Change nothing

15 comments on “Change nothing ”

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1. mickysavage 1

   6 April 2022 at 8:13 am

   Climate change … no time to stop.
2. Tricledrown 2

   6 April 2022 at 8:23 am

   The middle classes are to scared of change and want their suv's don't want their houses to fall in value so the poor can afford to live in a house.

   The kiwibuild was a great idea but the supply of labour,land and materials was never going to happen overnight . It would take 4 yrs of huge investment in training of enough trades,4 yrs of buying and freeing up land then having to import large quantities of materials as well as building more capacity in local building materials.

   All for well off middle classes.

   It would have been better to build more state houses.

   Which Labour have done.

   But the cost of building houses in NZ is phenomally expensive.

   Supply of Labour Materials and land is still a massive hurdle.

   So I have always advocated micro homes and factory built homes. This at least would give those living out of their cars or tents and living rough a warm dry roof over their heads.
3. RedLogix 3

   6 April 2022 at 8:44 am

   Fuck me you write well Ad. Consider me jealous.

   We are as punch-drunk as the government itself.

   This is only the warm-up round – the rest of this decade is likely to throw one flurry of crisis at us after another. While predicting the precise sequence of events is always a fools errand – it is highly probable that we are heading into a global food crisis due to a massive rise in the cost of fertilisers.
   • Ad 3.1

     6 April 2022 at 9:10 am

     🙂 I'll cheer up once I'm well again.

     I've just ordered a long-sleeved t-shirt of Durer's Apocalypse.
     • Patricia Bremner 3.1.1

       6 April 2022 at 10:24 pm

       Ad you are excelling at pinpointing how we feel. However change is the constant. Grin and bear it. Get well soon.
     • Patricia Bremner 3.1.2

       6 April 2022 at 10:45 pm

       There is a covid aused condition…anxiety.
   • Tricledrown 3.2

     6 April 2022 at 6:13 pm

     Redlogix We don't need potash from Russia but most agricultural producing countries do.
     • Poission 3.2.1

       6 April 2022 at 6:54 pm

       Its more then potash,both ammonia and urea are in supply deficit across europe due to the high cost of gas.

       https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/22/fertilizer-prices-are-at-record-highs-heres-what-that-means.html

       The third horseman rides.

       When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine."

       Revelation (6:5–6)
4. Tiger Mountain 4

   6 April 2022 at 8:48 am

   “Good night and good luck” from ADVANTAGE then?

   We are on “last chance power drive” for doing anything impactful about Climate Disaster and global warming, so now is not the time for inertia or woe is us.

   That sort of talk gets the filthy tories elected–who quite clearly will do worse than nothing for the working class of this country.

   The Labour Caucus need to get their shit together and make significant changes as should have been done in 2020.
   –Basic Income trial for all citizens of several hundred dollars per week paid via IRD
   –WEAG report fully implemented, all MSD debt written off
   –All student loans written off
   –Fare Free and expanded public transport
   –Free Wifi nationwide to bridge the digital divide that COVID exposed
   –State Sector Act, Reserve Bank Act etc. repealed, all senior civil servants to reapply for their jobs
   –State house mega build
   –4 day week immediately
5. Coventrie 5

   6 April 2022 at 8:56 am

   There was also the Kaikoura earthquake…a huge rebuilding work in itself, but no real time to celebrate as the next crisis came along.
6. Sanctuary 6

   6 April 2022 at 8:57 am

   TVNZ news last night perfectly encapsulated why we are doomed to catastrophic climate change.

   The IPCC story showed a person emptying their compost bin followed by a vox-pop asking people what they were doing.

   Nothing on the massive growth of SUV use.

   Nothing on the fight to get agriculture into the emissions trading scheme.

   Nothing on the massive carbon cost of tourism – in fact, the return of international tourism is greeted with near hysterical, uncritical relief by a middle class that seems to believespending an extended time in NZ is a mild version of the Gulag archipelago.

   As a society from top to bottom we appear to have absolved the big emitters and have atomised our response to individuals doing as much as possible with actually putting themselves out in any way.
7. Bryan 7

   6 April 2022 at 6:30 pm

   Certainly lost something.

   You may wish to get out more dearie.

   Nut toffee is bad for the teeth.
8. Stuart Munro 8

   6 April 2022 at 6:51 pm

   There is plenty of change that still needs to be accomplished, and to the extent that Labour believes in a competent state, they are obliged to continue and complete reforms.

   Climate change – while we are importing Indonesian coal to burn for electricity, have consigned Ellesmere to a generational (read that as no action) recovery, rely on third world planting to offset our failure to perform, and are poised to allow a hydrogen industry to exploit subsidies while driving up domestic power prices, it is safe to say that the government has failed to engage with the issue.

   Education and media reform. The merger of RNZ with the idiot channel (TV1) to save money continues the slide from banality into actual shit. One would imagine that with warning signs like the occupy morons, and more recently the self-styled 'sheriffs', alarm bells would be ringing about the lack of basic civic knowledge, and the failure of media and tertiary education to achieve this basic public function. There are decades of neoliberal dysfunction to be addressed here – but Labour remains wedded to Roger Douglas's unconscionable theft of public assets – in spite of thirty years of data showing that the public did not benefit at all. There are other parties in play of course (no, not the 'opposition' roflmao) – but Murdoch style media organizations that are fundamentally opposed to a competent state. Labour needs to regulate here, to achieve a better educated public, and to break the stranglehold of ignorant far-right wankers on our statefunded media. Why pay for that? It's neither use nor ornament.

   The economy. We need to move to a more resilient, lighterfooted, forward looking economic model than the dead hand of the Treasury beancounters will ever deliver. The crisis is upon us – there is no avoiding it, except by failing. We have a remarkably educated workforce, hampered by a management class dominated by accountants and lawyers – not engineers and technical folk. The innovation that can come of those professions – Xero etc – has already been done. Every day NZ fails to take the myriad opportunities that lie before us, we fall further behind our trading partners. Labour need to stop swallowing Treasury lies, such as real estate inflation is growth, or immigration is an unmixed blessing, and do their own homework. Or the blithering idiots across the floor of the house will be back, setting us back yet another generation.

   Local government reform. The failure of local governments to maintain, much less extend or expand critical infrastructure like sewerage and fresh water provision, is a damning indictment of the kind of self-serving fools that enjoy local government positions as sinecures. We, as a country, cannot be satisfied with their chronic failures. Kicking the can down the road just won't do, we must not settle for 'just as good as the last non-performing council', we need, as Hamlet recognised Good God, much better. The costs to community and economy (and ecology) of not doing so, though often hidden, are nevertheless substantial.

   So I would say to Labour not "Change Nothing", but: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering."
   • Patricia Bremner 8.1

     6 April 2022 at 10:33 pm

     Our first fight is keeping the Nats out.
     • Stuart Munro 8.1.1

       6 April 2022 at 10:40 pm

       I agree that it is necessary – but it is not sufficient.

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