Monthly Archives: June 2022

NZ 'heartened' by Labor's climate stance

Jacinda Ardern is asked if she supports Labors commitment to deliver 43% emissions reductions by 2030. Should it be higher?

From our perspective, we have always been very careful of the fact that we have to make sure that we have our own house in order, so when it comes to the domestic policies of another nation as in regards to climate change, whilst that is a matter for them, of course, New Zealand is heartened and welcomes the position expressed by the new government here in Australia because it is good for our region and good for the world when we work collaboratively on this extraordinary challenge. The Pacific region has listed climate change as its No 1 threat.

Updated at 22.13EDT

Policy wont change without due process, Albanese says

The prime minister is asked to confirm that hes considering tweaking the ministerial direction to take into account the time a person has been in Australia. And can he rule out reintroducing the strengthening the character test legislation that the Morrison government tried to pass before the election?

I can do no such thing. Because what we wont do is deal with policy without going through proper processes. I intend to run an orderly government. And Ive made that point very clear.

Prime minister Ardern has put forward in a strong way, as she has before we have discussed these issues previously, when I had a different title. Prime minister Arderns concerns are very clear. Well work them through in an orderly way. Ive said that section 501 would be maintained. But if you look at the comments that I made as opposition leader, I stand by them that section 501 should be maintained but that there is also concerns have been raised that need to be taken into consideration, as friends.

We deal with each other in a mature way, which deals as well with common sense. And whats clear is that, if people look at some of the cases that have been held, its not surprising that the prime minister would make the strong representations that she had. Because I would be, if I was in the same position.

Updated at 23.02EDT

Jacinda Ardern says she has no doubt Australia and New Zealand will discuss the deportation of NZ citizens over criminal charges in the future, acknowledging it is a new government and they need time to work through the issues:

Weve really appreciated this opportunity, the chance to catch up ... Ive never seen a time where its more important to have friends than it is now.

Anthony Albanese says Ardern has been very forceful in her views and they will work through those issues with departments to implement the way section 501 has been dealt with:

We will work through some of those issues between now, and well have a ministerial meeting, a leaders meeting, coming next month. And well work through with our department, work through the implementation of the way that section 501 has been dealt with. But weve listened to the concerns and theres more work to do.

Updated at 22.10EDT

We are family, Ardern says

Jacinda Ardern is up, beginning her address in Mori. She thanks Anthony Albanese for his hospitality and congratulates him on his election success:

I want to, again, in this environment take the opportunity to congratulate you on your election success which, of course, was really only very recent, but much, of course, has happened even in that short intervening period. It is both humbling but also very fitting to be the first foreign head of government to be here in Australia meeting with you in your new role and I think it is indicative of the relationship that New Zealand and Australia share. There are no two countries that I can think of that have a closer relationship than ours and when I say that we are family, I mean it very sincerely.

Updated at 22.09EDT

Ambitious climate action

Anthony Albanese says Australia and New Zealand will submit an updated nationally determined contribution to the UN convention on climate change:

Australia and New Zealand are also very proud Pacific nations and we value the relations that we have with our Pacific partners very deeply. Our approach is based upon respect, transparency, and engagement with Pacific institutions and we will gather, of course, at the Pacific Island Forum in Fiji in July together.

Prime minister Ardern and I discussed climate change and the ambitious action that my government will take. We will submit, I can confirm today, that well submit an updated nationally determined contribution to the UN framework convention on climate change soon.

Updated at 22.07EDT

We agree on our worldview

Anthony Albanese says the pair agree on our worldview and are determined to take the NZ and Australian relationship to a new level of cooperation in mutual interests of both nations:

What that means is new jobs, new growth, new opportunities to cooperate both in terms of our economy and we had substantial discussions last night, but also this morning about that, but also in the way that we act on the international stage because essentially we agree on our worldview and we can take that position going forward.

Together we face global challenges of a changing climate, economic headwinds, a more insecure regional circumstance that we have to deal with, with strategic competition in the region. And were determined to work together on global security, but also on the economic security that people need and also recognising that the challenge of climate change is, of course, also a national security challenge as well as being a challenge for our actual environment, but also an opportunity for us to grow jobs, increase economic activity.

Updated at 22.06EDT

Anthony Albanese is up now. He says he is delighted to be fronting up with Jacinda Ardern and the pair were able to see the Vivid festival across Sydney Harbour while eating dinner together last night:

I cant think of anything better than the first foreign leader to welcome to Australias shores being our friend from New Zealand and my personal friend from New Zealand as well.

I thank the prime minister once again for calling me even before I had been declared on the Saturday night on the way to the Canterbury Park hotel.

It says something about the relationship, the fact that Jacinda could ring my mobile on the way to that event. It is, of course, a relationship between our two countries as family.

Updated at 22.05EDT

Engineering skills crisis due to visa processing delays

Australia is in the grip of a skills crisis, including in the engineering sector, where the job vacancy rate has increased 97% in 12 months. But one of the short-term fixes to the problem, skilled migration, is, well, not working.

The processing times for 476 visas designed for new graduates who want to live, work or study in Australia for up to 18 months has blown out from a few short months to a staggering 41 months since 2018.

That has trapped many engineering graduates out of the country, arguably at a time when they are needed most. Gurpreet Kaur, an engineer based in Indias Punjab state, told Guardian Australia shes been stuck waiting for almost four years:

I personally applied for this visa back in September 2018 and am still waiting for my visa grant. Despite meeting all the criteria, paying the application fee, medical assessment fees, there are still a lot of applicants like me from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh and many more countries about 6,000 applicants are waiting for their grant. Waiting for three to four years, its a really frustrating situation, and I think its a moral duty of any government, because this is unfair to us. We have planned all our career plans, we are suffering, not only professionally but it is a mental depression also.

Indias high commissioner to Australia, Manpreet Vohra, has also described visa processing delays as a problem.

I believe its a problem, but only because of staff shortages and backlog built up because of the pandemic.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese described the visa backlog as extraordinary, saying it had also been raised during his trip to Indonesia this week:

This is an issue that, upon coming to government without going into other issues, we have found it isnt just in this area, we have a problem processing visas. There is just an extraordinary backlog.

Updated at 21.55EDT

Stephanie Tran

Darcy, take a bow

A day before the election, Guardian Australia invited readers to tell us who they thought would win asking you to forecast the final number of seats for both major parties, as well as select the winner in 10 marginal electorates.

We had 812 entries and no one managed to pick the exact result, although Darcy, a 24-year-old legal and compliance analyst from Melbourne came oh so close.

He was one of 77 readers to correctly pick Labors 77 seats (spooky!), and tipped the Coalition to win 59 seats. They won 58, which only four readers accurately forecast.

Reflecting on his success, Darcy said he would take it as a justification for my over-consumption of the news:

Living in a now-teal seat, I was reminded daily of the threat to the Coalition in the form of human billboards so maybe that crept into my thinking.

Despite his eerily accurate overall forecast, Darcy only managed to correctly pick five of the 10 electorates provided, proving how difficult an election it was to predict, with so many seats in play.

Only seven of the 812 readers managed to pick the winners of all 10 seats correctly.

Updated at 21.49EDT

ACT Health has released todays Covid update.

There have been 824 new cases detected and one death a woman in her 70s.

There are 83 people being treated in hospital with the virus, including one person in ICU.

Updated at 21.35EDT

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Live news updates: Jacinda Ardern says Anthony Albaneses election ...

The meeting at a mega-investors New York HQ was so secretive and sinister that the prime minister enthusiastically posted about it on social media.

The online misinformation machine is insatiable, feeding on grains of truth to make mountains of bullshit about, you know, the secretive deep state cabal that rules the world. Jacinda Ardern is a recurring character in this fabulist universe, often cropping up in the company of Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau, all of whom are baselessly portrayed as puppets of octogenarian World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and the new world order plot.

One such grain was found in Arderns recent American trip. Specifically, her participation in a meeting hosted at BlackRock. Suitably scratchy footage of Ardern leaving the massive, multinational manager of financial assets has flooded the usual social media channels in recent days, complete with horrified stage-whispers ranging from hyperbole to outright fabrications.

Ardern, pantomimed one of many articles on an American misinformation-strewn pseudo-news site, was shown to be a pawn doing the bidding of the New World Order. Someone just got busted coming out of BlackRock, posted another conspiracist Twitter account with Redpill in the username on Saturday. Was this the real reason she was in the US, and used the meeting with Biden as cover? The tweet was re-posted by more than 5,000 accounts, with the accompanying video as of yesterday viewed more than 570,000 times.

Among those who shared it was Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser who received a pardonfrom the then president over charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He declared that the most WOKE of any country head had gone to genuflect at BlackRock.

A similar clip was posted by Disclose.tv, the Germany-based disinformation firehose which, as reported by the local public broadcaster, began as a conspiracy forum for swapping UFO stories [but] has turned into a popular news aggregator dispensing conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine content. Its video has been viewed more than 860,000 times on Twitter and more than 200,000 on Telegram.

The nakedly QAnon conspiracy theorists got in on the act, too. New Zealands pro-tyranny PM Jacinda Ardern is filmed coming out of the globalist Death Star financial headquarters at BlackRock, gurgled one prominent QAnon account on Gab, the social network beloved by the far-right. Endless comment threads filled with the usual screeds of invective, dystopian fantasy, casual comparisons to Nazism and a big serving of misogyny. Naturally, New Zealands own disinformation groups eagerly shared it.

But just how insidious and secretive was Arderns BlackRock visit? So insidious and secretive that you can find evidence of it on, well, her own Facebook page on the day it happened.

Tagging along on the US visit was a trade delegation, with Ardern promising to provide face time for New Zealand business owners who might otherwise struggle to get an email opened. Of the BlackRock meeting widely trailed in the mainstream media Stuffs political editor wrote: The business delegation in attendance were clearly wowed by the access they managed to get by riding the PMs coat-tails but also took away a lot from it.

The videos, with their swirling online audience in the millions, have two principal origins. One is aNew Zealand based TikTok user, with 20,000 followers, who posted a shaky video of Ardern leaving BlackRock HQ, adding his own commentary: What is Jabcinda doing coming out of BlackRock? That is freaking scary. He went on to urge viewers to share this far and fricking wide. The other is a Sydney-based disinformation account on Twitter, with 3,500 followers a small number, but enough to attract the attention of more influential social media users worldwide able to share it far and fricking wide.

In both cases, the source material came from Newshub. In the TikTok example the images were made muddy by a phone camera recording the television, but in both cases the video was cropped to disguise the fact that it was taken from a very straightforward, unscandalous report for the 6pm news, and made to appear as though the footage was opportunistic, or a stakeout even, rather than Jacinda Ardern leaving a meeting as scheduled.

The conspiratorial froth around Arderns visit was especially attractive because it dovetailed with another disinformation theme that has proved popular recently: the falsehood that, in the words of one of the accounts cited above, BlackRock owns all the major pharmaceutical companies and weapons manufacturers as well as most of the mainstream media.

BlackRock does hold stakes in some of these companies, and as a colossal financial player it very much warrants great scrutiny and criticism for its decisions (including whether it has ballsed up its responsibilities to the environment). But the statement above, versions of which are debunked in Reuters fact-checks here and here, is total crap, swimming in a sewer of bullshit.

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Conspiracy theorists are losing their shit over a clip of Jacinda ...

The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, popped in for a visit with BlackRock, the globalist asset management firm that owns much of the business world. They have over $11 trillion in assets under management, making them more economically powerful than the vast majority of nations.

This report from New Zealand media comically positions Ardern as the one with power in the exchange. She is a pawn doing the bidding of the New World Order.

Some may believe this is no big deal, that a world leader making a stop at a globalist mega-corporation is just a day in the life. But Ardern, who is a graduate of Klaus Schwabs World Economic Forum indoctrination school, also known as Young Global Leaders Initiative, has been central to the New World Orders plans to bring western society to heel. Her draconian Covid policies were benchmarks for authoritarians who wanted to see just how much control a democracy could hold over the people.

Connecting with the puppet masters at BlackRock out in the open bodes ill for the world. After all, Ardern is a Neo-Marxist and the world isnt supposed to know theyre living in George Orwells Animal Farm where the revolutionaries are actually in bed with the capitalists. To come out in broad daylight for a closed-door meeting with the biggest financer of the globalist elites signals the current stance that they dont care what we think we know.

Support undeniable patriot Mike Lindell (and us!). Buy from MyPillow with promo code JDR at checkout or call 800-862-0382.

Things are moving very quickly and the vast majority of Americans are still asleep. The crap is going to hit the fan soon. It behooves as many of us as possible to be alert and prepared for whatever is to come.

Over the last several months, Ive lost count of how many times the powers-that-be have tried to shut us down. Theyve sent hackers at us, forcing us to take extreme measures on web security. They sent attorneys after us, but thankfully were not easily intimidated by baseless accusations or threats. Theyve even gone so far as to make physical threats. Those can actually be a bit worrisome but Remington has me covered.

For us to continue to deliver the truth that Americans need to read and hear, we ask you, our amazing audience, for financial assistance. We just launched a GiveSendGo page to help us pay the bills. Its brand new so dont be discouraged by the lack of donations there. Its a funny reality that the fewer the donations that have been made, the less likely people are willing to donate to it. One would think this is counterintuitive, but sometimes people are skeptical because they think that perhaps theres a reason others havent been donating. In our situation, were just getting started so please dont be shy if you have the means to help.

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Jacinda Ardern, PM of New Zealand and WEF Graduate, Just Visited the ...

Biography

New Zealand politician who has served as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand since 26 October 2017 and leader of the Labour Party since 1 August 2017. First elected to the House of Representatives as a list MP in 2008, she has been the member of Parliament (MP) for Mount Albert since 8 March 2017.

She is the daughter of a police officer father and a mother who ran a school canteen. Ideologically, Ardern describes herself as both a social democrat and a progressive. A supporter of the labour movement, she opposes tax cuts for high-income earners as supported by the National Party, and supports a welfare state that provides a safety net for "those unable to support themselves". On cultural issues, Ardern is a supporter of same-sex marriage, having voted in favour of the marriage equality bill in 2013, and supports the liberalisation of abortion laws.

After graduating from the University of Waikato in 2001, Ardern began her career working as a researcher in the office of Prime Minister Helen Clark. She later worked in the United Kingdom as a policy advisor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and, in 2008, she was elected President of the International Union of Socialist Youth. Ardern won elected office in 2008 as a list MP, a position she held for almost ten years until her election to the Mount Albert electorate in the 2017 by-election. Later that year, she was unanimously elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party following the resignation of Annette King.

Following a historic low for the party in polling, on 1 August 2017, Leader of the Labour Party Andrew Little resigned his position and was succeeded in his capacity by Ardern. Under her leadership, the Labour Party polled ahead of its traditional rival party, the National Party, for the first time in twelve years. In the general election which took place on 23 September 2017, the Labour Party won 46 seats, a net gain of 14, putting it behind Bill Englishs National Party, which won 56 seats. She is set to become the next Prime Minister of New Zealand, after Winston Peters announced he would enter a coalition government with Labour.

Ardern's partner is television presenter Clarke Gayford. On 3 May 2019, it was reported that Ardern was engaged to be married to Gayford. On 19 January 2018, Ardern announced that she was expecting her first child in June, making her New Zealand's first prime minister to be pregnant in office. Ardern was admitted to Auckland City Hospital on 21 June 2018, and gave birth to a girl at 4:45 pm (04:45 UTC) that day, becoming only the second elected head of government to give birth while in office (after Benazir Bhutto in 1990). On 24 June, Ardern revealed her daughter's given names as Neve Te Aroha. Neve is an anglicised form of the Irish name Niamh, meaning 'bright'; Aroha is Mori for 'love', and Te Aroha is a mountain in the Kaimai Range, near Ardern's home town of Morrinsville.

Link to Wikipedia biography

Sy Scholfield quotes her on Twitter: "In case you weren't already aware "hey, you're half way to 64!" is never the correct response to someone talking about their 32nd birthday" (posted 18 April 2012) [1], "Thanks everyone for the lovely birthday messages!" (posted 26 Jul 2012) [2], "I was born in Hamilton" [3].

NZ astrologer Graham Ibell rectified to 1:59 pm.

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Jacinda Ardern, horoscope for birth date 26 July 1980, born in Hamilton ...

Prime Ministers Anthony Albaneseand Jacinda Ardernhave of their respective countries, and the "wholesome" photos are lighting up the internet.The New Zealand Labour leader is the first foreign leader to visit Australia since the change of government, with Ms Ardern touching down in Sydney on Thursday ahead of Friday's bilateral meetings. Before things got too serious, though, the leaders were snapped sharing a "warm" and friendly greeting.

One image has the pair watching the Sydney Harbour Bridge, lit up for the annual Vivid light show. Another captures them taking a selfie. Another has Mr Albanese posing with vinyl records featuring Kiwi bands, recently gifted to him by Ms Ardern.

"I've already scripted half the screenplay for this political rom-com in my head. Two people fall in love when attempting to find a rental in Sydney," the accompanying caption read.

Mr Albanese gifted albums of Australian rock bands Powderfinger, Spiderbait and Midnight Oil, while Ms Ardern handed over records from indie band The Clean, singer-songwriter Aldous Harding as well as a compilation album of unreleased tracks from 70s New Zealand punk bands. All the records were from New Zealand's iconic Flying Nun label.

On 23 May, Ms Ardern ruled out a musical collab between the Trans-Tasman leaders, telling reporters: "No, thats a firm no. I have not raised that question with the prime minister-elect but I think I can feel fairly confident in answering on both of our behalf."

In 2019, Ms Ardern blasted the Morrison government for Australia's policy of deporting New Zealanders convicted of a crime here and said it was "testing" the friendship between the nations.

Describing the issue as a "bugbear", she said she wants to see it resolved.

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'Rom-com': 'Wholesome' meeting of Anthony Albanese and Jacinda Ardern ...

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Sydney in talks with Australia's new PM Anthony Albanese. Photo / AP

OPINION:

Jacinda Ardern remains Labour's greatest asset. But if your best asset is heading towards certain insolvency, aren't you best to dump it and invest in something else?

Ardern's visit to the US was a triumph. So, too, will be today's to Australia, especially if a compromise is negotiated with Anthony Albanese over the 501s.

The Prime Minister will then host Samoa's Fiam Naomi Mata'afa in New Zealand, before strutting her new cold-war warrior credentials at the Nato Summit in Madrid. Kiwi officials hope her global brand will help liberal European leaders sell their voters a more pro-American foreign policy and higher defence spending.

In return, Ardern needs to report back home that our free-trade agreement with the EU is nearing completion. This is all great stuff for New Zealand.

The problem is that Labour strategists want to move on from the old St Jacinda brand to a more sleeves-rolled-up version, concerned primarily about your grocery bills, mortgage payments and the cost of kids' shoes.

They judge, rightly, that after two years of lockdowns and the associated economic and personal pain and with prices, rents and mortgage payments now rising faster than wages voters want a more prosaic Prime Minister.

But Ardern can't quite play the new role. She is too obviously more in her element talking geopolitics, hate speech or climate change in Washington, Sydney or Madrid than inflation, interest rates and housing costs in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch.

As a student leader, junior diplomat and influential staffer in Helen Clark's office, Grant Robertson seemed destined to make history as New Zealand's first openly gay Prime Minister. Since then, New Zealand has progressed so that milestone would now attract only fleeting interest.

At least as surprising as that social evolution, the notoriously Machiavellian Robertson has reinvented himself as an utterly loyal deputy to Ardern and a down-to-earth, no-nonsense Finance Minister.

In that sense, Robertson has followed Bill English, also picked early as a future Prime Minister.

Like English, Robertson's career then included brutal humiliations. English could at least content himself that his defeats were at the hands of Helen Clark and Don Brash.

Robertson had to endure being beaten by David Cunliffe and then Andrew Little for the Labour leadership.

To their credit, both Robertson and English picked themselves up to become highly successful wingmen to leaders better suited to lead their parties to power under the circumstances that prevailed.

As Finance Minister, English was undoubtedly more careful with the taxpayer's wallet than Robertson. Yet both accepted massive borrowing after the Christchurch earthquakes and Covid outbreak rather than raise tax or cut spending. While on a slower repayment schedule than English and now with a less ambitious target, Robertson at least talks about paying his debt down before the next shock.

Of greatest relevance to Labour's current plight, English was the perfect safe-pair-of-hands and old-pair-of-socks candidate when median voters started tiring of John Key's more cloud-bouncing style.

Key's 2016 resignation followed focus groups beginning to describe him as arrogant, the failing he would cite when asked Proust's question of the trait he most deplored in others. Whether that hurt the right side of Key's brain, the left side knew that negative focus-group feedback presages falling polls. He judged National would have a better chance in 2017 under a new leader.

So it transpired. With National seeking its first fourth term since 1969, English won 44 per cent of the party vote, miles ahead of Clark's 34 per cent in 2008 or Jenny Shipley's 31 per cent in 1999. A fall of only 3 per cent over National's 2014 result, it is extremely unlikely that Key would have done as well.

Labour's difficulties are much worse than when Key calculated it was in National's best interests for him to hand over the top job. Since its failure to buy the vaccine on time led to last year's four-month lockdown, Labour has been on a steep slide. In the most recent polls it now averages just 35 per cent, well down from the mid-40s or higher it routinely scored before August's avoidable lockdown.

The Budget didn't help. The 1News-Kantar poll, taken since then, has Labour down two more points to 35.

According to Roy Morgan, the Australian pollsters whose 2020 work most closely picked Ardern's 50 per cent triumph and National's 26 per cent disaster, Labour is at just 31.5 per cent and still heading south.

That was the second poll in a month showing National-Act able to govern alone. The others suggest either a hung Parliament requiring new elections, or Labour-Green relying on Te Pti Mori.

If interest rates and grocery bills keep rising faster than wages, there will soon be a poll with Labour in the 20s, putting Ardern in Judith Collins, Little, Cunliffe or English 1.0 territory.

Ardern's globetrotting risks bringing that fateful day forward.

In the circumstances that now prevail, Labour's recovery and the jobs of at least 25 MPs depend on successfully shifting to the more everyday Kiwi brand to which Ardern has this year proven unsuited.

For his part, Robertson has transformed himself into almost a caricature of a family accountant operating above the Te Atat shops.

He's the ordinary bloke who helped us keep things reasonably steady during the pandemic, and now wants us to pay off our credit cards and overdraft, but not worry so much about the mortgage. He watches the rugby with us at the local pub, where the beer's still sold in plastic jugs.

He's married to a bus driver and they're proud grandparents. Like English, he's much more likely to buy the family Hawaiian pizza than something exotic from the flash new pizzeria.

He has to wear suits to work but they don't fit properly because, like most of us, he's eaten too many pies. You could imagine him at the Prime Minister's desk, with his jacket and tie off and yes with his sleeves literally rolled up.

As Prime Minister, Robertson could declare his predecessor the greatest since Michael Joseph Savage and arrange for her to receive every honour a grateful nation could bestow.

He would claim not even to aspire to such greatness but to just do the job, to help you stay afloat during the recession and be safe from Christopher Luxon's dastardly plans.

If Ardern's re-election becomes unviable, this is undoubtedly Labour's best bet for a third term. Much better to get it done tidily before Christmas than panic in election year.

- Matthew Hooton is an Auckland-based public relations consultant.

Excerpt from:

Matthew Hooton: Labour's best bet for a third term - replace Jacinda Ardern with Grant Robertson - New Zealand Herald