Open mike 15/10/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 15th, 2011 - 44 comments
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44 comments on “Open mike 15/10/2011”

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  1. travellerev 1
    15 October 2011 at 7:19 am

    Oh dear,
    This is from our mainstream media Deliberate course set Rena to reef. A sudden deliberate change of course. 33 kph, near top speed to ram it up on the reef. 
    5 days without intervention, not even the most basic “let’s float some booms around possible leaks” and a massive corexit (8X more toxic than the actual oil dump) on what was a small oil spill at the time.

    And the crew flown out of the country “to protect them?”

    What is going on here? Here is an interesting 9 minute video explaining the shock doctrine.
    John Key’s psychopathy shone through when he made the slash movement and now this?

    • Pete George 1.1
      15 October 2011 at 7:24 am

      15 October 2011 at 7:23 am

      Oh dear,
      Do you think the #bryceedwardsconspiracy might be behind it all?

    • Adele 1.2
      15 October 2011 at 7:55 am

      Kia-ora Travellerev

      Apparently, Astrolabe is used as a ‘short-cut’ by many container vessels heading towards Tauranga Port. A forbidden course but one never challenged by authorities. There are rumours currently floating about that Astrolabe is an impediment to the dredging of the harbour floor to allow bigger vessels into the port, and generally as an impediment to the growth of Port business.

      If the reef has been significantly compromised by the Rena than the environmental arguments for its ongoing protection as a marine paradise is also significantly compromised.

    • Draco T Bastard 1.3
      15 October 2011 at 11:51 am

      The whole reason for the transmitting of transponder codes and positions is so that shore authorities know where the ship is. The authorities, who should have been watching, would have been able to pick up the course change, map it onto their own charts, tell that the ship was now headed for a reef and tell the ship to change course. Obviously, this didn’t happen.

      Again, this comes down to government not doing enough to ensure the protection of our marine environment.

  2. LynW 2
    15 October 2011 at 7:29 am

    Good morning. Great to see the Herald articles challenging the pathetic, negligent initial response to the MV Rena disaster… Paul Holmes, John Armstrong and I particularly John Roughan’s take,

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10759123

    as it calls to account the total lack of leadership quality from National’s top politicians. Swift action at the time not explanations and excuses afterwards….shame on you Key, Joyce etc…

    The one good thing that may come out of this tragedy is National’s demise.

    • Tiger Mountain 2.1
      15 October 2011 at 10:30 am

      The simpering Armstrong’s piece needs the common two scans, for it is actually a swingeing defence of ShonKey as per usual with slaps at Labour and Greens. Holmsie can’t resist a swipe at Labour on the way through either. Roughan’s is not bad though.

      That these three consistently rat bag journos have given the Nats any stick at all shows what major mismanagement has occured over the Rena disaster.

    • Deuto 2.2
      15 October 2011 at 10:50 am

      Also worth a read is today’s editoral titled “Key’s second-hand S&P tattle is not good enough”.

      Pleased to see that this serious issue has not been completely consigned to oblivion in the wake of the Rena disaster.

      {Note to self: must read the instructions of how to include a link and learn how to do this.]

  3. Salsy 3
    15 October 2011 at 7:34 am

    Then the Herald gets the award for most misleading desperate headline – Key proves popular in Papamoa (actually he gets heckled and grilled by 300 locals)…

    http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/10472770/key-proves-popular-in-papamoa/

    • LynW 3.1
      15 October 2011 at 7:42 am

      Let us hope this is one situation that can’t be sanitised by misleading PR and headlines! Too much in the public eye and hearts? Wonder how the local papers will report it all.

  4. drx 4
    15 October 2011 at 7:50 am

    From domPost
    Rena course ‘deliberate’

    That could read Key Govt course ‘deliberate’

    Gaynor in the Hearld
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=10759132

    The National Government is enormously popular, partly because Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English are willing to throw money at almost every problem.

    The latest $18.4 billion deficit represents 9.2 per cent of gross national product – one of the worst amongst the 30 OECD member countries.

    The individual tax take has declined from $27.5 billion in the June 2008 year to $23.1 billion in the latest year.

    This is mainly because of the Government’s tax cuts last year.

    Corporate tax is down from $10.1 billion to $7.3 billion, but GST revenue has risen from $11.1 billion to $13 billion over the same period.

    The Gaynor article is well worth a read.

    • RedLogix 4.1
      15 October 2011 at 9:22 am

      The moneyshot quote from the usually dry and measured Gaynor has to be:

      Right-of-centre governments often run large Budget deficits because they overestimate the positive effect of tax cuts on the economy, and the Key Government is no exception.

      • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1
        15 October 2011 at 12:01 pm

        That’s because the RWNJs always predict the positive effect through ideology rather than reality.

  5. Janice 5
    15 October 2011 at 8:31 am

    Stuff and Yahoo website photos of the Rena this morning all feature the Donkey front and centre. Several of them are presented to look like he is running the show.

  6. William Joyce 6
    15 October 2011 at 9:11 am

    As an FYI for the Rena discussion this morning, and for those who didn’t catch Joyce on Campbell Live last night, we have another example of failure in ministerial responsibility

  7. uke 7
    15 October 2011 at 10:22 am

    An interesting article on how the current world financial crisis differs from that of the 1930s.

    • Draco T Bastard 7.1
      15 October 2011 at 1:26 pm

      …and those who have studied the detail and understand the economics of why it went bad.

      They may be a few people in the world who know why the economics went bad. I doubt if a single one of them is an “economist”. If any economist actually knew then it wouldn’t have happened again.

      I want to throw in another thought: it could be worse than the 1930s if we let it happen.

      Well, he got that bit right.

      …(to give you an idea of how, 40,000 of them were state employed actors and theatre directors).

      There’s something wrong with having culture?

      Like all commenter’s he misses the obvious: Deficit spending is the actual problem with the finance industry. What actually needs to happen is that all people, including countries, who can’t pay back their loans to declare themselves bankrupt and to state, in no unequivocal terms, that the loans will not be paid back. This will destroy a lot of interest bearing debt (that probably didn’t exist before it got printed by the banks) and allow those people and states to start again. Recapitalisation won’t allow that. In fact, recapitalisation only point seems to be to prevent a few people from losing some money rather than to get the “economy” moving again.

      Of course, with Peak Everything here, the financial economy is screwed anyway. Already there isn’t enough “value” left in the real economy to pay the monetary debt never mind the usury the capitalists are demanding.

      • uke 7.1.1
        15 October 2011 at 2:37 pm

        I think my main criticism was that he thinks bank-nationalisation and government control of credit is the “worst” that could happen, currently. A greater danger would seem to be that when debt repudiation starts to become commonplace (i.e. beyond Iceland), wars of conquest will be launched to offset the losses of state-owned creditor banks.

  8. Brett Dale 8
    15 October 2011 at 11:23 am

    No comments on Goff wearing shiny shoes and a suit while he is supposedly helping locals to dig out the oil.

    Nice photo op for him.

    • William Joyce 8.1
      15 October 2011 at 12:00 pm

      He didn’t come prepared to shovel oil but people on the beach suggested that he shovel some. What was he going to do? Say fuck off, you’re on your own?
      Unlike someone else we could both name, it didn’t involve engineering a photo op. There was no tax-payer funded unnecessary helicopter trip involved.
      Perhaps if John Key spent less time attending photo-ops, glad-handing the rich and famous (and only listening to what people tell him is going on in his government) and more time in the office ensuring that his ministers were doing their jobs then perhaps we would have a more efficient government, marine compensation legislation would not be shuffled down the list and he would ensure ministers like Joyce would be making sure Maritime NZ was doing its job and not building holiday highway think-big projects and campaigning to to get his boss elected.

  9. joe90 9
    15 October 2011 at 11:35 am

    Scientific American: The “Last Place Aversion” Paradox

    If ever Americans were up for a bit of class warfare, now would seem to be the time. The current financial downturn has led to a $700 billion tax-payer-financed bank bailout and an unemployment rate stuck stubbornly above nine percent. Onto this scene has stepped the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, which seeks to bring together a disparate group of protesters united in their belief that the current income distribution is unfair. “The one thing we all have in common is that We are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%,” says their website. In an era of bank bailouts and rising poverty – and where recent data show that the top 1 percent control as much as 35 percent of the total wealth in America – it would appear that the timing of this movement to reconsider the allocation of wealth could not be more perfect.

    Or, maybe not

    • Bill 9.1
      15 October 2011 at 3:53 pm

      heh – a wee detail overlooked is that in a world of diminishing returns… standards of living falling in tandem with resource depletion etc…that ‘last place’ might reasonably be concieved as being ahead of the curve 🙂

    • Vicky32 9.2
      16 October 2011 at 4:33 pm

      Interesting! Debatable however, as the first comment shows…

  10. William Joyce 10
    15 October 2011 at 11:48 am

    Nick Smith on The Nation this morning tried very hard to make it look like the government did all that it could from day one of the Rena grounding.
    Again, he (and his other Nat pollies) are trying to confuse the issues of the initial response (which is of necessity home-grown, using NZ stores and resources according to advanced planning on a wide range of scenarios) and the work of the salvors which will involve international expertise, the salvors appointed by the owners.
     
    Between the grounding and the work of the salvors and the international experts lies the gap in which New Zealand is on its own and should, MUST, e prepared in every possible way.
    That responsibility rests with Maritime NZ. Events and prepared reports that have come to light show that they were not prepared.
     
    It is not good enough for the Gvt to say that there was a problem with the pipes and getting oil off a vessel that is only designed to have oil go on. That is not a new issue! Any person worth their salt would know that in the event of a leaking ship (at sea or in port) would need to have some way of unloading any oil remaining in the ship (broken pipes or not).
     
    That means, we scope the issues, research equipment and techniques on the market, design and build our own if they are not available and we store them. It is inexcusable that and agency charged with the initial response was not better prepared. None of the excuses presented by the government were unforeseeable nor insurmountable with proper planning and provisioning nor was the state of the wreck such that they could not enact a pre-prepared plan.
     
    To say that we do not, nor could we be expected have, the expertise resident in NZ and so we had/have to wait until they arrive is again an attempt for National to confuse in the public mind the initial response and the stage when the salvors arrive. As a principle, we have people being trained every day in first response issues that may be either outside their usual job (eg. an office worker trained in first aid or as a fire warden for their floor of the building) to experts who go overseas or attend courses so they are prepared for a disaster.
    All over this country we have full-time or volunteer fire officers who prepare for types of fires, spills etc they may never see in their life time. If the expertise is not local to the fire station then the Fire Service builds that capacity, knowledge and training on a regional or national basis and they practice all sorts of scenarios.
     
    To follow the reasoning of Nick Smith et al what if the emergency initial response people at Auckland airport only prepared for a fire in the terminal? or Only prepared for a runway crash and ignored that they were almost surrounded by water?
    NZ is surround by water, we have vessels coming and going, we know the types of fuel they have.
    The government is wrong, is lying to us, trying to confuse us and is covering their own political future. We need to not be confused by their obfuscation techniques and as NZdrs who love their country we should stick the issue that “we” (really, the people we paid and trusted to protect us) were not prepared and that will cost us in an environmental cost and hit us again in the pocket!
     
    For every dollar it ultimately costs us to clean this up a worker has to trade time and energy to provide that dollar in taxes. National would rather pay for a $5 plan, leave it to invisible market forces, and irrational belief that business will be responsible and take the risk that it will never have to spend $105 – then tell the poor schmucks who have to pay for it that it was unavoidable, they know better, we are irrational and the lock us out of our beaches!

  11. RedLogix 11
    15 October 2011 at 11:48 am

    Now that is one very, very interesting read Joe.

    I wonder how long this has been known to the PR/Marketing psychologists who design right-wing spin and propaganda?

    • Tiger Mountain 11.1
      15 October 2011 at 12:46 pm

      Well it has long been known to union organisers that some workers exhibit exactly this type of ‘ranking’ behaviour.

      The right has historically used all manner of perceived differences (e.g. race, religion, region, rural/urban, employed/unemployed/precariously employed, immigrant/indigenous, low/mid/high earners) to create division among those that in left terms have many commonalities and reasons for uniting.

      The Occupy movement has attempted to sweep that tendency away with its one take classification of society into 1 or 99%ers.

  12. thejackal 12
    15 October 2011 at 11:48 am

    National’s Election Hoardings 2

    It is 10-20 per cent less toxic than dishwashing liquid and the ingredients that make up the dispersant are in most shampoos…

  13. RedBaron 13
    15 October 2011 at 12:11 pm

    Re The Rena and agree wth your comments William Joyce. Maritme NZ are the first responders and should be financed to prepare for the various scenarios and should also develop links with local NZ resources both public and private so that they knew who was out there who could help, instead of ignoring viable offers. In an emergency, mobilising local resources is also something politicians can assist with, if they can be bothered, and clearly NACT can’t be.

    On another tack altogether, if we can put a tracking beacon on a penguin, is this done to the containers so that if/when they go overboard they can be located? Not necessarily easy among moving container stacks but there was that fine weather.

    • ianmac 13.1
      15 October 2011 at 4:30 pm

      Wow Redbaron! Tracking beacon? What a great idea! Indeed why haven’t they?

      But I suppose there would have to be a Cabinet Meeting some time in the future and Key would say we have done all that we could, and wasn’t the penguin great and maybe next time, and anyway why didn’t Labour think of it when they were in office? Eh? Ha ha!?

  14. Cloaca 14
    15 October 2011 at 1:32 pm

    Salsy

    I did not see you at John Keys Papamoa meeting. Perhaps you are confused ?

  15. NickS 15
    15 October 2011 at 1:49 pm

    http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/push-45-000-new-homes-in-christchurch-4465581

    Oh great, so instead of making sure there’s no long term issues with the land freed up, like the high ground water level in Marshlands, or transport system issues the presently cause gridlock every weekday rush hour on main routes into the city from the west and north and ye olde environmental issues, instead Czar Brownlee is over-ruling the Environment Court completely and trying to saturate the market with well over 5 times the number of damaged houses. Perhaps a smarter idea would have been to build a research group to focus purely on what was needed, works in the longterm and fits in with the rest of the rebuild with CERA backing to fast track packets of land for housing, commercial and industrial + all the needed social and economic infrastructure?

    Instead of potentially creating a mess of future problems by rubber stamping away…

    And I so look forward to potentially loosing all the cheap market gardens and fruit orchards north of me :/

  16. Kingslander 16
    15 October 2011 at 3:00 pm

    unnamed bank econonist + simon powers new employer + currently pitching for goventments banking = westpac

  17. felix 17
    15 October 2011 at 3:05 pm

    “Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry”

    • ianmac 17.1
      15 October 2011 at 4:38 pm

      Indeed. What goes around…… Appalling examples of Freedom of speech only for those good Arab folk, not Americans.
      Connect this with Bomber Bradbury perhaps? (Good column on Brian Edwards Media.)

    • Morrissey 17.2
      16 October 2011 at 9:11 am

      Brilliant video. Although we didn’t really need any further confirmation that Obama is every bit the empty vessel we suspected during that insulting “Hope and Change” campaign three years ago and Hillary Clinton is just as callous a liar as her husband.

  18. randal 18
    15 October 2011 at 3:40 pm

    Whats up with Chris Trotter. He seems to be overwhelemd with his own verbosity. Yesterday he seemed to think that John Kesy was blessed with good luck when all he ever really had was a good wigmaker and now its loose. (old jazz joke). Even the Dompost put him down for being a harbinger of bad luck today. they are not always right but on this one they are.

  19. NickS 19
    15 October 2011 at 4:43 pm

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/rebuilding-christchurch/5788637/Red-zoners-rush-to-buy-lifestyle-blocks

    “I think there has been a shift post-earthquake to lifestyle, particularly in the north of Christchurch where they see themselves as being away from what they may call `earthquake zone’, where there is a perception that it’s more stable land and that’s certainly influencing buyers.”

    lolwut?

    There’s a complex set of fault systems in North Canterbury that generated all those lovely rolling hills and so it’s definitely not “stable” in all but small human time scales, with multiple, rather visible, surface fault traces if you know what to look for.

  21. Dan1 21
    15 October 2011 at 6:02 pm

    I have just finished watching an inspirational interview with ex President Jimmy Carter on BBC. The intellect, the vision, the humour… all at 87.
    If it is repeated somewhere, don’t miss it.
    And isn’t it great where the subject of the interview tells his story rather than being constantly interrupted by the egocentric interviewer, NZ style.

  22. Cloaca 22
    16 October 2011 at 1:28 pm

    Carol

    Aotea Square – sure you can count ? – thousands – where did you get that figures from.

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