Open mike 07/12/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 7th, 2023 - 59 comments
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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 …

59 comments on “Open mike 07/12/2023 ”

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  1. bwaghorn 1
    7 December 2023 at 6:13 am

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/12/06/te-reo-maori-bonuses-acceptable-for-relevant-roles-willis/

    Willis quietly backs away, after first feeding raw Maori meat to the baying pack.

    • Tiger Mountain 1.1
      7 December 2023 at 7:16 am

      Nicorette’s first lesson perhaps.

      What is not often considered is that with the dominant language being English, Māori reo speakers are compelled to be bilingual to get by in society.

      There is no such pressure on pākehā. Other tauiwi of which there are scores of nationalities, and those with English as a second language might feel similarly pressured.

      A friend worked in Europe for years, based in Geneva and by the end of his long tour could converse in 4-5 languages proficiently.

      The fuss over Māori culture seems part of post colonial fallout, from descendants of those that benefited from land grabs and attempted cultural assimilation/destruction.
      There will be some 21st century culture war element too I guess for some.

      • Stephen D 1.1.1
        7 December 2023 at 7:58 am

        That's my general feeling about this Nact1 government and their supporters.

        We won the wars in the 1860s. so suck it up.

      • Bill Drees 1.1.2
        7 December 2023 at 10:41 am

        Yes, it is an anglo-saxon push back. It is straight forward white supremacy.

        If we view Luxon as a Christian Nationalist then we should not be surprised.

        • adam 1.1.2.1
          7 December 2023 at 1:41 pm

          If we view Luxon as a Christian Nationalist then we should not be surprised.

          Funny how the media have no spine to ask the questions to confirm if he is or not.

    • AB 1.2
      7 December 2023 at 9:06 am

      Mostly a smokescreen – it displaces the argument from something front-page worthy into a series of invisible background niggles about 'relevance' which the media will largely ignore. As others have pointed out, it's a shift from the vulgar boofheadery of Luxon in campaign mode to Key's quiet evisceration of the possibility of civilised communities.

  2. Peter 2
    7 December 2023 at 8:49 am

    Herald headline: 'Mark Mitchell explains why he released letter to Coster." Then,

    "Police Minister Mark Mitchell has explained to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking why he took the unusual step of releasing a letter of expectations for Police Commissioner Andrew Coster."

    Simple, it's because he's a grandstanding dick and he knows his boofhead supporters will like it, and get all excited about it. Not doubt he has list of strategic announcements to be made to keep them, and him, all orgasmic over the next months. All the tra las around gangs will be the next big one.

    He'll be crapping himself that that there might be a ram raid. No doubt he's had a tête-à-tête with Sunny Kaushal of the Dairy and Business Owners Group suggesting a leaf has been turned, being positive will help keeping the 'bad news' off the front page will be of use. Who knows while he's there maybe they could talk about the importance of peddling tobacco and vapes since it seems they're on the same page with those.

    • Tiger Mountain 2.1
      7 December 2023 at 9:10 am

      Don’t mention the ram raids…I zee nothink…

    • weka 2.2
      7 December 2023 at 9:22 am

      Please supply a link every time you quote, including now.

    • Sandra Le Cron 2.3
      7 December 2023 at 9:44 am

      Kia Ora. It is certainly about time we had some common sense applied to policing and crime.Far too many dangerous buggers in the community wearing bracelets for a start.and,whilst liberated, they are comitting some very serious crimes.And, we surely need some recovery from a bit of financial mischiefness that Grant Robertson bluffed us with.

      Ma te wa.

      • Louis 2.3.1
        7 December 2023 at 11:26 am

        "financial mischiefness" “bluffed us with” describes Nicola Willis.

      • Peter 2.3.2
        7 December 2023 at 12:54 pm

        It's always time to have some common sense applied to policing and crime. And to justice.

        There's a massive chasm in thinking of how crime and justice issues should be handled.

        In one hand there are those who believe in principles of restorative justice, both victims and offenders involved in finding ways to hold the offender accountable for their offending and, as far as possible, repair the harm caused to the victim and community. Moving forward constructively in a way which edifies all and improves society in then long term.

        On the other hand, pun intended, there are those who have the sort of attitude that a 15 year old shoplifting a loaf of bread because he's hungry should have his hand chopped off. 14 year old car stealing a car? Her parents should have any benefits cut, the thief off to boot-camp for whatever period. An 18 year old Hutt Valley youth who gets pissed and does something dumb and the only thing he's got going or him is his sport? Ban him from playing it forever.

        I see a lot of the noise from the 'off with his head' lot as lashing out as an acknowledgement and admission from them that they have helped construct, actively or incidentally, a society with a lot or undesirable facets.

        At the moment the 'lock 'em up forever' redneck Mark Mitchell, David Seymour and zb loonies types are in charge.

      • Bearded Git 2.3.3
        7 December 2023 at 1:52 pm

        If you are going to say things like that Sandra you need to back it up with a link to stats.

        You are also implying the previous government wasn't applying common sense. I disagree. Labours humane policy of releasing non-dangerous prisoners from prison (often ankle tagged as you say)significantly reduced the number of people held in jail. This helped both the person released normalise their life and reduced the cost to the taxpayer .

    • Ad 2.4
      7 December 2023 at 9:51 am

      Commissioner Coster needs the scrutiny.

      The massive growth in gang violence in the regions and gun violence and homicide in Auckland needs permanent NZPolice accountability.

      Letters of Expectation should be made public as a matter of course.

      • UncookedSelachimorpha 2.4.1
        7 December 2023 at 12:12 pm

        If NAct actually gave a damn about gang crime etc, they would have written letters to Oranga Tamariki, Ministry of Social Development, Inland Revenue Department, Treasury, Ministry of Education etc etc, DEMANDING urgent action be taken to address poverty, disadvantage and inequality – which are powerful drivers of rising crime.

        The police are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – and 'tough on crime' policies are not that effective.

        • CharlieB 2.4.1.1
          7 December 2023 at 12:29 pm

          Thanks UncookedSelachimorpha..

          You wrote the post I came here to write..

          This obsession with the police is dangerous because it's only a very short step away from arming them full time, and then militarising them in the long term.

          The issue isn't not enough people being arrested..

          The issues are the things driving crime and the Police, Corrections or Justice as a whole have very influence over those things.

        • Ad 2.4.1.2
          7 December 2023 at 2:20 pm

          They likely will.

          More public service accountability not less is what is needed.

          But only NZPolice can enforce against crime.

      • Peter 2.4.2
        7 December 2023 at 2:46 pm

        Police police the results of social policy. The ambulances and staff at the bottom of the cliffs aren't doing what we want and expect them to do?

        And the best thing is to give them 'Letters of Expectation?'

    • Jester 2.5
      7 December 2023 at 6:00 pm

      There already was another ram raid just the other day at Pakuranga.

  3. Adrian 3
    7 December 2023 at 9:02 am

    A small mention a few days ago in Stuff or Granny stated that ram raids were still going on, one in fact for a 7k damage bill garnered a 1 dollar chocolate bar.

    • weka 3.1
      7 December 2023 at 9:23 am

      it would be cheaper to the country to 1) pay everyone a living wage (including those without jobs) and 2) fix the housing crisis.

      • Chess Player 3.1.1
        7 December 2023 at 8:45 pm

        Interested in how you see this working please.

        1. If people get a living wage for not working, why would they go to work?

        2. What ‘fix’ exactly, to the housing crisis, would you apply? And who would do the work involved?

        thanks

        • weka 3.1.1.1
          7 December 2023 at 9:52 pm

          not everyone can or should work 40 hours a week. eg disabled people and women with young children. Why should they not have enough to live on?

          • Chess Player 3.1.1.1.1
            8 December 2023 at 5:22 pm

            Of course some can’t work 40 hrs a week.

            The minority though, and by some measure.

            How do you see this working though if a kid leaves school then goes onto the living wage, but never actually works?

            Or maybe you mean people who have proven disabilities or issues determining that they can’t work, should have their benefits set at the nominal living wage.

            I agree with that, but I’m not sure it’s what you mean.

            • weka 3.1.1.1.1.1
              9 December 2023 at 10:46 am

              there are over 100,000 NZ citizens who are on a benefit because of long term disability and sufficient disability to prevent them from working, and who are forced by circumstance, government policy and societal attitudes/values to live in poverty.

              I'm glad we are in agreement that they should be getting the living wage.

              In addition to them, there are:

              • single parents with young children, including women who have recently given birth and/or are breastfeeding. Most of those are women, who are already financially disadvantaged by society and government policy.
              • people aged 65 or older
              • people who can't find enough work to live on
              • people who can't easily hold down enough work to keep themselves out of poverty, for whatever reason including mental health issues and who are excluded from accessing SLP.
              • people who have been working low wage jobs (someone has to do them) and who have lost their job and have no savings. Some of those people will end up on stand downs for the dole.
              • and so on
              • weka …
                9 December 2023 at 10:53 am

                Here are the benefit stats for June 2023. Note that SLP is 100,878 and JobSeeker is 173,130, but that there are many people on JS who are unable to work due to disability, they're just not allowed on SLP.

                This is how the previous Nact government cooked the books and punished disabled beneficiaries at the same time.

                I don't know if MSD doesn't have the figures of JS with medical exemption or if they jsut choose not to publish them.

                You can look at the other charts to see how much emergency money WINZ has to pay out because the benefit rates are set so low and because the government thinks it's appropriate to punish people who don't have work.

            • weka 3.1.1.1.1.2
              9 December 2023 at 10:58 am

              How do you see this working though if a kid leaves school then goes onto the living wage, but never actually works?

              When I left school in 1984, I went on the dole. The dole was the same as the minimum wage. Unemployment was low, so it didn't matter. And most people wanted to work because it brought other benefits in addition to the minimim wage eg career, increasing income, skills training, social contact and so on.

              Neoliberalism broke all that. It massively increased the unemployment rate, it intentionally started to treat unemployed people like shit, it undercut things like apprenticeships, learning on the job, working one's way up through an organisation, workplace culture. It treated people like stock units.

              That was Labour. National in the 90s doubled down and created a long term, intergenerational underclass. Which is why we have so many people living in poverty now. It's not people people are lazy or bludgers, it's because when you treat people like shit and you stop them from having meaningful adult lives, society breaks down.

              Fucked if I know why people on the dole shouldn't get living wage though. They have needs just like everyone else and the economy is run with a set amount of unemployed people so why not just be real about that?

        • weka 3.1.1.2
          7 December 2023 at 9:55 pm

          housing crisis needs a whole systems approach that includes things like targeted rent caps, mass building of housing that stays permanently out of the property market (central and local government, iwi, NGOs, land trusts), rent to own schemes, government, councils, iwi building low cost homes for first home buyers (actual low cost), regulate the building industry including supply chains.

          • Chess Player 3.1.1.2.1
            8 December 2023 at 5:29 pm

            Ok, so a total reinvention of the system.

            That’s only ever been achieved with a revolution, and few of those have worked out well.

            If Labour people couldn’t find the backbone to enact some of those reforms when they had the first majority since MMP came in, and if the Greens refuse to collaborate with anyone other than Labour, I struggle to see how this can ever happen.

            Sad, but true.

            • weka 3.1.1.2.1.1
              9 December 2023 at 11:01 am

              TINA is a poor excuse. The things I suggested don't require the downfall of capitalism, they could probably even be done under a more socialist democractic version of neoliberalism. For a while at least (climate will bring it all down, probably within our livetimes).

              We might get lucky and Labour go away and sort their shit out.

        • KJT 3.1.1.3
          7 December 2023 at 9:58 pm

          Universal income study finds money for nothing won't make us work less | New Scientist

          A foreign concept to right wingers. Working for anything other than personal reward. And the corollary, something beyond their comprehension, working despite being paid regardless. That people work for other reasons than immediate personal gain, is beyond their comprehension,

          “The criticism levelled at basic income that it would disincentivise work is not supported by [the Finnish] data,” says Painter.

          • Chess Player 3.1.1.3.1
            8 December 2023 at 5:47 pm

            Yes I read that a while back when it came out, before Covid, from memory.

            Key quote for me was

            “What we have been able to find out so far is not the whole truth,” said Olli Kangas at the University of Turku, who led the Finnish study in partnership with Kela. “That is much more sophisticated.”

            It’s an interesting idea I keep my eye on, but while humans can have amazing powers of collaboration, and possibly that is something that differentiates us from the rest of the animals (part of the time anyway), I still find most patterns of human behaviour illustrate primal selfishness.

      • Rolling-on-Gravel 3.1.2
        8 December 2023 at 5:55 pm

        Thank you for at least including those who cannot work, Weka. 🙂

    • Chess Player 3.2
      7 December 2023 at 8:00 pm

      Link please, or it doesn’t count

  4. Matiri 4
    7 December 2023 at 9:13 am

    Will Koru Club be renamed? Toby Manhire suggests Fern Frond Spiral Club.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/06-12-2023/what-is-nzta-a-users-guide-to-the-new-english-names

  6. observer 6
    7 December 2023 at 11:29 am

    New government Minister is "incorrect and misleading". This headline is available for daily copy and paste.

    ACT MP Brooke van Velden wrongly quotes Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment | RNZ News

    It's that recurring problem … in opposition you can say any old nonsense, but in government there are these pesky fact-checkers holding you to account.

    Perhaps they'll be abolished. (I wish I was joking).

    • Chris 6.1
      7 December 2023 at 12:27 pm

      On the bright side, it is kind of handy having incompetent people in government. It's not surprising, and quite telling, that van Velden went from loyal Green supporter to rabid right-winger because she wouldn't have had a look in if she'd tried to enter politics via the Greens. You just need to look at the many many instances when Green MPs like Julie Anne Genter or Chloe Swarbrick have absolutely annihilated the likes of Gerry Brownlee, David Seymour and others. van Velden herself's been owned by Chloe Swarbrick more than once. Like so many on her team, she's a complete and permanent lightweight, so while things are bad, at least the calibre of these clowns will make things a little easier to counter, or at least can be factored in when deciding strategy.

    • bwaghorn 7.1
      7 December 2023 at 11:56 am

      He didn't finish his speech , it should have said , labour doesn't own Maori and the poor because they are the property of national and its funders , to work into the dirt for minimal income ,use as a target for the angry, collect smoking taxs off.

    • CharlieB 7.2
      7 December 2023 at 12:33 pm

      It's more of the aspirational politics bullshit that keeps right inline with Key/Bennett's state home/single parent background and Luxon't "first in my family to go to university" crap.. all it supports the illusion that "If I can do it, any one can do it".. Sometimes that's true.. but most often it isn't.

      • Sanctuary 7.2.1
        7 December 2023 at 3:16 pm

        I was interested with the fawning media reaction to James Meager's maiden speech. He has been declared that most precious of things to the middle class – an "authentic" working class joe whose moral suasion appeals to their class values. Of course, the press gallery wouldn't know an authentic working class joe if they fell over one. It's enough though for them to imagine Meager as a sort of woke kryptonite, a guy that woke lefties don’t really have any power because he is "authentic." Meager is fawned over because he is a reassuring confirmation of their conservative identity politics, he reassures them that outside the tinsel circus of the parliamentary Truman show meritocracy is alive and well and ever open to the upwardly mobile with the properly conservative values of true working folk.

        Here at last the gallery has gushed (perhaps literally given the barely repressed sexual frission he seems to have induced in some of the gallery members) is the real "authentic" voice of the politics they approve – a romantic tale as old as the world itself, an antidote to the post-truth, post-modernist discontentment of the weary, savvy alienation of their hipster cynicism.

        Meager is just the next Paula Bennett – she capered about in her leopard prints and gauche put on fake Westie pastiche all the better to make right wingers feel better about her shitting all over beneficiaries, before she dropped the act and stopped pretending. Meager will make pious pronouncements and tell us all the people who work on the coal face of poverty know nothing because he is more "authentic" all the while voting for legislation that fucks over the least advantaged amongst us. He can take his right wing identity politics, his appeal to conservative ideals of "authenticity" and shove it up his backside because to me, he is just another fucking Tory to be defeated.

        • Anne 7.2.1.1
          7 December 2023 at 8:28 pm

          "Meager is just the next Paula Bennett -"

          Imo, you are on the button Sanctuary.

          Young. Handsome. Has a pretty white wife? Couple of cute children? Looking for an easy ride up the greasy ladder of success?

          There is no way he could be there to improve the lives of the poor or the disadvantaged from whence he came. NAct's policies are testament to that. It also sounds like he rejected his family background some time ago. Possibly because he perceived them to be an impediment to his success?

          We all know people who fit the description. Full of sanctimonious and pious ideals but in reality don't give a s**t about anyone but themselves. Some of us even have (or had in my case) a family member who fitted the bill.

          Somewhere down the line he will do or say something that will expose him – just like it did with Paula Bennett.

  8. Ad 8
    7 December 2023 at 11:56 am

    Less than a month ago Fonterra were pledging to reduce its greenhouse gases by 30% in just 7 years.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/133258547/fonterra-pledges-to-make-milk-production-30-greener-by-2030#:~:text=Fonterra%20says%20its%20milk%20will,take%20steps%20to%20reduce%20emissions.

    But just 4 weeks later, when it comes to making that same promise with its competitors in full view of COP28 participants, nah:

    https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/dairy/fonterra-refuses-join-global-dairy-companies-methane-pledge

    Thanks to Fonterra we remain the high-volume low-value kings of the dairy world.

  9. Ad 9
    7 December 2023 at 12:32 pm

    Someone work out for me the moral complexities of Brian Tamaki holding a pro-Israel demonstration in Wellington.

    • Sanctuary 9.1
      7 December 2023 at 3:26 pm

      The guy got less votes than I did when I ran to be president of the local pigeon fanciers society, and I lost to Derek, the night janitor of a local sewage plant and a pigeon fancier of long note.

      Not sure, then, if the self-style bishop is worthy of our great minds….

      • Robert Guyton 9.1.1
        7 December 2023 at 6:55 pm

        If Brian had stood against you, my fine feathered friend, you might be just a little less cocky – coz, Power of the Lord!

    • Visubversa 9.2
      7 December 2023 at 5:19 pm

      None at all. Christian Zionists believe that Jesus won't come back until various things have happened. One of them is the establishment of Zionist Israel. The Jews will all then convert to Christianity.

  10. AB 10
    7 December 2023 at 12:47 pm

    Shane Reti has a dream. A dream of solving Maori health inequities through devolved funding, i.e. iwi ambulances at the bottoms of cliffs, not the significant downward redistribution of wealth and power that might actually work.

    • adam 10.1
      7 December 2023 at 1:48 pm

      Cigireti – if you can't have an original thought, reach back to the 80's to pull some failed bullshit out of your ass.

      Call it a shiny new solution.

      This lot are making the marxist-leninists look less ideological pure.

  11. Dennis Frank 11
    7 December 2023 at 12:48 pm

    An Aotearoan foreign policy initiative looms:

    Parliament's agenda for this afternoon states that Peters will ask Parliament to express grave concern at the ongoing violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. He will also "unequivocally condemn" the Hamas terror attacks of 7 October and call for the release of all hostages.

    Peters will also move that Parliament recognises Israel's right to defend itself acting in accordance with international law and that all civilians be protected from armed conflict.

    He had released a statement last Friday saying New Zealand was calling for all countries with influence in the region to work urgently towards a long-term ceasefire, but today's move will set that down on the Parliamentary record and allow the political parties to debate it.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/504102/foreign-minister-winston-peters-to-urge-parliament-to-call-for-steps-towards-ceasefire-in-gaza

    If the govt incorporates feedback from the debate, our consequent policy stance has the potential to be on the basis of cross-party consensus – which would give it way more moral authority. That's the way to go.

    • SPC 11.1
      7 December 2023 at 3:30 pm

      Peters approved the positions of Starmer (a sustainable cease-fire includes ending Hamas capacity to attack Israel again) and Twyford, but dissed that of Maori MP's (of 3 different parties) by referring to the fate of pacifist Chatham Islanders.

      Hipkins asked Luxon to distinguish between an immediate cease-fire (which Labour supports) and National's position – support for a sustainable cease-fire (which includes support for that advocated by the UNSG).

  12. observer 12
    7 December 2023 at 4:06 pm

    Good to see the Herald reporters were paying attention at Question Time today. I watched the Luxon/Hipkins exchange live and heard exactly what they did, with its clear implications:

    "Christopher Luxon has said his new Government has not committed to a referendum on the Treaty principles bill.

    Asked about the Treaty principles legislation, Luxon appeared to suggest National would not allow the Act’s Treaty Principles legislation to proceed beyond select committee.

    He said a bill would be supported to select committee, as said in the coalition agreement, but “that’s as far as it will go”.

    Christopher Luxon’s first Question Time to feature debate about Government’s approach – NZ Herald

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  • New diplomatic appointments
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  • Humanitarian support for Ethiopia and Somalia
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  • Supporting better financial outcomes for Kiwis
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  • Trade relationship with China remains strong
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  • Taupō takes pole position
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  • Earthquake-prone buildings review brought forward
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  • Thailand and NZ to agree to Strategic Partnership
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