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6:00 am, August 8th, 2024 - 53 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 …
File under 'Duh… That's obvious.'
For all the ranting against neo liberalism, wanting Labour to turn away from the dreadful ideological mindset, there is a deeper rot to counter.
In the ferry saga, Willis cites "officials". When Woods put the nail in the coffin of Marsden Point, "advisors" informed her decision.
Now Minister Jones is seeking advice from our free-market public service to address power pricing spikes. I can't see much changing.
Expect mysterious acts of arson against civic infrastructure in Kaipara in 3, 2, 1….
And of course, Northland has already discovered what a wrench and angle grinder can do in 20 minutes to a power pylon.
I am not sure if the Pakeha settler class quite grasps how many marginalised Maori are not as hung up as they are on law and order and following the "rules", especially the order bit.
Going down that path tends to hurt the people you want to help the most.
Why would we “Expect mysterious acts of arson against civic infrastructure…”
Also what is the “Pakeha settler class”, are they a class of undesirables in our society?
A class is any set of people with a common set of interests. Marxists go down some rabbit holes differentiating a class that inherently has shared interests from one that has inherently shared interests but is also aware that it does, and makes common cause among its members – but I'm ignoring that bit.
A Pakeha settler class would therefore be non-Maori that have benefited economically from and since the colonisation of NZ, does not want the indigeneity of Maori to have any legal or economic consequence but merely a cultural/ceremonial one, has an a-historic (non-historic?) view of the current distribution of wealth/power as natural and eternal, does not like the emergence of the Treaty since the 1980s from its long period of being regarded as a legal nullity, and strongly opposes the notion of indigenous rights in natural resources because they are a potential impediment to the ownership, extraction and ultimately exhaustion of those resources by the owners of capital.
So it's pretty clear what is is – and obviously if the cap fits, you can decline to wear it, but other people will notice. You'll also see that this definition makes it clear that not all Pakeha belong to this class. I therefore don't think there's anything particularly controversial about what Sanctuary says.
However, I don't think it's a useful categorisation politically in terms of persuading people to change their minds.
Okay, so it sounds like something a nice middle class white person would say in a disapproving manner, about another group of white people. To demonstrate how morally superior they are. Got it. I stay away from that sort of person.
My attempted description of the 'class' Sanctuary named was purely descriptive and contained no moral judgment at all. I also have friends/acquaintances who definitely fall into that class, and I would definitely not disapprove of them in any social interaction, but might agreeably disagree if the subject came up. Political analysis (however amateurish in my case) and social relations are different things.
That's silly stuff sanctuary.
The next elections are in 2025 I believe, the turnout in Kaipara last time around would've been as poor as most of the rest of NZ I suspect at less than 50%, if there is a large enough group who want the Maori ward then get active it shouldn't be too hard to vote in sympathetic councillors and get the decision overturned.
What will ensure that Maori wards in Kaipara wouldn't return is the kind of behaviour which you have suggested.
The Kaipara mayor very much epitomises a 'Pakeha settler class' mentality. Before the change in government he had real issues with Maori language and karakia in council meetings. Actually, he was quite rude, interrupting speakers to tell them to stop. Maori make up 25% of locals in the council area.
TikTok snippet on Kaipara Mayor's behaviour in a Council meeting last July.
While allowing Batchelor to address the Council when he approached him.
" Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson says he did not mislead his council when controversial figure Julian Batchelor, leader of the Stop Co-Governance movement, spoke at a meeting last month.
Northern Advocate 22 Aug 2023
Free speech for me, but not for thee.
'Pakeha settler class' ffs on my mothers side arrived 1870 on fathers side 1906
thats 154 years and 118 years ago I was born in Tauranga 65 years ago but to you am I 'Pakeha settler class'?
Way to get people's backs up pal . I suggest you call them what they are – bigoted racists! Leave the racial epithets out of it – you will get more support, unless of course you actually just want to promote more conflict…..
Yep – a lot of us come from solid working class backgrounds. My father's ancestors were displaced Scottish crofters who came here in 1848 with the Free Church migrants to Dunedin. One was a cabinet maker and his wife took in washing and made hats. They were regarded as the 'deserving poor" – suitable to work in the new settlement.
My mother's people on one side came from Ireland to Blackball to work in the mines, and my maternal grandmother came from Australia as a child with a friend of her mother's who was coming to the Waikato to be a "ladies' companion" to the wife of a wealthy farmer. My parents were the both the first in their families to get a tertiary education.
I see no insult in the phrase – it is purely descriptive. I have a similar background and my family undoubtedly benefited from the Waikato War. My grandfather made big bucks from dairy farming in Te Awamutu. The complicating factor is that he and his 4 brothers married local Mãori women!
And before that, *his* grandfather was one of the first settlers to Puhoi that relied on Māori kindness for their survival. Without the local chief bringing food up the Puhoi river every few days they would have starved on their allotment of dense native bush.
He waka eke noa.
I see no insult in the phrase – it is purely descriptive
Yet no one speaks of
Maori settler class or
Pacifica settler class or
Asian settler class……
I perceive 'Pakeha settler class' as an insult
Nonsense. We are "Tangata Tiriti" and as long as Te Tiriti is honoured we all have a place in Aotearoa.
The “settler class” probably refers to the troglodytes of the Right who still suffer a colonial mindset.
Anyway, a few words are nothing compared to having 95% of your country stolen from you.
The irony is that before Kaipara established a Maori ward, 2 of their 9 councillors were Maori. After the Maori ward was established they had only 1 Maori councillor.
Perhaps these clowns will strike again. Or they may still be getting over their burns.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350369824/video-shows-alleged-arsonists-fire-after-auckland-barbershop-break
This is the sort of damage targetted at businesses you see when criminal organisations move into protectionist rackets.
Or sometimes, it’s a spate of insurance frauds. I seem to remember Greek-owned restaurants burned down with suspicious frequency in Wellington in the 70’s. We didn’t have the criminal infrastructure then for strong-arming businesses for ‘protecting’ them from fire, though.
In Auckland plenty of Barbershops are a front to launder meth money. I'll bet it's got something to do with a debt real or perceived along the line that or simple rivalry.
Yip had my hair cut in whanganui awhile back by some likely looking boys , another good reason to do away with cash.
Really? Do tell….
Well if you were to look at appointment books they're doing a helluva lot of $50 fades.
Prices are always neat round numbers multiples of $20 and $50… they're a pretty good cash business.
IRD has very powerful computer systems for income analysis. It will have them on their radar.
The taxman can also exchange information with Customs, NZ Police etc.
Perhaps, but there is nowhere near the capacity to actually do much about it as they are small scale so very low down the pecking order.
The volumes of meth and now cocaine that are coming in are staggering, Tauranga port is so bad customs are setting up a dedicated team more or less onsite to try and make a dent in it.
And I suppose they're staffed by bros with neck tattoos, too..
/
Not a mention from Minister Jones about subsidising solar power and grid battery storage in his rant on RadioNZ's Morning Report today.
Meanwhile California, Texas and Australia (30% of houses with solar; NZ 2% with solar) are investing massively in this obvious solution to low lake levels in NZ.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/25/california-achieves-major-clean-energy-victory-10000-megawatts-of-battery-storage/
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/how-texas-became-the-hottest-battery-market-in-the-country-energy-storage
https://www.energy-storage.news/australia-installed-2-5gwh-of-battery-storage-in-record-breaking-year-of-the-big-battery/
I find it astonishing that there hasn't been a regulated requirement/incentives for all new builds (and existing social housing) for passive heating and/or solar panels.
+100 higher….Labour, the Greens and TPM need to talk to each other about this
Did you expect any ? Reality is the Jones blowhard dislikes any
thing Green…Sustainable.The RNZ headline looked slightly promising…but I should have known better..
And there it was…
Major users. Like rio tinto?
Jones and his NACT1 cronies are only interested in fast tracking profits..and profitable (for them) future connections.
I'm for using renewable energy – wind etc. But, do California, Texas and Aussie have more sunshine than NZ? Is that a factor?
Many places in NZ are ideal for solar (passive, active, hot water). It's not an issue of sunshine hours. Jones is a product of the industrial 20th century and can't see the sun apparently.
Thanks. Good to know that NZ can benefit from more use of solar panels. I'm no fan of Jones.
from a deep green perspective, it's still problematic, because active solar (panels, batteries, transmission etc) takes a lot of non-renewable resources.
Passive solar is designing houses (or retrofitting them) so that they don't need so much power in the first place. Smaller houses, better aspect to the sun over the seasons, much better insulation, curtains and pelmets, that kind of stuff. There's some well developed tech that hasn't really gotten into the mainstream yet.
All of that can then be backed up by renewable generation (local and/or centralised).
I would say they have more even sun hours year-round and more even use of electricity year-round from being closer to the equator i.e. more daylight hours in winter and the need for air conditioning in summer. NZ has fewer day light hours in winter when we need electricity for heating and excess solar production in summer because we don't have (or really need) air conditioning in homes.
Rio Tinto is on a fixed price multi year deal I dont think it has to dip into the spot market.
The timber processing companies crying into their sawdust need their arses kicked, it is a simple, albeit probably not cheap in the short run, process to produce electricity from wood waste. Just bad management and shortermism profit grabbing them on the same arse that needs kicking.
You say that like you dont know their previous standover tactics history ?
Either way they should pay the true cost of their power
Lisa Owen interviewed the chair of Open Country Dairy, Laurie Margrain on Checkpoint last night. He started with a long whinge about power prices. Owen then asked him an excellent question (paraphrasing): "what proportion of your costs are electricity" to which he answered something like "I don't have those numbers". In fact he had no idea. (Owen should then have said "you are blaming power prices but you have no idea what they are" but in her usual style she moved on)
Power costs as a percentage of all costs are not likely to be huge (perhaps 10%) after materials, staff costs, machinery, buildings, repairs and maintenance, payroll and accounting, insurance, vehicles etc etc.
Speculation here: If power prices have gone up ON AVERAGE 30% this year that adds just 3% to production costs. If your business can't handle that, and there is usually the option to put up prices to cover cost rises, then you don't have a viable business.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018950177/nz-s-unreliable-energy-market-putting-investors-off
Yep, but a lot of those businesses are like the timber mills, competing against heavily subsidized overseas based interests so survival is a fine line. If the owners give up and they close the factories down what happens to the workers and the small towns that rely on them?
If a 3% increase in costs and there is no ability to put up prices a few per cent you haven't got a viable business in the first place. They are making excuses.
New post up
https://thestandard.org.nz/english-rising-anti-fascism/
My mother's people likewise came from Scotland, 1860s, owed their passage on arrival. Got land easily from the displacement of Māori, and within a generation had gone from farmhands to immigrants to land owning farmers. The boys did better financially than the girls down the line of course.
I was raised middle class, but when I talked with my mother about it, she found it weird because her parents considered themselves working class despite being landowning farmers (my Dad's family were definitely upper middle class though).
After crying the Maori wolf is coming for our water (and Foreshore and Seabed)(and indigenous peoplke co-governance)(and Treaty partnership)(and Waitangi Tribunal activism in protection of Article 2 TOW promises), National has identified what its water plan is.
It is enabling both more debt for council owned water service and lower water standards. This can allow deferring the up front cost to council of water infrastructure investment. Also a two tier water quality system based on local affordability (political expediency as to the scale of risk involved)
This is all separate to the Auckland
modelspecial case.More debt still requires the ratepayer base to pay the debt back (higher rates) or a higher water charge (easier to on-sell to a water corporate).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350371284/what-will-replace-three-waters-government-unveils-new-water-plan
Heartening to see the massive support by British people turning out to protect asylum centres and other targets identified by anti-migrant rioters.
Last night my GF (half English) was so upset about the riots & racism & it was so nice to wake up to this news & show her the absolute MASSIVE anti fascist marches.
& above regarding the Pakeha Settler class, "meh" to being called the term, I always feel those terms, if you think you aren't part of the Pakeha Settler class then don't be offended, it only offends if it means anything, "if the hat fits" so to speak. My ancestors were Irish Fencibles (given stolen land for fighting Maori) & also Croatian gum diggers (inter marrying with northern Maori). This country is complicated, but surely we can accept the privilege of being Pakeha in NZ/Aotearoa.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/08/nz-pm-takes-swipe-at-australians-after-maori-language-removed-from-official-letter
Clutson calls Australians simple, !!
Like our PM is capable of being anything other than incredibly simple.
WOW our PM is now an open racist c&^(&^*%
Whom does the government serve? Whose pain is their pain?
How does the market ration a scarce resource? By either price or privilege.
If business get all the power they want, then this means power supply cuts to households.
This government told us the Onslow dam to deal with dry years was not required as they had other options. What plans to get there and how long away is this?
How much power is the smelter taking atm …
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/shane-jones-accuses-big-power-companies-of-profiteering/FCADAGO2QBCYBGKOMH2T4WY26Y/
Great display of acting this morning on Morning Report by Shane Jones, the Regional development minister.
The media acted as his cheerleaders when he did a well rehearsed rant on the generator/retailers of power.
What puzzled me was his numerous references to employees in Raetahi
Then it came to me, he has money involved in a business in Raetahi, one of his regional development schemes, no doubt.
So folks, Shane Jones doesn't give a continental that your power prices are too high, he is worried that he won't get a return on his investment.
That is it!
He is not known as the Minister for Pork Barrels for nothing.
Plus he didn't mention anything about how Rio Tinto use something like 25% of the country's electricity and pay very low rates for it.
Plus he didn't mention how his government cancelled a hydro electric storage battery project at Lake Onslow that would have mitigated future seasonal power shortages.
Filling potholes in the roads is obviously more important than making sure the country has enough electrical power.
Probably best Russia cedes Kursk for the sake of peace.
/
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/524485/state-of-emergency-declared-as-ukraine-launches-raid-into-russia
If they can get to the table.