Open mike 10/06/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 10th, 2023 - 52 comments
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For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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52 comments on “Open mike 10/06/2023 ”

  1. tWiggle 1

    Boris Johnson resigns as MP when Privileges Committee censures him

    His adoring lapdog Nadine Dorries also resigns.

    Boris did get his list of 7 peers through, including Partygate aides. Nadine got dropped off the initial list, though.

    It'll be very interesting to see the by-election results. Johnson is having a go at Sunak to shake his support. However, I think many Conservative MPs will want to eke out another years pay before their inevitable defeat in 2024, so a snap election is not on the cards.

  2. Ad 2

    The reaction from parents at my work about the latest round of teachers strikes is incandescent rage.

    It's really starting to look like the PPTA are essentially election-dealing: unless you give us even more money, we won't vote en masse for you.

    This is essentially lifeboat morality: the ship is going down grab what you can and damn everyone else.

    • The Chairman 2.1

      The reaction from parents at my work about the latest round of teachers strikes is incandescent rage.

      Who was the rage directed at?

    • Johnr 2.2

      Yes, this generation of parents aren't conditioned to union activities as per the 50s, 60s, 70s.

    • Jack 2.3

      Yep, almost as if the PPTA has its hands over its ears and eyes closed shut, completely oblivious to what is going on in the world around them such that they can’t see the very generous offer in front of them “lah lah lah”

      • In Vino 2.3.1

        Generous? Rubbish! Teachers have learnt the hard way that settlements cooked up to look generous by means of one-off payments and percentage dribbles spread out over three years don't actually beat inflation, and leave the profession worse off in terms of pay and conditions, with ever-worsening staff shortages.

        The teachers' conditions of work are basically your children's conditions of learning, and there are plenty of people who understand this.

        • Jack 2.3.1.1

          You sound completely oblivious to the growing public anger building around you. No worries. Hold out for a few short months and the new government will have a new offer for you to really boost pay … for some … based on performance

          • Gabby 2.3.1.1.1

            A natty government would quickly get back to its core business of driving down wages and cutting tax on the rich. Let's see how the glowy parents like them apples.

        • Stephen 2.3.1.2

          I’m with IV, our salary has eroded in comparison with other professions over the years.
          The starting salary for a beginning teacher is around $48000, a nurse $65000. And you wonder why it’s hard to attract graduates to teach.

          • Jack 2.3.1.2.1

            Our family straddle both professions with a registered teacher and a registered nurse and two kids respectively in primary and intermediate. Frankly teaching unions are holding you back in a 1970s mentality. We want we want. Screw the students needs. The nurses, still largely unionised, have a wider mindset – supporting good pay and conditions but also aware of what’s going on in the wider world, patient needs and the like. So the nurses move forward … yes more can always be done, but we move forward.

            • In Vino 2.3.1.2.1.1

              Jack – you have no understanding at all of teachers. "Screw the students (sic) needs." Yes, that is why people go teaching… (sarc)

              You can't even use apostrophes when needed, yet you pretentiously claim to tell tell us which unions are almost tolerable. Stupid.

              I suggest that you crawl back under your right-wing rock.

          • Patricia Bremner 2.3.1.2.2

            Salaries did not move much in the past. PPTA were always paid about 10% more than Primary on basic salary. Teachers were up to 2017 fighting school closures and curriculum straight jackets, followed by the "one size fits all" mentality of tick box teaching and testing, vanishing assistance from support staff and Specialist Teaches. The vanishing Visiting Teachers (Attendance), loss of sick leave, lump sums which did not add to the salary for superannuation….. Oh and release time to prepare , breaks which were not sport duty in the playground first aid or meetings,,,,

            then there was the diminishing pay!!!!! Last on the list.crying

            Teachers were shafted for years, and some wonder why the whole system needed an overhaul which Labour and the Greens have started. Catching up the pay is a huge problem for retention… and inflation. $20 000*??

            We used to have salaries commensurate with Nurses and Police.

    • Cricklewood 2.4

      Yep, i'm furious my daughter has already missed heaps of school with covid lockdowns etc and now it continues with industrial action. NCEA exams next week and rostered home 2 of the days instead of preperation in class for what are her first real exam based assesment at year 11. Not to mention the chaos and with work and lost income etc.

    • Peter 2.5

      The next teacher agreement negotiations are almost certain to be with a Nat/Act government. Am I to expect all those unhappy with the events now under a Labour government to be all aboard with the NZEI and PPTA next time round saying, "Teachers are precious, give them what they want"?

      • Roy Cartland 2.5.1

        Ridiculous.

        There will be no nego with NAT/ACT, if they slope into govt.

        They'll conduct kangaroo talks in bad faith, if at all; run down the public system through further underfunding; and install private, international-focussed "education" institutions which teach to some AI-generated test and leech money off the state.

        • tWiggle 2.5.1.1

          Don't forget charter schools and academies. Both UK and Oz went this way in the past 10 years. Now their education systems are 2-tier public/private, with public education lagging far behind. No need for an educated electorate!

      • In Vino 2.5.2

        No, you cannot expect that. The media will always make the teacher unions look like they have no regard for the public, while the only lever teachers have is to strike and inconvenience the public.

        The govt is not there for the overall good of the public, but rather to protect the rich.

        'Teachers are precious' – weasel words from liars who are not teachers.

    • bwaghorn 2.6

      Trying to teach you're child that attending school is a mission when they've lost weeks and weeks to covid and now teaching strikes.

      No wonder kids are running wild, both parents working to survive kids left to fend for themselves. .

      • bwaghorn 2.6.1

        Attending school is important, that should be

        • In Vino 2.6.1.1

          You are right bw – the covid breakdown of school attendance has largely caused much of the social breakdown with juniors doing ramrod raids, etc.

          But telling teachers that NO! – they do not deserve to be fairly paid for what they try to do is sheer stupidity.

          • bwaghorn 2.6.1.1.1

            Surely they could have found another method of getting the government to the table, maybe stop all reporting to the education ministry they'd hate that I'm picking.

            • In Vino 2.6.1.1.1.1

              In my experience, any such schemes that teachers think up, the Govt-Ministry puppets throw their hands in the air and scream, "Oh, how could you think of being so beastly?" but quietly laugh , because they know that the public have no idea of what all that is about.

  3. Macro 3

    Hmmm maybe the next POTUS will be leading the country from The Big House rather than the White House.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/09/five-revelations-trump-unsealed-indictment

    • weston 4.1

      Wierd scenes !!!! So the FACT that there was a referendum in Crimea back then cant be mentioned ??? and to do so means you are kremlin stooges ?? What a bizarre world we live in !!

      • tWiggle 4.1.1

        You missed the point there.

        “A Reuters representative reached out to say that this language appearing on the New Zealand public broadcaster’s site as a Reuters story, despite appearances, ‘was not written by Reuters or Guy Faulconbridge’.”

        The editor involved had significantly changed the information in the initial Reuters release without changing the byline to that of their own name. Seems like a big breech of press standards to me.

      • joe90 4.1.2

        So the FACT that there was a referendum in Crimea

        Arse. Igor Strelkov stated that there was never any popular support for secession. He also admitted that rebels under his command collected deputies, corralled them. and forced them to vote to secede from Ukraine.

        btw, do you recall this gem?

        Putin's 'Human Rights Council' Accidentally Posts Real Crimean Election Results

        […]

        To make sure no one misses this:

        Official Kremlin results: 97 percent of polled voters for annexation, turnout 83 percent, and 82 percent of total Crimean population voting in favor.

        President’s Human Rights Council mid-point estimate: 55 percent of polled voters for annexation, turnout 40 percent, 22.5 percent of total Crimean population voting in favor.

        A member of the Human Rights Council, Svetlana Gannushkina, talked about election fraud on Kanal 24 (as replayed on Ukrainian television), declaring that the Crimean vote “discredited Russia more than could be dreamed up by a foreign agent.”

        https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/05/05/putins-human-rights-council-accidentally-posts-real-crimean-election-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation

    • Anne 4.2

      So, somebody in Russia has been hacking into RNZ's computers?

      Maybe that's the reason for the Chatham Island dart on the Kremlin map which, iirc, was hanging behind Putin in a recent interview. Somebody wasn't quite sure where NZ was? wink

      • Stuart Munro 4.2.1

        More likely some buffoon was turned by excessive consumption of RT, and made their own fanboyish revisions of more impartial sources. A recent graduate, appointed because they are cheap.

        • Anne 4.2.1.1

          Just a joke using the current hacking scandals in Britain and the recently spotted dart on a Kremlin map.

        • tWiggle 4.2.1.2

          No, apparently someone with their own news website as well, somewhere in that article.

  4. Reality 5

    Nicola Willis on Newshub accused Labour of "gutter politics" over the free contraception and "have more babies" issues. When National is free of a bed leg basher, several sexually inappropriate messages/comments from MPs/candidates, putting a picture of Clare Curran on a toilet seat by Michael Woodhouse, then they can make such comments.

    • Mike the Lefty 5.1

      From what I have seen it is the media that have made a big deal put of Luxon's comments more than the government.

  5. Jilly Bee 7

    What a fustercluck of a meeting in Hamilton (organised by the Hamilton Citizens & Ratepayers Association). One of the protagonists was Councillor Ryan Hamilton – the National candidate for Hamilton East, and of course Counterspin was to the fore. A foretaste of what will be happening in a few months time. https://www.waikatotimes.co.nz/a/nz-news/350019375/i-ve-never-seen-it-to-that-extent-city-leaders-flee-conspiracy-mob

  6. Anker 9

    https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/gender-dysphoria-clinical-programme/implementing-advice-from-the-cass-review/
    The NHS is banning the prescription of puberty blockers to children and young people except under a clinical trial

    A major victory. There is not good evidence supporting their use and worrying s effects, including risk to fertility and ability to orgasm.

    NZ media should be all over this, but likely there will be defeating silence

    • Stuart Munro 9.1

      Stuff is shackled – they seem to have their own in-house trans orthodoxy commissar.

      • tWiggle 9.1.1

        Or maybe Stuff take a more balanced editorial line to the one-eyed UK press.

        • Stuart Munro 9.1.1.1

          Not even remotely.

          They wouldn't admit their trans nazi allies broke an old woman's skull.

          Even Panini had her article bowdlerized – thugs veto became hecklers veto.

          Oddly enough, hecklers don't crack skulls – thugs do. But Stuff covered it up.

          None of their content on the issue passes basic balance.

          Your team has botched this putsch – they lack the moral authority to dictate perception.

          • tWiggle 9.1.1.1.1

            Stuff and The Herald both reported the assault charge of the 20 year old on the same day.

            https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/131818287/man-charged-over-assault-of-elderly-woman-at-posie-parker-rally

            https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/posie-parker-protest-police-charge-man-accused-of-hitting-elderly-woman-in-the-head/OCKUCETLONB25B5ZKLPUCSGUNU/

            ‘“Police are aware there is a high level of social media commentary in regard to this matter and remind the public to exercise caution so as not to compromise the criminal proceeding,” they said.’ The same is true for the press.

            I watched the footage. The only thugs there were Tamaki’s mob and a few neo-nazis sprinkled in the crowd. One of whom has also bern charged with assault of a counterprotest marshall.

            • Stuart Munro 9.1.1.1.1.1

              True – but they continued to run lines blaming Posie Parker, and failing to place the blame where it belonged – on the trans activists responsible, and the trans activists that incited the violence.

              And you have echoed them – being so morally compromised as to try to explain it away with unsubstantiated allegations of Posie/Nazi links.

              It won't do. No-one died and made trans activists God – and the sooner they fuck right off the better for everybody.

              The only thugs were the trans activists that attempted to murder an elderly woman. To shut her up.

              • tWiggle

                Wait til the court cases. Footage of the one-off incident will show how surrounding counterprotesters pulled the young man away from the rather belligerent woman as soon as they realised what was happening.

                • Stuart Munro

                  For the trans mafia to have retained any credibility whatsoever, they'd've needed to ensure their 'counterprotest' did not descend to that level.

                  These protests are notorious for the so-called 'pound shop ninjas' trying to intimidate anyone that doesn't bow to their manifest inanity.

                  I've been on plenty of protests that didn't destroy their cause with thuggery.

  7. joe90 10

    Old soul never dies. As fresh as it was 55 years ago.

    Eddie Floyd – I've Never Found A Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)

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