Open Mike 03/04/2017

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 3rd, 2017 - 66 comments
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66 comments on “Open Mike 03/04/2017 ”

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  1. North 1
    3 April 2017 at 6:42 am

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=11826272

    More NZ Herald fake, bullshit news. I guess it’s an advance though on the ‘scoop’ of only a few years ago when the advice was – “Have parents who can throw you a couple of hundred grand on your 21st…….”

    Good on this highly motivated guy I guess but the real point is that the few who CAN do it become the ones whose rare reality ensures that most CAN’T do it…….no matter what. Two houses already and looking for a third. I’ll bet his rentals are/will be way, way more than say 25% of the average take home pay.

    Therein lies the massive flaw in the NZ Herald’s fake, bullshit news. Putting lipstick on a pig. So infuriatingly glib.

    • RedBaronCV 1.1
      3 April 2017 at 7:00 am

      And they bought before house prices really started taking off 8-9 years ago & lived at home & rented out.
      Typical history masquerading as bullshit news.

      • dv 1.1.1
        3 April 2017 at 7:48 am

        Yep, I can just see the banks lining up to lend a 20 year old 300$k, without surety from some one who has money.

        These half stories piss me off.

    • aom 1.2
      3 April 2017 at 7:33 am

      And …. when the state (i.e. the people), not the money merchants and rort merchants ruled NZ, under 30’s who did not own their own homes were the exception. Most didn’t need mummy and daddy’s help either.

    • AsleepWhileWalking 1.3
      3 April 2017 at 7:34 am

      The divide between those who are taking the rent and those who pay it is the more worthy story.

    • North 1.4
      3 April 2017 at 2:36 pm

      What is it with the Herald……second such “get off your arse……” headline/article in one day.

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11830730

      Oh well……they’ve said it…….must be true…….”you’re poor you’re an indolent prick !”

      Fuck off and line up in competition with Sean Spicer you squawking liar, NZ Herald.

      • North 1.4.1
        3 April 2017 at 3:39 pm

        The third similar themed article in the Herald in one day !
        What is going on ?

        Do the various reporters responsible really think that this cherry picking alters the hopeless reality for the huge majority when in fact the atypical cherries they glowingly identify only oil the wheels of hopelessness for the great majority.

        http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11830874.

        This is disgraceful journalism. It’s a weird, twisted, sick joke of a “Kia Kaha”.

      • saveNZ 1.4.2
        3 April 2017 at 3:58 pm

        Probably hoping to start a war against homeowners and renters and hope for a soundbite from Labour or Greens against boomers blaming them so get the Natz up a bit in the polls and get off really scary topics like Fuck me, we now are a nation with a typhoid outbreak and our defence force are not giving humanitarian aid in Afghanistan but killing innocent people. Who knew????

    • saveNZ 2.1
      3 April 2017 at 4:00 pm

      See it’s spreading…. just when people thought it only affected those far away, now it’s in their own country… that’s how violence and state killing spread…

  3. John up North 3
    3 April 2017 at 8:53 am

    Paula, Paula, Paula…………sigh!

    So our most esteemed Minister for Climate Change, and Tourism, doesn’t want tourist to think of Aotearoa as a “Rip Off” and therefore flags a tourist levy to help Regional/Local councils fund much needed infrastructure that is currently being swamped by the influx of visitors.

    ** Mrs Bennett said she was talking to local government about the need to fund infrastructure.

    But she told TVNZ’s Q+A she did not support taxes that would single out tourists.

    “I’m personally not a big fan … because we’re really expensive to visit,” she said.

    “I mean, I don’t mind us being expensive at all, I think that we are unique, we’ve got just the best package in the world to deliver to them, but I don’t want to be seen as a rip-off.” **

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/327974/nz-already-too-costly-for-tourist-tax-bennett

    Dunedin’s Baldwin streets toilet for the stream of tourists $90k
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320937/not-all-relieved-by-new-steepest-street-loo

    Freedom camping in Queenstown
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11828359s

    Golden Bay locals supplying toilet and collecting rubbish.
    http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2016/01/golden-bay-locals-angry-about-freedom-campers.html

    Nelson Councils answer angers locals
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/321661/freedom-campers-make-the-most-of-%27fabulous%27-nelson-sites

    Up North this summer has seen a huge increase in the freedom camping being done at our local beaches, yes it’s something most Kiwi’s have done and maybe still do occasionally, but the difference now is an almost constant tent city/camping site at these public spaces and with that comes more rubbish and more shit.

    Some places have it better and some have it much, much worse but no-one can deny the police don’t police it, our council can’t and there is a need for infrastructure cause we’re all getting sick of finding turds n toilet paper just inside the bushline at our fav beach/river/picnic spot.

    C’mon Paula, give our local councils a hand at sorting out the infrastructure these tourists need. We local rate payers are getting tired of being “ripped off” by a central government happy to pour tourists into the regions (collect GST) but will not help fund the best experience you want these visitors to our country to have and let’s face it another $20 ain’t gonna make much difference to visitors.

    • Bearded Git 3.1
      3 April 2017 at 9:26 am

      I hate to say it, and may never say it again, but Paula Bennet is right about not charging a Tourist Tax.

      The tourist industry is bringing in many BILLIONS of dollars to NZ. Revenue to the government from this is not just a couple of billion dollars GST but is also tax from employees who work in the tourism industry and tax on profits of organisations who make profits from the tourist industry.

      To piss off tourists with a $20 tax in the face of this is self-defeating-likely to reduce tourist numbers and leave a bad taste in the mouth of people who visit.

      What is needed is a dedicated fund to install toilets and make minor improvements at freedom camping areas across the country. This would probably only need to be $50 million or so which is a drop in the bucket.

      • Ad 3.1.1
        3 April 2017 at 11:00 am

        There’s plenty of custom-built levies and charges across the world.

        How many really go out of their way to avoid the Heathrow tax? Certainly a few, but not enough of a percentage to affect overall tourism numbers into London.

        The faster we dump low-end backpackers and attend more to higher-end tourists who don’t care about a little extra to keep this place as attractive as it is, the better.

        I’m sure Goff will lose this one, but he’s still right.

        • Bearded Git 3.1.1.1
          3 April 2017 at 12:19 pm

          Backpackers spend many hundreds of millions of dollars annually in NZ. Then they come back when they are rich and spend even more. Some of the smart ones love it so much that they settle here.

          Why on earth would you dump them?

          NZ needs to cater for all markets.

      • JanM 3.1.2
        3 April 2017 at 12:13 pm

        I agree with you
        Taxing tourists is dumb – what would you call it? “Freedom to poo” tax comes to mind, because what are the chances the money would be used to provide facilities which, as you have pointed out, they are already essentially paying for.

      • Cinny 3.1.3
        3 April 2017 at 4:12 pm

        If tourists have the money to fly all the way here, because let’s face it most of them come from the other side of the world, then they will have the money for a small surcharge to enter NZ. Any with a NZ passport do not pay the surcharge. Least that’s what I’d like to see.

        I live in a Freedom Camping and Tourism hotspot, and at times it really sucks. More toilets and rubbish bins would be a great start. I haven’t been into the park for ages, makes me wonder if it is coping with the high volumes of visitors.

    • saveNZ 3.2
      3 April 2017 at 4:06 pm

      Big lesson from neoliberalism and user pays. Don’t put up charges for people that have choice. Instead ramp up compulsory charges that people are unable to avoid.

      Therefore if you want extra money for tourists, don’t charge tourists or tourist businesses, charge locals on their rates instead or cut their library services, who worries about those jobs, sarc!

      If you are a parking agency, charge parking at hospitals, they have no choice but to pay it.

      etc etc.

      We are a rip off country but mostly to our own people.

      • Molly 3.2.1
        4 April 2017 at 12:10 am

        “We are a rip off country but mostly to our own people.”
        Ain’t that the truth. Many of our people can’t even afford to live here, let alone holiday.

        • saveNZ 3.2.1.1
          4 April 2017 at 7:42 am

          I don’t know about NZ but in the UK it was found that supermarket food were more expensive in poorer areas for the same goods as richer areas, because they could get away with it.

          Again, exploit the captive market, approach.

  4. jcuknz 4
    3 April 2017 at 9:16 am

    If you do not want to live in s+++ you need to do something about it yourself. Waiting for Government or banning tourists is very short sighted.
    The problem NZ faces is that with the best of intentions it has created very worthy but very expensive regulations and whereas other countries provide long drops or similar in NZ we insist on ‘flash’ toilets with running water, music and auto doors.

    But of course we are civilised and live in s+++ as previous posts have illustrated .

    • saveNZ 4.1
      3 April 2017 at 4:09 pm

      I think most tourists are coming here to buy up property and land and gamble. We have record tourists, the plane journey doesn’t seem to phase them.

    • Cinny 4.2
      4 April 2017 at 10:21 am

      Come to Motueka and the surrounds, there are public long drops abound. It’s not the locals shitting in bus shelters or on the side of the road.

      Crikey the locals in Golden Bay even got together to provide portaloos due to shit happening, funded it themselves, putting themselves out of pocket to protect their environment from visitors shit. Hardly seems fair. But they are being proactive about it with because of lack of assistance from the tourism promoting outgoing government.

      Had to have a giggle the other day, a couple were enjoying breakfast on their deck chairs at the local supermarket carpark. I stopped to let them know there was a beach about 1km away, personally I’d rather have breakfast at the beach than in a carpark. Crack up, hope they found the beach, nice couple, language barrier was a bit tricky.

  5. ianmac 5
    3 April 2017 at 9:53 am

    No mention of the “why” that Christchurch aquifers are drying up. No mention of dairying/irrigation. No way. But Christchurch users will have to pay for the water and/or the dams which will be needed to cope.

    “A new dam scheme could help protect Christchurch’s dwindling water supply – but charging residents for the water they use is still being considered.

    Under the scheme, dams would be built on streams off the Waimakariri River, designed to store floodwater in winter and release it into the aquifers over summer.”
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11830681

    • mac1 5.1
      3 April 2017 at 12:17 pm

      One of the strongest memories I have of my childhood in Christchurch is biking home from Hagley Park after Saturday sport and having a drink from a drinking fountain, constantly flowing and fed by artesian water, by a bridge crossing the stream. Cold, refreshing, free.

      Or drinking from the hose in the back garden with the smell of mint under the tap.

      Clean, fresh, free.

      Or the family swims at Coe’s Ford.

      Or looking at cockabullies in the stream by the Idris Road/Bligh’s Road corner.

      Or the mad cap frivolity of the Avon Boat Race during Capping Week.

      Then, long ago, looking back from our “brighter past” into the blighted future of water shortage, contamination, sedimentation and wadeability as the ‘acceptable ‘ standard.

      Bah!

      • ianmac 5.1.1
        3 April 2017 at 3:16 pm

        Not far from Blighs Road at the back of a house was a ram. This used the upward pressure from artesian water to turn a rotor. 2/3 of the water was released into a creek but the other third was pumped by the ram up into a holding tank. Free water and free pump/ram.
        And Lake Bryndwr near Blighs Road. An ex shingle pit full of water from the water table and big enough for small boats, swimming and picnics. Long gone as the water table and the artesian water subsided.
        But folks. Think of how many more cows we have!

  6. mauī 6
    3 April 2017 at 10:48 am

    Video of Geoff Lawton’s permaculture farm. Designed to handle the 440mm of rain they got in 24 hours from Cyclone Debbie in Australia
    https://twitter.com/geofflawton_/status/848403773789581312

  8. Sabine 8
    3 April 2017 at 11:03 am

    England going to war with Spain over Gribraltar cause Brexit?

    sure why not.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-02/post-brexit-tremors-theresa-may-would-go-war-protect-gibraltar

  9. johnm 9
    3 April 2017 at 11:55 am

    http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=18800

    The Laura Flanders Show: Cheat, Lie, and Steal

    Laura speaks with Michael Hudson about the manipulation of economic terminology and how this process serves economic elites. Countering the narrative that privatization is better, Hudson asks: “Better for whom?”

    Author of J is for Junk Economics

  10. Robert Glennie 10
    3 April 2017 at 1:25 pm

    The problem with the Greens is they do not know what ruthlessness is. Looking at their election candidate line up two things stood out for me immediately:

    1) Why were Chloe and Golriz not in the top ten?

    Got to be honest that I cannot name a single thing Kennedy Graham or Barry Coates have done.

    2) The list – for all the Greens harping about diversity, and so on, their list seems rather white…

    But on with ruthlessness. All parties develop “dead wood” at some point and the Greens are not an exception to this rule. If they were, the quiet members of their caucus would have been told to be more visible.

    The Greens, like Labour also need to be bold. What about announcing judicial reform, since the numbers in prison do not seem to be holding back the crime rates.

  11. Rosie 11
    3 April 2017 at 2:30 pm

    This is a back to front situation. Little’s defamation case has begun.

    Thin skinned Larry Hagman/Earl Hagaman wants a piece of Little because Little quite rightly suggested the Auditor General should investigate the the link between Hagaman’s 100K donation to the National Party and the subsequent funding of Pacific Island “aid” money that was poured into Hagaman’s resort in Niue.

    Remember that? You’d be forgiven for instantly forgetting as it was a pathetic show of faux outrage from this Hagaman character. But he is, however a useful puppet for the National Party who learnt nothing from the publication of Dirty Politics.

    The wrong person is on trial. Hoping this all backfires horribly on Hagaman and the National Party.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/328051/andrew-little's-defamation-trial-starts

  12. charen 12
    3 April 2017 at 3:08 pm

    So why is Little apologising then ?

    • One Anonymous Bloke 12.1
      3 April 2017 at 3:45 pm

      A Clayton’s apology (such as the one Little offered) adds insult to injury.

  13. Bearded Git 13
    3 April 2017 at 4:16 pm

    Fascinating interview of biographer of Paul Robeson just on Radio NZ-now there is an amazing guy. Well worth a listen.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201838973/in-search-of-paul-robeson

  14. Muttonbird 14
    3 April 2017 at 4:22 pm

    “We only have one reputation and once that’s lost, it’s very hard to recover,” Mr Fowler says.

    Hagaman’s reputation went out the window when he married for the fifth time a woman, lets face it, a generation younger than himself.

    He’s American too!

    In related news:

    Hotel magnate Earl Hagaman is facing fresh claims from his US-based ex-wife in a landmark case spanning courts in Christchurch, Wellington and Los Angeles.

    Barbara Fairbank, understood to be the third of Mr Hagaman’s former wives, has applied to a state court in Los Angeles to re-open a long-standing matrimonial property dispute.

    In preparation for the trial, set down for November 10, Ms Fairbank’s US lawyers have applied to question eight New Zealand-based witnesses, including Mr Hagaman’s fifth and current wife, and two of his lawyers.

    • Draco T Bastard 14.1
      3 April 2017 at 4:26 pm

      And that’s of relevance because…?

      • Muttonbird 14.1.1
        3 April 2017 at 4:37 pm

        Because he attracts controversy wherever he goes.

        You should read about this guy, it’s all over the internet.

  15. adam 15
    3 April 2017 at 4:43 pm

    So has enough shitty things happened yet, to get people talking about a general strike, and then organizing for one?

    • Rosie 15.1
      3 April 2017 at 4:59 pm

      Are you talking about here in NZ adam?

    • weka 15.2
      3 April 2017 at 5:02 pm

      Lots of people don’t know what that is adam

    • McFlock 15.3
      3 April 2017 at 5:22 pm

      general strikes are illegal these days, and besides nobody has the vibe any more.

      Nope, if you’re waiting for systemic collapse to inspire nationwide grassroots mass resistance, sadly it’ll be straight to riots and tear gas vs road flares. And we’re well away from that happening here, especially nationwide.

      • Rosie 15.3.1
        4 April 2017 at 9:46 am

        That’s what I was going to say…………….:-)

        And with union membership below 20% combined with the fact that a general strike is illegal it would never happen.

        The things we hope for and fatasise about that come about through a sense of frustration are often at odds with the real chances of them happening, in this country in particular.

  16. ianmac 16
    3 April 2017 at 5:13 pm

    There will not be an inquiry into allegations an SAS raid in Afghanistan led to civilian deaths.

    Prime Minister Bill English revealed that decision at his regular post-Cabinet press conference this afternoon, saying there was no basis for an inquiry.
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11830976

    • ianmac 16.1
      3 April 2017 at 5:23 pm

      The PM has made the issue political now so maybe this will have and electoral effect. He could have called for some sort of enquiry as a non-involved person but now????

  17. Muttonbird 17
    3 April 2017 at 8:38 pm

    I found this interesting.

    The Hagamans’ lawyer, Richard Fowler, urged the jury not to let politics get in involved in their decision

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11831045

    How on earth is it not political when Hagaman is a major donor to the National Party and the National party alone?

    And what has Kim Dotcom got to do with it?

  18. saveNZ 18
    4 April 2017 at 7:55 am

    God these Natz lovers can even influence politics with one food in the grave. That’s how much they feel entitled to public money!!

    There used to be something called freedom of speech, and the public used to be able to complain how their tax payers dollars were being used but now rich fucker can take the money and then sue people if they complain about it!

    Don’t forget the Natz used 1.775 billion of public money to bail out failed moneylender South Canterbury Finance’s assets, run by another rich fucker.