Open mike 07/03/2019

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 7th, 2019 - 87 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 …

87 comments on “Open mike 07/03/2019 ”

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  1. WeTheBleeple 1
    7 March 2019 at 7:39 am

    Clean Streams and Capital Gains Tax.

    Several years ago I attended a seminar of ‘How to be a winner’. In this seminar they spoke of how both real estate and small businesses were the source of large capital gains. Buy the house – do it up as a tax write off – sell it for profit and keep the lot. The same for a business, buy it, make it look profitable, sell it for large tax free returns. For a simple fee of $2000 this mob was willing to let you in on their methods.

    Buy a property, use it as leverage to mortgage a second property, use both as leverage for the next properties… This is how you wind up with owning dozens of homes – becoming multi-millionaires yet contributing nothing to society.

    With farms it is a similar method of operation. Farms are brought, their books are polished, farms are sold. Now, the way to polish the books on a farm is to raise production. To do this one uses overstocking, supplementary feedstocks, and fertiliser, many many tons of fertiliser. It pays to avoid any expenses that might stand in the way of profit. Erosion control, planting, diversity enhancement unless aesthetically pleasing to hide some problem – all are detrimental to the fast buck farm scheme.

    So the rivers get filled with shit and fertiliser but the farmers books look good and the profits realised are enormous.

    Now, not all farmers are tax-avoiding small business shifting wannabe millionaires, but there’s enough of them to turn our farming block into a large scale problem. One whiff of treasure and out come the pirates. This is a terrible shame as our decent Farmers are more valuable than ever, as exemplars and teachers in a changing world.

    It is not farmers who’ll miss out with an introduced CGT. Farmers stay on and work on the land. The fuss is largely generated by pretend farmers, those with farming portfolios.

    The idle rich are polluting our rivers and streams. CGT will slow them down.

    • soddenleaf 1.1
      7 March 2019 at 9:58 am

      oh it’s worse. free movement of employees to oz means that a employee is better off in oz, and isn’t paying a flatter tax system. A flatter tax system means owners pay less of the revenue for govt, and yes, employees pay more. This sucks out productivity since the best and brightest get compensated better in oz, making their products etc.

      But wait. It’s even worse, oz is warmer, its businesses aren’t all paying to feed owners greed. Every supermarket, small business, etc is incentivized by 0% CGT to ring ever last cent to pay for all that financing… …And when they do sell out, they invariable move to oz where everyone doesn’t have a heavily leverage financial portfolio, well, not as heavily incentivized, and every worker isn’t carrying their employer.

      What is rent, why is it bad it’s a lot worse when you pay for the upkeep of the house, plus the owners cut, plus the extra risk from the premium banks put on coz everyone is doing riskier deals incentuvized by the flatter tax system.
      a 0% CGT means a govt back benefit to monied up Nats funded by hard working battlers

    • Psycho Milt 1.2
      7 March 2019 at 11:02 am

      It is not farmers who’ll miss out with an introduced CGT. Farmers stay on and work on the land. The fuss is largely generated by pretend farmers, those with farming portfolios.

      So true, and what a lot of money those pretend farmers are going to put into propaganda against a CGT. Pretend farming for capital gain is severely detrimental to both the environment and to people who’d like to become actual farmers, so the government should be coming up with ways to make it unattractive. CGT is one of those ways, so journos’ first question to any farmer whinging about CGT should be “What’s your alternative proposal for making farming for capital gain less attractive?”

      • greywarshark 1.2.1
        7 March 2019 at 11:14 am

        In the height of the venison boom, there used to be a term ‘Queen Street farmers’ who would have 4 wheel driver, Land Rovers then, to go to work in bought for and tax diminished by their farming operation. They were a badge of success in Auckland.

        • WeTheBleeple 1.2.1.1
          7 March 2019 at 11:51 am

          I think you’ll like this. I’d like to read the textbook myself.

          ’20 minutes of TED talk has done more than 50 years of struggling against official opposition’

          This is not that TED talk 😀

          ‘Running Out Of Time”

          • greywarshark 1.2.1.1.1
            7 March 2019 at 11:59 am

            Thanks WtB I’ll put that on my list for today. I’m off to save the world. Hah.

  2. Andre 2
    7 March 2019 at 8:01 am

    Another deceptive dirty politics tactic – creating entire new websites disguised as legitimate news outlets to spread political propaganda.

    https://www.salon.com/2019/03/05/republicans-launch-propaganda-sites-designed-to-look-like-local-news-outlets/

    Yeah, yeah, there will be some sneers about this having always been the case muttering about the Herald, CNN, Faux News etc, but this really is something new.

    • Wensleydale 2.1
      7 March 2019 at 11:45 am

      For a party that likes to court the “Bible-believing Christian” vote, they’re an ethical wasteland. How any actual Christians can vote for these deceitful bags of filth I’ll never understand. But then Sarah Huckabee Sanders purports to be a Christian and spends all day telling massive bare-faced lies and making excuses for a narcissistic sex pest, so I guess they set the bar fairly low.

    • Cinny 2.2
      7 March 2019 at 1:51 pm

      Thanks for that link, dang!

  3. Incognito 3
    7 March 2019 at 8:12 am

    Houston, we have a problem with our trusters.

    In contrast, political parties are the least trusted institution, trusted by only 29 per cent of New Zealanders.

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1903/S00082/experts-defy-falling-public-trust.htm

    • ianmac 3.1
      7 March 2019 at 9:38 am

      Would have been interesting if political party trust had been broken down into each party. Which one would you trust most?

      • Roflcopter 3.1.1
        7 March 2019 at 9:53 am

        That’s conducted every election.

        • ianmac 3.1.1.1
          7 March 2019 at 1:12 pm

          No its not. There would be many National supporters who would not Trust National but at election time, they could not vote for anyone else.

      • Wensleydale 3.1.2
        7 March 2019 at 11:47 am

        Who would you most trust to babysit your grandchildren? Gerry Brownlee, or Trevor Mallard?

        Take all the time you need.

        • AB 3.1.2.1
          7 March 2019 at 12:46 pm

          Does the babysitting location contain stairs?

          • Wensleydale 3.1.2.1.1
            7 March 2019 at 1:17 pm

            Yes. But in the interests of fairness those stairs are equipped with a stairlift, so portly, ruddy-faced, cardiac-arrests-waiting-to-happen are able to navigate the family home without risking a premature demise.

      • Incognito 3.1.3
        7 March 2019 at 7:06 pm

        One million people don’t vote. Do you think lack of trust has got anything to do with this?

    • greywarshark 3.2
      7 March 2019 at 11:50 am

      Pretty much cliche stuff though:
      You could say it was whitewash to cover the vile truth especially coming from the CA. (Chartered Accountants. One thinks of Monty Python who seem to have had a thing about accountants, I suggest you take these once an hour until all used.)

      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrsB1RfksEA
      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuFMHybILuw
      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg0l8bn5UuM
      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5aN0VmvFn4
      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YUiBBltOg4
      The Crimson Assurance

      Meaning of Life – The Crimson Permanent Assurance
      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSO9OFJNMBA
      The Crimson Assurance Part 2 7.+mins
      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNlYBNTCBG8

      Other key report findings include:

      • In general, New Zealand has higher levels of trust in professionals than Australia
      • High levels of trust have significant benefits for businesses and professionals
      • The importance of communicating a commitment to honesty and ethical behaviour
      • Dishonesty and a lack of ethical behaviour are most likely to decrease trust.</i

      • Incognito 3.2.1
        7 March 2019 at 10:25 pm

        Trust is at the core of the legitimacy of political parties and, by extension, the political process and our democracy. Our society depends on these power structures be given the authority by us, the people, to govern us. If we feel that we cannot trust those power structures and/or their brokers then society will suffer and eventually crumble. History 101. Trust takes time to build, to earn, and it can easily be lost. It can also be slowly eroded. This is our problem right now and we are not facing up to it and dealing with it. It is easy to say that it is a politicians’ problem and that they should fix it but this would be very mistaken. How can we deal with anything, big (CC) or small (CGT), if the political structure is broken and we don’t really have much confidence in it? This is the problem of our time: we have lost trust and confidence, in institutions, in authorities, in economic doctrines, in religion, and in ourselves …

  4. adam 4
    7 March 2019 at 9:47 am

    Greg Palast – clears a few things up.

    • Kevin 4.1
      7 March 2019 at 12:50 pm

      Excellent. Thanks Adam.

      Where’s our resident Venezuela expert Gosman on this?

      • Wensleydale 4.1.1
        7 March 2019 at 2:56 pm

        If you want to summon Gosman, you have to speak his name backwards three times while anointing yourself in the blood of a charter school student. And remember — don’t set foot outside the circle.

    • weston 4.2
      7 March 2019 at 3:25 pm

      Sounds like america,s been at its dirty work in venezuela for quite a while im amazed just how many filthy tentacles can be at work at the same time!! i mean havnt they just brought about regime change in Ukraine ?You,d think that would be enough for a bit but nope lets up the anti on venezuela no matter how many lies need to be told or how many bribes and threats need to be made .

  5. marty mars 5
    7 March 2019 at 9:55 am

    These mayors are an utter disgrace. They should resign and put themselves out to pasture. They are deliberately making it harder for future generations through their ignorance and stupidity.

    “Several New Zealand mayors are still reluctant to say they agree with the scientific consensus that human activities have an impact on climate change.”

    https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/111063926/several-mayors-unsure-whether-human-activities-contribute-to-climate-change

    • Augustus 5.1
      7 March 2019 at 11:05 am

      Judging by the comments section on this article, they are good representatives of a good number of New Zealanders. We really ought to fund education a whole lot better.

    • Molly 5.2
      8 March 2019 at 8:05 am

      A national policy statement on climate change, would require those mayors and their councils to give consideration to that statement when creating planning documents and making resource management decisions. We would not then need any kind of consensus amongst the councils, which is non-binding anyway.

      It would be good to see this national policy statement be issued by our coalition government.

  6. Andre 6
    7 March 2019 at 10:45 am

    A good read on cost-benefit analyses as applied to the idea of carbon taxes.

    https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2019/03/06/green-new-deal-000884

    • Jimmy 7.1
      7 March 2019 at 1:33 pm

      Twyford strikes again!

    • mac1 7.2
      7 March 2019 at 3:09 pm

      Note though from the article that the houses were sold at a price lower than asked originally by Mike Greer Homes to fall inside the Kiwibuild margins.

      In other words, houses that were empty because of price have been made available for sale and occupancy. That indicates that the policy is working to help make homes more affordable.

      With the sale and profit from the sale Mike Greer can continue to build homes, hopefully at more affordable prices in the future, maybe even for Kiwibuild.

      • Jimmy 7.2.1
        7 March 2019 at 4:35 pm

        But its not increasing the number of homes available

        • bwaghorn 7.2.1.1
          7 March 2019 at 4:38 pm

          Yes it is . That builder can now get on with the next ones he was going build instead of sitting on his hands doing renos while they sell.

        • mac1 7.2.1.2
          7 March 2019 at 6:25 pm

          It is increasing the number of houses below the Kiwibuild threshold price.

          The builder, as bwaghorn below says, gets on with building new houses.

          The builder might just join the Kiwibuild scheme in a bigger way.

          These are all pluses.

      • Molly 7.2.2
        8 March 2019 at 8:09 am

        Another way of looking at it, is that the high prices were unable to be sustained by the market, and Kiwibuild has provided the mechanism by which the gap between the buyer and the seller was filled.

        This is a recognised consequence of help-to-buy programmes, and while some are being housed, we should recognise and admit that in the long-term they do nothing for reducing inflated housing costs and providing access to housing for all.

  8. Ad 8
    7 March 2019 at 11:06 am

    If Bill were back he would have had great schadenfreude with centre-lefts like me who had hoped for great things from Trudeau. Trudeau rose by social media and is now severely wounded by it. Nothing like a Canadian ‘inferred influence’ scandal to look big against the proper-sized scandals in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere.

    Come back Bill and spank us liberals .

    • adam 8.1
      7 March 2019 at 11:31 am

      Why bother, liberals never change, never listen or learn anything – they just keep supporting evil people thinking they will be better this time.

      You just want a cathartic moment, without giving up anything or facing the fact your lesser evil, is still evil.

      You can’t accept that the systems you keep forcing on people are broken, and are just their to keep up the illusion of democracy, without actually having a democracy.

      We live in a world of corporate tyranny and unless you fight it – you nothing but a apologists, at best.

      • Ad 8.1.1
        7 March 2019 at 12:13 pm

        Harder

          • Ad 8.1.1.1.1
            7 March 2019 at 1:40 pm

            That’s what you’ve got?

            Hardt and Negri did better a decade ago. Even Bill could do better.

            We live in one of the cleanest, institutionally strongest, most regulated, safest, most secular, least populated, least protesting, and most contented liberal states on earth.

            Rebellion? Not here.

            • adam 8.1.1.1.1.1
              7 March 2019 at 2:00 pm

              You so funny, tell that to the kids killing themselves either quickly through suicide (were number 1, or close enough) or slowly killing themselves with Alcohol and drugs. Tell that to the homeless, the prisoners, the aged, the disabled and people hiding from the immigration department.

              Tell them that the systems of power have not been taken over by corporate elects.

              No wait, your one of them. You have a position which helps keep working people in check. Keeping them on low wages and not voting – because they know people like you won’t give up an inch of your privilege, or actually do anything real to challenge the dominant power structures.

              • Ad …
                7 March 2019 at 2:46 pm

                Good to focus on mental health. That’s precisely what you will see in the 2019 Labour-led completely non-revolutionary Government budget.

                What that will build on is New Zealand:

                – Least corrupt country in the world
                – 4th most peaceful in the world
                – 10th best for literacy in the world
                – 8th best in world for media freedom
                – Highest for political rights and civil liberties
                – 2nd easiest for doing business
                – 4th for economic freedom
                – Top 10 for protected conservation areas
                – Regularly top place in the world to visit

                You can find these in OECD and Wikipedia stats sources.

                Plenty to do, but lots to build on.

        • greywarshark 8.1.1.2
          7 March 2019 at 12:54 pm

          Aren’t there enough facts linking Trudeau to business interests pushing
          projects. He was the brightest hope wasn’t he an_ thought to be right wing but with left pretensions? Each country needs to look to its own problems with sideways checks on what is happening in the USA. The trouble with big ships going down – they drag surrounding things down with them.

          7:22 am today
          The US trade gap with the rest of the world jumped to a 10-year high of $621bn ($NZ916bn) last year, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump’s deficit reduction plan.
          https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/384128/us-president-donald-trump-dealt-blow-as-us-trade-deficit-jumps

          • Ad 8.1.1.2.1
            7 March 2019 at 1:41 pm

            Best to lower your political expectation standards and avoid perpetual disappointment.

            • Drowsy M. Kram 8.1.1.2.1.1
              7 March 2019 at 7:32 pm

              Prefer to maintain high expectations re our politicians – I can handle perpetual disappointment, both receiving and giving. 🙂

              “Do your best and enjoy the ride down.“

    • Andre 8.2
      7 March 2019 at 3:08 pm

      Somehow this thread reminds me of …

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NP-kD4C1SA

      Dunno why.

  9. joe90 9
    7 March 2019 at 11:15 am

    Of course HRC was the real villain.

    /

    Reacting to news that the Trump administration has revoked a part of an Obama executive order requiring reporting on civilian casualties, Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA’s Director of Security with Human Rights stated:

    “This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration’s actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims.

    https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/trump-administration-makes-shameful-decision-to-shroud-civilian-casualties-in-secrecy/

    • Wensleydale 9.1
      7 March 2019 at 11:52 am

      Trump will be ecstatic. “Tremendous decision! One of the best decisions this administration has made, and we’ve made a lot of tremendous decisions! But this one, which essentially allows us to shroud our, erm… ‘collateral damage’ in thick, viscous, nigh-on impenetrable veils of secrecy, well, that’s probably the most tremendous decision we’ve made this week! We continue to drain the swamp by pumping out all that nasty swamp water and replacing it with nastier swamp water! Stay tuned for more tremendousness as it comes to hand, America!”

      • joe90 9.1.1
        7 March 2019 at 12:07 pm

        Elizabeth Warren on ‘Murican tremendousness

        https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1103427009290608640

        • Anne 9.1.1.1
          7 March 2019 at 1:17 pm

          Elizabeth Warren was struggling to contain her emotions and listening to what she saw it’s not hard to understand why.

          This is the USA. The country which claims to be the champion of democracy and freedom for all people. Instead it treats people forced to flee their homelands like animals and yet still has the gall to call out other countries they don’t like for doing the same kind of thing.

          My heart goes out to the good, decent Americans who are as appalled as the rest of us is at what is being done in their name.

    • marty mars 9.2
      7 March 2019 at 11:53 am

      Disgusting foul waters these lowlifes swim and kill in.

      And Joe for your info when Hillary was prez she did much much worse than this and you know it why oh why are you suppressing the truth about well you know everything. 😀

    • adam 9.3
      7 March 2019 at 12:30 pm

      The problem with liberals is the lack of intellectual courage to fight, or at the very least, hold power to account. Your too busy going the other side is bad (which it is, I don’t actually need to be reminded of this), our side good (nope not all of them, some are murderous scum).

      When the honest response in that those in power don’t give a damn for people, face it, the death empowering tools in power care nothing for you or your family. So rather then run around like some Byzantine peasant chanting ‘Blue’ or ‘Green’ – have a go at power and those who control the mechanisms of power.

  10. joe90 10
    7 March 2019 at 11:32 am

    Daniel Graystone?

    Mark Zuckerberg has sold close to 30 million shares of Facebook to fund an ambitious biomedical-research project, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with a goal of curing all disease within a generation.

    A less publicized initiative related to the $US5 billion program includes work on brain-machine interfaces, devices that essentially translate thoughts into commands. One recent project is a wireless brain implant that can record, stimulate, and disrupt the movement of a monkey in real time.

    In a paper published in the highly cited scientific journal Nature on New Year’s Eve, researchers detail a wireless brain device implanted in a primate that records, stimulates, and modifies its brain activity in real time, sensing a normal movement and stopping it immediately. One of those researchers is an investigator with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a nonprofit medical research group related to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

    https://www.businessinsider.com.au/chan-zuckerberg-research-implantable-brain-device-primates-2018-12

    • greywarshark 10.1
      7 March 2019 at 11:56 am

      Oh good, just what we needed! What’s the use of having zillions of make-believe money if one oesn’t use it to muck up people’s lives and brains so that they can’t understand anything and can’t enquire and make decisions for themselves and anything else, so being entirely flexible, protean and disposable. Tell them to go jump in the lake! Done!

      • One Two 10.1.1
        7 March 2019 at 2:05 pm

        It is called ‘transhumanism’, gw…wireless tech…smart cities…are the precursors…

        Core premise of transhumanism …the human being is broken…weak…a biological liability…mortal…

        Clearly the ‘slow kill’ method …is too slow…why invest in the environment…when you can become a machine…which does not share fundamental requirments of biological beings…

        It is all coming out into the open…just as many folk decades ago stated would happen…

        Which is why…IMO…kiss this biologically habitable planet…goodbye…

  11. gsays 11
    7 March 2019 at 11:37 am

    Some semblance of justice for a courageous journalist.
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/111098258/nicky-hager-settles-with-westpac-after-personal-information-released-to-police

    Now, has any police officer faced investigation for making the unjustified request?
    Or is that being handled by officer forgetful?

  12. greywarshark 12
    7 March 2019 at 12:16 pm

    Chris Trotter at Bowalley Road applying his questing mind to NZ matters.

    Ardern’s game-changing intuition was that all these voters really wanted to hear were different words. Commitments, promises, studies, working-groups, projects: policies filled with good intentions and promoted with powerful displays of empathy. The number of voters eager to focus on the fiscal mechanisms required to pay for Labour’s kinder, gentler New Zealand were considerably fewer.

    That had always been the problem with Labour’s dreary procession of earnest middle-aged blokes. They had all been way too keen on the nuts and bolts; far too ready to tell everybody how much fiscal pain they would have to be willing to suffer in order to make all the good things they wanted for New Zealand affordable. Who the hell wanted to hear about that!

    That was Jacinda’s gift. A young face. A bright smile. A “Let’s Do This!” willingness to hit the ground running. And, most of all, an extraordinary ability to make her middle-class supporters believe that, as with the relentless rise in the value of their houses, her “politics of kindness” could be brought into being without serious sacrifice or effort.

    Under the comments on Ardern’s great style and success which we are all grateful and hopeful for, is the stark thought that it is NZs obvious avarice, weakness of will and moral fibre and compass that may prevent that success. Will we be able to make the bold movement forward needed to cope with the accumulation of neglect and dissolving standards of everything, and more will we forge through with programs that will help to protect and recover from the climatic and societal strikes that are coming to batter us?

  13. Herodotus 13
    7 March 2019 at 12:51 pm

    Funny I have heard of the same thing in Kaiapoi – houses that failed to sell in the market are now taken over by KiwiBuild.
    It could be said that the govt is propping up developers buy purchasing unsold developments. Now isn’t that corporate welfare when the govt saves a failing private enterprise ? But well done to Mike Greer still gets to sell and make a profit 😉
    https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/111074456/huapai-kiwibuild-homes-had-already-been-for-sale-on-open-market

    • greywarshark 13.1
      7 March 2019 at 12:56 pm

      Needs must when the devil drives. Old saying.
      And the Labour Coalition isn’t the devil here.

    • Poission 13.2
      7 March 2019 at 1:09 pm

      What has been is been
      What is done is done
      there is nothing new under the sun.

      THE HOUSING SITUATION.—The number of new houses and flats constructed each year has, approximately doubled since the pre-war period. A peak of 19,200 was reached in each of the years ended 31 March 1956 and 31 March 1957. The total dropped back a little to 18,600 in the year ended 31 March 1958. This rate of house building in relation to population is higher than in most countries. Over 80 per cent of the houses built at present are for private home ownership.

      There was a fairly rapid expansion in house building from 1945 to 1951, when there was a noticeable levelling-off at just over 16,000 houses each year. In August 1953 the Government convened a National Housing Conference for the purpose of surveying the general housing situation in New Zealand and investigating ways and means of implementing the Government’s housing policy of promoting the building of more houses at a reasonable cost. The conference was attended by builders and others directly associated with the building industry, and also by employers, workers, welfare organizations, local bodies, organizations interested in housing finance, and other sections of the public. Every aspect of housing was discussed, and action taken on the resolutions adopted by the conference helped to effect a further expansion in house building to the present level. The conference assessed the extent of the housing shortage and set a number of 206,000 houses in ten years as a target to overcome the shortage and provide for the increase in population expected from both natural increase and immigration. This target represented an increase of 25 per cent in the building rate. A National Housing Council was also set up.

      The most noteworthy development in house building which has resulted has been the group building scheme. This scheme has been designed to give builders continuity of work, to reduce non-productive time between the finishing of one house and the starting of the next, and to assist builders in administration and supervision by enabling them to build houses for sale in groups. Plans and specifications are checked by the State Advances Corporation, which also inspects the work and, on behalf of the Government, gives an undertaking to take over at approved prices a specified number of any unsold houses. At 31 December 1958 there were 490 builders participating in the scheme, and 12,415 houses had been programmed; of these 9,785 had been completed and sold, and 675 were under construction.

      https://www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Official_Yearbooks/1959/NZOYB_1959.html?_ga=2.6355505.2035999012.1551916704-443778311.1515815050#idchapter_1_211608

    • McFlock 13.3
      7 March 2019 at 1:45 pm

      So basically it removes some of the risk if the developer takes a wee discount on the sale price. The other possibility is that maybe the developer slows everything down, maybe puts some subbies on the “pay when I’m ready if I don’t go bankrupt” list.

      Now, I’d like to see a ministry of works-style development, but if some deveopers build houses with the kiwibuild backstop in mind, it’s still doing the job of keeping construction going.

    • mac1 13.4
      7 March 2019 at 2:37 pm

      “He said the company had to discount the houses to get to the KiwiBuild price threshold, which caps two-bedroom properties in Auckland at $600,000.”

      So says the Mike Greer manager.

      Part of the deal for kiwibuild is to get prices down to more affordable levels, yes? And inhabited.

      Six houses uninhabited helps no-one, except those who own’ghost’ houses for the sole purpose of making capital gains.

      https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/103962397/minister-of-housing-blames-national-for-empty-ghost-houses

      Twyford said “Ghost houses can be blamed on the previous government’s policies that have allowed rampant capital gain.”

      Another good reason for a CGT. Auckland at one stage had 33,000 empty houses.

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11654495

    • Craig H 13.5
      7 March 2019 at 8:29 pm

      Sounds like a successful public-private partnership.

  14. greywarshark 14
    7 March 2019 at 12:55 pm

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/383693/arrow-the-latest-pawn-in-construction-chess-match
    A good report on the construction industry’s woes from 3/1/2019.

  15. Antony 15
    7 March 2019 at 1:46 pm

    Ending poverty is more important than global warming. Everyone benefits from cheap oil prices. Action proposed to stop global warming usually involves raising oil prices through the roof, to the benefit of the oil companies. The result of these policies is to squeeze the middle class. This country has enormous untapped oil and gas reserves. The profits currently go to oligarchs overseas. If these resource extraction companies were state-owned, everyone would all get a tax cut from the profits.

    • Cinny 15.1
      7 March 2019 at 1:55 pm

      Global warming aka Climate Change is a massive reason why people are in poverty. Failing crops, displacement due to climate, flooding, fires etc etc

      Drilling for more oil won’t do bugger all for either poverty or climate change IMHO.

      • Stuart Munro. 15.1.1
        7 March 2019 at 3:17 pm

        We do need to reduce our oil usage, but until we’ve implemented a workable replacement technology (or more probably a suite of them), using domestic oil would be better both in terms carbon footprints and balance of payments.

        I haven’t seen a credible policy designed to reduce our oil consumption yet, so exploration isn’t entirely stupid – except for the Key terms that give 95% of discovered resources to foreign corporations just for finding them.

      • Bewildered 15.1.2
        7 March 2019 at 7:24 pm

        Bit of over reach and hyperbole there cinny You got facts to back that statement up We get rid of oil a lot of people starve , ie no tractors, no trucks, no harvester, no ships…., we basically grind to a halt and move to preindustrial agriculture to feed a world that is 16x more populated

        • Cinny 15.1.2.1
          7 March 2019 at 8:31 pm

          I think you are missing my point, which is….. drilling for more oil will not reduce poverty.

          A massive amount of poverty can be attributed to climate change. Food, water and shelter are the most important factors of a human life. A changing climate affects all of that.

          “climate change is an acute threat to poorer people across the world, with the power to push more than 100 million people back into poverty over the next fifteen years.”
          https://www.gfdrr.org/en/feature-story/managing-impacts-climate-change-poverty

          We don’t need tractors to commercially grow food, nor do we need to suffer from floods, droughts etc…. what we do need to do is grow smarter. Think hydroponic food growing warehouses.

          Such growing techniques require no soil, no sun and up to 95% less water. Meaning crops would be cheap to grow and not weather dependent. Cheap fresh food helps those in poverty etc etc. Take it to the next level, robots growing food, like at Iron Ox… http://ironox.com/

          Free/cheap energy will decrease poverty, drilling for more oil will not.

          • Bewildered 15.1.2.1.1
            7 March 2019 at 10:00 pm

            Don’t think your a twit Cinny but here is some food for thought, excuse the pun 😊

            Patrick Moore, the co-founder of the environmentalist group Greenpeace, ripped into New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the weekend as a “pompous little twit,” saying the Green New Deal plan she’s advocating is “completely crazy.”

            Patrick Moore
            @EcoSenseNow
            Pompous little twit. You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating.

            You would bring about mass death.

            • Cinny 15.1.2.1.1.1
              7 March 2019 at 11:15 pm

              Lmao 🙂 A particularly humorous Roald Dahl book springs to mind 🙂

              Anyways…… context is important… so first I found out just who Patrick Moore is…. and hello… a media statement from Greenpeace, back in 2010 appeared..

              “Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance.

              He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.”

              But wait… there’s more…. ‘He claims he “saw the light” but what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.’

              https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-statement-on-patric/

              Let’s continue…. lololol 🙂 here’s my response to your above reply 🙂

              ‘If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating.’

              We mostly use renewable energy for power in NZ, so Patrick Moore’s statement seems slightly irrelevant for us, and we grow trees.

              ‘ You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities’

              Hydroponic warehouses are often located in cities, that is part of it, a farm in the city, small footprint, tall building.

              Free clean energy for all would solve so much poverty, but drilling for more oil won’t accomplish that, instead technology will. Reluctance to engage in finding such answers keeps the planet reliant on a method which is killing it.

              Climate change is already causing mass death and the extinction of species. Come to think about it oil rich countries such as saudi arabia also bring about mass death, Yemen.

              Nitey nite 🙂 Bedtime for me.

    • McFlock 15.2
      7 March 2019 at 2:01 pm

      1: we need to address poverty and AGW both, not one at the expense of the other.

      2: Tax cuts help rich people more than poor people, and besides we need to transition to a low-employment automated economy anyway.

      3: raising oil prices makes alternative energies more profitable, so they get more development investment rather than developing new fracking methods to go even deeper. Longer term everyone is better off with new, more efficient tech than the internal combustion engine.

  16. Tony Veitch [not etc.] 16
    7 March 2019 at 3:01 pm

    Stella performance by Soimon in the house today during question time.

    • Muttonbird 16.1
      7 March 2019 at 3:07 pm

      “Stella”? Was he drunk?

      I guess it’s hard to tell with Simon…

    • Cinny 16.2
      7 March 2019 at 5:23 pm

      Dang Tony, that’s than better a married at first sight bait advert…lmao

      *skips off grinning to find the clip*

      • Cinny 16.2.1
        7 March 2019 at 5:40 pm

        Laughing here, can’t find him on any of today’s clips. Was it a stella performance because he wasn’t there?

  17. Peter 17
    7 March 2019 at 5:43 pm

    I’m trying to work out why Amy Adams has got her knickers in a twist about the census, the lack of reliability of it and the lack of important information which it should have gathered.

    James Shaw said today that it took 5-7 years to get it organised to do it right. When he was made Minister he had no more than 47 working days before Christmas for an exercise which was to happen before March 6th. (Comfortably before that I suppose if it was to be done online.)
    Not many days to become au fait with all the brilliant things the previous Ministers had been in charge of.

    Actually I do know why she’s in the state she’s in – she’s a bloody idiot. She should look to her left in Parliament. Just before her eyes reach David Seymour they should land on Scott Simpson (starts the same as ‘simple’). The eyes would have to travel past another who was involved in the census oversight – Mark Mitchell (doesn’t start the same as ‘simple’ but is that anyway.)

    She should ask them about the cock-up they spent years ‘organising.’

  18. Jenny - How to get there? 18
    7 March 2019 at 9:02 pm

    “can’t handle the truth”

    Meet the new one party US state broadcaster

    The Democrats announce that they will not invite the FOX Network to be a host for the upcoming Democratic Party primary debates, after allegations of corrupt practice by the FOX Netowork.

    In response President Trump threatens to ban all other networks from hosting presidential debates. (Presumably all except FOX)

    Trump threatens to block networks from hosting debates after Dems reject Fox
    Tal Axelrod – March 6, 2019

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/432961-trump-threatens-to-block-networks-from-hosting-debates-after-dems

    …..allegations that late Fox News founder Roger Ailes passed along questions to Trump prior to a 2016 Republican primary debate and noted that former Fox executive Bill Shine is now the White House communications director. Several other former Fox News employees and contributors work in the Trump administration….

  19. Ian 19
    7 March 2019 at 9:38 pm

    Any Capital Gains Tax is really a punishment for planning,thinking ,saving,investing and distributing to those who don’t.

  20. Eco Maori 20
    9 March 2019 at 6:52 pm

    Kia ora Te ao Maori News Congratulat to Noa Nicholson from Dannvirke 100 years old is a great for A Maori Wahine it looks like the Whanau put on a great hakari for her.
    Ka pai for protesting about whenua that was taken by stealf stolen I have one that I will be following my tupuna and taking to Court as the whenua was granted to the wrong WHANAU.
    I have a strong interest in Matariki now. I have a lot to learn.
    Ka pai to Kanikani 2 cool for there win in America.
    Graham Tipene for getting to design that walk way in Auckland it looks awesome with the Maori art involved in the design. Ka kite ano