Open mike 12/02/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 12th, 2010 - 26 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

Comment on whatever takes your fancy.

The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

26 comments on “Open mike 12/02/2010 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. wtl 1
    12 February 2010 at 8:23 am

    From Phil Twyford, last night:

    —

    It has emerged the third super city bill contains some obnoxious provisions that threaten the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Protection Area.

    Submissions close midnight tomorrow (February 12) so there isn’t much time left. But if you love the Waitakere Ranges, or live out West, you might like to make a last-minute submission on this.

    These two clauses in the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill could gut the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act and see Aucklanders lose control over Waitakare’s prized Centennial Park:

    1. Section 6 of the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill sets up a spatial plan for the super city to replace the old growth and development strategy which was subject to the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area. The new spatial plan will not be subject to the Ranges Heritage Area and this opens the door for the super council to ignore its protections.

    2. Schedule 3 of the bill repeals s77 in the Local Government Act which vests ownership of Centennial Park in the Auckland Regional Council. The super city bill repeals it, instead of simply switching the ownership from the ARC to the new Auckland Council.This could open the door for nationalisation of the Park as has been advocated by National MPs, and the loss of local control.

    This is a sneaky attempt by Paula Bennett and the National Party to undo all the years of work by Westies to protect the Ranges.

    —

    Remember submissions close today. Maybe a quick post to remind people to do so? Both Labour and the Greens have submission guides.

  2. Janice 2
    12 February 2010 at 8:33 am

    Is Our Glorious, Aspirational, Inspirational Leader dying his hair? Sometimes it appears quite dark, and others fading. Another false front??

  3. Tiger Mountain 3
    12 February 2010 at 8:53 am

    Is it necessary to dwell on politicians physical appearance? No, but it is damn tempting, JKs hairline has always looked highly suspicious to me.

  4. lukas 4
    12 February 2010 at 9:09 am

    Shameless self promotion- my first child was born last night!!

  5. Olwyn 5
    12 February 2010 at 9:19 am

    Congratulations Lukas.

  6. prism 6
    12 February 2010 at 9:29 am

    Great lukas. Your son starts with a big presence (at 8.15).
    A bonny baby and a delight to his parents!

  8. Anne 8
    12 February 2010 at 10:13 am

    My congrats to you Lukas.

  9. prism 9
    12 February 2010 at 10:35 am

    Examples of how our politicians lack the will or interest in changing laws and practices to improve poor conditions that affect the ordinary people they nominally are representing.
    And this was true of Labour as well as this bunch of no-hopers. Smug middle class attitudes lead to self-representation as the model of what is good. Therefore it is easy to disdain anything that doesn’t seem relevant to oneself and one’s peer group. Unrotunately this seems to have affected Labour and the 1984 pusch came from this type.

    The three items below were discussed on Nat Radio this morning where there is certainty that nothing visionary will be done, no viable work with those affected, no practical steps will be taken to improve the situation with a long-term goal in mind, just quick fix programs and back to more of the same. A slogan from the chosen ideology of the controlling party will be chanted, and the deck chairs rearranged with a few surreptitiously removed from time to time.

    Drug laws revision ideas was put forward and immediately scotched by tough-talking, no nonsense Minister of Justice
    before any public feedback put forward.

    “PM will cancel GST rise if people will be worse off
    The Prime Minister says he will cancel plans to raise the tax on goods and services if evidence shows people will be worse off. ”
    How can poorer people be anything but worse off? The effect on this income group only has to be thoughtfully and considerately studied. Wages are not keeping up with inflation now, and wages and benefits responding to inflation figures always change after it has happened and been measured for a year, not while the rises are occurring.

    The extra 2.5% on GST, if recompensed in the initial year, will soon be swallowed up in this arcane science of inflation counting (not considering housing – correct? and gaining a median figure from all changes although many would be of no importance to the budget-stretched).

    Inflation is a tidy little mathematical measure. So is GST a lovely tidy percentage of 15% that will reign over all the other percentages and ride on the back of the simple preoccupations of paying for the necessaries, with hopefully a little left over for fun, perhaps.

    “Salvation Army report finds more poverty, housing shortage
    Twenty thousand Aucklanders are homeless and across New Zealand 25-thousand more children than in 2008 live in families where no-one has a job.”
    People who think know that merely having a job, at survival rates, doesn’t help people out of poverty, but Paula Bennett comes out with this response. It is as cynical and malicious as Work Will Make You Free the infamous Nazi sign over one of their camps where people were worked to death, apart from those who were killed en masse. The whole point of course is to say the opposite of the truth with a straight face.

  10. prism 10
    12 February 2010 at 10:38 am

    Some examples of how our politicians lack the will or interest in changing laws and practices to improve poor conditions that affect the ordinary people they nominally are representing.
    And this was true of Labour as well as this bunch of no-hopers. Smug middle class attitudes lead to self-representation as the model of what is good. Therefore it is easy to disdain anything that doesn’t seem relevant to oneself and one’s peer group. Unfortunately this seems to have affected Labour and the 1984 pusch came from this type.

    The three items below were discussed on Nat Radio this morning where there is certainty that nothing visionary will be done, no viable work with those affected, no practical steps will be taken to improve the situation with a long-term goal in mind, just quick fix programs and back to more of the same. A slogan from the chosen ideology of the controlling party will be chanted, and the deck chairs rearranged with a few surreptitiously removed from time to time.

    Drug laws revision ideas was put forward and immediately scotched by tough-talking, no nonsense Minister of Justice
    before any public feedback put forward.

    “PM will cancel GST rise if people will be worse off
    The Prime Minister says he will cancel plans to raise the tax on goods and services if evidence shows people will be worse off. ”
    How can poorer people be anything but worse off? The effect on this income group only has to be thoughtfully and considerately studied. Wages are not keeping up with inflation now, and wages and benefits responding to inflation figures always change after it has happened and been measured for a year, not while the rises are occurring.

    The extra 2.5% on GST, if recompensed in the initial year, will soon be swallowed up in this arcane science of inflation counting (not considering housing – correct? and gaining a median figure from all changes although many would be of no importance to the budget-stretched).

    Inflation is a tidy little mathematical measure. So is GST a lovely tidy percentage of 15% that will reign over all the other percentages and ride on the back of the simple preoccupations of paying for the necessaries, with hopefully a little left over for fun, perhaps.

    “Salvation Army report finds more poverty, housing shortage
    Twenty thousand Aucklanders are homeless and across New Zealand 25-thousand more children than in 2008 live in families where no-one has a job.”
    People who think know that merely having a job, at survival rates, doesn’t help people out of poverty, but Paula Bennett comes out with this response. It is as cynical and malicious as Work Will Make You Free the infamous Nazi sign over one of their camps where people were worked to death, apart from those who were killed en masse. The whole point of course is to say the opposite of the truth with a straight face.

  11. prism 11
    12 February 2010 at 10:40 am

    Oh dear the click to edit wasn’t working and as I looked further I was presented with my previous reply space and made the mistake of altering and pressed submit, so no have two giant comments. Sorry.

  12. Robert Winter 12
    12 February 2010 at 10:49 am

    http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-17546-f0.cfm

    The British TUC’s ad about the “Robin Hood” tax on banks, by Richard Curtis, with Bill Nighy – worth having a look.

    • wtl 12.1
      12 February 2010 at 11:48 am

      Any parties supporting a Tobin Tax here? The Greens maybe? It would be great if the Labour party supported it as well.

      At the end of the day, financial speculation is completely unproductive and we should definitely be taxing it. Not sure “Robin Hood” tax is such a good name though.

    • Draco T Bastard 13.1
      12 February 2010 at 12:15 pm

      Very interesting:

      However, there are also countries with more or less symbolic minimum wages because statutory wages are too low to affect a relevant number of employees.

      So, what is the ideal amount workers that need to be affected by the minimum wage for it to be effective? Something tells me that it needs to be more than what we have in NZ.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.