enough to provide clean drinking water from aquifers, let alone streams and rivers clean enough to swim in…then how on earth can you have an environment capable of nourishing a healthy, happy, flourishing population of Kiwi…of the feathered OR bipedal type.
Good point that’s lost on the nats I’m afraid.
I reality, National don’t care about the birds either. They only care about higher profits for the bludging rich people who create the poverty, both human and environmental, in the first place.
Spot on Draco.
Key’s referencing rats and kids in poverty was a telling moment. Now we know what he really thinks of the poor.
John key hates New Zealanders and doesn’t give a stuff.
Eradicating rodents is much easier than putting some effort into addressing child poverty. That’s according to John Key, PM of NZ. Typical of his uncaring, inhumane response to the issue of impoverishment in this country!
While homeless Kiwi children go cold, hungry, become malnourished and get ill through lack of basic life sustaining necessities, which was once NZ’s much envied point of difference, Key and his venomous nest of vipers invest heavily in rodent eradication to protect wildlife in the future! While I agree native wildlife needs protection, this is a case of misguided priorities. Children are the way of the future and must be nurtured and protected in every respect. It’s part of any government’s responsibility to protect all its citizens in the best way possible. But not that important for growing impoverishment to be enough of an issue to warrant government investigation and assistance!
Given that, I bet as this is being posted Key is already offering his support to Kim Kardashian, after she was “allegedly” threatened at gunpoint, not only suffering theft of valuable items, but also shock! In the same mold as KK, JK is a pathetic, shallow, attention seeking, self absorbed mockery of his species, with little regard for the less fortunate!
Anyone who votes for National again, needs a very sharp personal reality check! The sharper and harder the better!
I saw the minister at the supermarket yesterday, she is actually quite elderly now. The cartoon image is of a much earlier version of her, from her days on the TV.
Yes when she was a real person!
Comments are closed.