Open mike 12/07/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 12th, 2015 - 66 comments
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66 comments on “Open mike 12/07/2015 ”

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  1. Paul 1
    12 July 2015 at 8:45 am

    When you read such ill informed and low level articles such as Kerre McIvor’s opinion piece in the Herald about junk food, you have to ask :
    Is she really that ignorant or
    Is she paid by the Junk food industry to write such rubbish’?

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11479433

    • Charles 1.1
      12 July 2015 at 9:13 am

      Can you provide more information about your viewpoint? Kerre doesn’t examine every angle, and her reasoning is her own style, but how or which part of her opinion makes her ignorant or a shill? Other than working for the Herald. Which should be enough on it’s own. Is it just the title of the article, the “lack of choice” contradicting the later claim that people have too many choices to choose from?

      • weka 1.1.1
        12 July 2015 at 10:20 am

        I’m a bit confused by Paul’s comment about shilling for junk food. The article is saying people need the support to eat well instead of eating junk food. I thought it was well written and struck a good balance between the politics of health and the politics of poverty/lack of education (except for the implication that dietary fat is unhealthy, but hey, how many journos get that right?).

        • Paul 1.1.1.1
          12 July 2015 at 10:54 am

          It’s simple weka.
          Her argument is naive.
          The only way to force the fast food industry to change is regulations.

          • weka 1.1.1.1.1
            12 July 2015 at 11:24 am

            Her article isn’t about the fast food industry though. It’s about some of the barriers to eating well and that junk food taxes don’t work.

            I still don’t get how she could be seen as a shill for Maccas etc.

        • Charles 1.1.1.2
          12 July 2015 at 10:57 am

          I know my ideas, you know yours, but we don’t know Paul’s.

          Maybe it was an implied argument, a-bob-each-way. No extra taxes for either party, but the low quality veges and meat at the fresh burger truck is cheaper in itself and therefore no tax required to induce people to eat it? Or as Marty Mars raises below: depending on the reasons behind their level of “less well off” there may be no one to go to learn anything about anything.

          There’s a place near where I live (and my area is “lower socio-economic”) that is currently trying the healthier option, but price wise it doesn’t look practical – a hard sell. Sitting at a windswept freezing freaking bus station, and the woman comes over, she knows her potential customers and builds good rapport, but would you regularly choose a nice cold fruit smoothie for $7 when you can’t afford to even buy a hop card with what you have left (that lack of ability to accumulate funds that happens, that makes poorer people unavoidably spend more), or would you dive over to the pie shop and get something hot and comforting for $3.50? It was a hard sell, and at least one guy wandered over – it was end of shift for him and he obviously had disposible income – but some of him going was the cultural connection they shared because when she got to me, the story changed. haha. Christ it was funny, but nothing wrong with that. So many challenges to consider during the brainstorming stage of inducing people to eat healthy.

          On the other hand, go to any nightmarket and check out the prices and options – healthy as, some of those things. Two dollar snacks, five dollar meals. But once again, have I seen any of the local homeless there? Nup. Some of those guys are BIG. Just like you don’t often see homeless in supermarkets before 9pm. The lower end of the range appears more frequently, but not the way down end. Some places, some times of day, the “invisible class” remain invisible. If you’re an alcoholic, you might not often feel like eating much “food” anyway. Cheap food or not.

          Depends on the area. Some places round here are “owned” by a certain “street transient class”, others are “owned” by higher “stable” classes. The rules and reasons why things work/interface across classes and entry into each area change over a few hundred metres sometimes. Good intentions don’t translate at all, or easily.

          edit: Well there you go, while I was writing this Paul replies.

    • marty mars 1.2
      12 July 2015 at 9:27 am

      ” I wish we could set up food caravans close to fast food outlets and have cooks showing people how to make real burgers – nutritious, cheap – so they don’t have to spend their money on crap.”

      Is that the ill informed bit Paul or maybe

      “So I turned to my mum and other wise women I was lucky enough to know and learned how to stretch mince with leftover rice and rolled oats and finely chopped vegetables from the fridge that were one day away from the compost.

      I learned how to make delicious soup from a pack of imperfect vegetables sold at cut price and I picked up bargains from the supermarket by browsing the aisles at night, choosing chicken and meat two days off their use-by dates and turning them into casseroles.”

      Seems your privilege may have blinded you to what happens for those less well off.

    • mary_a 1.3
      12 July 2015 at 4:29 pm

      @ Paul (1)

      Also being a mouthpiece on Newstalk ZB, playing the NatzKEY card, I’d say she’s probably a bit of both!

  2. Scotty 2
    12 July 2015 at 9:10 am

    What is your point?

  3. Save NZ 3
    12 July 2015 at 9:13 am

    Great to see opposition fighting back against the lies and deceptions

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11478882

  4. Penny Bright 4
    12 July 2015 at 9:29 am

    Know about this?

    Professor Jane Kelsey’s new book – which should REALLY ‘pack a wallop’ in the fightback against the FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) economy?
    ——————————————————————————-

    Press Release: Bridget Williams Books (2 July 2015)

    Time of reckoning for New Zealand imminent, says academic

    The role of the public intellectual is to stimulate debate and raise unsettling questions.

    With The FIRE Economy: New Zealand’s Reckoning, Jane Kelsey proves once again to be a formidable bearer of the mantle.

    This long-awaited sequel to the author’s The New Zealand Experiment is a sharply attentive critique of the legacy of New Zealand’s neoliberal project at a time of international turmoil.

    FIRE is shorthand for today’s economy where the main sources of wealth are Finance, Insurance and Real Estate.

    This book details how ‘financialisation’ has progressively hollowed out the New Zealand economy since 1984 and burdened households and the country with massive unsustainable debt.

    The housing bubble, finance company collapses and the insurance hangover from the Canterbury earthquakes are symptoms of a market fundamentalism that celebrates easy profits and risk, and treats the people and communities who lose as collateral damage.

    Kelsey argues forcefully that New Zealand is in a ‘state of denial’, a term borrowed from International Monetary Fund researchers making similar calls of other affluent states in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis.

    A disturbing complacency – the return, in effect, to ‘business as usual’ – makes a reassessment of the FIRE economy, and the neoliberalism that sustains it, more urgent than ever.

    The fates and responses of countries such as Greece, Ireland, Spain and Iceland stand as cautionary tales that deserve our attention.

    Taking up that challenge, Kelsey explains why we must engage in a national discussion on the social, economic and political costs of continuing as we are.

    In particular, she focuses on the dangers of privatising the state, and of embedding neoliberalism in our laws and institutions.

    She considers what a post-neoliberal era might look like and what obstacles we must overcome to get there.

    In criticising the neoliberal project and its social fallout – deepening levels of poverty and inequality, the abdication of the state’s responsibility to its citizens, the transfer of risk to the most vulnerable – Kelsey is far from a voice in the wilderness.

    Her views are shared by a range of international commentators, whose reputation and authority New Zealand cannot afford to ignore.

    • Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England:
    Just as any revolution eats its children, unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the long term dynamism of capitalism itself.

    • Joseph Stiglitz, chair of the UN Commission on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, reflecting on the causes of the Global Financial Crisis:
    Underlying many of these mistakes were the economic philosophies that have prevailed for the past quarter-century (sometimes referred to as neoliberalism or market fundamentalism).

    • Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF:
    The true role of the financial sector is to serve, not to rule, the economy.
    [We need to be] making income tax systems more progressive without being excessive; making greater use of property taxes; expanding access to education and health; and relying more on active labour market programs and in-work social benefits.

    The FIRE Economy is a remarkable and important achievement, not least because, as Kelsey demonstrates in a revealing appendix, her original research was conducted in the face of increased structural barriers impeding free and transparent access to information about governments’ operations. This too, she argues, is a matter for concern and urgent debate.

    For anyone interested in our recent past and – more critically – our precarious future, The FIRE Economy is a must-read.

  5. Penny Bright 5
    12 July 2015 at 9:55 am

    FYI

    Book launch: Jane Kelsey,

    The FIRE Economy,

    WED 15 July 6pm,

    Old Govt House Auck University.

    Penny Bright

  6. marty mars 6
    12 July 2015 at 10:12 am

    twyford doubling down on the nation – fuck off you racist thick prick – “it doesn’t matter in one sense what their surname is” says dick ” but when you look at the names… it points in one direction”. “is it plausible?” – fuck me twyford has just fucked his party.

    • marty mars 6.1
      12 July 2015 at 10:19 am

      rimmer from act exposes twyford and hits the NZF line – wow labours dirty racebait exposed by rimmer what a shocker of an embarrassment – lol

    • les 6.2
      12 July 2015 at 11:14 am

      over reaction ,it is both plausible and logical and not surprisingly the conclusions mirror activity in other western cities.I have some data from The Week I will try to find that shows a remarkable similarity to Twyfords estimates and London R.E.Of course in London the oligarchs from Africa and Russia with ethnic sounding names are mostly from Africa and Russia!

    • Draco T Bastard 6.3
      12 July 2015 at 11:15 am

      It’s got nothing to do with race and everything to do with the discrepancy shown. It would be better if we had an actual register to work with rather than just the names of buyers but a) no government since the neo-liberal attack in the 1980s set up such a register and b) we have to work with what we’ve got.

    • half crown 6.4
      12 July 2015 at 11:17 am

      “Twyford doubling down on the nation – fuck off you racist thick prick – “it doesn’t matter in one sense what their surname is” says dick ” but when you look at the names… it points in one direction”. “is it plausible?” – fuck me twyford has just fucked his party.”

      Sorry can’t agree with you there pal, when the interviewer tried to nail him on that one, he replied, that they were looking to restrict ALL non resident foreign ownership.

    • adam 6.5
      12 July 2015 at 12:14 pm

      Twity Twyford has played the blame game before – you remember the shop owner murder in Henderson? http://thestandard.org.nz/murders-out-west/ That time, he blamed the poor for the murder. People like him.

      Twyford has a track record of being tacky, and full of middle class liberal angst. He knows perfectly well this is a racist comment, playing into a rump of racist New Zealand – who still believe in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril#New_Zealand

      If you want to call me PC, for calling Twyford a racist twit. Then fine with that. I’d rather be called PC than have to listen to all you say your not being racist, when you are. Because frankly yesterday I felt I was in deep south , with a load of dribble came out of peoples mouth.

      Pifft – a song to remind you all where the line is.

      • Draco T Bastard 6.5.2
        12 July 2015 at 1:05 pm

        If you want to call me PC, for calling Twyford a racist twit.

        Nope. I’ll just you a fucken idiot.

        We have a problem and you’re trying to ignore it by calling anyone who draws attention to it racist.

        • adam 6.5.2.1
          12 July 2015 at 1:26 pm

          Grow up Draco T Bastard. You know what this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movements

          Get on the right side of History.

          • Draco T Bastard 6.5.2.1.1
            12 July 2015 at 2:09 pm

            I know what that is I also know that it’s got nothing to do with the problem that we have of foreign ‘investors’ buying up all NZ property and land.

            • adam 6.5.2.1.1.1
              12 July 2015 at 2:36 pm

              I think your mixing up my take here. It’s two. One, I agree we are fast becoming serfs in our own country, and quite frankly my Chinese neighbours are in the same boat as me – paying to much rent to a overseas landlord. Theirs is an Australian landlord, just like mine. So again, it’s back to class war. I’m all for class war because this fighting over skin colour, or culture is just another B.S way the elites stay in power.

              And two, which runs on from one – most of the overseas landlords/investors are not Chinese, but Australian, English, Irish or Yanks. – and we’re not beating a drum over them. So to blame the last cab off the rank for the problem, just don’t sit to well with me.

              So I’ll call Twyford a racist, because – when the cap fits…

              • Draco T Bastard …
                12 July 2015 at 2:41 pm

                most of the overseas landlords/investors are not Chinese, but Australian, English, Irish or Yanks. – and we’re not beating a drum over them.

                Actually, we are. We’re saying that all foreign investment in housing is bad.

                So I’ll call Twyford a racist, because – when the cap fits…

                Except for the fact that it doesn’t and you’d know that if you’d listen.

    • John Shears 6.6
      12 July 2015 at 12:51 pm

      Language please mm

    • Skinny 6.7
      12 July 2015 at 1:29 pm

      Your taking what Twyford said out of context Marty. Opposition MP’s are calling for a registrar of who are buying New Zealand property.

      Your hardly one who should be throwing stones. Given your cheerleading of the r/ejected former MP Hone Hawaria, a man known for the odd racist gaff.

    • Paul 6.8
      12 July 2015 at 1:53 pm

      It is not racist to question non-dom ownership of housing in NZ

      • marty mars 6.8.1
        12 July 2015 at 7:25 pm

        It is racist to question non-dom ownership of housing in NZ when a specific ethnic group is singled out based on very limited and unsatisfactory data set using surnames as an indicator of ethnicity.

        • Thom Pietersen 6.8.1.1
          12 July 2015 at 9:50 pm

          No it’s not. It’s an exploration of demographics. Cry racism where it’s due, and it is, otherwise you demean the term.

          • Colonial Viper 6.8.1.1.1
            12 July 2015 at 9:55 pm

            Then by your own standards it’ll be clearly racism if Labour has no follow up plan to conduct that “exploration of demographics” that you refer to. I am betting they do not.

    • Thom Pietersen 6.9
      12 July 2015 at 9:57 pm

      Lets not use any method to measure, even when stating the shortcomings. Racist, racist… rabble, rabble… yawn.

      • marty mars 6.9.1
        12 July 2015 at 10:34 pm

        How long is the coastline of this country Thom?

        • Thom Pietersen 6.9.1.1
          12 July 2015 at 11:45 pm

          Point being? Lets just regurgitate ideology, not question, and close down the conversation.

          How would you like to measure it Marty? Against what? If it looks like, and walks like… do you not want to know the truth? Where do you start? Is the earth flat – looks like it to me out of the window.

          • marty mars 6.9.1.1.1
            13 July 2015 at 7:54 am

            exactly, so how can you say let’s use a method where the shortcomings outweigh any information gained imo – any way is not good enough and just muddies the waters making it harder to sort the real issues out.

  7. Heartbleeding Liberal 7
    12 July 2015 at 10:33 am

    Is there a way for me to stack the thread replies so that the newest ones are at the top of the list?

    • Lanthanide 7.1
      12 July 2015 at 10:35 am

      Nope. Interesting idea though – Lynn?

    • lprent 7.2
      12 July 2015 at 9:25 pm

      We actually have that on the backend in the edit for the post. It is also what shows up on the front-end listing of the last 100? comments.

      The big hassle is that to make it useable in a threaded environment you need some way to see the threaded context. That means stacking the thread context in with the comments (ie massively increasing the comments (and duplicating them) that way around) or increasing server and client CPU by doing it with javascript queries with json responses or having people writing replies without looking at the context or forcing replies to reload into a context – eg allowing a post filter on the rhs comment listing to show by comments, and a reply jumps into the usual comments stream – awkward.

      I’ve thought some options on this. Pretty awkward…

  8. half crown 8
    12 July 2015 at 10:59 am

    Just saw snippets of that progamme called The Nation

    Matthew Hooton along with that other female (didn’t get her name had more important things to do than listen to her) before you say it was Labour being racist consider this, They weren’t exactly Scotsman wearing kilts turning up in their droves to these property auctions were they. Also TV3 if you are going to interview holograph’s make sure they are wearing the H on their foreheads. It is not really needed as we don’t need the sign to see that he is not real.

    • marty mars 8.1
      12 July 2015 at 12:38 pm

      notwithstanding all that – twyford ended up being made to look totally ‘out there’ by the gnat spinner and the hologram – that shows how dismal twyford was and is

      • John Shears 8.1.1
        12 July 2015 at 12:52 pm

        in your opinion mm

        • marty mars 8.1.1.1
          12 July 2015 at 4:46 pm

          yep thanks for that John, “In my opinion, notwithstanding…and is.

          • Kiwiri 8.1.1.1.1
            12 July 2015 at 7:19 pm

            it won’t be just yours, marty mars. my opinion too. and i say this as someone who actually wants to see Labour win and Twyford do well, or at least not make (to put it very politely) himself so very clumsy.

  9. John Shears 9
    12 July 2015 at 12:55 pm

    Relative to the comments about Phil Twyford and the property market and Chinese money etc.
    I wonder how many of the rwnatwits have been to a property auction recently?

  10. Skinny 10
    12 July 2015 at 1:53 pm

    Now the publicity generated by Unite & Campbell Live about anti Zero Hours employment contracts has subsided, who is surprised by Michael Woodhouse’s flip flop on legislation to outlaw it altogether, instead watering it down to a bit of fiddling around the edges. Watching Q&A this morning where all 3 panelists agreed this was wrong of the Nats, not often Kelly and Barnett concur in agreement.

    Zero hours – signed, sealed, delivered
    Rather than outlaw exploitative zero-hour contracts the Government has done the exact opposite and entrenched them in law, Labour Leader Andrew Little says.
    “National promised to get rid of zero hour contracts. It hasn’t. It has just made new rules for how to use them. They are confusing, muddled and will make no real difference to vulnerable workers.
    “There are still no expectations on employers to actually provide work and there are no guarantees that so-called ‘compensation’ will be fair.
    “Michael Woodhouse might have been trying to look like he was doing something, but he’s been found out; he’s been doing nothing at all.
    “People instinctively know these contracts are unfair. A worker who ostensibly has a full time role can have their hours changing massively from week to week, or can find themselves with no hours at all for the week.
    “Today’s announcement is yet another broken promise from the Government. It is a disaster.
    “Once again National has shown it is on the side of exploitative employers, not employers who use good practice and certainly not on the side of vulnerable workers,” Andrew Little says.

    • Charles 10.1
      12 July 2015 at 3:29 pm

      ha. Who’dve seen it coming. When McDonalds goes along without kicking and screaming on a “yeah lets look at it again soon…” approach, you know the game is rigged. Unite will be pissed. Two months to find out they were “lied to in good faith”.

  11. Draco T Bastard 11
    12 July 2015 at 4:40 pm

    University Rolls Out Adblock Plus, Saves 40 Percent Network Bandwidth

    Researchers said that that the reduced network data demand would lead to lower infrastructure costs than a comparable network without Adblock Plus. The reduced network data demand could also lead to lower energy costs overall, said the paper, as a by-product of lower commodity network costs.

    Think about that and think about how much more advertising is costing us both in direct costs from our ISPs and in indirect costs in infrastructure and the cost of power.

  12. Penny Bright 12
    12 July 2015 at 4:49 pm

    I’m hoping to get a reply from Fonterra tomorrow to my simple question:

    Are Fonterra representatives able to see the TPPA text?

    How else can they be sure that Minister of Trade Tim Groser is negotiating a good deal for the NZ dairy industry?

    Penny Bright

  13. Colonial Viper 13
    12 July 2015 at 5:45 pm

    It’s not racism to point out a demonstrable fact.

    Really? How about this “demonstrable fact” – Blacks do worse than whites in intelligence tests. And that is very easily a racist statement in many contexts.

    Conflating China with Chinese might be though. One’s a country with a new bourgeoisie who have money to burn, the other’s an ethnicity.

    This statement expresses utterly no understanding about the Chinese community, Chinese culture or the Chinese identity. Perhaps its time that Labour bothers to get some Asians into its caucus and its senior party ranks so it has some idea.

    And why call this post the “China Crisis”?: if Chinese money flooding into Auckland is a “crisis” then it has been going on for over a decade. And the situation has far more to do with the decisions made by the ruling elite of NZ, and very little to do with the decisions made by the ruling elite of China.

    edit – I’ve posted this in OM because my comments are going into moderation in TRP’s post, and I want my views on this topic heard, NOW.

    [Your comments aren’t going into moderation, CV. China Crisis was a new wave band. TRP]

    • Weepus beard 13.1
      12 July 2015 at 10:10 pm

      CV, if only you’d show as much passion for disenfranchised Kiwis as you do for what you see as your marginalised minority.

      • Colonial Viper 13.1.1
        12 July 2015 at 10:25 pm

        Mate, have you even been reading my comments on The Standard for the last several years?

        Blame Chinese all you want but you’re fucking dreaming if you think this cheap political stunt by the Labour Party is going to do a thing to bring average Auckland house prices back under $750K for “disenfranchised Kiwis”.

      • Thom Pietersen 13.1.2
        13 July 2015 at 12:15 am

        Weepus we could surmise that Mr Vipers house price may suffer. It’s hard when it could hit home that your sitting on a bubble.

        If I’m wrong (which I may well be) – then it’s just plain irrational and ideological nonsense. But I’m all for one party death penalty totalitarian regimes that trample over the workers.

        And ‘blacks’ have done worse than ‘whites’ in intelligence tests, a fact, from a test… 1) those retarded IQ tests are flawed, and 2) societies advantages aren’t evenly distributed. Rightly or wrongly it still started a discussion that moved toward a demonstrable facts – that probably links lower income with lower IQ.

  14. Penny Bright 14
    12 July 2015 at 6:11 pm

    How can New Zealanders have confidence that Trade Minister Tim Groser is acting in the ‘national interest’ – when the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security is currently, of her own volition, conducting an investigation into the NZ GCSB being used to spy on Tim Groser’s rivals in his (unsuccessful) bid for WTO leadership?

    How was THAT in the ‘national interest’ of New Zealand?

    And who was the Minister responsible for the GCSB at that time?

    NZ Prime Minister John Key (a shareholder in the Bank of America).

    How can New Zealanders trust either our Minister of Trade, or Prime Minister to look after the ‘national interest’ of our country, our people or NZ businesses?

    Seriously?

    Penny Bright

  15. les 15
    12 July 2015 at 9:02 pm

    Helen Kelly…gee I love this woman,what she stands for and how she presents herself..P.M material…I hope she overcomes her health issues.NZ needs people like her badly.

  16. lprent 16
    12 July 2015 at 11:49 pm

    For people caught in the periodic outages and slowdowns today, they were caused by a backup process going bad.

    Turned that process off. I’ll rely on the other less intrusive procedure for a few days while I tear the code apart.