Open Mike 07/06/2017

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 7th, 2017 - 111 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 …

111 comments on “Open Mike 07/06/2017 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. riffer 1
    7 June 2017 at 7:15 am

    Gosh, this is good.

  2. The Chairman 2
    7 June 2017 at 7:23 am

    Doctors warn fees will increase unless Government stumps up more cash
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/93363517/doctors-fees-will-increase-unless-government-stumps-up-more-cash-gps

    Labour’s health spokesman David Clark said we need to invest more heavily in primary healthcare but failed to elaborate how much more Labour would invest.

    • greywarshark 4.1
      7 June 2017 at 10:47 pm

      Maybe we need Obamacare like that other well-run country we follow – the USA.

  5. Incognito 5
    7 June 2017 at 7:33 am

    A very good article IMO that deserves attention here: The middle class is ruining the American dream.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11869848

    “Kids from more affluent backgrounds are entering the contest massively well prepared, while kids from less affluent backgrounds are not. The well-prepared kids win, and everybody pretends to themselves it’s a meritocracy,” he says.

    …

    “We need to be honest that the inequality problem does not kick in at 99 per cent, but much earlier than that.”

    • The Chairman 6.1
      7 June 2017 at 10:02 am

      Little on the health funding shortfall
      http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201846573/govt-short-changing-health-sector-by-2-point-3-billion-labour

      $2.3 billion shortfall unlikely to be corrected in first term.

      • Draco T Bastard 6.1.1
        7 June 2017 at 10:27 am

        Not surprising. It’s difficult and expensive to undo the damage that National does. And then we have to take in account that 2.3 billion is around 1% of GDP compared to the government using around 30%.

        • The Chairman 6.1.1.1
          7 June 2017 at 10:54 am

          It’s far more difficult when fiscal constraints have been self-imposed and there is no willingness to increase taxes of the elite.

          • Draco T Bastard 6.1.1.1.1
            7 June 2017 at 11:43 am

            True.

            Labour were fools to say that there won’t be any tax increases. Instead they should have said that taxes will be reviewed to cover the necessary expenses needed to maintain a good society.

            • McFlock 6.1.1.1.1.1
              7 June 2017 at 12:11 pm

              Except, as I recall, they didn’t promise zero tax increases.
              They said that at that stage, dependent on the budget and how the nats left the country, they could pay for all their pledges in the current tax levels and would review the entire tax system.

              Even without going “gosh darn it, the Greens insist we raise taxes slightly, but that’s living in a coalition”, they have more than enough room for a “neutral tax shift” post review or even an outright increase.

  7. Ad 7
    7 June 2017 at 9:53 am

    It’s the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

    If anyone remembers the Marshall Plan, here’s a good text on how the German government views it now in terms of recent events:

    http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/sid_192467928A5AB69CD9B00E5E1E7FB639/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Reden/2017/170518-BM_Marshall-Plan_70.html

  8. saveNZ 8
    7 June 2017 at 9:58 am

    Natz have taken 156 affordable state homes in Glen Innes and then turned that into only 39 affordable homes (if you think $650k is affordable).

    Of the 156 state houses only 78 are replaced.

    Presumably the other 104 homes are not affordable and for profit for the developer and Natz cronies.

    No wonder we have a fucking housing crisis with this type of carry on.

    The MSM are keeping the asset sales rout going by these vomitous spin articles not pointing out that the government are taking away affordable houses so that developers can profit from the asset sales.

    How stupid do they think people are??? No wonder Granny has to give it’s papers away for free these days.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11870527

  10. weka 10
    7 June 2017 at 10:19 am

    Quinn Norton on the NSA leaker getting caught,

    Please tell me this man is never working with sensitive sources ever.

    👻 added,
    Yashar AliVerified account @yashar
    When someone mails you an entire document they are giving you permission to do this. Did the NYT reporters describe Trump’s tax returns? no. https://twitter.com/Dave_Fox/status/871939708489670656 …

    *

    I’ve had sources who were risking jail, or worse. Some understood the risks, some needed my help to understand and try to stay safe.

    *

    This kind of rhetoric sabotages what I do, & what I try to help other journalists do, in understanding, communicating, and mitigating risk.

    *

    The Intercept’s mistake was not exactly unheard of, people make these mistakes all the time, but in this case, the source bears the cost.

    *

    I was involved in a nearly identical situation: http://archives.cjr.org/feature/the_back_door.php … but we got lucky, the source was fine. No harm, no foul. Pure luck.

    *

    For me this isn’t about the Intercept being bad, it’s about prevention/mitigation: doing better in journalism, not writing off the problem.

    https://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/872193952853745665

  11. saveNZ 11
    7 June 2017 at 10:30 am

    Apparently Mondelez a US company, bought Cadbury and has taken out 130 million in dividends, a 120m loan so it can claim 43m in interest, and given itself 47.7m in royalties and service fees so it can maximise it’s profits while paying as little local tax as possible.

    Even sadder is that now the locals have to crowd fund to keep their jobs and factories at Cadbury so offshore companies can have more profit.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11870727

    But the National government thinks this foreign investment is wonderful. This is ‘investment’ in the provinces.

    Tegal also has done a similar rout with it’s private equity owners who recently floated it and it’s now in trouble on the share market.

    On the float, a measly, 1.2 m was given in capital to Tegal, 129m was given to it’s shareholders aka the private equity firm, 130m to pay back debt the private equity firm took out to float, and 23m in fees for floating on the sharemarket.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201843153/business-commentator-rod-oram

    Apparently Business Desk did the analysis of Cadbury.

    Do commentators real not understand why Kiwis like to invest in property – rather than shares when this sort of carry on is perfectly legal.

    It’s a triple whammy of not encouraging people to invest in Kiwi business due to the routs, off shore companies not paying taxes and parasitically killing the business so that the locals lose their jobs and livelihoods.

    It’s obscene.

    • greywarshark 11.1
      7 June 2017 at 10:55 am

      More on Cadbury. Radionz did a piece this morning. An attempt to set up a local buy-in to keep the factory in Dunedin, and it is a reasonable investment with a known product and sales continuing for a popular product.

      I think that regions have to set up investment trusts or something to buy their main and likely ongoing enterprises. Government is determined to undermine stability in jobs apparently carrying forward neolib ideas that people work harder when they are insecure and living near survival level. That’s the theory, but not sure what they say about working people when there is no work. Do they have a theory to counteract the despair of not having any part to play in society?

      food Otago
      8:54 am today
      Dunedin public called on to invest in Cadbury proposal
      From Morning Report, 8:54 am toda
      Listen duration 3′ :49″ en
      http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201846594/dunedin-public-called-on-to-invest-in-cadbury-proposal
      Less than a year before Cadbury is due to close its Dunedin factory and the race is on to save it, and up to 360 jobs. A Dunedin City Councillor is launching a last-minute bid to keep the factory open with his ‘own the factory’ campaign.
      and
      http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/332441/last-ditch-bid-to-keep-confectionary-made-in-nz

      https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/20m-plan-save-factory
      Jim O’Malley, a Dunedin city councillor, is trying to raise $20 million to keep the factory open on a portion of the site.
      Mr O’Malley is working in a personal capacity; the Dunedin City Council is not involved in the bid.

      Mr O’Malley’s plan is to run a public share offer aimed at the general public as well as business.
      Before launching any share offer, Mr O’Malley has organised a two-week pledge period to gauge interest, starting today.
      If there was little interest, the plan would be dumped, and the ”lights will turn off in March”.

      Shares in Dunedin Manufacturing Holdings (DMH) would be priced at $50 if the offer goes ahead.
      A website has been launched – http://www.ownthefactory.co.nz – to register pledges.
      ”You will not be committed to make an investment at this time, but we ask you to only make a pledge if you intend to invest in the future,” he said.

      and
      http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/93402836/ambitious-20-million-plan-to-keep-kiwi-cadbury-brands-in-new-zealand

    • Draco T Bastard 11.2
      7 June 2017 at 11:41 am

      Seen that a few times over the past few years. Foreign company buys local company that has little or no debt and immediately takes out a huge loan and pays a massive dividend.

      It shouldn’t be allowed as it’s nothing more than a scam and can result in the local company going bankrupt – usually after the new owners have sold it on.

  12. Johnr 12
    7 June 2017 at 10:37 am

    Just listened to an interview on National Radio from a jellyfish expert. Apparantly they (the jellyfish) have no heart, no brain and no backbone. I thought, there you go, they must be tory voters.

    • McFlock 12.1
      7 June 2017 at 10:56 am

      yes, they also usually kill with thousands of stingers that each inject a tiny trace of poison into an almost invisible or trivial cut, the weight of these injections eventually killing a larger organism

      • weka 12.1.1
        7 June 2017 at 12:18 pm

        They have also apparently defied evolution and are now eating up the food chain. Which I kind of admired, so maybe there is hope yet 😉

    • greywarshark 12.2
      7 June 2017 at 11:51 am

      There were a lot of interesting things said on the radio jellyfish interview. I’ll pass on what I remember to add to the sting of the humorous twist that johnr heard. (E&OE)

      The dried jellyfish or some, are very water absorbent and can be used in products requiring that, baby naps etc.
      Jellyfish are colonising and can act together though individual entities attached to main platform.
      They bloom naturally, and spread to wide proportions, and this will happen with climate change because more warmth will encourage.
      They drift and depending on their structure will drift to the left or right, depending on which ‘sail’ the majority put up.
      They eat into our fish stocks, and when hauled up with fish catch in a massive reproduction phase, they tipped the fishing boat over.
      One has a sting that mimics herpes with blisters, and like herpes will stay in the body arising later and this may last for years.
      I think in Oz they always take vinegar with them to the beach. If not, swill salt water over stings, if you rub them they hook into you more and release venom or something, yuk.

      I was wondering if over the Barrier Reef perhaps they could moor? jellyfish clumps to shade and cool the water – if they could de-acidify the water it might help, but presumably they would have the opposite effect.

      It looks as if we need to find a way to use them as resources if they are going to be increasing with as bad effects as we ourselves have.

      • garibaldi 12.2.1
        7 June 2017 at 4:16 pm

        Don’t knock the old jellyfish too much, we may well have to use them as a source of protein when our fish stocks collapse.

      • Incognito 12.2.2
        7 June 2017 at 9:39 pm

        When listing facts & trivia about jellyfish you cannot omit green fluorescent protein, which has its own pedestal in cellular and molecular biology research.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fluorescent_protein

        • greywarshark 12.2.2.1
          7 June 2017 at 10:29 pm

          Hey these jellyfish are definitely something else! I was all prepared to dislike them but the next thing I’ll find out that one brighter one is my first cousin once removed.

    • Gosman 12.3
      7 June 2017 at 12:31 pm

      Wow way to diss almost 50 % of the voting population there. Good luck with trying to win them back after that.

      • dv 12.3.1
        7 June 2017 at 12:37 pm

        When did the Natz get 50% of enrolled voters?

      • Draco T Bastard 12.3.2
        7 June 2017 at 1:52 pm

        People need to learn from the truth, not get upset by it.

        • In Vino 12.3.2.1
          7 June 2017 at 5:43 pm

          Yes – Diddums, Gosman. As if much more than 1% of voters would have even noticed that one comment. More fun to annoy you than worry about people who probably have not read the thread… After all, you seem to exist for the sole purpose of annoying the majority who read this site.

  13. Draco T Bastard 13
    7 June 2017 at 10:57 am

    We keep hearing from conservative idiots, such as Family First, that like to rewrite history to conform to their biases about how great the nuclear family is. Real history, once you get round to reading it, proves them wrong.

    Citing “How Did We Get Into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature” by George Monbiot:

    “The nuclear family, as idealised today, was an invention of the Victorians, but it bore little relation to the family life we are told to emulate. Its development was driven by economic rather than spiritual needs, as the Industrial Revolution made manufacturing in the household inviable. Much as the Victorians might have extolled their families, ‘it was simply assumed that men would have their extramarital affairs and women would also find intimacy, even passion, outside marriage’, and often with other women.8 Gillis links the twentieth century’s attempt to find intimacy and passion only within marriage – and the impossible expectations this raises – to the rise in the rate of divorce.”

    “The conservatives’ supposedly moral concerns turn out to be nothing but an example of the age-old custom of first idealising and then sanctifying one’s own culture. The past they invoke is fabricated from their own anxieties and obsessions. It has nothing to offer us”

    • greywarshark 13.1
      7 June 2017 at 12:43 pm

      8 Gillis links the twentieth century’s attempt to find intimacy and passion only within marriage – and the impossible expectations this raises – to the rise in the rate of divorce.”

      Who can know about causes for divorce even after doing huge long term research? But finding someone to live with life-long is quite a task, and getting used to someone of another gender, another family, and having to form one’s own family culture, is quite an effort and can be greatly affected by stresses from outside, and unreal expectations, and self-centred or narrow interests. Being drawn to passion is a mistake. It’s the result of peak emotion and who can live at that level all the time, or would want to it would be exhausting, one would be sated. Reality says, to have a peak there must be a lower base that’s common. Even when there is divorce available, some people stay married, they may get past wanting a real friendship and enjoyment and settle for what they know on the basis that divorce might end up worse.

      It’s a wonder that we don’t give up trying to live with some other ornery blighter, but we are such hopeful romantics!

      • Draco T Bastard 13.1.1
        7 June 2017 at 2:26 pm

        But finding someone to live with life-long is quite a task

        They didn’t say that previous generations weren’t finding someone to live with lifelong. they just said that there was a whole lot more flexibility in relationships than what the conservatives like to portray up to and including having sex outside of the main relationship.

        • greywarshark 13.1.1.1
          7 June 2017 at 4:37 pm

          I have a book about rural English customs. It says that often an Anglican minister unmarried, in a rural area, would have a young housekeeper and would find her a good husband as time went on. And then get another young housekeeper. I have forgotten when perhaps late 1800s.

          • Draco T Bastard 13.1.1.1.1
            7 June 2017 at 6:13 pm

            That sounds like the same type of myth as the myth of chivalry that Bill put up.

            And I really don’t know WTF it’s got to do with how the nuclear family is a modern creation used to help businesses by splitting people from the community.

  14. Gosman 14
    7 June 2017 at 11:00 am

    Question about the Paris agreement. Why do you need government to sign up? Why can’t citizens make the sacrifices that may need to be made?

    • Andre 14.1
      7 June 2017 at 11:01 am

      5……4…….3……

    • Muttonbird 14.2
      7 June 2017 at 11:02 am

      Venezuela in 3, 2, 1…

      • Gosman 14.2.1
        7 June 2017 at 11:04 am

        What has Venezuela have to do with the Paris Climate Agreement?

        • Andre 14.2.1.1
          7 June 2017 at 11:07 am

          That was probably a response to when your comment was just “test”, before your edit.

        • Muttonbird 14.2.1.2
          7 June 2017 at 11:07 am

          You wondered if your ban for lying was lifted and didn’t want to type your inane point if it wasn’t going to appear.

          I guessed you were going to rant about Venezuela but instead it was a rant about self-regulation in response to climate change.

          Self-regulation. Interesting concept. How does it work?

    • weka 14.3
      7 June 2017 at 11:15 am

      “Question about the Paris agreement. Why do you need government to sign up? Why can’t citizens make the sacrifices that may need to be made?”

      Citizens can make the sacrifices too. What steps have you taken Gosman?

      • gsays 14.3.1
        7 June 2017 at 3:16 pm

        This is a conversation I am interested in.
        What are the sacrifices/changes folks have made in respect to climate change?

        I have stopped flying back and forth from aucks for work.

        Started planting trees too.
        Our house is heated by solid fuel so if I keep planting as well as harvesting, it should be a closed loop.
        I live rurally so have been cutting trips to town unless there are three reasons to go.

        • weka 14.3.1.1
          7 June 2017 at 3:38 pm

          The last one for me too, it’s not that hard. Working local food too, both within NZ and reducing food coming from overseas. I burn wood but haven’t done much on replanting yet. What are you doing with that? (I don’t own land).

        • Bill 14.3.1.2
          7 June 2017 at 6:19 pm

          A few years back a British guy won an employment case off the back of human rights legislation when he lost his job for refusing to fly for conference meetings etc.

          The human rights legislation is the same here as there.

          The judge decided he was discriminated against on the basis of his belief (around AGW) and that the discriminationwas on a par with religious discrimination.

          I’m not saying everyone’s who’s aware of AGW and who is ‘forced’ to fly by their employer will have either the presence of mind or stamina to follow that lead, but some might – maybe even someone reading this comment. 😉

  15. Andre 15
    7 June 2017 at 11:13 am

    Heh. Top law firms won’t represent Trump. Coz he probably won’t pay any attention to their advice and will likely stiff them like he does to everybody else.

    http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/four-top-law-firms-turned-down-trump-report/ar-BBCbJc0?li=BBqdg4K&ocid=mailsignout

  16. Muttonbird 16
    7 June 2017 at 11:31 am

    Massive disconnect here from Bling. He admits vulnerable families don’t trust him or his government or the Police yet can’t imagine how more money might, I don’t know, fund research into repairing that trust and pay for more decent people at the coal face to action the results.

    That’s before we even get into the community-busting, inequality-growing hopelessness among the disenfranchise which his government has carefully watched over.

    This, ‘I care on my bad days’, shit is disgusting from him after admitting he and his predecessor are at fault.

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/06/bill-english-on-family-violence-sometimes-on-my-worst-day-i-think-we-service-misery.html

    • greywarshark 16.1
      7 June 2017 at 2:09 pm

      Sounds like Blinglish just wants to feed into their hopeless meme. Out of our big hearts we keep trying – but – fling hands open – what can we do, just hold the line really when talking about the great unwashed and beneficiaries, and really all those that aren’t like US.

      Craaaap. People go doolally when they are constantly confronted with closed doors when they knock and expect to be spoken to. When that’s been going for three generations and the only jobs available are those where you are supposed to sit like a battery hen, and you have never been able to sit quiet and relax, then you’re not suited by the jobs available. Some action jobs that go away for the week, and back to the pub and some films in the weekend, would get work for youngsters like this. It would take them out of their peer group and environment to where they could learn to put their back into it and properly despise the finger-tappers. Then there would be equality of put-downs.

      Just government planning the economy would be a start. But the buggers resigned from that when Labour went and got Rogered back in 1984 and they’ve taken years to stand up again after that. Perhaps now they can grow a pair and do what a decent government can do, efficiently, first phase within a year and having some clear movement by 100 days. Then second phase – trying ten different projects in second year, and carry on five for third year. And if elected again, explore new ways of implementing those projects both completed, and piloted taking the next term. Plus jump start and trial some new ones. The energy would grow, people could come up with a project thought out, rough costings, ideas for obtaining resources (not stealing them after midnight from across the river etc.) and things would be amazing. And there would be a few frauds. That’s only to be expected so need lots of practical auditors to ensure frauds were kept small. But one fault can’t stop good outcome.

  18. Logie97 18
    7 June 2017 at 11:57 am

    Apparently the Russian involvement in the U.S. election is a little more sinister.
    Their foray into A.I. was to create a prototype humanoid.
    There are some who fear it got away and finished up winning the Whitehouse.

  19. greywarshark 19
    7 June 2017 at 12:20 pm

    I was just thinking – what a great market for the wealthy cynic? Have your very own AI model of Donald Trump stumping round your home, making unsavoury comments, annoying your relatives, insulting the annoying neighbours, and threatening to beat up your creditors, and inventing bad jokes and making sexist and racist jokes and remarks. And you need not take any responsibility – just shrug and say it’s modern technology, a release of a beta version, ‘He’s like…you know… a force of nature.”

    And there could be a whole range of products, clothing stylists, hair stylists, musical versions of him as concert pianist, mad guitarist or drummer, singer – the mind boggles. This could be a revitalisation of USA business which had been in the doldrums just waiting for some new craze, and will truly MAKE AMERICA GRATE AGAIN.

    This could be a prototype version of the drummer:

  20. saveNZ 20
    7 June 2017 at 12:27 pm

    NSA contractor faces 10-year sentence in first Espionage Act charge under Trump

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/06/reality-winner-espionage-act-leak-russian-hacking

  21. Armada 21
    7 June 2017 at 1:11 pm

    Chatting to an Englishman at a social event.. ok a bar.
    Got around to UK GE and Brexit and migrants.
    His view is that Brexit will stop the flow of migrants into England and that that will be a good thing.
    I asked him where he lives and works and where he intends to retire: he said NZ.

    I told him that he was therefore a migrant. i suggested there was a dichotomy between what he was saying about migrants and his current status!

    “An ExPat, I’m not a migrant”

    “What’s the differance?”

    Things went downhill and I’m none the wiser. Can anyone enlighten me?

    • BM 21.1
      7 June 2017 at 1:15 pm

      He believes he’s retiring to the colonies.

    • saveNZ 21.2
      7 June 2017 at 1:17 pm

      It’s one of the complications of having been part of the British Empire.

    • gsays 21.3
      7 June 2017 at 3:18 pm

      I am picking he is white skinned therefore an ‘alright’ migrant.

      • james 21.3.1
        7 June 2017 at 3:29 pm

        Im picking that you are right in what he thinks.

        Its sad.

      • Armada 21.3.2
        7 June 2017 at 4:01 pm

        Reading between the lines ExPat is a term with both or either racial and “Imperial” connotations!
        Do the English who come here have any other cultural bagage?

        What are we doing for immigrants from England to help adjust to our culture? Is there an education or cultural awareness program to help then overcome the negative aspects of their culture?
        Should we give them lesson in cooking and language to help them make the shift?

      • saveNZ 21.3.3
        7 June 2017 at 4:04 pm

        He sounds like most migrants, white, brown and pink, there are not enough high paid or satisfying jobs in NZ so they come here and get residency or citizenship, work overseas once that is acheived and then are planning to come back here to retire.

        It’s working out kinda the opposite of what most governments would want…

    • Bill 21.4
      7 June 2017 at 6:22 pm

      You wasted some precious drinking conversation time with a bigot – a racist one by the sounds of it.

  22. greywarshark 22
    7 June 2017 at 1:37 pm

    Take note of this that I heard and have sourced for your information and knowledge.

    Bill English telling local government to borrow more despite that they are trying to be fiscally prudent and stay within limits to give them a high credit rating and low interest.

    49 Local Government entities do this by going through one agency but Billy Boy wants them to get as loaded up as government (which isn’t high of course, but is crushingly burdened by all the private credit for our imported purchases at home and out in the mean streets.)
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/businessnews/audio/201846567/business-news-for-7-june-2017
    Listen 3.30-6 mins – was on Business News 6.49am Wednesday 7 June 2017

  23. adam 23
    7 June 2017 at 2:18 pm

    When will we realise that leaving the door open for the very rich to gorge themselves in a unfettered desire to fill the void of greed. Never works out well for ordinary folk.

  25. Janet 25
    7 June 2017 at 3:02 pm

    The new Herald on line format is a straight steal from the UK Independent.

    • Dv 25.1
      7 June 2017 at 3:21 pm

      And it’s crap

      • Incognito 25.1.1
        7 June 2017 at 9:34 pm

        It’ll appeal to the Facebook and Instagram crowd(s) and people who think that a sentence or a Tweet equals an essay. The mind-numbing and dumbing down has reached its next phase; expect more photos of kittens & cupcakes 😉

  26. Karen 26
    7 June 2017 at 4:10 pm

    Not only are the regulations for rentals completely inadequate, there are only 15 compliance officers for the whole of NZ. No wonder there are so many of these disgusting boarding houses.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/93422776/just-15-compliance-officers-to-keep-entire-rental-market-in-line

    • adam 26.1
      7 June 2017 at 4:49 pm

      Well I’ve never been able to get one off their butt to actually leave the office in Auckland. Glad the MP for Kelston was able to get (embrace) one into action recently. Good on her.

      Have to say since she has come back to parliament, she has been one of the best preforms for labour. I never hesitate sending people to her office for help.

    • David Mac 26.2
      7 June 2017 at 7:34 pm

      With the rental regulations as they stand there is nothing stopping Stuff from running stories about people living in sub standard housing that throw a whole new angle on the situation.

      I want to read Jeff and Julia stories that go like this:

      “The prevailing wind blows straight into the front of our home. The gaps around the windows and door are really bad. The house is icy cold for 6 months of the year. We provided our landlord with a 14 day notice requesting that he start taking steps to fix the issue. He did nothing. After 4 months we lodged papers at the Tenancy Tribunal, cost us $20.

      The adjudicator ordered he must pay us $1500 damages and all of the rent we’ve paid since we gave him the 14 day notice is being returned to us. He gave us notice to move out, we went back to the Tribunal, it is illegal for him to kick us out for retaliatory reasons. We got $3000 damages for that.

      He still needs to fix the house but with our house savings and windfall of make good money, we’re looking for a do-up in South Auckland to buy.”

      The Tenancy Services website is really well organized and really easy to understand. Bugger boo hoo, get even.

  27. David Mac 27
    7 June 2017 at 6:16 pm

    I thought there was a good question asked in the House today. A supplementary question so the Beehive Blues were able to answer with the trusty “I don’t have those details to hand.”

    For years the government have offered proof of how many houses are being built by quoting the number of building consents granted. Getting the nod to build 20 apartments is of course quite a different thing to 20 families moving into their new homes.

    ‘Show me the houses!’

    When a home is completed, one of the last tasks is to have a ‘Code of Compliance’ issued. The question was: “How many NZ Codes of Compliance have been issued in the last year?”

    I think it’s a question worthy of going on the card. Allow them enough time to have that figure at hand. I think it will be an embarrassing number.

    • saveNZ 27.1
      7 June 2017 at 8:16 pm

      And then minus off those houses that got demolished…. and those houses unliveable due to natural disasters…

      • David Mac 27.1.1
        7 June 2017 at 8:31 pm

        Ha! Yes, a supplementary question could create a headline for the MSM.

        ‘NZ is 120 houses better off this year’.

        • saveNZ 27.1.1.1
          8 June 2017 at 4:44 pm

          But had incoming migration of 70,000 plus 180,000 working visas issued, …. do the math, that’s why there is rising homelessness and overcrowding among other things.

          It’s really bonkers to be in the top 3 countries in the world per capita with migration (the others are Israel and Liechtenstein), and turning NZ a formally pristine wealthy and educated country into a banana republic with mass surveillance, pollution and disabled people being billed $200 a night for dodgy hotels and having to move from week to week. Or working families with kids living in cars.

          It’s the National government creating the problem as it benefits them voter wise and like all ponzi schemes looks good at the beginning with cash flooding in.

  28. David Mac 28
    7 June 2017 at 6:59 pm

    Urban houses with large sections are often sold with lines like “Approval for 8 units”.

    Is Nick counting those 8 units when quoting consent numbers? The consent may go no further than a seductive sub-heading in the marketing for the property. Can’t live in those.

  29. greywarshark 29
    7 June 2017 at 7:42 pm

    UBI
    A lovely long discussion on productivity and capitalism and so on that you can partake of while eating something warming while you chew over this which arises from Austria, but is in very readable English, not too much jargon.
    https://antinational.org/en/what-wrong-free-money/
    and
    http://www.cca-glasgow.com/programme/caught-learning–whats-wrong-with-free-money