Open mike 08/05/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 8th, 2021 - 161 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 …

161 comments on “Open mike 08/05/2021 ”

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  1. Sabine 1
    8 May 2021 at 7:16 am

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/125038675/the-truth-about-the-setup-on-manners-wellingtons-notorious-emergency-housing-hotel

    he people in those households are signed on to short-term contracts by the Ministry of Social Development, known as Emergency Housing Special Needs Grants, one week at a time.

    But those contracts aren’t protected by the Residential Tenancies Act, giving people in emergency housing a shaky claim on the title “tenant”, and no certainty of shelter beyond seven days. On the other hand, the contracts sometimes roll over indefinitely – in some cases for years – because the actual social housing wait list now exceeds 22,000 people.

    lex Cassels​ has owned The Setup on Manners since 2015, when he converted levels two and three into a budget hotel. He manages a diverse property portfolio throughout the central city, including a controversial suite of residential apartment buildings and another emergency housing provider in Ghuznee St.

    There are about 100 people in emergency accommodation across those two sites. But Cassels says he “doesn't want to talk about people in emergency housing.”.

    “It’s very disrespectful – it upsets me, actually,” the 39-year-old property developer says. “They are not second class people. I deal with them all the time now. They’re people like you and me, and we need to respect them the same way, and give them the same basic dignity. Otherwise, we’re creating a two-tier society, and that’s just not on.”

    Dear Mr. Property Developer, the only reason you can hold on to your development without an influx of backpacckers who don't care how many are shoved into a room as they only stay a night or two is the two tier rental / owning houses system that we have. And if you too are one of those that profit of this misery by making millions of not housing people i can understand why you would not want to talk about it. It might not reflect well upon you. Those who can still afford to rent/buy will try to do so, and those that are excluded by the market will get shoved into your hovel with no rental security for a week or more at the highest market price and WINZ will pay so as to look humane, and the government is happy to foot the bill so as to not come across as the callous useless tories they are.

    These arrogant out of touch good for nothing people.

    • Treetop 1.1
      8 May 2021 at 10:03 am

      It needs to be all about the needs of the people who are staying in emergency accommodation. The landlord will use any financial advantage for their own benefit.

      It is about the disruption and unknown when faced with being homeless caused by not being able to afford a rental or due to the landlord selling up. I can see why there needs to be restrictions for those who cause problems for the emergency guests, even though they themselves are an emergency guest over stepping it.

      Night shelters should never have become run down. There were never enough of them. They were supervised. I personally do not like night shelters long term but they are vital short term.

      Is it just me who thinks this?Not having a bed, (even in a night shelter) is depriving a person of a basic human right.

      Accessing emergency housing has barriers. Walking in off the street to a night shelter is straight forward.

      • Sabine 1.1.1
        8 May 2021 at 10:53 am

        The government could rent the flats outright for market rent and then place the people in need in a safe and secure flat, rather then pay the mortgage of this guy on the backs of the homeless.

        • Treetop 1.1.1.1
          8 May 2021 at 12:28 pm

          Yes and I thought that to. The landlord has arranged it the way he has as it is more lucrative. He eases his conscience by saying he is helping, yes but at an inflated cost for the government. I know this is going to sound nuts but he could charge what a weeks rent would be for an apartment. They all could who are at the government trough.

          I did read how bad the run down night shelter was. The reality is that some people are so high, intoxicated, acutely unwell that a night shelter needs to be designed so it is safe, maintained and can be managed.

          Does anyone know how a homeless person manages when they have no bed and they are high, intoxicated or acutely unwell?

          • Sabine 1.1.1.1.1
            8 May 2021 at 1:20 pm

            I was never high, intoxicated or actuely unwell while being a transient teenager, but if you don't have access to shelter or emergency housing you have the choice of – somewhere in the woods a little encampment which is probably the safest, in some doorways with cameras – also somewhat safe, somewhere in someones house in exchange for sex, on someones sofa or floor because they are generous or in occupied empty housing (not here in NZ obviously) and of course your car if you have one. There really are no good options, and frankly to live this way it helps being high or intoxicated cause sober is just no way to live on the streets, and most have mental illness, come from broken homes, abusive situations etc. There is a small subset of people that have made a proffesional life on living on the streets but these are not people you would find in emergency housing.

            Currently the people living in emergency housing are people who can not find a rental, who may work a job, who may have been made homeless not because they are bad renter but because they simply lost their rental.

            • Treetop 1.1.1.1.1.1
              8 May 2021 at 1:59 pm

              Yes, landlords wanting more and more rent or selling up is the main cause for homelessness for most in emergency housing.

              Those with complex needs require support to readjust to living within 4 walls. Rent free for 90 days and power paid. Basically relegating financial responsibility to someone else.

              There needs to be some sort of housing assistance to prevent further homelessness. Peter is being robbed to pay Paul and the government needs to pay Paul to not rob Peter.

              Government need to buy existing homes as they cannot build them fast enough. 22,000 people waiting for state housing is only going to increase.

              Are the 22,000 part of the emergency housing stats?

  2. Forget now 2
    8 May 2021 at 7:55 am

    I saw a link to the NZ branch of the tory eugenicist, Toby Young's; Free Speech Union over on TS's Feeds list the other night. That was quite a rabbit hole! See the DR for 7/5 for my immediate response.

    Though free speech is apparently only for Jordan William and his asshat associates. Whitmore on Redline doesn't seem to be interested in free speech for those who disagree with her views about what constitutes peril to the "Anglosphere" anyway.

    https://rdln.wordpress.com/2021/05/07/the-free-speech-union-nz-branch/

    Fortunately, I kept a draft copy of my comment that got disappeared – though not the later "Test Failed" single line about that disappearance which also got disappeared. So in the interest of freeing speech that the Free Speech Union does not want to be free, I will reproduce that here. The topic was chosen simply because it addressed the name and claims in the caption under the post's photo:

    "…we would not generally exclude people from joining the Free Speech Union, or eject existing members, for engaging in uncivil behaviour (although we reserve the right to do so)."

    So not really totally Free Speech at the FSU is it? Who exactly gets to determine what counts as "uncivil" in that context?

    As a test then; Maya Forstater worked out her full contract, but that was not subsequently renewed because her colleagues found that presence was toxic to workplace morale. I am not going to say that the OP description is necessarily a lie; perhaps they are merely ignorant of such details in their rush for an easy slogan?

    She's in the process of appealing, so I won't bother quoting from the (easily locatable if you are not daunted by all the big words) original ruling. But this did seem an important point for a FSU to consider (without even making a Godwhiny):

    "Queen’s Counsel will argue on her behalf that her beliefs should be protected by law and she should have the right to refer to anyone however she likes, wherever and whenever she likes.

    "If those arguments succeed, the court judgment won’t only apply in her specific case, it will apply in workplaces and businesses throughout the country. It will mean, for example, that a person will be permitted to misgender a trans work colleague, indeed be legally protected if they do so. This puts employers in an impossible position where one employee is entitled to harass another, likely making the employer liable to the harassed employee for discrimination. It is both morally wrong and practically unworkable: employers will not be able to meet their duty of making workplaces safe to work in or public spaces safe to visit.

    "It would also, which perhaps may even concern Forstater, apply not only to beliefs that harm transgender people, but to any controversial belief a person may hold – including, for example, a belief that women are intellectually inferior to men. If Ms Forstater succeeds before the court, a man at work will have the protection of the law to make those statements at work whenever he likes, causing whatever damage he likes to the women he works with. That cannot be right. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/maya-forstater-rowling-trans-b1838137.html

    If TERFs can be free to spout their transphobia, then why would you expect InCels to keep their misogyny quiet?

    [link added so we know what you are referring to and for context. In future please supply a link with your comment. – weka]

    • Rosemary McDonald 2.1
      8 May 2021 at 9:09 am

      If TERFs can be free to spout their transphobia, then why would you expect InCels to keep their misogyny quiet?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b0ftfKFEJg

    • weka 2.2
      8 May 2021 at 9:52 am

      To clarify: MF didn’t do anything at her workplace that led to her contract not being renewed. She was tweeting from her personal Twitter account and the only connection with her employers or job was she said in her Twitter bio who she worked for.

      So Forstater was fired not for transphobia at work but for tweeting personally such things as biological sex exists in a binary, that humans can’t literally change sex biologically and that she would use people’s preferred pronouns as a courtesy but didn’t believe people should be coerced into pronoun use.

      of course that should be protected speech.
      Seems reasonable that her employers ask her to remove reference to them given she was tweeting politically, but she should still be able to tweet without being fired.

      the comparison with incells is specious. One, MF doesn’t argue for harm to be done to trans people. She wants trans people to have the same human rights as others. Two, Twitter is full of misogyny that largely goes unchallenged, include the routine death and rape threats aimed at gender critical feminists, as well as the routine use of violent and often sexually violent imagery used to attack GCFs that the trans supporting left has been silently sanctioning for years.

    • weka 2.3
      8 May 2021 at 9:59 am

      Mod note for you, please let me know that in future you will supply the relevant link/s.

      • Forget now 2.3.1
        8 May 2021 at 4:59 pm

        Okay Weka – I will provide more links in the future, it just seemed redundant in this case; as it's right there on the side of the page. Forgot that you can't see that on mobile. Alhough the comment I tried to leave earlier just got eaten by a single backspace, even though not Ctrl-A selected.

        Anyway, it has been (until late afternoon) not too bad an autumn Saturday down here – I have been out and about. I will try and address some of the responses to my comment later on when kids in bed. At least I hope I will have more luck at that with a proper keyboard than a touch-screen.

      • Forget now 2.3.2
        10 May 2021 at 10:59 am

        Sorry Weka – that wasn't supposed to be a spray and walk away comment. I just didn't get around to responding on the weekend, and now it seems a bit pointless to dig up a two day old OM thread.

        Also, the site is still eating comments if I so much as glance at the backspace key; on laptop as well as mobile.

        • weka 2.3.2.1
          10 May 2021 at 5:49 pm

          I sometimes write my posts in a text editor and then cut and past across. I don't lose many but it's bloody annoying when it happens. Flick Lynn an email if it keeps happening.

    • Anker 2.4
      8 May 2021 at 10:59 am

      Forget Now "terfs can be free to spout their transphobia".

      Can you clarrify what is transphobic? Cause it seems to me if you are not prepared to say Trans Women are real women, for example, then you are branded as Trans phobic.

      Many of us struggle to do so, because there is a difference between trans women and women who are biological women. And frankly I think I should be free not to have to say that trans women are real women. Absence of me saying that seems to label me trans phobic.

      It is a fact that trans women and biological women are different. Different builds hormones, muscle mass, different experience growing up boy v. girl. Differences that give for example Laureen Hubbard a considerable advantage over other competitors in weight lifting. That is just unfair to biological women competitors and as such I will tell the truth about the disadvantageous situation for Laureens competitors and I want shut up about that.

  3. RedLogix 3
    8 May 2021 at 10:06 am

    The hope, I believe, is to become, not pre-industrial but post-industrial.

    What I object to is that when I ask for more details on what this is meant to entail, and how the author thinks it might work – I'm told I'm 'strawmanning' and a flat out refusal to engage.

    It doesn't give me any confidence in the real motives behind the thinking in this post at all. Like you I'm very supportive around the specifics of doing agriculture far more intelligently than we are, but when it's being used as a figleaf to 'smash capitalism' I sense a dishonest agenda in play.

    Convince me otherwise.

    [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 3.1
      8 May 2021 at 10:42 am

      Your first comment didn’t ask for detail. It went straight to your idea that sustainability = dark ages. That’s a straw man, hence the moderation.

      Your latest comment presents another straw man: that the post is a fig leaf for smashing capitalism. There’s no such thing in the post, in fact I dropped bread crumbs all the way through of general ideas on solutions that are nothing to do with smashing capitalism (I tend to be agnostic on smashing capitalism as a pragmatic next step).

      It’s obvious you didn’t understand the post. My suggestion is to stop making shit up about what I write and think if you want to comment under my posts. And if you want explanations then ask the commentariat. There are plenty of people in that conversation that can tell you what it’s about, and in fact some even tried to. And as McFlock pointed out, I’ve written a whole bunch of posts as part of a series explaining regenag and now sustainability, I’m guessing if we went back and looked we’d find you arguing against your straw men rather than engaging with the substance of the posts and asking for explanations.

      I’ve just said to Gosman, probably the commenter furtherest from my politics, that he can argue against the post but he has to understand it first. Especially the basic premises which are just not what you are asserting.

      • RedLogix 3.1.1
        8 May 2021 at 10:50 am

        Absolute bullshit moderation. You do this far too often.

        In the post you specifically say:

        Which leads us to the second issue, of how to make a living as we move beyond the conventional farming and economic models?

        Well I'm asking a highly pertinent question around the basic premises of the post and you all you offer is 'breadcrumbs'. That's just not good enough.

        • Muttonbird 3.1.1.1
          8 May 2021 at 11:03 am

          [deleted]

          [Leave it alone please MB, I’d rather not have the drama on the weekend]

        • weka 3.1.1.2
          8 May 2021 at 11:32 am

          You can ask that, that’s fine. What you can’t do is make up shit about the post or my thinking, which is what you’ve been moderated for. I’ve made suggestions about how to get answers to your questions, up to you if you want to use them next time. Please stay out of the conversation under that post from now though as I’ve spent more time on this than I want to.

          • RedLogix 3.1.1.2.1
            8 May 2021 at 11:58 am

            If you will not specify in any detail what you're thinking – and I note that you're explicitly refusing to do so even now – then you don't have much grounds to complain when someone asks you to expand and clarify what you have in mind.

            It's clear you think BAU is not sustainable – and in this I agree. Evolutionary change is both necessary and inevitable. But when I ask you to be more specific about what direction you want to take us, and think about the broader implications of going there – it seems you don't want to do this at all.

            • weka 3.1.1.2.1.1
              8 May 2021 at 12:21 pm

              I’ve already said why I’m not explaining to you specifically and noted that there are others who might be more willing /shrug. I have no problem taking with people about what I write who don’t start out derailing my posts and then doubling and tripling down when asked not to.

    • Janet 3.2
      8 May 2021 at 12:57 pm

      Many farmers are smelling another agenda as well.

      • Incognito 3.2.1
        8 May 2021 at 4:18 pm

        When there is a perception and growing unease (!) that big changes are on the horizon, agendas become clearer and lines between them fuzzier. Different lobby groups can band together in their fight against a perceived common agenda and thus against a perceived common enemy; the raison d'être of lobby groups and so-called movements. The latter tends to often act as a bandwagon for all sorts of agendas, which may not have all that much in common – many a fringe party campaigns on a single issue rather than on a comprehensive and cohesive policy platform. In fact, it is not uncommon to see one agenda, which is not necessarily the founding one, hijack and take over a movement.

        Some people are so intrinsically suspicious of change and people in power that it borders on paranoia; their ignorance but most their fear and emotions can drive them straight into the arms of populist propagandists and conspiracy advocates.

        None of this is conducive to constructive public debate, which of course plays straight into the hands of those who prefer to maintain status quo and BAU.

  4. Anker 4
    8 May 2021 at 10:47 am

    Thanks for some sanity on this Rosemary and Weka.

    There is some dangerous stuff happening with cancel culture and my particular focus is on being accused of being trans phobic unless you spout the ideological position that gender is fluid and trans women are real women.

    The denial of biological sex is anti scientific. The language that trans activists use often amounts to deconstructing women's identity.

    Great links Rosemary.

    I am also waitng to see the outcome of Harry Millers second court case (hes an ex cop who in the context of a gender self i d debate on twitter got visited by the police at his work, despite the police acknowledging he hadn't committed a crime. He took Humberside Police to court and won. Good on him

    • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1
      8 May 2021 at 11:24 am

      There is no such thing as 'biological sex' just like the idea humans are divided into 'biological races'

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth-of-biological-sex/?sh=6c52b3b876b9
      ‘According to the BBC documentary, Me, My Sex and I, “There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.”

      Same old discrimination tropes today that were used decades ago against gays and lesbians- that males werent msaculine enough or the women werent femine enough. Because they didnt fit gender sterotypes of the time, then they didnt count as humans either

      • weka 4.1.1
        8 May 2021 at 11:39 am

        Biological sex is the physical reality that enables Homo sapiens to reproduce. Female/male. That there are variations within that doesn’t mean the binary doesn’t exist. Maybe you were referring to social dynamics around gender? If you did mean biology then please explain how a male and a person who’s not female could conceive a child.

        • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.1.1
          8 May 2021 at 11:56 am

          Sound a very catholic question, that we merely exist to reproduce and your genitalia defines your sex.

          The continuum exists and is as common as twins.

          • RedLogix 4.1.1.1.1
            8 May 2021 at 12:17 pm

            It's not a 'continuum' – biological sex is very much a bi-modal distribution. Yes there is some overlap in some characteristics (like height for example), but overall it's idiotic to pretend that most people (>99%) don't clearly identify as male or female.

            Biology is not a perfect sorting machine that unambiguously puts everyone into one sex or another, occasionally it blurs the boundaries, but using these boundary cases to dismantle an idea that's utterly embedded in our natures is just silly.

            You do realise most of the non-Western world is laughing at us for even having this 'debate'.

            • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.1.1.1.1
              8 May 2021 at 12:49 pm

              If your argument on 'biological sex' falls apart ( 3.5% on the continuum) then your your real aim against gender identity and even more specifically men who identify as women has no basis either.

              Just because its maybe a few % who have a gender identity different to their genitals its not OK to use Catholic Church teachings as basis for everyone else.

              • RedLogix …
                8 May 2021 at 1:27 pm

                Personally I don't have a dog in these ongoing 'gender wars' at all. Biological sex is for all practical purposes a male/female divide with a tiny fraction of ambiguous individuals. The idea there are 3.5% of people who're biologically ambiguous simply doesn't align with everyday experience. (My partner reads these threads sometimes, and she just shakes her head with incredulity that any of this is a 'thing'.)

                As for 'gender' – well I'm even less impressed by the whole concept itself. I fully recognise that individual people, being the creative and diverse bunch they are, will express their sexual identity in a whole range of ways. In this I really don't care, as long as I'm not compelled to partake I'm perfectly happy to live and let live.

                But to then use gender as a tool to start dividing people into categories and then setting them against each other – well I think I'll leave it here and go back to self-censoring before I say anything I might further regret.

                • ghostwhowalksnz …
                  8 May 2021 at 6:03 pm

                  'he idea there are 3.5% of people who're biologically ambiguous simply doesn't align with everyday experience."

                  Yes, because its isnt so obvious, and everyday experience isnt a good way to judge, not that you are, many other do.

                  But I would agree about your other views,it wouldn't generally matter to everybody else. But the Catholic Church and other conservatives with their dogma and discriminatory views have been joined by some progressives in common cause- but they claim a scientific basis which is flat out wrong. They are only left with prejudice which is almost entirely against men who identify as women.

                • left for dead …
                  9 May 2021 at 3:46 pm

                  Here,here.
                  Edit,that’s for Redlogix

            • Incognito 4.1.1.1.1.2
              8 May 2021 at 10:04 pm

              So true! Biology or rather Mother Nature is not a sorting machine at all. It is a human construct, by and large, and mainly one from/by the Western/European cultural and historical philosophy.

              In this binary logic, the world was divided into mutually exclusive units – life forms into species and genera through Linnaean taxonomy; people into different categories through censuses and ‘nation states’; human inquiry into different disciplines; …

              https://www.newsroom.co.nz/dame-anne-salmond-iwi-and-kiwi-beyond-the-binary

          • weka 4.1.1.1.2
            8 May 2021 at 12:25 pm

            I didn’t say that though did I. Care to explain how humans reproduce without the sex binary? Seriously, I’d like to hear your thinking.

            if on the other hand you mean that that the word sex has social as well as biological meaning, then I’d agree with you. But you said there is no such thing as biological sex and that requires an explanation using biology not social concepts.

            • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.1.1.2.1
              8 May 2021 at 12:59 pm

              maybe you should ask women who cant concieve that question

              https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/female-infertility/symptoms-causes/

              It seems you using the biological race theories ( based on physical attributes) to apply to the 'gender-sphere'

              The real point of classifying people into different races was to 'allow' discrimination. Which is the same aim as those who follow the strict biological sex theory , its for exclusionary reasons. A social construct is being used for social exclusion

              • weka …
                8 May 2021 at 1:24 pm

                I can tell you as a woman who no longer ovulates that I’m still biologically female. To suggest that women who can’t conceive aren’t female is fucked up and offensive.

                You still haven’t explained how there is no such thing as biological sex. It’s nothing to do with race. There’s no such thing as biological races in humans, and there’s no evidence for such. Otoh, reproduction is well studied, and humans understood it before western science came along because it’s observable.

                • weka …
                  8 May 2021 at 1:25 pm

                  Anyway, this is going to get boring fast, to save us the trouble I’ll assume you are talking about social aspects of sex, probably conflated with gender, and are not in fact talking about biology

      • Rosemary McDonald 4.1.2
        8 May 2021 at 12:11 pm

        There is no such thing as 'biological sex'

        Presuming you are a human…how did you get here?

        Biological sex is real. Our lives depend on it. Literally.

        Gender expression on the other hand is whatever one wants. The presumption that one's genitals dictates one's personality is false. Feminists have battled long and hard for this. This idea that if one's personality fails to conform to some archaic notion of gender then one was born into the wrong body is a hugely retrograde step.

        The concept that failing to conform to sex-role stereotypes can be fixed with drugs and surgery is, to some of us, abhorrent.

        • greywarshark 4.1.2.1
          8 May 2021 at 12:40 pm

          It is an example of how destructive our present direction is to communities and human patterns of life that bind us together, that we are now arguing about how we show we are people and what sort of people and how we reproduce ourselves etc.

          Once we didn't question like this and the progressive attitude was to make things better for ourselves as people, now many are educated to think along machine-like lines, to question everything, and we have no certainties, no ground to stand upon.

          With the ground opening under us, a group needs to rise that presents an ethos that embraces us and which everybody can accept apart from the most utopian or misognystic. We need to agree on some Guiding Principles which could lead to us questioning a proposition; such as 'Is this going to be helpful for solving a problem or advancing betterment' or some other open query that looks to positive outcomes.

          • Incognito 4.1.2.1.1
            8 May 2021 at 3:58 pm

            'Is this going to be helpful for solving a problem or advancing betterment'

            Depends on who is asking and who is answering; just ask intersectionalists.

            • greywarshark 4.1.2.1.1.1
              8 May 2021 at 4:04 pm

              Thanks incognito – just an idea to throw into the lucky dip, just for a toy to play with – perhaps a battery in it would get it working.indecision

        • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.2.2
          8 May 2021 at 1:05 pm

          Thats merely a catholic church teaching… which is fine if you choose to follow that faith. Dont expect to impose on anyone else. Do YOU want to impose it on others ?

          'The Church supports people being whole and healthy people. Our understanding of gender is tied to biological sex, which is also tied to the spiritual reality of a person. For this reason, the Church does not teach that a person’s gender can be different than their biological sex, that it falls onto a spectrum, or that it can be fluid.'

          • weka 4.1.2.2.1
            8 May 2021 at 1:29 pm

            You appear to not understand the difference between biological sex and social gender.

            • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.2.2.1.1
              8 May 2021 at 3:21 pm

              There is the same 'fluidity' for sex and gender. May not be the same people.

              Dont let the facts about small group ( around the same proportion as twins) who dont have fit your theory on 'biological sex' get in the way of your abhorrence- which is really about men becoming women isnt it!

              • weka …
                8 May 2021 at 4:22 pm

                Nope, no problem with people transitioning to another gender, including trans women. Do have a problem with people who make assertions on TS that they can’t explain. You’ve got some beliefs there, which is fine, I’m just not seeing the evidence to support where you are asserting them as fact.

              • Drowsy M. Kram …
                8 May 2021 at 5:03 pm

                It's a woman's, man's or non-binary person's right to choose (or not choose.)
                Choice delayed is choice denied, particularly in more 'on demand' societies.

                Ellie and Nele: From she to he – and back to she again
                The stories of these two young people are complex.

                They may not be typical of people who have transitioned to another gender. And they are not a judgement on the decisions of other trans people, be they trans men, trans women or non-binary.

                Both of these young people are conscious of how stories of detransition have been used by transphobic organisations and commentators to invalidate the experience of trans and non-binary people, and attack their hard-fought access to health care. Neither Ellie nor Nele deny the rights of trans people. They do, however, question whether transition is always the right solution.

        • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.2.3
          8 May 2021 at 1:14 pm

          " conform to sex-role stereotypes can be fixed with drugs and surgery is abhorrent'

          Maybe you should protest outside fertility clinics as they use drugs to improve women's ability to conceive. Gynecologists can tell you about common physical impediments to childbirth that are corrected by surgery.

          Also Im surprised you dont about the surgery called Cesarean section.

          Surgery and drugs is OK when it meets your requirements but not for others? And please dont stigmatise those that do.

          • Sabine 4.1.2.3.1
            8 May 2021 at 1:46 pm

            Let me put it this way. One of my part timer is a trans women, however she will never menstruate, never get pregnant, never give birth, and never go through menopause.

            And these are differences that can make a great difference in life.

            AS to how 'infertile' women perceive this?

            Well i had a hysterectomy 20 odd years ago due to a rapid growth tumor. So now i don't menstruate anymore, had a whole lot of sex without having any pregnancy scare (wow, so liberating!) never gave birth and now go through menopause. Also the money i saved on female hygiene products is just insane! That shit is expensive.

            Am I still a biological women. I just never birthed a child. . And also let me assure you that your question about 'infertile women' also applies to 'infertile men' – what would you call them?

            I simply suggest that you stay away from this discussion as clearly you don't want to listen to women and the potential issues they have in a conservation that acutely affects them.

            As for trans women are women? No matter how many and how hard anyone wants to believe that they are a women or are like all women – or as Kaitlyn Jenner said 'for all intend and purposes i ama woman' but i certainly would never discuss menstruation, child birth, menopause, breastfeeding, hysterectomies, cervical cancer, fallopian cysts, etc with them. Because they would have no clue what i am speaking of. Cause that part of women hood is biological and we did not ask for it, it came with us.

            • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.2.3.1.1
              8 May 2021 at 3:33 pm

              Gender Fluidity arent necessarily the same people as those who dont fit the idea of a biological sex.

              Why are you so obsessed about menstruation, those before puberty and after menopause cant. Is that another category of what makes a woman ?

              What those people who beat the biological sex drum want to do is create a rigid class of what a women is, so they can exclude the gender fluid/ and those without the right genitals/childbirth etc.

              And when they can create the right genitals – your abhorrence shows its your own social construction thats threatened. Well boo hoo, its unacceptable to use some sort of psuedo biological reasoning to create discrimination.

              • weka …
                8 May 2021 at 4:37 pm

                It’s not an obsession with menstruation, she named a range of life stages specific to females (irrespective of whether all females go through all stages). Women talking about the experiment of menstruation is core to femajesy and no other class of people. The push to stop women talking about their own experiences is part of why there is the sex/gender war.

                thing that fucks me off about your position is that we could have been having a conversation about how to make society safe and good for women and gender fluid people. But the insistence that this class of people doesn’t exist is pitting people who should other wise be allies against each other.

                you can make up shit about and misrepresent my beliefs and there’s not a lot I can do about it (although I will moderate on TS if it gets out of hand), but the numbers of women who are increasingly alarmed not by trans people but by the loss of women’s culture and rights is getting larger every day. I just hope the left wing GCFs prevail, because the right wing GC people are going to do massive damage other wise.

                • ghostwhowalksnz …
                  8 May 2021 at 6:20 pm

                  Where have I said anything about a class that doesnt exits.

                  Medically the idea of a rigid he-she line doesnt scientifically happen

                  'According to the BBC documentary, Me, My Sex and I, “There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.”

              • Sabine …
                8 May 2021 at 4:55 pm

                when you get your menstruation around 10 – 13 and you have this until you are well into your 40s it is not an obsession but a bodily function thanks to biology. Its like men having boners in the morning. The only ones having them are those that are born with a penis. Also not an obsession. Just a biological tick in the 0 1 universe that creates 'man' and 'woman' and guarantees the survival of the species.

              • Fran …
                8 May 2021 at 8:46 pm

                The fact that you have to ask why we women are so obsessed about menstruation actually says it all. Biological women menstruate, whether they want to or not. Actually most of us would be really happy to live without that particular part of womanhood but conversely it is a universal shared experience that brings us together. It is a thing that makes us women.

                Womanhood is not all about genitals, it is about shared experience and all the stuff Sabine said and sadly for your perspective the plumbing that makes us menstruate is ONE aspect of that.

                Women and Trans women are different. I don't see this as discriminatory just as. Different is not a judgement it is just different!!

                Transwomen have their own stuff, leave us with our stuff please.

                • Rosemary McDonald …
                  8 May 2021 at 9:00 pm

                  Women and Trans women are different. I don't see this as discriminatory just as. Different is not a judgement it is just different!!

                  Transwomen have their own stuff, leave us with our stuff please.

                  Exactly. Well said. It's really not that hard to understand.

                • Sabine …
                  9 May 2021 at 8:16 pm

                  Thank you!

              • Anker …
                9 May 2021 at 8:47 am

                I think you are male Ghost, but I could be wrong. "Obsessed about menstruation" lol lol lol………………….A woman would understand why this might be the case!

            • Incognito 4.1.2.3.1.2
              8 May 2021 at 4:01 pm

              … but i certainly would never discuss menstruation, child birth, menopause, breastfeeding, hysterectomies, cervical cancer, fallopian cysts, etc with them. Because they would have no clue what i am speaking of.

              What a most peculiar statement. People do discuss these things with people of the opposite sex, e.g. with their partners/spouses. Not every woman has (had) the things you list and similarly, not every man has (had) erectile issues, prostate or testicular cancer or male breast cancer, for example. We discuss [my emphasis] these things, which can be among the most personal, with people we trust and I don’t see how this would or could be limited to one’s own sex only. I might be missing something here.

              • Sacha …
                8 May 2021 at 4:17 pm

                Maybe limited imagination can lead people towards essentialism?

              • weka …
                8 May 2021 at 4:26 pm

                Women do talk to other women about things that they don’t talk to men about. In the same way gardeners might talk with other gardeners about a topic. They might also talk to non gardeners but the conversation is different. This is a common thing among humans.

                • Incognito …
                  8 May 2021 at 4:59 pm

                  Yes, common, that is the key word here, which here means not exclusively or not always. This is a crucial point that often is ignored, sometimes (?) deliberately, which is in/with many (?) public discussions and debates on complex and sensitive issues, some people and/or groups are excluded, ignored, or cancelled even. I’m convinced that this never ends with good outcomes for all in the long run, not even when it is (supposedly) only (!) temporary. For example, when X talk about X then Y should stay silent and listen. It takes effort, sometimes considerable effort, from all sides to be as inclusive as possible and not to slide into technical jargon or lingo that excludes others or turns discussions into superficial and almost meaningless convos. Make of that what you will.

                  • weka …
                    8 May 2021 at 5:42 pm

                    I get the point at the general level but Sabine was saying that she personally wouldn’t talk to a trans woman about biological processes specific to females. Whether that’s absolute or not I don’t know (I didn’t take it that way, I took it to mean she wouldn’t talk women’s business rather than never ever talk female biology, and it’s Sabine’s style to be blunt and appear absolutist).

                    But, there are times when exclusion is appropriate. Women having spaces separate from men, Maori caucuses within or alongside Pakeha dominant orgs, men’s drumming circles, we have a lot of such things in human society that aren’t in and of themselves discriminatory. It’s hard to see how Sabine could have made her comment inclusive when the point of it was to show difference.

                    • Sabine …
                      8 May 2021 at 6:47 pm

                      No, while i talk women stuff with her, such as lower pay for women, being an immigrant women, travelling as a women, cooking, boys, career in her chosen field and so on, i would not discuss with her the trauma of having an emergency hysterectomy and in doing so having lost all potential children i could have born. There are the things that i can 'identify' with her as a women, and then there are things that i can not identify with her as a women. If that makes any sense, in the same sense as i don't expect to talk about all her issues to me just because we both fall in that box 'women' now. She and I we know full well that we are not 'the same', but we both identify as women.

                      As to my 'blunt' style, i am german and thus lack all english sense of etiquette and am usually to honest to be polite, and english is not my first language. So maybe that should also be factored in. Not everyone is native.

                    • Anker …
                      9 May 2021 at 8:49 am

                      I think talking to a trans woman about menstruation etc, wouldn't be something I would do. It would feel a bit like talking about my pregnancy to an infertile couple, but it would depend I guess.

              • Sabine …
                8 May 2021 at 5:02 pm

                let me quote Weka, she has better words then I do.

                weka…

                8 May 2021 at 4:37 pm

                It’s not an obsession with menstruation, she named a range of life stages specific to females (irrespective of whether all females go through all stages). Women talking about the experiment of menstruation is core to femajesy and no other class of people. The push to stop women talking about their own experiences is part of why there is the sex/gender war.

                The same applies to people who want us to discuss these very personal issues with people we might not care to because they find refusal to do so ‘peculiar’. Nothing peculiar about it. Unless women now no longer have the right to discuss these female centric biological issues with people whom they identify with?

                • Incognito …
                  8 May 2021 at 5:40 pm

                  Obviously, no two people are the same and I don’t recognise your and weka’s reasoning as a given that applies to all and this is what I meant by “peculiar” but it is obvious from your reaction you took it to mean something different and negative; it wouldn’t be the first time 🙁

                  I don’t think anybody here today has said or tried to stop women discussing certain issues with “people whom they identify with” (AKA other women) but one doesn’t get to pick and choose here who replies and what they’ll say. Weka has previously posted Leftie-only and women-only posts on this site and even then people stray across, sometimes accidentally, sometimes not … However, even then, you cannot stop people commenting and trying to run interference from the side lines in posts such as this one (i.e. OM). Personally, I don’t think it is the most effective and efficient way to go about it but I have supported & policed the efforts as weka knows. Framing it as a “war” is problematic, IMO.

                  I don’t want this to become an argument so this is my final comment about it here and now.

                  • weka …
                    8 May 2021 at 5:50 pm

                    There is war going on Incognito, and it’s terrible. TS had largely been sheltered from it for a range of reasons.

                    It’s not that women in this conversation have been stopped from speaking, but then this is a mixed sex space. However TS most definitely has a history of women not being able to fully take part and that’s never been resolved. That’s not been around the gender/sex wars, but there’s something here about watching left wing men not listen to women, again, in this particular war as it comes to TS. Many people are underestimating just how serious this is for women.

                    beyond that, there are absolutely massive issues with suppression of debate in the war. And women are bearing the brunt of that. This is a listen and learn situation imo, not that men should take part but an acknowledgment of not getting what we are talking about wouldn’t go amiss.

                    • weka …
                      8 May 2021 at 5:52 pm

                      I will add that I don’t consider TS to be a safe debate space for trans people either, nor other groups. This is part of why I haven’t talked about the war until recently and why I’ve written only one post. But the war is about to arrive in our faces because of NZ legislative changes and we need to get up to speed with how to make room for the debate here.

                  • weka …
                    8 May 2021 at 5:57 pm

                    To give you an example, women are being told in social media groups not to use language specific to their bodies because it’s exclusionary. That’s the context for Ghost’s reductionist and dismissive framing of women talking about our bodies. Am happy to explain why having our language taken is such a big deal if it’s not apparent.

      • Anker 4.1.3
        8 May 2021 at 1:33 pm

        Ghost you are making a big claim "there is no such thing as biological sex". and using a Forbes magazine article, written by a ?Journalist? Please. Big claims call for very big evidence. And I mean scientific evidence.

        You are alive because a female produced an egg and a male sperm. The female then carried you in her womb and gave birth to you. Even if IVF etc, was used, it is still the same process.

        I am a biological wo

      • Anker 4.1.4
        8 May 2021 at 1:43 pm

        Ghost, you make extraordinary claims "there is no such thing as biological sex" and then use a Forbes magazine article, written by a ?journalist? to back it up .

        Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence. Science please.

        You are alive because a female egg got fertilized by a male sperm and you were carried in someones womb for approx 9 mths and then said women gave birth to you.

        That women would have ovulated, menstuated, grown breasts, had the capacity to breast feed and then has or will go through menopause. She is on average of shorter stature to men, she has less muscle mass and more oestrogen and progesterone. These are the facts and if you do not accept them, you need some compelling evidence to present to say otherwise. People on this site acknowledge that there are some people (a very small minority who are born asexual and that there are a very small minority of people who are born a sex and experience gender dysphoria about this.

        Most of us here are likely to have compassion for this and be respectful towards such people. Some of us really object to having science re-written, by people who aren't scienctists and being told unless we tow this ideological line we are trans phobic and run the risk of being cancelled.

        • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.4.1
          8 May 2021 at 3:14 pm

          What you arguing for is called Essentialism, thats theres immutable rules which determine these things . However you are wrong, as was explained in a whole issue of Lancet ( is that 'medical' enough for you)

          https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32764-3/fulltext

          And yet, as medical anthropologist Katrina Karkazis pointed out in The Lancet last year, the facile search for a definitive trait of biological sex continues:

          For a century, scientists studied an array of human characteristics that inform our ideas of what makes someone a woman or a man, seeking to pin down a single, definitive biological indicator. Bodies troubled these schemes and led to socially untenable categorizations. If gonads were understood as the essence of sex, women who were phenotypically female but who had testes were men. This didn’t make sense, so scientists proposed yet other traits. Even as they debated which biological trait signaled its essence, scientists understood sex as biological and involving multiple, if contested, factors.

          "As such, there is growing support for the idea that gender classification is not simply a matter of biology, but rather is the result of complex and ever-shifting interactions between culture and biology."

          • McFlock 4.1.4.1.1
            8 May 2021 at 3:34 pm

            Hmmm. A scientific journal suggesting that what we were taught in intermediate school was a simplified version of what is actually a much more complex and nuanced subject?

            Who would have thought such a thing was possible.

          • Anker 4.1.4.1.2
            8 May 2021 at 10:32 pm
            • “Even as they debated which biological trait signalled its essence, scientists understood sex as biological and involving multiple if contested factors”.

            In reply to McFlook, biological sex in the vast majority of cases isn’t complex or nuanced. For The vast majority of people their assigned sex at birth is simple and straightforward. They have anatomy and biological differences that make it clear they are either female or male and this is egosyntonic

            The article is published it a medical journal,but no cries to do away with assigning sex at birth.
            Interestingly it is the activists who are calling for gender self id, not scientists or medical associations

            so scientists agree that sex is biological. So do I.

            • McFlock 4.1.4.1.2.1
              8 May 2021 at 11:05 pm

              A recurring theme in these discussions here seems to be that just because something appears to apply to the vast majority of people, for the purposes of discussion we can ignore the existence of anyone for whom it does not actually apply – even if the discussion is partly about them.

              • Sacha …
                8 May 2021 at 11:44 pm

                Reasserting a category is soothing for people trying to resist it being reconceptualised. Has happened every step of the way. Won't matter ultimately but can cause harm in the meantime.

                • Anker …
                  9 May 2021 at 8:52 am

                  Yes Sacha, I object to what being a women is being recategorized.

                  I am sorry if that is hurtful for some, but believe I have science on my side and also have a right to defend the de construction of my identity as a women.

                  McFlook re your comments.

                  Most of us here are likely to have compassion for this and be respectful towards such people. Some of us really object to having science re-written, by people who aren't scienctists and being told unless we tow this ideological line we are trans phobic and run the risk of being cancelled.

                • Sacha …
                  9 May 2021 at 9:08 am

                  Can you say more about what you have described as 'deconstruction of your identity'.

                  How does it feel different than when 1960s feminists said that biological sex did not define women?

                  • weka …
                    9 May 2021 at 10:27 am

                    Which 1960s feminists Sacha and what did they say?

                    • Sacha …
                      9 May 2021 at 11:03 am

                      You seriously want me to mansplain an entire discourse? I'd rather trust women who are articulating a position to know its context.

                    • weka []
                      9 May 2021 at 11:23 am

                      No I’d like you to explain something about your reference beyond that sound bite. Because it looks like you think they took a specific position and I’m not sure you are correct.

                    • Sacha …
                      9 May 2021 at 12:34 pm

                      A variety of feminist theorists after Simone de Beauvoir (and ones from Europe like Luce Irigaray, not just the US writers) focused on the matter.

                      This is one overview of the whole area I found via googling and many of the references seem familiar: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/

                    • weka []
                      9 May 2021 at 1:42 pm

                      Thanks. A quick look at the start, they’re talking about biology not being destiny, ie we have a biology but it doesn’t predetermine what women should do or what roles we should have in society. That’s different from saying there’s no biological definition of female.

                    • Sacha …
                      9 May 2021 at 1:49 pm

                      Hope others find what it actually says useful and even interesting. I'm done explaining myself any further.

                    • weka …
                      9 May 2021 at 3:56 pm

                      You haven't explained though. You gave me a long document that I didn't have time to read on my phone in lieu of saying what you meant. /shrug.

                  • Rosemary McDonald …
                    9 May 2021 at 11:23 am

                    How does it feel different …?

                    The minute expressions such as "pregnant people" and "menstruators" and "lactators" began appearing in MSM and governmental publications as if all of these are not applicable to women only, some of us realized this whole issue had gone too far. Way too far.

                    GCF have spoken about their concerns that the trans movement could conceivably erase women, as defined as 'adult human female'. They were obviously right.

                    …biological sex did not define women? And yet, back in those heady days of Women's Lib, some of the more radical spent time with mirrors strategically placed so they could properly acquaint themselves with the parts of their anatomy they had been conditioned (for millennia) to hide and be ashamed of.

                    I believe that what was meant by not being 'defined' by biological sex was that we women should not be confined by limitations placed upon us by a largely predominant patriarchy because we are female.

                    Back we are to that old chestnut of 'sex-role-stereotypes'…revived again by this trans movement which seems to believe that biological sex does define and confine a person.

                    • weka …
                      9 May 2021 at 11:25 am

                      I believe that what was meant by not being 'defined' by biological sex was that we women should not be confined by limitations placed upon us by a largely predominant patriarchy because we are female.

                      this. It’s also a misreading of GCF views to conflate them with bioessentialism. Words and their shared meaning matter.

                    • Sacha …
                      9 May 2021 at 12:37 pm

                      this trans movement which seems to believe that biological sex does define and confine a person

                      Surely you meant ‘does NOT define’?

                    • Rosemary McDonald …
                      9 May 2021 at 12:50 pm

                      @Sacha. No. I meant what I said. These people clearly truly believe that they can only be 'true to themselves' if they can legally change their biological sex. (As if such a thing is actually possible.)

                      As if they are defined and confined by their biological sex.

                      They are not. Just as I am not. Or yourself. Or any of us.

                    • Sabine …
                      9 May 2021 at 12:52 pm

                      'menstruators, lactators, or 'incubators'

                      talk about being reduced to biological happenings.

                      No longer a girl, or a women but a menstruator, lactators, pregnant people'.

                      Heck, why would anyone be upset by these charming adjectives to descripe describe the one half of the world population that bred all of worlds humanity.

              • weka …
                9 May 2021 at 10:26 am

                4.1.4.1.2.1

                8 May 2021 at 11:05 pm (Edit)

                A recurring theme in these discussions here seems to be that just because something appears to apply to the vast majority of people, for the purposes of discussion we can ignore the existence of anyone for whom it does not actually apply – even if the discussion is partly about them.

                humans reproduce via two biological sexes, social understandings of sex are more nuanced, intersex people exist, trans people exist, biologically female people exist. None of those things are contradictory.

                when a woman starts talking about her politics and experience as a woman it doesn’t harm others that she doesn’t always refer to them. #notallhumans is a reactionary response. It’s patronising too.

                I don’t recall support for intersex people being talked about here until women started talking about their politics. Maybe we can find ways to support both groups.

                • McFlock …
                  9 May 2021 at 3:45 pm

                  So when medical science is finally able to give people the fully-functioning reproductive system of their choice, do you think these arguments will stop? Because I don't.

                  • weka …
                    9 May 2021 at 3:58 pm

                    I don't think that will be possible. Reproduction and childbirth and lacttion is complex and lots of it we don't understand particularly well. But I don't see how that is relevant. You want men of the distant future to be able to have babies (why?), but you don't want women in the here and now to have the right to determine their own existence and politics? This is not new McFlock, but as I've said I'm surprised to hear it coming from you.

                    • McFlock …
                      9 May 2021 at 4:46 pm

                      I'm not sure how distant it actually is, but where will the discussion go when it does happen?

                      Every time someone has nailed sex into two distinct categories, an exception gets brought up. So then the commenter either says that such exceptions are so uncommon as to make the experiences of those people not worth considering (although they're not usually honest enough to put it into those terms), or tightens up the criteria. But there are eventually exceptions to those criteria, too. And the more the criteria get tightened, more and more people get kicked out of one group or the other – even people who aren't the targets of the people obsessed with the binary.

                      Everyone can determine their own existence and politics. But if those politics are based upon a myth as an excuse to endanger others and deny them medical care, other people are allowed (and have a duty) to criticise those politics.

                    • weka []
                      10 May 2021 at 5:54 pm

                      McFlock, are you saying that you don’t believe that there is a class of people that are biologically female? I’m a little unclear what your view is.

                    • McFlock …
                      10 May 2021 at 9:26 pm

                      As you put it, "humans reproduce via two biological sexes". That says absolutely nothing about the gamut of people who never had the biological equipment to reproduce. And there are others who have had medical intervention to either get functioning reproductive organs, or organs that look like functioning reproductive organs.

                      So the statement "humans reproduce via two biological sexes" is simply a description of the reproductive act, and is of no help whatsoever in discussing who should participate in which sporting event or who should use which toilet block.

                      If you don't like the continuum idea, try ""humans reproduce via two biological sexes that are two general classes that mostly (but by no means entirely) account for millions of variations in human sexual or reproductive organs".

                    • weka []
                      10 May 2021 at 9:49 pm

                      That didn’t answer my question. Do you think there is a class of people that are biologically female? You are implying there is in your last paragraph, but I just want to be clear.

                    • McFlock …
                      10 May 2021 at 11:07 pm

                      I'm not sure I would use that term (or "biologically male", for that matter), to denote a "class" of people.

                      There are males and females.

                      There are males with female characteristics and vice versa. Not just the sex organs: hormone levels, bodily proportions, whatever. Are they not "biologically" one because they have features of the other?

                      Is it so difficult to imagine that just as sometimes there might be a mismatch in the physical characteristics between one sex pole and the other, there might be a mismatch between the physical characteristics and the complex physiology and chemistry of the brain? But even then "biologically [male/female]" would still be a relative term, not a categorical one.

  5. Sabine 5
    8 May 2021 at 11:33 am

    IT seems that the government is happy to tackle everything but this.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rental-crisis-would-you-pay-30000-upfront-to-get-a-rental-tenants-desperate-measures/3LWOAEE5BYTNNHL4C7IGSBUSYA/

    WE Need to Build to Rent! Organise that Labour!

    • Peter 5.1
      8 May 2021 at 11:58 am

      Yeah! Nationalise builders and their companies and suppliers of building materials and have the whole building industry prioritised to building stock for government houses.

      That'd go down well.

      Oops, except for those working of shoddy school buildings. Oh and those upgrading hospitals.

      • Sabine 5.1.1
        8 May 2021 at 12:22 pm

        ?

        • Peter 5.1.1.1
          8 May 2021 at 1:20 pm

          It's just a comment to summarise the debate – people want 'The Government' to do everything, be involved with everything to do with housing. Government is in the gun when any element of housing is not to someone's satisfaction.

          I'd read the Tauranga article earlier. Surely only by one agency having control of all facets of housing, linking, co-ordinating controlling can they be blamed for all shortfalls and problems.

          When we have someone in Tauranga offering to pay $30,000 upfront and a Rotorua couple so desperate they pay more than they can affair is just the market working?

          You want the Government to get in boots and all and tackle everything?

          My suggestion would be a start. Then there'd be railing though about 'communism' and let the market decide. Or the half pie measures like wanting the Government involvement in fringe little bits.

          • Sabine 5.1.1.1.1
            8 May 2021 at 1:32 pm

            What the heck are you actually saying Peter?

            Housing and homelessness was literally was the reason for so many to actually vote for these timewasters. But yeah, i get it the second election was won by Covid, so now they don't have to pretend anymore to work for the people. Now they literally just seem to show off to some think tanks and big business who hopefully will elect them when they lose the next election.

            Honestly i don't think anyone in this country voted for Andrew Little to grandstand with his remake of the Health System in NZ, all the while freezing wages for 'frontline' worker. And certainly no one voted for Michael Woods to pontificate and potentially fuck up the already fucked up process of wage negotiations in NZ.

            I just want this bloody government to do one thing, and that is to encourage smart building – building to rent, not building to accumulate an assett or several to create an even worse housing shortage by keeping houses empty for Captial Gains by the thousands..

            But that is in the too hard basket it seems. And yes, i do want the government to interfere in the 'free and unregulated market' and regulate to the best of the greater good and for the benefit of all.

            • RosieLee 5.1.1.1.1.1
              8 May 2021 at 2:10 pm

              Yes. That is, supposedly, what a Labour government with this mandate should be all about. Sadly, it isn't.

  6. weka 6
    8 May 2021 at 12:46 pm

    Good explainer from RNZ. Still this Q: are there examples of herd immunity to an illness, from vaccination, where repeat vaccination is needed ongoing, or is this new territory?

    Also, has the govt described how border opening might work and how non vaccinated people would be protected?

    https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/798e00d9-866b-4753-a10b-254c901d4525

  7. greywarshark 7
    8 May 2021 at 12:51 pm

    The Rotumans come from a tiny island north of Fiji and try to live there in a good and practical way. They keep their connections going in New Zealand and show us a good Pacific way to be. I hope their ceremonial get-together is an enjoyable occasion of friendly meetings.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/442124/rotumans-celebrate-language-and-culture-together-amid-covid-19

    https://www.beautifulpacific.com/south-pacific-maps/fiji-islands.php

  8. RedBaronCV 8
    8 May 2021 at 12:53 pm

    Looks like an employer conference had a visitor from the USA – one Leo Strine. Any ideas how he got into the country?

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/125043890/why-is-a-labour-government-encouraging-its-employees-to-become-contractors

    • joe90 8.1
      8 May 2021 at 1:07 pm

      he didn't

      Navigating the EESG Cross-Currents: Sustainable Stakeholder Corporate Governance

      Leo E. Strine Jr. and Karessa L. Cain – Leo and Karessa will join us via livestream from the US to discuss a practical approach to sustainable stakeholder corporate governance, exploring employee, environmental, social and governance considerations for directors.

      https://iodconference2021.co.nz/programme

  9. greywarshark 9
    8 May 2021 at 1:39 pm

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/442116/endangered-leatherback-turtle-returned-to-hapu
    Documents show more than $10,000 was spent by DOC and Te Papa on transportation and a burial ceremony.
    Te Rūnanga o Koukourārata chair Dr Matiu Payne said the honu is a taniwha, a guiding deity for his people, and is part of the legends passed down, although this traditional knowledge was purposely not widely shared

    This was a good decision and expenditure. Maori don't tell all to nosy tauiwi who often take the knowledge and exploit it. Also remember how much that the government is prepared to pay elite professionals for some task, could be $1000 a day.

    eg New Tauranga City Council commissioners could … – NZ Herald
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz › bay-of-plenty-times › news

    5/02/2021 — Commissioners appointed to lead Tauranga City Council could be paid … A Cabinet paper shows Tolley to be paid up to $1,800 a day for her work, and … The term of the commission will run until just after the next local government … days a week for the other commissioners, while they work to…

    An addition about the Tauranga Council Commissioners for those curious:
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/four-commissioners-appointed-to-lead-tauranga-city-council/G4EQTS2NXNNWZC26DFRN5S3C6E/

  12. joe90 12
    8 May 2021 at 3:41 pm

    Likely to rival the 1918 Spanish flu death count.

    A new analysis of the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic suggests 6.9 million people worldwide have died from the disease, more than twice as many people as has been officially reported.

    In the United States, the analysis estimates, 905,000 people have died of Covid since the start of the pandemic. That is about 61% higher than the current death estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 561,594. The new figure also surpasses the estimated number of U.S. deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic, which was estimated to have killed approximately 675,000 Americans.

    https://www.statnews.com/2021/05/06/new-analysis-finds-global-covid-death-toll-is-double-official-estimates/

    http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths

    • Drowsy M. Kram 12.1
      9 May 2021 at 2:27 am

      Thanks joe90 – an interesting analysis from the IHME. The apparent estimated 10-fold under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths in Japan is noteworthy as the Olympics loom.

      Japan: Reported COVID-19 deaths = 10,390. Total COVID-19 deaths = 108,320.

  13. greywarshark 13
    8 May 2021 at 3:51 pm

    Looking at past NZ history in the 1980's. This, deja vu all over again?

    New Zealand’s economic difficulties persisted into the mid-1980s, and Muldoon’s National Government favoured erratic policies which ranged from severe spending cuts, to energy-intensive development, to an extreme wage and price freeze. Unemployment continued to increase and New Zealand society was changing:

    Māori protest at the legacies of colonisation was more visible; a third wave of feminism challenged many assumptions about work, family life, fertility and the media; environmental movements challenged assumptions about economic growth and development; and there was increasing discussion around a non-aligned and anti-nuclear foreign policy. https://www.labour.org.nz/history

    Who or what was responsible for changing our direction? Douglas/Treasury?

    [Douglas] argued in 1982 that the government should actively support small business, and intervene to stop the aggregation of assets by big business. In his view, the government should use the tax system to encourage productive investment and discourage speculative investment. Until the end of 1983, Douglas saw exchange rate, tax and protection policies as means of actively shaping the business environment. In August 1982 he supported a contributory superannuation scheme as a means of funding industrial development and in February 1983 he wrote a paper called "Picking Winners for Investment" which proposed the establishment of local consultative groups to guide regional development. In a paper dated May 1983, Douglas argued that an unregulated market led to unhealthy concentrations of market power. //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Events_after_the_1981_election

    At the end of 1983 there was a marked change in Douglas's thinking. He prepared a caucus paper called the "Economic Policy Package" which called for a market-led restructuring of the economy…He acknowledged the contribution to the package of Doug Andrew, a Treasury officer on secondment to the parliamentary opposition, among others.[25] W H Oliver noted the close alignment of the package and Economic Management,[26] Treasury's 1984 briefing to the incoming government.[27] His assessment was that Douglas was predisposed towards the Treasury view because its implementation required decisive action and because greater reliance on the market solved what Douglas saw as the problem of interest-group participation in policy-making. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#A_new_direction,_1983%E2%80%931984

    /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Minister_of_Finance,_1984%E2%80%931988
    In 1984, Roger Douglas was made Minister of Finance, with two associate ministers of finance, David Caygill and Richard Prebble. They became known as the "Treasury Troika" or the "Troika", and became the most powerful group in Cabinet.[32] Douglas was the strategist, Prebble the tactician, while Caygill mastered the details. With Caygill the "nice cop" and Prebble the "nasty cop", Douglas could sometimes appear as steering a considered middle course. Later Trevor de Cleene was made undersecretary to Douglas, with special responsibility for Inland Revenue. [33] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Immediate_results

    Background – Jul.1/1984 https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/bim/economic-management

    and Reserve Bank –
    1984/5 timeline – https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Publications/Bulletins/1985/1985jan48-1nzeconomicchronology1984.pdf?revision=3fe551a1-6eac-463b-9fc6-8ad5b20b32d8

    1985/6 timeline – https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Publications/Bulletins/1986/1986jan49-1nzeconomicchronology1985.pdf?revision=9d0c3a2c-a1a1-48a7-b53d-420636f08334

    This has been reduced but I felt that events and timelines could do with refreshment as still so relevant.

    France stormed the Bastille on 14 July. Is the Treasury our parallel institution – say 4 March 1985 when our floating exchange rate was promulgated.

    • Pat 13.1
      8 May 2021 at 7:18 pm

      Doulas was sold the pup that Treasury was selling…the private banks could run the economy better than politicians…time has shown the lie.

      • greywarshark 13.1.1
        8 May 2021 at 7:29 pm

        How many in Treasury got a knighthood out of it? Or did they just get lovely lambswool skins over their seats to keep their bums warm – the bums.

        • Pat 13.1.1.1
          8 May 2021 at 7:33 pm

          Dont know where those Treasury wonks ended up, but Douglas did all right out of it.

          Muldoon is often bagged but consider this fact…we have 85% renewable energy thanks to him.

    • Incognito 13.2
      8 May 2021 at 10:57 pm

      Neo-liberalism would have washed upon and pummelled these shores sooner or later.

      • Pat 13.2.1
        9 May 2021 at 9:20 am

        Probably, but we embraced it (at least the political class did) early and with such enthusiasm we appear to have disabled ourselves to the extent we are unable to imagine anything else.

  15. greywarshark 15
    8 May 2021 at 7:28 pm

    I wondered what country the upbeat Professor was in – guess – Australia. They have less to lose by taking risks than we have.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/442106/covid-19-trans-tasman-pause-not-needed-infectious-diseases-expert

    However, Professor Peter Collignon from Australian National University said the risk of transmission between New South Wales and New Zealand was very low.

  16. greywarshark 16
    8 May 2021 at 8:06 pm

    I have a niggling worry besetting my brow – is our government still vital and in good mental health? Who tests them to make sure they are compos mentis? Do they need to be all wired up in their seats in Parliament that send a regular charge through to jerk their muscles every half hour, sort of like A Weekend at Bernies.

    (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK40vtKt0Eo

    Or are they reminiscent of the Dead Parrot Sketch. Are they appearing, saying their piece after being partly resuscitated, and then being nailed back on their perch? Are they too debilitated to let fly with chirpy policy after a long squawk over Covid19 and other tiresome bothers? Will we end up being offered a slug, that doesn't talk for our next PM?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvTBkjL6Dxo

  17. Muttonbird 17
    8 May 2021 at 8:13 pm

    Good to see Immigration NZ finally take a look at the illegal worker problem started by John Keys and his government.

    It's horrible for the workers. I'd like to see major charges against those who employed them, but…

    …too big to fail?

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125072532/eight-illegal-workers-detained-two-deported-after-raids-on-governmentrun-sites-in-auckland

    Everyone washing their hands.

  18. The Al1en 18
    8 May 2021 at 11:58 pm

    Two months in to my three month temp contract I get offered a permanent full time job.

    That'll teach me for turning up on time and getting stuck in.

    Guess that self imposed early retirement has gone effed itself for reals this time.

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