Daily review 28/11/2023

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, November 28th, 2023 - 51 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

51 comments on “Daily review 28/11/2023 ”

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  1. SPC 1
    28 November 2023 at 5:47 pm

    It is rare for me to agree with ACT MP's, current or former, so when it occurs one must note the occasion.

    The Pharmac funding model prioritises savings on the upstream costs of medicines rather than the downstream impacts and costs to patients and their families, the wider health system and the economy. The cost of medicines should only be part of the decision calculation.

    What the model doesn’t adequately consider is the cost of not treating people, such as the personal and societal burden of inability to work and the impact of chronic diseases on other, more costly health services. The list is long.

    https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/nz-news/350119373/pharmacs-failed-culture-overdue-shake?utm_source=stuff_website&utm_medium=stuff_referral&utm_campaign=mh_stuff&utm_id=mh_stuff

    It has astounded me that Treasury has never determined the cost of Pharmac on the health system. People not well treated at the primary level soon become a cost at the secondary level – for mine it ruined the finances of the health boards (all that dialysis that could have been avoided with better drug treatment of diabetes earlier – and it took so long for us to change course).

    Then there are all those on benefits, because their health was compromised.

    If ACC was managing Pharmac they would intervene to get people back work capable because it would reduce their future cost.

    The role of Pharmac has to be connected to some intelligent management as per reducing impost on the health and welfare system of people's health conditions not being well managed. Reducing the cost on Pharmac is not the same thing as reducing the health and welfare costs on the rest of government – nor of doing the right thing by the people concerned – that word well-being.

    That said the same thing applies with reducing addiction to a product that contains a carcinogen, and some focus on a healthy standard of housing and processed food (rules as per adding sugar and salt). Even investment in affordable access to prescriptions, dental care, access to primary health and provision of healthy food in schools.

    • satty 1.1
      28 November 2023 at 5:53 pm

      Agreed, I’m not sure how this reconciles with ACTs / Coalition (of Chaos) smoking policies:

      the downstream impacts and costs to patients and their families, the wider health system and the economy

      Maybe, they are just hypocrites.

      • SPC 1.1.1
        28 November 2023 at 6:05 pm

        The property owning middle class want their cancer drugs, the profile of nicotine addicts is largely (some libertarian chaos capitalism junkies excepted) otherwise.

        A parallel, they champion free speech but want criticism of Zionist nationalist excess condemned as antisemitism.

        It’s about who they have affinity for and those they could not care less about.

        Big corporate tobacco (tick), business owner retailers (tick) – indigenous poor to be ethnically cleansed of their identity, lives and place here. With no identity here – the high rents and low wages mean they are economically better off migrating to Oz.

      • satty 1.1.2
        28 November 2023 at 6:09 pm

        Additional thoughts… maybe we should prepare a list of industries (companies) that probably did their best funding the election campaigns of "The Coalition":

        • Tobacco
        • Oil/Gas
        • Pharmaceutical
        • Real Estate
        • Industrial Farming / Food
        • Car dealerships (we don't really have a car industry as such)
        • Banks (?)

        We should consider most/all of those industries "drug dealers" working with products that increase dependencies / addictions.

        • SPC 1.1.2.1
          28 November 2023 at 6:29 pm

          I'd add employers (limited MW increases – no Fair Pay Agreement/Industry Awards).

          And landlords

          And also the pay day loans industry

          And also tobacco, liquor and gambling retail outlets in low income neighbourhoods.

        • Ad 1.1.2.2
          28 November 2023 at 8:51 pm

          Bruce Jesson was the last one to draw a map of all the company directorships and how they all interrelated. He did it back in the late 1980s. Of course they still exist.

          Anyone who underestimates Luxon's preparation to fully alter power is going to be gravely mistaken.

    • AB 1.2
      28 November 2023 at 7:06 pm

      There is likely to be some truth in that – but I'm not sure exactly how Pharmac makes its decisions. I would doubt very much that it is made purely on the grounds of cost or some narrow definition of clinical efficacy. Health economics is a mature and pretty sophisticated affair, so Pharmac must surely consider downstream lifetime costs?

      I think your comments are bang on about the preventative medicine space though – how much money would the health system save on diabetes drugs and dialysis if every household had access to healthy food not stuffed with sugar, and crap fizzy drink producers had to pay the actual social cost of their products?

      • SPC 1.2.1
        28 November 2023 at 7:35 pm

        No Pharmac is as the former ACT MP says. It's a known known.

        It took years of people pointing out that the cheaper diabetes 2 drug they provided resulted in people going onto dialysis loss or work capability/cost to health boards. In another case the more costly drug allowed people to remain employed and yet …people had to organise to bring some intelligence into the equation.

        IP and Pharmac.

        An analysis led by researchers in Britain found that a year’s supply of the drug could be manufactured at an estimated cost of just $5,700.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/07/health/cystic-fibrosis-drug-trikafta.html

        https://www.cfnz.org.nz/news-and-events/latest-news/we-did-it-trikafta-to-be-funded-in-aotearoa-by-april-2023/

        Sure some on the right just wanted drugs for middle class people – cancer drugs etc when it impacted on those they knew.

        • Ed1 1.2.1.1
          28 November 2023 at 9:00 pm

          I had understood that they maximised the impact on patients for the lowest possible cost – if a new drug is more effective than an older one, that may cause a drop in price that means the slightly less effective drug gives better results per dollar – hence why we often get requests to fund latest treatment. The answer to that problem is to increase funding, but not surprisingly all governments find Pharmac (and those that sell drugs) will use as much money as they are given. The bulk purchasing model has served us well; having a government intervene over a well publicised wonder drug puts a government in a difficult position. National are inclined to find examples where there are not many patients to push spending more for political purposes – it seems Nicola Willis did not realise the political difficulties involved.

  2. Anne 2
    28 November 2023 at 6:46 pm

    Well, its coming thick and fast:

    Andrew Shaw, a television veteran who served on the board of NZ On Air, has resigned after criticising Winston Peters.

    In a post on LinkedIn, Shaw called Peters “malicious” and thuggish. Shaw’s comments were in response to Peters’ ongoing attacks against reporters, which stem from the NZ On Air administered Public Interest Journalism Fund.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/301016371/live-nz-on-air-board-member-resigns-after-calling-winston-peters-malicious

    The meme: under no circumstances must you tell the truth, even in your capacity as a private citizen.

    • Robert Guyton 2.1
      28 November 2023 at 7:00 pm

      Tuesday night challenge: Who said this?

      “Peters attack's independence of media. He's not truthful. He's not accurate. He's malicious and he is here on behalf of international tobacco. His return is the worst of this gang of thugs."

      Anne, you're not allowed to play 🙂

      • bwaghorn 2.1.1
        28 November 2023 at 7:47 pm

        Winston's first scalp said it, how long can luxon hold together a coalition with a deranged old man ,

        • Tony Veitch 2.1.1.1
          28 November 2023 at 8:04 pm

          I have the impression, perhaps wrongly, that Luxon will be a travelling PM – "promoting the interests of NZ overseas," for two reasons:

          First, to avoid QT in the House as much as possible – even his ego won't be able to cope with the hammering it'll get, and

          Secondly, to distance himself as much as possible from the infighting within his cabinet, and not only between Winnie and Davie.

          He's already begun distancing himself from Winnie's outrageous statements.

      • SPC 2.1.2
        28 November 2023 at 8:26 pm

        I have not come to facilitate Shaw's redemption, for Shaw was not entirely honest himself.

        National opposed the reduction from 6000 to 600 tobacco outlets in parliament saying it would facilitate a black market (cost it tax money from poor people who did not vote National).

        And this was in the NACT coalition agreement

        "Repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022 to remove the requirements for denicotinisation and the reduction in retail outlets."

        The three stooges were in it together.

  3. Ad 3
    28 November 2023 at 7:56 pm

    OK yes it's sad but it would have been great if Labour had moved this fast in 2017.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/northland-regional-council-chair-geoff-crawford-elected-at-explosive-meeting/YD4U4GPDARHUFF73BFE5HOVG6Q/

    So many decades of experience and leadership trashed.

  4. SPC 4
    28 November 2023 at 8:18 pm

    International embarrassment

    1. The Kiwi bird stops being monogomous and starts dating Australasian imports just because they are now popular
    2. Having a Health Minister called “Shane Cigaretti” and a Finance Minister called “Nicotine Willis”.
    3. Being represented overseas by a raptured bald man with waxing and waning wings on each side.

    But what is to come will be worse

    A nation holding its breath waiting for the Guardian, or the BBC, or worse American late night TV to do a once over of the rest of the policies of the coalition.

    • Pat 4.1
      28 November 2023 at 8:24 pm
      1. A nation holding its breath waiting for the Guardian, or the BBC, or worse American late night TV to do a once over of the rest of the policies of the coalition.

      Really?

      Id suggest most couldnt give a toss what those offshore think…they are concerned about the reality of their day to day lives, not how some ill informed foreign journo wishes to spin it.

      • SPC 4.1.1
        28 November 2023 at 8:31 pm

        It would be the well informed one that would most embarrass "brand New Zealand" for the government its people elected.

        And dismissing critics, as ill informed, is what apologists for a regime would insinuate.

        • Pat 4.1.1.1
          28 November 2023 at 8:38 pm

          Those that matter to NZ (inc) do not base their decisions on MSM reporting….they base it on RoI….and the likes of the Guardian/ BBC CNN are so far behind the curve that they dont figure.

          • SPC 4.1.1.1.1
            28 November 2023 at 8:43 pm

            You seem to be confusing voter behaviour here with our brand reputation abroad – which does have consequences.

            Wait till they do a look at our Paris Accord position and our waterways.

            Grist to the mill for the buy local campaigners and those supermarkets that greenwash.

            Consider the selling of fish caught by bottom trawling as an example.

            • Pat 4.1.1.1.1.1
              28 November 2023 at 8:50 pm

              Voters dont care about foreign MSM reporting, they care about hip pocket.

              Hip pocket is impacted by foreign investment/ investor perception of NZ….and that does not rely upon MSM reportage…as said MSM reportage is at best lagging if not totally erroneous.

              If we are going to suffer from the likes of CC implications it will occur long before it appears in the MSM.

              • SPC …
                28 November 2023 at 8:55 pm

                Maybe just confused about what the issue I was raising was.

                • Pat …
                  28 November 2023 at 9:12 pm

                  Possibly… though you did say

                  "A nation holding its breath waiting for the Guardian, or the BBC, or worse American late night TV to do a once over of the rest of the policies of the coalition."

                  I doubt anyone is bothered about what the Guardian has to say about NZ especially when there are many issues that will receive magnitudes of more clicks….we simply are not as important/influential as we like to tell ourselves.

                  • SPC …
                    28 November 2023 at 9:28 pm

                    It can be guaranteed that local media will re-publish the articles here.

                    But the real impost is in the impact on the New Zealand brand – nations have reputations, and they have an intangible value.

                    But for our exporters and those who market their products (whether here or abroad) there is a cost to all this.

                    A nation of polluted waterways, taking little action as per the Paris Accord, catering to the dirty tobacco industry, giving the fingers to UNDRIP, policies of by and for the landlord class – will face up a problem when exporting because foreign consumers may well ask are these products from a clean and green place?

                    • Pat …
                      28 November 2023 at 9:35 pm

                      And when (and if, because we are not the only ones failing on the environment) the impact of that hits the wallets of Kiwis then they will take notice….meanwhile the foreign MSM can write what they please as we are too busy trying to house and feed ourselves.

                    • SPC …
                      28 November 2023 at 9:56 pm

                      The thing is, it is the right wing alliance farmers have with the landlord class vs tenants and employers vs workers which is the driver of the high rent low wage society (and perpetual migrant worker replacement of exiles to Oz).

                      But this victory for farmers will come at a cost in their export markets, when this is all reported in foreign media – and thanks to the tobacco story, that will soon follow.

                    • Pat …
                      28 November 2023 at 10:05 pm

                      Perhaps …but again, nobody will place any import upon it until such time as it happens….if it happens.

    • Anne 4.2
      28 November 2023 at 8:29 pm

      John Oliver or Stephen Colbert most likely candidates.

      • SPC 4.2.1
        28 November 2023 at 8:38 pm

        The ones of most concern would be Jimmy Kimmel (he accused his own wife of dive bombing Hawaii on a flight there) and Seth Myers or the Daily Show et al (in the is there anything as bad as Trump in the rest of the world segment).

  5. Ad 5
    28 November 2023 at 8:39 pm

    Of much greater long term negative effect on NZ will be the repeal of the new RMA in this upcoming Parliamentary session.

    That's years and years of legal work, thousands of submissions, whole Departments drafting it, endless select committee reports and debates .. and of course an entire building and infrastructure industry prepared for its implementation.

    It will take at least two years to legislate a new one.

    I'd predict this degree of legislative and legal uncertainty will put a real chill through the construction industry until they put their own replacement through.

    • SPC 5.1
      28 November 2023 at 8:54 pm

      It would be quicker to amend it. They could do that next year – keeping changes there is agreement on.

      One thing I did not like about the RMA was the city wide nature of it, it upended urban planning as we knew it. Areas around transport spines and areas that had the infrastructure for it should be prioritised for growth/building up.

      The problems of intensification in areas with poor drainage etc would have been a landscape leaky home – insurance disaster.

      • Ad 5.1.1
        28 November 2023 at 9:58 pm

        I thought the Metropolitan Urban Limit worked pretty well in Auckland. When it went, Auckland just ballooned out. The last guy in the Auckland region who can claim lineage to that is Mike Lee.

        Back in the day…

        • SPC 5.1.1.1
          28 November 2023 at 10:08 pm

          And Auckland also once had an urban plan (pre Super City) that prevented building on land flooded early this year.

          And we changing building rules (onto leaky homes) and reduced focus on apprenticeships for a long period.

          Seldom has a first world nation chosen the course of a cover up of a decline to second world nation status, rather than to prevent it.

          It seems the haves have determined on another course, whereby they are catered to and an order of rule is built to preserve that privilege.

          We are becoming a South American ruling over and ruled over class divide second world nation. And any organised resistance will be called a "socialist revolution" that our security partners will help to prevent.

          The worry about Maori is just a diversion to give it white populist support – the GOP southern strategy.

  6. Ad 6
    28 November 2023 at 8:47 pm

    So the question to ask for this Parliamentary sitting is:

    Did National prepare for power enough to have names and CV's ready to go to replace all the big public sector boards:

    – ACC, Transpower, EA, TEC, NZTA, Commerce Commission, Pharmac, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court judges, Police Commissioner, local government commissioners, Head of Armed Forces, Governor General, NZOnAir, all the University Chancellors, State Services Commissioner, HRC, AgResearch, Hortresearch, Pamu, Reserve Bank governors, NZTE, TVNZ and RNZ boards, key diplomatic appointments … right down to the Walking and Cycling Commission …

    … of course many will claim that only DPMC vetting is the true gatekeeper of appointments, but a good forceful government who wants to tilt power and get stuff done fast will present their own list of qualified candidates and sweep the field.

    • SPC 6.1
      28 November 2023 at 9:14 pm

      Some have better tenure protection than others.

      https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2016/0048/latest/DLM5759479.html

      Protection of Judges against removal from office

      A Judge of the High Court shall not be removed from office except by the Sovereign or the Governor-General, acting upon an address of the House of Representatives, which address may be moved only on the grounds of that Judge’s misbehaviour or of that Judge’s incapacity to discharge the functions of that Judge’s office.

    • Ed1 6.2
      28 November 2023 at 9:27 pm

      From an organisation that I regard as the most recent incarnation of dirty tricks, albeit with a carefully managed public face – even after a change of government there will be a desire to keep them going for their ability to raise funds for 'research' rather than political party purposes, and to fund 'non-political' activities such as 'independent' polling, the organisation will continue, but I wonder whether some of these names will appear in Ministerial offices etc . . .

      Jordan Williams – Executive Director & Co-founder ; Laurence Kubiak – Chair ; Hon. Ruth Richardson – Board member ; Chris Milne – Board member ; Hon. John Boscawen – Board member ; Jim Rose – Research Fellow ; Callum Purves – Chief Operating Officer and Head of Campaigns ; Michelle van der Veer– Funding and External Relationships Manager ; Sara Leckie – Office Manager & Development Officer ; Ray Deacon – Economist ; Connor Molloy – Campaigns Manager ; Oliver Bryan – Investigations Co-ordinator ; James Ross – Policy Adviser ; Alex Murphy – Researcher ; Rhys Hurley – Research Intern ; Noemi Leinfellner – Research Intern ; Dan Merry – Research Intern ; Regan Sayer – Research Intern ;

      Do the Opposition parties have "non-political' organisations to ask a myriad of FOI requests? – including what advice Willis received on the tobacco policy changes)? In the last few years it has been clear that many MPs and others were being fed large numbers of 'concerned citizen' FOI requests to keep the public sector busy – the new Government may benefit from similar scrutiny . . .

  7. adam 7
    28 November 2023 at 10:31 pm

    Very impressed with how Winston Peters at his age, was able to get down on his hands and knees to suck corporate cock.

  8. SPC 8
    28 November 2023 at 10:40 pm

    Shane Cigareti earned his new moniker

    when he claimed that vaping would be the governments primary tool for reducing the numbers of smokers and thus maintaining a large number of retail outlets for sale of a cancer causing carcinogen and maintaining the level of nicotine in the product to maintain the addiction were secondary issues.

    Reti said the prime minister had already raised concerns about how the proposed legislation would have impacted on the black market and how it would focus crime on those retail outlets which were allowed to continue to sell cigarettes.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/11/28/health-minister-defends-plan-to-scrap-smokefree-legislation/

    This is evidence that the smoking plan was National Party policy and fully embraced by their ACT and NZF partners. They all received international funding. From examplar to turncoat before the world media.

    Meanwhile The Civilian Beehive today reported that most vapers had never smoked. And most who had smoked gave up because of the cost and or via nicotine patches. And that the British American Tobacco taskforce concluded that the best way to promote addiction to nicotine in the 21st C was to promote vaping as a way to reduce the numbers of smokers. And to maintain their original product, by warning governments of the risk of a black market and loss of tax revenue – that would undermine their ability to finance health care or tax cuts (whatever was the more important to their political brand).

    • SPC 8.1
      28 November 2023 at 11:56 pm

      With utter and total contempt for the opine of Shane Cigareti comes an Oz push

      to phase out recreational vaping completely.

      Vaping has been marketed as a way to quit smoking, but Australia's health minister says it has created a "new generation of nicotine dependency".

      "All Australian governments are committed to working together to stop the disturbing growth in vaping among our young people," said Mark Butler, the federal health minister who is leading the ban.

      Importers and manufacturers supplying therapeutic vapes will also have to comply with tighter government regulation concerning the flavours, nicotine levels, and packaging of their products.

      Experts have warned that not enough is known yet about the long-term impacts of vaping.

      Research from Johns Hopkins University has linked the practice to chronic lung disease and asthma.

      And in Australia, scientists who have studied the liquids used in vapes have warned that they contain "a suite of chemicals" known to impact lung health.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67550685

      • Michael P 8.1.1
        30 November 2023 at 7:50 pm

        Yea…nah

        Vape liquid here contains Propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavoring, sometimes water and nicotine is optional.

        The glycerin and glycol are both alcohols and are very common in many different foodstuffs, cosmetics, etc.

        Flavoring is what it says, same as all foodstuff flavorings.

        Water is water

        Nicotine isn't harmful in the dosages involved, other than it is addictive. So is sugar, exercise and a myriad of other things.

        Essentially you're inhaling flavored water vapor or steam, which surely is way less dangerous than breathing in carcinogenic burnt carbon, etc from burning tobacco (plus a whole heap of added chemicals which the tobacco companies don't have to list)

        I have to just add that of course prohibition has never worked, for anything, ever, in the history of humankind. Prohibition just generates massive amounts of income for organized crime along with the associated crime such as violence, theft, prostitution, etc. You'd think people would have cottoned on to that one by now, we've had around 10,000 years or more.

        • SPC 8.1.1.1
          1 December 2023 at 4:40 am

          We will be able to observe the comparative track of vaping use levels in the two countries as Oz reduce the addictive element in the product.

          Personally I have no problem with obstructing the death merchant corporations from continuing to profit from nicotine addiction. Nor of removing them and other organised crime groups from buying politicians, exploiting addiction and or a black market.

    • bwaghorn 8.2
      29 November 2023 at 5:50 am

      Migrants own the corner store cancer shops, there's votes in selling death.

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