Category: Guest Posts
Thanks to Denis McCarthy of the NZCPR Working Group Project, a summary of the 5,259 submissions to the Constitutional Advisory Panel on New Zealand's constitutional arrangements is provided in this report.
Those who have been on the government’s existing Work Programme, but who have not found a job after two years, will have to accept a work placement in the community, visit a Job Centre every day or take part in further training.
Judged in conventional terms, the National-led Government’s sixth Budget looks pretty good. As promised, the Minister of Finance can point to a small surplus in the Underlying Operating Balance (before gain and losses) in the financial year starting on 1 July and increasing surpluses in future financial years.
The issue of Maori seats around Council tables has certainly come to the fore in recent years, largely as a result of the fact that with Treaty settlements coming to an end, Iwi are casting their eyes around for what other resources or political power they can now accumulate. This is in fact the case with Te Arawa right now, under the guise of improving relationships with the Rotorua District Council.
There is something odd about the global warming debate — or the climate change debate, as we are now expected to call it, since global warming has for the time being come to a halt. But I have never in my life experienced the extremes of personal hostility, vituperation and vilification which I — along with other dissenters, of course — have received for my views on global warming and global warming policies.
When did anyone last hear officials and professionals talking enthusiastically about the social and economic benefits resulting from the subdivision of land to create secure, clean and tradeable title? Indeed, any Regional or District plan is likely to include a long list of the potential problems caused by subdivision, but will mention few, if any, of the benefits.
The Rule of Law embodies the notion that freedoms are protected not by the dicktat of any person or collection of people, but by the Law to which all, high or low born, are subject. This notion is so central to the way we order our society that it is now little discussed, and one suspects no longer widely understood. It is a safeguard of great antiquity.
Since the National government took office late 2008, welfare reform has formed a large legislative programme much of which has now been completed. It is perhaps too soon to expect benefit numbers to start reducing, complicated by the global financial crisis driving up unemployment in 2009-10.
“Climate Change” has become an important international topic - one might almost say religion. It began life as “Global Warming”. So very many people, including politicians and “news people”, appear to have been overwhelmed by it, and have led others to believe, and follow the doctrine. However, the cost of “Combating Carbon” has been extremely high, and the debt and economic consequences are being passed on to present citizens, and, worse still, to future generations, including all our grandchildren.
An analysis of submissions to the Constitutional Advisory Panel obtained under the Official Information Act reveal a deep opposition to treaty politics that was obscured in the panel’s report to government in December.
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