Posts by dc_red
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Without wishing to relitigate the FSA, it is perhaps worth reiterating that 30% of the NZ Coastline was already under private title. And that it hasn't been nationalized since.
The LINZ Foreshore Project reported: "6,032 kilometres (30.4%) of the coastline is bounded 12,609 privately owned land parcels." The overwhelming majority of these parcels (about 12,300) extended to, or beyond, the mean high water mark.
Over 2000 of the parcels are Maori land.
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How many Clark critics would honestly 'get over' what she and her colleagues have experienced at Waitangi?
Can the same critics even explain why National's MPs should bother after their leader was pelted in the face with mud a few years back?
Sure, you *might* have a good day - a la yesterday.
But equally you could be wiping urine from your face.
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Craig - "Snub?"
If I, or my colleagues, had been sprayed with urine (or perhaps even 'just' pelted with mud) at a particular venue, I wouldn't set foot within 500 yards of the place again.
Also wondering if anyone else went to the 'official' Auckland event at Orakei Domain yesterday. Great weather, tonnes of stalls ... but a significant proportion of 'angry brown yoof' trying to be staunch, shoulder others out of the way, spit, and so on.
Not especially pleasant we felt.
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The dubious qualities of the mad butcher aside ... what I've heard in the press suggests this prosecution was a complete farce. I'm just a bit surprised it took so long for the jury to reach the verdicts it did.
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Not to harp on too much .... but we might want to think about whether, for example, 16 and 17 year olds have rights, including the right to do with their lives what they will (subject to the normal strictures of criminal law), and are not in fact the property of either their parents or the state.
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Finn - well said, couldn't agree more with what you're saying (and I say this as someone for whom the principle, if not always the practice, of high school education was well-suited).
Kyle - indeed, just about to raise this myself after a colleague mentioned his son is due to finish Year 13 (aka 7th Form) at age 17.
That's not entirely uncommon ... and if you're good enough to finish up all that high school has to offer I'm buggered if I can think of a reason for the state to compel more 'education' until you hit the magical age of 18.
Re: the education leaving age vs. the school leaving age, etc. I think that, in practice, school rolls will generally increase with kids who would otherwise have left.
Which will, I suggest, make the experience all the more shit for many of the teachers who want to teach, and students who want to learn.
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The more I think about the Key and Clark "youth announcements" the more I think it's humbug.
Both seem to share an assumption that "yoof" are property of the state and should be denied the opportunity to make independent decisions.
Both seem to think that if 11 years of compulsory education didn't do the trick, then 13 will.
Neither seems to think at all about what this means for teachers and, um, students who actually want to be at school and, y'know, learn something. (Although I recognize that "school" in its conventional sense is not going to be the only option for those aged 16-18 ... but clearly it's one of them). My high school became a lot more pleasant when a significant proportion of those who didn't want to be there left upon reaching the leaving-age.
Neither of them appears to have talked to a young person in preparing their talking points/policy. Not even one. Kudos to Russell Norman for pointing this out on Morning Report today (I think it was him ... I was still half-asleep).
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"Viva Le Referendum"
This is why kids need to stay in school.
Yes, but Italian is a fiendishly difficult language.
Any high school teachers around here care to comment on the plans for (presumably) expecting/encouraging teenagers to stay in school longer than they already do?
I imagine it's a sweet, merciful relief (for teacher and good student alike) when some of them depart.
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Andrew said:
They want votes? They should talk about interest rates!
Which is completely standard fare in Australia....Perhaps both main parties want to wash their hands of interest rates and maintain the stance that the Reserve Bank acts independent of government, etc?
But if they do start talking...
The right presumably would want to argue that government spending is inflationary (although the other day on this forum I was informed that spending on infrastructure might not be...).
The left presumably would want to argue that tax cuts for the rich (and subsequent consumer spending) are inflationary.
I have a feeling we the public would end up none the wiser.
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81C said:
Either Key doesn’t know what he is talking about or he is deliberately playing to the crowd.
Since he is a politician and all, my money would be on (b).