MikeB4:
This will be answered soon enough due to climate change.
Enter China: the 'building-new-islands-in-the-middle-of-the-sea' experts...
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MikeB4:
This will be answered soon enough due to climate change.
Enter China: the 'building-new-islands-in-the-middle-of-the-sea' experts...
networkn:
GV27:
Fantastic results re: the partnership with the Superfund on LRT for the Inner and West regions of Auckland. If Labour acheive/deliver nothing else, this alone will be transformative for Auckland. Again, I want to see the Nats criticising this explain how they would solve the problems with gridlock on SH16 that are basically there from 4 - 7pm each and every day.
Do you really think this will resolve that? I am in favour of the link to the airport, but I see it making traffic down dominion road, mt eden road, and Sandringham road magnitudes worse.
1) it's an approach fro the super fund to govt which they have responded to by saying "throw your hat in with the others"
2) If the light rail does it's job it will get cars (and some buses) off roads, so traffic may be OK after all.
If that light rail to the airport is built I would use it every time I go to Auckland CBD for business or pleasure or to visit my sister out west. Currently I often hire a car or take a corporate cab every time - especially when the SkyBus wasn't running to Britomart.
networkn:
GV27:
Fantastic results re: the partnership with the Superfund on LRT for the Inner and West regions of Auckland. If Labour acheive/deliver nothing else, this alone will be transformative for Auckland. Again, I want to see the Nats criticising this explain how they would solve the problems with gridlock on SH16 that are basically there from 4 - 7pm each and every day.
Do you really think this will resolve that? I am in favour of the link to the airport, but I see it making traffic down dominion road, mt eden road, and Sandringham road magnitudes worse.
That is in no small part due to the bus lanes, which in turn can only carry so many people but the buses take up a huge amount of space in the CBD once they get there. It's the right allocation of space on the road but the buses are no longer viable in terms of getting the most out of it.
MikeB4:
Fred99:
Last night the Australians have increased their foreign aid budget to A$3.9 billion - and that's per year, with 90% region targeted.
That doesn't even hit the news over there - it's normal and not dragged into partisan politics.
Is there some problem with NZ increasing aid in our backyard, when as I understand it the aid is only being increased back to the level it was a few years ago, or is this just a "but - Winston" thing.
NZ would be idiots to ignore geopolitics in the region, and China's push. Clinton is right.
I trust Clinton no more than I trust Trump and I most certainly do not trust Trump in the slightest. The US is the biggest threat to regional stability.
That's a remarkable comment from someone who I'd have thought was capable of thinking for themselves - If you truly believe that, then you've succumbed to propaganda.
Trump is orders of magnitude worse.
The US is not the biggest threat to regional security - the absence of having a sane rational US is.
You may as well be saying that Australia is a huge threat to regional security, as they are very closely aligned with US interests.
MikeAqua:
NZ doesn't really need the Pacific Islands. Some of them do need us.
All that really matters in all of this aid business is reducing China's influence.
That might only just be the case from a dry economics POV.
From the POV of NZ being seen globally to be pulling our weight with foreign aid, the increases only take us back to half (as % of GNI) of what the UK contributes - and they've got far more serious budgetary issues than NZ.
NZ is NOT a generous donor or contributor by any measure at all, and that's also NOT solely justified by domestic fiscal restraints.
Fred99:
MikeB4:
Fred99:
Last night the Australians have increased their foreign aid budget to A$3.9 billion - and that's per year, with 90% region targeted.
That doesn't even hit the news over there - it's normal and not dragged into partisan politics.
Is there some problem with NZ increasing aid in our backyard, when as I understand it the aid is only being increased back to the level it was a few years ago, or is this just a "but - Winston" thing.
NZ would be idiots to ignore geopolitics in the region, and China's push. Clinton is right.
I trust Clinton no more than I trust Trump and I most certainly do not trust Trump in the slightest. The US is the biggest threat to regional stability.
That's a remarkable comment from someone who I'd have thought was capable of thinking for themselves - If you truly believe that, then you've succumbed to propaganda.
Trump is orders of magnitude worse.
The US is not the biggest threat to regional security - the absence of having a sane rational US is.
You may as well be saying that Australia is a huge threat to regional security, as they are very closely aligned with US interests.
How is it not thinking for myself? is it because I am not thinking like you? If I were thinking like you then I would not be thinking for myself. I trust Clinton no more than Trump does not mean the same as Trump and believe they are both bad. Now as for regional security I believe the US poses a far greater threat to the stability of our region and a far greater chance to get our Defence Force in harms way. I also believe through its inward thinking policies they pose a far greater risk to us than others. China wants to invest here more so than the US, eg our 5G network.
I don't see the US as the world saviours or the world police, I see them as a poor community member.
Mike
Retired IT Manager.
The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.
There is no planet B
MikeB4:
I don't see the US as the world saviours or the world police, I see them as a poor community member.
I see them as typically being a far worse community member when they've got a Republican president than a Democrat.
I also don't dislike them to the degree you're suggesting you do. Though there may be many US failures behind some of the situations facing us today, if the US had been absent over the past century, the world would almost certainly be a much darker place.
Democracy isn't the norm - it's the exception, even with an idiot like Trump at the helm, we still need the USA as much as we ever did.
MikeB4:
Meaning like it or not we are as much Polynesian as any other part of Polynesia that is what I am eluding to and GZT is eluding to. We are in the Polynesian triangle from Rapanui to Hawaii to South of NZ.
We may be located in Polynesia. We are not necessarily Polynesian.
MikeB4:
This will be answered soon enough due to climate change. With rising sea levels New Zealand will need to take a great many refugees from the Islands and many will cease to exist. We will also need to give considerable aid to those that do continue due to the loss of their arable lands, cities, ports and Airports.
Going back a few years the mass migration during the 70's from the other islands caused considerable financial and other related problems for the Islands as their population was stripped of its young. It is better for them to remain in their homes than to leave. It is better for NZ to provide aid and assist them grow their economies. We have not done well by our kin in the islands over time so now is teh time for us to step up. New Zealand either by dubious decisions or plain incompetence resulted in around one fifth of the population of Samoa to die.
We governed these place for a long time we have a responsibility.
We won't NEED to take a single refugee. We might choose to.
MikeB4:
Geektastic:
Still can't see any logic.
Cut them adrift and let them sink or swim on their own two feet. If people want to live in places like that, I see no reason for us to subsidise that. You might as well expect the UK to donate to NZ since the relationship and economics probably have a similar ratio.
Thankfully we have more compassion as a nation or we would have cut adrift a small Island off France at least twice in the twentieth century
Not really. The Empire was a different time and people thought differently. It had to do with duty, not compassion.
@geektastic I am not going to address your replies individually except to say your 'I don't give a crap about other people" rants are becoming tedious and objectionable. You should take some time to learn about the country you are living in, its peoples, its culture, its history and its neighbours.
Mike
Retired IT Manager.
The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.
There is no planet B
MikeB4:
@geektastic I am not going to address your replies individually except to say your I don't give a crap about other people are becoming tedious and objectionable. You should take some time to learn about the country you are living in, its peoples, its culture, its history and its neighbours.
Why? Unless you can offer logic rather than emotion, I won't understand your reasoning anyway. It has nothing to do with where I live - Britain, where I lived for longer, wastes far more money on foreign aid than NZ and I can't see the point of that either.
Charity begins at home - Labour and much of the public has spent quite some while complaining about all manner of things they require to be fixed in NZ. Logic dictates that available funds are used to fix those things before they are used to fix things in places NZ taxpayers do not live.
Geektastic:
MikeB4:
@geektastic I am not going to address your replies individually except to say your I don't give a crap about other people are becoming tedious and objectionable. You should take some time to learn about the country you are living in, its peoples, its culture, its history and its neighbours.
Why? Unless you can offer logic rather than emotion, I won't understand your reasoning anyway. It has nothing to do with where I live - Britain, where I lived for longer, wastes far more money on foreign aid than NZ and I can't see the point of that either.
Charity begins at home - Labour and much of the public has spent quite some while complaining about all manner of things they require to be fixed in NZ. Logic dictates that available funds are used to fix those things before they are used to fix things in places NZ taxpayers do not live.
If you understood the issues you would understand the method. It is better that we help build their nations ability to be self sufficient than having migration from them that puts additional burden on our services and makes it harder for their country to grow. So by helping them we help our own people including our own peoples in the islands.
Mike
Retired IT Manager.
The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.
There is no planet B
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