roarshark posted:

It's rated equally with Australia, Denmark and New Zealand by the UN Human Development Index. I realise that this index doesn't solely measure education standards. I'm interested to know what makes their education system leave everyone else "in the dust"?

dusty posted:

What a hopeless bloody solution - the Green's have done a nice piece of analysis on the direct costs of the increased gambling..

roarshark posted:

The government should ban cigarettes, too. Those cost us more as a country than the revenue they produce. Also, booze.

roarshark posted:

The government should ban cigarettes, too. Those cost us more as a country than the revenue they produce. Also, booze.

Stefu posted:

Just out of interest: Has New Zealand paid attention to this? Because here in Finland it's been national news for days (of course, this being Finland, the biggest reactions have been "Oh my god, someone in a foreign country mentioned Finland!" and "He's right, we're poo poo ")

Trouble Man posted:

Of course, the horrible Gordian knot at the centre of New Zealand's gambling policy is that banning pokies would effectively bankrupt every racing club and community organization in the country - class 4 distributions are a horrible cocaine to these organisations, and now they're hooked we're sort of stuck with it.

klen dool posted:

Have you any sources for this?

miss_chaos posted:

With regard to pokies, propping up community organisations etc, is there any high level argument for a alcohol sale local by-law where all alcohol outlets are owned by a Trust, with the profits funnelled back into the community programmes and projects? Would this combat some of the reliance of pokie money in certain areas, helping to justify there being fewer of them?

I don't know if Waitakere still has that model, I know it used to have a similar one. I guess it got swallowed up in the Super City. I think there's a couple of cities in New Zealand that have this system too. Pokie still exist there, but they're by no means the lifeline of community funding in the same way.

ClubmanGT posted:

Add it to the list of things propping up the racing industry. It's got to be one of the slush-funded sectors of the economy out there, thanks in no small part to Winston.

Trouble Man posted:

Er, the SkyCity deal is a horrible piece of dealmaking, but it's pretty dishonest to point to the cost of problem gambling without reference to the problem gambling levy, which recoups a fairly hefty chunk of that cost.

Trouble Man posted:

Of course, the horrible Gordian knot at the centre of New Zealand's gambling policy is that banning pokies would effectively bankrupt every racing club and community organization in the country - class 4 distributions are a horrible cocaine to these organisations, and now they're hooked we're sort of stuck with it.

hairypanis posted:

Good I hope she loving hangs.

Vagabundo posted:

The ACC scandal is not going away any time soon and it looks like now Judith Collins is in the line of fire as the obvious suspect in the case of who leaked Bronwyn Pullar's details to the press in the first place.

Lemonus posted:

By accident or what? Or some sort of internal backstabbing?

I don't quite follow.

Lemonus posted:

Talk about ACC, this article from the herald is utter tory trash Id expect from the daily mail:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...jectid=10794987

Basically:

2 or 3 anecdotes.

Comments from Kiwi parents being "miffed" about said anecdotes including outright ignorance of how ACC works i.e. : "We sort of laughed about because insect bites hardly rate as an accident ..."

Suggestions and poll that the entire ACC system is an over the top bureaucracy and that 'its too easy to get ACC' on some massive structural level.

quote:

ACC has assigned case managers to a 4-year-old who went to the doctor to have a splinter removed from an infected finger

Lemonus posted:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...jectid=10794987

Basically:

2 or 3 anecdotes.

Comments from Kiwi parents being "miffed" about said anecdotes including outright ignorance of how ACC works i.e. : "We sort of laughed about because insect bites hardly rate as an accident ..."

Suggestions and poll that the entire ACC system is an over the top bureaucracy and that 'its too easy to get ACC' on some massive structural level.

Two Finger posted:

These are my favourite types of news stories.

I really wonder how the editor lets them get away with this poo poo. I would be ashamed to admit I'm the editor of the Herald.

Vagabundo posted:

The Herald once published an opinion piece by Garth George where he wrote climate change is a hoax because it says so in the bible. I think shame is a foreign concept to them.

quote:

"I'm very disappointed at the New Zealand Herald's decision to publish the photograph on the New Zealand SAS soldiers without blacking out the face of the particular soldiers.

"It puts at risk the lives of those individual soldiers because they can now be recognised and I think that was a poor editorial decision by the New Zealand Herald," Mr Key said.

Vagabundo posted:

Collins has announced it possibly could not have come from anyone in her office and that the only people who have seen the email besides her is ACC chairman John Judge and chief executive Ralph Stewart, whom she forwarded the email on to.

Two Finger posted:

I will see if I can find the articles they wrote about when John Key blasted them for publishing a front page photo of Apiata? I think? It was the most bizarre thing I've ever read, they were reporting on it like it was a third party Key was having a go at.

Found it:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...jectid=10621473


Amazing. They run a direct quote from the prime minister of their own country calling them out.

miss_chaos posted:

Michelle Boag is pretty dumb for thinking it would be confidential given a) every ministerial email is available under the information act to anyone who requests it and b) every journo and blogger worth their salt will be requesting that info.

quote:

Or as Paul Quinn, a parliamentarian from New Zealand’s conservative National Party, once told a group of visiting American Fulbright scholars: “I will explain to you how our system works compared to yours: You have Democrats and Republicans. My Labor opponents would be Democrats. I am a member of the National Party, and we would be ... Democrats” as well.

For instance, there is much debate here over climate policy — Australia has a carbon tax, New Zealand has cap and trade — but there is no serious debate about climate science. Whereas in today’s G.O.P. it is political suicide to take climate change seriously, in Australia and New Zealand it is political suicide for conservatives not to.

In Australia and New Zealand, “there are plenty of climate skeptics in politics, but they know it’s a political loser to say so,” explained the Australian environmentalist Paul Gilding. “This became the case after Australia suffered its worst-ever drought, lasting more than a decade.” Now, “there is strong public acceptance of the basic scientific conclusion that the climate is changing and humans are a significant contributor.”

Lemonus posted:

AFAIK the only climate change denialist in Parliament is Richard Prosser from NZFirst whom I and others have had fun trolling on facebook about.

dusty posted:

I can't believe she hasn't sought a a legal remedy about that butcher of a surgeon who froze her loving face.

SATURNS SON EATER posted:

Lemonus posted:

Tough on crime.

Pigeon Shamus posted:

Removed

Beautiful.

"Questions for oral answer posted:

ANDREW LITTLE to the Minister for ACC: When was the email she received between 12 March 2012 and 18 March 2012 from Michelle Boag concerning Bronwyn Pullar and the involvement of both in a meeting over a mass privacy breach first printed by her or a staff member in her office?

Varkk posted:

Can she refuse to answer citing ongoing litigation?