Reminder: have your say about Pharmac widening antiviral accessibility. Prevention is best, but if people do contract Covid, we want to give them an optimum convalescence. These drugs lower the risk of Long Covid. Submissions due by 5 pm tomorrow.

https://covidaction.nz/en/PharmacAntiviralsConsultation

ACT's Regulatory Standards Bill is a dangerous attack on nature and Te Tiriti. It aims to lock ACT’s far-right principles into law, ensuring corporate property and profits trump the public good, environmental protection and our founding document.

Have your say now and pass it on!
https://greenpeacenz.typeform.com/to/ZmYqREO3?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=Responsive

Rāapa: Wednesday #aotearoa #newzealand

Everything I can think of to make it easy for people to submit against the Regulatory Standards Bill [closes 1pm 23rd June]

Please pass on it on to all those you can.

https://blog.mikeriversdale.co.nz/2025/05/regulatory-standards-bill-submissions.html

NZ/ Aotearoa :100% pure and clean, green

New Zealand's unique #biodiversity is at risk as the government plans to boost mineral exports to $3bn by 2035
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/27/fast-track-to-where-the-new-law-opening-up-new-zealand-to-a-mining-boom
#newzealand #Aotearoa #biodiversity #conservation #wildlife #mining #extractivism #FossilFuels #laws

CLOSES: 1.00pm, Monday, 23 June 2025

More to come but here's the Select Committee REGULATORY STANDARDS BILL submission form: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/document/54SCFIN_SCF_E22299B3-B67B-4F74-023D-08DD9688D2C5/regulatory-standards-bill

The last possible date for the NZ general election to be held is Saturday, 19 December 2026.

This is in 572 days,

Or:
- 1 year, 6 months, 23 days
~ 18 months
~ 81 weeks

which is also:
- 49,420,800 seconds
- 823,680 minutes
- 13,728 hours

"When I think of Fiordland … I think rain on the smooth water, diminishing ridges, hanging cloud, ferns bobbing under the rain. It’s mood, its mystery, and my goodness, a moose fits in there beautifully"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/23/new-zealand-moose-mystery-fiordland-national-park

Rāhina: Monday #aotearoa #newzealand

Rare #ParasiticPlants rediscovered near Wellington https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/561451/rare-parasitic-plant-rediscovered-near-wellington

"#Aotearoa's only #ParasiticPlant has been rediscovered in #Wainuiomata, after wild populations of the species were thought to be #extinct from the region for more than a century... Te pua o te Rēinga, also known as wood rose or Dactylanthus taylorii, is endemic and critically threatened... the last documented observation of a wild population was in #Kaitoke in 1914."

Government parties, "Look, LOOK over there!! A budget. A party we kicked out. Yes, over there, LOOK ... [behind the scenes] sshhhh, now, do it now ..."

The Regulatory Standards Bill to be 'debated' next week ... under urgency ...

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/561717/david-seymour-defends-18m-annual-cost-of-regulatory-standards-bill

So do you suppose David Seymour's #Act Party were so keen to have Te Pāti Māori MP's jailed for performing a #haka because they didn't want them present as Seymour & Act attempt to rush their undemocratic and treacherous #RegulatoryStandardsBill through parliament under urgency?

Regardless of whether you support or oppose this treasonous bill, the dismantling of constitutional and democratic parliamentary process should alarm all #NZTwits. Perhaps #DavidSeymour sees this as a way of guaranteeing his ambition of bringing about a #CivilWar in #Aotearoa #NewZealand. #NZPol #AtlasNetwork #NZInitiative #TreatyOfWaitangi #TeTiritiOWaitangi #ToitūTeTiriti

https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/05/22/regulatory-standards-bill-will-be-debated-under-urgency/

How uproar over a #Māori #haka, beloved in #NewZealand life, sowed chaos and gridlock in Parliament

By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-MCLAY
Updated 7:33 AM EDT, May 20, 2025

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — "The haka, a chanting dance of challenge, is sacred to New Zealand’s Māori people but it’s become a beloved cultural institution among New Zealanders of all races. Spine-tingling performances at sports events, funerals and graduations often go viral online, a non-partisan point of pride for the country abroad.

"But one haka performed in protest in New Zealand’s Parliament by three legislators last November has provoked fierce division among lawmakers about whether it was an act of peaceful dissent, or disruptive and even intimidating to their opponents.

"A vote to approve unprecedented, lengthy bans from Parliament for the Māori party lawmakers who enacted the protest was unexpectedly suspended on Tuesday. Debate will resume in June, when it threatens to gridlock the legislative agenda until politicians from all parties reach consensus on what the punishment should be.

What is the haka?

"The haka was once viewed as a war dance, but that understanding has changed in New Zealand as it has been embraced in a range of celebratory, somber and ceremonial settings. It’s an expression of Māori identity and while sacred, it can be performed by people of any race who are educated by Māori in the words, movements and cultural protocols."

[...]

"Last November’s protest wasn’t the first time a haka has rung out in Parliament. Performances regularly follow the passage of laws important to Māori.

"But some lawmakers decried this one for two reasons: because the legislators from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori Party, left their seats and strode across the floor toward government politicians while performing it, and because it disrupted the vote on a proposed law.

"When asked how the Māori party would vote on a bill they said would dismantle #IndigenousRights, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke – New Zealand’s youngest parliamentarian, at 22 – tore up a copy of the law and began the haka, joined by two of her colleagues.

"The law, an attempt to rewrite New Zealand’s founding treaty between Māori tribal leaders and the British crown, was widely unpopular and has since been defeated. But for six months, a committee of the lawmakers’ peers have fought furiously about how — or whether — their protest of it should be punished."

Read more:
https://apnews.com/article/haka-maori-pati-zealand-parliament-suspended-treaty-c854a3703621dd1eca78d2ac02561e5c

Clean Air in Schools petition from ActionStation to the Ministers of Health and Education.

Have you signed yet?
https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/clean-air-in-schools

Excusing the use of AI this short summary of #TeTiritiOWaitangi and its relevance to the recent #Haka performed in parliament by Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi and other MPs.in protest to the dishonorable colonial supremacist #TreatyPrinciplesBill being introduced into #Aotearoa #NewZealand parliament as a government bill, is a very good way of explaining the history of #Māori, tangata whenua (people of the land) and tangata tiriti (people of the treaty) and the failure of this #NZPol government to honour the treaty. #ToituTeTiriti

https://youtu.be/Z0xOGhadWEE