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EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.
A seriously destructive and persistent fire iKaimaumaru in Far North raises a number of questions.
How did it start is one – it could be natural causes. The area is in a restricted fire zone.
The Northland Age (Kaitaia regional – NZHerald)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northland-age/news/far-north-residents-evacuated-after-scrub-fire-spreads/37Z4HMMA2FRYEXIOS5GZTKBLDM/
Nearby areas Awanui and Karikari Peninsula are in a year-round restricted fire season, meaning a permit is required to light a fire in the open.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/458523/kaimaumau-fire-labelled-an-ecological-catastophic-disaster-for-near-extinct-species
The Kaimaumau fire – apparently they had one in 1988.
DOC pdf (which I can’t access on my not uptodate system.)
https://www.doc.govt.nz/documents/science-and-technical/sfc155.pdf
Researchgate gives a good summary. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237241386_Options_for_managing_the_Kaimaumau_Wetland_Northland_New_Zealand
The Northern Advocate -( Whangarei regional newspaper) (under NZHerald) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/ecologically-significant-kaimaumau-wetland-could-take-more-than-decade-to-recover-if-at-all/BUG6O3EJVZICIBSGZMKLZW34GU/ (paywalled – I think a spokeswoman said that they are not a journal of record. I may be wrong?).
The Northland Age (Kaitaia regional – NZHerald)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northland-age/news/far-north-residents-evacuated-after-scrub-fire-spreads/37Z4HMMA2FRYEXIOS5GZTKBLDM/
Nearby areas Awanui and Karikari Peninsula are in a year-round restricted fire season, meaning a permit is required to light a fire in the open.
I think one report said the fire could have started in an area around Norton Road which google shows is near a reserve called Waiharara Domain. Was there a restriction on fires in the area north of Awanui? The road goes through Waiharara to ‘popular holiday areas Houhora and Pukenui’ states one report. DOC surely had
ensured this area was fire-protected – they refer to all the ecologically important features and animals there.
Lots of interesting information to all sexes in this long piece on our downwards financial standing in this
country under the plenitude of the free market and mega-modernity.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/458102/bad-then-worse-now-how-covid-19-will-hurt-retired-women
…Like so many other social problems, the elephant in the room when it comes to retirement is housing. NZ Super is based on retirees owning their home mortgage-free. The pandemic has made the housing crisis worse, pushing our house price-to-income ratio into even more wildly disproportionate territory, one of the highest in the world.
Stats NZ figures show home ownership is at its lowest in 70 years, from a high of about 78 percent in the 1980s to about 55 percent today. Home ownership rates has fallen in every region since 1991, and only 35 percent of Māori and 20 percent of Pasifika own their own homes.
Once upon a time, you might have expected people aged 55-64 would be mortgage-free; today, only 38 percent of people are, and the percentage of people aged 65+ with no mortgage has dropped from 78 percent in 2007 to 72 percent in 2017. In fact, 12 percent of people aged 65+ are still paying a mortgage, and the same number are renting.
…When she and her husband separated a decade ago, it took them six years to reach settlement. In that time, house prices soared almost out of her reach. If she and her husband had separated now, she says, she wouldn’t have been able to buy at all. She fears for the futures of those younger than her, for whom the system wasn’t designed.
“I think that the government needs to start by having a look at how people are actually living; formulate policy based on reality,” she says.
She expects her two children, now 13 and 15, will still be relying on her financially for a long time, well into her 60s. And she also expects she’ll be supporting her parents when she’s in her mid-60s and beyond.
“A lot of my friends, contemporaries; we’ve had our children later,” she says. “Many of us cannot imagine a time where we would retire.”
,,,Fixing the gender pension gap can feel a lot like climate change – how much can people personally do, when faced with structural problems? But those spoken to by RNZ say women of all ages should be learning as much about money and investment as possible and take an active interest in retirement now, not later. Because of compounding interest, the money younger women put away now will have a much bigger impact in retirement than if they start saving for it in their 40s.
More laws – will they be useful? Raduinz has published a group of 12 to look out for, not a bakers dozen though I hope
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/458983/a-dozen-quirky-new-laws-you-may-not-have-heard-of
omricon may have lighter effects but its prolific. I presume it is the big infecter in the UK but this isn’t clear.
In UK – recent Covid (omicron?) report:
Public sector leaders have been asked to prepare for “worst case scenarios” of 10 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent absence rates, the Cabinet Office said.
The UK has seen record numbers of daily cases over the festive period.
Transport, the NHS and schools have already seen the effect of absences.
Rising case numbers have led to large numbers self-isolating and being unable to go to work. This has particularly affected industries where staff are unable to work from home….
Barclay said the highly transmissible Omicron variant meant businesses and public services “will face disruption in the coming weeks, particularly from higher than normal staff absence”….
And several train operators have had to reduce services because of staff absences.
Rising cases are also affecting the NHS, with 24,632 staff at hospital trusts ill with coronavirus or self-isolating on 26 December, up 31 percent on the previous week and nearly double the figure at the start of the month, according to NHS England.
I have a fair amount of stuff to say. The popularity of border collies as pets for one, though they were meant for sheep — bored silly in the city. Just saw one.
As a good ex-student reporter I shouldn’t lead with all my comments disappearing, of a sudden, on a Left blog known for free speech — unlike the others. I’m even fine with it as long as you take my comments to heart.
Can’t find a more appropriate column, sorry. By a recent comment interpretation I wonder if Chris Trotter believes we’ll be in a desperate situation by 2040 with climate change. Not impossible to live through, but hopeless, by the science. He’s said the fight is impossible, which from I only dissent mostly is a willingness to fight like billy-o. Does he doubt the steepness of the descent?
Putting your personal needs before reality is pure Right politics.
‘Speaking’ for reality is absolutely central for … realists. Why the Left is a feeble autumn leaf now — no one is willing to talk for our goals in the political sphere.
I remember Helen Clark’s one anti- Rogernomics quiet speech just prior to every election. To call in the ’35 social democrats, still a strong part in those days. Even Maurice Williamson did it for National, saying they’d learnt, or something.
Helen was a ‘political scientist’. Crap off with your crap. Which is to address the establishment.
Someone with heart and brain from the people.
So, meritocracy? The real claim against democracy. The freemarket coup matched the times but we would be better off with the social democracy established in the west (except America, tragically) from ’45. We wouldn’t be facing the end of the species, with very little hope.
Expertise hasn’t helped in the country that’s led that way.
Another thing, why can’t you talk to Youtube? They seem to have disallowed all my comments about American politics. Yet those Plute people disallow reaction to censorship. This is a point worth raising.
You make far too much of passing detail, Martyn. I hope you’ve taken a good holiday. No one cares about you other than those for the people — for whom you’ve fought the good fight.
My criticism of another commenter is either later or earlier, or maybe the over-summer censors have ‘PC’ ‘Woke’ deleted it.
I’m one of brothers, criticism has nothing to do with anything. Greywarbler is a fucken bore.
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