Wellington City councillors have met behind closed doors today about the future of the shut-up Reading Cinema building on Courtenay Pl, the Herald understands.
It’s understood a multimillion-dollar deal, involving the council buying the land underneath the Reading Cinema, was under consideration.
It was discussed in a public-excluded part of the meeting. Reasons given for this included allowing the local authority to carry on negotiations, including commercial and industrial negotiations, without prejudice or disadvantage.
It is so easy to spend other people’s money. They have already voted to spend $300 million fixing a second classical music venue and now they are doing secret deals with our money with Reading.
Ratepayers should get angry as they will face a decade of massive rates increases because WCC seems incapable of saying no.
Cultural reports, which can cut an offender’s sentence almost in half, rely on information given by the criminal themselves, with no formal obligation on report writers to verify what they are told.
The use of Section 27 cultural reports has leapt dramatically and, according to one High Court judge, they give valuable information to “show how our society has failed children” and how to sentence for better outcomes.
But it comes at a cost of $2.6m and counting in the Waikato, with the reports thrust into the spotlight when ACT leader David Seymour pledged to axe them.
A lawyer can request a cultural report for their client to explain their background. These reports can get an offender a 7% to 45% reduction to their sentence.
It’s almost like the “Get out of jail free” cards in monopoly. This reflects our criminal justice system is now focused on the offenders, not the victims.
“White people are stupid” and “can be fooled easily” according to a Green Party candidate who also labelled her opponent, Labour Minister Priyanca Radhakrishnan, “****ing useless” and an “incompetent” minister.
Greens co-leader James Shaw was unaware of his Maungakieie candidate, Sapna Samant’s, tweets when asked about them during an interview on the Tova podcast.
Shortly after the interview, Samant protected her tweets so that only approved followers could access her posts.
Now imagine if an ACT Party candidate had said black people are stupid” and can be “fooled easily” and called a Labour Minister “f***ing useless”. This would again lead every news outlet for days and days. There would also be an online Lynch mob writing into their professional body demanding they be deregistered.
Kudos to Stuff for reporting this but so far Google News doesn’t show any other news outlet covering this.
Former MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer and Lindsey Hill settled their lawsuits Monday without any money getting exchanged between the two sides, according to a video Bauer posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, and an interview Hill did with The Washington Post. …
In his nearly four-minute video, Bauer revealed alleged messages and an alleged video from the morning after one of his sexual encounters with Hill, which came to light in September 2022 and depicts Hill laying in bed next to a sleeping Bauer and appearing to smirk without any of the alleged injuries.
One message that Bauer included in the video — claiming that Hill tried to frame him for money — alleged that Hill texted an unknown person his “Net worth is 51 mil,” to which the person allegedly replied, “b–ch, you better secure the bag.”
Hill turned up to the police station with serious bruising to her face. The time stamped video makes it clear this did not happen during sex, as she claimed. Bauer got kicked off his team and suspended for 324 games due to these claims.
Despite attempts by Labour to downplay ill-discipline by MPs about a wealth tax, there is only one clear answer that Labour candidates should be giving on the hustings to questions about it. It’s campaigning 101 and it goes like this:
“If Labour is elected to again lead the next Government, it will be on the promise not to introduce a wealth tax or a capital gains tax in the next term. It was a decision endorsed by the caucus and Labour’s New Zealand Council and we will keep our promise.”
And when they are asked whether they personally support a wealth tax or a capital gains tax, they should be saying:
“My opinion does not matter other than my support for the party’s position. What matters is what Labour is promising and our promise to Kiwis is no wealth tax or CGT for the next three years and we will keep our promise.”
They should not be saying “Yes, I personally support a wealth tax but I support our leader 100 per cent.”
Anyone who says “yes, but…” either does not understand how to campaign or is happy to sabotage their party’s campaign.
Labour are looking to lose 30 MPs or so. It is not surprising that some of them are sabotaging the campaign by trying to shore up support with local progressives by declaring that they personally would love to hike taxes.
Chris Bishop, National’s campaign manager, is on the lookout for any breaches of the party line by Labour candidates. Previously, all National had to go on was conjecture over the fact that the Green Party and Te Pati Maori support a wealth tax.
With new material being fed back to him about loose comments by MPs such as Ibrahim Omer in Wellington Central, Ingrid Leary in Taieri, Tracey McLellan in Banks Peninsular, and Glen Bennett in New Plymouth, Bishop has seized upon the issue.
If Labour gets to form Government, there will be many Labour MPs keen to support an asset tax.
Today, Carmel Sepuloni attended a number of events across Wellington while campaigning for Labour, and she travelled to and between them in her chauffeur-driven ministerial limousine — a high-end Audi.
Crown limos are normally used by ministers when they’re conducting ministerial business, although exceptions are made for the PM and Leader of the Opposition during the election campaign.
Amazed at this. Its not as if there is any shortage of local Labour MPs who could have driven her around in their own car rather than using VIP Transport.
The National Party have just released a policy that, should they become the government, all children will be taught to read under a Structured Literacy programme and have to set aside what is now called Balanced Literacy. Without going into detail many people familiar with theories of learning to read will be able to associate Structured Literacy with “phonics” and Balanced Literacy with whole word recognition. There is more detail to it than that but it is adequate for the points I want to make.
Recent research does favour Structured Literacy as a learning methodology in schools. One of the challenges to its more widespread adoption is that New Zealand has heavily invested in Balanced Literacy and Reading Recovery through the significant influence of the late Dame Marie Clay who was, no doubt, an incredible New Zealander with international influence.
In terms of the policy, then, I largely agree with National designating Structured Literacy as the primary method for teaching reading. There are a couple of caveats on that. Firstly, some children come to school and are already well on the pathway to be good readers and the last thing many of them would enjoy is having to sound out basic words they already have mastered. Give them an opportunity to show their proficiency and them just let them read. Secondly, the quality of professional development around this must be brilliant and the day-to-day must not be dour. To generate life-long readers you don’t only require functionality – there must also be inspiration. They must not only learn to read but love reading and adore story. Functional success only goes part of the way…..
It will also be the case that this policy will only have a very marginal effect if families are not seen as paramount and carried with it – that is the deeper magic. In an inspirational book called The Smartest Kids in the World (Amanda Ripley) New Zealand was only noted once. That was as the country in the world where parents reading to their children makes the greatest difference.
The imperative partner policy for Structured Literacy is a Crown Entity for Parenting that has at its hub that parents are recognised and enhanced and the first and most important teachers of their children. A parent reading to their children every night in a skilled and passionate way will make more difference than the right method in school in nearly every situation. Having parents who are readers themselves, who speak many and positive words, and who are knowledgably and passionately aspirational for their children will make the world of difference. For many parents these are skills and habits that they have to have, and take, opportunities to learn themselves so they can pass them on.
Go to the private sector experts too. Dame Wendy Pye of Sunshine Books is renowned the world over for the quality of the readers her and her team produce and yet, often treated like a pariah by our Ministry of Education. Every school and every home should have her books for young readers.
Add to that; having the right teaching method in school will make very little difference to the 10,000 not enrolled anywhere or the, approximately, 50% of students not fully attending.
Over the last six years Labour, and the two Minister’s of Education have a very poor record. Whoever is in leadership at the end of October needs an expert and comprehensive plan to radically improve our education system. However, there will be no solver bullets at all unless you carry the families along with those changes. Banning smart phones and changing aspects of reading instruction are starters. What is the comprehensive plan that takes in the whole child and brings remarkable change to provide the education that children growing up in a small, wealthy and beautiful county deserve?
The costs of strengthening and redeveloping Wellington Town hall could nearly double as Wellington City Council announced a massive budget blow-out on the project.
The council said the $182 million project could cost an additional $70m-$147m to complete.
Mayor Tory Whanau said news of the blow-out was “extremely tough to hear, but not unexpected”.
“We are dealing with challenging economic conditions – but we are more than half-way through the project, which was started by a previous council. There’s no way we can turn back. We must see it through to completion.
“However, I join Wellingtonians at being frustrated and annoyed at the news of another cost increase.”
Oh what nonsense. The value was even marginal at $32 million and now at over $300 million it will be the most expensive white elephant in New Zealand.
We already have a perfectly good music venue in the Michael Fowler Centre. It is callous disregard for struggling families that the WCC proceeds with a second venue which will cost the average household close to $4,000.
A motorist who took a samurai sword to a dog-walker in an Auckland road rage incident has been sentenced to home detention.
A man was left with chunks of flesh and bone carved out of him after a brutal attack where a driver got out of his car and attacked him with a sword, leaving the pedestrian bleeding in a ditch.
The victim, who was out walking his dog, survived the attack thanks to his son, who found him and gave first aid by the Karaka roadside.
He almost killed someone in a brutal sword attack and he got home detention. Unbelievable.
But the seriousness of the injuries sustained by the victim have left the tradie with likely lifelong injuries and unable to work.
Much to the dismay of the victim’s family, Judge Mina Wharepouri on Tuesday sentenced Darryn Clarke to 10 months home detention, 100 hours community work and to pay $5,000 after pleading guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to injure.
Barely a slap on the hand for a crime which has a maximum sentence of 10 years. The victim’s life has been effectively destroyed.
“Rawiri Waititi says that he isn’t a fan of democracy, calling it the tyranny of the majority, but also championing a system where the majority can banish your whole family. It goes to show for all his theatrics, Waititi doesn’t get democracy or human rights,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“When asked by Newshub what he would do if he could change Parliament, Waititi said “I’m not a fan of democracy, because democracy is a tyranny of the majority. I think Māori had a form of democracy where the collective made a decision…. If you didn’t uphold what the community wanted you were gone, not just you, your whole whanau was gone. You’re out.”
“This is a chilling statement from an elected Member of Parliament, who is again running in a democratic general election.
If Labour get re-elected, they will be dependent on the Māori Party and Greens to govern.
It is amazing to have a parliamentary party leader say they are not a fan of democracy. Even more amazing is that this is not the lead item on every news site. It would be if a leader of a centre-right party had said it.
Cabinet has signed off on an additional support package of more than $7 million for the troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts.
RAL went into voluntary administration last year, $45m in debt due to a bad ski season and the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Regional Development Minister Kieran McAnulty said Cabinet decided on Monday that $7.35m will be provided to RAL to allow the continued operation of its ski field operations until March 2024.
Earlier this year, the government promised up to $5m to the liquidators of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts to ensure the 2023 ski season could go ahead.
Chris Bishop has released details of threats against National candidates and volunteers, including:
A National candidate being forced to move house after a gang threat
A senior Head Hunters member filmed a National candidate and their spouse in a restaurant and shared it with followers, with an abusive and intimidating message
Death threats made to a volunteer in Auckland
An allegedly intentional dog attack on a door knocking volunteer, resulting in injuries worthy of medical attention
Several volunteers abused and followed by gang members in Hawke’s Bay
A candidate had a bottle of beer thrown over them, their volunteers frequently intimidated, and their house broken into.
It is very depressing that such incidents are happening, and there seem to be no consequences for those responsible.
Regarding where the OCR should be in a year’s time, the Shadow Board’s core view ranged from 4.50 percent to 5.75 percent and centred on an OCR of 5.50 percent – a shift from 5.25 percent in the August NZIER Shadow Board. There was an increased view amongst members that another increase in the OCR may be required, given the stickiness of inflation and high inflation expectations.
So the NZIER Shadow Board consensus is that interest rates are no longer forecast to stabilise and drop, but will increase even further. Floating mortgage rates are already over 8% – will they hit 9%?
Advance voting starts today and I encourage people to get out there and vote early. Don’t risk getting busy on the 14th of October, get it done as soon as convenient.
If you want to change the Government, there are only two parties that are basically guaranteed to gain representation, and will boot Labour from office – that is National and ACT. Any other vote risks Labour carrying on for a third term.
A third term for Labour will be far far worse than either of their first two terms. Their incompetence will be the least of our problems. At best Labour will make up 60% of a left Government caucus. The Greens and Māori Party will beyond doubt be in Cabinet and will push New Zealand towards hard left policies and even greater separatism.
I’m voting this morning, and hope many others do also.
Chris Hipkins said he believes there has been more racism and misogyny in this election than any previous one.
Fronting media at the Chinese Moon Festival in Auckland this afternoon, the Labour leader spoke about apparent heightened tension surrounding the campaign following reports of an allegedly politically motivated attack on the home of 21-year-old Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, Te Pāti Māori’s Hauraki-Waikato candidate and fourth on the party list.
The leader of the party that blamed house prices on people with Chinese sounding surnames should know all about racism.
Aucklanders are facing a financial horror show with sky-high rates and water bills pencilled in for next year.
Mayor Wayne Brown said the numbers are going to be nasty for ratepayers if councillors are not prepared to make cuts to services and sell assets.
Heading into a new 10-year budget next year, the starting point for rates is 13 per cent and a senior council source said water bills could rise by more than 20 per cent.
The Council should see the 10% it still holds of Auckland Airport and the Ports of Auckland.
This morning on Newshub Nation Rebecca Wright hosted National education Spokesperson Erica Stanford and current Minister of Education Jan Tinetti.
As education is my passion and life-work I rarely feel more disappointed when a “leader” in the field resorts to presenting false information or avoiding data/facts. That is exactly what Tinetti did.Growing right up from her NZEI roots.
I know the NZ High School data set better than most because I do the sector wide data process for LEAVERS every year (can send it to you on request). Labour try to say things were in decline before that came to be in office and try to blame National Standards. If teachers having to do a few assessments could see their teaching/learning decline so badly – clearly they were on shaky ground in the first place.
The data clearly shows some fluctuations and then Labour – in the last six years – led by Hipkins and Tinetti driving our system off a cliff. This is especially true for Maori, Pasifika and low decile children – those they claim to stand for – and to the great shame of the Labour Maori caucus.
Tinetti tried to close today’s debate by saying things had turned around. There is ABSOLUTELY NO evidence for that and she is hiding the Term 2 attendance data until November.
– there had been a significant improvement on T1 2022 overall 46.1% to 59.5% but in 2019 it was 72.8% of students attending 90% of the time.
– Maori (44.9%) and Pasifika (47.8%) lag well behind European (62.8%) and Asian (70.6%)
– Tai Tokerau and Hawkes Bay, Tarawhiti are the worst regions historically and both were under 50%.
When the Education and Workforce Select Committee (Labour led) had an investigation into the attendance crises last year only 8 schools (out of 2,600 submitted and the SC chose not to go into schools to find reasons for good or poor attendance). Their final report shows that they have no evidence that school lunches have improved attendance. Their recommendations contained nothing about school quality, teacher quality, aspiration, high quality curriculum – the worth of attending school. https://selectcommittees.parliament.nz/v/2/5e1472a2-cfbc-4e15-9f8d-9787cb26f357
When these children are added in the actual attendance rates are lowered even further.
I understand that the Term 2 data for 2023 has been processed but the Ministry is sticking to its pre-ordained release date of after the election in November. There is no reason for term 2 data to take longer as there is no extra processing. I also understand the attendance rates have decreased again. I would think Minister Tinetti could confirm that.
This is the worst state I have seen our education system to be in and – as Cameron Bagrie notes – to see our society in 20 years time we need to look at our education system today.
There are bright spots but we ignore them and double-down on practices and processes that clearly are not working.
Despite heavy snowfall and what administrators describe as an “incredible” ski season, troubled North Island skiifield Ruapehu Alpine Lifts is sweating on another application to cabinet for funds, seeking time to find new owners and save the tourism business.
PwC partner John Fisk, appointed liquidator of RAL in June after having previously served as voluntary administrator since October, said despite the strong recent season cash reserves were on track to run dry in two months, potentially before a sale of the business could be completed.
“We’re in a position where we will effectively run of cash at the end of November this year. We are waiting to hear from, hopefully, the Crown next week on just what their position is in terms of funding the rest of the summers season going into next winter,” Fisk said.
We have now put what may be tens of millions of dollars into corporate welfare for a skilfield. I love skiing on Mt Ruapehu but enough is enough – the liquidators should sell it as soon as possible so that new owners can operate it without the debt burden.
