National Thus Far

[Lightspeed]

And how about this professionalism?

Minister should resign, says Fish and Game

The Fish and Game Council wants Conservation Minister Nick Smith to resign, accusing him of threatening its future if it continues to question irrigation projects and intensive farming.

...

The notes say Dr Smith referred to billboards erected by Fish and Game in Canterbury asking: "Irrigation - how much is too much?" as a "problem politically." The notes say Dr Smith told council members "not to be noisy" and "when you cause trouble you burn goodwill."

What the fuck Fish & Game, nothing wrong with our water ways.

Wait, what's that?
Most rivers in New Zealand too dirty for a swim

Right up the fucking arse. That's where we're taking it.

And fucking JK: "Most *puff* New Zealanders *pant* love *gasp* a bit *grunt* of up bum *long sigh*."

[Ab]

Wouldn't it be awesome if back before the election there had been an effective Opposition demanding answers from the Minister?

[Lightspeed]

Yes, yes, it's a very pretty dress, I get it.

[Lightspeed]

Oh dear, my analogy may be a little bit too accurate...

[pxpx]

Care to elaborate, are lols incoming?

[Lightspeed]

Just rumours, the kind that are likely to be true. Fingers crossed it's bullshit.

[Ab]

THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING MEEEEEEEEEE

[chubby]

what,Sabins a cross-dresser?
cause for a little bit of discomfort maybe-but not a problem.
im looking forward to the meth fuelled wife-beating disclosure.


rumor i heard is that key fucked one of his staffers,true or not,hope it comes out

[Ab]

He doesn't freelance for a Christchurch insurance company does he?

[fixed_truth]

I hope that the Capill type rumours are bullshit.

[Lightspeed]

JK's statement that for NZ to move forward we must accept we're a multicultural society built on a bi-cultural foundation was a decent one I thought.

[fixed_truth]

Key’s constant refrain that he’s only as bad as, or not much worse than the PM his party denounced as ‘quite simply the most corrupt in New Zealand history’ is a bad, nonsensical argument, and members of the ‘reality based community’ wonder aloud at how he can say such things and remain popular. But it works because the reality-based community is not the important audience, what’s important is that he gets to make it on infotainment shows where he enjoys good relationships with the hosts and there’s no balance or right of reply.

https://dimpost.wordpress.com/2015/0...y-and-reality/

[Lightspeed]

And another thrust of the shaft:

John Key warns of SkyCity 'eyesore' if more money is not found

[fixed_truth]

^^^
Vernon Small has a good article looking at the whole dodgy affair . . .

From the get-go four years ago the saga of SkyCity and the "free" convention centre has been mired in bad process, poor negotiating and questionable public policy considerations. And it just got worse.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post...ting-the-cost-

[Lightspeed]

The NBR also has an interesting take on the whole business.

Close to corruption

I particularly liked:

Mr Joyce genuinely believes his commercial background consolidating provincial radio stations makes him a match for Mr Morrison’s quarter century of experience in the Asian and Australasian gambling industries.

And I wonder what this would look like if we consider other than the very best:

Mr Key announced “construction of the new convention centre will not cost taxpayers or ratepayers a cent.” As NBR has since revealed, this was, at the very best, a misrepresentation of the deal Mr Joyce had struck.

Of course, this is all Labour/Greens fault for not being an effective Opposition.

[Ab]

They were too busy enjoying SkyCity's corporate hospitality to ask questions.

[CCS]

SkyCity: No longer seeking government help

Only skim-read the first few paragraphs, but I'll just say 'I should bloody-well think so' and 'I hope there aren't any secret deals or sneaky perks being traded that the public doesn't know about'.

After the election John Key advised his MPs against being complacent or arrogant. The Sky City affair and the Sabin affair have shown arrogance and complacency from the top of the party. I don't think it'd be accurate to say "Don't worry, the voters will have forgotten this by the next election." In the third term, as familiarity breeds contempt, National needs to be better behaved or they might be chucked out.

[Golden Teapot]

If the money had been for a velodrome nobody would have complained.

[chubby]

or a monorail.

[fixed_truth]

SkyCity and the Government agreed to a deal in July 2013 for the casino operator to spend $402 million to build and operate the convention centre in exchange for legislation allowing the company to operate additional gambling tables and machines and extending its gambling licence to 2040.

I wonder if a smaller (hopefully not an eyesore!) convention centre will bring the same benefits to NZ as what the original deal was based on?

[pxpx]

PAX Auckland?

[blynk]

Originally Posted by chubby

or a monorail.

[MadMax]

[Lightspeed]

National tries to undo some of the damage it's done by re-launching ACC's sensitive claims service:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/nation...e-care-service

We're going to feel the fallout of this in years to come, particularly as the kids of victims grow into adulthood. Victims of untreated sexual trauma are a bit hit and miss when it comes to quality parenting.

[Ab]

Cool, hey it's not like we needed that money eh?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=11410615

[Lightspeed]

Holy shit, I thought it must be additional money spent on payments. But nope:

"I baulked at the $30 million, so $163 million on IT costs and administrative costs for simply changing little bits of the [child support] formula around is an enormous sum of money to be spending."

Who is getting this money?

[Ab]

Knowing bullshit IT contracts, I imagine that the tender called for quotes to design and build a surfboard using the provider's resources, quote for same was received from a provider and approved, and then the scope of the project was revised to be for the design and construction of an aircraft carrier using resources to be provided by as-yet unidentified third parties.

[StN]

From memory (and mine is pretty bad) the CS module was tacked onto FirST back in the early '90s. FirST was a redesign of all the revenues systems back end in 1990 and was written by Arthur Anderson Consulting in COBOL85(?).

As IRD are still trying to get sign off on a proposed billion dollar revamp of their IT systems, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had to get back people with experience in legacy COBOL to patch it.


I was on the IT helpdesk back in the day, and I recall one of these high fallooting programmers logging a ticket that her screen wouldn't go. Turns out it had no power cable. Another one complained that her mouse was flaky, and upon crawling under her desk I found a workstation soaked in coffee.

Good times.

[Nothing]

http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/03/18...-john-keys-nz/

[CCS]

Giving kids free breakfast ain't gonna live them out of poverty.

[fixed_truth]

It's interesting that you felt the need to describe the breakfasts as "free". Are you from the position that kids should only get breakfast if their caregivers pay for it? I mean from the perspective of the hungry kid it's just "breakfast".

You are right that giving kids breakfast won't end poverty on it's own. But it will ensure that kids aren't starting school hungry and it will help address the consequent learning and health problems from not getting breakfast.

[[BT]MikeMan]

Or you could make the responsibility of feeding kids breakfast on say, just for LOL's, The Fucking Parents.

A box of weetbix, a litre of milk and a little sugar and bang, breakfast for 2 kids for a week.

Total cost = Under $5 to feed two kids breakfast for 5 days.

[pxpx]

Wonder how many parents of non-hungry kids would take advantage of free breakfast. Is that a bad thing?

Is there a better way of feeding these kids?

Anyway, agree with the daily blogs point about having millions available for a flag referendum, but only funding KidsCan just under 400k a year (after checking their financial statement).

Love the emotive headlines for the whole thing.

Also, going to go cut myself for agreeing with something that left wing cunt bomber has written.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by [BT]MikeMan

Or you could make the responsibility of feeding kids breakfast on say, just for LOL's, The Fucking Parents.

A box of weetbix, a litre of milk and a little sugar and bang, breakfast for 2 kids for a week.

Total cost = Under $5 to feed two kids breakfast for 5 days.

That's some marvellous insight you have there. Seriously. You appreciate the importance of feeding kids and you realise it's not that difficult.

The problem is many parents lack this insight - they may have grown up hungry kids themselves. And others find themselves under so much pressure that even small difficulties are overwhelming.

What it comes down to is what's more important: kids being fed or parents being responsible. I think even if we were to prioritise the latter, we would help future parents by focusing on the former.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by pxpx

Wonder how many parents of non-hungry kids would take advantage of free breakfast. Is that a bad thing?

I don't think so. As has been pointed out, food is cheap. Hungry kids getting fed and avoiding the long-term multi-generational impact that goes along with growing up hungry seems like a better deal than expending effort making sure the "undeserving" don't get away with it.

Is there a better way of feeding these kids?

I doubt National is trying to find out. They're only just accepted that sexual trauma is a serious issue in NZ that needs addressing.

Love the emotive headlines for the whole thing.

It's an emotional subject. I didn't grow up hungry, but I grew up with plenty of kids who were. That fucking sucked.

[Ab]

Were the proposed school meals non-gluten, non-dairy, and non-GE?

[pxpx]

Parents need to be given the chance to be responsible, and there should be a safety net to catch those kids whose parents don't take that chance. That safety net is not this bill, which is inherently flawed by setting an arbitrary line in the sand: only Decile 1 and Decile 2 schools get the funding (unless the secretary otherwise says so)

Originally Posted by Ministry of Education

Decile 1 schools are the 10 percent of schools with the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic communities, whereas decile 10 schools are the 10 percent of schools with the lowest proportion of these students.

Hungry kids everywhere, but you're shit outta luck if you're in a 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 school

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I doubt National is trying to find out. They're only just accepted that sexual trauma is a serious issue in NZ that needs addressing.

Creative interpretation of my question there. Was trying to open the door for people to make some alternative suggestions.

[Lightspeed]

Well, we are in the "National Thus Far" thread. Thus far they've demonstrated they don't care about the vulnerable, they're willing to leave NZers in frankly hellish circumstances that are not of their own making while pursuing expensive vanity projects like changing the flag.

Originally Posted by pxpx

Hungry kids everywhere, but you're shit outta luck if you're in a 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 school

It's like you're saying unless we can care for all hungry children we should care for no hungry children.

If we were to extend that idea to say mental health services, well we would have to shut down all services available, because we only manage to offer care to a small percentage of those in need.

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

It's like you're saying unless we can care for all hungry children we should care for no hungry children.

Nice try dude, but no. You're so fucking black and white there's no point continuing to engage with you.