Open mike 09/12/2020

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 9th, 2020 - 45 comments
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45 comments on “Open mike 09/12/2020 ”

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  1. NOEL 1
    9 December 2020 at 6:48 am

    Ploughing through the report.

    "We were told it was important that New Zealanders understand what social cohesion means for democracy and what everyone can do to embrace ethnic and religious communities and promote social cohesion"

    Aw… can't I tell the bible bashers arriving unvited at my doorstep to p### off anymore?

    On the diversity issue not sure what use increasing ethnic operatives would achieve when the issue is redneck white boys.

    DPMC and Andrew Little avoided criticism given they didn't seem to know what they wanted of their agencies.

    • Treetop 1.1
      9 December 2020 at 7:15 am

      Until meaningful change occurs with broken down systems those caught up in the broken system are being harmed by it.

    • Ad 1.2
      9 December 2020 at 8:15 am

      For someone who doesn't like Christians, you have one of the most Christian names there is.

    • Red Blooded One 1.3
      9 December 2020 at 8:34 am

      Perhaps those pesky bloody doorstep bible bashers won't be able to, as some of their publications I would consider hate speech. Good riddance to them. I notice the "Witnesses" have gone to ground in the Far North lately, busy trying to hide their International Pedo Enquires maybe?

  2. Ad 2
    9 December 2020 at 7:33 am

    Someone fire the Ports of Auckland board and CE.

    Multiple deaths, undermines Mayor, opposes Americas Cup raceways, opposes any ports shift, fails at automation, retailers fucked off, ships turned away, no staff to do work.

    Fire their asses Mayor.

    • Barfly 2.1
      9 December 2020 at 8:02 am

      I don't think he can ….can he? (f u Rodney Hide)

      • Ad 2.1.1
        9 December 2020 at 8:13 am

        Ports of Auckland is 100% owned by Auckland Council. The Ports reps appeared before Council yesterday.

        So far Goff in his governance role has managed to force out the CE of Watercare, and merged ATEED and Facilities, and has formed two large partnerships with central government in the big commercial alliances.

        So he can actually make the moves.

        But he really needs to show some muscle with Ports. They are running game against him.

        • Stunned Mullet 2.1.1.1
          9 December 2020 at 9:32 am

          Pity the poor Auckland ratepayers..

          Len Brown and now Phil Goff tossers both of them and there's no one of any merit looking likely to run in the next elections, not that anyone seems to bother voting.

          I hope the ghost of dear old Penny Bright haunts the crap out of the lot of them.

    • RedLogix 2.3
      9 December 2020 at 11:53 am

      Multiple deaths

      The 12hr night shifts are the killer. I'm familiar with them from my own working life, there is nothing good about them for any number of reasons; physical and mental health, the high cost to family and social life, plus of course the obvious safety issues with people working in a high risk environment while fatigued.

      A big review and updated regulation around working hours and shift conditions is something well within the reach of this government.

      fails at automation

      It's entirely normal for large and complex new automation installations to experience 6 – 18 months of commissioning issues of varying significance. Need more information before calling it out as a 'fail'.

      • RobbieWgtn 2.3.1
        9 December 2020 at 12:57 pm

        I managed shift workers for many years: 6hr, 8hr, 12hr, fixed & rotating, 4d, 5d, 6d. 95% of shift workers prefer fixed shift hours whether day or night to suit their personal body rhythm. It's always the shift change that really knocks their health.

        One plant moved to a 3day/37.5 hour shift structure (12.5hr shifts including 30min handover overlap for 24hr continuous operations) for wage paid staff which proved very popular, as staff then had 3d on/4d off. This factory went well over a decade without a LTA.

        I was also responsible for major capital investment works for many years, including automation projects. 6-18 months of "commissioning issues" would have seen many people sacked, including myself & the factory closed down. That was the private sector where failure to meet customer demand simply means your competitors get the business. PoA & other quasi taxpayer/ratepayer funded monopoly organisations just sting their customers & stakeholders more for their incompetence.

        • RedLogix 2.3.1.1
          9 December 2020 at 3:31 pm

          It's always the shift change that really knocks their health.

          Absolutely. And perhaps this preference should be more clearly expressed in the legislation. Even so, if someone is going to do a 12hr night shift, unless they totally give up all daylight activity socially, they're still going to get their body clocks knocked about.

          6-18 months of "commissioning issues" would have seen many people sacked, including myself & the factory closed down.

          As I said, of varying significance … most 'issues' will have virtually no real impact on production, and are effectively small upgrades as operating experience kicks in. (It depends also a bit on the industry, mining plant for instance is especially rough to get going well.)

          But it's real easy for outsiders with an agenda to misrepresent them as more serious than they really are. I can only think of one large scale project that I knew of which could be described as a 'fail', and that was 20yrs ago now.

          For this reason I'd like to know more about this story before calling it.

  3. Ad 3
    9 December 2020 at 8:09 am

    This AustralianSuperFund proposed takeover of Infratil is close-to as bad as the entire Key government asset sale programme.

    If it is successful – and at a 28% share price premium it is exceedingly attractive – the Australians will own all of Vodafone, all of TrustPower's assets, a majority of Wellington Airport, some major data hubs, in fact a serious list of our public assets remaining in public hands.

    A simple test of this government is whether it can put some muscle into ACC who own a chunk of Infratil.

    My expectation will be that this Government and in particular Robertson will find sound reasons to say that intervention was too hard.

    • RedBaronCV 3.1
      9 December 2020 at 11:03 am

      That's a serious list of assets – basic services and the telco and power assets in oligopoly type situations. Both power and telco assets in this country could do with some serious rationalisation – rather than the going to the aussies can some of this stuff be sold to say the super fund? To kick start the process – although we run the risk of paying the monopoly premium.

      • greywarshark 3.1.1
        9 December 2020 at 9:02 pm

        Robertson looks like a flabby, fat, self-satisfied pussy. And just watch him live up to that. I saw Bryan Gould giving him a bit of praise the other day but that is giving him the Dale Carnegie treatment, and Gould is so supportive of conservative systems that he would be hard put to openly find fault. He did tentatively suggest an Investment Bank for NZ though. If Robertson did something eventually everything would be sold and we wouldn't be able to afford to buy them back. Bottled inertia for sale here, cheap hot air, good for blowing up balloons for Christmas parties.

    • tc 3.2
      9 December 2020 at 12:00 pm

      We've also just sold 20% of the fibre rollout to an Ozzie fund who already own our natural gas network which had Rockgas added to as sold from contact energy approved late 2018.

      Kiwi infrastructure, going once, twice sold to the next banksta.

      One should also be questioning Aus Super as they invest in top 300 ASX listed entities on behalf of the super fund so wtf are they taking it over as this isn't their business model.

      It has a whiff to it IMO.

      • RedBaronCV 3.2.1
        9 December 2020 at 5:23 pm

        The fibre rollout – didn't us taxpayers fund that? And no wonder my gas is so expensive. Time for a serious regulator for these infrastructure assets plus declaring them as strategic assets and subject to the TOW.

        BTW do you think the Aussie super fund has disposal agreements for some of the infratil assets already. But we need to get the stuff out of overseas hands, The lines company in Wgtn has been owned overseas for years now.

  4. Ad 4
    9 December 2020 at 8:22 am

    How many tonnes of Karma have landed in Trump's legal team actually collapsing due to being infected with Covid19?

    The 15 million US infected and damaged and bereaved of the 290,000 dead I am sure can see it.

  5. mango 5
    9 December 2020 at 9:36 am

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512

    Something to read as per Weka's powerdown/degrowth posts.

    • RedLogix 5.1
      9 December 2020 at 9:56 am

      Ta … at first scan it looks interesting and highly pertinent to our discussion earlier.

      Cheers

    • RedLogix 5.2
      9 December 2020 at 12:28 pm
      1. The authors of this study admit:

      In comparison to other studies estimating future final energy demand, our DLE estimates are remarkably low, with global final energy consumption at 149 EJ in 2050 or 15.3 GJ/cap/yr). This is over 60% lower than current consumption (despite the 2050 population being ~30% larger than the present day);

      This implies that their DLE (Decent Living Energy) is set at a very modest level indeed. What exactly would be the global appetite for this, forever into our future?

      2. On the supply side they make this very simple assumption:

      Currently, only 17% of global final energy consumption is from non-fossil fuel sources

      And only roughly two thirds of that is coming from SWB renewables. Worse still this is only the aggregate for the whole year, but currently their intermittency means this is nowhere near enough to provide 100% of all energy at all times for a whole year.

      3. On top of this time problem, SWB's have a geography problem. The best places to generate SWB energy are not where most people live.

      Combined these three simple (and fundamental considerations) mean that the gap between where we are at present, and need to be by 2050 is much larger than the authors imply.

      This doesn't negate the value and interest in the paper, I found it well worth the time to read, but on close reading, even the authors are implicitly acknowledging the very real difficulties involved in achieving their vision.

      • Ad 5.2.1
        9 December 2020 at 2:36 pm

        Red whatever happened to ceramic cables with zero heat loss for high voltage transmission?

        I thought that was going to be like, a thing, for distributed energy for fat solar and wind farms?

        • RedLogix 5.2.1.1
          9 December 2020 at 3:43 pm

          Yup that would go a long way to helping. Realistically however I can't see the politics of this working for at least another 3 – 6 decades.

          • Ad 5.2.1.1.1
            9 December 2020 at 8:42 pm

            Transpower sure has a lot to answer for.

            There was an inquiry back in 2017 into modernising Australia's electricity grid, but we are so well overdue the same here.

  7. halfcrown 7
    9 December 2020 at 1:35 pm

    Being a cynic to me Global warming was not all caused by us humans and 80% could be put down to natural causes.

    I have recently seen a programme on Australian ABC Network about the aftermath of those devastating bush fires in Australia. The programme is called “Wild Australia After the Fires”

    I am now a convert and we have got to start like last week ways and means to save this only spaceship we live on called Earth. One of the things that came out in this docu was the devasting effects introduced species has on the local Fauna. One commentator said because of the introduced domestic cat that has gone feral and the Fox a lot of the small animals that used to keep the forest floor clean of debris are now extinct through the introduction. This is one of the causes of the bushfires, a massive build-up of forest debris on the ground that is very volatile and liable to burst into flames at the next lightning strike or some snot who thinks it is “fun” to start fires.

    The saddest part in this doco was a lot of good people were doing their utmost for the survivors and monitoring to see how species had faired. One commented, (my words cannot remember exactly what he said) “Whatever they do because of Global Warming and introduced species they cannot stop it from happening again, that is the big catastrophic bush fires like the ones this last OZ summer, not the normal bush fires the OZ bush needs to germinate seeds and clear some debris.

    Too many of these massive bush fires and I can see the Oz bush completely wiped out. I feel sad over that having travelled the outback with great photographic areas like Halls Gap.

    I feel with any future global warming legislation etc, there must look at the devastating effects introduced species have caused to the local fauna of any country. and rules will have to be introduced to control any introduced species

    I won’t hold my breath though for anything to be done, action will only start when it hurts the pockets of some fat cat. Then it will be too late, if not now.

    That’s my rant for the year, but I would like to add as a thicky I enjoy the high standard of intelligent debate on here even if I don’t agree with it at times, far superior to the MSM which I now class as pathetic juvenile drivel which I avoid reading and watching and come here for keeping myself informed, a decent review and views on a lot of subjects.

    So, to all you contributors to this site Compliments of the season.

  8. In Vino 8
    9 December 2020 at 1:41 pm

    In a café this morning (I never buy the Herald) I read what I thought was a good piece by Aliya Danzeisen critiquing the Mosque attack report. No link, sorry – I cannot find it on the Herald website.

    Main points included: Terms of Reference of the Inquiry were unduly limited; much information was withheld on grounds of it being 'sensitive' in one way or another, and all this secret info is to remain secret for another 30 years. Consequently, the report fails to answer many of the questions it should.

    If she is right, surely this makes the report yet another whitewash, unworthy of a civilised country?

      • greywarshark 8.1.1
        9 December 2020 at 4:53 pm

        If she is right, surely this makes the report yet another whitewash, unworthy of a civilised country?

        We have to face it I think, that the machinations of the very people that used to warn against us being a banana republic because they couldn't get something that was available in some bigger fully developed country, have brought that very result to us.

      • In Vino 8.1.2
        9 December 2020 at 5:28 pm

        Thanks, Pat – that is not the Herald article I read, but it is equally good to my mind.

    • Ad 8.2
      9 December 2020 at 2:41 pm

      If I wasn't neck deep in bids I'd do something on the implied failings of the collective intelligence community on this.

      Our spy team were fine going hard out with their Five Eyes partners putting out a media release that pissed off China two weeks ago, but when it comes to institutional reform in their own back yard after a genuine terrorist massacre they all clam up and there's no recommendations for reforming them anywhere.

      Instead as Bomber notes it's a whole lot of feelgood Woke claptrap about encouraging and loving and training and forming a little micro-Ministry etc etc.

      It’s begging for a Nicky Hagar book on the Commission’s absences all by itself.

    • Whispering Kate 8.3
      9 December 2020 at 4:14 pm

      It is like most reports or Commissions of Enquiry, either the terms of reference are too narrow or the recommendations are not acted on. Complete waste of money. The latest Welfare Enquiry is so disheartening that it may as well not been commissioned. Waste of Space all of them. The Mosque Attack Report is a classic example In Vino and I agree with you.

      • Psych Nurse 8.3.1
        9 December 2020 at 6:35 pm

        What gets me is ignoring that some people in our community knew the attack was about to happen. There is no mention of this in the report. An individual well known for his views in the Canterbury area had sporadic contact with an individual I know of but frequent phone calls on the day of the attacks and this individual was waiting in front of the TV for the event to unfold, information that was forwarded to police.

      • Treetop 8.3.2
        9 December 2020 at 10:17 pm

        The one thing I want the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care to answer is:

        Why does Sonja Cooper have 1400 clients still waiting for final settlement?

        Cooper Law only takes clients who were in state care. Some cases take years to settle and claimants are aging. Cooper is doing a remarkable job to get compensation for her clients through the sick ACC system for mental injury.

        I got a list of 22 lawyers recently from Way Finders (they assist on navigating ACC, they are not lawyers) only 2 on the list of 22 accept legal aid. Maybe my above question is partly answered, the cost to settle and covering claimants properly is another reason for the stale mate.

  9. greywarshark 9
    9 December 2020 at 5:49 pm

    If we don't want to be surveilled and run by AI and other tech from the air, at ground level too, do we have a chance of deciding against these inventions, these machines which destroy our planet and our way of life? Or are our addicted government and business controllers presenting us with the end of our chance to be self-determining beings whether or no? Could we have to go underground for freedom from the dominant?

    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC2012/S00017/dawn-aerospace-licensed-to-fly-nzs-first-spaceplane.htm

    In a world-first, the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has granted Dawn Aerospace an Unmanned Aircraft Operator Certificate to fly a suborbital spaceplane from a conventional airport.

    Authorised under Civil Aviation Rule Part 102, Dawn is setting a new precedent for how we access space. Presently, flights will operate without the need for restricted airspace, proving the worlds of spaceflight and civil aviation can fly in harmony.

    I mention John Christopher’s imaginings in his books – especially the trilogy called Sword of the Spirits.
    Can get on Trademe – John Christopher books –
    Listing #: 289532996

  10. greywarshark 10
    9 December 2020 at 6:28 pm

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/432490/life-sentence-for-murder-of-australian-tourist-sean-mckinnon

    Two of McKinnon's sisters were in court to give victim impact statements and other family members were on video link from Australia.

    What is the object of having victim impact statements? Is the perpetrator supposed to have a change of heart and his/her callousness and self-centredness be washed away? It is bad enough to read about the crime and hear all about it, and whether the person was loved or not, was good or not, the crime against them has been committed. The grief that is felt being trotted out to everyone just makes a spectacle, a drama of the tragedy.

    And how repetitive the statements are. People listening can understand the private grief but not share it, and it is often said that the person will eventually be out of prison to live the rest of their lives, but the dead person has been cruelly robbed of his or hers for ever. It is true and awful but becomes a cliche'. I think we should stop this practice, it serves no useful purpose.

    • Phillip ure 10.1
      9 December 2020 at 9:59 pm

      ..don't think they are for you grey..

      ..they are for the victims of crime..

      ..to give them their voice..

      ..and if it helps them..

      ..how can you possibly have a beef about that..?

      ..as i said..it isn't all about you..