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Interesting that news has leaked out about how unhappy some of the more principled staff at the ABC are about the open support of the Australian state broadcaster for the rape and murder of Palestinians by the zionists.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/26/australias-abc-staffs-concerns-over-gaza-bias-revealed
Was everyone opposed to genocide gone from the RNZ and TVNZ with the firing of Mick Hall, or are they just concerned about being targeted for cuts by the zionist leadership?
Values Matter
Labour made a big song and dance over tax cuts for landlords saying this is yet another example of the Coalition Government making decisions that solely benefit the wealthiest New Zealanders.
However, now Labour are singing another tune.
Labour’s housing spokesman (Kieran McAnulty) says if the re-introduction of mortgage interest deductions on investment properties doesn’t fuel house price rises, Labour will accept it.
At a time when NZ is in a technical recession, and interest rates are high, and the public sector is laying off staff, and unemployment expected to rise to 5.8% by 2025 – Why isn’t the govt acting, by closing off all work visa immigration into NZ, apart from nurses?
It just seems strange when the govt can chop funding for all manner of good causes such as school lunches, prescription charges, disability services etc, yet can give 3 billion in tax relief for landlords – what the hell is that going to do, except make people who need money have to need money even more, and give people with plenty of money even more money?
Instead of helping landlords who don’t need help, the govt should have already closed off the tap of foreign workers, and boosted benefit rates, to help those already struggling.
It just seems strange… Let’s face it the government being strange is normal now. So if it is normal, what are we, goes the responding question? Do we get relegated to la-la land? I fear that has already happened but we are too amazed to realise it – still in a shock so profound that it is hard to recover. Wake up Rip van Winkles – the Dutch were able to think this out long ago.
Rip Van Winkle is an amiable farmer who wanders into the Catskill Mountains, where he comes upon a group of dwarfs playing ninepins. Rip accepts their offer of a drink of liquor and promptly falls asleep. When he awakens, 20 years later, he is an old man with a long white beard; the dwarfs are nowhere in sight.28 Pēp 2024
Rip Van Winkle | Summary, Story, Washington Irving …
Britannica https://www.britannica.com › … › Novels & Short Stories
(Sounds a bit like us don’t you think? ‘Inspired by a conversation on nostalgia with his American expatriate brother-in-law, Irving wrote the story while temporarily living in Birmingham, England’…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle
Bit of NZ vibrancy, we ain’t beat yet – Herbs ‘Long Ago’.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmu4wR1bTYE
I have an idea.
How about NZ adopt a federal constitution with our regions becoming Aussie/US style states, Canadian style provinces or Swiss style cantons? Central government would only look after immigration, trade, foreign affairs and defence.
Some examples could be Auckland could become a city-state province with very few trade restrictions, befitting its position as New Zealand’s major trading centre.
Wellington could become a federal capital like the ACT in Australia, or Washington DC in America, in which representatives of the provinces would meet to pass federal laws. It may or may not also have a government just for Wellington Province. This would ensure there was a minimum of disruption for Wellington and for the remaining central government in the transition to decentralisation.
Tuhoe, who have always claimed independence on the grounds that they did not sign the Treaty of Waitangi, could become a self-governing province. They would only be subject to federal law, and would otherwise have the freedom to set their own cultural agenda.
Nelson and Westland provinces could legalise cannabis and grow it on a wide scale, as well as legalise cannabis cafes that serviced both the local and the tourist markets.
What do you reckon?
Interesting, very laudable. Something is growing in our brains, quickly water it (there is a bit of a drought at present, soon to be followed by an overwhelming flood). We must make sure that that spoiler who always creeps, even strides, around before the garden show and cuts down the tall poppies before they fully flower, doesn’t get ahead of us.
Particularly when we are so close to Anzac Day – buy your poppy everyone which raises money for the assistance to the still living returned fighters and noble assistants to the fray, and the dead who were cut off in their prime or had it darkened by experiences.) A different sort of fight is now in play!
A different kind of poverty now upsets my soul
Night after sleepless night
I walk the floor and I want to know…
Crosby Stills Nash & Young – 4+20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSdy4uNwR54
@Chris, heres another idea. Make all mayors MP’s. So when you vote for an MP, you are also voting for the mayor. And make all mayors serve a minimum period as a councillor. And make councillors serve minimum periods on volunteer community boards. So a person cannot get to be an MP, until they already have a good amount of experience in local govt. Why are many mayors paid quarter of a million by ratepayers, when their position is largely symbolic. Combine the mayor and the MP roles.
Each council building could become an all of govenment building, with a common administration staff and security staff run under a common regime with one CEO for all the councils. And offices for various central govt agencies like child services/acc/nz post/ird/nzta/msd/courts/civil defence/etc, and the usual council services /library/pool/etc. It would need to be quite a big building designed with resiliance and be self contained with its own generators, to survive natural disasters.
Kids are our future
Rising levels of violence and disruption in the classroom
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/512852/rising-levels-of-violence-and-disruption-in-the-classroom-it-s-getting-in-the-way-of-teaching
Side note
Poverty wasn’t mentioned as a potential cause in the linked article above, nevertheless child poverty rates have increased.
Whisper to the alert. (is it perhaps a Chinese whisper? Why Chinese – don’t know, it’s a saying. The explanation itself confuses – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers)
Another saying – about Waka Kotahi chiefs who want to stay within a budget that is inadequate for their plans and needs but don’t ask for funding for necessary work or maintenance. And they (who?) are shutting down some train lines around Wellington over Easter.
It’s getting to seem familiar ground – like being stuck by ferries whose unionised staff would go on strike for higher wages at important holidays (reluctantly!). Same result eh!!
Mar28/24 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/512911/wellington-train-services-to-be-disrupted-over-easter-for-highly-invasive-maintenance
Mar28/24 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/512915/waka-kotahi-wanted-6m-to-address-rail-safety-concerns-but-never-sent-request
Mar6/24 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/510947/kiwirail-wellington-outage-inquiry-looks-at-new-overhead-line-installation
Dec 2023 https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018918172/budget-shortfall-threatens-wellington-train-services
Another whisper if you can’t leave NZ, at least try to leave Wellington, and perhaps Auckland too. A lot of people from Awkward are moving to Whangarei which is booming like a newly vitalised bittern.
Wellington, well perhaps off to Nelson which is tying itself in knots trying to Keep Up and be smart, bright and well-planned so that better, moneyed people will come and give the place a transfusion. The planners want it to rise like Frankenstein’s monster and walk in between ebikes, motorised scooters and elderly mobile carts flowing around a landscaped central city; the dream of futurists under salary and property developers, both types whose brains have malformed from early strictures relating to winning and accreting capital at all costs.
No, just think about leaving NZ/AO – Maori could make a difference but will they set themselves to be fairer and wider in thinking than we dopey, mendacious pakeha? Will their song be – ‘Our day will come and we’ll have everything’?… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxYRbzGi8Rg
Amy Winehouse presented this lush clip beautifully made, and the people who can afford these surroundings enjoy them for a time, but Amy found there only a hollow heart. Famous in her short lifetime, RIP Amy 2011, who was 27.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Winehouse
In case I haven’t put up as intended, notes on the Australian Mulloon Institute NSW conference for 1-2 May concerning how to hold water against drought, and do things better than the past, going away from the old practices. Mulloon have had arguments with died-in-the-wool pollies. They think they know everything and stick to old ways like glue sometimes; thinking and evaluating is needed for change and that’s hard work. We all can say hear hear to that.
So have a look but you have to act before Sunday. Otherwise it will either cost more or you mightn’t get a place. Then once that is organised brush up on your Aussie twang, they probably don’t say the same colourful language they once did. You might sound like a real galah!
https://events.humanitix.com/mulloon-rehydration-conference-2024
EARLY BIRD DAY 1: $320.00
EARLY BIRD DINNER: $100.00
EARLY BIRD DAY 2: $70.00 includes return bus to Mulloon Creek Natural Farms
Announcement of Program – Mulloon Rehydration Conference 2024
Mulloon Institute
BUY EARLY BIRD TICKETS
Dear Friend of Mulloon,
EXCITING NEWS!
Today, we’ve unveiled the complete program for the two-day conference.
This encompasses our panel discussions, topics, distinguished panelists and speakers, featured short films and a host of other details.
b>Don’t forget our early bird tickets are only available until Sunday night, so buy early with this great discounted opportunity.
(Sunday 31st – remember they are 2 hours behind us. But we’ll still have to run to keep up with them so think now!)
FULL PROGRAM HERE
DAY 1 features keynote speakers, highly engaging panel discussions with MRI landholders and industry experts, workshops, and discussions on how to more broadly roll effective programs and projects to increase the economic benefits of rehydration across Australia.
Then, join us for an evening of networking, drinks, and dinner, where you can connect with like-minded professionals and expand your circle over great food and conversation!
DAY 2 will feature field trips to see landscape rehydration in action.
LOCATIONS:
Day 1 – Conference and Dinner: Queanbeyan Bicentennial Hall, 253 Crawford St, Queanbeyan NSW
Day 2 – Field Trip to Mulloon: Kings Highway, Bungendore NSW (cost includes return bus to/from Queanbeyan)
DATE & TIME:
Wed 1 May 2024, 8:00 am – Thu 2 May 2024, 4:00 pm AEST
Click for more details.
BUY EARLY BIRD TICKETS
The woman might be cute but you find yourself looking at the horses. She says they are small but have big hearts, they aren’t toys and need a full satisfying life getting about.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/512939/dozens-of-miniature-horses-readying-for-the-great-northern-gallop