Jennifer Ward

Let's talk about behaviour. Let's talk about how it is that we tut tut on the front page of every newspaper every time a woman dares to breathe differently and utterly, miserably fail to talk about why they might have done so. Let's talk about the willingness in New Zealand to deprioritise pay equity, women having a voice and a seat at the table, the right to make reproductive health decisions, the ability to own a home, the right to obtain medical support without a side of misogyny, the ability to be a leader - including a politician. Let's talk about the fact that violence takes many forms. Let's talk about the passive language that mentions all of these things happening to women with no attribution of responsibility - or accountability for a change in behaviour (or policy.) Let's talk about why we seem to be able to call out a women behaving in a certain way but totally unable to call out evidence of violent behaviour and violent policy across the board.

“Let’s talk about why we get angrier about a woman being angry than we do about the way women are treated in New Zealand.”

I wrote this a couple of years ago and it’s since become a marker of everything that still hasn’t changed.
Happy International Women’s Day 🫠

whereyouare0.substack.com/p/anger

Do car-free zones hurt disabled people? We asked experts. City planners and advocates are seeing "accessibility used as a political football."

“…disabled people are actually less likely to drive than nondisabled people and more likely to get around by walking and rolling and taking transit. Car-heavy cities are also disproportionately dangerous for disabled folks…”— @nondriver.bsky.social

Don’t use accessibility “as a political football.”

You know that feeling when you're struggling to stay awake? #kakapo chicks Tiwhiri-A3 and Tiwhiri-A4 in Tiwhiri's nest on Pukenui/Anchor Island. Both around two weeks old, and doing well. #kakapo2026 #conservation #parrots

Stephen Miller is a eugenicist & white supremacist. It makes sense under those beliefs too.

DOJ docs, FBI interview, raise new questions about Epstein's "suicide" Notes from an FBI interview indicate that prison guards discussed "cover-up"

New: Prison guards discussed cover-up in Epstein's death, inmate tells FBI. open.substack.com/pub/jkbjourn...

It makes sense if the object is to terrorise…

“Withholding medical care is a form of torture,” she said.
bsky.app/profile/mprn...

Clearly the plan is to cause as much pain & distress as possible. I don't know if it meets a legal definition of torture but it surely is.

Deaf 6-year-old boy is deported to Colombia without his medical devices, attorney says A Hayward woman and her two young children were detained and deported to Colombia after they showed up earlier this week for an asylum appointment in San Francisco, her attorney said.

ICE deported a 6 year old deaf child with severe disabilities to Columbia.

Before deporting him, they dragged him from camp to camp without providing his assistive hearing devices or a translator.

This innocent child had no way to communicate or understand what was being done to him:

Probably off to the ANZ like Key…🤔

Woman’s warning after Tinder date with Daniel Laidlaw, who faked WhatsApp messages after rape allegation Police started to question if the woman had made a false complaint.

Daniel Laidlaw was jailed for two years, nine months & two weeks on charges of forgery & fabricating evidence after creating fake WhatsApp messages to get off a rape charge. Woman’s warning about Daniel Laidlaw. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Why can’t we provide a free school meal scheme as good as Brazil’s?

Comment from Auckland University: More than half of children experiencing food insecurity in NZ do not get a free school meal

And yet we are repeatedly told that National are the ‘good economic managers’ 🤔. One of the biggest fallacies ever promoted which has taken hold through incessant repetition.

PS... the Govt having a net positive financial worth relies on the private sector, net, being in debt to Govt. This is very unusual - normally reserved for Govts that use the proceeds from trade surpluses to build up wealth funds.

Oh, and if you want to really spin the ghouls' heads ask them whether our businesses having the most negative net financial worth in the OECD is perhaps a bigger problem than having very low levels of Govt debt (and crumbling infra)? [Ends]

Folks on the other place trading competing 'analysis' of Govt debt levels / surpluses 'handed over' by red/blue led Govts. Few things to consider...
1. We could only reduce public debt by increasing private debt. We now have v.high private debt and we're getting milked by banks and rentiers. [🧵1/n]

Analysis: What would it take for Christopher Luxon to quit as prime minister? Analysis - One of Luxon's weaknesses has been his inability to take feedback. Another is his complete lack of self-doubt, writes Jo Moir.

RNZ asks “What would it take for Christopher Luxon to quit as prime minister?”. The answer is hubris. When National is voted out at the upcoming election, he’ll be gone. Bye.
#nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

If anyone is wondering, our EV fleet share is about 3%. Market share is 6-7%. It was around 10% before Luxon killed the clean car discount.

Two. They bought two.

Why dip once when you can make it a double?

Luxon’s War on the Climate - a deliberate effort to increase emissions - Greenpeace Aotearoa The Luxon Government claims they are serious about climate change. They say they are simply taking a different approach to cutting emissions, such as using price signals rather than regulations. 

And, Luxon’s lot are now going to kill the Clean Car Standard.

At a time when fuel prices are rising and emissions have to come down.

It’s a pattern and it benefits big business while the rest of us pay the price.

www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/sto...

Countries that have adopted electric vehicles the fastest will suffer the least from oil price spikes caused by the US/Israel attack on Iran.

NZ is not one of those, thanks to Luxon’s poor leadership.

#Tupac was right.

They have a billion $$/day for the #JewishSupremacist ethno-state of #ApartheidIsrael but WE don't have universal health care or free education & prices are rising for the essentials.

#NoWarButClassWar

All good questions.

So, how do businesses afford to pay $23bn dividends to shareholders and $14bn interest on debt? By charging us loads for stuff, basically. We have a chronically low-competition, weakly-regulated economy. Also worth noting that our businesses have serious high liabilities (shares, debts etc). [3/3]

I have also noticed since the TVNZ Board member story there has been a noticeable lack of mention of the poll results

There's clearly no NZ political news or developments from the last couple of days that 1 News considers newsworthy.

Just remembering how Luxon bought a new Tesla EV when there was a Clean Car Discount, then cancelled the policy so others couldn't do it, and is now canning the Clean Car Standards and adding a new tax to petrol.

What a guy.

#nzpol

😳

It's the pile of mortgage debt that matters, but house prices are a factor in that, yes.

$392bn mortgage debt x avg 4.97% interest rate = $19.5bn of interest payable.

I’d like to think therefore that governments of any stripe would be able to deduce that more affordable homes are a good thing… 🤔?