Daily review 05/04/2019

32 comments on “Daily review 05/04/2019 ”

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1. Rosemary McDonald 1

   5 April 2019 at 5:25 pm

   Two principals from North Island schools discuss the Tomorrow Schools review with Kathryn Ryan.

   https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018689686/examining-the-tomorrow-s-schools-review

   I can’t see a transcript, but this is very well worth the effort listening to it.

   Pat Newman in particular fails to mince words over what he sees are the major issues, the biggest handicaps (the petty bureaucrats who halve funding for special needs) and the seeming assumption that schools are somehow the cause rather than an indicator of society’s ills.
2. Gabby 2

   5 April 2019 at 5:31 pm

   One does wonder if these hubs will turn out to be better than DHBs.
   • Rosemary McDonald 2.1

     5 April 2019 at 6:09 pm

     “One does wonder if these hubs will turn out to be better than DHBs.’

     hah! Gabby gets off a good one !

     Seriously though…both blokes see some benefits, but neither see the Hubs as being even close to a solution.

     And if something is going to be done it needs doing now….not months or years down the track as part of some staggered partial roll out strategy.

     SSDD
3. BM 3

   5 April 2019 at 6:04 pm

   Nice looking cat, I’ve got one similar.
   Bet it’s chatty.
   • marty mars 3.1

     5 April 2019 at 6:13 pm

     Yeah we got a kitten then a puppy recently. Man what a difference the cat smells so nice and the puppy smells doggy and lumbers around so goddam cute and endearing too. I’ve had a newfy before and this vizsla going to be fun – anyone had one?
     • BM 3.1.1

       5 April 2019 at 7:49 pm

       Nice looking dog.
       Why a vizsla?
       • marty mars 3.1.1.1

         5 April 2019 at 8:04 pm

         Wanted smart, short haired, good family dog, a runner – one came along and looked cute lol
     • BM 3.1.2

       5 April 2019 at 8:52 pm

       I’m sure he’s going to be a great addition to the Mars family unit.
       Make the most of his/her time on earth.
   • lprent 3.2

     6 April 2019 at 7:53 am

     Bet it’s chatty.

     Nope. Mort is almost silent. A few quiet queries (I’m really hungry and why is it taking so long), chirps (the door is closes – why?), zombie chattering (look at the bird – someday it is going to be dinner), and near silent cries of frustration (where is my door into summer? as the rain keeps falling).

     Talks a lot with body language. A born night ambush panther.

     Rescue kitten, so who knows what genetic strains are there. But one of the quiet strains.
4. Andre 4

   5 April 2019 at 6:06 pm

   That’s the look of someone that’s just spotted a cable that needs morting. To stimulate the new tooth to grow in properly.
   • lprent 4.1

     6 April 2019 at 7:58 am

     So far we haven’t had any major problems.

     He learnt the rule about keyboards pretty fast
5. patricia bremner 5

   5 April 2019 at 7:01 pm

   Is that your baby Incognito? Watched a lovely video on the website 1bike1world About a guy &cat
   • Anne 5.1

     5 April 2019 at 7:08 pm

     I think Mort is waiting patiently for din-dins.
     • Macro 5.1.1

       5 April 2019 at 9:04 pm

       Mine wakes me every morning at 6 am with a CAT scan and loving kiss on the nose. If that doesn’t work she mews my name! “Meow meow” the inflection actually sounds like my name. She is brindle, so being a student of the “Scottish play” I have to leap up before she mews thrice. 🙂
       • Anne 5.1.1.1

         5 April 2019 at 9:29 pm

         My large ginger and white girl doesn’t bother with niceties in the morning – or any time for that matter. She flounces into the bedroom and hollers blue murder until I get up and feed her. Owns the place she does. 🙁
   • Incognito 5.2

     5 April 2019 at 9:31 pm

     Mort is Lynn’s baby.
     • patricia bremner 5.2.1

       5 April 2019 at 11:02 pm

       Thanks, Mort reminds us of a black cat we once had called Beedle. Sorry Lyn should have remembered.
     • lprent 5.2.2

       6 April 2019 at 8:07 am

       Lyn’s baby.

       I get to cut cat doors and pay for microchips and neutering experiences. Oh and do the play beat ups of the cat to help train his body to be more lithe and faster.

       Nice thing is that kittens grow up fast.
       • Anne 5.2.2.1

         6 April 2019 at 10:16 am

         No they don’t. You’ve got up to two years of sheer madness in front of you.
         • Sabine 5.2.2.1.1

           6 April 2019 at 10:28 am

           🙂
           so true
6. UncookedSelachimorpha 6

   5 April 2019 at 7:45 pm

   Unfortunately, the coalition government has not changed any fundamentals.

   Homeless people are being turned away by WINZ, told there simply is no emergency housing available. John Key would be proud.

   Homeless told there’s no emergency accommodation available
   • Jenny - How to get there?The 6.1

     6 April 2019 at 9:01 am

     Instead of flogging them off to private landlords or letting them stand empty, maybe Phil Twyford could keep all the unsold Kiwibuild houses for emergency housing?

     https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12171924

     https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/04/it-s-a-fail-government-forced-to-buy-kiwibuild-houses-that-weren-t-selling.html

     John A. Lee, John A. Lee, John A. Lee, John A. Lee
7. WeTheBleeple 7

   5 April 2019 at 8:07 pm

   Psa drove large numbers of kiwifruit growers – not to diversify – but to grow gold kiwifruit instead. Now they are learning the gold variety has a shorter harvest window, requiring more workers over a shorter time frame.

   This pulse in labor required is always problematic.

   It would make more sense to have areas with a diversity of orchards that would harvest and prune over a much longer season. It is easy as a worker to switch from kiwis to apples to stone fruit to berries – from pack houses to picking to pruning, it’s learn on the go stuff.

   The problem has always been the expectation that a migrant/student/backpacking workforce is available on call for short seasons. This is presumptuous. Diversification of orchards would give better steady income and thus opportunities for guests and locals.

   Do we already have a diverse system (over the country) that is not connected? One major issue is accommodation. I got no problem pitching in seasonally, but it needs to be relatively easy. A wee cabin, an evening meal and a cut lunch, a washing machine and clothes line… That’d work. Then you can pick all day pack all night and cope. Got to go to the next town? Is it relatively easy?

   Maybe an organisation to connect the dots for workers? And diversify the orchards more…

   In Queensland Australia workers from Indonesia told me they’d switch working on multiple crops over a long season and then return, comparatively rich, to their home for four months. One English/Thai couple I met worked six months in Australia as pickers, and spent six in Thailand in relative luxury with servants and all – from the picking money.

   Some Aussies worked a picking lifestyle. Travelling state to state, sleeping under the stars most times. Good people.
   • greywarshark 7.1

     5 April 2019 at 11:21 pm

     My idea is for government to grow a working practical brain and a pair, and put a fit workforce under training as a home force and they could travel around with the jobs and go back to visit the marae and see the old people and do things there also. Many would be living in the city
   • AB 7.2

     6 April 2019 at 9:25 am

     Interesting how the growers are so keen to interfere in markets. In a properly operating market system, obtaining lots of labour at short notice for a short duration should cost sh*loads.
     Not being prepared to accept that, the growers command the coercive power of the state to break the labour market by giving work permits to lots of migrant workers. Right wing nanny statism at its worst. It seems that the purity of markets matters way less than protecting and increasing the value of the capital investment. But then neoliberalism was always a class project, rather than one founded in immutable economic truths. The latter was just the spin.
     However, having set the precedent of coercive state intervention, the growers have opened the door for other variants of such intervention. Such as turning ownership of the orchards over to the pickers/packers who could organise the sort of cooperative mobile workforce operating over different agricultural sectors that WTB describes.
     • WeTheBleeple 7.2.1

       6 April 2019 at 9:48 am

       It’s not just the labor the growers went at the government for; they tried to sue them for the Psa. A bacteria…

       They’re demanding 1/2 billion dollars. Government is appealing

       https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/country/384421/kiwifruit-growers-psa-case-government-s-appeal-begins
     • solkta 7.2.2

       6 April 2019 at 10:06 am

       Purists Neo-liberals would argue that the whole world is “The market” and having controls on the movements of labour within that in the first place is the interference.
       • AB 7.2.2.1

         6 April 2019 at 12:03 pm

         Yes they would – they’ll push the free market idea until it’s no longer in their specific economic interests to do so. Then they’ll abandon it for state protection. The drop-off rate would become very sharp once the more extreme, purist forms of the market is approached.
     • WeTheBleeple 7.2.3

       6 April 2019 at 10:45 am

       I don’t think it would be hard to connect the dots to create a longer season for a more stable orchard workforce. Infrastructure would be on a case by case basis. Obviously extending localised seasons makes any accommodation infrastructure more viable. These might also be used for low income tourist accommodation off season. Rules would need to be set so they are available for purpose (in season, and to help workers not bleed their income).

       It’s much better for growers too, all those experienced hands. Many locals would be the ones who stay back in their respective regions for pruning, replanting maintenance etc so their housing is already catered for (haha – see what I did there). Others might want to live more transiently, following the work here then taking a holiday/working offshore, and repeat. A good life for those who love working outdoors. Guests make up the numbers around harvesting and this season would be extended via the countrywide network – and some localized diversification.

       A system that works for growers and workers.

       As we switch to more sustainable practice labor requirements in agricultural systems could rise as well (but other bills will drop off and other income streams arise due to better design so don’t panic just yet).

       Happy fed workers are tremendous assets. When I worked with a local rock and roll crew we laughed and built stages all day and smashed load out records all night. Respectful bosses, got us to and from jobs, a feed and a break when we needed it, kept us watered, paid us, told us what was going on, said thank you. In return we took great care of very heavy very expensive gear.

       This was remarked upon by many visiting crew and artists. Kieth Richards even came up to me after a show, “thanks for taking such good care of our gear mate”, and handed me some guitar picks i dished out to the boys – that’s acknowledgment!

       They built loyalty, camaraderie, a joy for work so that the 10th truck was merely the 10th set of a decent workout, and we’d laugh and load it up. Likewise smashing kiwifruit records when the money was OK to live on, laughing as the fruit rained down. Te Puke then Taranaki, down South for some apples, good money then, contracting apples.

       In contrast years later, doing 14 hours pick by day pack by night for minimum wage to make it ‘worth’ the temporary move, go to overpriced accommodation cook make lunch everything hurts sleep no washing darnit sleep ahh not coming everything hurts repeat repeat can’t shop no hours to shop just work work hurt. Six weeks. Goodbye.

       Went off on a rant, didn’t I. 😉
8. Stuart Munro. 8

   5 April 2019 at 11:05 pm

   There seems to be a growing trope in discussing the US/China relationship, to characterize it as “Thucydides’ Trap”.

   https://www.belfercenter.org/index.php/publication/thucydides-trap-are-us-and-china-headed-war
   • WeTheBleeple 8.1

     6 April 2019 at 5:23 am

     Shame about the prejudice of the author of the article.

     “the U.S.-led international order, which has provided unprecedented great-power peace and prosperity for the past 70 years”

     ‘Unprecedented peace’ – that must be what gets televised into my home each day. The bombs of peace, the troops of peace, the drones of peace, the embargoes of peace. More recently, the openly murderous rich friends of peace.

     Let’s not forget the extent and breadth of their involvement. Dozens of military interventions since WWII and they were at it well before then. Two wars in Samoa ffs.

     “China wants to be China and accepted as such—not as an honorary member of the West.”

     And there’s the rub. America is delusional and continues to call itself the greatest country in the world. They’re largely assholes and bullies. The American ego knows no bounds.
     • Stuart Munro. 8.1.1

       6 April 2019 at 1:26 pm

       Well of course the US has been in decline since the 70s.

       They were lousy colonists, and too often allowed corporations to bend their policy for private advantage. But they had moments – the Marshal Plan, the Korean intervention, the Berlin Airlift.

       And these few moments grew out of an enlightenment political culture, and in some cases the influence of Christianity. I’m not sure what we can expect of China, if push comes to shove, neither Taoism nor Confucianism seems particularly predictive, and Chinese communism is pretty opaque to outsiders. Malay and Indonesian experience of Chinese colonialism however, is not encouraging.

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