Daily review 31/07/2019

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, July 31st, 2019 - 40 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 …

40 comments on “Daily review 31/07/2019 ”

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  1. A 1
    31 July 2019 at 6:19 pm

    Australia now looking at bringing in the Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill.

    More here:

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    31 July 2019 at 6:26 pm

    So the cops have decided not to prosecute the MP Sarah Dowie for sending a text to JLR that said he "deserved to die". That would presumably be because their legal advisors could find no basis in our hate-speech law for using it against moral judgments.

    "Police were investigating whether the message breached the Harmful Digital Communications Act. A spokesperson said that following a thorough investigation, police had determined the message did not meet the threshold for an offence." https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/395670/no-charges-against-mp-sarah-dowie-over-jami-lee-ross-text

    Notice their lack of a rationale for their determination. Naturally police feel they don't owe the public that. Why should they? It's not as if they are actually public servants. They serve the establishment, not the public. Still, we ought to appreciate their subliminal signal to us that democracy is a sham. Smart media consumers will get that message.

  3. Kat 3
    31 July 2019 at 6:55 pm

    Have been pondering on the latest CB poll for National on 45% is 7% differential to latest UMR putting National on 38% or less. Perhaps the 13% "don't knows" have just been rounded up. Something just doesn't smell right, apart from the waft of rotting bridges making passages over troubled waters difficult.

    Should we trust any polling.

    Swordfish?

    • James 3.1
      31 July 2019 at 7:13 pm

      Something doesn’t smell right?

      perhaps it’s not the publicly released independent poll but the leaked poll from labour’s pollsters that’s stinking up the place.

      • Pat 3.1.1
        31 July 2019 at 7:23 pm

        "New research by UCLA PhD student Rob Salmond has compared the first 26 monthly polls run by Colmar Brunton since the 2002 elections, with the 14 done over the same period by TNS on behalf of TV3 and the 28 by UMR Research on behalf of the National Business Review. Salmond found the Colmar Brunton poll "provides consistently and significantly higher estimates of the National Party's support than either of the other two polls". Comparisons showed the Colmar Brunton poll had estimated the highest or equal-highest level of National support for each of the 26 polling months after the election, with the difference once reaching as high as 9.5%."

        2005….they have history

        https://www.noted.co.nz/archive/listener-nz-2005/for-whom-the-caller-polls/

      • mickysavage 3.1.2
        31 July 2019 at 8:03 pm

        This has been covered a number of times.

        UMR’s polling goes to a number of people. There are multiple leak opportunities.

        You righties tend to take good poll results as gospel and bad poll results as some sort of conspiracy.

        Us lefties hope the bad results are true but we are never sure.

        Do not think the left engages in the same sort of psychological warfare as the right. We lack that sophistication.

        • Kat 3.1.2.1
          31 July 2019 at 8:11 pm

          UMR and Reid Research also consistent with National on 38%/37% respectively in last poll. Perhaps we need a regulatory watchdog on polling.

        • Andre 3.1.2.2
          31 July 2019 at 8:12 pm

          I never knew the polite word for "rat cunning" was "sophistication".

        • swordfish 3.1.2.3
          31 July 2019 at 11:05 pm

          Clients are: Labour, NZF, various Corporates (the latter only have access to every second UMR poll).

      • Gabby 3.1.3
        31 July 2019 at 9:45 pm

        Prolly depends on the polls' relativity timewise to Slick running his fatuous gob jimbo.

  4. Ad 4
    31 July 2019 at 6:57 pm

    Interesting to see the Minister of Health announced a water regulator, focusing on quality, but no mention of price regulation alongside it.

    The first job just nibbles at regional councils, but it's the second part that would make irrigator companies, CCOs, and major users really quake.

    High time all major users and suppliers were price regulated.

  5. Dennis Frank 5
    31 July 2019 at 6:57 pm

    Good report on Stuff, comprehensive outline of the excellent result produce by the coalition govt: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/114657873/government-approves-drinking-water-watchdog-in-response-to-havelock-north-campylobacter-outbreak

    First time I'm able to feel that the health minister is pulling his weight and achieving suitable outcomes! Well done, all involved. smiley yes

  6. joe90 6
    31 July 2019 at 7:56 pm

    Imagine a world where Marx actually emigrated to Texas.

    Abraham Lincoln, as president, chose to reply to an “Address” from the London-based International Workingmen’s Association. The “Address,” drafted by Karl Marx, congratulated Lincoln on his reelection for a second term. In some resonant and complex paragraphs, the “Address” heralded the world-historical significance of what had become a war against slavery. The “Address” declared that victory for the North would be a turning point for nineteenth-century politics, an affirmation of free labor, and a defeat for the most reactionary capitalists who depended on slavery and racial oppression.

    […]

    The “Address” carried, beside that of Marx, the signatures of several prominent British trade unionists as well as French socialists and German social democrats. The Ambassador wrote to the IWA, explaining that the president had asked him to convey his response to their “Address.” He thanked them for their support and expressed his conviction that the defeat of the rebellion would indeed be a victory for the cause of humanity everywhere. He declared that his country would abstain from “unlawful intervention” but observed that “The United States regarded their cause in the present conflict with slavery-maintaining insurgents as the cause of human nature, and they derived new encouragement to persevere from the testimony of the working men of Europe.”

    Lincoln would have wished to thank British workers, especially those who supported the North despite the distress caused by the Northern blockade and the resulting “cotton famine.” The appearance of the names of several German revolutionaries would not have surprised him; the defeat of the 1848 revolutions in Europe had swelled the flood of German migrants arriving in North America. At an earlier date — in 1843 — Marx himself had thought of immigrating to Texas, going so far as to apply to the mayor of Trier, his birthplace, for an immigration permit.

    https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/08/lincoln-and-marx

  8. greywarshark 8
    31 July 2019 at 9:31 pm

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/395684/former-staff-say-welhaus-building-firm-owes-them-thousands

    "First of all it was a cash flow issue and then he [Mr Tremewan] started using the excuse, 'well we're going to change the pay frequency from fortnightly to monthly' … but then last month it was already a month and then I never got anything," she said.

    When Ms Oberholzer brought it up with Mr Tremewan, she said she was told she should not get upset in the office.

    How about that for a patronising put-down as the oily shit slides out from the responsibilities he and his firm have to employees. I think we are sick of the way that businesses in NZ are allowed to get away with about using unpaid wages as free credit for bankrupt businesses. I think this is one of the times people can be put in stocks in a public place; those people who can't pay, won't pay and all that would be required is proof that their wages have not been paid. Arrest – stocks. Then the rest of the legal palaver to decide whether they have been trading while insolvent, and any further punishment.

    • Gabby 8.1
      31 July 2019 at 9:49 pm

      I wonder if it would be ok to help yourself to payment in kind. Take a computer home in lieu of cash. Leave a receipt.

      • greywarshark 8.1.1
        31 July 2019 at 10:38 pm

        Possession is nine-tenths of the law sort of thing? In cases like this I think the idea is, do a quick check – 'What have I got to lose'?

        • greywarshark 8.1.1.1
          31 July 2019 at 10:54 pm

          I was just wondering how often this sort of robbery is going on throughout NZ. But it isn't robbery, they give it another name, still ends up without something that you were counting on.

          My sister has just got a nice house finished. Husband was a builder, knew his builder's father. Two-thirds of the way through the fellow told him it was getting too much and my b-i-l had to oversee the management of it. Finally finished and he has paid his builder for the work as per contract. But unfortunately the money has gone to pay for other work the builder hadn't paid for – like a Ponzi scheme.

          There are compliance certificates that have to be handed in by the sub-contractors who were withholding them wanting him to pay them directly, when their debtor is the builder. B in law has about six to discuss/hard talk to and try to get them to do right by him. One guy is owed $30,000 and presumably that will include goods bought by him for the job and therefore he owes. What a mess. I don't know how b in law got on but last Monday he had set aside to go round to all and give them the word that they should give him the signed-off certificate. It is hard work to steel yourself to go round and catch the guy to chat with him and persuade him to part up, and sue the other guy x six times.

          He feels his age. Think twice before building. I don't know if you can do a credit check but if possible do so. Fletchers took on too much, the local builder the same. Where is the control on these people – how can you find their financial viability? Anyway my b in law knew the family and thought he was safe. But when the payments chain breaks down it stuffs everyone down the line.

  9. Pat 9
    31 July 2019 at 10:32 pm

    questioning the independence of the NZ Press…..surely not.

    https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/our-armour-plated-housing-bubble/

  10. marty mars 10
    31 July 2019 at 10:49 pm

    anyone watched "The Great Hack" yet?

    • The Al1en 10.1
      31 July 2019 at 10:52 pm

      Nope, but watch The Boys. Best comic book show since Preacher.

    • joe90 10.2
      31 July 2019 at 11:14 pm

      Not yet.

      But the whole thing is looking more and more like a soft power coup d'etat by capital, the imagined masters of the fucking universe.

      Cambridge Analytica did work for Leave.EU on the EU referendum, according to emails published by a House of Commons committee, even though the company never received payment for it.

      Brittany Kaiser, the former director of business development at the shuttered political consultancy, supplied the emails to the digital, culture, media and sport committee. She argued that they showed that, despite claims to the contrary, the partnership between the two organisations went beyond exploring the potential for future collaboration.

      “Chargeable work was completed for Ukip and Leave.EU, and I have strong reasons to believe that those data sets and analysed data processed by Cambridge Analytica … were later used by the Leave.EU campaign without Cambridge Analytica’s further assistance,” Kaiser wrote in a letter to Damian Collins, the committee chair.

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/30/cambridge-analytica-did-work-for-leave-eu-emails-confirm?

  11. The Al1en 11
    31 July 2019 at 11:13 pm

    "To see those… monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes!"

    Ronald Reagan called Africans at UN 'monkeys', tapes reveal

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49177034