Open mike 08/03/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 8th, 2024 - 64 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 …

64 comments on “Open mike 08/03/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Phillip ure 1
    8 March 2024 at 7:19 am

    Seymour gloating over what is happening to so many in the media..

    ..is more than a little trumpian..

    • Phillip ure 1.1
      8 March 2024 at 8:20 am

      Looking past the human carnage of today.. surely another evaluation should be made of labour's failure to morph tvnz/rnz into some sort of public broadcasting beast..?

      Could the bones of that be re-engineered into what we need..?

      • alwyn 1.1.1
        8 March 2024 at 9:27 am

        "Could the bones of that be re-engineered".

        That is just about as likely as having Trevor Mallard's dream of reincarnating the Moa in the hills of Wainuiomata coming true. The business model behind the broadcasting businesses is dead and the corpse is being to stink.

        It isn't going to happen Phillip.

        • Phillip ure 1.1.1.1
          8 March 2024 at 10:03 am

          Of course the current top-heavy business model is done and dusted..

          But much more focused models can't be off the table..

          I mean..lean and mean is almost a cliche..but there are places between these behemoths at one end of the scale..and what I did @ whoar..as a one man band .. where I would post about 30 stories a day..

          There are sweet spots between those two parameters…

          • Sanctuary 1.1.1.1.1
            8 March 2024 at 11:45 am

            There is an element of truth in what Seymour has said though (and now I am going to have to take a shower and scrub myself clean with a steelo pad).

            The traditional media is behaving like its the end of times for news and current affairs, but really it's been obviously game over for traditional broadcast media for a long time now.

            The audience has migrated online and they do things differently there. People like Benjamin Rich (the bald and bankrupt vlogger I mentioned the other day) don't make documentaries in the sense TV makes documentaries, they make vlogs. Vlogs, bloggers, forumes etc are mediums for delivery of content that are quite different from TV and radio. Tone, audience, raison d'etre are different. it's communication MSM, but not as you know it. On the whole collapse of traditional media thing, the media class mourning has studiously ignored the link between the MSM and the widespread perception – on both left and right – that it sees it's role primarily as gatekeepers to the establishment narrative as a key reason in their decline.

            To often the MSM acts as if it considers itself more legitimate than the public and believes it, and not the voters, makes or breaks governments and ministers. Actual democracy is seen as a side show to it's role in policing legitimate establishment discourse, and when the establishment media doesn't get it's way it'll have a tantrum and label the public stupid or misinformed or dangerous – just look at how it has covered public dissent over Gaza, surely a hammer blow to it's claims of fearless impartiality.

            The establishment links of the MSM are far to deep and wide to be easily dismissed as simply conspiracy nonsense. A 2017 photo is circulating online of Fran O'Sullivan hob-nobbing with Luxon and a squadron of rich white businessmen at a soiree in Switzerland sponsored by the NZ Initiative. Jessica Mutch-Mckay headed off to a plum corporate comms role at the John Key chaired ANZ. There is a well travelled path between broadcasting, government, and lobbying firms – Kris Faafoi? Maggie Barry? Katherine Rich? (In reverse!). It all amounts to the MSM facing a major crisis of authenticity. Does anyone really believe an army of boomer/Gen X "celebrity" journalists live in the same world as Joe and Jayne Sixpack? Does anyone believe the well heeled and/or elderly and/or well connected Audrey or Claire or Tova or Jessica or Barry or Mike Hosking or HDPA have the faintest idea or care about life in Flaxmere or Wainui or Otara? Sure there is John Campbell – but he is the exception that proves the rule. By contrast, the likes of Benjamin Rich have no problems with authenticity. He plays bingo and isn't afraid to get drunk with the locals and appears to actually like people. Vloggers like him have none of the connections with power and the establishment that comrpomise (in the eyes of the public) our media "stars".

            Times are changing and with it hoiw news is delivered. Novara Media's YouTube channel in the UK pulls a bigger audience than BBC newsnight now. This is slowly being recognised by more and more mainstream organisations – https://www.wired.com/story/biden-white-house-state-of-the-union-address-influencers/
            The future for news might not be how it is was 20 years ago, but it doesn't mean it is going away.

        • SPC 1.1.1.2
          8 March 2024 at 2:47 pm

          Only in New Zealand is free to air broadcast dependent on advertising revenue synonymous with public service broadcasting.

          The ABC in Oz and BBC and PBS in the USA will continue on just fine.

          • Traveller 1.1.1.2.1
            8 March 2024 at 8:32 pm

            That depends on what you mean by 'dependent'. According to this article from 2019 (Full article: Public Service Media in Europe: Exploring the Relationship between Funding and Audience Performance (tandfonline.com)) public broadcasting in Ireland and Austria is 41.8% funded by commercial advertising. In Poland it's 64.2%. The article states "With regard to the sources of funding, many countries in the sample draw from a mix of public and commercial revenues." and "Altogether and on average, these forms of public funding account for 77.7 per cent of the overall revenue. Less than a quarter (23 per cent) of the overall revenue is brought in by commercial sources (advertising, trading of rights), and the proportion of public and commercial revenues differs across countries."

      • SPC 1.1.2
        8 March 2024 at 2:54 pm

        Yes, Labour looked at merging RNZ and TVNZ – when it should have been looking at similar taxpayer funding of a public service channel (broadcast and visual digital/online, with RNZ, broadcast and sound digital/online).

    • newsense 1.2
      8 March 2024 at 11:48 am

      Not very human was it?

      But I think we need to beware. They’ve attacked our eyes and ears. What’s coming? Something they don’t want us to see or hear until TINA is applied. Or perhaps they don’t want us ever to quite see it. The plan is more than tax cuts.

      Can you watch this? It maybe even deserves a post. Jon Oliver’s most recent.

      Last Week Tonight as the cost cutters make planes that kill people’.

    • SPC 1.3
      8 March 2024 at 3:23 pm

      It is because he does not support public broadcasting – and in New Zealand, TVNZ is dependent on advertising revenues.

      Luxon talks about a new business model for media – ignoring the fact that only in New Zealand is public broadcasting dependent on advertising revenue.

      And even the chief executive of TVNZ conflates the revenue problem with transition from (free to air) broadcast to digital.

      "We remain committed to delivering the most trusted and watched News and Current Affairs for New Zealand audiences, and what that looks like will change as we shift to a digital-first model.

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tvnz-job-cuts-hundreds-of-staff-expect-to-get-certainty-today/LNJP32K2GBGL5IPD53HPDRL4NQ/

      This is only true if one can charge a subscription for the on-line digital service – but then news and current affairs is limited to the middle class audience.

      That comes with an end to the free to air service. Warner-Discovery is ending free to air in 2025 (going digital only). TVNZ was planning this c2028.

      At the moment those not online – over age 65* and those without broadband in their area* are dependent on free to air.

      The government can make an arrangement with Sky to provide TVNZ/Maori TV via satellite – and install dishes – free basic subscription for * *.

      The change saves TVNZ its payment to Kordia.

  2. Subliminal 2
    8 March 2024 at 7:35 am

    Ralph Nader writes:

    Just like the entire mass media, many governments, even the independent media and critics of the war would have us accept that between 98% and 99% of Gaza’s entire population has survived—albeit the sick, injured, and more Palestinians about to die. This is lethally improbable!

    He puts the figure at 200,000

    The extreme right-wing Netanyahu regime has enforced its declared siege of, in its genocidal words, “no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no medicine.”

    and

    2.3 million utterly defenseless Palestinians in the tiny crowded Gaza enclave have been on the receiving end of over 65,000 bombs and missiles plus non-stop tank shelling and snipers.

    Why does Hamas collude with lowballing casualties?

    Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters. Hamas grossly underestimated the savage war crimes by the vengeful, occupying Israeli military superpower fully and unconditionally backed by the U.S. military superpower.

    the reality is:

    Children are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known. Aid groups have been pointing to Israel restricting the flow of assistance into the territory as a major driver of the crisis

    Why is the true number so important?

    It matters greatly whether the aggregate toll so far, and counting, is three, four, five, six times more than the Health Ministry’s undercount. It matters for elevating the urgency for a permanent cease-fire, and direct and massive humanitarian aid by the U.S. and other countries, bypassing the sadistic cruelty against innocent families of the Israeli siege…

    As a percentage of the total population being killed, Gaza can expose the Israeli ruling racist extremists to a stronger rebuttal for ending U.S. co-belligerent complicity in this never-to-be-forgotten slaughter of mostly children and women. (The terrifying PTSD on civilians, especially children, will continue for years.)

    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/calculate-real-gaza-death-toll

  3. Robert Guyton 3
    8 March 2024 at 7:38 am

    "The Government’s new fast-track planning legislation unveiled yesterday is even more draconian than Sir Robert Muldoon’s 1979 legislation, which attempted to do the same thing."

    "Notably, the coalition has eliminated the Minister for the Environment (Penny Simmonds) from the process. The Ministers in charge of the RMA, Transport, Resources, and Regional Development will alone make the final decision on whether a consent should be issued."

    Continue reading at https://www.politik.co.nz/the-big-beehive-power-grab/ | Politik

    • Tony Veitch 3.1
      8 March 2024 at 7:50 am

      James Shaw said it for all of us – upon a change of government, environmentally damaging contracts may be cancelled – without compensation!

      At about 4.50 mark.

      Bishop and Peters did not like the suggestion at all – but I cheered when I heard it!

      That should make the exploiters and quick buck merchants pause for a moment!

      https://ondemand.parliament.nz/parliament-tv-on-demand/?itemId=238915

      • Subliminal 3.1.1
        8 March 2024 at 7:57 am

        That is a totally awesome response. The gloves are coming off on the green side too! What a huge relief

      • Robert Guyton 3.1.2
        8 March 2024 at 8:05 am

        100%

      • Sanctuary 3.1.3
        8 March 2024 at 8:21 am

        This indicates how awful this coalition government is for our reputation for good governance.

        When Labour bungled the light rail process major private sector players became very reluctant to spend the huge sums required to make a credible bid for any light rail project, since the whole thing had descended into a farce. In the end, the whole thing got canned, and a fair bit of reputational damage was done for the government. National appears to looked at that and drawn all the wrong conclusions (hardly a surprise with Tories, it has to be observed).

        That was small beer though compared to this. Creating an authoritarian, rule by decree system where projects are approved without consensus or proper consultation in a process that is wide open for abuse and corruption is effectively trashing our reputation for good governance. It practically guarantees the projects will either be cancelled by an incoming government, or opposed so viscerally the cost of protests pushes the price through the roof and accelerates corruption as the government engages in draconian attempts to repress dissent funded by dark corporate money. – literally the formula that created the "banana republics."

        • Phillip ure 3.1.3.1
          8 March 2024 at 9:17 am

          Wot sanctuary said..

        • Subliminal 3.1.3.2
          8 March 2024 at 9:32 am

          Well, if business is unwilling or unable to insist on environmentally sustainable construction then the next Green Nz Govt will just have to insist that that capability is built back into a govt department where it can be nurtured and grown into an entity that works for a sustainable future. We have had these entities in the past and there is nothing to prevent there reintroduction. Business needs to wake up to the way of the future or expect to be sidelined.

      • Belladonna 3.1.4
        8 March 2024 at 8:58 am

        upon a change of government, environmentally damaging contracts may be cancelled – without compensation!

        Excellent – if that's the standard which is going to be applied, then the appointment of expensive CEOs to organizations which were clearly signalled as going to be dis-established – can also be reversed without redundancy compensation.

        • Patricia Bremner 3.1.4.1
          8 March 2024 at 3:05 pm

          Belladonna Agreed.

        • Muttonbird 3.1.4.2
          8 March 2024 at 3:31 pm

          I did not realise Three Waters was environmentally damaging.

          • Molly 3.1.4.2.1
            8 March 2024 at 8:28 pm

            That's why any such policy should not include a contestable proviso such as: "environmentally damaging".

            As Belladonna points out above, that standard should be consistently applied.

            • weka 3.1.4.2.1.1
              8 March 2024 at 9:00 pm

              the proviso in Shaw's statement was around the degree of haste, amount of power being taken by Ministers, and lack of public scrutiny. He's not talking about any old legislation that is rolled back by a new incoming government.

              "environmentally damaging" isn't a contestable proviso. The Greens campaign on this stuff using evidence, it's not going to be a surprise or vague.

      • Phillip ure 3.1.5
        8 March 2024 at 9:15 am

        Thanks for that heads-up/link ..

        There is humour to be had from it…

        Shaw poured a cold bucket of reality over the (until then) smirking tory mps… especially the police minister..

        Smirks were wiped from faces…to be replaced by furrowed brows…(a doh!-moment for them..heh..!)

        The police minister slumped back into his usual haunted resting face..

        Kudos to shaw…his words will resonate…

        • Phillip ure 3.1.5.1
          8 March 2024 at 9:48 am

          It would be a very brave venture capitalist who sunk money into projects with potentially such a short shelf-life..

          This three-headed hydra gummint seems to have bitten off more than it can chew..

          (Reaches for popcorn..)

      • Obtrectator 3.1.6
        8 March 2024 at 9:28 am

        All very well …. unless those contracts are set up in such a way as to incur ISDS proceedings against NZ should they be terminated. A recent example involving the USA's next door neighbour:

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/31/how-a-us-mining-firm-sued-mexico-for-billions-for-trying-to-protect-its-own-seabed

        • Subliminal 3.1.6.1
          8 March 2024 at 11:39 am

          I believe that we still have Treaty exemptions, which Treaty explicitly includes the environment. It is a big reason why we are so lucky to have this Treaty and a big reason why Semour et al are so keen to neuter it.

      • Tony Veitch 3.1.7
        8 March 2024 at 11:38 am

        No Right Turn agrees with Shaw's statement:

        https://norightturn.blogspot.com/search/label/Environment

    • Hunter Thompson II 3.2
      8 March 2024 at 8:15 am

      Every New Zealander should be greatly concerned about the proposed Bill, which leaves enormous power in the hands of ministers to authorise projects.

      But will those projects be in the national interest, or merely in the interests of National?

      The environment is not something to be mined for short term political and financial gain; it is held in trust for future generations.

  4. Ffloyd 4
    8 March 2024 at 8:58 am

    This is terrible. When you look at the quality of the ministers who will have the most damaging power the heart just sinks. All of them together couldn’t scrape up an IQ of 20. Picked especially for their dimness and eagerness to be a big player and person of prominence they will pass any application for anything that is asked for by the zBig Business fraternity. Nothing but henchmen. Shame on them.Soon we will not have a Government. We will have an authoritarian dictatorship. Can’t we have a vote of No Confidence or something. In essence these people are being paid by us, the taxpayer, to decimate our beautiful country as we know it. God help us.

  5. randal mcmurphy 5
    8 March 2024 at 9:14 am

    100 days 100 days 100 days 100 days before the nationals finish off their prey

    • newsense 6.1
      8 March 2024 at 12:18 pm

      The cheek to say the coalition is scrapping (the rest of the) successful climate change programs (that we didn’t scrap when I became leader). And a bit with a dog!

      Not enough to get my vote back tbh.

      But enough to make this a one term government?

      Who’s the pitch to? What does a Labour stronghold look like now Auckland is hollowed out?

      • Anne 6.1.1
        8 March 2024 at 12:44 pm

        Who’s the pitch to?

        First and foremost the members. After that anyone prepared to watch and listen. As a member, I had issues with the last government. The main one… they didn't move fast enough in the delivery of some of their promises. But they were held up by 2 to 3 years of Covid which has to be taken into account when judging them.

        • Descendant Of Smith 6.1.1.1
          8 March 2024 at 1:15 pm

          Nah they failed on WEAG before COVID had even escaped from a lab……

  7. joe90 7
    8 March 2024 at 1:52 pm

    Surprise surprise…

    /

    @LewSOS

    Time elapsed between Sunday reporting critically on one of the new government's cornerstone policies and the announcement that the show is to be cancelled: 12 days

    https://twitter.com/LewSOS/status/1765862206179086408

  8. observer 8
    8 March 2024 at 3:57 pm

    No surprise here:

    Latest poll: Christopher Luxon’s popularity crashes after allowance blunder, now trails Chris Hipkins – NZ Herald

    It took 5 years for Jacinda Ardern to move into negative approval/disapproval. That is a comparison from the same TU/Curia poll.

    Luxon rated negative from the start and has only got worse. I remain convinced that he will be replaced by National before the election, not because he's too right-wing but because he's simply hopeless at politics. Their MPs aren't going to go down with him.

    • mac1 8.1
      8 March 2024 at 4:59 pm

      Luxon has said he's done it.

      Like an inveterate essay writer, Luxon said he was going to do it, then did it, then today said he had done it.

      "Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been dealt a blow as the Government wraps up its 100 day plan, with his favourability crashing 16 points in the latest monthly Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll." cf observer's NZH citation at #8

      He certainly has done it……

      • Anne 8.1.1
        8 March 2024 at 5:55 pm

        But he didn't do it. It was his ministers what did it. He just made a lot of noise about doing it. I don’t think he could do it if he tried.

      • Patricia Bremner 8.1.2
        8 March 2024 at 6:39 pm

        Expensivelaughyes So PM's approval rate is down the gurgler. Well deserved. An expensive Christmas party and housing claim. It showed his sneaky behaviour. imo.

    • SPC 8.2
      8 March 2024 at 6:18 pm

      More people disapprove of the Government than approve of it.

      And so it begins.

      The last National government 2008-2017 was mindful of how unpopular its predecessor in the 1990's was and how its survival in 1993 and 1996 was tenuous.

      This lot is displaying the potential to be of the first one term National led government.

  9. Peter 9
    8 March 2024 at 5:21 pm

    All day I've been waiting to see what would happen if Country Calendar was headed for the knackers' yard. Now that would have been entertainment.

  10. Ffloyd 10
    8 March 2024 at 8:08 pm

    How come everybody but Seymour took a dive. Seymour up by as much as they could get away with. Good old Taxpayers Union

    • SPC 10.1
      8 March 2024 at 8:36 pm

      But ACT has fallen to below Greens in their poll – so that looks more like others.

    • observer 10.2
      8 March 2024 at 8:41 pm

      No, the poll is reasonably reliable (it's Curia). Not surprising that Seymour gains because he knows his RW audience, and he panders to that minority shamelessly but effectively. Whereas Luxon panders shamelessly and ineffectively.

  11. Robert Guyton 11
    8 March 2024 at 9:17 pm

    I support what you are saying, mickysavage. There's a great deal of passion obscuring some basic principles here, imo.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    • weka 11.1
      8 March 2024 at 10:05 pm

      you are welcome to join in that conversation Robert, but you need to explain your thinking. For instance, what is the great deal of passion, and what are the basic principles being obscured?

      I accept you don’t intend it, but your lack of explanation has been causing problems in these threads. Likewise the rhetorical question comments.

      • Robert Guyton 11.1.1
        9 March 2024 at 8:48 pm

        Well, weka, it seems to me that I am not welcome to join in that conversation, given that you have shunted me into a different thread despite my having merely expressed support for the views of one of TS long-standing and highly respected authors!

        How puzzling is that?

        Now, you are asking me to explain what I mean by "a great deal of passion"!

        My immediate response to your imperative is, wtf???

        Then you direct me to explain what mean by, "basic principles being obscured?"

        Have you become hyper-sensitised to simple communications?

        I think so.

        You are corralling me for saying some very simple, ordinary things. IMO.

  12. Anker 12
    8 March 2024 at 9:29 pm

    Any acknowledge from you Mickey that the violence at Albert Park towards the Let Women Speak crowd who were their to attend a peaceful rally should be utterly condemned?

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    • weka 12.1
      8 March 2024 at 9:46 pm

      please don’t start taking pot shots at TS authors.

    • observer 12.2
      8 March 2024 at 10:25 pm

      It's frankly ridiculous to start asking why people haven't commented on one topic, as opposed to the infinite number of other topics. We might just as well ask why you haven't condemned every bad thing the coalition has done. The one you voted in.

      "Because the list is far too long" would be one answer.

  13. Muttonbird 13
    8 March 2024 at 9:47 pm

    Holding neurodivergent people to exactly the same standard as the justified and monied elite of Karori and Remuera does not do neurodivergent people any favours.

    Get back to us here in good faith once you have wiped off the RW talking points.

    Thanks in advance.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    • weka 13.1
      8 March 2024 at 9:55 pm

      That RW talking points stuff, I now consider it from you to be flaming. I’ve pointed out the problems with it to you in the past. If I see you doing it again as a slur, I will start banning you. You can instead try and explain (with evidence) why anyone’s argument is akin to right wing arguments, and then they can respond.

      • Muttonbird 13.1.1
        8 March 2024 at 10:21 pm

        There's a certain grinding down of particular comments and commenters here on The Standard. It is relentless. Some of us are hovered over. That's fine because I should and do have better things to do that advocate for the socially responsible left on my own time. My first responsibility should be to my work and family and I let them down badly by wasting time trying to make a difference here.

        • weka 13.1.1.1
          8 March 2024 at 10:34 pm

          one of the things that has happened in recent years is what I call the FB-isation of TS. It's the long, slow slide into comments being declarations and reckons rather than political arguments.

          You probably have some interesting things to say about neurodivergence in this context. I just wish you would say them rather than treating TS like twitter.

          If you really believe someone is running RW talking points, then explain that. But what you did before was just slur posting and it doesn't create good debate atmosphere. Not that everyone has to make every comment a novel of explanation, at all, and a certain amount of rudeness goes with the territory. But there is a pattern here and that's when the mods step in.

          I can certainly appreciate your point about time spent. As you can probably tell the mods are fucked off with how much time we spend on moderation. For me it's especially with regulars who should know better and appear to freely ignore moderation. I'm going to be going back to how we moderated in the past. Less explanation, more short then escalating bans. I've got better things to do with my time too.

          w

        • Robert Guyton 13.1.1.2
          9 March 2024 at 8:50 pm

          " Some of us are hovered over."

          QFT and well described, Muttonbird.

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