Open mike 13/12/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 13th, 2024 - 27 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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

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27 comments on “Open mike 13/12/2024 ”

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  1. Morrissey 1
    13 December 2024 at 7:41 am

    Following its harassment and intimidation of Sarah Wilkinson, Asa Winstanley and Richard Medhurst, the U.K. regime continues to crack down on Jewish anti-genocide protestors…

    https://skwawkbox.org/2024/12/12/greenstein-to-be-formally-charged-under-terror-act-heres-where-to-be-to-support-him/

    • Nic the NZer 1.1
      13 December 2024 at 8:13 am

      No one will be surprised to discover that Greenstein is an ex-member of the UK Labour party and Jewish.

    • SPC 1.2
      13 December 2024 at 10:44 am

      It appears to be the 2019 amendment of the 2000 Act – 1B

      a comment supporting the right of Palestinians to resist Israel’s occupation

      Support.

      (1)A person commits an offence if—

      (a)he invites support for a proscribed organisation, and

      (b)the support is not, or is not restricted to, the provision of money or other property (within the meaning of section 15).

      2019 AMENDMENT

      [F1(1A)

      A person commits an offence if the person—

      (a)expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, and

      (b)in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation.]

      https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/12#commentary-key-602079289d5d721e06a6ba3e9df0cbf7

      In that regard in synch in with developments within the state of Israel.

      Benjamin Netanyahu's government's multi-front assault on the media – spearheaded by an economic boycott of Haaretz – is a blatant attempt to intimidate Israeli journalists into self-censorship and weaken press outlets that continue to dare to report critically on the behavior and policies of the nation's leaders, media critic and journalist Oren Persico said on the Haaretz Podcast.

      The sanctions imposed on Haaretz, and the new bill introduced this week aimed at defunding Kan, Israel's public broadcaster, are designed to "bully the free press" and act as a "sword that is supposed to hang over their heads and and try to intimidate them," said Persico, a staff writer for The Seventh Eye, an independent Israeli magazine that covers the media.

      https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2024-11-30/ty-article-podcast/.premium/netanyahus-war-on-the-israeli-media-and-how-it-is-already-affecting-press-freedom/00000193-7e85-d7fe-a393-7f8d17600000

      • SPC 1.2.1
        13 December 2024 at 10:55 am

        PS. It's a nuisance case, because there is no stated support for a proscribed organisation.

        Starmer might use a loss in court to develop a further change to legislation, change a to support of militancy in a cause … that led others to support a proscribed group.

        Still no guarantee of convincing a court.

  2. Bearded Git 2
    13 December 2024 at 9:30 am

    It turns out that if the paper mills had signed long-term contracts for power supply they could have kept the power costs at only 15% of production costs. 85% of costs are labour, raw materials, repairs and maintenance and various overheads.

    But Winstone paper mill opted instead to rely on the spot market which fluctuates manically for 50% of its power. This meant that for a very short period (basically August 2024) power costs escalated to 40% of production costs because of the low lake levels and because insufficient coal supplies were immediately available.

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/08/21/the-power-and-the-story-are-electricity-prices-really-to-blame-for-mill-closures/#:~:text=For%20the%20company%2C%20that%20means,$60%20to%20$100/MWhr.%E2%80%9D

    So the closure can't be blamed on power costs, it was just poor management. Shane Jones is wrong to blame power prices for the closure.

    As I have posted before, Shane Jones's repeated references to "mountains of Indonesian coal" being used to power NZ is rubbish. Over the last 10 years coal has been responsible for only 7% of NZ's power on average. The need for coal will disappear within 10 years as solar power developments with grid-scale power storage attached (such as the proposal currently going for resource consent in the Maniototo) come on stream.

    https://heliosenergy.co.nz/projects/maniototo

  3. tWig 3
    13 December 2024 at 10:58 am

    Big Hairy News interviews Melanie Nelson (from 10 min), who has an opinion piece on the review of the Regulatory Standards Act, which, with the Treaty Principles Bill, she says, directly replace existing collectivist and equity principles in treaty and human rights legislation in government with Libertarian interpretations of private property and 'equal rights'.

    A scary, chilling stealth attack by Act on the fundamental principles of our NZ state: stay long enough to listen what the downstream effects will be on protections; this is described 'meta-legislation', creating a libertarian straitjacket for ALL our legislation.

    Introduced on the day the Hikoi arrived in Wgtn, and with a VERY short public consultation period. Seymour is Machiavellian, sneaking this stuff in under the radar duirng the holidays, and under the covering fire of the TPB.

    Melanie does a great job of explaining, and thanks very much to BHN for helping bring this issue into public view.

  4. Incognito 4
    13 December 2024 at 11:20 am

    To continue a recent discussion thread (starts here: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-10-12-2024/#comment-2019279), there are compelling arguments not to stop after they let the dogs out and finally (!) banned greyhound racing in NZ.

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/12/13/the-way-nz-treats-animals-a-race-to-the-bottom/

  5. Ad 5
    13 December 2024 at 12:08 pm

    For several thousands of public servants, next week is their last week.

    Many have already flown off of course to Australia and the UK.

    But this is a scale of loss that will affect the ability to draft policy, execute policy, draft legislation and enforce regulations, and actually do the work of nursing, teaching, researching, interpreting, processing applications of all kinds, and more, for a generation to come.

    No successive government will work as well as it could without them.

    So this is my tribute to all the public servants and their families whose professional careers have been terminated by this government.

    Thankyou for your service.

  6. Incognito 6
    13 December 2024 at 12:16 pm

    What do you get when you employ over 90 new staff on an average salary of $150k+ looking for a needle in a hairstack? Answer: hairbrained ideas and smoky mirrors.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/536579/hairdressers-say-they-didn-t-know-some-salon-rules-david-seymour-seeks-to-cut-existed-at-all

    • Mike the Lefty 6.1
      13 December 2024 at 12:42 pm

      Seymour will probably discover some obscure forgotten regulation that says it is illegal to walk down the street with a chicken sandwich in your pocket, and then declare himself a hero for abolishing it.

      • Nic the NZer 6.1.1
        13 December 2024 at 12:57 pm

        Risky, I think he must have sensibly pocketed the chicken sandwiches at one of his school lunch publicity events. That's also considered best practice for children exposed to Compass lunch products and much safer than eating them.

        • Incognito 6.1.1.1
          13 December 2024 at 3:30 pm

          Chicken sandwiches must be turned off and locked away in sealed lunchboxes and placed into schoolbags outside the classroom just like mobile phones and other risky items that could distract students and affect their performance in class or lead to unruly behaviour that obviously and inevitably leads to a life of youth crime. Any class manager teacher should know this but it’s helpful that Seymour reminds them and has their backs.

    • satty 6.2
      13 December 2024 at 12:55 pm

      Looking forward to all those (very long-haired) people storming the hairdressers around the country after decades of "hair neglect" caused by lack of refreshments and inability to take their dogs along laugh

  7. Mike the Lefty 7
    13 December 2024 at 12:38 pm

    ACC levies to be increased next year on vehicle registration.

    One question not been put to the minister is why EV registration is being increased more than petrol cars.

    ACC levies are levied according to how dangerous a particular vehicle is right? For instance motorbikes pay a higher level because the risk of injury is greater, right?

    Then why do EVs get a higher increase than petrol cars?

    Does the minister get his information from Facebook conspiracy theory pages and believe that EVs are more dangerous than petrol cars?

    Or is it just another great opportunity for Simeon Brown and the rest of the CoC to vent their spite on those who chose zero emission transport over diesel guzzling Ford Rangers?

    • Belladonna 7.1
      13 December 2024 at 12:52 pm

      Petrol vehicles pay a lower annual licence fee than diesel vehicles because a portion of the ACC levy is added to the cost of petrol at the pump.

      https://www.aa.co.nz/cars/owners/acc/

      Obviously, EVs are not paying for petrol, so not being charged this portion of the taxes diverted to ACC.

      So, nothing to do with the risk of the different types of vehicles – but to do with at what point the ACC levy is charged.

  8. AB 8
    13 December 2024 at 2:50 pm

    a scale of loss that will affect the ability to draft policy, execute policy, draft legislation and enforce regulations

    Yes – it's working as intended. It's a war on the state doing anything much, other than vigorously enhancing and supporting private property rights and running a police force, a justice system and a prison system to enforce them. It's very retrograde and a million miles from the unglamorous slog of public servants trying the get socially useful things done.

  9. Craig H 9
    13 December 2024 at 4:43 pm

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/536551/government-goes-back-to-drawing-board-on-holidays-act

    Ugh… Not that the existing Holidays Act is simple to apply in practice, but one of the things that makes it complex to apply is wanting to include fairness as part of the minimum standard. Will be interesting to see what comes out of the simplification project, but wouldn't surprise me if some groups of workers end up worse off as a result of this.