Open mike 08/07/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 8th, 2023 - 77 comments
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For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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Step up to the mike …

77 comments on “Open mike 08/07/2023 ”

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  1. Phillip ure 1
    8 July 2023 at 8:49 am

    Australia has legalised mdma and psylocibin for therapeutic use..

    This is excellent news…when are we going to do that here..?

    I have used both of them…ask me anything..

    • Dennis Frank 1.1
      8 July 2023 at 9:25 am

      ask me anything

      Have you become enlightened?

      MDMA acts primarily by increasing the release of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline in parts of the brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA

      Catalytic, hormonal stimulant. Never used it myself (too old). Way back when I did experiment with psychedelics some enlightenment ensued but not as much as I expected. I think transcendence happens when the time is right for someone.

      It's all relative to the mental fog induced in people by the education system plus social conditioning generally. Psychedelics are good for dissipating that – but over-use can have a disintegrating effect on the psyche. Saw plenty of that downside way back then.

      The point is that use of any tool is relative to style of application, technique, context. One can't generalise any further than that.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/492980/mdma-australia-begins-world-first-psychedelic-therapy

      • Phillip ure 1.1.1
        8 July 2023 at 9:49 am

        Not so much enlightenment..

        More like sorting out/getting into some perspective..the garbage that most of us haul around…

        And mdma is not called the hug drug for no reason..

        'cos you can be sitting with someone you have known for years…and you can riff off on how you have never realised what excellent examples of the human race they are..

        Lots of grinning usually involved..

        • Dennis Frank 1.1.1.1
          8 July 2023 at 10:16 am

          Lots of grinning

          Interesting. So it shares that with mary jane. Tom Petty did a song about that:

          too cold to cry when I woke up alone
          I hit the last number, I walked to the road

          Last dance with Mary Jane
          One more time to kill the pain

          https://genius.com/Tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers-mary-janes-last-dance-lyrics

          Or, as the Fab Furry Freak Bros often would say `dope will get you thro times of no money better than money will get you thro times of no dope'.

          A herb that reliably connects someone to Gaia in a fraction of a second will always have currency: very deep Green. In times of trauma, use carefully…

    • Bruce 1.2
      8 July 2023 at 9:36 am

      Rather listen to Bill Hicks

      https://youtu.be/QLIQ_NWyErQ

      • Phillip ure 1.2.1
        8 July 2023 at 9:56 am

        That is a very good link…

        I would rather listen to bill hicks too..

        Mind you… anything by bill hicks..

        is a good link..

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    8 July 2023 at 9:32 am

    Left vs left again:

    internal polling seen by the Herald shows a rising pool of potential Green voters at 30 per cent – up from 24 per cent prior to the 2020 election – and of those deemed “on the fence”, the bulk are Labour voters.

    According to the Herald’s poll of polls, the Green Party vote share has slipped over the past year, from hovering around 9 to 10 per cent now down to about 7 to 8 per cent.The model predicts that share could grow as high as just under 11 per cent on election night, or drop as low as 6 per cent.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-green-party-strategy-to-take-labours-disaffected-voters/OR23RK5SNJHE3KVHCAS5TOUYFQ/

    Marketing to floating voters is too sophisticated a concept for the Greens to get their heads around apparently – so easy to default to tradition & cannabalise Labour.

    • Bearded Git 2.1
      8 July 2023 at 10:09 am

      Yeah but that is the Herald's take-what do you expect?

      With Climate Change becoming more and more a major issue the Greens are well placed to take votes from parties across the board, not just from Labour.

      I have seen a stream of well thought out Green Party adverts on fb over the last few months.

      Chloe will win Akl Central of course.

    • Belladonna 2.2
      8 July 2023 at 10:46 am

      I find this telling for the Greens

      Davidson said over the past term they had seen the amount of available votes grow to 30 per cent, based on their own polling. These are voters who had considered voting Green.

      “That is because people know that the pace of change is not happening fast enough, and that’s primarily around climate action, protecting nature and inequality.”

      Now, those are internal polling figures – so to be taken with a strong pinch of salt.
      But. If there are potentially 30% of the votes up for grabs – what is turning off those voters from the GP?

      If they can figure this out – and then change their policies to match what the voter-base wants – then they can be serious players.

      • Dennis Frank 2.2.1
        8 July 2023 at 10:57 am

        Wokeism, currently. Lack of marketing pizzazz has tended to embed & reinforce floating voter scepticism re GP representation of the Green movement.

        I've watched them default to the left continuously since they got into parliament. The effect of this has been to maintain the same level of popular support they got in 1990. That consistent bias against connecting with others has been remarkable in how it consistently prevents them growing their support base (except sporadic sucking of votes out of Labour).

        Talk to them individually, you usually get intelligent conversation. The problem lies in their group mind. It's transpersonal! Somehow the parliamentary leftist alignment parks them in a cul de sac in the political ecosystem. Comfortable there, doan wanna leave, is the syndrome resulting that has captivated them…

        • Incognito 2.2.1.1
          8 July 2023 at 9:26 pm

          When I read some of your comments about the Greens it’s like I’m reading Bomber doggy paddling and slowly drowning in his own word swamp.

          • Dennis Frank 2.2.1.1.1
            9 July 2023 at 4:30 am

            Okay, I hear you, but denial doesn't get anyone anywhere. Maybe you disagree with my diagnosis but can't articulate why. Fair enough. Feelings are natural. They need not necessarily be put into words.

            • Incognito 2.2.1.1.1.1
              9 July 2023 at 11:43 am

              Time is (too) precious and life is (too) short to be doggy paddling in word swamps that add nothing, do nothing, and achieve nothing other than providing a means & habitat for swamp-dwellers – my name is not Shrek.

      • bwaghorn 2.2.2
        8 July 2023 at 11:33 am

        I've voted green 3 times , not sure this time.

        In the past its been pretty simple, when labour is strong I vote green, if they're weak I vote labour, (have voted top ,nzf once each this century)

        Still haven't forgiven Davidson for her racist rant, I think taxing farming emmisions on a level footing with frivolous emissions like tourism is ridiculous ,and the is definitely an anti farmer bent in the left of left green s.

        Fear is another reason I'm wary of the greens being to strong, not sure some of their economic theories won't pull the whole house of cards down.

        • Phillip ure 2.2.2.1
          8 July 2023 at 11:42 am

          The environmental cliff we are barreling towards..

          Will 'bring the whole house down'..

          Green policies are an attempt to avoid that..

          • KJT 2.2.2.1.1
            8 July 2023 at 11:47 am

            economic theories won't pull the whole house of cards down.

            Funny because most were economic orthodoxy not all that long ago.

            When we had the highest standard of living in the world.

            Neo-liberalism has had us going consistently downhill.

          • bwaghorn 2.2.2.1.2
            8 July 2023 at 11:55 am

            Just giving my feelings to those asking why the greens aren't getting 30%.

            A country in poverty, (nz is along way from there) isn't going to do a single thing about cc,

            • weka 2.2.2.1.2.1
              8 July 2023 at 12:11 pm

              The Greens are the only party who will be in parliament for the next term who have a serious set of policies on ending poverty. Climate change isn't mentioned much in those, but it comes in in things like building sustainable houses.

            • Incognito 2.2.2.1.2.2
              8 July 2023 at 12:41 pm

              A country in poverty, (nz is along way from there) isn’t going to do a single thing about cc,

              This year alone this poor country has to spend billions in dollars because of a weather events – and lives were lost that will never come back. It’s likely to get worse and more expensive. NACT’s attitude is a hedonistic, selfish & entitled party-hard and let somebody else clean up the mess and the Greens’ attitude is a proactive and more considerate leave some for the next generation(s) too.

              But one Green Party Co-Leader said something one day that offended a few people, so let’s take the party back on track!

              • bwaghorn …
                8 July 2023 at 1:53 pm

                Don't worry to much about my vote the greens need labour and vis versa, nact arnt an option for me, (and I can't ever see them being one, top maybe, bit I don't like wealth /land taxs , (I have neither btw)

                • Incognito …
                  8 July 2023 at 7:26 pm

                  Not worried, just fascinated by the narratives and internal monologues of people in how they decide, justify, and argue for their voting choices. Are they informed choices? Everybody is free to vote (or not vote) any way they like.

        • weka 2.2.2.2
          8 July 2023 at 12:13 pm

          I think taxing farming emmisions on a level footing with frivolous emissions like tourism is ridiculous

          Climate change doesn't care if emissions are frivolous to humans or not. All that matters is the amount of GHGs going into the atmosphere thanks to us. In other words, we could eliminate all the frivolous GHG emissions and still go over a cliff (collapse civ and the biosphere) because we thought that some GHG emissions were necessary.

          and the is definitely an anti farmer bent in the left of left green s.

          I'm curious where you see that. The party itself is pro farmer, but if there are greens doing anti-farmer shit I'd like to see how that is playing out.

          • bwaghorn 2.2.2.2.1
            8 July 2023 at 12:22 pm

            "Anti farmer"

            Just the vibe get weka, much more muted on the standard now days,

            Farming feeds people, so no emissions arnt equal, hungry people arnt going to give a shit about cc in the same way poor people won't, .

            I believe the un said food production should be treated differently (am off to see if I can dig a link up)

            • lprent 2.2.2.2.1.1
              8 July 2023 at 12:59 pm

              The problem is that climate change mostly directly affects future food production.

              We have had about 10,000 years of relatively calm weather and climate since the last glacial and immediate post-glacial episode compared to the climate chaos that preceded it. That is what allowed us as a species to build up a farming technology that underlies our current food production.

              Rapidly reverting to the kinds of climates that were prevalent and last seen in the Eocene over the next century or two seems unlikely to provide a stable basis for developing a new much more robust farming technology. After all we still haven’t managed to develop particularly good farming technologies for our current tropical regions. Which is why the bulk of the worlds food is grown in temperate climates.

              We still don’t have really good models of what happens when when there is a rapid rise in greenhouse gases. Nor do we have accurate information about the actual climate in the tropics during the Eocene. What we do know and what has been becoming clearer from both the overly rapid current climate shifts and research into past climates is that it is likely to be a lot worse than our current models.

              For instance this populist article on Eocene climatic research..

              During the Eocene, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was more than 560 parts per million, at least twice preindustrial levels, and the epoch kicked off with a global average temperature more than 8 degrees Celsius – about 14 degrees Fahrenheit – warmer than today, gradually cooling over the next 22 million years

              and jumping to the conclusions looking at temperate regions.

              The team then used their dataset from the tropics to back-calculate the temperature and chemistry of polar oceans, relying on previous studies of forams that captured the conditions of those regions.

              With this correction factor in place, they investigated the degree to which polar oceans warmed more than the tropics, a feature of the climate system known as polar amplification. Their data showed that the difference between polar and equatorial sea surface temperatures in the Eocene was an estimated 20 degrees Celsius, about 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Today the difference is 28 degrees Celsius, indicating that polar regions are more sensitive to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide than the tropics.

              Troublingly, said Evans, when the team compared their data with various modern climate models under Eocene conditions, most models underestimated polar amplification by about 50 percent.

              The two models that came closest to reproducing the team’s data had one key aspect in common – they modified the way they accounted for cloud formation and the longevity of clouds in the atmosphere, particularly in the polar regions.

              “To us, that looks like a promising research direction,” he said. “If – and it’s a big if – that turns out to be the right avenue to go down, that could play into the models we use for our future climate predictions.”

              Which basically means that if we get to a effective short-term doubling of green house gases causing a more rapid climate change. For instance by the much faster short-term heating from methane and nitious oxides from farming releasing carbon stores in permafrost or methane from ocean clathrates. Or for that matter any of the many possible tipping points to short-term green-house effects that the higher short-term effect greenhouse gas emissions affect disproportionately.

              It isn’t being anti-farming to worry about the ability of farming to produce sufficient food in the future.

              Particularly it seems in a large part because farmers showing a palpable unwillingness to learn how to rapidly reduce their high-effect greenhouse gas emissions if it hits their immediate profits. What is the point of NZ producing food for 40 million people when they are hastening a demise in their ability of farm effectively?

              • bwaghorn …
                8 July 2023 at 2:04 pm

                Methane is circular, so we arnt producing more of it since we ate farming less animals now than 30 years ago especially sheep number(I'm aware some of those sheep numbers have bec6dsiry cow numbers)

                Farmers inputs will already be getting any current emissions taxs ,

                Yes I know farming will get harder with changing weather, unhealthy out here every day doing it. But taxing it out of existence isn't the answer.

                • Incognito …
                  8 July 2023 at 4:41 pm

                  Methane is circular, so we arnt producing more of it since we ate farming less animals now than 30 years ago especially sheep number […]

                  Methane is tetrahedral.

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

                  The number of farm animals is only part of the equation. What animals, what size, what age, feeding patterns & diet changes, production patterns, the effects of increased milk production, etc. All these are factors in total farm emissions, including methane.

                  • bwaghorn …
                    8 July 2023 at 5:17 pm

                    Circular in the emmisions profile, with a 10 year life span, so unless we increase animal numbers, which we're not ,it's not increasing or methane emmisions,

                    • Incognito …
                      8 July 2023 at 6:29 pm

                      Are you referring to the carbon cycle?

                      AFAIK, methane does not have a life span, but a half-life in the atmosphere, which is about 10 years. IIRC, it breaks down to carbon dioxide, which has a much longer half-life. This and the fact that the potential greenhouse effect of methane is about 28 times larger than carbon dioxide makes methane an ideal target for reduction of emissions of greenhouse gasses.

                      You seem to imply that current levels of agriculture methane emissions are just dandy as long as we don’t increase them!?

                    • bwaghorn []
                      8 July 2023 at 7:00 pm

                      My understanding is that the emissions from stock are circular due to it being taken up by the plants the stxk eat, so the emmisions stay the same ,not increasing unless you increase animals,

                      Also my original point was that food production is important, so not all emmisions are created equal, 8 billion people need feeding,

                    • Incognito []
                      9 July 2023 at 5:15 pm

                      AFAIK, there are some soil bacteria that absorb methane but plants don’t use methane as such.

                      Not all animals are equal either in terms of emissions of greenhouse gasses.

                      You keep missing or avoiding the main point though, which is that current emissions are too high and agriculture is a huge contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.

                • weka …
                  8 July 2023 at 4:50 pm

                  literally no-one in NZ pol has suggested taxing farming out of existence. There's no earthly reason to not transition to regenag and have lower stock numbers, other than the economics. We can still produce food for NZ and excess to sell to the world.

                • lprent …
                  8 July 2023 at 5:01 pm

                  By the time you add large numbers of large ruminants and a greater application of nitrogenous fertilisers to the equation a reduction by half in sheep numbers doesn't make that much difference.

                  Ruminant enteric methane emissions are responsible for 35% of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions and account for 73% of all New Zealand’s agricultural emissions, with 30% of enteric methane directly attributable to the sheep industry (Ministry for the Environment, 2021).

                  Sheep are still about 25% of our total greenhouse gas emissions.

                  Methane is circular,

                  Way way too shallow. It simply isn't 'circular' on any human timescale. It is nett culmulative over the next few centuries.

                  After all these materials are going into the atmosphere and getting removed from the cycle. Try showing me anything in NZ that is sucking up methane and nitrous oxides in quantity.

                  So where does the material come from in the first place. In NZ, most of the carbon in CH3 is effectively mined from the soil by farming. It is no coincidence that the best farming soils are those in the lowlands on old river flood plains, peat bogs, and forested areas. They are effectively a natural mine for long stored carbon – especially drained swamps. Even the hill country that sheep mostly run on are steadily being mined for old forest carbon stores.

                  We are at least several centuries away from NZ getting its soil carbon into a equilibrium. I'd hardly call that being 'circular'.

                  I'd point out that from the perspective of an earth scientist, the nett effect of adding fertilisers is to simply mine the soil of its carbon and other nutritional materials faster with scant regard to the future.

                  Wr certainly aren't 'circular' when you look at nitrous oxides. There is a paucity of nitrogen in NZ soils that is only a teeny part made up by legume (mostly white clover) fixing. The reason is pretty obvious. Umm here is a source discussing the issue in laymans terms.

                  Farmers are so focused on extracting every kilogram of dry matter they can, that the significance of white clover is being overlooked in favour of the grass component in pasture mixes. I regularly meet farmers who increase their grass sowing rate just so they can get to their first grazing faster, despite the fact that the increased plant competition will have a negative impact on clover establishment.

                  ie sucking up fossil carbon (dry matter) faster. The same applies to super phosphate application. Rather than making extraction 'circular' NZ farmers actively accelerate deletion.

                  Of course on the way through, extractive farming also pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases of methane and nitrous oxides and the waterways as a side effect.

                  It isn't slowing, it is speeding up in aggregate which is why stats NZ points out

                  Between 1991 and 2019, estimates from sales data of nitrogen applied to land in fertiliser increased from 62,000 to 452,000 tonnes (just over a sixfold increase, 629 percent).

                  Since our last update of this indicator in April 2019, there was a 5.4 percent increase from 2015 to 2019 in nitrogen applied from fertiliser. In this period, urease inhibitor use increased 48 percent.

                  Gotta love that last two sentences. It does point out the futility of urease inhibitors. All they do is decrease the demand while still allowing a 5.4% increase. Good try – total fail without a actual reduction in nitrogen fertilizer usage. Which shows no signs of happening even through the pandemic.

                  Phosphates are going down, probably more due to price increases than lack of demand. But the over all increase in fertilisers in NZ shows up most clearly when you look at the two key nutrients for extracting greenhouse gases of fixed nitrogen and phosphates in tonnes of the nutrient – as in the older chart from stats (I wonder why is it so hard to see the side by side figures in the updated page).

                  The overall level of extra nutrient applied to the soils in NZ has massively increased over the last 20 years. In effect mining the soil faster and releasing much more pollutants – including shoter-term acting greenhouse gases.

                  If you look at the gross figures about NZ greenhouse gas as CO2 equivalents for this is pretty obvious as well.

                  CO2 has stabilised since the ETS, hopefully to reduce, despite a 50% increase in population over the last 30 years. But our useless farmers chasing a unsustainable personal profit mining our soils have been effectively increasing their pollution profile. They are massively increasing the amount of a longer-lived greenhouse gas and haven't managed to constrain the emissions of their larger output.

                  What is even more annoying is that the sectors of agriculture tat are doing most of the pollution aren't even a very profitable industries for the country. Most of their gross export profit is immediately paid offshore in interest payments on capital. The nett profit to our society is piss all, and certainly not enough to cover their pollution costs.

                  They just leave the costs of their soil mining industry for the rest of NZ to pay in cleaning up waterways and paying higher ETS levies.

                  In short farmers can easily be regarded as being unsustainable economic parasites for the rest of NZ, even before you look at this tiny group being the largest polluters in NZ. In a lot of ways NZ would probably be economically better off dropping our food production down to only supplying the domestic market and concentrating on cost reductions for the economically productive members of the workforce – the ones who make a productive profit for the country as a whole.

                  Or farmers could start receiving price signals from something like the ETS that make them act in a more economically responsible role than being simple soil miners.

                  • bwaghorn …
                    8 July 2023 at 7:03 pm

                    I genuinely appreciate the effort you've gone to to educate me, I'm sure I'll take a little bit in .

                    But aren't the emmisions created by stock intake removed by the growth of that intake, making it circular?

      • Incognito 2.2.3
        8 July 2023 at 7:19 pm

        But. If there are potentially 30% of the votes up for grabs – what is turning off those voters from the GP?

        Politics is a contest of ideas although in NZ it’s become more like a dirty MMA fight. This by itself might turn off voters and increase political apathy & disengagement but also there will be winners & losers in such a competition – it is kind of a zero-sum game.

        If they can figure this out – and then change their policies to match what the voter-base wants – then they can be serious players.

        Are they not already ‘serious players’? Should they water down some of their policies and forsake some of their values & principles for the sake of more populist & appealing ones? Do you have any policies in mind? The Wealth Tax proposal, by any chance? And then you will vote for them?

      • Muttonbird 2.2.4
        8 July 2023 at 7:55 pm

        So transparent, like a floor to ceiling window in a multi million dollar mansion on a clear day.

        What you imply is what every Nat trying for a climate conscience wants, for the Greens to get rid of their stupid, woke social policies and concentrate on greenwashing for the right wing.

        I. See. You.

        • Belladonna 2.2.4.1
          8 July 2023 at 8:21 pm

          Well, the alternative seems to be remaining in the 6-10% range.

          I guess, if that makes them happy……

          • Muttonbird 2.2.4.1.1
            8 July 2023 at 8:31 pm

            If the Greens ditched all their social policy which is what you have asked them to do, they'd lose most of their members and most of their support. Support to be replaced by a small number of wealthy RW women looking for somewhere to park their privileged guilt.

            These Greens would end up like the UK Greens.

            • Belladonna 2.2.4.1.1.1
              8 July 2023 at 8:39 pm

              I haven't asked them to do a blessed thing!

              I suggested that they could look at the reasons why those who indicated that they considered voting Green, don't actually follow through (either in polls or in real life at the elections).

              I don't know what those reasons are (I certainly don't have visibility of their internal polling) – perhaps you do – since you're commenting with such confidence!

    • Corey 2.3
      8 July 2023 at 3:44 pm

      Its simple.

      The Greens are a party of the left because both climate change and climate change policies will disproportionately hurt the poor and working class.

      They believe in govt and societal action on climate change not centerist green washing, individual responsibility on climate change.

      They believe left wing and universal economic policies will ease the burden of climate change and climate change policies on the poor and working class.

      They also oppose crony capitalism, trickle down and infinite growth because we're on a finite planet.

      Therefore they are a party of the left and their strategy is to get as many left wing voters off labour as possible to have increased influence in a coalition to push Labour to the left.

      The strategy should be that the greens go after the left and try to excite as many non voting lefty's to vote as possible, while labour goes after the center and tries to convert as many National, Top and NZ first voters as possible.

      I don't get how that Strategy is difficult to get!

      Add the Maori party who if needed to stop Nat/Act, Hopefully are able to manage to win as many Maori electorates as possible, with as little party votes as possible and cause an overhang making it impossible for national to govern.

      I always hear this argument about the greens being in a culdesac, I never hear this of ACT who are trying the exact same strategy, but on the right, except national keeps fighting them for right wing votes rather than trying to convert the center!

      Being on the left doesn't blunt the greens influence, Labour needs the greens inside the tent pissing out, the last thing labour wants is the greens supporting a labour minority govt in the crossbenches on an issue by issue basis demanding massive concessions on each issue.

  3. Dennis Frank 3
    8 July 2023 at 10:23 am

    Bomber has posted the Hipkins overview in full: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/07/08/prime-ministers-foreign-policy-speech-to-nziia/

    Check out the reaction of his ecosystem of rabid nutters later today…

    cool

    • tWiggle 3.1
      8 July 2023 at 1:11 pm

      Walking a fine line down the middle of the road, internationally, I note. One thread: NZ must make sure to have eggs in many basket…EU FTA…South East Asia tensions. And another thread…independent foreign policy, as in Clark over Iraq, is not the same as neutral foreign policy…AUKUS 5 eyes, but not AUKUS military action, necessarily.

      • Dennis Frank 3.1.1
        8 July 2023 at 1:19 pm

        Yes indeed. That's how I see it too. Scylla & Charybdis. Sailing the fine line between two threats has become archetypal, through recorded history…

    • Belladonna 3.2
      8 July 2023 at 4:00 pm

      So far, 2 comments, both positive…..

      • Dennis Frank 3.2.1
        8 July 2023 at 4:15 pm

        Gosh so they are! smiley I have two takes on this situation:

        a) stunned mullet syndrome – audience either blotto or unable to cognite that H did the right thing with modest flair & finesse

        b) audience so entrained by smart-phone-driven short attention spans that the prospect of reading an actual speech freaked them instantly into evasion mode

  4. newsense 4
    8 July 2023 at 10:53 am

    A year old gripe released at the moment to hurt the most. Nasty, nasty work by faceless people and Andrea Vance. Care about bullying and mental health? This is some vengeance by some very nasty pieces of work.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132500472/chris-hipkins-will-need-to-make-some-decisions-about-kiri-allan

    • bwaghorn 4.1
      8 July 2023 at 11:37 am

      It really is starting to look like good old dirty politics, reporters (and myself) swallowed this beat up hook line and sinker.

    • Bearded Git 4.2
      8 July 2023 at 12:14 pm

      I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?

      Remember there don't need to be any facts involved, just anonymous rumours that such and such has been doing whatever unsavoury thing.

      This is followed by a series of MSM articles from Vance, Malpass, Soper et al saying "this adds to the growing list of lazy/corrupt/tainted/unbalanced/out-of-their depth Labour ministers." whose so-called misdemeanors are then listed again and again.

      Hipkins should stare this down and stand by Allan shoulder to shoulder.

      • bwaghorn 4.2.1
        8 July 2023 at 12:23 pm

        Davis is next, that fight video will be one of 100s over the years but it pops up now??

      • Dennis Frank 4.2.2
        8 July 2023 at 12:50 pm

        I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?

        I suspect the dramatic escalation in the numbers of ram-raids is the flag that will catch their attention. So whichever minister currently shows up in the revolving door with the police minister label on it will become auto-target.

        The minister will go "Who, me? I'm just sitting here thumb-twiddling, ain't doing nothing wrong. I'm not responsible for police operational non-decisions!"

        This police minister as ornamental pot-plant thingy has been an area of consensus between National & Labour for quite a while. So the Nats will struggle to make impact. Consistently blaming Labour for police uselessness won't impress floating voters much. They could suggest a more strident form of virtue-signalling at the cops by Labour's police minister but they aren't putting on a convincing performance of doing that themselves so even Nat supporters are likely to be underwhelmed.

        • tWiggle 4.2.2.1
          8 July 2023 at 1:17 pm

          The backroom policework is 8000 offenders and 40000 charges laid in taking down drug networks since 2022. Criminal gangs up their nuisance raids, and add community violence as the advertising, because Operation Cobalt is taking out their easy revenue stream. Protection rackets are an alternative income source.

          • Dennis Frank 4.2.2.1.1
            8 July 2023 at 1:47 pm

            Okay, that's informative. Does it mean a clogged-up justice system?? We know how addicted judges & lawyers are to dragging out legal processes for as long as possible. Is the system working or broken or somewhere in between?

            • tWiggle 4.2.2.1.1.1
              8 July 2023 at 4:12 pm

              If you look at NZ incarceration stats, they were going down until July 22, mostly due, apparently, to a new support programme for functionally illiterate 1st offenders on remand being given help to apply for home detention in place of remand prison. (A difference which contributes to more poor and Maori suffering extended incarceration time early on).

              Then they have climbed, as Operation Cobalt began to bite, but also as other violence crimes were solved.

              • tWiggle …
                8 July 2023 at 4:44 pm

                Plus I think, although covid introduced a big backlog, the court system has maintained streamlined processes introduced then. This includes judge-only trials, and remote attendance for simple court appearances, cutting down the need to move prisoners back and forth from remand to court, and saving court time.

                Apparently, up to 40% of the prison population comprised of remand prisoners in 2020, some of whom spent time in remand longer than any sentence for their crimes due to court backlogs. Andrew Little as Justice Minister from 2017 achieved significant reforms, and added funding and judiciary appointments over National. Covid put a crimp in clearing the backlog, of course.

            • Belladonna 4.2.2.1.1.2
              8 July 2023 at 4:13 pm

              Well, the clogged-up justice system certainly exists:

              A three-week trial was set scheduled for July 7, 2025, a date Justice Brewer was clearly not happy with.

              “I am very unhappy with a trial date that is two years out.”

              https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/tensions-flare-as-murder-accused-lance-hall-appears-in-court/5NYYET5GLNDSFHT6R3YEV7BWWQ/

          • Bearded Git 4.2.2.1.2
            8 July 2023 at 4:29 pm

            Thanks for that tWig-very interesting-this should be known by the voters.

        • Craig H 4.2.2.2
          8 July 2023 at 5:24 pm

          Obviously Parliament could change the law to allow operational decisions to be made by ministers. Unless that happens, ministers really don't have much say in how the police go about their work.

      • ianmac 4.2.3
        8 July 2023 at 1:52 pm

        BG: "I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?"

        Peeni Henare Is being accused of Conflict of interest. Tatou Industries gained contracts while Peeni was Associate Ministry of Health and Peeni is partner of Skye Temura who is head of Tatou.

        Sounds ominous but efforts to promote this smear October 2022 failed to ignite but Nats are now full on. Maybe the voters will get sick of the smear campaigns by the likes of Simeon Brown?

        • Incognito 4.2.3.1
          8 July 2023 at 2:07 pm

          Timing is everything in politics. The ‘opinion leaders’ of Newstalk ZB are simply trying again to see if it germinates this time in their audience of unthinking talk-back listeners and if it does it will be cultivated and spread further by other MSM ‘opinion leaders’ and useful idiots, like a GMO that spreads in the environment after a successful ‘field trial’.

          • ianmac 4.2.3.1.1
            8 July 2023 at 3:31 pm

            Peeni is confident that he followed all the Cabinet protocols. And this smear arose last year. So I really hope that he has an all clear, given the fair warning from last time. He said he had nothing to do with the contract letting so for his sake and the Party's sake, here is hoping.

            • Bearded Git 4.2.3.1.1.1
              8 July 2023 at 4:25 pm

              "Peeni is confident that he followed all the Cabinet protocols."

              Ianmac: This is DP. The Nats aren't playing by any rules or protocols; they just want headlines that suggest wrongdoing that the compliant MSM will print, or ZB will promote.

      • miravox 4.2.4
        8 July 2023 at 2:22 pm

        "Remember there don't need to be any facts involved, just anonymous rumours that such and such has been doing whatever unsavoury thing."

        How many more? Off the top of my head…

        Colin Moyle

        Chris Carter

        David Cunliffe

        Clare Curran

        Meteria Turei

        All have had their careers and/or mental health destroyed for being human, by braying crowds (from the left and right) led by National Party leaders.

        I hope Kiri Allan isn't next, and people on the left at least, keep a bit of empathy.

    • adam 4.3
      8 July 2023 at 2:40 pm

      More ratfucking from the tory's.

      If this is all you have got, then you can't lead a country, a household, or a pig farm.

  5. bwaghorn 5
    8 July 2023 at 2:54 pm

    https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132484575/something-national-wont-be-putting-back-on-track

    More passenger rail please.

    I'm going to Wellington early next year and thought I'm going to go down on the northern explorer!

    But if I did I'd have to stay for 2 nights as there isn't daily service from the central North Island.

  6. Dennis Frank 6
    8 July 2023 at 3:17 pm

    Media wars latest – Zuck grabs 70 million users:

    The power of Instagram: The overnight success of Threads is a testament both to the dissatisfaction with Musk’s ownership of Twitter and to the unique power and reach of one of Meta’s most important properties: Instagram. Instagram has more than two billion users, far more than the 238 million users Twitter reported having in the months before Musk took over.

    When new users sign up for Threads, which they do using an Instagram account, the app prompts them to follow all of their existing Instagram contacts with a single tap. It’s optional, but is easy to accept, and it takes a conscious decision to decline.

    By promoting Threads through Instagram, and by sharing Instagram user data with Threads to let people instantly recreate their social networks, Meta has significantly greased the onboarding process. That frictionless experience has allowed Threads to leapfrog what’s known in the industry as the “cold start” problem, in which a new platform struggles to gain new users because there are no other users there to attract them.

    Thanks to the Instagram integration, “that biggest problem, the chicken-egg problem, has been solved from the jump,” Reddit co-founder and venture investor Alexis Ohanian said in a video Thursday (posted on Threads). https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/07/tech/meta-social-media-dominance-threads/index.html

    Bit like jumping the board to catch the wave? Elon likely to be confounded, I suspect. His magic touch hasn't been in evidence since he took Twitter, & now this. However he has exhibited tremendous resilience which becomes evident if you read his biography.

  7. adam 7
    8 July 2023 at 3:26 pm

    Is it just me or has national jumped the shark?

    Luxton and Co. are so ideological at this point, they are making Marxist/Leninist's blush from their utter lack of rigidity and purity.

    All the talk of running the country like a business is just getting silly. Now they want ministers to act like as junior executives, to the PM being a CEO.

    Stripping people of basic work place rights is a given from this mob, making it impossible for average people to get ahead is high on the agenda as well.

    But the truly jumping the shark stuff is the putting community on the same level as business and asking them for input – ignoring they fact both have been doing that for years. The national party have lost the plot.

    No wonder all the do is ratfucking week in and week out.

    https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/national-reveals-approach-hospital

  8. Belladonna 8
    8 July 2023 at 4:18 pm

    This is a very once-over-lightly analysis – but, I thought, useful to highlight the potential swing-seats in the 2023 election (including my local MP).

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132370608/the-seats-that-could-decide-the-election-and-the-people-wanting-to-be-your-mps

    • Bearded Git 8.1
      8 July 2023 at 4:32 pm

      Who wins seats/electorates is largely irrelevant except for Akl Central, the Maori seats and possibly, though unlikely, a couple of others like Northland and Wellington Central.

      It is the party vote that counts.

      • Craig H 8.1.1
        8 July 2023 at 5:36 pm

        It has some impact on which list MPs enter Parliament for National and Labour though. Not relevant to overall numbers, but some relevance to the specific MPs who will make up Parliament.

  9. tWiggle 9
    8 July 2023 at 4:59 pm

    The UK Conservative government's anti-woke priorities: Minister tells asylum processing centre for children to paint over a mural of disney characters that make the place "too welcoming".

    Meanwhile, food and rents/mortgages rise, the seas and rivers are awash with sewage while private water companies have profited, and the UK economy suffers post-Brexit, the biggest example of cutting off your nose to spite your face I can think of.

    • Phillip ure 9.1
      8 July 2023 at 5:25 pm

      Speaking of cutting off noses/face-spiting..

      ..we can't ignore rogernomics..

      • tWiggle 9.1.1
        8 July 2023 at 8:12 pm

        No one in NZ voted in a referendum for rogernomics, it was thrust upon us.

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