Tim Van de Molen has been stood down after finding he threatened a Labour MP. Not a good look so close to an election.


https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496...portfolios

"National MP Tim van de Molen has been stood down from his portfolios for contempt of Parliament, after threatening behaviour towards Labour's Shanan Halbert.  National leader Christopher Luxon stood the MP down after Parliament's Privileges Committee found him in contempt and recommended he be censured.  The committee found van de Molen had threatened Halbert and impeded his ability to perform his duties.
  Van de Molen was referred to the committee early this month after Labour's Rachel Boyack claimed he had threatened or intimidated Halbert during a Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee session in June.  He was accused of standing over Halbert, which prompting other MPs to surround the Labour MP, who is chair of the Transport committee."

So, are they going to pay back the government subsidies they got during the pandemic? Maybe the L o t Opposition might like to comment...

312m would buy a lot of things on the government wishlist.

Must be more than a little embarrassing for the Putin regime to have their moon lander crash and burn.  I wonder if that plane crash today also included a couple of head honchos from the space program...

Good on India for the win...

https://www.politico.eu/article/india-mo...n-mission/

Apparently, some of us still live in the 50s. It seems that short dresses & alcohol can cause rape.


A woman who says she was raped by a taxi driver has been questioned about what she was wearing & how much she'd had to drink. By a female lawyer.


https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-nat...-rape-case


"A woman who says she was kidnapped and raped in Dunedin has faced gruelling cross-examination regarding the length of her dress and the amount of alcohol she consumed.
An unregistered Dunedin taxi driver, who currently has interim name suppression, is accused of indecent assault, kidnapping, rape and two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.
The complainant admitted she had been drinking heavily on February 8, 2021, recounting all the alcoholic beverages she consumed, some via beer bong.
"You also had tequila shots didn’t you? Which is throwing back straight alcohol isn’t it ... throwing it down your throat?" Mrs Stevens said.
CCTV images were shown of the woman and her friend eating at McDonald’s, with Mrs Stevens asking if the woman would be exposed when she sat down.
"The dress barely covers your bottom? ... I’m not being critical and I’m not suggesting that anyone could see your bottom, I’m simply exploring."
"It really wasn’t that short," the complainant said.

Mrs Stevens suggested the woman did not have any cash on her at the time of the car ride.
"The fact is you didn’t pay for the fare at all did you?"
The woman who said she was raped and strangled by the driver was clearly upset.
"No. Why would I after that?"




Tracey Ullman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-hepLP8J4

After comparing covid vaccine mandates to 'concentration camps.'
The ignorance is astounding.

https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-nat...centration



"An Act Party candidate has resigned after her historical comments comparing Covid-19 vaccine mandates to Nazi concentration camps came to light.
Another candidate has apologised and renounced online comments which suggested drownings were connected to the effect of the vaccine, but he has been kept on as a candidate.
Act leader David Seymour said the party’s Rangitata candidate Elaine Naidu Franz, 29th on the list, had offered to stand down after 1News brought her previous comments to Seymour’s attention today.
Seymour said he accepted her offer on the spot.


The party leader was still confident in Act’s candidate vetting process. He said it was impossible to check a candidate’s entire online history and noted how it was likely old online comments resurfacing would be a growing problem for New Zealand politics.
“At some point as a society, we have to deal with that,” he said.
Seymour said some people who had applied to be candidates were rejected due to historical comments they’d made. He couldn’t say whether those comments had been primarily Covid-related."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-66569311

Couldn't even face up to the sentencing.

I'd no idea this was happening & just assumed that these days,every school has a library. There's one in Merivale here which no longer has one & apparently, once gone they're virtually impossible to regain. Kids have access to books at school but can't take them home.

Surely the importance of a school library is blindingly obvious.



https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitio...-EynG2oiGE

We really need govt to sort this problem once & for all rather than constantly tinkering around the edges. Removing Neo Liberalism would be an excellent start.
Just damn well fix it - NOW.

There is no good reason to leave things as they are, not when kids are going hungry.


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/working-...BV3JAWUT4/

Susan St John
"For the last two decades critics have seen Working for Families as discriminatory, poorly-designed, far too complex and woefully ineffective at addressing the worst child poverty.
In 2004, the Child Poverty Action Group (of which I am a founding member) explained what was so wrong in a publication called Cut Price Kids and the group has been campaigning to fix Working For Families (WFF) ever since.




The main part of WFF is the per child, per week Family Tax Credit that goes to all caregivers in low-income families on the same basis. This is the best tool to ensure income adequacy. The second component, confusingly named the “In-Work Tax Credit”, is added to the Family Tax Credit weekly payment, but only when parents are eligible on paid work criteria.



While fixed hours of work no longer have to be met, if there is any benefit or part-benefit paid, then the children of those parents cannot have any of the In-Work Tax Credit.

As a result, about 200,000 of the worst-off children in New Zealand miss out on a substantial part of WFF - at least $72.50 a week.
The reasoning has been that paid work is the only way out of poverty and therefore their parents need an incentive to work.




Parents are not on benefits for fun. Their children are four times more likely than other children to live in poverty - that means going without the basics, not enough money after rent to pay for school uniforms or the power bill, let alone nutritious food.
Many of these families are sole parents, many have disabled children or there is sickness in the family. They have few job opportunities and lack support of all kinds. Even if they manage a part-time job, their part-benefit makes their children ineligible for the In-Work Tax Credit.




When a payment to a caregiver is designed to be enough to address child poverty but it is withheld from the worst-off families who are on benefits to create a work incentive, the result is deeper child poverty, not more parents off-benefit."

This is good news, I wasnt expecting this. Seems to indicate to me they will be training with them over there which makes sense.
We might be seeing them in action sooner than we think.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/08/19/7416283/

How the hell can anyone be either so very  ignorant or so very uncaring about the reaction from their costumes.





https://www.stuff.co.nz/bay-of-plenty/30...vent-spark

 a"A group of people dressing as the Ku Klux Klan for a quiz night community event has sparked outrage in Kaimai.

When a local heard what had happened he was shocked by “the abhorrent behaviour”, and concerned that nobody had stopped the group from taking part.