Open mike 15/05/2022

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 15th, 2022 - 60 comments
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60 comments on “Open mike 15/05/2022 ”

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  1. Bearded Git 1
    15 May 2022 at 6:40 am

    So the latest Curia Poll has Nat/ACT able to govern with 61 seats. Lab/Gre/MP have 59.

    It's a bit of a worry, but a week is a long time in politics let alone 18 months and Luxon will be taken apart by Jacinda in the election campaign.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-political-poll-puts-national-and-act-in-position-to-govern-for-first-time-since-2020/UQIG6BDL6DYMCXNELBTLEJJHAU/

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 1.1
      15 May 2022 at 7:01 am

      Well…..there is that Curia, is the Taxpayers Union (Farrar). Notwithstanding, both Labour…and Greens need to STEP UP. No good "If" they are hoping the Election is way distant. Time for their "Stars?" and some of the seat warmers to show their worth. For their sakes…and OURS !

      And Jacinda….I dont know how she does it. Talk about Inner Strength ! Absolutely a Gem : ). I wish her and Family all the best. I truly hope she rests during her recovery…and gets some Family Time.

    • Jenny how to get there 1.2
      15 May 2022 at 8:07 am

      Fix the housing and cost of living crisis and Labour will win in a landslide.

      • Ed1 1.2.1
        15 May 2022 at 9:23 am

        Absolutely, Jenny. After all National have told us how they will fix it – more money in the pocket from tax cuts! Is that all you were looking for?

        • Sacha 1.2.1.1
          15 May 2022 at 11:34 am

          After all National have told us how they will fix it – more money in the pocket from tax cuts!

          Yeah we can be confident it will take more than a couple of dollars a week to do anything. Unless you are on half a million.

      • aj 1.2.2
        15 May 2022 at 9:26 am

        That only leaves the unfounded sour taste in the mouths of the homeowning class as their property values fall 20%. No landslide, as much as I'd wish it

      • Incognito 1.2.3
        15 May 2022 at 11:33 am

        If Labour ensures that every Kiwi wins big in Lotto then Labour will win easily in 2023.

        That it?

        Nothing about Climate Change, for example, or that miracle cure for inequity?

      • KJT 1.2.4
        15 May 2022 at 4:34 pm

        Housing prices look like they are slowing.

        Those who reckoned decreased immigration numbers, and increased taxation of speculation/house hoarding, wouldn't slow house price rises, have become, strangely, silent.

        Though we all know house prices need to drop. For way too many people houses are now their only asset. Any Government that has the stomach to "fix housing", no matter how much it is needed, is unlikely to improve their re-election prospects.

        • RedLogix 1.2.4.1
          15 May 2022 at 4:37 pm

          Those who reckoned decreased immigration numbers, and increased taxation of speculation/house hoarding, wouldn't slow house price rises, have become, strangely, silent.

          Yah – and nothing to do with increasing interest rates then? Timed exactly to match the slowing price rises you are so pleased about.

          Interest rises which will do little to improve affordability btw.

          • KJT 1.2.4.1.1
            15 May 2022 at 4:54 pm

            As I've previously made clear, a conversation you appear to have missed, housing prices and "fixing them" takes more than one thing to change the expectation that they will always rise faster than general inflation. And that house hoarding is more profitable than working for your living. Interest rates are only one factor. But hardly the most significant one when they are still way below housing inflation.

            Significant interest rate rises hadn’t been on the table before prices started to slow. The other issues I've mentioned have now been around long enough to take effect.

            • RedLogix 1.2.4.1.1.1
              15 May 2022 at 5:23 pm

              I fully accept – and have argued myself here many times – that there are many factors feeding into property prices. But to ignore interest rates when they are one of the most obvious factors driving affordability – just struck me as more than a bit selective.

              And a quick scan of media shows they noticed the connection.

              Housing is now the most unaffordable it has been for typical first home buyers since interest.co.nz began producing its Home Loan Affordability reports at the beginning of 2004.

              The new record in unaffordability levels was driven by a pause in the recent price declines at the bottom end of the market and ongoing increases in mortgage interest rates.

            • Poission 1.2.4.1.1.2
              15 May 2022 at 7:48 pm

              Housing price growth is complex,but not complicated.

              Housing prices globally rose over covid,due to low interest rates and increased capital (due to lockdowns and the inability to travel)

              There were also limitations on build speed (completions) mitigated somewhat by immigration growth.

              Since 2017 the population demand for housing inventory has increased by 105000 units (2.76pp) and around 58000 over the covid time frame in NZ.Completion rates have slowed (net housing increase) have slowed in AK and WGN due to the increase in in city infill housing ( new stock completed less housing demolished)

              The new bank BOMAD ( mum and dad) also increased its lending becoming the sixth biggest lender (18 b$) as a mix of increased savings and leverage.

              Housing cost inflation is the largest increase in the CPI,and also has the largest weighting (around a third of index) as a mix of excess demand,high building costs and delays.

              Excess demand has been curbed by the RBNZ by changes in the LV ratio,QE and higher interest rates.Inflation expectations need to be constrained to sustainable levels,and higher population demand (immigration without limits) will mean higher costs for housing and goods and services.

  2. PsyclingLeft.Always 2
    15 May 2022 at 7:04 am

    Ballance said the "old soldier" considered the media "paid lackeys as a result of payments made to them". "He doesn't want to talk to the political wing of the Labour Party."

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/old-soldier-celebrated-protesters-never-served

    Not only a Fake but an insult to those who served.
    For the anti vaxxers…he was the fuckwits…fuckwit.
    despicable.

    • Jenny how to get there 2.1
      15 May 2022 at 8:10 am

      Has anyone else noticed how many of the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists are also supporters of Putin's invasion of Ukraine?

      What's with that?

      • Blazer 2.1.1
        15 May 2022 at 9:14 am

        Haven't noticed that .

        How did you come to that…conclusion?

      • Robert Guyton 2.1.2
        15 May 2022 at 10:27 am

        That's correct, Jenny. Support and admiration of Putin has been on the antivaxxers "menu" for a long time now, well before the invasion of the Ukraine – it was inserted there by the same agencies that had them believe in the nanotechnology-in-vax nonsense. I noticed this many months ago. Those same people are also expecting a revival of Trump.

        • weston 2.1.2.1
          15 May 2022 at 1:18 pm

          Your comment robert imo reads like a giant generalization wrapped in a conspiracy theory liberally garnished with pure speculation !!

          Illogicality of some anti vax crowds aside id be surprised if within their ranks there was any more awareness of what was actually happening in ukraine than the average joe blogs in the street given the degree of propaganda around the topic .

          Even if it were true that these " same people " were expecting a revival of trump they're by no means alone !! In the badly broken two party system of the usa trump has a very good chance of winning in 24 perish the thought .

          • mikesh 2.1.2.1.1
            15 May 2022 at 5:46 pm

            I guess Putin has a spy network operating in Ukraine. He probably knows more than us about what was happening there prior to the invasion.

            However, I'm only speculating.

            [Please check and correct your user name in the next comment, thanks]

        • RedLogix 2.1.2.2
          15 May 2022 at 6:05 pm

          It is my sense of there may be a correlation but it is not a direct one – what both groups have in common is a loss of trust in social institutions:

          • Stuart Munro 2.1.2.2.1
            15 May 2022 at 8:22 pm

            I think the connection is quite direct – and there are a couple of fairly straightforward examples. The first is the Russification of Wikileaks. Wikileaks formed to critique the more dubious actions, especially of the US military in Afghanistan. It had the same kind of legitimacy that whistleblowers have – they perform a vital and difficult role improving the health of the body politic by exposing things like Afghan civilian casualties. As Wikileaks increasingly became the channel of choice for Russian disinformation however, its legitimacy diminished.

            The next and related item is 'the buttery males' attack on Hillary Clinton – direct political interference by what had in fact been for some time a hostile state. Various versions of email contents were filtered through multiple Clinton opponents with the object of compromising the integrity of the US electoral system. These opponent groups circulated the material, or conclusions derived from it on social media. It was a successful action, and remnants of it can still be found on some social media.

            Political advocacy or ginger groups can cope with the natural differences of opinion and interpretation, even to some degree productively, but they are not well equipped to handle organized deception conducted by a well-resourced hostile foreign power.

            • RedLogix 2.1.2.2.1.1
              15 May 2022 at 8:34 pm

              I cannot rule out intentional deception as you suggest – but if you took a few moments to watch the very good and concise Vexler clip I linked to above – there are a number of other good explanations available that are equally if not more applicable in my experience.

              If nothing else while you could claim that anti-vax ideas were all the work of a few nefarious individuals deliberately creating misinformation – it does not explain why so many millions were willing to engage with some of the more obvious crackpot ideas like 5G chips.

              Nor does it explain the bulk of vaccine hesitant people who were sufficiently distrustful of the official narrative that they invested considerable time and effort into researching for what seemed to them a better explanation.

              • Stuart Munro …
                15 May 2022 at 8:56 pm

                It is a good clip – but it doesn't cover all the bases.

                These folk – the Macedonian fake news rings – were not interested hostiles, but click farmers. And there are a lot of comparable enterprises that are interested only in farming readers – something made easier if one embraces polarizing or sensational content so dodgy it would make Tova blush.

      • Anne 2.1.3
        15 May 2022 at 11:06 am

        Yes. Some of them have been publicly defending Russia and Putin for some time now. I concluded they were the pro-Trump forces within the anti-vaxxer and anti-mandate brigade.

        To paraphrase Pl.A above… the ultimate fuckwits of the fuckwits.

    • Drowsy M. Kram 2.2
      15 May 2022 at 10:19 am

      Amusing Stuff headline – is there a caption competition in the accompanying photo?

      Protesters block National leader Christopher Luxon inside Palmerston North Bridge Club [14 May]


      3 clubs, 4 hearts…

      • Brigitte 2.2.1
        15 May 2022 at 11:11 am

        Blocked by the sheeple???

      • Mike the Lefty 2.2.2
        15 May 2022 at 12:33 pm

        Another example of Stuff using a stock photo, and not choosing a very good one for the occasion.

        When I read the article I actually had some sympathy for Mr Luxon as the self-styled "head" of this protest happens to be a well-known serial nutter in the Manawatu.

        Perhaps you will rule this out of order on this blog ad. but I assure you many others in the Manawatu would agree with me.

      • Incognito 2.2.3
        15 May 2022 at 1:02 pm

        I tried that photo for a Caption Contest but the quality is too poor, IMHO. Better next time wink

        • Stuart Munro 2.2.3.1
          15 May 2022 at 8:25 pm

          It's a natural for the Arabic proverb:

          A sheep spends her whole life fearing the wolves, and gets eaten in the end by the shepherd.

          • RedLogix 2.2.3.1.1
            15 May 2022 at 8:41 pm

            There was also a famous Minhinnick cartoon which had Muldoon sitting in an airport lounge with a newspaper in his lap that had a headline saying 'Rowling addresses crowd of faithful at Wiri Woolshed'.

            Muldoon looks up at a passing Bill Rowling and tartly says 'Romney or Perendale?'

      • mikesh 2.2.4
        15 May 2022 at 5:54 pm

        Were the protesters not impressed with his system card?

      • PsyclingLeft.Always 2.2.5
        15 May 2022 at 7:15 pm

        "Sean" Luxon and party faithful…..

  3. Jenny how to get there 3
    15 May 2022 at 8:24 am

    Today is Nakba Day,

    Make sure to attend your local event.

    In the wake of the cruel murder Al Jazeera Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the desecration of her funeral. Let Israel know that New Zealanders will no longer tolerate a racist apartheid state in the 21st Century.
    Auckland Aotea Square 2pm for a rally and speeches.

    From Auckland Peace Action:

    Sunday May 15 is Nakba Day – this is the day marking the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and off their land by Israeli militias in 1948….

    ….The Nakba has continued every day since 1948 as Israel seizes more Palestinian land and creates more Palestinian refugees every day.

    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa are holding Nakba Day rallys around the country.
    We welcome you to join us at the Auckland gathering, Aotea Square at 2pm, to hear speeches, show solidarity, and stand with community.
    Please remember to wear a mask, or kaffiyeh!

    Check out PSNA Facebook events page for events throughout New Zealand here.

    • DukeEll 3.1
      15 May 2022 at 9:16 am

      Yesterday you were claiming it was a million Palestinians in 1948, now it’s 3/4 of that?

      And there only around 650,000 Jews to do this pushing in 1948?

      and there are now 1.7million arabs/ Palestinians living in Israel, so they’ve done an atypically bad job of “cleaning”

      • Subliminal 3.1.1
        15 May 2022 at 10:02 am

        I guess back in the day you were also a supporter of the racist apartheid state of South Africa given that the black population was still on the up?? Amnesty, HRW and Btselem all agree. Israel operates as an apartheid state

      • Bearded Git 3.1.2
        15 May 2022 at 10:30 am

        Duke…the Gaza strip is effectively a concentration camp with 2 million Arab prisoners trapped in it. If drive from Wanaka to Cromwell the valley floor along the way roughly represents its size.

        Rather than murdering respected journalists and illegally occupying Palestinian land the Israelis need to begin the process towards a one nation solution where Gaza and the West Bank become part of Israel with equal rights for all citizens.

      • Barfly 3.1.3
        15 May 2022 at 11:24 am

        Yawn – a throwaway troll attack – you care nothing about truth, history or the plight of Palestinians. Guess you will be happy that you irritated a couple of people into biting you sad pathetic little troll frown

      • joe90 3.1.4
        15 May 2022 at 12:16 pm

        After years of land confiscations and apartheid planning policies, there are now a majority of the 1.7million arabs/ Palestinians living are ghettoised in areas assigned to them in by Israel.

        fify

        /

        • SPC 3.1.4.1
          15 May 2022 at 1:11 pm

          The estimated number of Palestinians at the end of 2021 was about 14 million:

          5.3 million in the State of Palestine (3.2 million in the West Bank and 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip),

          – land confiscations occur in East Jerusalem and the West Bank

          1.7 million in the 1948 territories

          – most of these in the same areas they occupied in 1948

          – there are no widely reported accounts of land confiscations within 1948 Israel in recent decades

          7 million in the diaspora (6.3 million live in Arab countries and 750,000 in foreign countries).

  4. Muttonbird 4
    15 May 2022 at 12:16 pm

    Yet another white supremacist mass murder attack. Why is the white far right becoming increasingly murderous? We have always know hey are racist and intolerant but now they are actioning their hatred in big numbers.

    Gone are the days when it was asked if the shooter was yelling Allahu Akbar.

    The shooter claims (the Australian) did the most to radicalize him. this is very much a Christchurch copycat attack.

    https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1525572912836554752

    • joe90 4.1
      15 May 2022 at 12:42 pm

      Veteran campaigner explains why the GOP is pushing anti abortion laws.

      https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/1522657929991700480

      A 106-page online manifesto, believed to have been uploaded by the shooter, explained that he was motivated by a conspiracy theory that white people are being replaced by other races. In the document, he says he is 18 years old and a self-described white supremacist and anti-semite.

      “If there’s one thing I want you to get from these writings, it’s that White birth rates must change. Everyday the White population becomes fewer in number,” the document says. “To maintain a population the people must achieve a birth rate that reaches replacement fertility levels, in the western world that is about 2.06 births per woman.”

      https://bnonews.com/index.php/2022/05/mass-shooting-supermarket-buffalo-10-dead/

      • ianmac 4.1.1
        15 May 2022 at 3:24 pm

        Perhaps the real reason for the Anti-abortion issue is "forced" by the "need" to increase white births.

        “If there’s one thing I want you to get from these writings, it’s that White birth rates must change. Everyday the White population becomes fewer in number,” the document says. “To maintain a population the people must achieve a birth rate that reaches replacement fertility levels, in the western world that is about 2.06 births per woman.”

        • RedLogix 4.1.1.1
          15 May 2022 at 3:59 pm

          FFS is there nothing the left cannot try and blame white people for? Taken a look at the situation in China recently?

          The fact is that birth rates across the entire developed world are below replacement and this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with women choosing to have fewer children.

          That some idiot extremists will wrongly and selectively apply this reality to their own race is hardly a surprise, especially when the radical left has been loudly insisting that white people – and white males in particular – are the source of all evil for a decade or so now. Or that if we loudly (and very inconsistently) argue that human overpopulation is a bad thing – that this lowers the barrier to sociopaths taking matters directly into their own hands.

          Central to the Judeo-Christian narrative was the historically remarkable idea of the sanctity of individual human life. It has of course proven to be a very challenging idea to even define or observe consistently. We have stumbled with it repeatedly and grievously But giving up on the idea and casting it aside is much worse.

          Hence the rather odd scenario of the left being able to get away with performative outrage over a tiny handful of unarmed black men in the US being killed by police – while 73 million abortions annually cannot be challenged in even the most anodyne, moderate fashion.

          • Sabine 4.1.1.1.1
            15 May 2022 at 6:29 pm

            Legal abortion will cause no more no less abortions then illegal abortion, the only difference is the amount of birthing bodies found dead on a table/floor bleeding out or dying birthing bodies being wheeled into a septic ward for scraping out and some blood transfusions.

            Challenge that. And the assumption that children don't cost money, need appropriate housing, enough food, shoes for winter and summer, plus education. That assumption too could be challenged and look at how we did in NZ, Motels full of Mums and Dads with their kids, homeless in emergency housing hoping that at some stage maybe next year they find a place to call home that is not a run down motel in a dying town away from education and jobs.

            Abortion will continue to happen. Legal or not. The question is how much do we value the birthing bodies that need abortions to grant them safe ones.

            • RedLogix 4.1.1.1.1.1
              15 May 2022 at 6:39 pm

              Abortion will continue to happen. Legal or not.

              Why?

              I have rarely commented on this very fraught topic but I will confine myself to this thought. For all the reasons you outline it is not reasonable to restrict access to abortion. But at the same time I was never comfortable with the idea that this came with zero moral consequences, and thus we might want to pay a lot more attention to reducing the necessity for abortions in the first place.

              • Sabine …
                15 May 2022 at 6:56 pm

                because birthing bodies get pregnant no matter if they want it or not if they can't prevent sexual intercourse with a penis ejaculating into their vagina.

                My grandmother had 9 kids that lived and several that were scraped out., the last child she had at 46 years.

                My mother had 5 kids that lived, on ectopic pregnancy – abortion, one kid up for adoption, and then finally came the ruling that women can have the pill without permission from their husbands in Germany and all the birthing bodies in my family suddenly stopped birthing.

                If you don't want the child, can't feed the child because you are already struggling to feed the children you have, have no access to birth control, have a man who can and will not fuck without a condom, or consider a vasectomy as a form of birth control, women will have abortion, and other women and men will provide these abortion.

                The consequences of abortion are for the women who have them, and most women who had abortions for what ever reason cope well enough.

                a bit of 'recorded' history on abortion

                The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. Many of the methods employed in early cultures were non-surgical. Physical activities such as strenuous labor, climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving were a common technique

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion#:~:text=The%20first%20recorded%20evidence%20of,diving%20were%20a%20common%20technique.

                To me it is a simple thing, those that are opposed on grounds of morals or religion should themselves abstain, but should not put any obstacles in the way of those that are not opposed or want them.

                And unless we make life much easier for parents to raise their children in relative safety and comfort society must accept that some will opt out of being a birthing body.

                • RedLogix …
                  15 May 2022 at 7:02 pm

                  I wasn't quibbling with need for reasonable access to abortion. It seems that in our current world it is a necessity.

                  Just not comfortable with making a virtue of it.

                  • Sabine …
                    15 May 2022 at 7:16 pm

                    it is not a virtue, it is needed medical care. I have yet to meat one person who had an abortion for funsies, or because they consider it 'birth control'. I have however met birthing bodies who needed abortion because their baby died in uterus and did not miscarry, i have met birthing bodies who had abortion because three kids are enough, i have met birthing bodies who aborted because they were 15 years old and the father was of the same age.

                    The questions re access to abortion and the right to a sexual life for birthing bodies are as follows:

                    • Should birthing bodies be allowed have sex without consequences? –
                    • Should child birth be something that is the lot of birthing bodies?
                    • Should child birth be punishment for birthing bodies having sex
                    • And should abortion be safe, medically sound, and should birthing bodies have the right to decide what happens with their bodies if an unwanted pregnancy happens or a much wanted pregnancy goes wrong.

                    and last for the US at least, the issue is not only Roe vs Wade, but Griswold vs Connecticut.

                    Griswold v.

                    Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a state's ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. The case concerned a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of birth control

                    And of course when birthing bodies can not control the amount of pregnancies they have – be they life births or miscarriages or stillborn, it will then also affect their employability, their earning power and so on and so forth. But maybe that is the desired outcome of all these current societal changes.

                    As i read somewhere:

                    the left will lock a birthing body into a prison cell with a rapist who will rape her too, the right will force that same birthing body to have the child of that rapist and co-parent with that rapist.

                    Where is the virtue in that?

                    • RedLogix …
                      15 May 2022 at 7:28 pm

                      You seem to be arguing with an imaginary person who thinks that access to abortion should be restricted.

                      As i read somewhere:

                      the left will lock a birthing body into a prison cell with a rapist who will rape her too, the right will force that same birthing body to have the child of that rapist and co-parent with that rapist.

                      Where is the virtue in that?

                      None whatsoever. Indeed if you scrolled down the very next reply you will see I have already made a response to this.

                      If this is how you are going to debate with people who are essentially on your side – is it any wonder your opponents don’t even begin to listen or engage?

                    • Sabine …
                      15 May 2022 at 7:33 pm

                      I am not trying to arguing with you RL, just really stating the obvious. Legal or not it will happen. Legal however would be my preferred outcome.

                    • Molly …
                      16 May 2022 at 6:22 am

                      Thank you Sabine.

                      I learnt something new because you took time to write this (and other) comments out on the discussion around women's rights and abortion.

                      Others may have too. It makes a difference.

  5. SPC 5
    15 May 2022 at 2:17 pm

    BA2 92%

    BA1 2%

    Delta 0%

    Only the fittest coronavirus variant survives. Aced evolution theory.

  6. Poission 6
    15 May 2022 at 9:46 pm

    Tomorrow the government will detail the emissions pathway constraints,with how they will limit GHG emissions over the next 15 years,and how NZ can become 100% renewable in electricity generation by 2030.

    The latter will be expensive in capital cost (around 15b$ boe),and will see substantive islanding of existing generation assets,and will see some costs to the consumers.

    Replacement of 10 gw is around the equivalent of 5 x more wind generation,( and the potential is not always available) ,bigger then think big,and will be very capital intensive.

    https://twitter.com/SPGlobal/status/1524147366047232000?cxt=HHwWgMC9qYj97aYqAAAA