Daily Review 30/06/2017

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, June 30th, 2017 - 29 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 …

29 comments on “Daily Review 30/06/2017 ”

  1. AmaKiwi 1

    An election issue which wins votes across the political spectrum: NZ’s outrageous food prices.

    The NZ Herald has an article comparing our food prices with the UK. Ours are almost twice as high, even for items we produce and export in vast quantities.

    I know this is not the kind of intrigue Standardnistas revel in, but by God it sure pisses people off and generates votes against the incumbents. I hope people high up in Labour and Greens can work this into their campaigns.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11884369

    • mickysavage 1.1

      I agree. I have some guests from overseas from a scheme that shall not be named and they said the same thing, that food prices are unbelievable. I think we are subject so some big time profiteering. The free market does not work when you have a couple of cartels working side by side.

      • AmaKiwi 1.1.1

        Marketing studies have demonstrated you need a minimum of THREE competitors to begin to have a competitive market place.

        Do you know anyone high up in the Labour party? ; – )

      • weka 1.1.2

        ” I think we are subject so some big time profiteering. The free market does not work when you have a couple of cartels working side by side.”

        I’m sure that’s true. It’s also true that it does take a lot of work to grow food well if not relying on artificial fertilisers, big industrial and fossil fuel inputs, and, as Scott points out below, cheap labour. Ultimately cheap food in places like the US and Oz are being subsidised by carbon and non-renewables and are using underpaid and economically coerced people to do the labour.

        Having more competition and govt control over the market would help, but we’re going to have learn to grow more of our own food locally too.

      • tc 1.1.3

        That competition turned it’s back when comcom approved the current duopoly. Aldi were having a look which probably influenced woolies push to take progressive.

        Other sectors have done the same as we’ve pretty much rubber stamped acquisitions for many years now.

        • Ad 1.1.3.1

          Is any party other than New Zealand First seeking to make food substantially cheaper by removing the GST on raw ingredients?
          Greens or Labour for example?

  2. Anne 2

    As a life-long Kiwi (not born but bred here) this made me feel so angry and disgusted:

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/201849514/kiwi-hopefuls-thiel-gained-citizenship-why-can-t-i

    • prickles 2.1

      Me too Anne. Especially when my daughter who was born in Australia of two kiwi parents but is known as a “New Zealander by descent”. She has a NZ passport and can vote here but cannot be considered to be a “real” New Zealander. She went to high school and university in NZ (and consequently is paying off her student loan – including interest) and we should have sorted it out then but it never crossed our minds. She now lives and works in the UK and if she has children they cannot be considered to be New Zealanders of any description. Makes no sense when the reality is that on both her mum and dad’s side she is fourth generation New Zealander.

      • Craig H 2.1.1

        If your daughter has Australian citizenship by birth, her children will have Australian citizenship by descent, so can enter and live in NZ as residents, and apply for citizenship later. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

        • prickles 2.1.1.1

          Good thinking Craig H – many thanks for that. I shall let her know. Though she is a pretty smart cookie and may have worked that out for herself – just the prospective grandparents who were not quite up to speed.

  3. ScottGN 3

    Grocery prices in general in the UK (and Europe) are much lower than here in NZ. Partly, I guess that’s due in no small part to the sheer size of the market – half a billion people – but also it’s worth remembering that those wonderful looking vine tomatoes you see in a grey London in November have most likely come from Sicily and been picked and processed by Romanians, Europe’s modern day slaves.

    • Sabine 3.1

      or the tomato come from an automated green house in holland. and i guess we can’t have nice things because we don’t have modern day slaves from romania but only young ones from all over the world on a working holiday visa.
      Oh my, if only we too could have modern day slaves, our food would be so much cheaper.

  4. patricia bremner 4

    I am currently in Ozzie on the Sunshine Coast. Shopping I glanced at the broccoli.
    “Oh, That’s similar” I thought, ’till I realised it was $3.69 a kilo…Not per head!!

    • Sabine 4.1

      oh my. per kilo vs 5 bucks for a head that barely weighs in at 150 grams once you cut the stem.

      • BM 4.1.1

        You’re getting diddled at $5.00 a head.

        Currently a head of broccoli in the Tron $1.99

        • Peter 4.1.1.1

          What’s a Tron.

          • In Vino 4.1.1.1.1

            The Tron is a city which Aucklanders refer to as the dead centre of the Waikato.

          • james 4.1.1.1.2

            THE Tron – not a Tron.

            • In Vino 4.1.1.1.2.1

              There is only one, you dolt, and the original statement by BM was ‘the’ Tron’. Obviously, a person who did not know what the “Tron’ was would ask, “What is a Tron?” Any real purpose in your petty nit-picking?

    • Alwyn 4.2

      I’m currently in France. You can get Kiwifruit for a mere €1 each. Call it about $1.60.
      What are they in NZ, and why should we really care?
      I think Sabine at 9.17 pm has it right.

  5. james 5

    To quote the late Barry Crump regarding the All Blacks Lions game – Bugger !

  6. Spectator sports. Spectators and players. Spectators there to spectate. Speculators too. Politicians speculate on sports, betting wins will be shared. Sport becomes politics. Spectators, singing and swaying in unison are dead-sitters for political strategists. The mesmerized are putty in the hands of the mesmerizers.

  7. greywarshark 7

    Sports the opiate of the masses. And good for speculation – betting on everything. Harold Abrahams foresaw that monetised sport would lead to betting and corruption, and got the sport powers to pay an allowance to the participants so that all could afford to take part but he couldn’t stop the wholesale swing.

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