Open mike 01/03/2023
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Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...19 hours ago - Government Forces Universities to Enforce “Free Speech” While Limiting Universities̵...
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AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...6 days ago - Minimum wage ‘increase’ is an effective cut
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- Thank You
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...1 week ago - 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
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Hi,“What I love about New Zealanders is that sometimes you use these expressions that as Americans we have no idea what those things mean!"I am watching a 30-something year old American ramble on about how different New Zealanders are to Americans. It’s his podcast, and this man is doing a ...1 week ago - Chris Penk’s Hate Parade
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All those tears on your cheeksJust like deja vu flow nowWhen grandmother speaksSo tell me a story (I'll tell you a story)Spell it out, I can't hear (What do you want to hear?)Why you wear black in the morning?Why there's smoke in the air? Songwriter: Greg Johnson.Mōrena all ☀️Something a ...1 week ago
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National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...3 days ago - Release: Minister’s plan for tertiary sector a backwards step
Returning to the model that was failing for most polytechnics and Institutes of Technology is not the answer. ...3 days ago
- Release: National buries 1019 planned homes
It’s been revealed that National has cancelled 60 percent of its housing projects planned before mid-2025 amidst housing woes. ...3 days ago
- Release: Rule-Czar bill a right-wing power grab
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...3 days ago
- Release: Why not both? Luxon shuns Waitangi celebrations
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is running away from problems of his own creation, with his decision not to go to Waitangi. ...4 days ago
- Govt’s ‘free speech’ legislation stokes fear, not freedom
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...4 days ago - Release: Nicola Willis spirals country deeper into recession
The economy shrank 1% this quarter and New Zealand has tumbled into the depths of a recession of Nicola Willis’ making. ...4 days ago
- Release: Hikes for company directors but not ordinary Kiwis
Working people are going backwards while company directors are being given huge pay hikes. ...5 days ago
- ECE no place to cut corners
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...5 days ago
- Release: Strengthening Justice Services for New Zealanders
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...5 days ago
- Release: Labour will continue fight against destructive projects
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...5 days ago
- Green Government will revoke dodgy fast-track projects
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...5 days ago
- Government for the wealthy keeps pushing austerity
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...6 days ago
- Release: Visa changes let migrant workers be paid less
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...6 days ago
- Release: Nightmare before Christmas for Nicola Willis
With more debt and a larger deficit, Nicola Willis’ reputation is in tatters after her failure to return the Government’s books to surplus. ...6 days ago
- Warning to Fast-Track Applicants – ‘Exploit the Whenua, Face the Consequences’
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt cuts wages for lowest paid NZers… again
For the second year running, the government has effectively cut wages for the lowest paid workers in New Zealand. ...6 days ago
- Govt’s miserly 1.5% minimum wage will take workers backwards
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt shirking responsibility for rate hikes
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...6 days ago
- Luxon’s ‘localism’ strikes again
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt breaks promise on EV chargers
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...7 days ago
- Greens call for end to subsidies for Methanex
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...7 days ago
- Govt child poverty targets allow for increase in poverty
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...1 week ago
- Release: Four weeks annual leave under threat
The Government’s attack on workers continues with news it is scrapping work on the Holidays Act. ...1 week ago
- Govt’s emissions plan for measly 1% reduction
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...1 week ago
- Greens stand in solidarity with Whakaata Māori on sad day
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...1 week ago
- Sanctions regime to create more hardship for families
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...1 week ago
- Govt gifts renters housing anxiety for Christmas
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...1 week ago
- Release: National Party urged to support modern slavery legislation
Labour is urging the Prime Minister to walk the talk and support legislation combating modern slavery. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour has lost confidence in the Speaker
The Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament made an unprecedented decision on the government amendment to the Fast Track Approvals Bill last night. ...2 weeks ago
- One year on, still no progress on new ferries
Today’s announcement from the Government on its plan for new ferries throws more uncertainty on the future of the country’s rail network. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Nicola Willis’ smaller ferries will cost more
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...2 weeks ago
- Bill to sanction unlawful occupation of Palestine
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...2 weeks ago
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The Government has done the right thing in moving to ban greyhound racing. ...2 weeks ago
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https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/the-whole-truth/131299529/the-whole-truth-how-our-farms-contribute-to-climate-change
Biogenic Methane explained .
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
https://twitter.com/WRNGuernsey/status/1630660848791199761
Woah, I didn't realise they'd sacked Campbell.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/485047/sacking-of-health-new-zealand-chair-leads-to-claims-government-overreacted
Does anyone have a link to his article?
a copy as it looks like it's been removed from his Linkedin page
Not for that article but this is the horses mouth, so to speak.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018879909/sacked-health-nz-chair-stands-by-comments-that-led-to-firing
Campbell has been on various platforms this morning making an important point. To paraphrase: it is that National's response to 3-waters will serve to undermine the principle of co-governance everywhere and anywhere. And that includes health, where Campbell has specific responsibilities, and where he believes that Maori involvement in policy design and execution is vital to getting better Maori health outcomes.
I agree with that. So it's a shame he didn't express it in a more generalised and temperate manner that didn't fall foul of the requirement for impartiality. The only upside is that his opinion has had a decent airing today.
Rob Campbell was an exceptionally well paid Board Chair appointed by the government to oversee health reforms. His job is not to make political comment which makes the government a target for the RW, which is what happened. Rob Campbell is a professional governance appointee and has made a lucrative living out of it. He has had plenty of chances to speak out ; eg the POAL lockout when he was on the Board, or as Chair of Skycity when workers went on strike. Now he is free of encumbrance, he can say what he likes, but this man is not some down trodden worker.
A letter to the latest issue of the NZ Listener (4-10 March; can't find an on-line link, sorry) compares the effects of "slash" displacement, after Cyclone Giselle, to the 1966 Aberfan disaster. Very different events in most respects (especially the number of fatalities), but they have in common an extractive industry demonstrating the same cavalier attitude to its leavings.
It's so simple; forestry shareholder profits need to be annexed by govt and used for cleanup. How many would disagree with that, and why?
I would disagree but only because you don't go far enough.
All that you said plus I would like to see the Directors of the company in the dock. The flesh and blood representatives of the Company.
Fair enough, we'll add them to the list of people who profited off the 'good' times, and annex their wealth as well. No issues with that here.
Have they broken any laws?
If not it's the government and council's who are liable, I'm not keen on nz running kangaroo courts.
what was Aberfan?
Someone who enjoyed Dancing Queen. Super Trooper and Money Money Money….
(Insert thigh slapping emoticon).
Ha, ha you're a very naughty boy!
ROFLNUI!!!
Colliery spill tip engulfed a school and houses in Wales in 1966 – 116 children and 28 adults killed. I still remember hearing the awful news.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
A coal slag heap gave way and engulfed a Welsh village, killing many people, including, as I recall, children.
Snap – Matiri
There was an excellent episode of The Crown, 3:3 with Olivia Coleman about it.
Sorry, Weka, I should have provided a link. I just assumed everybody knew about it.
This
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster
To be fair, the updated rain data shows that in places the hills copped 250,000 liters per hectare of rain.
That means nothing until you covert to the standard measurement of Olympic swimming pools!
Which is 2.5 million liters so unless I’m mistaken (very possible when it comes to math) it’s 10% of an Olympic pool.
Westport's annual rainfall is around 2000 mm per year (2,000,000 L/hectare) and Franz Josef glacier's is 5500 mm. So in 24 hours, parts of the East Coast/Hawkes Bay got 240 mm of rain, or between 1/10 and 1/20th of that falling on the West Coast over the entire year, in one day.
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/New-Zealand/precipitation-annual-average.php
You may want to check your calculations again.
It may be sad politics but sacking Rob Campbell is exactly the publicity Labour needs right now to pull back the anti-Maori sentiment from the hash they made of 3 Waters.
It will of course piss off most of the Wellington public service who have laboured towards co-governance under both National and Labour over more than a decade, and entrenched it across many major arms of state.
The silence from Labour's Maori caucus and indeed from the Maori Party right now about Campbell being targeted is just fucking weak.
Admiral Byng is having a little chuckle. His doubling down on RNZ this morning in a masterful interview by Kim Hill where he dug himself into a bigger hole would have been the icing on the cake for the government. Rob Campbell came across as the elderly juror who has never met 11 such obtuse people in his life.
I think Campbell makes a good case for himself, if you listen to the latter part of the interview. The telling point is that he had personal calls of support from those who are on boards as directors and from those he has worked with over Māori health partnership.
The first group are worried about clamping down on personal opinions by company owners, including government, with a consequent throttling of diversity of views on boards. The second group support strongly Māori driving aspects of health reform, as they have been working towards under both National and Labour led governments.
And I completely do agree with his initial ‘offending’ statement, that the National and Act party position over 3waters is a 'dog-whistle', targetted especially as a racist, anti-Māori sub-text to those primed to hear it. Getting close to those good ol' Muldoon electioneering practices, appealing to the nasty.
I knew it would happen and sure enough:
"Brian Tamaki blames porn use in Gisborne and Hastings for Cyclone Gabrielle disaster."
We hear all the time "New Zealanders aren't that dumb," and "Stop treating us like dumb children." Brian Tamaki getting to be a guru is sign of dumbness.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/01-03-2023/brian-tamaki-blames-porn-use-in-gisborne-and-hastings-for-cyclone-gabrielle-disaster?utm_source=spinoff-share-button&utm_medium=spinoff-app
And a fellow traveller….
"…That city in there, Hastings and Gisborne, has the highest number of porn watchers in the country and it’s one of the biggest averages per capita in the world, he said.
And they’re the biggest watchers on the porn site of gay porn…"
Quite a lot to unpack there. Clearly the East coast is seething mass of repressed sexuality and possibly the high number of recent stock deaths may be due to many nervous sheep taking the opportunity to end the nightmare.
Poor beasties, unable or unwilling to wether the storm….
God doesn't sound very nice.
Kim Hill's phone guest this AM on folk picking through road side piles of flood damaged goods – there's ferals coming into the neighbourhood and taking that stuff…
(@3.00' )
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018879924
Don't wish to minimise their fears, I am sure the anxiety is through the roof. But in the old days of inorganic rubbish collections at the kerbside, this happened all the time. That's why Auckland Council stopped it and you now have to book a collection and keep the pile on your own property. There were a few ferals – usually affluent neighbours who took my old stuff and stuck it on Trademe – our mistake, we should have offered it to charities. But most of the people picking over the pile looked dirt poor.
There's a lesson for the Govt though: never, never minimise crime by an appeal to statistics, back people up in the short term and try to persuade them towards rational solutions in the long term.
In these parts if it's useful, firewood, garden-worthy, or has any value, it's gone.
Yep. I commented on the old inorganic collections here a few days ago.
If I happened to be in the garden, the so-called 'ferals' used to ask me if I minded if they took something. I told them to go for it. If they were prepared to repair and spruce something up to use for themselves or on-sell they were entitled to it.
Many of them were unemployed and this was a way to make some money. Yet somehow they are perceived as criminals. The real criminals were rich pricks who made loads of money overcharging the rest of us and bleeding people dry. But apparently that is okay.
It's the Louise Parsons of this world that are "feral". What a stain on humanity. A quick google says she's part of Sensible Sentencing Trust. They must be so proud of her.
The dog ate Wayne Brown’s diary.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/485061/auckland-mayor-wayne-brown-s-diary-almost-empty-day-of-the-flood
I hope Wayne is not feeling over-worked and under-paid like so many …
I used to be a big fan of Izzard's. Both his comedy and his pushing of gender non-conformity. Now that he's trans instead of a crossing dressing man, it's problematic in that he seems utterly unaware of women's politics. Here he displays an ignorance remarkable for someone who wanted to be an MP (a really good reason for not considering trans identified males as women MPs on party lists).
The reason animals aren't obsessed with gender is because they can't conceptualise and talk about sex in ways that humans understand. But anyone that's spent time with animals reproducing knows how hard it is on female animals' bodies. Just like with women. Yes, material reality exists, and women have their own needs within that. His implied dismissal of biological sex, by talking about gender as if sex doesn't exist, reminds me of the every day sexism that women have to deal with all the time. We know that many men don't understand there is a women's reality let alone what it is. Here Izzard exemplifies that.
Izzard is a cross dressing, heterosexual male. If he wants to wear dresses and get his nails done, all power to him. But he's not a woman and he shouldn't be in women's spaces.
We also have to be real about the possibility that he is AGP, a male sexual fetish where arousal comes with thinking of oneself as a woman and acting on that. This is a driver of the need for others to see AGPs as women, but different from gender dysphoria. Again, this is a male issue and shouldn't be resolved by expecting women to sacrifice women's spaces and culture.
https://twitter.com/_K_F_P_/status/1630348097929854977
Celebrity <==> narcissistic personality disorders <==> Politics
Eddie Izzard was born male and he will die male.
To his credit, he doesn't share the irrational JK Rowling-phobia of his fellow travellers. But his insistence on appropriating women's toilets and demands for pronoun rituals are an unreasonable imposition on the freedom and safety of others.
If you're born with boy's bits you're a boy. If you're born with girl's bits you're a girl. Who you form relationships with a an adult is nobody else's business and it doesn't need to be an opportunity for virtue signalling. I'm sick of it.
Yes absolutely.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rob-campbells-health-nz-sacking-an-opportunity-to-gain-better-leadership-says-ex-dhb-member/BDX2JVHVGRFWNN3RZ2ZTENM6ZI/
Hutt Valley Specialist says someone with a health background should lead NZ health and they have seen no vision or change or an increase in staffing levels over several months
Just a short shuffle from wild reservoirs to domestic animals. Charming.
https://twitter.com/AmeshAA/status/1630701776134340610
Re the second census form posted out
If you have done the first, I assume you don't do the second?
Are the access codes the same on both letters? Mine are different both both relate to the same address.
My codes are different too.
I am not going to complete the second one, as I read somewhere it is a back up one.
I like many LGBT+ am boycotting the census because the government has no right to ask me my sexuality.
I usually have no issue answering the census but not this question. The state is overstepping.
Get out of our god damn bedrooms.
I'm not comfortable with the state, which used to bash and arrest people for being gay having a list of who is gay and where they live… What if in the unlikely but possible event an authoritarian right wing govt that hates LGBT people gets elected, they now have a list of names and where they live…
Absolutely not.
I'm openly gay but I refuse to answer that question and I don't see how asking people their sexuality is going to provide information on how many houses , hospitals, roads, infrastructure needs to be built.
It's just nosey bullshit masquerading as woke representation.
Keep the god damned state out of the god-damned bedroom.
The govt can take me to court and I'll tell them that the govt has no right to know my god damned sexuality.
The census turn out is gonna be lower than the local govt elections turn outs lmfao.
Next they'll be asking if you're a top or bottom, what sexual positions you like and what are your turn ons.
Hell nah. It gives me the creeps.
It's also a breach of the human rights act for government departments to ask me about my sexuality according to the privacy commissioner so bring it on Chris.