Open Mike 16/09/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 16th, 2016 - 80 comments
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80 comments on “Open Mike 16/09/2016 ”

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  1. Paul 1
    16 September 2016 at 6:16 am

    Nicholas Jones shows he is just another Tory shill.
    What a patsy piece on Parata.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11710547

  2. Paul 2
    16 September 2016 at 6:19 am

    Our economy is performing brilliantly … so are we better off?

    Simple answer for 90% of us, Liam.
    No.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11710745

    A couple of articles he should read.

    Economic lies about the “rock star economy”
    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/09/13/economic-lies-about-the-rock-star-economy/

    We have a rock star economy addicted to meth
    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/09/15/we-have-a-rock-star-economy-addicted-to-meth/

    • Puckish Rogue 2.1
      16 September 2016 at 9:05 am

      “Strip out the student/worker visa scam immigration and rebuilding from a natural disaster and our actual growth rate is a mere .6%”

      – But you can’t strip it out, its already there. May as well say without the 3.6% growth we’d have 0% growth

      • Wayne 2.1.1
        16 September 2016 at 9:57 am

        Population growth of 2.1% and annual growth of 3.6% should produce per capita growth of 1.5%. So I am a bit skeptical about the Westpac economist analysis which produced the 0.6% figure.

        A fair bit of the population growth is in people with temporary and student visas. Many of them, especially students, will be in relatively low paid jobs, so i would wonder if they really increase per capita growth, as opposed to just matching population growth.

        I appreciate the actual increase in activity might be concentrated in certain sectors such as construction, but it is invariably the case certain sectors grow faster than other. A few years ago the high growth sector was dairy. In fact you can have declining sectors even in a period of high growth.

        Probably the best thing about current growth is that it will reduce unemployment, especially among younger people with limited skills. In fact construction generates quite a few moderate and low skilled jobs. It gets them on the ladder to better jobs.

        In North Shore (nearly 10% of the NZ population and a reasonable reflection of much of New Zealand – though I accept North Shore as a whole is better off than say South Auckland) the effects of growth are pretty evident, and seem widespread.

        • Garibaldi 2.1.1.1
          16 September 2016 at 4:54 pm

          Really great growth in the poverty area too Wayne. Food banks are creaming it and the Salvation Army et al are having a prolonged growth spurt. Prison growth must hold you in awe and it must be heartening to see your brighter future blossoming.

          • Macro 2.1.1.1.1
            16 September 2016 at 5:29 pm

            🙂

            Growth in our community food bank has been an astonishing 100% over the past year. I wonder if Bill will crow about that?

          • North 2.1.1.1.2
            16 September 2016 at 9:00 pm

            Poverty ? What’s poverty ? Wayne doesn’t see poverty. Wayne is a perennial ‘Young Nat to Old Nat’ trougher. Wayne’s acknowledgment of such ‘horridness’ is to the scandalously temeritous mention of it, rather than the fact of it.

      • McFlock 2.1.2
        16 September 2016 at 11:52 am

        Actually, you can. If the bits keeping the aggregate high are outliers, then yeah, it’s misleading to keep them in.

        If everywhere in the country was in recession, but wgtn had gdp increase of 1000%, then the figures would say “healthy growth” when the facts for almost everyone on the ground are “recession”.

  3. Paul 3
    16 September 2016 at 6:38 am

    Is this the way to solve Auckland’s traffic woes?

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11710710

    No.

    This is.
    Here is a list of cities that currently provide public transport for free.

    https://farefreepublictransport.com/city/

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      16 September 2016 at 8:28 am

      At the same time you have to massively ramp up the cost of using personal car transport on Auckland’s motorways, otherwise as the roads empty out it will become more appealing and more convenient to get back into cars.

      • Bill 3.1.1
        16 September 2016 at 10:44 am

        At the same time you have to massively ramp up the cost of using personal car transport…

        No you don’t. You can give the petrol away for free and reduce its availability at something like 15% per annum and we get to be fossil free (ie – car free) by around 2030.

        If you insist on looking at in terms of $$$, then maybe the prospect of a stranded asset – that 4WD that’s destined to be junk and impossible to re-sell would be a good enough incentive to get off the personal transport gravy train (sorry for the mixed metaphor 😉 )

        edit – should edit to add that the initial cost of giving petrol away for free would be less than $2 billion and that we currently subsidise the fossil industry to the tune of about $2.5 billion per annum.

        • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1
          16 September 2016 at 11:05 am

          Yes, you could potentially do it the ‘free but reducing volume’ way. However a population trained to think in terms of electronic dollars and not physical reality could end up pretty confused with how to correctly anticipate and appropriately act.

          • Bill 3.1.1.1.1
            16 September 2016 at 11:34 am

            meh – fill the tank. Bowsers cut out when pre-programmed trajectories of delivery volumes are exceeded and back on again when trajectories are back in range. (Have current and likely availability prominently displayed in a user friendly format in every forecourt)

            In essence, getting petrol would be no different to the present, where motorists drive to the station that lets them cash in that supermarket docket or to the one that has a slightly lower price.

            As for buying a $40 000 hunk of metal (or whatever it might cost in 2020 or 2025) with the expectation that some of the outlay will be recouped further down the line, well…the world’s full of thems that does stupid.

  4. joe90 4
    16 September 2016 at 7:19 am

    Keith Olbermann – Hillary was Wrong. All of Trump’s Supporters Are “Deplorable”

    https://youtu.be/lctYermoe-o

  5. gsays 5
    16 September 2016 at 8:20 am

    i have just listened to an apologist for human trafficking responding to allegations from a labour department investigation.
    foreign fruit picker being paid $10 an hour and ‘housed’ in an unsuitable caravan.
    he suggested id cards for workers amongst other things.
    how about a card for the exploitative employer?

    i see a direct link from this, to dear leaders pontifications on kiwi workers being lazy, stoned and lacking ambition.

    • vto 5.1
      16 September 2016 at 9:29 am

      Beneficiaries were drug-tested some time last year… of the 8,000 tested, 22 failed.

      Let’s test 8,000 employers and see what the result is …. addled like they are by ‘p’ and coke and speed and pot ….

      • gsays 5.1.1
        16 September 2016 at 11:05 am

        spot on, vto.
        not that you will read that in too many papers.

        some of these emplyers appear to be addled by $ and the need to accumulate more $.

  6. Draco T Bastard 6
    16 September 2016 at 8:49 am

    Joseph Stiglitz Says Standard Economics Is Wrong. Inequality and Unearned Income Kills the Economy

    The trickle-down notion— along with its theoretical justification, marginal productivity theory— needs urgent rethinking. That theory attempts both to explain inequality— why it occurs— and to justify it— why it would be beneficial for the economy as a whole. This essay looks critically at both claims. It argues in favour of alternative explanations of inequality, with particular reference to the theory of rent-seeking and to the influence of institutional and political factors, which have shaped labour markets and patterns of remuneration. And it shows that, far from being either necessary or good for economic growth, excessive inequality tends to lead to weaker economic performance. In light of this, it argues for a range of policies that would increase both equity and economic well-being.

    It always surprises me that so many people are fooled into thinking that making the rich richer will help them. We have the evidence, it’s been around for centuries and even millennia, that having rich people actually destroys entire societies.

    Of course, Stiglitz is still stuck in the delusion that we need growth. Development yes, growth no.

  7. joe90 7
    16 September 2016 at 9:12 am

    Buyer’s remorse, with bells.

    More and more people are now admitting that they regret voting to leave the European Union in last week’s referendum, with many claiming that they never intended to leave but simply wanted to “protest”.

    Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Barbara Ansdale, from the Black Country, said she had voted leave but “wasn’t really voting to get out of the union

    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-eu-referendum-people-regretting-leave-vote_uk_5770e6b3e4b08d2c56397a46

  8. Puckish Rogue 8
    16 September 2016 at 9:26 am

    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/09/bottom_decile_better_off_now_than_under_labour.html

    “with the top 10 per cent of households forecast to pay 37.2 per cent of income tax in 2016/17, compared with 35.5 per cent in 2007/08.”

    “the 30 per cent of households with the lowest incomes are forecast to pay just 5.4 per cent of income tax, compared with 6.3 per cent in 2007/08.”

    So if you want a fairer NZ where the richer households pay more tax and the poorer households pay less tax then the answer is obvious: vote National 🙂

    • Draco T Bastard 8.1
      16 September 2016 at 9:54 am

      The top 10% own 60% of all wealth and should, therefore, be paying 60% of all taxes.

      • Bearded Git 8.1.1
        16 September 2016 at 10:01 am

        @ Draco agreed, except possibly it is more than 60% that the top 10% now own??

        The survey completely ignores GST paid and any other taxes such as rates.

        The survey should look at the change in disposable income: top 10% versus bottom 30% and disposable income after housing costs (especially rent) top 10% versus bottom 30%, since the Gnats came to power. That will tell a completely different story.

        We are being softened up for tax cuts before the election by the childish simplistic Seymour.

      • Puckish Rogue 8.1.2
        16 September 2016 at 10:06 am

        Hey Draco the richer are paying more tax under National then they did under Labour which means the trend is going in the right direction

        Give your vote john Key so the trend continues 🙂

      • save nz 8.1.3
        16 September 2016 at 10:36 am

        Well there is plenty of corporate welfare for Hollywood in NZ. Millions on the legal case on Dotcom…. the irony of the money laundering charges against Dotcom from Hollywood when Hollywood and actors are one of the biggest users of tax havens shown up in the Panama papers (after politicians).

        Oh well, we all know that once you become super rich, you are not only exempt from paying normal taxes, but you can also buy politicians and use tax payer funds to hunt out any rivals and make them pick up your legal bill.

        Meanwhile on the Dotcom case apparently illegal US behaviour is not relevant to the case????

        “Mr Van der Kolk and Mr Ortmann’s lawyer, Grant Illingworth, told the High Court that, crucially, the court had not let the men present evidence of unlawful US behaviour.

        “[That includes] a massive search and seizure, manufacturing a situation of urgency in order to get procedural shortcuts … covering up the unlawful activities that preceded the [arrests], downstream attempts to cover that up including a police officer giving incorrect information to this court, [and] unlawfully sending clones of hard drives overseas.”

        They had also been prevented from presenting evidence from US extradition law experts that would have shown the charges were not extraditable crimes, defence lawyers said.”

        http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/313289/extra-evidence-would-not-have-helped-dotcom-crown

        And the US is keeping that money they raided illegally.

        http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/310864/us-courts-refuse-to-release-dotcom's-assets

        Maybe Dotcom should have gone with Joyce’s defence of ‘pretty legal’…

        • Puckish Rogue 8.1.3.1
          16 September 2016 at 10:45 am

          Not sure what you’re talking about has any relevance but that’s ok, send this into Grant Robertson and you’ll probably get a job on his media team 🙂

    • framu 8.2
      16 September 2016 at 12:19 pm

      why are you trying to talk taxes while not including all forms of taxation and share of income/wealth?

      its completely dishonest –

      • McFlock 8.2.1
        16 September 2016 at 12:21 pm

        questioned and answered 🙂

        • framu 8.2.1.1
          16 September 2016 at 12:27 pm

          yes, quite – questioned and answered multiple times over several years even

          i just cant believe that the net tax lie keeps coming back to life. – Either people are very gullible or very deceitful for it to keep being used time and again

          kind of staggered that people wont see the giant hole in the argument and just go back to the start – rinse and repeat

    • s y d 8.3
      16 September 2016 at 12:20 pm

      PR, thats just farkin abart wiv pissentichers.
      Maybe the bottom 30% have had a reduction in their share of overall income commensurate with the reduction in share of direct income taxes paid…… and conversely the top 10% have had a much larger increase in their income which has led to an increase in their overall share of direct tax paid.

      So if you want to make out that the rich are getting hit, give them shitloads more and they end up paying more tax.

      • Puckish Rogue 8.3.1
        16 September 2016 at 1:11 pm

        Just saying that in comparison to Labour National are doing a better job of taxing the rich and the poor 🙂

        • framu 8.3.1.1
          16 September 2016 at 2:14 pm

          but you’re using nonsense to say it – that doesnt actually work

          DPF is only talking income tax – which isnt all tax.

          He’s engaging in a deliberate lie

  9. rhinocrates 9
    16 September 2016 at 10:20 am

    Will he “stick it to Wall Street”? Probably by crashing it again.

    Meanwhile, the racism and misogyny he’s sponsoring continues to take its toll:

    http://www.salon.com/2016/03/30/trump_supporters_first_pepper_spray_then_yell_nr_lover_to_15_year_old_protester_in_paul_ryans_hometown/

    If you’re supporting Trump, these are the people standing at your side. Did you ever think that you’d make common cause with them?

  10. Puckish Rogue 10
    16 September 2016 at 10:48 am

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11710932

    Men, your country needs you! Time to stand up (or sit or lie, however your prefer) and take this issue in both hands and do it for NZ! 🙂

    I hear Shane Jones is already getting warmed up and Len Browns bursting at the seems 😉

    • Stunned mullet 10.1
      16 September 2016 at 11:27 am

      Should Len Brown’s DNA be spread about in such a way ?

      It would only serve to fill the population with (more) numpties, retard dancers and face self-slappers.

  11. Robert Guyton 11
    16 September 2016 at 12:13 pm

    Hey, Pucky. Could you take a peek into your crystal ball and or navel and tell me what you see ahead for Chester Burrows?

  12. The Chairman 12
    16 September 2016 at 1:40 pm

    With a high number of Maori in the lower social economic group and with a large number continuing to smoke, is the Māori Party advocating for the Government to double the tobacco tax increases putting their support at risk?

    Moreover, are they risking putting their people into further fiscal hardship, exacerbating all the problems that come along with that?

    I believe so. What say you?

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/maori-party-mp-marama-fox-wants-cigarettes-banned-2016091420

  13. Pasupial 13
    16 September 2016 at 2:05 pm

    This hardly feels like news given my utter lack of surprise:

    The “crumbling” state of Dunedin Hospital poses clinical, financial and organisational risk, and the facility could be forced to close if a “significant defect” was found, the strategic assessment for the Dunedin Hospital redevelopment says… signed off by Health Minister Jonathan Coleman and Finance Minister Bill English…

    The document warns not to expect more money to run services, and the board is encouraged to look at more privatisation.

    “The DHB will need to be innovative in the way it finds capital to make things happen.

    “As the DHB’s population is not projected to grow as much as other DHBs, the share of funding under the population-based funding formula is likely to reduce.”

    The budget is anticipated to break even in 2019-20 but “the steps to break-even are not completely clear at the moment”…

    The document was written by consulting firm Sapere Research Group for the politically appointed Southern Partnership Group.

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/health/hospital%E2%80%99s-facilities-crumbling

    I take this to mean that there will be increasing outsourcing to “Dunedin’s only private surgical hospital” (which, perhaps coincidentally, had the now National Party cabinet minister Woodhouse as CEO immediately preceding his entry to parliament). They certainly have not had any problems coming up with the money for building work, and just two months ago opened an expansion to their facilities (on the understanding that work would soon be coming their way?):

    the new Manaaki by Mercy day-stay facility would provide 1400 endoscopy and opthalmology procedures in the next year.

    The facility included two theatres, recovery areas, patient consult rooms and cancer treatment facilities, Mr Whitney said…
    The facility would also offer contingency capacity beds in support of Mercy Hospital and Dunedin Hospital in the event of a natural disaster

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/hospital-day-stay-facility-opened

    Mercy Hospital is performing cardiac surgery for Dunedin Hospital.

    While it is not unusual for work to be outsourced to Mercy, the private hospital has not performed public cardiac surgery before….

    A statement from Southern District Health Board patient services medical director Richard Bunton, who is also one of the surgeons performing cardiac surgery at Mercy, said the hospital was ”partnering” with Mercy over the next year while the ICU was upgraded.

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/health/public-heart-surgery-mercy-hospital

    That “next year while the ICU was upgraded” may somewhat protracted by the fact that when it comes to construction the Southern Partnership Group chairman says (from first link):

    “We have to keep disappointing people who are wanting to know where it’s going to be and what size it’s going to be.

    “Next year we will have a better idea of the options, but even then it’s going to be the following year before we narrow it down,” Mr Blair said.

  14. James 14
    16 September 2016 at 2:29 pm

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/84243686/poor-polls-sensitive-issue-as-labour-mps-brace-for-genderbalanced-list

    Will Labour keep its pledge to gender balance its caucus by 2017 ? This will be interesting.

  15. alwyn 15
    16 September 2016 at 2:38 pm

    I see that Phil Goff and James Shaw are demonstrating yet again why The New Zealand Super Fund should be wound up and the money spent or returned to the taxpayer, and why politicians shouldn’t have anything to do with people’s investment decisions.
    Goff, if I heard this morning’s Morning Report correctly thinks that the Super Fund should invest in Auckland’s more useless, unprofitable, investments.
    The aim of the Super fund was to invest in profitable ventures in order, in 20-30 years time it will be able to afford National Super. Phil seems to think it is a great grey green greasy lump of cash to throw at things that will never pay off. Light rail to the airport seems to be one of his favourites.
    Shaw seems to believe that the state should decide where people are allowed to invest their own super savings. Ban any Kiwsaver fund from investing, no matter how indirectly, in anyone involved in supplying goods or services to a company in the nuclear industry. No doubt he will expand the rules to any company that makes sugar which is, to a Green, evil, Evil, EVIL. To hell with the fact that people are trying to provide for their retirement. James knows best.
    Politicians should never be allowed to get involved in business. They don’t give a damn about benefit to the population they dominate. They just want to give themselves a warm fuzzy feeling.

    • The Chairman 15.1
      16 September 2016 at 3:42 pm

      Shaw is advocating to clear the grey area in our current law.

      Apparently, trading shares between shareholders (in unethical investments) isn’t seen as investing in unethical investments, even though the end result is the same. One ends up owning shares in an unethical investment.

    • Garibaldi 15.2
      16 September 2016 at 4:46 pm

      Keep pumping that sugar Alwyn. It’s good for shortening your life.

    • reason 15.3
      16 September 2016 at 5:19 pm

      Much better to have fraudulent business models like merrill lynch and tax dodge artists like john key to rip off tax payers and investors in the ‘free market’ ????…

      It appears most likely american tax payers paid for keys bank of american shares …… it’s a fascinating story and involves merrill lynch being among the worst of the worst and almost bringing down the u.s.a financial system at the start of the GFC ….

      And it’s Information I came about thanks to you Alwyn ………..

      Key should have his own little pirate flag …………… you’d kiss it 😉

  16. Tautoko Mangō Mata 16
    16 September 2016 at 3:11 pm

    Announced today in Australia: TPP Senate Inquiry welcomed by community group

    A Senate inquiry has been called into the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, in response to a letter sent to parliamentarians from 60 community organisations representing over 2 million Australians.

    The inquiry was moved jointly by the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team, supported by the ALP and approved in the Senate on Thursday, September 15.

    The TPP is currently being examined by the Joint Standing Committee On Treaties, on which the government has a majority. The assessment of the TPP being considered by the committee has been done by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which negotiated the Treaty.

    “We are delighted that majority in the Senate has answered the call from community organisations representing over 2 million Australians and decided to conduct a Senate inquiry into the TPP,” Dr Patricia Ranald, Convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network said today

    “The TPP expands corporate rights at the expense of people’s rights and deserves far more critical scrutiny than is possible by the government-dominated Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, which has not conducted independent assessments of the TPP’s economic health and environmental impacts. A Senate inquiry will enable the full critical scrutiny which the TPP deserves.

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1609/S00034/tpp-senate-inquiry-welcomed-by-community-groups.htm

    No such luck here in NZ.

  17. James 17
    16 September 2016 at 4:24 pm

    Mr Trotter on the Polls and the UMR release…

    http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/a-better-poll.html

    Love the opening …

    Bogus? So devastating was the latest One News/Colmar Brunton poll result for Labour that the Opposition leader, Andrew Little, declared it “bogus”. In desperation, Labour released its own – vastly more encouraging – internal poll data from UMR Research. Unfortunately, in political terms, this is a bit like presenting an affidavit testifying to your beauty and intelligence, signed by your Mum.

  18. Nick 18
    16 September 2016 at 4:30 pm

    Clinton will lose the election, either by resigning due to Parkinsons disease (rumour) or simply trumped……maybe Bernie will replace her?

  19. The Chairman 19
    16 September 2016 at 4:54 pm

    Brownlee’s being accused by New Zealand First of “spending like a drunken sailor” over the purchase of a new Naval tanker.

    Deputy leader Ron Mark claims the new ship is costing the taxpayer twice as much as it should, citing the costs of similar vessels purchased by the Royal Navy and the Norwegian Navy.

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/new-navy-ship-a-rip-off-nz-first-claims-2016091216

    • Draco T Bastard 19.1
      16 September 2016 at 5:10 pm

      National’s economic (mis)management coming to the fore again.

      • The Chairman 19.1.1
        16 September 2016 at 8:02 pm

        To be fair, NZ has a somewhat questionable history when it comes to defence procurements.

        • Draco T Bastard 19.1.1.1
          17 September 2016 at 12:24 am

          True but I don’t think that there’s been a case where they’ve paid twice as much for the same item.

          • The Chairman 19.1.1.1.1
            17 September 2016 at 10:48 am

            I can neither confirm nor deny offhand.

            However, I’ve yet to hear Brownlee’s side of it.

            He may have a legitimate excuse. Then again, he may not.

  20. The Chairman 20
    16 September 2016 at 8:03 pm

    It’s been estimated Japan’s population could fall by half in just 24 years.

    On average, a country needs a birth rate of 2.2 children per woman just to hold the population steady – what’s known as “replacement fertility”.

    Japan’s at 1.4
    New Zealand is also below that line, at 2.04
    Australia’s got it worse – just 1.77
    The world’s worst is Singapore – 0.81.

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/nz-among-countries-with-a-sex-problem-2016091420?ref=ves-nextauto

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