People make it seem like the 8 hour working day 5 days a week is like some kind of law of the nature rather than a hard fought result of unions that you could change again. There are so many professions that already do more than 8 hours and not during 8-5. It’s made up!!

A good reminder that old tech still has an important role in ensuring resilience in our increasingly unstable world - and not just for intelligence services.

I’m uneasy about this expanded police power to close accessible areas (formerly roads) — justified in the name of addressing boy racers etc but broad enough, I think, to shut down public protests etc.

the civilizational nationalism that PRC now resorts to for legitimation is similar to Chiang Kai-shek's, ostensibly based ancient ideas but actually 20th century nationalism & cherrypicking of historical events - essay by Peter Perdue aeon.co/essays/why-c...

Besides the issues of bias, these processes show a profound lack of respect for applicants. After someone has spent a significant amount of time writing an application, the least they should be able to expect is that an actual human will take a minute to look at it.

Not mentioned: this Bill removes information from the scope of the OIA for 10 years. The Paula Rebstock review that the Bill is based on spoke to about 3 people who supply information & does not list the Ombudsman as one of her interviewees. He could have told her the secrecy clauses are not needed

The big risk with Heidi isn't that it tells a doctor how to make a bomb - it's that it puts incorrect notes on your file that affect your future clinical care, or gets used by ACC or an insurer to deny you entitlements years later.

By the time we are telling NZers how to tell if their house is slipping down a hill in a landslide during a storm on national TV news tonight I think it’s safe to say we have completely failed as a nation to plan for effective climate adaptation 😞

The announcememt of an inquiry into the NACC coincides with my call for abolition. Some fast facts (derived from NACC reports) * Around 99 per cent of referrals are dismissed without proceeding to an inquiry * Around 0.1 per cent of referrals lead to a court case www.nacc.gov.au/

With only months until the election, it's apparently still all Labour's fault! Whatever happened to National's preaching about the need to take personal responsibility?

This is an exceptionally good question

It says much about the spinelessness of many current Western leaders that former Likud politicians are speaking out more forcefully against Netanyahu and Israeli actions in the West Bank than they are.

There is actually a lot that can be done to reduce demand for fuel, but we remain constrained by deference to the ‘market-atua’ in this country, so we keep having to relearn the lesson that the 'market' eventually fails.

Unlike a household, the Crown shapes the conditions in which we all operate: it issues currency, invests across generations, and can run deficits to stabilise the economy. Cutting spending in a downturn shrinks growth and leaves us worse off.

But what if – stay with me here – there's a direct relationship between those rigid spending limits and the declining economy? Come on, Thomas, you can't just keep blaming all those missed targets on bad Treasury forecasts.

The Onion is here to stay. It is going to disrupt everything. We are living in the The Onion era. How are you using The Onion to turbocharge your productivity? Your answer will affect your annual performance evaluations.

We are about to get a crash course in whether it’s really wanton household spending driving up inflation. Cause ya know unemployment is high, there’s barely any govt assistance to weather this storm and somehow… well somehow inflation will still be our fault.

Here's the thing. The reason why National tanked the economy so hard in two years is they appear to genuinely believe in "trickle down" economics ala Liz Truss. Since day one, they've cut the legs off of middle & low income Kiwis - repressed wages, ignored cost of living, ignored energy 1/4

Accidental?

Not only is this devestating for the academics, it makes the UK look petty and pathetic. What kind of a country thinks it's being diminished by being attractive to intellects from abroad? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Israel's government is enabling & legitimising arson mobs attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. Unsurprising from a government that's carrying out a genocide and two illegal wars right now. But never again claim to me Israel's a country interested in the rule of law. European govts enable this.

NZ is so lawless on donations that donors don't need to turn to cryptocurrency to bypass regulations, as far as I can see. Again, even in sessions discussing access to power and donations at the Forum on Democratic Resilience yesterday, I don't think I heard people talk about crypto. #nzpol

People in NZ who are interested in/concerned by NZ government moves towards Digital ID should read this thread. Good identification of issues that we should be discussing more prominently here too, instead of leaving it to some officials in DIA/PSC and tech sector sales people. #nzpol

The Salvation Army lady was quite clear on RNZ. Beneficiaries also work, volunteer, take their kids to school, go to doctors appointments/grocery store and are going to be the worst hit by this crisis. She also said kids don’t choose where to be born.

As I think @dylanreeve.com has said repeatedly, how is this not a bigger scandal? We've ended up paying the same (being generous) for less and three years later. The ineptitude is mind-boggling.

Resilience in the food supply is so fundamental for everyone. We cannot, and must not be forced to rely on long supply chains dependent on oil to feed ourselves. This is happening because keeping people dependent and vulnerable lets multinational firms take more from us. #NZPOL

Post of the Week!!

Left the cross parliamentary NZ democracy event yesterday with a strong sense we must clean up donations - I hadnt realised how lax it is -outside of 3 months before elections there are virtually no guardrails

As the US moves the deadline for Trump’s catastrophic escalation by attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure, the world has a window to push back. The US and Israel need to be isolated, not supported, with collective action starting with no access to bases and no military deployments.

The lunatic quality of these proposals is persistently underestimated. They are far, far worse than people recognise.

Another accusation that is a confession. This evil man has been threatening and attacking millions of people for decades.

he forgot the word 'special'

Watching Luxon claiming credit for interest rates being lower than a few years ago - yeah, like everywhere else you egg. If he wants to claim credit for something stand out about our economy over the last few years, he could talk about our go-it-alone recession. Envy of the world.

Amy Remeikis:"Because of the way we treat politics, and how dedicated so many of our institutions, including the media, are to maintaining the status quo, the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the destruction of international law didn’t matter until fuel prices went up..."

Hon Phil Goff opens the NZ cross party parliamentary event: Democratic Resilience & Transparency, comparing growing populism internationally & locally to the 1930s, ‘leaders don’t believe the provocative statements they’re making but their followers do’ USA politics is now feral & damages democracy

Careful though: This identifies where the *hydraulic* point of failure was, but does not (and is not intended to) address the broader operational context. Specifically, Moa Point is ON TOP A HILL. Water does not flow into it, it is pumped *up* into it...

In their haste to make a whistleblower dissident out of Richard Marles' former chief-of-staff, Crikey have now been forced to delete the four articles they published by her in March, on the topic of ethics in federal politics, due to use of AI outside their editorial policies.

The current strategy appears to be a classic combo of we’ll show up to your events so we can get your vote, but say absolutely nothing when people are racist on our pages or Coalition partners say racist things, because we need their votes too

“It’s worrying that while everyone else has looked aghast at the ICE raids in the USA, the New Zealand government has decided that immigration and police officers need greater powers to enable them to do the same.” nzccl.org.nz/media-releas...

John Allen's defence of the existing OIA system at Parliament today was unconvincing, presenting dubious timeliness figures (that include cases where departments grant themselves extensions as timely responses) and citing satisfaction from govt departments (rather than requesters) with the process.

This dehumanising language from our so-called political ‘leaders’ manifests in threats on mosques, attacks on Muslims in our streets, and escalating anti-Muslim hate in our schools, workplaces, and institutions.

This is the toxic political culture that led to the mosque massacres in Christchurch.

question from Anne Tolley-without donors how do parties compete in elections which can cost millions? Edwards response is that lots more funding does not lead to lots more votes. Philippa Yasbeck notes that NZ is like the US as donors have no limit on spend which leads to capture #nzParliamentEvent

‘When we start equating donations as political participation we encourage political parties to think of donors as their stakeholders & we reduce citizens from voters to consumers’ - @bryceedwards.bsky.social speaking about why we need new institutional guard rails around donations for NZ democracy

Also a fair whack of the media has been pushing Islamophobia hard for years. Now they can say "see, these views are reflected in public opinion and that's why ON is on the rise" without ever reflecting that they've been behind this "public opinion" & many Islamphobes have never even met a Muslim.

On age limits, thinking of no one in particular...

Tell me again about Dictator Dan.

I do find it pretty hilarious that this fuel crisis has come about during a time when Aussies are buying much, much bigger cars that have horrendous fuel efficiency (and are extremely dangerous to everyone else on the road). This is what you get for having a wankpanzer yank tank to feel superior 💁‍♀️

Because Starmer felt like he hadn’t appeased the tangerine fascist enough. Presumably he fully expects the asymmetric response will miss him, and just kill people in buses and tube trains, like 7/7/05.

Talking to my peers, it’s hard to fathom what the job market for new biomed PhDs will even be - with academic jobs, you’re signing up for near-0 hiring or funding odds; industry isn’t much better, with federal funding & approval process volatility disincentivizing inquiries, investments, or hiring