Open Mike 04/08/2018

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 4th, 2018 - 257 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

257 comments on “Open Mike 04/08/2018 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. millsy 1
    4 August 2018 at 6:12 am

    It is dissapointing (but not surprising) to see Lance O Sullivan in support of the commodification and privatisation of schooling (ie charter school). Privatisation hurt Maori in the 80s and 90s. What make them think that privatisation of education (which is National’s end goal) is going to help Maori. The likes of Toby Curtis need to hang their heads shame in wanting to hand the education of our kids to multinationals.

    • JanM 1.1
      4 August 2018 at 7:33 am

      1.Where did you get this from?
      2. What is your understanding of Maori-based charter schools?

      • JanM 1.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 8:06 am

        Thank you Rosemary.
        Millsy – in view of what he and Toby Curtis are saying can you not listen with an open heart?

        • solkta 1.2.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 8:29 am

          I guess what is missing is any analysis of what Charter Schools can achieve that Special Character Schools can’t and why.

          • Pete 1.2.1.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 11:40 am

            And what is missing is the acknowledgement from Toby Curtis and Lance O’Sullivan that they don’t think in New Zealand we have the intellectual capacity and the political will to come up with a state system catering for Māori children. And that our solution is to take an American solution for an American environment.

            And what is missing is the acknowledgement from Toby Curtis and Lance O’Sullivan that the National politicians who dominated in New Zealand for decades, created a society which saw a need to look for solutions in America for the problems they had created.

            What is as missing is the definitive objective data about the enrolments at charter schools which outline the profiles of their rolls: The numbers there who have been expelled from their previous schools, the number who are there simply because they ‘did not like’ their previous schools, the number who are there because they failed at their previous school, the number who are there because their schools failed them, the number who are there because their parents want the particular special character aspect e.g. Māori dimension.

            Only with that can the narrative and illusions about charter schools be judged and put into a true perspective.

            • Chris T 1.2.1.1.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 12:07 pm

              “they don’t think in New Zealand we have the intellectual capacity and the political will to come up with a state system catering for Māori children.”

              How long exactly are they supposed to wait for this miracle to happen?

              This has been the mantra of Labour for a very long time featuring loads of promises to achieve it.

              Maybe they should have yet another review of it?

              That will sort it

              • JanM …
                4 August 2018 at 1:13 pm

                Exactly – thanks for being the voice of sanity – I have to do a lot of deep breathing when I read racism dressed up as academic argument

              • Pete …
                4 August 2018 at 1:33 pm

                How long exactly are they supposed to wait for this miracle to happen?

                All the National members up to Hekia Parata and John Banks had the answers to our society. Those master plans put them in the position of saying we desperately needed charter schools.

                Co-incidentally (maybe), by the time they came to that conclusion Banks was in a party which wanted to sell schooling off and Parata was in a party which needed Banks’ party.

                If all their other miracles worked up to that time we wouldn’t need their latest one. As for the salesman Banks, his trumpeting for charter schools was the single longest clarion call of his failure and his National Party’s failure in the Whangarei electorate.

                No miracle is going to happen. You want miracles, you make them happen. Politicians were incapable of making positive things happen and an opportunist snake oil salesman was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

                Charter schools are no miracle. Plucking them out of some mystical box as the map to some educational and social nirvana with hope camouflaging the ideological plan will see more negative affects on schooling and education in the country than the problems they ostensibly sought to solve.

                • Chris T …
                  4 August 2018 at 4:20 pm

                  No one is saying Charter schools are a miracle.

                  But they appear to be working a shitload better than standard for some Maori and PIs at the moment (and non Maori) so why screw with them while they spend years coming up with their brilliant ideas to change standard to meet the needs?

                  It is what it is. Purely a close minded idealogical stance by Labour that they refuse to see reason on

            • Gabby 1.2.1.1.1.2
              4 August 2018 at 1:21 pm

              To be fair petey, we’ve been at it a while and I’m not sure things are going spiffingly.

              • In Vino …
                4 August 2018 at 4:33 pm

                Only the ardent propagandists supporting Charter Schools claim that they are ‘working a shitload better.’ There hasn’t been total agreement about that, either.
                They have not been here long enough to really prove anything. Several have folded completely, leaving the Taxpayer ripped off because the private owners retain properties, etc, and do not refund the taxpayer.
                In the USA, where they have existed for a longer time, there is still dispute about whether they perform any better at all.

                • Chris T …
                  4 August 2018 at 4:38 pm

                  Forgive me if I take Toby Curtis’s opinion of them with slightly more authority than the teachers Union

                  • In Vino …
                    4 August 2018 at 5:31 pm

                    I am happy to forgive you for accepting the opinion of an ardent propagandist who makes claims that are unsupported by any independent, peer-reviewed research. In other words, I understand that you are biased.

                    • Chris T …
                      4 August 2018 at 6:07 pm

                      And I’m sure you will post your independent peer reviewed research the NZ charter schools are not working better for a lot of Maori and
                      PI students than standard public schools momentarily…..

                      …… What am I saying?…..Of course you won’t

                      You have a closed mind on the subject

                      A few schools on the other side of the world were shit.

                      This is the only evidence the Unions need to tell Labour to get rid of them

                    • In Vino …
                      4 August 2018 at 6:32 pm

                      Oh, for heaven’s sake, please read carefully. I already stated the following above: “They have not been here long enough to really prove anything.” So you know damned well that there is no such research, and that Toby Curtis’s opinions remain just that.
                      You say: “A few schools on the other side of the world were shit.”
                      Understatement. The good ones and mediocre ones were generally shown to be no better than the best state/public schools. Look the links up for yourself.
                      I am tired of right-wing rants about how this (yet another) amazing new initiative can revolutionise Education by giving small class sizes and extra money (which proponents then vociferously deny, but it remains true) to right-wing experiments that are doomed to success, and aimed at privatisation.
                      You are now lamenting another failed attempt. Eat it.

                  • JanM …
                    4 August 2018 at 7:40 pm

                    My experience is that some (secondary) teachers are virulently anti because they do not want to acknowledge that their ‘cultural capital’ practice has let their Maori pupils down over the years. I have watched a few turn puce with pique over it – and a few or the more reflective ones becoming quite pensive.

                    • In Vino …
                      4 August 2018 at 8:55 pm

                      I have no argument with that, JanM, (as long as by ‘some’ you mean ‘a few’ rather than ‘most’) and I still regret not knowing what I now know when I was younger. But the whole thing has become a political football because the privatisers are now pretending that Charter Schools with their implied privatisation are now the ONLY way that Maori and PI students can possibly make progress. That is utter bollocks. The State system could cope if it were not being deliberately run down.
                      Please note that despite the new Coalition Govt, NOTHING has yet improved in our struggling state secondary schools. And the last Govt under John Key gave more ‘top-ups’ to private schools than state ones.

          • SaveNZ 1.2.1.1.2
            4 August 2018 at 11:45 am

            Yep, the law already allows special character schools and Maori immersion, the only difference is that there is no regulation and accountability in charter schools.. now I wonder who profits most from no regulation and no accountability – yep that’s right the most vulnerable aka Maori kids!

            So diddums to Maori and business leaders that want money from government and want the public to have absolutely no idea how or where that money is spent.

            There is already a case where Maori trustees blew a million on buying land for a Maori charter school, then expected the kids to work from shipping containers and then low and behold the school closed down and guess what the land somehow stayed with those trustees who denied their own kids a decent education and profited from it!

    • Patricia Bremner 1.3
      4 August 2018 at 11:22 am

      Toby was a self centered character at Ardmore Teacher’s Training College.
      He and Peter Sharples were beating the “Colonial” drum all that time ago.
      They are actually separatists. IMO.

  2. bwaghorn 2
    4 August 2018 at 7:21 am

    https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/105917625/rescue-helicopter-operators-silenced-from-talking-about-cuts-to-bases

    Typical city dwellers fucking over the provinces . Centralisation will kill people .

    • millsy 2.1
      4 August 2018 at 7:35 am

      Too bad no one is questioning why we are leaving it up to charities to run rescue helicopter services anyway. In most countries, that is done by their military.

      • Hongi Ika 2.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 7:47 am

        Government needs to do a rethink on rescue helicopters ?

        • Sabine 2.1.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 8:38 am

          government in the first place needs to pay for them. These helicopters, at least the one in Rotorua, where paid for by charity and bake sales.

          government should but out if the only offer they have is nothing.

          This area is huge, it is full of tourists year round, and yeah, right the helicopter for a rescue will come in from elsewhere just in time, yeah, right Tui.

          Mind this has been an ongoing issue for a while. But best would be that Government not take what Government did no pay for.

          • Johnr 2.1.1.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 10:14 am

            My daughter in law was a 111 call centre operator for st John’s. Came home after one shift and said “I ran out of helicopters today”. And they want to reduce and centralise, nuts.

            Furthermore the words commercially sensitive should be deleted from all public bodies vocabulary. It should be available to all the public, what the supplier is offering and how much we are paying for it.

            If it applied to all tenders then that is a level playing field for all

            • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1.1.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 2:22 pm

              And they want to reduce and centralise, nuts.

              Are they reducing the number of helicopters though?

              I’ve only seen them saying that they’re going to reduce the number of bases that they support which is not the same as reducing the number of helicopters.

              Furthermore the words commercially sensitive should be deleted from all public bodies vocabulary.

              Agreed. Commercial sensitivity is not something that contracting with the government should allow. The people have a right to know and comment. If the private providers don’t like that then they just don’t contract with the government.

              • McFlock …
                4 August 2018 at 7:55 pm

                effectively it is the same as a reduction in number, especially as some of the satellite bases would be close to known hotspots (e.g. skifield clusters or what have you). If you look at it as number of machine-use hours where the helicopter is either available for deployment or actually treating/transporting someone, rather than a number of machines.

                Additional transit time without a passenger is time where the helicopter is not available for deployment elsewhere. It’s not a one-for-one substitution because there’s still transport to hospital etc, but you’re still looking at a reduction in helicopter hours where they’re available for deployment or actually helping someone.

                Although the caveat on that is if the bulk of the activity is hospital:hospital patient transport rather than responding to accident scenes, centralisation might be sensible. I.e. road accident responded to with ambulances, patient assessed in ED, needs tertiary or higher head/spine/burn/paeds etc specialisation, so gets choppered from the 2nd level hospital to a regional or national centre. If the main base is suited to that, it might be okay.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  4 August 2018 at 9:45 pm

                  effectively it is the same as a reduction in number,

                  What if they increased the number of helicopters?

                  Current government funding of air ambulance services is $29 millon a year. Additional funding committed in this year’s budget is for another $60m over four years as well as an additional $22.9m from ACC funding.”

                  That’s a lot of extra funding nearly doubling the amount spent.

                  • McFlock …
                    4 August 2018 at 10:32 pm

                    If they increased the number of helicopters, those machines would still be spending more time in empty transit than actually helping people.

                    The problem isn’t whether they’re increasing the amount spent, the problem is whether someone getting seriously injured in the arse end of nowhere will get medical care in time.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      5 August 2018 at 12:23 am

                      The problem isn’t whether they’re increasing the amount spent, the problem is whether someone getting seriously injured in the arse end of nowhere will get medical care in time.

                      And the only way to know that is to look at the figures and the increased chances that the slight increase allows* for people to die. The question is if another two minutes or so is actually going result more people dying.

                      So, do you have any figures on that?

                      Because I’m pretty sure that the MoH does.

                      * It’s not a cause. The cause has already happened. It’s what’s put them in a life threatening situation.

                    • McFlock …
                      6 August 2018 at 1:06 pm

                      If the MoH has the data, they’ll have published it.

                      They probably got it from the same place you pulled “two minutes or so”. If you’re looking at a flight to the Taupo area in the original article, make that 20 minutes. That’s serious.

                      And if you’re talking “allows for people to die”, that is also known as “neglect”.

                      But even “two minutes or so” will eventually result in a death, if allowed to re-occur long enough. We’re actually talking a cost/benefit equation: how many people will die to save how much money.

                      If the ministry released its CBA, we might see whether the plan would save more people than it kills – and whether to do so we’re just writing off the regions as less worthy of a quick response.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      6 August 2018 at 5:17 pm

                      They probably got it from the same place you pulled “two minutes or so”. If you’re looking at a flight to the Taupo area in the original article, make that 20 minutes. That’s serious.

                      A base in Taupo probably isn’t in as good a place as the five located around it in the proposal.

                      And if you’re talking “allows for people to die”, that is also known as “neglect”.

                      There’s always going to be cases where the paramedics aren’t fast enough and people complaining that we need to do more.

                      We’re actually talking a cost/benefit equation: how many people will die to save how much money.

                      Yes because we can’t afford to have a helicopter base five minutes flight time away from everyone. That is physical reality.

                      How many people can we afford to have on base 24/7 ready to respond?
                      How many bases can we afford to run?
                      How many helicopters at each base?
                      How many bases if we drop the radius on each base from 75 miles to 50?

                      These are questions that need to be asked and it looks to me that the MoH has asked them but that the people complaining about it haven’t.

                      Quoting article:

                      Funnell has been vocal in his opposition, saying the proposed plan isn’t suited to New Zealand.

                      “It appears they’re using the New South Wales model for our ambulance operations, which is using larger, more expensive, twin-engined helicopters,” Funnell previously said.

                      “But when you compare Australia, which is predominantly flat, with New Zealand and its terrain, it’s quite a different challenge.”

                      Which means that the people making this proposal have some hard data on it and that this Funnell guy is talking out his arse. The Blue Mountains are in NSW and the surrounding area also seems to be quite rugged and ‘NZ like’.

                      Nothing I’ve seen yet indicates that the proposal put forward by the MoH is a bad idea.

                    • Exkiwiforces …
                      6 August 2018 at 8:41 pm

                      Funnell has been vocal in his opposition, saying the proposed plan isn’t suited to New Zealand.

                      “It appears they’re using the New South Wales model for our ambulance operations, which is using larger, more expensive, twin-engined helicopters,” Funnell previously said.

                      “But when you compare Australia, which is predominantly flat, with New Zealand and its terrain, it’s quite a different challenge.”

                      Which means that the people making this proposal have some hard data on it and that this Funnell guy is talking out his arse. The Blue Mountains are in NSW and the surrounding area also seems to be quite rugged and ‘NZ like’.”

                      Old Mate Funnell, knows his shit IRT aero medical and SAR and has been the go to man if there is has been a real funky one to do. He fly’s when the Airforce can’t do it for some reason, he is that good and the only other that was up there with him is the late Alan Bond with his MD500 from Mid Canterbury he was bloody good at what he could done with MD500.

                    • McFlock …
                      7 August 2018 at 12:03 am

                      Why haven’t the MoH released a CBA then? Transport do it for highways.

                      Part of the point seems to be that they’re issuing decisions without showing their workings to people whe will have to deal with the reality of the implementation. Wouldn’t be the first time the MoH have dictated stupidity from on high.

                      They’re normally pretty good, but things like the SNOMED implementation seem to be cart-before-horse. They love to implement nation-wide systems that make sense from one narrow angle and tack on wider uses after the fact. Probably a result of eternal restructurings.

                    • Exkiwiforces …
                      7 August 2018 at 12:42 am

                      The whole thing stinks and I get the feeling it being driven by someone who really has no idea on how Aero Medical Flights work in NZ and for old mate Funnell to bump his gums about this stupid idea coming out of Wellington is saying something. If it aren’t broken why fix it and the current system has been working for years without any issues or problems so why change now unless some muppet somewhere is trying to save money/ costs.

                    • McFlock …
                      7 August 2018 at 1:21 am

                      Going through the news reports, it really doesn’t have a vibe of includng all stakeholders in the process.

                      Standardisation and regionalisation have very good arguments in their favour, but what gets lost are the edge cases – the areas 70NM from a base that don’t overlap with another base’s area, the terrain where maybe a smaller machine has better access, the time spent in transit in both directions. What serves 3/4 of NZ well might leave the other 1/4 in the shit and still look good on paper – equity vs efficiency.

          • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1.1.2
            4 August 2018 at 2:19 pm

            government should but out if the only offer they have is nothing.

            I think you’ll find that the government pays the majority of the ongoing costs. This change that is happening is because the MoH has looked at it and realised that they can get better coverage for less cost. Not something to be sneezed at.

            The private providers are the ones that are whinging and that just looks to me like they’re whinging because of the loss of their government income.

            But best would be that Government not take what Government did no pay for.

            They’re not. The charities would still own the helicopters and other stuff. They just won’t be hired by the MoH any more.

      • AsleepWhileWalking 2.1.2
        4 August 2018 at 9:22 am

        Given what our military has been whittled down to I think I’d prefer the charities.

        • Sanctuary 2.1.2.1
          4 August 2018 at 12:56 pm

          Our military, if given the choice by complaint politicians (who to be fair look to the military brass hats for expert advice and get self-interested rubbish instead), will always buy eight outrageously expensive NH90 helicopters capable of very low level, high speed and violent manoeuvering as they swiftly access and egress a hot LZ ahead of, say, 16 general purpose helicopters like the Sikorsky S-70.

          If you cast you mind back, you often used to read of “An Air Force Iroquois helicopter” doing SAR.

          Not anymore. The NH-90 is an overpriced dog, useless for anything except a highly specific combat role of high speed troop transport in a hot war.

          They are too expensive to operate regularly in SAR – they are hanger Queens (Norway’s NH90 ASW helicopter force has achieved only 50% of the required flight hours due to maintenance issues) requiring a lot of support.

          It has design flaws that restrict it’s flight envelope in NZ’s trying weather conditions – I hear tell it’s rotor design of shorter, stiffer blades means rotor wash is unacceptably high for SAR and hovering in everything except combat situations when excessive rotor wash isn’t such a problem.

          The helicopter is so susceptible to corrosion the Air Force won’t let it be carried on Navy ships (so much for disaster relief using RNZAF helicopters).

          We are about to have yet another disaster with our purchase of the P-8, an aircraft whose operating costs (the Americans charge the sort of money only price gouging, corrupt US defense companies would consider reasonable for routine software upgrades, for example) will cripple our defense budget and limit the usefulness of the platform for fifty years or more.

          • Exkiwiforces 2.1.2.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 1:22 pm

            The Blackhawk was the Airforces first choice to replace the Huey as it could fit inside a C130 only just btw, but was not knock back no thanks to the lobbying of certain left wing muppets from 1st Labour Coalition as they didn’t want to support the USA arms industry also it was the reason why the option for 8 new C130J’s was taken up on the back of the Australian order instead of BS reason of cost at the time. Which would’ve work out cheaper in the longer term if got those new 8 C130Js instead of up grading the our 5 elderly C130H Model at the time.

            I will respond to Mike Smith inquiry on the P8 issues this weekend on Sunday or Monday.

            • Draco T Bastard 2.1.2.1.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 7:13 pm

              certain left wing muppets from 1st Labour Coalition as they didn’t want to support the USA arms industry

              I’m supportive of that position but the failure is that they just go and buy from somewhere else and another countries arms industry.

              If they want to do it properly then they should be supporting our own MoD R&D and production of the necessary equipment.

              War should not be done for profit.

              • Exkiwiforces …
                6 August 2018 at 4:36 pm

                DTB,

                We wouldn’t be having this discussion about the points that Sanctuary has rise IRT the NH90’s because of the high maintenance costs per flights ( which due in part of the lack of numbers ie 8 NH’s vs say 12 or 16 NH’s aka less means more and more means reduced maintenance cost etc.)

                If these clowns actually took their anti Yankee glasses off and actually had a bloody good look at was happening in ET and Solly’s etc at the time. They bloody would realise that having a helicopter that fit inside as Hec such as the Blackhawk would’ve been a wise decision to buy instead of one that was state of the art, can’t be airlifted at short notice to HADR to a Warlike/ Non Warlike environment and we were the International user outside of NATO achieve IOC, FOC before the Australian built one’s and NATO one’s.

                The NZ taxpayer doesn’t realise that C130 upgrade was a waste of money as they didn’t replace the engines at the same time and we almost very nearly had no C130’s at one stage if it wasn’t for likes of Des Ashton, some old hands from Project Kahu/ ACF and Safe Air which saved the day. As my uncle has said it was a close run thing and it’s very doubtful weather we would be able to pull something like that off again with all the cuts to the Airforce’s technical trades and skill sets since 2001.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  6 August 2018 at 4:56 pm

                  I’m not commenting on the viability of the Blackhawk or any other machine. I’ll take your word for it.

                  I was commenting on the hypocrisy of not supporting the US arms industry while supporting another nations private arms industry.

                  The only way to make arms non-profit is to take it in house using government funded R&D and production. I think it’d end up being cheaper as well as producing nationwide benefits not limited to the armed forces.

                  • Exkiwiforces …
                    6 August 2018 at 5:01 pm

                    Sorry mate, I should’ve realised the point you were trying to make about the hypocrisy of all it.

      • Patricia Bremner 2.1.3
        4 August 2018 at 11:26 am

        Not here in Australia Millsy, though the Government makes a huge donation the rest is raised by fundraisers like our son. He works for Life Flight Qld.

      • Draco T Bastard 2.1.4
        4 August 2018 at 2:14 pm

        There’s no way that such an important service should be left to charities and for profit services tendering for the job. That just increases bureaucracy and inefficiencies.

    • SaveNZ 2.2
      4 August 2018 at 12:07 pm

      These helicopter rescues and crews do a fantastic job. The government should listen to the operators themselves before they change everything to a different model.

      When government arbitrary changes things without consultation to the grass roots on the ground people aka the actual pilots within the operators then that is not good government practise. To then try to pretend the tender is the reason to gag debate on the new system is not acceptable.

      When government were changing it, they should have consulted FIRST and then considered what those on the ground had to say, and LISTENED and changed to accomodate the views and then put out the tender.

      If there is a reason for smaller helicopters aka hill top and difficult rescues then government should really look at that. What they have now seems to work.

      There are many situations where the helicopters are unable to land in NZ due to weather poor conditions so that needs to be considered about what model is best for that. Maybe big helicopters are not as good.

      It is crazy to have more distances between bases! That sounds like a cost cutting exercise to me.

      Government appears to be adding more money for less services and from further away.

      Like the schools, the National government would tell everyone they were increasing funding but it was for building the new class rooms and closing down schools, not actually running the schools and paying for the service which was being run down.
      Is this what is happening to the rescue helicopters? I hope not!

      The rescue helicopters are VITAL in a country like NZ especially now they closed down or down graded all the hospitals in rural areas.

      If they need money they should also be putting on a tourist tax that is collected to help part fund these as they are well utilised by tourists. The government should not just expect NZ public to raise money for the charity while the so called 2nd biggest export, tourism, gets a free ride and the Kiwis support all the infrastructure for them and the multinationals that profit from them with international hotels etc. As our population and tourism grows they need more money, not services closed down into longer distance hubs.

      • Sanctuary 2.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 1:13 pm

        I am of the view that NZ is now in need of an integrated rescue agency, combining (initially) the rescue helicopters and coastguard. The Navy Protector class could then be transferred to the new coast guard, along with the rescue helicopter force. The new department could be called the New Zealand Patrol and Rescue Force (NZPRF) and would be responsible for littorial law enforcement, fisheries and customs protection of our sea frontiers and SAR across the entire sea and land area that NZ is responsible for.

        By removing the requirement that it possess high-intensity combat capability to conduct it’s mission, the NZPRF could purchase equipment that was cheaper to operate and more suited to the tasks assigned to it – I have always regarded using a P-3K Orion with eleven crew to photograph Taiwanese squid boats to be an enormously wasteful use of taxpayers money, when the task could be carried out by a converted ATR-72 with a crew of 4-5.

        • Exkiwiforces 2.2.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 1:27 pm

          The Dash 8 or CN- 235 are better than ATR-72 for short range Maritime Patrols/ SAR and better STOL capability as well.

      • Draco T Bastard 2.2.2
        4 August 2018 at 2:47 pm

        The government should listen to the operators themselves before they change everything to a different model.

        The government should only listen if the operators have research to back up what they say. I doubt that they do.

        When government arbitrary changes things without consultation to the grass roots on the ground people aka the actual pilots within the operators then that is not good government practise.

        Have they done that?

        Not being allowed to talk to the media isn’t the same as not being asked.

        There are many situations where the helicopters are unable to land in NZ due to weather poor conditions so that needs to be considered about what model is best for that. Maybe big helicopters are not as good.

        Helicopters are used for rescue because they can hover and thus don’t need to land. It’s possible that a larger helicopter will be more stable in adverse conditions.

        It is crazy to have more distances between bases!

        It’s possible to have less bases while having better response time if the bases are in better places with better coverage.

        That sounds like a cost cutting exercise to me.

        It is a cost cutting exercise but that alone doesn’t make it a bad thing. It could be a good thing if it ends up increasing services.

        The government should not just expect NZ public to raise money for the charity while the so called 2nd biggest export, tourism, gets a free ride and the Kiwis support all the infrastructure for them and the multinationals that profit from them with international hotels etc.

        Labour plans $25 charge on international visitors to pay for tourism facilities

        Don’t know if NZFirst would support it or not though.

    • Gabby 2.3
      4 August 2018 at 1:26 pm

      That’s a masterpiece of Newspeak. Gnats appointment?

    • Draco T Bastard 2.4
      4 August 2018 at 2:11 pm

      I suspect that you, like most of the public, have NFI how to best arrange the bases. Using emotion won’t do it.

      It won’t be centralisation that they’re doing but rationalisation. Something that needs to be done to ensure the best coverage and bringing about the best utilisation of scarce resources.

      • bwaghorn 2.4.1
        4 August 2018 at 3:43 pm

        So the pilots who say that the local knowledge that is required to navigate some of hese areas don’t know what they are talking about . Add to that local people have funded and built these bases and you can bet the good stiff will be taken away and locals will be left out of decisions .
        The central north island us full forestry and farming plus trappers etc if it goes to Hamilton it will add to response times.
        The only bonus might be that at least a patient will end up at a big hospital instead of the run down ones out here .

        • Draco T Bastard 2.4.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 7:01 pm

          So the pilots who say that the local knowledge that is required to navigate some of hese areas don’t know what they are talking about .

          As far as flying goes – nope.
          As far as planning a nationwide emergency service – yes.

          Add to that local people have funded and built these bases and you can bet the good stiff will be taken away and locals will be left out of decisions .

          Yes, the locals doing that was a really stupid idea from the get go. The government should simply pay these trusts the value of the equipment. The trust can then give the money back to the community.

          BTW, how much money did the local people put in? How much does government fund the operations?

          The central north island us full forestry and farming plus trappers etc if it goes to Hamilton it will add to response times.?

          Maybe but not by any significant amount, i.e, it’s not going to lead to any more deaths.

          The only bonus might be that at least a patient will end up at a big hospital instead of the run down ones out here .

          They should always be taken to the best hospital for their needs and that doesn’t mean where the bases are.

  3. Dennis Frank 3
    4 August 2018 at 7:58 am

    “Matthew Hooton: Early election if waka-jumping law not passed” Herald yesterday. “All of the Green’s current MPs oppose Little’s legislation but the party’s leadership has nonetheless decided to make it law, claiming their confidence and supply agreement with Labour forces their hand. In fact, secret party documents leaked to Herald contributor Bryce Edwards reveal its MPs were advised by the Cabinet Office more than six months ago that this was not so.”

    Just means they have arrived at a collective opinion that the Cabinet Office is wrong. Since our public servants are usually wrong, no big deal. “They and Ardern have no real option but to submit to NZ First’s bullying because the alternative is to face a general election before the end of the year.” Only if Winston forced that outcome on them, and he’d only do that if the Greens voted against the bill while NZF polling was looking good. Hypothetical, so far.

    ” In the select committee, despite the dozens of submissions being almost universally against, Labour MPs have not allowed a single amendment to the bill. Tension among the committee’s MPs mean it has not even been able to report back to parliament as a whole.” This is where it gets interesting! The select committee process is meant to redesign a bill until consensus of members approves it. Why are Labour trying to subvert our democratic process? Closet-Stalinism?

    “Little’s legislation allows a party leader to have any of their MPs expelled from Parliament for challenging the party line. A leader needs the backing of only two-thirds of the party’s MPs for the expulsion to succeed.” Rod Donald thought the original bill was fascist, but he was leftist. If a dog ran past a leftist they’d call it fascist. Jeanette Fitzsimons reckons it’s “unnecessary to address any real problem”. The real problem she can’t see is the flaw in our electoral law: voters expect elected reps to represent them on the basis of their electoral contract. Our law ought not to allow politicians to put self-interest ahead of the common interests of electors.

    The principle of social contract must be recognised, and balanced against freedom of conscience and freedom of speech in electoral law. It’s the only way MMP will work fairly. Voter betrayal polarises too many to be ignored. Someone has to tell Labour to start making appropriate decisions in our common interests. I expect either of our Green leaders to tell them to do this. And I hope they do so via press conference, to expose that Labour covert anti-democratic behaviour.

    • Ad 3.1
      4 August 2018 at 8:27 am

      Thank goodness for the Greens’ transport and housing policies – almost the only ones to be implemented from the election.

      It’s like watching the Labour-Alliance split in reverse.

    • The Chairman 3.2
      4 August 2018 at 8:54 am

      Have the Greens apologised for misleading the public?

      • mauī 3.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 9:13 am

        They’re waiting for you to apologise first..

        • Cinny 3.2.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 9:21 am

          Maui for the win 🙂 That was funny as.

        • The Chairman 3.2.1.2
          4 August 2018 at 9:24 am

          This has nothing to do with me. I didn’t advise the Greens to lie to the public.

          So not only are the Greens lowering their principles, they’ve now been caught out lying about their grounds for doing so.

          Are you happy about that? I’m certainly not. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot, stupid muppets.

          • David Mac 3.2.1.2.1
            4 August 2018 at 9:44 am

            I hope you’re not a Father.

            If so, it would of been awful growing up under a constant barrage of “You are so useless and pathetic son.”

            • The Chairman 3.2.1.2.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 11:35 am

              Do you find this to be acceptable behaviour from the Greens?

              The constant barrage is a direct result of the Greens constantly messing up.

              The Greens aren’t my children, they are a party I voted for and one I expect better from.

              • Incognito …
                4 August 2018 at 11:42 am

                So, metaphorically, the Greens are your children. Pity the child with an overly concerned parent …

                • The Chairman …
                  5 August 2018 at 6:37 am

                  They are child like, but metaphorically or not, I don’t see them as my children.

                  I pity the child whose parents don’t give a damn.

                  • Incognito …
                    5 August 2018 at 11:21 am

                    You voted for them and your vote contributed to them being where they are now so they’re most definitely your children, metaphorically.

                    Unsurprisingly, you now denounce them and want to orphan them off.

                    I also pity the child whose parents don’t give a damn but overbearing parents can do (as) much damage. All metaphorically, of course …

              • Tricledrown …
                4 August 2018 at 2:44 pm

                T musical Chairman the greens aren’t lying they are supporting their coalition partners who have given the Greens some policy concessions to get more policies through the 3 way negotiations
                Every govt has to swallow the odd dead rat.
                Had the greens got a bigger slice of the vote they would have seen more policy adopted.
                The Chairman I detect faux outrage.
                The Greens have not said they would support the 3rd reading so before you criticise put all the facts on the table.
                It’s a no big deal policy.

                • The Chairman …
                  5 August 2018 at 6:28 am

                  While it’s clear the Greens are doing this to support their coalition partners, they weren’t bound by their coalition agreement as they claimed. Therefore they lied.

              • David Mac …
                4 August 2018 at 6:17 pm

                I think you fail to understand that nobody, you included, desires to be in receipt of criticism. I think riding along on your ‘It’s constructive criticism’ pony as you do relegates you to being irrelevant, a hoax or hopelessly out of touch with peoples’ feelings.

                If you want the best out of me, don’t be shoving what I suck at in my face, lets talk about the stuff I’m doing that makes people smile.

                • The Chairman …
                  5 August 2018 at 6:31 am

                  One can’t get the best out of someone without highlighting when and what they do wrong.

                  • Incognito …
                    5 August 2018 at 11:25 am

                    Too many negations:

                    One can get the best out of someone with highlighting when and what they do wrong.

                    FIFY

                    That seems to be your motto/modus operandi here so you might as well spell it out for all to see.

          • Dennis Frank 3.2.1.2.2
            4 August 2018 at 9:51 am

            You seem to think public servants tell the truth. Really? Anyway, I doubt the Greens parliamentarians see it as a truth/falsity thing. They seem to be interpreting their agreement with the government in broader terms than the Cabinet Office literalist view does.

            My first reaction was actually similar to yours: seemed to me they were being disingenuous. Having pondered it awhile, I now see that they are just spinning a collective stance in support of the government. Nobody wants another election this soon. It’s in the common interests of all three parties that this government proceeds on a consensus basis. Where they went wrong is not framing the situation exactly as I just described it.

            • solkta 3.2.1.2.2.1
              4 August 2018 at 10:01 am

              Yes, at the end of the day the thing that matters is whether Winston thinks they are obliged to support it. NZF have had to support environmental policy that they would otherwise oppose.

              Be aware that The Chairman is just a concern troll.

              • The Chairman …
                4 August 2018 at 11:24 am

                “Be aware that The Chairman is just a concern troll.”

                No, I’m not. I’m merely a left wing voter with genuine concerns.

                • McFlock …
                  4 August 2018 at 8:00 pm

                  Hands up, everyone who believes that shit.

                  • The Chairman …
                    5 August 2018 at 6:53 am

                    I find it ironic that some of the most troll like commentators accuse me of being a troll. What is this? Some form of reverse psychology being attempted here?

                    • McFlock …
                      6 August 2018 at 12:51 pm

                      Nope, just a mildly amusing illustration of how many people believe your claim of 3.2.1.2.2.2

              • Hongi Ika …
                5 August 2018 at 6:54 pm

                Not all NZF voters are anti-environmental ?

                • solkta …
                  5 August 2018 at 7:46 pm

                  I don’t know many NZF voters, but they don’t really have environmental policy and their MPs obviously don’t give a shit.

            • The Chairman 3.2.1.2.2.2
              4 August 2018 at 11:20 am

              Where they went wrong was lying, they weren’t bound by their confidence and supply agreement.

              So regardless of their interpretation (which at this stage is just your speculation as no official apology or explanation has been put forth) they’ve further damaged their credibility with voters.

              • Dennis Frank …
                4 August 2018 at 11:42 am

                Some voters. Internal Labour polling (UMR) apparently has them @ 7% currently, so we await the next public poll to see how much damage, if any. Wouldn’t surprise me if they actually went up. Voters are more likely to respond favourably to their support of government cohesion and ignore such legalism.

                • The Chairman …
                  4 August 2018 at 12:25 pm

                  Last I’d heard (which was some months back) internal polling had them under 5%.

                  They also haven’t been polling too well in the externals since the election. Albeit, above the threshold. And considering their ministerial positions and their 20 goals achieved, which they already announced, they don’t seem to have much more to further entice voters.

                  The last thing they need is to risk current supporters being turned off by their lying, thus loss of credibility.

                  • Dennis Frank …
                    4 August 2018 at 12:47 pm

                    Well, one Green voter to another, I share some of your concern. I’ll be at the conference in a couple of weeks & will be discussing it all with as many as possible there, including the parliamentarians. As usual, I’ll explain the subtleties that they don’t seem to have their heads around. Months later they’ll be announcing the consequences as if they’d figured it out all by themselves…

                    • solkta …
                      4 August 2018 at 12:51 pm

                      One Green voter to one concern troll more like. Don’t feed him, he is only here to run the Greens down.

                    • Dennis Frank …
                      4 August 2018 at 1:05 pm

                      Thanks for the advice. I prefer giving people the benefit of the doubt but if evidence that your analysis is correct emerges, I will ignore him thereafter..

                    • The Chairman …
                      4 August 2018 at 1:15 pm

                      I appreciate you share some of my concerns and plan to further raise them.

                      Ignore solkta’s trolling accusation, they just seem to have a bee up their ass.

                    • The Chairman …
                      4 August 2018 at 1:23 pm

                      Speaking of evidence emerging. I posted this the other day (see link below) and look at the derailing thus troll like response I received from solkta.

                      https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-02-08-2018/#comment-1509039

                    • Dennis Frank …
                      4 August 2018 at 2:28 pm

                      I saw it. Internet conversations polarise folks easily. I think we all know that now, and can try to de-polarise by finding common ground, giving credit where due, acknowledging points made by others who have criticised us, etc.

                      Axelrod’s book The Evolution of Co-operation used game theory. It became so influential at the upper level of US foreign policy that it got credited for precipitating Reagan’s switch from antagonism to “the evil empire” into reciprocity with Gorbachev, hence the nuclear arms reduction agreements etc. The winner of the computer games tournament (1980) based on the prisoner’s dilemma was Tit for Tat, which is the simple strategy humans have often used naturally.

                      There are profound lessons to be learned from this for anyone who polarises others (whether generated by their style of language use, or inadvertently).

                  • Incognito …
                    4 August 2018 at 5:57 pm

                    Speaking of evidence emerging. I posted this the other day (see link below) and look at the derailing thus troll like response I received from solkta.

                    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-02-08-2018/#comment-1509039

                    Yup, you’ve posted that list of yours twice now and here again you call attention to it.

                    In any case, those listed are not indicators of well-being but of misery, poverty, inequality and thus of general ill-being. Maybe you want to debate whether the absence of ill-being is the same as well-being? Alternatively, you may want to argue why raising concern and negative criticism is more effective than looking for commonality and constructive criticism. But then again, you may not.

                    • The Chairman …
                      5 August 2018 at 6:42 am

                      In this instance, I was drawing attention to solkta’s reply to the post.

                      Nevertheless, there was nothing sinister in re-highlighting the Governments call for input as a consequence.

                      And the post in question wasn’t about raising concern and negative criticism. It was about seeking peoples input.

                      As for the list I supplied within the post, a nations well-being is largely judged on how little ill-being there is. Hence, those listed would make good indicators.

                  • corodale …
                    5 August 2018 at 8:00 am

                    Perhaps a “decentralisation measure”, if that is quantifiable. Decentralisation has multipule benefits around regionality. And even decentralisation as hedging to make the centralised UN safer to work with.

                    • The Chairman …
                      5 August 2018 at 9:06 am

                      While there are benefits to decentralisation, there are some discouraging negatives. Namely, the reduction of democratic oversight. For example, the far lower level of participation in local elections.

                      On top of that comes duplication, thus additional costs.

                  • Incognito …
                    5 August 2018 at 11:43 am

                    And the post in question wasn’t about raising concern and negative criticism. It was about seeking peoples input.

                    After all these times you still don’t get it, do you? You keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect (!) commenters here to cave in to you? Never ever do you consider a change of tack, do you? Einstein’s quote comes to mind …

                    As for the list I supplied within the post, a nations well-being is largely judged on how little ill-being there is. Hence, those listed would make good indicators.

                    Yes, with you as the judge. It is your way or the highway, isn’t it? You have so little tolerance for other views, it seems, that it almost always ends up being a simple binary construct for/with you.

                    Some people are impossible to interview and some people are impossible to debate with. Often, they are the same people …

          • Pete 3.2.1.2.3
            4 August 2018 at 11:47 am

            An aside: What’s this about principles and lying and politicians? I’m confused about people who for years cheered their lying unprincipled favourites, getting all uppity when they see someone else doing the same thing.

            • The Chairman 3.2.1.2.3.1
              4 August 2018 at 11:51 am

              Yes, you are confused. The only party I’ve promoted on here have been the Greens.

              • solkta …
                4 August 2018 at 11:54 am

                Fuck off troll.

              • In Vino …
                4 August 2018 at 4:47 pm

                Yes – but a strange way of promoting. More often criticising, and urging for what I suspect you think are actions that will reinforce the public’s perception of Greenies as Leftie Loonies. I too see you as a concern troll, Chairman. You keep blowing your own cover, yet keep pretending.
                Brownie points for persistence, but not for a convincing performance.

                • The Chairman …
                  5 August 2018 at 6:12 am

                  My concerns are always genuine and have merit.

                  I have never advocated for the Greens to act like loonies.

                  My criticisms aren’t without reason. And despite your accusations, you have constantly failed to show otherwise.

                  Evident, once again, by your reply to this concern which you didn’t even touch upon. In a troll like manner, you just had a go at me.

                  Where’s your concern about the public’s perception of the Greens looking like lairs? Further risking their credibility, thus the public’s confidence and trust, potentially lessening their chance of survival come next election.

                  The public’s confidence and trust is easy to lose, but far harder to regain.

                  If the Greens are willing to lie to their supporters to help win them over for compromising on their principles, what else have they lied about?

                  The following extract (below) from Gordon Campbell is a little something more to ponder.

                  As Greens MP Eugenie Sage said by way of an explanation, when you’re in coalition there are some things you just have to do as part of the coalition agreement. “It is a dead rat we have to swallow.”
                  Really? That’s arguable. The Greens did not have to sign up last year to the Budget Responsibility Rules that continue to restrict the government’s ability to meet social needs. They chose to do so back then, and they’re choosing right now not to revisit that decision. Sage has been here before, too. In June, in her role as Lands Minister, she claimed that the Overseas Investment Act prevented her from refusing consent to a land purchase by a large Chinese company that would enable it to expand its water bottling operations. 

                  http://werewolf.co.nz/2018/07/gordon-campbell-on-nationals-obsolescence-and-the-greens-dilemma/

                  • Incognito …
                    5 August 2018 at 11:33 am

                    This is how you come across, to me:

                    When you visit your GP you tell them the (self-)diagnosis and what to prescribe you or which specialist you must be referred to. If the GP does not oblige, you throw a tantrum and send out flyers telling everybody how bad the GP is. Until they comply with your demands, of course. When the specialist gets to see you, urgently, of course, the cycle repeats.

                    Recognise the pattern?

    • Graeme 3.3
      4 August 2018 at 10:27 am

      This bill will make it difficult for a party caucus to split in two and form a new party, sort of like the Green Party did when they left the Alliance. That may be a matter of interpretation, as the Alliance was a grouping of pre-existing political entities.

      The National party is another story. If they have an outbreak of irreconcilable differences it’s going to be difficult for part of the caucus to storm off and become a seperate entity. So that route to friend on the right is effectively closed. Likewise the Shipley strategy of enticing / stealing MPs from another party is off the table too.

      So National have to cultivate a friend outside Parliament and get them over 5%, and history shows this isn’t easy, or cheap.

      Hence Mathew is loosing his shit and setting a new national mark for shark hurdling.

      • solkta 3.3.1
        4 August 2018 at 10:36 am

        The law will not require political parties to use it. National could choose to write internal rules to say that it can’t be used by them. That would be the only principled thing to do given their opposition to it.

        • Dennis Frank 3.3.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 10:47 am

          Ah, I didn’t know that. A very good point! An opt-out option eases the path to consensus, eh? I wish those on the select committee would inform us of such relevant dimensions of the situation. No reason not to include the public in the legislative process by means of regular commentary, is there?

          • solkta 3.3.1.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 10:51 am

            I guess they don’t inform of such detail because it is obvious.

            • Dennis Frank 3.3.1.1.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 11:00 am

              It isn’t obvious to the public unless the media reported it. Nobody bothers reading proposed bills unless they are personally involved.

        • The Chairman 3.3.1.2
          4 August 2018 at 11:41 am

          “National could choose to write internal rules to say that it can’t be used by them. That would be the only principled thing to do given their opposition to it.”

          Do you think the Greens will do this? Moreover, do you think they should given their position?

          • solkta 3.3.1.2.1
            4 August 2018 at 11:43 am

            Yes and yes.

            • The Chairman 3.3.1.2.1.1
              5 August 2018 at 6:46 am

              What leads you to believe the Greens will write internal rules to say that it can’t be used by them?

          • Dennis Frank 3.3.1.2.2
            4 August 2018 at 11:52 am

            Two excellent questions. I’m wondering why the two legal experts who have commented on the bill on political blogs failed to provide this info. And why the media have apparently failed to report it. Given that policy ought to be evidence-based, someone ought to provide the evidence by quoting the relevant clause. I do realise that most folk view the prospect of having to trawl thro lawyer-speak with sufficient tedium as to make watching the parliament channel seem exciting…

          • Tricledrown 3.3.1.2.3
            4 August 2018 at 2:48 pm

            The Chairman the language of your faux outrage proves that your earlier claim that you voted Green highly unlikely you seem to be more concerned how it affects National.

            • The Chairman 3.3.1.2.3.1
              5 August 2018 at 6:44 am

              National will be amazed at how good the Green’s are at potentially damaging (in this instance, via compromising their principles and being caught out lying) their own support.

          • Bg 3.3.1.2.4
            4 August 2018 at 4:21 pm

            If that’s true, then why doesn’t NZ First just rewrite their constitute, to suit Winston?

            Let’s face it, the whole debacle is about Peters nervousness concerning one or two rouge MPs he may want to expel in the future

        • Draco T Bastard 3.3.1.3
          4 August 2018 at 2:54 pm

          You cannot contract out of the law.

          That’s just a general principle.

      • Dennis Frank 3.3.2
        4 August 2018 at 10:57 am

        Yes, I was involved in the early years of the Alliance formation and recall the emphasis that was placed on it being an Alliance of parties. I suspect that changed prior to the 1996 election: registration of the Alliance as an individual party would have been necessary to conform to the incoming MMP system.

        Hooten’s point that the Greens would not have been legally able to split from the Alliance under the bill may be valid, wholly or partially. I’m not a lawyer. But that’s why we need the select committee to operate free of Labour’s constraint, so it can produce a result that provides consensus on a common interest basis.

        • solkta 3.3.2.1
          4 August 2018 at 11:02 am

          If such an alliance was to be formed post this bill then it would most likely contain as part of its constitution that the bill could not be used. It would be foolish for a party like the Greens to join otherwise.

      • Draco T Bastard 3.3.3
        4 August 2018 at 2:54 pm

        +111

    • Ad 4.1
      4 August 2018 at 8:32 am

      There is not a shit show this is going to happen under Hipkins. We all know it.

      • Pat 4.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 8:36 am

        The article is about considerably more than education

        • Rosemary McDonald 4.1.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 8:51 am

          Pat….first rule of te Interweb….never assume that commenters have actually read the article they are commenting on.

          Folk just don’t. Beggars belief..

          • Ad 4.1.1.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 9:12 am

            Actually the section on education is the second half of the article, so if you want to try me on the whole article bring it on pal.

            Education was the only substantive policy issue that the author raised, so that’s why I addressed that. The rest is too weak to bother with.

            I then turned naturally to the Minister who would have to execute the policy decisions about education, and read the politics of it.

            But top work for being a total idiot this morning.

            • Rosemary McDonald 4.1.1.1.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 9:34 am

              “But top work for being a total idiot this morning.”

              Early with the ad homs this morning…hit a nerve did I?

              🙂 🙂

              • Ad …
                4 August 2018 at 9:40 am

                Nope. Just letting you know that you were wrong for really clear reasons which were really, really obvious.

                Again, top work for being an idiot this morning.

              • greywarshark …
                4 August 2018 at 11:16 am

                Don’t involve in nit-picking criticism of each other please Standardistas. Give some slack, and some respect for long term thoughtful lefties in the spectrum. We all don’t have to agree – there is enough tit for tat going on with the RW loonies and stoneheads that exercise small proportions of their brains to the extent that they are popping out their ears. Let’s keep the good discussions paramount.

                Sniping, in my son’s favourite computer game Team Fortress 2 makes many characters hit the ground. I suggst leave it for such games.

                • Rosemary McDonald …
                  4 August 2018 at 11:44 am

                  ” Give some slack, and some respect for long term thoughtful lefties in the spectrum. ”

                  If only those ‘long term thoughtful lefties’ were easily identified.

                  • greywarshark …
                    4 August 2018 at 12:15 pm

                    Hey Rosemary
                    Take a bow you are one of them – ‘the thoughtful lefties’. You know who comes on and offers regular useful points and shines light on problems and solutions and ideas and balanced thoughts and practical and wise ways forward. You tend to go OTT on the sickness thing and the Miserly of Health. Which is because you know so much about it and represents your passion, and knowledge of where attention is needed.

                    Same with others. We all feel irritation with each other sometimes.
                    See Marshall McLuhan link below. You would find it interesting.

            • Pat 4.1.1.1.1.2
              4 August 2018 at 9:56 am

              Apart the the unjustified air of superiority on display I’m starting to have concerns about your comprehension level…education is a minor topic in the article. The main thrust is something that has arisen several times over the past couple of weeks and something near and dear to my own heart…planning.

              “There is rage in the world. Rage in this country too. The big task for Jacinda Ardern and her Government is to set us on a path where hope subsumes the rage.

              Because there is also tremendous hope. And the people who voted for this Government expect to see it made manifest.

              There’s no one way to do it. But it’s not about adjusting the levers and twiddling the settings, as economists love to say. It needs to be comprehensive and structural and it needs flagship policies that everyone can understand.”

              And what pray tell is “an occassional Muldoonist”?

            • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1.1.3
              4 August 2018 at 3:03 pm

              Education was the only substantive policy issue that the author raised, so that’s why I addressed that.

              Really?

              It’s not because poor people don’t work hard. Data from Statistics NZ shows that the lower your hourly rate of pay, the longer you are likely to be working.

              It also shows that while minimum wage rises have helped the bottom 10 per cent of wage and salary earners, for the next 50 per cent wages have risen at only half the rate of those in the top 10 per cent. They have, in real terms, stagnated.

              Council of Trade Unions (CTU) economist Bill Rosenberg calls it a “hollowing out of the wage scale”. Inequality is growing and the people taking the biggest hit are those in the middle and the lower middle. Mostly, that includes self-employed people.

              It’s worse for non-working beneficiaries. We don’t have a DPB (Domestic Purposes Benefit) any more, but there is an equivalent payment package in the benefit system.

              Rosenberg has calculated that even if we raised that payment by 25 per cent, it would still be no higher, in relation to the average wage, than the level it was cut to in 1991. For the single unemployed and invalids, benefits would need to rise by even more.

              We forget or perhaps we never knew just what damage we did. Despite all their rhetoric, neither the last National Government nor Labour before them ever made good on the attacks on the poorest people in our society in 1991.

              The proof that the neo-liberal reforms by the 4th Labour government and the governments that came after them has made us poorer is fairly substantive.

    • Rosemary McDonald 4.2
      4 August 2018 at 8:49 am

      ” The answer is that the status of the BRR shouldn’t come first. If Labour can articulate a big programme for change, the fate of the BRR can be settled as a consequence.

      And here’s a thing: the BRR require the debt target (20 per cent of GDP) to be met “within five years of taking office”. It’s at 20.1 per cent now. They’re there four years early.

      So the Government has wriggle room. If it gets buy-in on the plan it will get buy-in on the means to get there. It’s about making decisions the right way round.”

      Simon Wilson should maybe have a place on Brian Easton’s Strategic Policy Group with direct access to the PM and Cabinet.

      https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/what-should-the-government-be-doing

      Frustrating for those of us at the bottom (or very near so) is that rational, reasonable solutions are being articulated….but not by those we elected in hope of fundamental change.

      • Pat 4.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 8:50 am

        Does Brian Easton have the Governments ear? I didnt know that

        • Rosemary McDonald 4.2.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 8:55 am

          I don’t know. I became a bit of a Brian Easton fan after reading his evidence to the HRRT on the Atkinson “Family Carers Case” back in 2008. (Shame on me, I won’t link to it now as I have family carers duties to perform 😉 ) but I was very impressed how close he got to an accurate costing despite meagre and often inaccurate data from the Miserly of Health.

          He has a website…some gems available for those interested.

        • Ad 4.2.1.2
          4 August 2018 at 9:15 am

          No.
          He comes out for an occasional Muldoonist burp now and then, then slides back into the riverbank.

          • Rosemary McDonald 4.2.1.2.1
            4 August 2018 at 9:41 am

            “No.
            He comes out for an occasional Muldoonist burp now and then, then slides back into the riverbank.”

            No.
            He is actually quite productive, both in quality and quantity. But I guess one would have to spend more time with one’s head out of the mud to know that.

        • veutoviper 4.2.1.3
          4 August 2018 at 11:05 am

          He has been there in the background of Labour governments etc for many years, along with a few other ‘out of the public eye/behind the scene’ advisers etc who I won’t name,

    • ianmac 4.3
      4 August 2018 at 8:57 am

      Pat. An excellent column by Simon Wilson.
      Maybe those reviews of taxation and Education etc will be the basis for future major changes?
      Hipkins is more likely to effect the changes than anyone else!

      “The biggest debate in and around the Government right now is over the Budget Responsibility Rules (BRR). This was a commitment made by Labour and the Greens before the election, to hold core crown debt to 20 per cent of GDP and core crown spending to 30 per cent of GDP…..

      …You can buy a lot of poverty alleviation, transport infrastructure and teacher salaries with $35 billion.
      …Make teaching a job that the best and brightest school students with an ounce of public service in them will queue up to do….
      …How would we achieve that? Start with pay rises, steep enough to reposition – to recategorise – the job among the higher-paid professions. Far steeper than is being proposed now…

      …In schools, add enough support services to allow teachers to focus on what we want from them. ..

      …Slash the paperwork. Slash the class sizes too. With both those things, give teachers more contact hours with their students, not just in the classroom but in extra-curricular life and in family and community engagement….

      • Cinny 4.3.1
        4 August 2018 at 9:10 am

        Re Education…. Chris Hipkins is on The Nation this morning, 9:30am tv3

        https://twitter.com/NewshubNationNZ/status/1025249135383830529

        Here’s a link to watch it via the live stream from 9.30am

        https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows.html

        • ianmac 4.3.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 9:50 am

          Thanks Cinny. Hipkins was competent and cautious about over promising. Needs time I guess.

          • Cinny 4.3.1.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 10:16 am

            You’re very welcome Ian 🙂

            I really like Chris Hipkins, he seems to really care about education.

            Was impressed with him in parliament this week, he’s been stellar.

            • ianmac 4.3.1.1.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 10:35 am

              Amy Adams was feeding him lines which instead of crushing him, instead gave him easy shots to demolish her intentions. He did so with confidence and directness.

      • SaveNZ 4.3.2
        4 August 2018 at 12:30 pm

        The most positive I feel about the new government is with what they have done with primary school education! They seem to be doing a stellar job in this area as there has been so many destructive things to unravel like National standards and they have been quick to do that.

        • SaveNZ 4.3.2.1
          4 August 2018 at 2:14 pm

          Also totally approve of getting rid of charter schools, change them to Maori immersion or special character schools, there is plenty of success within these, but they are regulated and it’s not just money to private individuals to profit from unregulated schooling like the charter school model where the money invariably ends up feeding private individuals getting the money to spend on themselves with little oversight, NOT the education of the kids.

  5. Ad 5
    4 August 2018 at 8:31 am

    Finally Jeremy Corbyn admits straight up there’s an anti-Jewish problem in the UK Labour Party and promises to do something about it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-labour-party

    Not that he’s going to get that Jewish vote back now, but at least he finally woke.

    • Dennis Frank 5.1
      4 August 2018 at 9:02 am

      A well-written stand. Nothing there I disagree with. Critics of the Israeli government behaviour will feel that having the antisemitic label applied to them is inappropriate. How would anyone know if there actually are genuine antisemites within the Labour Party? Only if they issued public statements declaring that folks of semitic ancestory are defective due to their racial origins. I’ve never seen media reports of this actually happening. Just a whole bunch of complainers waving straw men wherever you look.

      • corodale 5.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 9:41 am

        “Zionism is not racism.” This is getting beyond the grasp. Putting your thinking in reverse, I might ask, “do the folk of semitic ancestory believe they are superiour?” Is this what Zionism is? That they think they are the-chosen-people-of-God? Or are the Christian bible designers at fault there? The whole, Jesus the Jew as THE son of God, taken too far. It’s a labyrinth. Is this “defective” hypothesis you explore not a fair reactionary balance to the potential lack of humility in the “choose people of God”, or perhaps Zionist ideology we might be talking about? Are these questions worth their salt? Or should the Israeli State just put forward some serious options toward peace?

        Yeah, seems more of a smear then reality, though puts Middle East Peace well on the table.

        • Dennis Frank 5.1.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 10:00 am

          The solution, as I see it, would be equal rights for all. No way will the zionists accept that. They still believe in their biblical mandate for supremacy, eh? If I were the foreign minister of Aotearoa, I’d advise the Palestinians & Israelis to take a look at how biculturalism has played out here since the Treaty. Compare the numbers of people killed. Evaluate the extent to which peaceful coexistence has prevailed over fighting. They could eventually see that our model works better.

          • Cinny 5.1.1.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 10:11 am

            Dennis, I fully agree with your comment 5.1.1.1

            I do feel however that because military training in Israel is compulsory, it gives them full control over brainwashing their youth. Installing bias and more division. A huge stumbling block.

            • Dennis Frank 5.1.1.1.1.1
              4 August 2018 at 10:39 am

              Yes Cinny, I agree with you. When I was at college military training was still part of the syllabus, so I have some personal experience of it. I bet the Israelis get it way more intensively than we did. It does indoctrinate and polarise. I read the classic book about WW1 (All Quiet on the Western Front) at the same time and became non-violent as a result of the searing impact of the author’s report of what happened. We males were confronted with the threat of a draft for service in the army (Vietnam) but Holyoake never went thro with it. Whew! I now give him credit for using his domino-theory posturing to deceive the yanks!!

              • Cinny …
                4 August 2018 at 12:58 pm

                Have friends in Israel that have been through the training. It’s really common for people to shot themselves to cut their training short.

                Said friends are anti politics due to all the division is has caused in the past. Division starts at a young age, often in the home, then the school playground etc, you know how kids talk… the usual anti Palestinian narratives are spun, as well as the ‘chosen people’ narrative in the Jewish faith and perpetuated by the power hungry.

                • Tricledrown …
                  4 August 2018 at 3:03 pm

                  60% of Israeli’s don’t want Corrupt Netanyahu who’s govt is ethnically cleansing Israel.

            • greywarshark 5.1.1.1.1.2
              4 August 2018 at 11:47 am

              Cinny
              That bit about the youth getting military training which then influences themir attitudes to everything relating to Israel’s perceived threats brought Marshall McLuhan to mind. He was round in the 1960s and had lots to say about how we feel and learn our prejudices and involuntary responses.

              ‘The medium is the message ‘ became a quote that was a key to lots of different ideas about modern communication and influential ideas.

              Violence as a Quest for Identity 6.46 mins
              ‘The closer we get to each other, the more we like each other? There is no evidence of that…. The closer people get together the more savage, the more impatient they get with one another.’

              Books and tech – the global village. 8.44mins
              (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic

              This is done arty-like – clever. 2.15 mins
              (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09ML9n5f1fE

              This is an interesting-plus clip – has Woody Allen, Tom Wolfe and Marshall McLuhan (brought to you free by nme folks!)
              (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX_WOqnN6Og 23mins

              • Cinny …
                4 August 2018 at 12:49 pm

                Awesome 🙂 Thanks so much for the links Grey will check them out tonight when I have more time. Much appreciated.

            • Gabby 5.1.1.1.1.3
              4 August 2018 at 8:57 pm

              I don’t know, aren’t the extremists exempt?

    • Bearded Git 5.2
      4 August 2018 at 11:26 am

      Corbyn has never been antisemitic.

      The Jewish vote is very small in Britain-I seem to remember reading 2%. Sadly, as a consequence of all the lies that have been thrown at Corbyn, he and Labour may pick up enough votes from genuine antisemites to make this loss of votes negligible.

      • Ed 5.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 2:18 pm

        An interesting interview on the subject.

        • Dennis Frank 5.2.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 5:14 pm

          Blimey, there sure is a massive shitfight in UK Labour!! Blairite splitter conspiracy happening now, according to the Rosen chappie. If the split occurs, an entire new epoch could emerge (provided sufficient Blairite solidarity gives them greater numbers than the SDP split).

          “Dame Margaret Hodge is being investigated after calling Jeremy Corbyn a ‘racist and antisemite’.” (Independent) “Dame Margaret Hodge has threatened to take the Labour Party to court if it continues its investigation into her attack”. So she should. Nothing to investigate, if the Independent is telling the truth. Oh, of course, she needs to be seen to be trying to cover up the truth in order to prove her Blairite credentials.

          • Dennis Frank 5.2.1.1.1
            4 August 2018 at 7:08 pm

            Validated by the Guardian: “Friends of Hodge denied reports she swore at the Labour leader, but acknowledged she had called him “an anti-Semitic racist”.
            …when Corbyn protested, she replied: “It is not what you say but what you do, and by your actions you have shown you are an anti-Semitic racist.”

            So she thinks it’s okay to libel someone, use hate speech against them, if you’re a wealthy titled leftist jew. She wouldn’t get away with that misbehaviour if she repeated it outside parliament. And who knew that activities now trigger such epithets. Next it’ll be the colour of their shirt.

    • Tricledrown 5.4
      4 August 2018 at 2:54 pm

      Given what’s being dished up in Palestine Corby has a tight rope to walk.

  6. Cinny 6
    4 August 2018 at 9:19 am

    Happy days….

    The deep-pocketed NRA claims it’s going broke and may soon “be unable to exist”

    More info here…..
    https://nypost.com/2018/08/03/nra-says-its-broke-and-on-the-verge-of-collapse/

    Awesome news 🙂 Yeah I’m not into guns, if you’ve ever had one held to your head by a violent ex partner, you might feel the same.

    • greywarshark 6.1
      4 August 2018 at 12:07 pm

      I would be interested to know the dynamics of attraction to someone with deep violence wells inside, how does it happen? Do you know? How can it be explained – how does it get covered up so it is not recognised?

      • Cinny 6.1.1
        5 August 2018 at 1:24 pm

        That’s a really good question Grey. Everyone is different and I can only share how it happened for me.

        Far out where to start… in my instance he came across as protective and loving, I wanted to feel protected and loved. So at the start that was the attraction. Was young, late teens/early 20’s, and naive re domestic violence.

        Domestic violence was never ever talked about in our house, so I had no clue about it at all. No idea, no knowledge of emotional abuse either. Dad looked after Mum and us kids, I had a happy childhood all and all.

        Was living away from home in a new city, only knew a few people at the time etc.

        Was romanced, then isolated…. didn’t want me to talk to my friends, didn’t like them, told me lies about my friends so I would stay away from them.

        After that things got very bad for me, the physical violence came (won’t go into that, it’s too severe for some to stomach). Was so ashamed to tell my Mum and ask for help. Ashamed that I’d failed. Plus he would not let me out of the house without him coming with me and we had no phone.

        Anyways a friend ended up contacting my folks, and saying she was really worried about me, that evening my Mum drove 6hrs to come and get me, she got the police involved, what a brave lady she was for that. Saved my life.

        Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it, he came looking for me, was relentless in it. Stalked me, scary time. Long story short he ended up in jail, and is now dead, so I’m safe. Don’t know if I would still feel safe if he was still alive.

        The upside to it all, I can usually now spot ‘his type’ a helpful skill to have, just a shitty way of acquiring it.

        I hope that makes sense.

        • greywarshark 6.1.1.1
          5 August 2018 at 4:03 pm

          ‘thanks Cinny
          I know about the circle where he will beat his woman up, the n be on his knees crying i didnt mean it, it is because I love you so, I get anxious then I get angry, will you forgive me.

          It is an interesting point, if we are good people and have been brought up good, it leaves us vgulnerable to bad mendacious people who are mentally tristed. And can’t be forgiven on the basis that they want to change. Because they won’t, even if they can convince that they wish to. 90% of the time anyway.

          And that 10% is unlikely to be a happy relationship, because the improvement can be dependent on the woman not making him unhappy and jealous through just behaving normally with a friendly, open manner to others, women and men equally. Or he has trigger expressions, or words that indicate he is angry and without violence can ruin a woman or child’s life going in fear of violence that has happened in the past. So complete control and no bruises to show, a perfect husbanf and father in public and even in the home, to other unknowing eyes.

          I think we need to have violence education, and the different ways it shows as more important than sex education. Violence education would be included with learning about bullying at school, how to avoid it happening to you and not being a nasty shit yourself, just because you found out how to press other people’s buttons!

          Further thinking about the whole business of understanding how to handle your own and others’ emotions etc. Talking about sex and delaying it till late teens at least would be good too. Advice would be say – learn about it, the human drive and the curiosity about it that is involved, but leave it alone as long as you can while you get your schooling over. Just learn about passion and first love, and how to stay cool. Learn about condoms as necessary information, that it can be great but not as an episode that just happens because you haven’tt thought out your plans for it.

          Learning how to have a conversation and just be friendly and chat, and what interests others have and what your opinions and hobbiies are would go a long way in inter-personal relations. That would help probably for delaying sex. And good for learning what is behind people’s heads so that you can see through the ploys and artificial stuff to the confused person behind. Perhaps that would prevent mistakes occurring in assessing personality. This sort of thing would have helped me as the oldest child. And I remember that the background to gaining a following in some cults is that lonely young people are led to believe they are joining a group of people who have a caring, family approach. The only problem is when you want to leave whoever is now controlling you.

          Any thoughts Cinny.? I feel that it is possible that this period of life, when young people are moving away from home, is not likely to be well discussed either at school or home.

          • Cinny 6.1.1.1.1
            7 August 2018 at 11:23 am

            Grey, that’s brilliant. And something that never occurred to me, yes it should be discussed at school, indepth even.

            I think that would help to bring about great change. Such would have been massively beneficial to me.

            Am going to an anti bullying etc night for high school parents next week. There will be guest speakers etc, I’m going to raise your suggestion, I think it’s bloody brilliant. Your’e on to something, I really believe that. Thanks ever so much for sharing your thoughts 🙂 Awesome.

    • Jenny 6.2
      4 August 2018 at 12:08 pm

      I know what you mean having had loaded guns trained on at me at close range a number of times, it’s and eerie feeling. You become hyper aware, that even if the intent is not to pull the trigger, the slightest misjudgement by you or your captor could end in your death. Once when I had a gun pointed at my abdomen I imagined I could feel that my internal organs were moving out of the way of the bullet’s distructive path. (at least I hoped they were).

      • Exkiwiforces 6.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 1:03 pm

        Yeah, I know that feeling Jenny when I was Peacekeeping even though I had body armour on it was still very uncomfortable feeling. If the muppets did let lose at close range it would’ve been 50/50 if i got rounds off or hit the ground with a thud as 7.62mm (.308) or 5.56mm (.223) doesn’t actually stop hurry when one is wearing body as there is an awful lot of kinetic energy.

      • greywarshark 6.2.2
        4 August 2018 at 2:00 pm

        Gosh Jenny and exkiwi
        How can we solve problems. I put link to Marshall McLuhan who talks about our violent button. All is peaceful with me at present but sometimes I look at a bird without my brain cells and feel envious.

    • Exkiwiforces 6.3
      4 August 2018 at 12:52 pm

      You bloody ripper, there is god at last and hopefully we might see some meaningful gun control in USA.

    • Gabby 6.4
      4 August 2018 at 9:00 pm

      Sounds like a play for federal funding. Bet they’re far from broke.

  7. Ed 7
    4 August 2018 at 9:22 am

    This article is compulsory reading and is worth of a post. I found the link for it on Rachel Stewart’s twitter feed.

    It is about how close we came to saving Earth, how we knew what we needed to do three decades ago, and how we failed.

    “This narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the decisive decade when humankind first came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change. Complementing the text is a series of aerial photographs and videos, all shot over the past year by George Steinmetz. With support from the Pulitzer Center, this two-part article is based on 18 months of reporting and well over a hundred interviews. It tracks the efforts of a small group of American scientists, activists and politicians to raise the alarm and stave off catastrophe. It will come as a revelation to many readers — an agonizing revelation — to understand how thoroughly they grasped the problem and how close they came to solving it.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html

    • Tuppence Shrewsbury 7.1
      4 August 2018 at 12:42 pm

      Another pearl from the great prophet Rachel Stewart

      “Yay tho she may be on Twitter, her word is law; and links shall be clicked on if posted upon pain of eternal joy for not having done so”

      • Ed 7.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 12:45 pm

        The article was from the New York Times.
        Can you read?

        • In Vino 7.1.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 4:55 pm

          Well pointed out, Ed.
          In cases like this, Tuppenny Screw doesn’t usually reply. Moves on eagerly to a different troll-point.

    • Dennis Frank 7.2
      4 August 2018 at 12:52 pm

      Excellent piece of historical reportage! “a British steam engineer named Guy Stewart Callendar discovered that, at the weather stations he observed, the previous five years were the hottest in recorded history. Humankind, he wrote in a paper, had become “able to speed up the processes of Nature.” That was in 1939.”

      • Dennis Frank 7.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 12:59 pm

        “In 1974, the C.I.A. issued a classified report on the carbon-dioxide problem. It concluded that climate change had begun around 1960 and had “already caused major economic problems throughout the world.” The future economic and political impacts would be “almost beyond comprehension.”

        The sporadic reports during the eighties were alarming, but only to those of us already aware that industrial civilisation was threatening the survival of humanity. Everyone else kept voting for the left and right because they needed the comfort that such robotic behaviour gave them. The prospect of having to ensure survival was too scary to even contemplate. Boiled frogs, too slow to jump.

  8. Jenny 8
    4 August 2018 at 9:22 am

    ‘

    “Ardern faces a mounting crisis of plunging business confidence, one that could scupper any chance of her Government getting a second term.”
    Tracy Watkins – August 4, 2018, updated

    Poor wee diddums suffering a lack of confidence.

    How can the public have confidence in them?

    These business leaders suffering self doubt should possibly consider putting their businesses into Statutory Management, in the public interest. Well, until they can recover their confidence at least.

    Or just maybe, ‘scuppering any chance of the Ardern Government getting a second term’, is what this, expressed lack of confidence is really all about.

    What would be really good is a poll of how much confidence the public has in our business leaders.

    • AsleepWhileWalking 8.1
      4 August 2018 at 9:31 am

      Seriously?

      Thought the PM was hitting her stride.

      • gsays 8.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 1:19 pm

        Perhaps another poll could be started, ‘how much the public gives a f@#! of what rich pricks think.’

    • dV 8.2
      4 August 2018 at 9:59 am

      What would be really good is a poll of how much confidence the public has in our business leaders.

      Really good point Jenny

      • Jenny 8.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 12:32 pm

        ….especially in the light of the Ebert collapse.

        I wonder how the Ad (see below), will try and blame this on the government?

        If these business leaders are so unconfident at running their firms, they should voluntarily put their businesses into Statutory Management now.

        Something that Ebert Construction should probably have done some time ago.

    • Ad 8.3
      4 August 2018 at 10:02 am

      It matters when it comes to pay rounds right across the country.

      It also matters when your businesses is considering hiring new workers.

      It also matters when businesses are considering investing in new plant and equipment.

      It also matters if you are beginning to thin about selling out of your businesses and then johnnie foreigner shows up with a cheque.

      And the PM nows that.

    • David Mac 8.4
      4 August 2018 at 10:15 am

      Yes indeed. Why endure the stress and public indignation of going broke, if your business confidence is at an all time low, tack up the ‘Going out of Business Sale’ signs today.

      I agree Jenny. They should tell the truth, just come out and say they don’t think they have what it takes to run a thriving business any longer either that or refuse to partake in stupid business confidence surveys.

      I’ve spoken to a few that feel they have ebbing confidence, when I asked them what steps they have taken to address their concerns…I’m yet to speak with anyone with any kind of ‘I’m not confident so I’m doing this…’ strategy.

      Speaking of confidence in business leaders, I’d not heard the current CEO of Kiwibank speak before. I thought he was refreshingly real on News Hub Nation this morning. He sounded very supportive of Kiwibank getting their shoulder in behind assisting non millionaires into their own homes.

    • SaveNZ 8.5
      4 August 2018 at 12:34 pm

      “Ardern faces a mounting crisis of plunging business confidence, one that could scupper any chance of her Government getting a second term.”

      More manufactured news, apart from some NZ business is so poorly performing and dysfunctional they rely on government hands outs and immigration scams to keep going forward so I guess confidence is going down for those ones. Lets hope they go under quickly so that the better performing and more ethical ones can actually raise the quality of NZ business upwards!

      • greywarshark 8.5.1
        4 August 2018 at 1:52 pm

        Good point. These so-called private enterprise businesses are no good example of how business should be operating when everything is supposed to be rosy.

      • Hongi Ika 8.5.2
        4 August 2018 at 3:23 pm

        Sounds like RW B/S in an attempt to stir up trouble via MSM ?

    • Ed 8.6
      4 August 2018 at 12:46 pm

      An attempt to frighten the government.
      If Labour doesn’t realise that big business is its mortal enemy , then it is a fool.

    • Tricledrown 8.7
      4 August 2018 at 3:13 pm

      Yet spending and employment is at record levels as are job ads.
      Business just don’t like left wing govts even though more people with more money means more profits.
      Business will only be happy when they have no regulation no unions no tax.
      Etc etc.
      Democracy included.

    • RedBaronCV 8.8
      4 August 2018 at 3:51 pm

      Never waste a good crisis even if it is manufactured by the MSM.

      Time to officially set the budget responsibility rules aside and start investing in NZ’s hard & social infrastructure and capital – after all a good belt of government spending is the traditional economic answer.
      But to prevent it deteriorating NZ’s overall accounts bang up the top tax rate, introduce look through taxes (no more hiding income in companies & trusts forever & stop untaxed profit going off shore ) and introduce a CGT that effectively rebates onshore so it is zero if you live and work here but not if the gains leave our economy.

      Then the RW can’t complain about one without the other.

      And FWIW
      According to some research I understand the surveys ask 2 questions –
      Do you think business confidence is low (asking how others feel)?
      Are you planning to expand over the next time period?
      and when a labour government gets in confidence shows a decline under the first question but not the second. In other words they just hate a leftish government.

    • Stuart Munro 8.9
      4 August 2018 at 4:00 pm

      Actually this is an opportunity for the coalition.

      Counselling can be offered to businessfolk who have lost their nerve. A bit of training wouldn’t go amiss either – nothing builds confidence like knowing what you’re doing.

      • David Mac 8.9.1
        4 August 2018 at 6:54 pm

        Ha! ‘We’re not biz confident’ is secret code for ‘We miss John.’

        I don’t think pulling everyone along so we can all have fun is an impossible dream. We’re well placed to create a world model. There are only 4.5 million of us. We should be all rolling in clover, that’s the target hey.

        • David Mac 8.9.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 7:06 pm

          One of the problems with creating a Social Huckleberry society is that every man and and his dog wants a sniff of the truffle.

          The better we make NZ, the stauncher we’ll need to be with ‘Show me your ID.”

        • Stuart Munro 8.9.1.2
          4 August 2018 at 8:32 pm

          Yeah, I noticed the ‘We miss John’.

          But counselling shifts the presumed aura of infallibility from the whining businesses. Instead of “the government is in trouble because business elites don’t like it”, the message becomes “business is not superhuman after all”.
          A nice cure for the spin.

          Yes, NZ could be a world model. But we’re not really going that way.

  9. AsleepWhileWalking 9
    4 August 2018 at 9:41 am

    Our rapey, rapey military hard at work blaming a drunk recruit.

    Military police told a rape complainant she faced a charge of wrongly being in a male barracks room after she told police she was taken there while too drunk to resist and then sexually assaulted.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12100740

    • greywarshark 9.1
      4 August 2018 at 11:58 am

      Oh that is so neat at sliding out from blame for bad behaviour. It seems one thing that is universal over the world when it comes to male taking advantage of female. How to have your sweet cake and eat it too.

    • SaveNZ 9.2
      4 August 2018 at 12:42 pm

      Not acceptable behaviour from military. Why did they not find examples earlier of this person’s behaviour when the women first complained.

  10. greywarshark 10
    4 August 2018 at 10:18 am

    An ironic laugh for mothers on Radionz this morning? Hollie McNish from Brit.

    She won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2016. That year she also published Nobody Told Me, a collection of poems and stories taken from her diaries about

    raising a child in modern Britain – “sex, commercialism, feeding, gender and of finding secret places to scream once in a while”. McNish will be coming to WORD Christchurch, details here.

    Christchurch 1st and 2nd September details of this and others see link here.
    https://wordchristchurch.co.nz/authors/hollie-mcnish/

    • veutoviper 10.1
      4 August 2018 at 11:23 am

      Hollie McNish will be sharing the stage with Emily Writes, the editor of The Spinoff Parents and best-selling author of “Rants in the Dark: From one tired mama to another” and her new collection, “Is it Bedtime Yet?” which came out a week or two ago.

      Despite being Australian born, I forgive Emily Writes for that as she lives not far from me in Wellington and her books, blogs etc are hilarious – especially certain of her movie reviews. LOL

      Should be a great Word session.

  11. Morrissey 11
    4 August 2018 at 11:15 am

    Inappropriate Names
    No. 1: Human Rights Watch

    Distinguished Hebrew University professor Baruch Kimmerling called Gaza a “concentration camp,” while former UK prime minister David Cameron called it an “open-air prison.” The Ha’aretz editorial board called it a “ghetto,” The Economist—a “human rubbish heap,” the International Committee of the Red Cross—a “sinking ship.” Gaza is what the UN human rights chief called a “toxic slum,” in which an entire civilian population is “caged . . . from birth to death.”

    It is a very sad day indeed when the representative of a reputable human rights organization counsels Israel to use skunk water against a population, half of whom are children, protesting their protracted confinement in an inferno.
    http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/08/03/human-rights-watch-says-use-skunk-water-on-them/0

    Inappropriate Names is a compilation of obscenely wrong, ironic, self-contradictory or just plain silly names. It’s another Daisycutter Sports Inc. production.

    [lprent: You triggered the auto-spam with this comment. Interesting. It is pretty damn hard to get in there these days. ]

    • lprent 12.1
      4 August 2018 at 6:01 pm

      You triggered auto-spam. The history shows that “Other” moved it to spam. Since we don’t have anyone with editorial powers called “Other”, then it was done by the server systems. Presumably because of something in the comment.

      Damn hard to do that these days.

      • Sacha 12.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 11:43 pm

        sheer volume of trigger words 🙂

        • Morrissey 12.1.1.1
          5 August 2018 at 2:17 pm

          That’s what happens. Sacha, when computers, not people, are doing the “editing”.

          And please accept my apologies, Mr. Prent, for being so quick to fly off the handle and curse everyone at The Standard for what was, I realize, a technical glitch.

  13. greywarshark 13
    4 August 2018 at 11:55 am

    Philosophic musings of George Hebert.
    (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfJYJZovg0g

    We like to think of ourselves as masters of our own destinies, as lone wolves in a dog eat dog world, but guess what: Dogs don’t eat dogs. They work together. As do most species. As do we.

    In fact, when it comes to wolf-pack tactics, humans are even better than wolves. We’re the most communicative, helpful species that’s ever existed. If anything, we overshare. We share every idea, every tool, every belief. Even when we fight, we do it as a team, in war we unite in fantastic numbers.

    So forget brutal egoism, Hebert argued. That’s not our real strength. The single greatest moment of his own life came when he first began pulling burned, frightened survivors into his arms. *Young Georges Hebert wasn’t out there because of ego. He was out there because it was natural, because being a god on earth is a natural human desire, and saving someone else is the closest we’ll ever come to achieving it.

    All Greek mythology and every major religion that followed has really been devoted to that single premise, the hero who leads the way is half god and half human, fueled as much by pity as by power. p.205

    *George Hebert was at Martinique in May 1902 when a volcano in Martinique erupted and set to sink the ship he was on. He helped lower a launch and with a small bank of seamen worked for hours pulling scorched survivors from the wat p.199
    from Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall

  14. Bearded Git 14
    4 August 2018 at 11:57 am

    Chris Trotter is spot on here:

    http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2018/07/whoever-greens-have-sold-their-soul-to.html

    All my fellow Green voters should read this and STFU about “dead rats”.

    • Dennis Frank 14.1
      4 August 2018 at 12:37 pm

      A good essay, but the comment from Graeme Edgeler is an essential supplement. I agree with you that usage of dead rats was moronic, but I suspect they felt it was the only way to demonstrate solidarity with their leftist supporters while acting in our common interests. A nifty way to imply that leftists are morons, when you need their votes – sufficiently subtle that you know they won’t figure it out. A deception strategy to make it seem that our parliamentarians are operating on the same mental level. The kindergarten level of politics. Machiavelli 1.01.

    • Tricledrown 14.2
      4 August 2018 at 3:17 pm

      Chris has never forgiven the greens for abandoning Jim Anderton’s Alliance.
      Trying to create the narrative as doe Hooton on the right.

      • Hongi Ika 14.2.1
        4 August 2018 at 3:27 pm

        If the Alliance hadn’t played silly buggars at the first MMP General Election in 1996 they could have been in a Coalition with Labour & NZF ?

      • Bearded Git 14.2.2
        4 August 2018 at 6:18 pm

        Yep Tricle, agreed…I know he has little time for the Greens but he is right about this.

  15. greywarshark 15
    4 August 2018 at 12:01 pm

    Could this Natural movement thing be helpful to physical sport, rugby etc to get max flexibility without the bad accidents and strains? Love our athletes!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWwJX4BwlU8

  16. Cinny 16
    4 August 2018 at 1:03 pm

    Wondering what the turnout was like for the pro s&m rally at Aotea Square today? Apparently it started at noon, does anyone have any info please? Thanks!

    Enjoy the rest of your day everyone 🙂

  17. greywarshark 17
    4 August 2018 at 1:08 pm

    On Radionz this a.m. I got annoyed when she was talking about the opportunity for people to walk and cycle, and how important walking was for many people.

    Then the talk was all about cycling. That seems the modern way, appear to be addressing people’s needs, mention it then merge it into something else only vaguely similar. The simple act of being able to walk in relaxation and repose on a path, in nature – that opportunity is fast disappearing.

    Lucy Saunders – Bringing healthy streets to cities
    From Saturday Morning, 9:35 am today
    Listen duration 24′ :29″

    Lucy Saunders is a UK public health expert who has revolutionised the way London city is planning its streets and transport systems. She is the architect of the Healthy Streets approach to transport, which has been adopted by Transport for London and the Greater London Authority. It aims to make streets more inviting for pedestrians, and public transport easier to access, among other things.

    Saunders has been in NZ as a keynote speaker at the 2WALKandCYCLE conference in Palmerston North this week, and will be speaking at the NZ Centre for Sustainable Cities (hosted by the University of Otago) seminar on August 8 in Wellington.
    https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018656634/lucy-saunders-bringing-healthy-streets-to-cities

    Pedestrian ways are being replaced by shared pathways that are so good dah dah. It is not so good to have simple, natural ways of getting about that are needed and prescribed by health and fitness advisors, but taken away by the craze for machines – the cycle being the main one, and the mobility vehicle is an increasing problem driven by entitled old people charging ever forward as is their right.

    If we get run down because we stop suddenly and step to the other side of the path to look at a flower, enjoy the view, then that is our fault. Ring your bell, good, but that raises the stressful thought and reaction, ‘look out cyclist coming;’ If you run into me and knock me over and I break or strain or bruise myself, do you take me to the doctor and pay. Provide me with attention and transport that I need now to help me live? No.

    These are vehicles on the FOOTPATH and none of your wanky wonderful tech-loving, machine-demented, technological-world advocates remember this. Their purview doesn’t include this obvious but annoying fact; the pedestrian is naked, vulnerable, needing a place to be happy and free in their environment, but like ‘The Emperor’s Clothes’ meme you don’t, won’t, see this clearly.

    And the with-it planners go on enthusiastically repeating the mantra of how good the shared pathways are. They can’t, won’t cope with the problem of too many cars, by having enough affordable public transport and feeder services. Instead they save the vulnerable cyclists from the cars and trucks that get ever bigger, and put them on either cycle lanes where they can get hit on crossings though generally safer, or make them really safe by allowing them to use footpaths where they can whizz along at speed and in turn endanger the safety of pedestrians.

    When so many are getting old and take a long time to mend, or don’t ever, it is such bad planning that it will be a salutary lesson of error for planners in the future, if we end up with one after the mess that lack of forward-thinking planning
    and action on everything shows the failure.

    This could show us something.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Lerner#Bus_Rapid_Transit

    Lerner did this, I don’t believe it is the right way to do things but…. When authorities become frozen and can’t carry out needed policies then….

    So Lerner took the plan to his director of public works, saying: “I need this [built] in 48 hours … He looked at me and asked, ‘Are you crazy? It will take at least four months.’”

    ( If you want creativity, cut one zero from the budget. If you want sustainability, cut two zeros! Jaime Lerner )

    Regardless, Lerner and his team – impatient, wily or both – prepared to begin work at sundown that very Friday, waiting only until after the city’s courthouse had closed so that shopkeepers could no longer file their injunction.

    “If I’d received a juridical demand to stop the project, we would never have made it,” Lerner recalls. “So we finished in 72 hours – Friday night to Monday night. And at the end, one of the merchants who wrote the petition to stop the work told me: ‘Keep this petition as a souvenir, because now we want the whole street, the whole sector pedestrianised!’”

    • SaveNZ 17.1
      4 August 2018 at 2:21 pm

      Yep, I love walking too and feel it is not represented as something to be preserved at all.

      I person I know feels the current focus on cycling is also because in a few years nobody with the low wage high living focus that has been NZ policy for decades now, will be able to afford a car, and the public transport is still pretty expensive and rudimentary. So we will be like Asia and everyone gets to work by bike. Therefore they are putting in bike lanes now.

      Also there is growing pollution from the diesel and run off from paved surfaces aka the waste water all running into the seas and rivers. I’d like to see a lot more focus on un paved surfaces and pro walking options!

      • SaveNZ 17.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 4:09 pm

        If we look at other countries they have massive populations but still manage to have hectares of parks and gardens accessible by walking that they have preserved. Not sure about Wellington, the new CHCH which when rebuilt offered huge possibilities, and other NZ cities, but Auckland council and Auckland transport are trying to pave as many surfaces as possible around the city, have few green spaces assessable and flat and have very mean spirited parks in the most cases that require steeps walks to get to and just seem unloved.

        In NZ the private Rogernomics and the Natz approach seem to dictates more emphasis on the profiteering side of opening up the waterfront aka more apartments, cafes and businesses than actual public green spaces the residents and visitors can enjoy and walk through. Then they wonder why tourists try to get the hell out of NZ main cities as fast as possible.. and why many NZ public places seem more blah and people are not visiting them. Then we have our rising mental health issues and 24 hour binge drinking culture in the cities.

        New York has Central Park 843 acres and one of the most visited parks in the US with 40 million visitors.

        London is made of 40% public green space, including 3,000 parks and totaling 35,000 acres

        Green Park 16 ha (39.5 acres)
        St. James’s Park 34 ha (84 acres)
        Greenwich Park 73 ha (180 acres)
        Hyde Park 140 ha (346 acres)
        Kensington Gardens 111 ha (274 acres)
        Regent’s Park 197 ha (486.79 acres)
        Bushy Park 450 ha (1,112 acres)
        Richmond Park 955 ha (2,359.85 acres)

        Paris also has numerous parks including, 55 acres Jardin du Luxembourg full of gardens and things like areas for children, nature and horse rides.
        https://www.thehistoryhub.com/jardin-du-luxembourg-facts-pictures.htm

        If Kiwi officials lived in any of those cities under our rules and culture, the land would have already been mostly sold off or with PPP’s everywhere and the public parks in large formats, gone by lunch time, under both Labour and National parties and our councils approach.

      • greywarshark 17.1.2
        5 August 2018 at 9:58 am

        savenz
        Your comment refers to the theories and forward thinking that some people do and councils ought to be concentrating on incorporating. So cycle lanes are being thought about, and implemented, probably because they are doing so overseas, rather than because of enlightened, intelligent and practical thinking springing up here. There is a demand from middle-class people, and the health and safety approach would also affect thinking, also ACC might have some program as they work towards having no accidents at all so they can hold their money close to their (money) chests.

        I don’t believe that the main push for cycleways is in recognition of what poor people will need because that is a nonconformist thought in NZ that is only considered when all else has been traversed. It is middle-class people who are driving! the new approach. Who gives a f//k about poor people amongst the average well-paid people in power? (Rhetorical question – as the answer is obvious from daily observation.)

        • SaveNZ 17.1.2.1
          5 August 2018 at 3:57 pm

          Hi Greywarshark, nope def not been driven by the middle class in Auckland because they are complaining when they go in, because the way the cycle ways are implemented is often nonsensical and takes away parking for local business, removes trees and grassy spots and is too dangerous to use. So actually mostly those middle class in Wellington and Auckland Transport officials are wanting this the way it is currently going not the residents that live there.

          Even in hot middle class spots in central Auckland there has been protests as they removed trees and shut down local businesses and had it so anybody backing out of their drive is going to run them over. Maybe it’s some strategy to get rid of the idea altogether by implementing them so badly and turning people off.

          Cycle ways like poverty seem to be another excuse for neoliberals to impose their views while taking as much money and amenity as possible and not producing a safe cycle way so far as I can see in Auckland.

          Tamaki drive has a good cycle way but that was put in long ago and apparently that might be subject to global warming and rising sea temps! You can’t win.

          Then the PPP walking and cycling sky path track that costs money over the harbour bridge but driving over it is free. What a winning idea, sarcastically ? Make the non polluters pay for their journey????

          Most people are for cycle ways in principal but they are not being rolled out in an intelligent way in Auckland.

          • greywarshark 17.1.2.1.1
            6 August 2018 at 10:05 am

            savenz
            That was a good update on cycle ways. Well then I think that the way tget are being implemented is because of functionaries that want to show they are responding to a demand, but applying the usual style over substance principle that is common in nz. Nobody can say they are doing nothing. But nobody is satisfied with what they have done. Their answer – you can’t please everybody. The response to that is that you don’t please anybody.

            The reason for the problem is obvious. Policy making no longer responds to what the public needs but to what the big-business, money-group-oriented find are the major priorities. It is motorways that are their favourite transport spending area. There is no future planning except to identify where the next ccore of spending will settle – in Aucklamd, stadiums, waterfront, hotels and housing are good financial stimulants. Cycling is piffling, and if someone in that milieu hasn’t used that word, it is only because their vocabulary is as limited as their thinking.

  18. veutoviper 18
    4 August 2018 at 2:30 pm

    Further to the couple of links I posted at 15.1 to Cinny about the pro S & M rally at Aotea Square today (reported at 30 vs about 100 Love Aotearoa Hate Racism people), here are a few more links of the various one floating around re the S & M show – just a few that I found of interest. Lots more if you google for example Lauren Southern.

    A rather nice video of Shane Te Hou, former Labour MP, and S & M meeting at Newshub reception as Te Hou was signing in and the others were leaving. LS asked Te Hou what he was doing there and did he work there (!!!); he told her it was none of her business and they should get the next plane back to Canada and not let the door bang on their rear ends on the way out (or similar):

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/08/former-politician-shane-te-pou-confronts-lauren-southern-stefan-molyneux-in-heated-exchange.html

    And this Open Letter posted on Newstalk ZB this morning by Jack Tame (and staff) rather surprised me as I don’t really rate Tame – I actually decided it was well thought out:

    http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-morning-with-jack-tame/opinion/jack-tame-open-letter-to-stefan-molynuex-and-lauren-southern/

    Both Southern and Molyneux have been on Twitter with various claims since yesterday’s cancellation of their venue: here is her Twitter feed:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Lauren_Southern?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

    And Jacinda to the fore – yay! – with a quite blunt statement to the press on her way back to Wellington with Clarke and baby on her views re S & M.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/SkyNewsAust/status/1025558961104158720/video/1

    And this article from RNZ with photos of them being greeted by a Nelson College choir at Wellington Airport

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/363340/pm-and-family-welcomed-after-landing-in-wellington

    There is no way S & M can upstage our PM and baby!

  19. Stunned Mullet 19
    4 August 2018 at 2:36 pm

    Ye gods – Auckland rates bill just came through…a 17.3% increase on last years rates.

    I’m in the fortunate position that I can afford it – how on earth people paying off mortgages or struggling to make ends meet will manage is beyond me.

    Penny Bright where do I sign up to your group to hold the motley Auckland Council to account ?

    • Andre 19.1
      4 August 2018 at 3:11 pm

      Lie back and think of your capital gains.

      My place didn’t get quite as much capital gain so my rates are within a few bucks of last year’s.

      • Stunned Mullet 19.1.1
        4 August 2018 at 3:34 pm

        it’s outrageous that the rapacious council is rating on theoretical capital gains which are all a complete fiction for 90% of the population who aren’t trading their houses every five minutes.

        Just when you thought the last council was the nadir along come the current bunch.

        • Andre 19.1.1.1
          4 August 2018 at 3:50 pm

          One alternative is that used in some US jurisdictions for property taxes, where the assessed value for property taxes is locked in at the sales price for the entire time that owner is there and doesn’t get re-assessed until the next time it changes hands. I’m confident a couple of nanoseconds of thought will correctly tell you how that system gets gamed and what anomalous injustices and behaviour modifications come from that.

        • Incognito 19.1.1.2
          4 August 2018 at 5:44 pm

          Fabricated/manufactured, yes, but fiction, no. People do borrow against their asset(s) even though it is (largely) paper and not realised value. It is not for nothing that we call it a FIRE economy.

        • lprent 19.1.1.3
          4 August 2018 at 9:24 pm

          If you look at the breakdown of an actual rates bill (I don’t have one to hand right now) rather than the fictional one you appear to be referring to, the rating is largely based on various measures of land values based on the sales of land in a given area at the time of valuation. This is the process mandated by legislation – these days largely by the Local Government (rating) Act of 2002. However there a truckload of acts that govern councils. But most of it is now in the Local Government Act 2002.

          The council has a limited level of control on the basis of the rating. The most important is the total value of rates that must be raised. In the case of Auckland, that is directly and largely related to the costs imposed on the city by the last government. National’s essentially unconstrained immigration policies that resulted in Auckland growing too rapidly. Their apparent ideological inability to deal with the consequences for provision of housing and infrastructure to handle that growth means that the city started bursting at the seams. Consequently the land and housing prices rose like a rocket, causing rampant speculation.

          As importantly, that central government were constraining the local government from dealing with both the current issues and the projections in the future (which councils must consider and deal with in the legislation). If you look at the 2017 projections, they show Auckland’s population rising by about 830k over the next 25 years with the natural increase being about a quarter of that. The way this operates is that the local councils have no power over either migration or immigration to their areas. The latter is the central governments decisions. However the local councils must handle and pay for future growth in the present – something that they are constrained about doing by central government not doing their part – look at National’s foot dragging on the crucial public transport projects.

          So the rates rise to cover the existing shortfalls caused by decades by National’s C&R proxy party scrimping on dealing with forward projections in the past (hell, the dumbarse shitheads even scrimped on the current maintenance), plus dealing with future needs in the present as it is more costly to retrofit growth rather than pay for it when you build it.

          The spread of the rates largely operates on the land valuation because that is the most stable of the available measures over time. It is also the one most directly related to the provisioning costs of the council to their most expensive costs.

          The servicing of the capital tied up in new and old infrastructure like roads, sewerage, water, public transport, rubbish collection, rubbish disposal, city amenities like libraries and parks are all directly related to population densities – in other words land area. That is the bulk of the councils costs and where most of their new costs come from. That applies even if the council operations are run by CCOs because it affects ability to raise debt to create new infrastructure like new housing.

          To provide and maintain a roading or sewerage or rubbish collection connection to my 60 one bedroom apartment block with its 100 odd inhabitants is no more 2-3x that providing the same services to a house with 5 people on a quarter acre section. So we pay a lower fixed capital cost on rates while paying the appropriate level of variable cost on volumes.

          On the other hand, the potential capital value of your property is mostly based on its improvements value – ie the buildings and amenities, which is a much lower portion of the rates than land value.

          Now in my case that means that I get minimal rates increases for my one bedroom apartment than you do with your excessively sized section.

          Pure cost accounting. Sell up and move to an apartment (without a lift and with affordable body corp fees). Stop voting the short term thinkers like National. But above all stop whining about your living choices.

          • Draco T Bastard 19.1.1.3.1
            4 August 2018 at 9:52 pm

            To provide and maintain a roading or sewerage or rubbish collection connection to my 60 one bedroom apartment block with its 100 odd inhabitants is no more 2-3x that providing the same services to a house with 5 people on a quarter acre section. So we pay a lower fixed capital cost on rates while paying the appropriate level of variable cost on volumes.

            Yep. Sprawl costs a hell of a lot more but most people still seem to want more sprawl – while complaining about the rates.

    • Incognito 19.2
      4 August 2018 at 5:44 pm

      Spare a thought for all those poor rate payers in Auckland whose rate increase is less than 2.5%.

  20. mauī 20
    4 August 2018 at 4:13 pm

    Ed, I think you will love Jason Liosatos if you don’t know about him already. He has some intriguing interviews…

    “Outside The Box is dedicated to conversations about ethics, morals, truth, peace, empathy, transformation, and a more harmonious humanity and world for all people. A world without conflict and corruption, a world where all people are dedicated to finding peace and harmony in themselves which will then translate outward and transform the world.”

    http://jasonliosatos.com/global-peace-tv/

  21. Morrissey 21
    4 August 2018 at 4:39 pm

    Toughest thug on television…..

    except he didn’t look too tough or too smart the other day.

    That contemptuous little snicker by Lauren Molyneux at 11:59 will haunt him for months, if not years….

    • Chris T 21.1
      4 August 2018 at 6:41 pm

      Tbf Paddy just comes across as more of a twat than them there

    • marty mars 21.2
      4 August 2018 at 9:36 pm

      Look at that photo – white? I don’t think so – the letters are white and the alt right scum are off white, a pale anemic worm colour.

      • Cinny 21.2.1
        5 August 2018 at 12:58 pm

        I’ve been a cheeky girl on the youtube re s&m, and their latest clip. Couldn’t help it, free speech and all that lmao.

  22. David Mac 22
    4 August 2018 at 7:28 pm

    I think Steph and Laurie pulled the pin in NZ because it became evident to them that aborting multiculturalism in our country would require driving the white people into the ocean.

    • marty mars 22.1
      4 August 2018 at 9:34 pm

      David we are a bi cultural nation – the treaty is solid. Māori are one partner and the Crown was the other.
      The two racist bilemongers left because they are cowards and weak bullies. IMO this country fought against the tour racists and we will fight ALL racists whether imported or homegrown. If ‘white’ people cant get that then they should fuck off yesterday because we don’t need them here.

      • greywarshark 22.1.1
        5 August 2018 at 9:23 am

        Don’t present the demagogues as cowards! That word implies that they had something worthwhile and ethical to say against opposition. They did not
        and are just scum being financed by those encouraging popular denigration of responsible and fair laws affecting ordinary people.

        We have seen the types from Britain rabbiting on about climate change under this same tide which washes into shore FTTT some of the rubbishy pool of unreason and self-interest that floats around the world.

        • veutoviper 22.1.1.1
          5 August 2018 at 11:34 am

          Grey, practice what you preach, or stop preaching to others. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

          You say ” Don’t present the demagogues as cowards! That word implies that they had something worthwhile and ethical to say against opposition. They did not and are just scum being financed by those encouraging popular denigration of responsible and fair laws affecting ordinary people.”

          Yet just a few days ago on Daily Review 1 August you were praising one of them – Lauren Southern – for her white t-shirt saying “It’s okay to be white”.
          Here is the link – https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-01-08-2018/#comment-1508822

          And here is what you said:
          “And that woman up top thanks, I hope a lot of people take in that message. I am sick of seeing black t shirts, black hoodies, black zip jackets etc It is so depressing to see black everywhere, cars too, and then silver as second choice.

          She is telling us something exciting. I think that the Cook Islanders could encourage people afraid of wearing white on some of their lovely patterns from the tivaevae tradition. We will be liberated from black and I will be happy!”

          “That woman up top” was a picture of Lauren Southern taken when she and Molyneux arrived in Brisbane a few weeks ago – and the slogan on her t-shirt had nothing to do with the colour of her t-shirt. It was an expression of her views on skin colour, racism etc. I already pointed this out to you in a reply at 8.1 to another of your comments on the Free Speech Champions post. It was a slightly softer response to this one, but obviously you did not see it or take it in.

          • greywarshark 22.1.1.1.1
            5 August 2018 at 11:56 am

            VV
            I can’t bear to read all your comment as I am stopping at the point where you said I was praising Southern for her white tshirt. If you can’t understand irony you need to up your thinking. Literal thinking is not subtle enough for unpicking the iron-clad meshed minds and ideas of the past.

            Could you not get the point I made? I was mocking her white tshirt. Deliberately mocking the talk about white, by mixing it with my hatred for the predominance of grey and black that I see about me.

            Then I put a link to lovely tivaevae patterns from the Cook Island women which I had suggested would bring back some colour and throbbing life into our lives darkened and despoiled by the words and actions of the terrible two and all tgat back them.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  23. eco maori 23
    5 August 2018 at 10:27 am

    Marae that was a good interview with Winston it show’s he has what’s best for Aeoteroa at heart and tangata whenua .
    Sorry about friday I missed your name’s The documentary makers of Metrata How Mum Decolonised the Screen Heperi Mita Chelsea Winstanley it will be good for people in Aotearoa to watch ka kite ano P.S because my spelling is bad I have to try and get your names right off the net and that’s hard when your spelling bad

  24. eco maori 24
    5 August 2018 at 11:52 am

    I see that the Waitangi settlements industry is the same as the surveying of the whenua
    Our tipuna were forced into getting the land surveyed so it could be sold a lot of times the cost of surveying was more than the crown had priced the land so the land was lost. People who did not have the historical rights to land sold it as well so what did the surveying industry do it parted tangata whenua from there tipuna whenua’s and it created a division between Hupu Iwi and whano that’s the {old divide and conquer} tact tick is still in play .
    You can see what tangata whenua tipuna achieved when Iwi and Hupu worked together the only ones on a couch were there because of a disability not because of no job .
    Our tipuna had heaps of ships hundreds of acres of whenua in cash crops thousands of head’s of stock do you think they could have acheved this with out being in harmony with te tangata they did thing’s in those day’s that were good for the whole Iwi not just the Rangatira.
    This great industrious trading exporting tangata whenua would have prevented the sly 00.1% from getting a dominant hold on Aotearoa so they plotted to divied tangata from there whenua and there Iwi and Hupu so they could control Aotearoa future by hook or crook.
    So what else I see is mostly tangata that are close to the settlements of Iwi’s claim’s benefiting from the mone payed .
    All the mone payed for the whenua and payed for waitangi claims does not even cover the interest cost of the cost of land lost at 1 percent not even the interest so they are just settling for te putea mone THE OLD DIVIDE AND CONQUER technique
    is still running strong strong but not only are they dividing Maori they are using the media to divid good Kiwi’s of Aotearoa using race and all the bad story’s about Maori
    this put’s Kiwi perspective on Maori on a low so kiwi’s thought that its ok to jail maori at the highest rate on Papatuanuku it’s Maori fault why they are under the bridge in such large numbers no Its the crowns fault they rule Aotearoa not Maori they make policys .
    All Tangata whenua need to work together to lift all OUR mokopuna to the highest run’s on there ladders of life .
    We need to have all kiwis understand that we deserve this and when we achieve this it will be good for all people of Aotearoa not just tangata whenua.
    Ka kite ano P.S Kiwi’s are learning that tangata whenua culture is a awesome culture

    • eco maori 24.1
      5 August 2018 at 12:13 pm

      Please don’t go all radical on Eco Maori
      I liked Winstons words in his interview on Marae .
      All tangata whenua have a obligation to up hold the Mana of all Tangata whenua .
      To Eco Maori it means don’t go around doing dumb stuff that’s damages all Maori Mana use the brains that OUR tipuna gifted us and be Honorable ka kite ano .
      P.S we will get the laws of the land to work with us and not against us

      • eco maori 24.1.1
        5 August 2018 at 12:29 pm

        Eco Maori has branded his adversaries with the correct tar the sirens went off with those last post ana to kai ka kite ano

        • Tricledrown 24.1.1.1
          5 August 2018 at 12:49 pm

          Eco Maori A major News
          organisation Stuff. Co. Nz has published a series of in depth news stories on the Treaty of Waitangi and how Maori were ripped off and bullied into submission by colonialists.
          This is the first time ever that a major publication has published the real history and damaging consequences to Maori.
          Don Bashir must be spitting his Corny beef and Mushy peas.

  25. eco maori 25
    5 August 2018 at 3:01 pm

    I see the capitalist neo liberal contracted trolls have jumped all over these storys about the Waitangi settlements .
    They say what does it matter now with there silver spoons hanging out there mouths .
    This is why it matters we are poor broke we have the worst stats for health tangata whenua net worth is the price of a cheap car $20.000 others people’s net worth is at least %500 more .
    All the well payed jobs are cornered by Europeans who will always hire europeans or other cultures before they hire a Maori I see all these people driving the sign written Trucks working for some company doing a lot of talking they are creaming it mean while Maori has to work 60 hours a week just to stay afloat . While next door they are going on a fishing trip skiing hiking biking and we are struggling to just pay the bill’s’
    That is why the treaty issues matter to all kiwis ka kite ano . P.S my tipuna did not get concurred by the crown. Just lied to cheated and coned by the crown its still happening now we don’t no why the jails are full of young maori tane. I was upset when shonky promoted his flag debate his concrete biking track thats going to run the length of Aotearoa how much has that cost all for the 00.1% mean while the homeless number grow the hospital waiting list grow . Ka kite ano link below.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104205997/the-amount-allocated-to-treaty-settlements-is-tiny-compared-with-other-government-spending

  26. eco maori 26
    5 August 2018 at 5:28 pm

    trump Environmental protection agency is lifting the ban that Obama placed on these chemicals bee killers mean while Europe is suffering a heat wave and there are huge fires still in the USA come on pull your head out of that bucket of cash and see whats happening trump.
    Ana to kai ka kite ano link below

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/04/trump-administration-lifts-ban-on-pesticides-linked-to-declining-bee-numbers

    And was this disrespect trump showed for colored people a plan to stir up his supporters Eco Maori thinks so.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/basketball/106022454/us-president-donald-trump-rips-lebron-james-smarts-hours-before-rally-in-ohio

  27. eco maori 27
    5 August 2018 at 6:48 pm

    Good evening Newshub I quite like jersey cows they are quite intelligent and cheeky especially the bulls they prouduce about 15% more solids than the freasion cow .
    so they are more efficient producers of solids.
    The Warriors won ka pai
    My we have had a big week with the vistors from Canada and Stuff News website giving us all a education on Waitangi treaty reality’s that have been dished out to Maori
    Ka kite ano

  28. eco maori 28
    5 August 2018 at 10:19 pm

    QanA Corin Dan the construction industry is in a mess be cause of who shonky thats how he made his putea in the first place cost cutting didn’t he sack heaps of his workers when he got to manage some new origination so Corin this is his mess so its on to it that they get all the heads of the construction industry in Parliament to see how bad a mess shonky has left .
    Shane Jones what about cloud server farms that would be a good investement for tangata whenua I will put a link below this is the path Eco Maori say we should take its the future billions of gig of data is stored every day every bit some goverments can get get stored.
    Whats his name your panel person I would like to see him survive on the minimum wage no more skiing trips or bike trips .
    As for trump’s Ambassador Scot Brown his credibility is just like his bosses non at all.
    And trying to sell a lie that we like trump YEA RIGHT.
    The Kiwi act only benefits the wealthy it problem benefits trumps people in his office
    Scot trump plays bad cop he gets a one on one meeting and he pushes his personal business deals on them head in his bucket of money. Its about pissing money on trumps Go Oil Party WAR MACHINE no thanks
    Ka kite ano

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/basketball/106022454/us-president-donald-trump-rips-lebron-james-smarts-hours-before-rally-in-ohio

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@technology/2018/07/30/172031/a-cable-to-defeat-the-tyranny-of-distance
    P.S they were in Australia trashing our aboriginal cousins
    Mana whaine

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.