Open mike 08/08/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 8th, 2024 - 53 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

53 comments on “Open mike 08/08/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. gsays 1
    8 August 2024 at 7:31 am

    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.

  2. Sanctuary 2
    8 August 2024 at 8:13 am

    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.

    • Cricklewood 2.1
      8 August 2024 at 9:21 am

      Going down that path tends to hurt the people you want to help the most.

    • David 2.2
      8 August 2024 at 9:57 am

      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?

      • AB 2.2.1
        8 August 2024 at 12:27 pm

        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.

        • David 2.2.1.1
          8 August 2024 at 1:28 pm

          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.

          • AB 2.2.1.1.1
            8 August 2024 at 5:20 pm

            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.

    • higherstandard 2.3
      8 August 2024 at 10:15 am

      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.

      • tWig 2.3.1
        8 August 2024 at 10:41 am

        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.

          • tWig 2.3.1.1.1
            8 August 2024 at 10:49 am

            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.

          • Barfly 2.3.1.1.2
            8 August 2024 at 11:38 am

            '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…..

            • Visubversa 2.3.1.1.2.1
              8 August 2024 at 11:49 am

              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.

            • roblogic 2.3.1.1.2.2
              8 August 2024 at 6:30 pm

              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.

              • Barfly …
                8 August 2024 at 10:36 pm

                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

                • roblogic …
                  8 August 2024 at 10:59 pm

                  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.

        • Perplu 2.3.1.2
          8 August 2024 at 11:21 am

          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.

    • Jimmy 2.4
      8 August 2024 at 12:05 pm

      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

      • tWig 2.4.1
        8 August 2024 at 12:28 pm

        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.

        • Cricklewood 2.4.1.1
          8 August 2024 at 2:02 pm

          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.

          • bwaghorn 2.4.1.1.1
            8 August 2024 at 5:47 pm

            Yip had my hair cut in whanganui awhile back by some likely looking boys , another good reason to do away with cash.

          • joe90 2.4.1.1.2
            8 August 2024 at 6:08 pm

            In Auckland plenty of Barbershops are a front to launder meth money.

            Really? Do tell….

            • Cricklewood 2.4.1.1.2.1
              8 August 2024 at 9:08 pm

              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.

              • Hunter Thompson II …
                9 August 2024 at 10:09 am

                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.

                • Cricklewood …
                  9 August 2024 at 10:23 am

                  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.

              • joe90 …
                11 August 2024 at 6:58 pm

                they're a pretty good cash business.

                And I suppose they're staffed by bros with neck tattoos, too..

                /

  3. Bearded Git 3
    8 August 2024 at 10:04 am

    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/

    • higherstandard 3.1
      8 August 2024 at 10:18 am

      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.

      • Bearded Git 3.1.1
        8 August 2024 at 10:32 am

        +100 higher….Labour, the Greens and TPM need to talk to each other about this

        • Barfly 3.1.1.1
          8 August 2024 at 11:41 am

          yes Yes and it has to be Labour, the Greens and TPM because the RW won't touch anything that will benefit the general population.

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 3.2
      8 August 2024 at 10:27 am

      Did you expect any ? Reality is the Jones blowhard dislikes anything Green …Sustainable.

      The RNZ headline looked slightly promising…but I should have known better..

      Shane Jones accuses big power companies of profiteering

      And there it was…

      A senior government minister says the government is exploring the option of intervening into the electricity market to force major energy generators to cut prices to major users.

      Major users. Like rio tinto?

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/524482/shane-jones-accuses-big-power-companies-of-profiteering

      Jones and his NACT1 cronies are only interested in fast tracking profits..and profitable (for them) future connections.

    • Karolyn_IS 3.3
      8 August 2024 at 10:58 am

      I'm for using renewable energy – wind etc. But, do California, Texas and Aussie have more sunshine than NZ? Is that a factor?

      • weka 3.3.1
        8 August 2024 at 11:08 am

        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.

        • Karolyn_IS 3.3.1.1
          8 August 2024 at 11:12 am

          Thanks. Good to know that NZ can benefit from more use of solar panels. I'm no fan of Jones.

          • weka 3.3.1.1.1
            8 August 2024 at 11:18 am

            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).

      • mpledger 3.3.2
        9 August 2024 at 9:22 am

        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.

  4. Adrian 4
    8 August 2024 at 10:49 am

    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.

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 4.1
      8 August 2024 at 11:03 am

      Rio Tinto is on a fixed price multi year deal I dont think it has to dip into the spot market.

      You say that like you dont know their previous standover tactics history ?

      Either way they should pay the true cost of their power

      Greenpeace Aotearoa director Russel Norman said the plant owner, Rio Tinto, received a "sweetheart deal" for the smelter, which uses about 13 percent of the country's electricity.

      "The electricity companies love having Rio Tinto on the grid because it increases demand, and that means we have to fire up the coal units and that means every generator in the country gets paid a much higher rate by having Rio Tinto in the demand."

      He said modelling revealed the closure of the Tīwai Point smelter could have led to lower electricity prices and a greater use of renewable energy.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/518418/new-tiwai-point-deal-could-reinforce-coal-use-for-electricity-greenpeace

    • Bearded Git 4.2
      8 August 2024 at 3:30 pm

      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

      • Cricklewood 4.2.1
        8 August 2024 at 9:13 pm

        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?

        • Bearded Git 4.2.1.1
          9 August 2024 at 4:18 pm

          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.

  6. weka 6
    8 August 2024 at 12:06 pm

    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).

  7. SPC 7
    8 August 2024 at 12:18 pm

    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.

    Brown had committed to a new reform package, called “Local Water Done Well”, which asked councils to amalgamate water services with their neighbours to create cost efficiencies for ratepayers, while also creating water providers with the scale to fix ageing and unsafe drinking, waste and stormwater systems to new standards.

    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)

    Debt financing for these water providers would be provided by the Local Government Funding Agency, allowing for a greater debt-to-revenue ratio, at 500%, for the water providers, compared to the more limited debt allowed under current council-controlled organisations.

    Water standards will also adjusted to be “proportionate” to the scale and risk posed, in a bid to ease the cost to improving water services and infrastructure.

    This is all separate to the Auckland model special case.

    Auckland was deemed a special case, considering its size. The Government agreed with Auckland Council in May to financially separate council-controlled Watercare from the council, in order to allow it to raise further debt without weighing down the council’s credit rating and increase its borrowing costs.

    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

  8. tWig 8
    8 August 2024 at 12:24 pm

    Heartening to see the massive support by British people turning out to protect asylum centres and other targets identified by anti-migrant rioters.

    • I Feel Love 8.1
      8 August 2024 at 4:09 pm

      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.

  10. SPC 10
    8 August 2024 at 12:40 pm

    Whom does the government serve? Whose pain is their pain?

    A senior Government minister says the Government is exploring the option of intervening into the electricity market to force major energy generators to cut prices to major users.

    Wholesale power prices have doubled in the past three weeks, in part because of the country’s hydro lakes storage which is about 57% of what it would normally be at this time of year.

    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/

  11. Mike the Lefty 11
    8 August 2024 at 1:22 pm

    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.