#Tag
"Chris Hipkins says he's comfortable being called a socialist, Zohran Mandani wins the New York mayoralty, and this is the question we've been asking ourselves all week; is Woke back?"
#WallaceChapman, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/politics-nz?share=b80fcdfb-3903-482c-926e-50dcf1983607
Huh? No. Obviously not. How did it take you more than 2 seconds to answer that?
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Meanwhile, in New Zealand news, a couple put their house rebuild on hold to wait for the penguins under the house to finish nesting.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand news, a couple put their house rebuild on hold to wait for the penguins under the house to finish nesting.
Yesterday's Midweek MediaWatch covered the decision by police not to prosecute Stuff for publishing anonymised audio of the cops during the final minutes of Tom Phillips' life;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=22b39814-2065-4113-a6bd-587235737567
I guess the cops haven't heard of the Streisand Effect. Because the first thing I did upon learning that they didn't want it published, was to go listen to it;
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360819884/police-audio-end-tom-phillips-chase
I doubt I'm the only one who did.
#podcasts #RNZ #MediaWatch #Stuff #StreisandEffect #DeathByCop #TomPhillips
"In an effort to grow revenue, the company said it would support 'the digital transformation of the New Zealand healthcare sector' to take a slice of what it estimated was a $1 billion opportunity.
It said the sector was ripe for digitisation in light of Covid-19 and that it would launch the health service as a cloud-based system for health providers, which would include electronic medical records and health analytics."
#RNZ, 2020
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/426194/spark-to-scrap-data-caps-on-wireless-broadband-plans
Be warned.
"All Labour has done is chosen a group of people that can be marginalised and be taxed without - they hope - fear of electoral retribution."
#MattBall, NZ Property Investors Federation, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=72dfab42-b0de-46f3-9958-29494bf53211
You mean Māori? Beneficiaries? Women getting pay equity? Unionised workers? Trans people? Oops, sorry, he's taking about *Labour* there. My bad.
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"The government this month announced its plans to change pig welfare regulations including around the use of the crates ...
Documents have shown the government's own animal welfare experts disagreed with the approach taken, which were developed after eight meetings with NZ Pork."
#RussellPalmer, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/577252/no-consultation-on-pig-welfare-regulation-changes-spca
"There are recurring themes, the most dominant of these is probably reining in the overuse of Parliamentary Urgency, including skipping or curtailing the Select Committees process.
Ideas to curb urgency include automatic expiry dates for laws passed without full process, governments needing to convince the Speaker that urgency is necessary, and select committees undertaking post-hoc reviews of laws that bypass them."
#PhilSmith, 2025
The Tories are virtue signalling around climate policy to shore up their rural vote;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=0fdf10db-6e5c-4b60-a29d-0acfd02449e0
But considering all the things they could have done - and that ACT and Winston First would have done given the chance - what they've done is pretty weak tea. Which suggests a significant majority of kiwis support strong climate protection policy, and NatACT First know it.
#podcasts #RNZ #FocusOnPolitics #ClimateChange #AgriculturalEmissions
A fascinating discussion on Midweek MediaWatch about whether or not Sean Plunket's digital soapbox The Platform is under the jurisdiction of the Broadcasting Standards Authority;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=7308019f-a654-4741-b3db-b6f3edb1fce2
Plunket is a contemptible human being who platforms hateful concern trolling, in the style of Cameron Slater. So on one level I'd love to see the BSA throw the book at him. But as with the case against Slater, there are deeper principles at stake here.
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This week's MediaWatch dived into the online safety debate. Starting about 23 minutes in, after a story about news coverage of Silver Ferns coaching drama, and a roundup of the midweek edition;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=33fb446b-4f18-4f7d-8327-ddd5cf4bf4ab
It's a mixed bag. As with so much commentary on this, our genuine concerns about civil liberties and human rights kind of get lumped in with the self-serving opinions of reputation launderers for DataFarms (including ACT MPs).
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@rnzbot_nz And, reported in #RNZ on the same day, “Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica” [spoiler alert: the Antarctic Ocean floor is starting to release its “vast reservoirs of methane”, presumably because of the warming Antartica ocean, which threatens to further accelerate warming]. But, yes, instead the NZ government is cherry picking what it wants to hear from science to halve NZ’s methane emission targets.
@rnzbot_nz And, reported in #RNZ on the same day, “Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica” [spoiler alert: the Antarctic Ocean floor is starting to release its “vast reservoirs of methane”, presumably because of the warming Antartica ocean, which threatens to further accelerate warming]. But, yes, instead the NZ government is cherry picking what it wants to hear from science to halve NZ’s methane emission targets.
It’s great to see the #LowMow Revolution coming to Wellington, NZ.
“Low mow sites had about double the plant species - an average of 21.8, compared to 11.3 on regularly mown sites. Bugs were also more abundant, with 5.5 invertebrates on low mow sites, but just 1.2 on sites mowers frequent. Bird life was about the same, but the ground absorbed rainwater twice as quickly.”
“Others said the area wasn't used much, and longer grass with daisies and buttercups poking through looked more interesting than a plain mown patch.“
It’s great to see the #LowMow Revolution coming to Wellington, NZ.
“Low mow sites had about double the plant species - an average of 21.8, compared to 11.3 on regularly mown sites. Bugs were also more abundant, with 5.5 invertebrates on low mow sites, but just 1.2 on sites mowers frequent. Bird life was about the same, but the ground absorbed rainwater twice as quickly.”
“Others said the area wasn't used much, and longer grass with daisies and buttercups poking through looked more interesting than a plain mown patch.“
"My reo wish is; all NZers understand Te Reo Māori is their language. It is for them to use, forever. From their children to their kuia / koroua, is it every NZer's language. Love it, use it."
#CarmenParahi, 2025
If you think we have it bad in Aotearoa, with NZ Labour drifting around in the neoliberal centre-right, just look at Oz. Their Labour party is firmly in the neoconservative right under Albanese. Just listen to his defensive comments here about the plight of refugees his country's government traps on Nauru for years at a time;
<<Jacinda Ardern calls for the end of 'genocide' in Gaza>>
Luxon the country awaits your announcement of a Palestine State.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/573620/jacinda-ardern-calls-for-the-end-of-genocide-in-gaza
Political talking points - or "key messages" as Nicky Hagar called them in The Hollow Men - are a cancer on political communication. Expressly designed to allow politicians to make public statements without actually *saying* anything.
There's some great examples in yesterday's FOP on RNZ, where CLuxon and Rimmer vomited up and ate the same verbal hairballs they've been retaining since 2023;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics/2025/FOCUSDISCONTENT
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The enshittification of commercial news media continues apace ...
"So you need human journalists. AI will not replace them. It might make one journalist do the work of 10, but you still need that journalist.
We're ... moving into a full newsroom based on AI."
#PeterFowler, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=4df8ef6b-aef5-4a92-9f6a-44a3d314ae09
*shudder* Oh the hubris. This is exactly the wrong way to use any kind of AI. But especially the current crop of Trained MOLEs.
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