Māori leaders question Bunnings' facial recognition rollout Two Bunnings Warehouse stores in Hamilton have rolled out the use of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT), sparking greater questions around ethics and cultural safety.

Two Bunnings Warehouse stores in Hamilton have rolled out the use of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT), sparking greater questions around ethics and cultural safety.

“The NZ government is so abysmal it has reached the point of being condemned at the UN” should be a much bigger story than it currently is.

Glad to see you rose a place after the members had a go 🤓

This Data Center Is Getting a $77 Million Tax Break to Create One Job No other project in the country has gotten such a large subsidy to create so few jobs, according to watchdogs.

A New Jersey data center will reportedly receive $77 million in tax breaks — while only creating one permanent job.

One job, in exchange for higher utility bills, noise pollution, and potential groundwater pollution.

Is it any wonder communities are organizing to stop data centers?

Who would have guessed that if you progressively defund science and redesign a university to value bean-counting over serious research, some of the best people find cushier gigs elsewhere! What a mystery!

Luxon and Willis give confirmation of what was obvious to most of us already: they inhabit some weird alternative reality.

bigger, more detailed story here in the guardian than I've seen in any NZ media

why is that? 🤔🤔

Tech giants and giant slayers: the case for digital sovereignty Digital Sovereignty – control over a country’s digital infrastructure, data and technology – is critical for economic and national security

A handful of global tech firms now underpin our economies, governments, & public discourse.
They aren’t elected.
They aren’t neutral.
And increasingly – they aren’t accountable.

Clive Lewis MP on the UK's growing dependency ⤵️

@eastangliabylines.co.uk @labourlewis.bsky.social

I am honestly surprised that anyone is surprised by this.

This design flaw is entirely inherent in any tool that exposes “run a sub command and communicate with it” - aka configurable client/server designs

Like the api is:

command = arbitrary exec code go here

??? That’s Surprising?

"This is important." - NZ @greens.org.nz Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, 5:50pm, 20 April 2026. Luxon lies to Aotearoa. #CoC have cut flood protection spending and investment by 💥41%💥 (compared to the previous govt) #FloodsNZ #ClimateCrisis

#NZpol

So one of our biggest insurers said we've got to move from a "react and respond" to "better preparation as a Nation going forward".

Pretty explicit.

Ofc, that was an excellent opportunity for a real news person to step in and say, "Yes, what Greens have been pushing for, hmmm, DECADES?"

Just a reminder that @maramadavidson.bsky.social tried to get this across the line here, but it got killed by NZF

Party vote @greens.org.nz 💚
#nzpol

Break up supermarket duopoly and guarantee liveable incomes We are building a future where we do more, faster, to protect our planet and make sure everyone is treated equally.

"It is, on the surface, the boldest thing any political party has said about the grocery market in years."

A certain commentator on the NZ First announcement.

There's just one problem: the Greens announced a policy to break up the supermarket duopoly 4 years ago.

www.greens.org.nz/break_up_sup...

Almost everything we argue about is a substitute for the thing we should be arguing about: the immense wealth & power of an oligarchic class, which captures governments, ruins lives and wrecks the living planet.
This class redirects our rage at scapegoats. To resist its lies is to resist its power.

Free plug-in solar panels to be rolled out to some households The technology is designed to be a simpler and more affordable way of benefiting from renewable energy

"Plug-in solar panels are solar panels which can be put on balconies or outdoor spaces and then plugged directly into a mains socket to provide a home with free solar energy"

Be good to allow these in NZ!

inews.co.uk/news/politic...

More than a ‘posh picnic’: Why Sam Neill is right to question the mine OPINION: How have we reached a point where people proudly claiming they've never been to Central Otago are having their say on a new gold mine there.

“Tailings dams are a toxic time bomb that pose one of the greatest risks to their surrounding environment and the people who depend on that environment for their livelihoods.”

What went wrong in Israel? A genocide scholar examines ‘what Zionism became’ In his new book, Omer Bartov tracks how a liberatory strand of Zionism transformed into an extremist ideology that he sees as responsible for genocide in Gaza

“Israel is now the best excuse for antisemites everywhere,a nation whose addiction to violence and oppression,reliance on great powers and financial clout,and constant harping on the horrors of the Holocaust as excuse for untethered violence against Palestinians"

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Aotearoa NZ has a Race Relations Commissioner who couldn't bring herself to name Jones' comments as "racist", who managed to insert anti-semitism into the first 30secs of an interview about Indian NZers?!
Goldsmith must be so proud. his handpicked RRC, a founding member of the FSU & transphobe.
JFC.

I try to keep in mind that their aim is for us to feel powerless so we do nothing. That they want me to feel powerless makes me angry as. Sometimes righteous anger is a very strong fuel for action.

Simeon Brown giving really bad answers in the House. He' has very clearly not asked for advice for alternative dry year backup electricity generation if the LNG terminal doesn't progress.

Same slogans rehearsed in reply to almost questions. Clearly rattled.

Extreme weather scientists warn of impending funding drought 'Some nerd sitting in an office' doesn't seem like exciting research to fund but it's answering urgent questions about severe weather, a climate scientist says.

These are the kind of people we will be needing more of as climate change worsens. The extreme weather events around the country are a stark reminder that the coalition govt. is plucking out the eyes of our research system by reducing $ / shifting $ to things they think will make $$ fast.
#NZPOL

Inside the Rage Machine review – we’re all doomed, totally doomed Whistleblowers who once worked at Meta and X (until the guilt got too much) reveal the truth about the companies that increasingly rule our free time – and it’s even worse than you may have feared. Pr...

"The handful of billionaires who own these platforms and keep getting richer (and building bunkers in New Zealand, by the way) while the rest of the world gets poorer are probably not working on secret wealth-redistribution programmes"

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Green Party issues 'human catastrophe' warning in 'State of the Planet' address Co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick laid out their blueprint for self-sufficiency in Wellington.

"The cost of food, of energy, of rent keeps climbing, while wages stay flat. Communities that were already struggling are being hit hardest by rising price, by wars they did not start, by a global fossil-fuel economy that treats ordinary people as an afterthought."

www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

The Mythos story landed while I was on a break so I didn't get into it on time ... but with everything I have seen this week this looks the likeliest take to me so far.

They also refused to pay a bond to cover possible failure of the tailings dam (which will last for decades) and then clean-up after such a disaster.

They refused, obviously, because they will not make enough from all the gold they will extract and sell!

"high conviction"????

Any government that isn't right now accelerating plans to transition to 100% clean, renewable energy is either:

a. Incompetent
b. In the pockets of people who'd rather they didn't
c. a & b

Not computation, capitalism. Guzzling resources and forcing the working class to foot the bill while also cheerfully bullying them into using their shitty product so their wages and job security plummet even faster is basically all the capitalism “bads” at once, of course people are pissed

The point of the university as a concept is that it's been here for a thousand years and meant to be here another thousand. Turning education over to producing what the market needed five years ago is never going to work well.

This is the biggest sign of the absolute guttering of US soft power. Whole countries are actively choosing Linux. Decades of Linux meming risks being overturned.