NZ Politics

Who is going to listen?

Jamie Arbuckle, the Marlborough councillor who became an MP, says he has settled into having two roles so comfortably he's going to keep both salaries after all.

There's been a lot of video calls from his office in Wellington, but it's meant he's made it to most of the meetings at the Marlborough District Council since being elected to Parliament as an NZ First MP in October.

At the time, he said he felt juggling the two roles would be easy enough until Christmas 2023, and said he would hand his council remuneration back after that, should he feel he could not give the job his all.

But, for now, he said he was keeping up and did not feel that was necessary.

She sounds absolutely unhinged, going into someone's business just to pick a fight with them is straight up bullying behaviour.

International testing indicated New Zealand had more bad readers among its 10-year-olds than other developed nations, but the picture improved for teenagers.

The 2020/21 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) found 29 percent of New Zealand Year 5 pupils failed to meet its intermediate benchmark for reading proficiency, a group which included the 10 percent who did not even meet the lowest benchmark for reading proficiency.

Internationally, 25 percent of participating pupils fell short of the intermediate benchmark and just 6 percent were below the low benchmark.

However, another testing system found older students performed better when compared to their peers around the world.

The 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test found 21 percent of New Zealand 15-year-olds were reading at the lowest level - meaning they struggled with all but the simplest reading tasks measured by the test.

"The proportion of Aotearoa New Zealand students who performed below Level 2 was 21 percent, which was less than the OECD average of 26 percent. The proportion of low achievers in Aotearoa New Zealand was similar to that of Australia and the US - countries that had similar average reading performance," the report said.

It said the percentage of New Zealand students reading at the highest level, level 5, was relatively high.

"In reading, Aotearoa New Zealand had 13 percent of students performing at or above Level 5 compared to the OECD average of 7 percent. The proportion of top performers was similar to that of Australia (12 percent) and the US (14 percent), but this proportion was also better or similar to Estonia (11 percent), Japan (12 percent) and Ireland (10 percent), countries with average scores significantly above Aotearoa New Zealand."

Man, Wellington shop owners must dread seeing a green MP walk in the door at this point.

I guess housing and urban development is not a priority after all.

Lol. Q3 here sets out what he (edit: allegedly) said (anything said in the House is protected by Parliamentary privilege)

https://bills.parliament.nz/v/11/59669ddb-f7b1-405a-0e5b-08dc696671a5

You could call it a 'mask off' moment, although VFF have never been keen on masks.

Corrections has spent over $305,000 on slushy syrup and maintaining frozen ice machines in the past six years.

The news comes as proposed job cuts ravage the public service with 3460 jobs set for the chopping block, as part of the cost savings drive.

The slushy machines caused controversy in 2019 when it was revealed Corrections had spent over $1 million of taxpayer money on 193 slushy machines.

The then-National leader Simon Bridges called it "irresponsible and wasteful spending" at the time but then-Corrections minister Kelvin Davis said was about health and safety.

Since then the slushy fund has continued with 160 of the 193 original machines still in use and $305,906 spent on syrup, maintaining them.

Wow, turns out being jerks to kids is really unpopular......better backpedal as fast as possible.

She added: "Perhaps I was a little slow, what I can say is I tried my very best ... and I respect the prime minister's decision."

Having a minister describe themselves as "a little slow" is just an incredible quote.

Lol

This government doing it's best to ruin the country and our reputation overseas. Having said that I have witnessed too many acts of corruption to every buy that we were somehow more honest than other countries.

Analysis: Burning less coal to make electricity helped New Zealand achieve its biggest official annual drop in planet-heating gases since records started in 1990.

The same week those figures came out, Resources Minister Shane Jones told Morning Report New Zealand should develop more of its own coal, rather than importing "dirty" coal from Indonesia.

Jones earlier told Parliament that opposition MPs turned a blind eye while New Zealand imported Indonesian coal "every month, to keep the lights on."

While it's true Genesis Energy - owner of the country's only coal-fired station - burns coal to run its Huntly generators, it last year reported that its last shipment of coal had arrived in July 2022.

Government figures show New Zealand was a net exporter of coal every year since records began, except 2021 - a dry year for hydro, coupled with an unexpected shortage on Genesis' gas field.

That was the year Huntly used record amounts of imported Indonesian coal, pushing up the climate impact of the whole country.

Now is time to change Te Papa's Treaty of Waitangi display, the museum's co-leaders say.

It comes after the museum left a defaced version of the Treaty of Waitangi on display over summer to enable "valuable conversations" about te Tiriti o Waitangi

...

Te Papa said it would consult with te Tiriti experts, iwi and communities for the permanent exhibition

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The removed panel will be stored by the museum, and while no decision has been made about its future, Johnston said it was part of the exhibition's history and the story of te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Among the list of organisations that have been invited to apply are organisations associated with projects that would destroy a pristine mountaintop and rip up the seafloor.  

It includes organisations that have lost cases in the Environment, High and Supreme Courts, with proposals roundly rejected through prolonged court action.

both the education and health systems are getting absolutely butchered by this government and this is definitely going to impact you and the people around you.

Who could have seen this coming!

$10 billion for one tunnel, or three times what the scrapped ferries were going to cost. And that's just the initial estimate.

More economic vandalism from this government - unlimited money for roads, fuck everything else.

This would be amazing for anyone heading out to the bays or Wellington Airport, no intersections or lights to worry about, and it would make life so much easier for the CBD as well, not having so much through traffic in the CBD.

"He's blaming the boards and principals and schools for the problem we have, yet he's the one that says, 'Listen we are going to cut lunches'. How the hell is that going to get people into school? He says, 'We are going to cut back the public transport subsidies'. How the hell is that going to get people into schools?

Common sense, really.