"New Zealand is far, far too small to bring the likes of Netflix, Google and Facebook to heel. California for example, is said to be the fifth largest economy in the world. Yet Meta and Google are threatening to cut off news items (and searches) about California if the state proceeds with... legislation [that] would require the social media giants to pay a “journalism useage fee” for linking to news sites based in California."
"Meta also records that 234 such requests [for personal data] were made to it by the New Zealand government during the same period. That sort of thing explains why the real answer is not a selective ban imposed solely on Tiktok, but a comprehensive law to protect data privacy for all, from all, by all."
Links to these are in the article. This is an example of the time-consuming public interest work journalists do, regardless of the structural biases of their employer.
"To repeat the obvious: these [public service] job cuts are ideological in nature. They are occurring (a) in order to reduce the role of government, (b) to open up monetising opportunities for the private sector, and (c) to abolish outreach programmes formerly targeted at Māori communities, which is the real aim behind the jargon about getting back to “core” (i.e.white) functions."
"People may not like the content of the news, its priorities, the emotive style in which it is presented and the nightly exposure it gives to polarising political figures. But do people 'value' the media being there? They probably do on balance, even if they may not 'trust' it much."
"Do we really want to give the Police the absolute, evidence-free power to decide for themselves whether a meeting may (theoretically) have a criminal outcome, and that they can therefore pre-emptively disperse it? Granting the Police such extraordinary powers would put ordinary political protest meetings at serious risk."
"That’s the final irony. As Cole says, the United States came into being via a popular uprising against British tyranny. Yet today, America instinctively identifies with the oppressor, not with the oppressed. As Cole concludes, only when it goes to the movies – to films like Avatar and (with deep ambivalence ) in the Dune series – can the West allow itself to identify with political uprisings."
"However, S&P Global’s Head of Government ratings, Anthony Walker, told me in an interview to air in my When The Facts Change weekly podcast via The Spinoff tomorrow that the nation’s finances were not fragile and there was the equivalent of 30% of GDP ($120 billion) borrowing headroom left before any danger of a credit rating downgrade."
@paulhellyer
> We may dislike rating agencies per se, but they don't f*^k with this sort of thing
Counterpoint; wasn't it them who gave A+ ratings to the dodgy derivatives that caused the GFC?
But in this case there's plenty of evidence they're right. See the article by #GordonCampbell I linked earlier today. What really bakes my noodle is how do the NatACTs get away with telling such blatant lies about the state of the economy, over and over again?
"Talking about wise investment and avoidance of waste... If the NZ economy is so fragile, how come we can afford a multi-billion tax giveaway to landlords, but cannot afford to spend one third of that amount on securing a reliable trade and tourism ferry link between the North and South Islands? Surely, we must be the only country in the world that is pinning its hopes on a landlord-led economic recovery."
"...every economist in the country is predicting unemployment to rise this year. Given that outlook, you’d think a prudent/compassionate government would be strengthening the welfare safety net...
...National is treating this as an ideal time to kick people off welfare support and on to a job market in relative decline – and to introduce a punitive traffic light system of welfare compliance that threatens to halve benefits or eliminate them altogether."
"National has been happy to allow a socially divisive Bill that is proudly in denial of the bi-cultural meaning of this country’s funding document, to enter the House and go through to select committee stage. Meanwhile, that same exposure and opportunity for debate is being denied to a benefit indexation change that will negatively affect tens of thousands of vulnerable people, disproportionately Māori."
"... there is a talk about the “irrationality” of the populist right. How can people think like that? At times though, one can sympathise. Is it really so irrational to rage against an Establishment that is offering only soft-line and hard-line versions of the same economic policies that threw you onto the social scrap heap, in pursuit of greater efficiency?"
"So far, none of the attacks by Houthi drones and missiles have killed or seriously injured anyone at all on board the ships traversing the Red Sea. Contrast that with the carnage being inflicted in Gaza.
No wonder then, that [NZ PM Christopher] Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters were desperate on Monday to shut down any suggestion that the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are an extension of the situation in Gaza."
"If the Houthis are “rebels”, then who and where is Yemen’s government?
... Ditto with the “Iran-backed” term. Routinely, the Houthis are written off as a “proxy“ of Iran. This is media compliance with the West’s habitual demonising of Iran as being behind every single challenge to the West’s interests in the Middle East. In reality, the Houthis emerged in the 2000s as a nationalist movement to drive out foreign interference. By anyone."
"Rather than rely on the market to deliver large numbers of EVs at a reasonable price, European countries have offered incentives to stimulate consumer demand and to get the EV production lines moving. As a consequence in many parts of Europe EVs are available, affordable, and increasingly the vehicle of choice... markets might have (eventually) got there by themselves, but on climate change issues we don’t have the luxury of waiting to see."
"National will have built lots and lots of charging stations all over the country so that the relatively wealthy New Zealalnders – farmers and corporate high flyers alike - who are able to afford Teslas without government assistance, will be able to travel long distances in comfort. Somehow, National has found a way to make even its climate change policy serve only the top five per cent."