Open mike 17/11/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, November 17th, 2021 - 150 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).

Step up to the mike …

150 comments on “Open mike 17/11/2021 ”

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  1. GreenBus 1
    17 November 2021 at 7:22 am

    If the AV mob are at higher risk of getting infected by Covid, which is just about a given, and we can see that the rule breakers are also the same AV mob, then how good is the home isolating of these same people going to work out? My guess they won't be keen on following the rules and who and how can the MoH or local GP's keep them at home and not just do whatever they want. They look likely to be a significant proportion of the forthcoming sick people and contact tracing is already falling apart.

    • Gezza 1.1
      17 November 2021 at 7:57 am

      Yes, you’re right, & this is a very real & very scary prospect.

      It means we all need to get our booster shots and avoid known anti-vaxers like the plage many of them will be carrying.

      Also means continual handwashing / hand sanitising & mask-wearing will continue to be needed by everyone, really.

  2. pat 2
    17 November 2021 at 7:31 am

    "That's only compounded by the fact that Renwick's optimistic view of the future still entails a certain level of disaster. He told the Nature survey that 2 degrees of warming was most likely – more optimistic than most of his colleagues, but a prediction that would still have dire implications for human civilisation."

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/grappling-with-dread-on-the-frontlines-of-the-climate-fight

    Best case scenario and its still grim.

    • tc 2.1
      17 November 2021 at 8:10 am

      Optimism not shared by experts at COP26. They got together all the blah blah assurances, targets etc at the completion and came up with……2.4deg.

    • Gezza 2.2
      17 November 2021 at 8:20 am

      Now’s the time for the inventors & engineers & venture capitalists & govts to all be pulling their fingers out & coming up with varioys forms of mechanical carbon scrubbers & to be sequestering huge amounts in rocks n stuff.

      The ever-short-sighted, arrogant & selfish human ape is still too busy with making money & creature comforts for no other creature than itself to see its own extinction or significant reduction in numbers becoming a real prospect on the compartively near horizon.

      It’s almost like Nature has started coming up with its own solutions to the problem of so many humans outcompeting them & being so dangerous to other life forms. 😐

      • Gezza 2.2.1
        17 November 2021 at 8:23 am

        😡 My kingdom for a good pre-Submit Comment proof- reader! 😰
        My current one’s fking useless! 😠

        • alwyn 2.2.1.1
          17 November 2021 at 10:51 am

          I suggest you follow the advice in the ad.

          "You should have gone to Specsavers"

        • Patricia Bremner 2.2.1.2
          17 November 2021 at 3:36 pm

          No Gezza "my Kingdom for a horse" Richard the 111 ended up in a carpark.

          We guessed what happened All been there lately.

      • RedLogix 2.2.2
        17 November 2021 at 8:30 am

        Now’s the time for the inventors & engineers & venture capitalists & govts to all be pulling their fingers out & coming up with varioys forms of mechanical carbon scrubbers & to be sequestering huge amounts in rocks n stuff.

        And in the below-deck engineering spaces all these things, and more, are being worked on. Out of sight.

        Meanwhile up on deck the performative sabre rattling, flag waving and siren wailing continue to serve an entirely different purpose.

        • Gezza 2.2.2.1
          17 November 2021 at 8:43 am

          “Meanwhile up on deck the performative sabre rattling, flag waving and siren wailing continue to serve an entirely different purpose.”
          ……………………………..

          Being, in your opinion, what, exactly, Red? o_O

          • RedLogix 2.2.2.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 8:58 am

            Years ago I noticed that if I wrote something on the alarmist, fearmongering side of CC there was lots of noisy engagement. If I write to the solution side – /crickets

            • Gezza 2.2.2.1.1.1
              17 November 2021 at 9:17 am

              Understood, I think.

              How about just put it in a nutshell, pour moi? And don’t engage with your usual critics? I’m just curious.

              • RedLogix …
                17 November 2021 at 10:04 am

                My starting point is these five pre-conditions:

                • That human population will peak out at around 10b by the end of this century
                • That human development will continue to shift us from a short lived, many children to a longer lived, fewer children species
                • That we have no right to tell the 6b odd people who live in the developing world they must remain poor
                • That carbon neutral is not enough, we need carbon negative (the CO2 scrubber idea that you first mentioned).
                • Electricity explains the world.

                While no-one can predict the future in detail, it's reasonable to project by 2100 that most people will live in high energy, high tech urban centres. We already have a lot of knowledge and experience in building far more liveable, human centred habitats. All of humanity will be able to access what we currently regard in the developed world as an ‘upper middle class’ standard of living in many senses, but likely different in others.

                High intensity industrial zones will exploit advances in materials and processes to deliver the totally decarbonised energy and closed loop resource use needed to sustain modernity. The trend will be toward an accelerated de-coupling of human demands on the natural world.

                Surrounding them will be layered zones of agricultural and managed landscapes serving a range of purposes. A sophisticated permaculture plan but on a regional scale.

                At least half of the ice-free planet will revert to wilderness in some form.

                To achieve this we need around 5 – 10 times more electricity and process heat than we currently consume.

                The only technological pathway that delivers on this is the next generation of advanced nuclear fission reactors that are on a fast path toward being delivered this decade. /nutshell

                • swordfish …
                  17 November 2021 at 2:35 pm

                  .

                  Read it … always impressed by your honesty, realism, intellectual courage & intellectual rigour.

                  Don't always agree with you, RL … but far more often than not I do.

                • roblogic …
                  17 November 2021 at 2:47 pm

                  Would also help if humans could greatly reduce their love affair with the automobile. Not just increasing supply of electricity, but reducing the current massive demand for devices that eat the future with their insatiable demand. Personal transport is costed all wrong. The prevalence of huge SUV's on NZ roads is a completely avoidable and unnecessary environmental crime that only serves to bolster the egos of the rich.

                  • RedLogix …
                    17 November 2021 at 2:58 pm

                    That's pretty much going to happen as the convergence of EV and AI will shift us towards a 'mobility as a service' model of transport.

                  • Gezza …
                    17 November 2021 at 3:37 pm

                    God yes. Just one look at my local Suzuki & Mitsubishi dealer’s front lot is enuf. The vehicles just keep getting bigger & bigger every freakin year. Backing out of an angle park in the local main drag shopping area is a nerve-wracking ‘stick your car’s arse out into the traffic’ exercise because half the time you can’t see thru the high up smoky windows of the bloody swanky “truck” parked next to you.

                    Average cars have now got to ridiculous sizes.

              • RedLogix …
                17 November 2021 at 12:32 pm

                /crickets

                As I said – I came to the conclusion a while back that many people who make a lot of noise about CC have no real interest whatsoever in solving it.

                What they really want to achieve is something else.

                • Gezza …
                  17 November 2021 at 12:58 pm

                  Not crickets here, avec moi. Just disappeared becos I had an appointment at Welly Hospital at 11 am, & just got home.

                  I find your above comments very interesting.

                  But it was the “something else” you refer to that I really wanted put in a nutshell. Apologies for not making myself clearer.

                  • RedLogix …
                    17 November 2021 at 1:01 pm

                    I should have made it clearer that my comment above was not directed to you.

                    But still this is pretty much how it goes.

                • gsays …
                  17 November 2021 at 2:27 pm

                  Rest assured there is another one who reads what you write, not always agreeing with it.

                  The crickets observation is reflected down thread with wekas comment that folk basically don't care about the environment, or at least not enough to act.

                  • RedLogix …
                    17 November 2021 at 2:33 pm

                    Yes – oddly enough weka and I both agree on this point, even though we come at it from completely opposite directions.

                    But I'd suggest it's wrong to think people 'don't care about the environment'. They do – but they understandably care about themselves and their family more.

                    And interestingly it's the wealthy countries where people actively care for the environment the most.

                    And no – I really do not necessarily want people to ‘agree with me’. More than anything the value I get from being here comes with seeing people learn to speak their own minds clearly and honestly.

                    • Blazer …
                      17 November 2021 at 5:38 pm

                      Its comforting to know all will be well in another 80 years.

                      A brave new world indeed….meanwhile..

                    • Gezza …
                      17 November 2021 at 6:00 pm

                      @B

                      Meanwhile … what ? Any suggestions?

                      Hard for me to envisage any significant, lasting changes happening to the way societies operate globally, tbh.

                      Problem is with the nature of the human ape. Too many too easily led & manipulated by the equivalents of the gorillas’ Silverbacks.

                • AB …
                  17 November 2021 at 3:03 pm

                  "I came to the conclusion a while back that many people who make a lot of noise about CC have no real interest whatsoever in solving it. What they really want to achieve is something else."

                  OK. So the accusation here is of a hidden agenda to 'end capitalism' or whatever. But hidden agenda accusations are easy to make, and because they are essentially inventions, they can always be made against whatever target is the enemy du jour.

                  Here's a different one for example – and it's nonsense too: I came to the conclusion a while back that many people who are very focused only on technology solutions to CC have no real interest in solving it. What they really want to achieve is something else – no change to an economic system that encourages infinite growth and has turbocharged CO2 emissions by pursuing profit at all costs.

                  Best to steer clear of intellectually questionable styles of argument imo. The politicisation of the climate change response is gong to be a disaster, so best not to add to it.

      • Bearded Git 2.2.3
        17 November 2021 at 9:39 am

        Gezza….much easier to stop using fossil fuels in the first place.

        Solar is now massively cheaper and than it used to be and methods of storing solar power are being developed rapidly. That is the technology we need to concentrate on.

        Carbon scrubbers etc. are ambulances at the bottom of the cliff.

        • Tricledrown 2.2.3.1
          17 November 2021 at 10:04 am

          Carbon scrubbers are very inefficient .People can all use less Carbon .Changing people's behaviour is the most logical way to reduce Carbon. When purchasing if everyone bought low carbon emissions product,reduced unnecessary travel,over indulgences to much food(we are an obese society) reduced our clothes purchases ,stop buying junk that falls to bits it would be easier to recycle. Plastic is every where ,only recyclable plastic should be allowed. It will cost more in some cases but using less will actually save money. Plastic bottles in Europe are much lighter thinner and the likes of Germany pay a deposit 20c € refundable on the thinner Plastic bottles.Also Europe limits the amount of sugar in soft drinks and juices they taste much nicer too.

          • Tricledrow 2.2.3.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 10:39 am

            Oh I forgot the richest 1% are responsible for 35% of all global carbon emissions.So they or we need to some how reduce their massive carbon footprint. Super yacht,private jet.taxes ,mansion ,luxury taxes.food and clothing waste taxes.

            • Tricledrown 2.2.3.1.1.1
              17 November 2021 at 10:40 am

              Friggen he'll that box is hyper sensitive.

            • weka 2.2.3.1.1.2
              17 November 2021 at 10:42 am

              user name.

              • left for dead …
                17 November 2021 at 11:58 am

                Morning Weka,any chance this problem will get sorted,it been sometime now.

                • Nic the NZer …
                  17 November 2021 at 12:20 pm

                  More problematic is the mobile paste box, which works well enough to pop up but not well enough to accept pasted text via mobile controls.

                  Without checking it looks like the javascript which tries to do something sophisticated with the contents of a paste also throws an unhandled exception.

                  Alternatively it might be detecting a paste in the paste control and popping up again ready to accept a paste (to which it will popup again).

                  I don't think the javascript paste control which prevents the built in browser function of pasting is the best use of javascript I have seen.

                • weka …
                  17 November 2021 at 12:22 pm

                  afaik, Lynn sees it as a user end issue (in the software at the user end), not something he can change, but I will ask again.

          • RedLogix 2.2.3.1.2
            17 November 2021 at 2:36 pm

            Carbon scrubbers are very inefficient .

            Efficiency doesn't matter if the energy source is both cheap and carbon free. And especially not if the end product – in this case reduced CO2 – is of existential value.

        • Patricia Bremner 2.2.3.2
          17 November 2021 at 4:08 pm

          Added to that Bearded Git, is a need to develop regenerative farming, limit nitrates and work with nature using her well developed and balanced systems instead of industrialized mono systems which destroy the very soil we depend on.

          Like our fight against covid, many intertwined approaches, methods and systems used together will be what we have, as sadly agreeing a safety margin is still not achieved. 1.5 is very bad 2.4 pushing disaster.sad

          The most useful advances have been in applied biology, so far. imo.

          Looking back, we are sickened by the excesses of Rome, but we do not live very differently. We wonder at cities and even civilizations lost. The answer usually loss of water, depleted resources, or religious wars. We are in some ways slow to learn. So the pot gets hotter.

    • pat 2.3
      17 November 2021 at 7:20 pm

      Does Renwick (or the other climate scientists contributing) have a fag waving, sabre rattling agenda?…are they spending their working lives on a false mission?…somehow I dont think so.

  4. GreenBus 4
    17 November 2021 at 8:46 am

    I can envision a whole industry of house raising contractors and business springing up in the near future. Lift housing off the ground and put them up on piles. Let the water go underneath without damaging the house and drainage specialists to get rid of the sea water.

    A near certainty nothing will be done to change the world away from it's current trajectory. Like the Housing crisis nobody wants to change, we will have to adapt.

  5. Chris T 5
    17 November 2021 at 9:12 am

    I have made a conscious effort to not get involved in the is the govt handling covid well arguments.

    I realise as a govt it is a shit hand to be dealt.

    I saw an interview this morning with Hipkins about vax cert validity and expiration and needing boosters to renew and it seems they haven't even thought about it.

    Apologies. But my patience is running thin.

    This may be a stupid question. But does anyone know why our govt can't just talk to aus and copy their template?

    • Bearded Git 5.1
      17 November 2021 at 9:45 am

      Because Oz has handled Covid so well ChrisT?

      Australia 73 deaths/million. NZ 7 deaths/million.

      • Chris T 5.1.1
        17 November 2021 at 9:50 am

        Yes they did handle it badly.

        Now some states have a working vax certs app

        Working together is better than fart arsing around with no clue like Hipkins interview came across

        • Tricledrown 5.1.1.1
          17 November 2021 at 10:10 am

          Australians pay more taxes have a better funded health system have both Federal and State bearaucracy to run better responses maybe you can volunteer by paying 45% of your income in federal tax then pay your state taxes as well as higher local body rates .

          • Chris T 5.1.1.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 10:30 am

            Fair enough. But all the more reason to borrow/nick their more well funded tech.

            She ain't like they will say no.

            They want the trans tas bubble back as much as we do.

            • bwaghorn 5.1.1.1.1.1
              17 November 2021 at 1:08 pm

              Is it at all possible that the kings of underarm ,sandpaper, and 501s dont like us and wont share??

    • Craig Hall 5.2
      17 November 2021 at 9:53 am

      The passes are valid for 6 months to allow for boosters being mandatory if that's where cabinet lands.

      My guess as to whether a booster will be required will depend on factors like spread, medical advice, overseas practice, and particularly if the vaccine course recommendation changes from 2 doses at least 3 weeks apart with an extra dose for immunocompromised folk 8 weeks after dose 2 (as currently) to 3 doses with dose 2 after 3-12 weeks and dose 3 at least 6 months after dose 2 for most people and an extra dose for the immunocompromised folk 8 weeks after dose 2.

      • Chris T 5.2.1
        17 November 2021 at 10:02 am

        You see I read those numbers and get it.

        Fine.

        Are they expecting the whole of nz with aged population. And no smart phone. Disabled people. Low education to do the same?

        As again acknoeding the govt has had a a tough thing to be dealt is bloody stupid

        • Tricledrown 5.2.1.1
          17 November 2021 at 10:16 am

          Chris snowflake was the right whingers go to put down of socialists looks like its bounced off a come home to roost.

      • Chris T 5.2.2
        17 November 2021 at 10:14 am

        Honestly

        (sorry to be naggy)

        It was a pin in the arse trying to get the country 90% vaxed.

        Now we have to do it all over again for people having to have a booster to renew their vax cert that runs out in a time frame Hipkins couldn't name

        • Tricledrown 5.2.2.1
          17 November 2021 at 10:23 am

          Chri T Well if we want our economy to flourish and our underfunded health system to function these are the sacrifices we need to make.Better vaccines are on the way better antiviral treatments are on the way.

          Provided Covid does outsmart out pace our scientist's.

          It sound like you would like lockdown to continue or open the floodgates and damage our health system and economy at the same time. Or maybe your just channeling Brian Tamaki.

          • Chris T 5.2.2.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 10:37 am

            The country is basically 90% vaxed.

            I'm vaxed.

            Everyone I know is vaxed.

            I don't care if some weirdo standing 2 meters away isn't vaxed. Because I'm vaxed. Delta is here to stay.

            Just open the door. You can't live hiding under rocks for ever.

            • Chris T 5.2.2.1.1.1
              17 November 2021 at 10:41 am

              Sorry

              Just suddenly realised I have now got involved in things I was purposefully avoiding.

              Lol

              If I was annoying I apologise!

            • Tricledrown 5.2.2.1.1.2
              17 November 2021 at 12:41 pm

              You may be vaxxed children and people with underlying health conditions the hesitant etc.

              We need to be careful and not reckless.

    • weka 5.3
      17 November 2021 at 10:43 am

      a link would help. Or even just where you heard it. Vague questions get vague answers.

      • Chris T 5.3.1
        17 November 2021 at 11:03 am

        Sorry

        Hoskings show..And AM

        Google newstalkzb week on demand. Think 10 past 7. But might have got timings wrong. Haven't time now but will try to find a proper link to audio later. End of day. Was on national media. I also appreciate my interpretation of interview is obviously not going to match other people's. Especially on here.

      • Matiri 5.3.2
        17 November 2021 at 2:13 pm

        Just downloaded our vaccine passports – easy process but we were already set up in Real Me/My Covid Record. PDF which can be saved on your phone, printed, valid for 6 months.

        • Chris T 5.3.2.1
          17 November 2021 at 4:20 pm

          And after the 6 months then what happens.

          What do you need for another.

          How long does that one last

          Who isuppossed to use it to screen people and how does it work

  6. Gezza 6
    17 November 2021 at 9:25 am

    .
    https://vimeo.com/287960906

    After maybe 6 hours of steady, near horizontal rain, driven by a howling Southerly of the kind that only Wellington seems to deliver.

    • Patricia Bremner 6.1
      17 November 2021 at 4:17 pm

      Where do your pals shelter in that Gezza?

      • Gezza 6.1.1
        17 November 2021 at 5:33 pm

        A question I sometimes ask myself, Patricia. Both the ducks & the pukekos tendvto just "disappear" when the weather gets foul. It's tempting to think of them huddled up & shivering in the foliage somewhere but all the waterbirds keep themselves groomed daily & thus their feathers are waterproof & dry, & probably keep them warm as they just hunker down wherever their sleeping nests are.

        Once the rain stops, or lets off a little, the birds soon appear on either side of the stream, or swimming in the middle of it. Neither ducks nor pooks seem much bothered by inclement weather.

  7. Adrian 7
    17 November 2021 at 9:35 am

    Stuffs story “Covid 19: freedoms shrinking “ this morning has a very succinct sum up of how vulnerable the antis are to getting Covid. At the 90% vaccination rate, of 10,000 people , the 9000 vaccinated will have 675 Cases of whom 23 will be hospitalised but of the 1000 unvaccinated, 500 will get Covid and 50 will be hospitalised. That is why we cannot have teachers etc anywhere near us or our tamariki because 50% of them will be carriers at some time. Even then the the hospitalisation numbers are a bit scary meaning for every 10,000 people there will be 73 cases, 23 for the vacced 50 for the unvaxxed , albeit not all at the same time but still a lot of people for small DHBs of say 150,000 people that’s 1095 patients of whom about 10 will die, maybe less as the vacced have a lower rate of mortality. That is pretty bloody scary.
    That is why the unvaccinated must be ring-fenced and not allowed to mingle.

    • Craig Hall 7.1
      17 November 2021 at 9:58 am

      To add to that, children are disease vectors at the best of times, and with education being compulsory for children so having to attend school classes at some point, even if Cabinet did nothing about mandates, many schools would end up mandating vaccinations anyway as a health and safety measure for teachers following a risk assessment. At least a mandate means schools don't have to work it out for themselves or deal with the legal fallout so much.

  8. Adrian 8
    17 November 2021 at 9:43 am

    Why please is the edit function not working, and on my iPad it does not allow me to directly reply to another reply? Is it my ineptitude or is it just that my first shot of 5G is internally fighting with my second one of the Anti-Christ venom.

    • weka 8.1
      17 November 2021 at 9:55 am

      on an iphone there is a choice of Mobile or Desktop versions of the site. One has functional reply buttons, the other doesn't. I switch back and forth between the two (readability, commenting). You could see if that works on an ipad, switching buttons at the bottom of every page.

      Don't know about the edit function sorry, but see if the other version works better for that too.

      • Craig Hall 8.1.1
        17 November 2021 at 9:59 am

        I get the impression that the edit function has been disabled? Not present on Chrome desktop.

  9. Stephen D 9
    17 November 2021 at 10:02 am

    For all the Sinophiles and Sinophobes out there.

    https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-wargames/

    A whole lot of what ifs.

  10. Jimmy 10
    17 November 2021 at 10:04 am

    Why the heck don't they charge people at the time they leave MIQ like a hotel does then we wouldn't need to have the costs of the debt collectors? The chance of collecting the old overdue amounts is getting slimmer and slimmer. It really does show up their lack of business experience as I can foresee a large amount of bad debts being written off in the future.

    'Incomplete, inaccurate data' behind 14,000 returnees not invoiced for MIQ stay, $36m not collected (msn.com)

    • Tricledrown 10.1
      17 November 2021 at 10:31 am

      Jimmy who gives your just pathetically nit picking .In the overall Covid response $100 billion plus its very small brickies and nit picking time wasting chasing a small amount . Those bearaucracy could spend their time much better elsewhere.When you look at govt money being wasted South Cantrbury Finance $ 1.6 billion Auckland conference Centre $400 million Clyde Dam $2 billion probably $4 billion in today's money its chicken feed it would take a bird brain to figure $30 million is worth worrying about.

      • Sabine 10.1.1
        17 November 2021 at 10:45 am

        Well, why don't we make the service free again. After all we have money to spend and waste, and surely every one knows that 30 million is peanuts, its after all only taxpayers money that gets wasted. Right?

      • Nic the NZer 10.1.2
        17 November 2021 at 12:05 pm

        Are you not constantly complaining about the easy ride given to tax cheats and the frenzy at any hint if benefit cheating. Jimmy just seems to be applying that principal to people with the means to go overseas (who mostly aren't beneficiaries). Its hard to see the need of selective interpretation, though I would note applying it as a tax which gets handed on might send a few MIQ hotels bankrupt when they can't collect that 3 grand bill off the same. Of course the govt will easily collect whats due, paid on leaving or not.

      • Jimmy 10.1.3
        17 November 2021 at 12:08 pm

        That's the attitude…it's only a small amount of someone else's (tax payers as Sabine says) money, plenty more where that came from. You missed the point that they would not need to bother chasing the debts if they applied a bit of normal business sense and billed them at the time to a credit card.

        • McFlock 10.1.3.1
          17 November 2021 at 3:25 pm

          Maybe they weren't focused on running it as a business.

          Shocking thought, I know. Everything exists only for profit. To prioritise anything else is cray-cray…

          • Herodotus 10.1.3.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 3:50 pm

            The PM from this link doesn't agree with you, & believes that those using MIQ should pay, and compared this cost to student loans. So if it wasn't worth the effort why did the government implement the policy and then increase the fee ?

            https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/03/11/miq-debt-collection-regime-similar-to-student-loan-pm-says-as-people-able-to-leave-nz-without-paying/

            "The aim of the charges is to share the costs in a way that fairly reflects the benefits to both the New Zealand public of having a robust system, and those who leave and enter the country."

            https://www.miq.govt.nz/being-in-managed-isolation/charges-for-managed-isolation/

            • McFlock 10.1.3.1.1.1
              17 November 2021 at 4:25 pm

              Are student loans a business?

              MIQ was initially started with the objective of isolating returnees. They tacked on a cost recovery system after that.

              Sure, cost recovery is "important" to greater or lesser degrees, but it's not like "oh, we need this money to come in otherwise the staff don't get paid", like an actual business.

              It's not a business. It's not even full cost recovery. Sure, implementing the new charging system had some issues. But you change the requirements on a large project, shit's going to go wrong.

              • Herodotus …
                17 November 2021 at 4:52 pm

                My response was centred around why the govt placed so much effort into setting up and announcing this policy, and now we see that it has been left to rust away without any intentions of living up to the announce policy.

                I am only quoting the pm in her response re student loans, her words to support the charge.

                • McFlock …
                  17 November 2021 at 4:57 pm

                  What your replies have to do with my comments about MIQ not being run as a business, I don't know.

                  I mean, hell, they wiped off $135mil in student loans last year.

                  • Herodotus …
                    17 November 2021 at 5:26 pm

                    My initial response was directed to comment 10.1, not to your response, my mistake.

                    But as we have engaged in conservation. It was not rocket science to setup a system in recovery/collect the costs that the government was seeking. It is IMO an issue of fairness and trust, to those who have paid or were charged. The govt was going to charge those entering the country under certain conditions as per their announced policy. It there was no intention for this to be carried out, then why bother in the policy ?

                    • Herodotus …
                      17 November 2021 at 5:29 pm

                      And I see we have no ability to edit a comment, or change our response to the correct comment, which can lead to confusion or mis communication ☹️

                    • McFlock …
                      17 November 2021 at 8:31 pm

                      Of course there was an intention to collect. Just as every pilot intends to give their passengers a smooth and speedy flight. But sometimes these priorities take a back seat to not crashing the plane.

                      The priority of MIQ was to keep covid out. It failed at that, possibly because we didn't send new arrivals to actual internment camps instead of hotels, but it did a good effort. Money, schmoney.

          • Jimmy 10.1.3.1.2
            17 November 2021 at 5:00 pm

            They don't have to run it as a business making a profit, but just as a "user pays" where the burden doesn't fall on the poor old tax payer yet again would be nice.

            • McFlock 10.1.3.1.2.1
              17 November 2021 at 8:33 pm

              Would have been nicer if it had worked at keeping covid out a few more months.

            • Nic the NZer 10.1.3.1.2.2
              18 November 2021 at 9:02 am

              What I don't get about this is your 'user pays' is actually going to turn MIQ into govt debt collectors. If it passes on the cost its going to be easier to collect the fee off MIQ than the users, so handing on default risk. Why would anybody think thats a good idea?

              • Jimmy …
                18 November 2021 at 9:05 am

                I don't understand your comment. I'm simply saying if they charged people as they arrive or leave MIQ there would be no debts to collect so problem solved….simple.

                • Nic the NZer …
                  18 November 2021 at 9:40 am

                  Have a think about who is owed the debt and who is collecting it. I don't think we want to turn MIQ facilities into debt collectors, they should be focused on protecting the border.

                  • Jimmy …
                    18 November 2021 at 11:18 am

                    So are you saying MIQ stays should be free? ie. basically paid for by tax payers? As many of these people travelling can certainly afford overseas trips and MIQ.

                    • Nic the NZer …
                      18 November 2021 at 11:29 am

                      No, I'm just saying the govt should be happy to collect its own debts. Responsibility for debt collection is not something MIQ facilities need on their hands right now either.

  11. Molly 11
    17 November 2021 at 10:59 am

    Good article in the Australian The Age, regarding the August position statement from Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP):

    Recognising and addressing the mental health needs of people experiencing Gender Dysphoria / Gender Incongruence

    Written by Dr Sandra Pertot: "Now I'm hopeful we can talk about teens and gender"

    My clinical training is to assess and treat each client as an individual, and it is not appropriate to have any preconceived beliefs about a diagnosis until a thorough assessment has been undertaken. I would never try to talk a client out of their beliefs, but I do try to give them permission to explore what pathway is right for them. It is a client-affirming approach. Unfortunately, this approach clashes with the gender-affirming approach that now dominates the socio-political discourse about transgender people, and many health services worldwide.It

    The article talks about the rise in FTM patients, and receiving her first formal complaint after making this podcast.

  13. gsays 13
    17 November 2021 at 11:56 am

    It occurs to me, there are two very conflicting, diametrically opposed desires operating amongst most of us.

    Page after page of desires to get back to enjoying hospitality, the 'economy' to get going again, BAU.

    And, we must reduce out carbon footprint/stop ruining the planet.

    I called in on a previous employer yesty and sat while a few had lunch.

    Vege burgers and fries. The fries are from the U.S., packaged in 2 kg lots in a single use plastic bag. 5 x bag in a waxed cardboard box. Moved to Auckland, trucked to a distribution hub, trucked to Palmy food wholesaler, trucked to site.

    Burger buns, made in Auckland, each layer seperated by a thin, single use plastic bag, ditto the distribution.

    The greens, in this case a slaw, made in Auckland, 2kgs in a heavy wall, single use vac-pac bag, ditto distribution.

    The aioli was made in house, but with eggs from Auckland, and canola oil made goodness knows where, garlic processed in Auckland….

    The point is we need a radical shift in our consumer behaviour, basically far less of it. Trigger warning- this includes our coffees.

    Despite 35 years of neo liberal thinking, we can't just sub-contract our way out of destroying the planet.

    Rant over.

    • Foreign Waka 13.1
      17 November 2021 at 12:29 pm

      That would be great, just sometimes not practical. Not everybody lives near a vege pad of a size that feeds a family all year round.

      Also many companies are making bulk deals that include minimum delivery so that they get a better price and everybody out there can afford their product. Health and Safety law and regulation will demand the overuse of packaging (my all time pet hate). The trading of food returns taxes and GST….there is admittingly no need to import unless our cows are being part of an export deal in exchange….perhaps..

      The taxes taken to pay back those 16 Billion dollars will not create an environment of fast paced self-sufficiency and funds to improve waste water etc. In fact I have a bet that after the next election GST will go up by 2%.

      We could go hundreds of years back but this means the deal between ordinary folks and the government is off. The exchange was land for convenience of mass distribution and access to food and goods. After the royalty was killed off. Most will choose convenience. If we are to go back we need the land to support ourselves. Provided we have the skills to work it and the land is arable.

      So where is the middle? And why are we building houses on the best land in NZ to grow food? Why are we allowing waste water to go into the waterways and sea?

      • gsays 13.1.1
        17 November 2021 at 2:07 pm

        No problems with anything you say.

        What I am getting at is the business model is broken, no longer fit for purpose.

        The chips are a prime example. Buy spuds from a localish producer, delivery in reusable 20kg hessian sacks. Process and add value in-house. Money stays in local economy and school age person can get good knife skills.

        Food outlets can specialize rather than the 50 item menu that is commonplace now.

        • Sabine 13.1.1.1
          17 November 2021 at 2:25 pm

          School aged person will cost you 20 NZD per hour, plus kiwi saver, plus holiday pay, plus sick pay, will need training and will need another person at the ready to replace the school aged person while they are on leave or on holiday.

          • gsays 13.1.1.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 2:41 pm

            Excellent! Win win.

            That is also funding work ethic, more disposable income locally and contributing to a youngsters self worth.

            Far better that than more trucks, more plastic, more carbon more returns to foreign owned companies.

    • weka 13.2
      17 November 2021 at 12:50 pm

      well said gsays. I've been wanting to write a post about this for a long time. At the moment I'm tending towards thinking that most New Zealanders don't actually give a shit about the climate or ecology. They say they do but when it comes down to it, most are not willing to change or act in ways that will make a difference. Covid has made this very obvious. Hard to write about the issue given that.

      • gsays 13.2.1
        17 November 2021 at 2:15 pm

        Hard to disagree with you weka. Lip service comes to mind.

        I was feeling curmudgeonly when I wrote it. As much as a reminder that we can't have it both ways- the return of an industry that is poorly paid and relies on ignoring externalities while doing our bit facing CC.

        Not wanting to tell you how to suck eggs but maybe framed in the context of our most popular PM's 'nuclear moment'?

        We do need reminding.

        • weka 13.2.1.1
          17 November 2021 at 2:57 pm

          the problem for me with centering Labour is that atm I always want to use the headling "fuck Labour" (when writing about climate, or water, or poverty, or housing…)

      • RedLogix 13.2.2
        17 November 2021 at 2:15 pm

        They say they do but when it comes down to it, most are not willing to change or act in ways that will make a difference.

        Given a choice between climate and poverty guess which wins every time.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSZzVm3nT50

        • gsays 13.2.2.1
          17 November 2021 at 2:36 pm

          Is it fair to describe a far less carbon intensive lifestyle as poverty?

          Sure, we may be less 'rich' but that is coming down from a very high bar.

          Plus the unintended consequences of pivoting to a localised economy means the same $ are shared among more people nearer the bottom end of the scale.

          Or less for shareholders and other rentiers.

          • RedLogix 13.2.2.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 3:10 pm

            Is it fair to describe a far less carbon intensive lifestyle as poverty?

            It's accurate to say that a lifestyle without electricity is poverty. The question is how carbon intensive is that electricity? Two related but different things.

            The point being made is that in all the developing countries – when it comes to a choice between no electricity and dirty coal generated electricity – the coal wins every time. And that's the crux of the climate change debate.

            The only technical pathway forward is carbon free, reliable electricity that is cheaper than coal.

            (I will add that making coal more expensive by stopping subsidies and adding a carbon price really would help a lot in the developed world – but then again you cannot blame countries like say Indonesia looking at this as a very poor deal indeed.)

    • roblogic 13.3
      17 November 2021 at 2:23 pm

      well considering that global supply chains are all turning to custard due to Covid and other factors we are all gonna be buying local a lot more, I suspect.

  14. swordfish 14
    17 November 2021 at 12:32 pm

    More from the NZ arm of a recent international Lord Ashcroft Poll:

    .

    As Graham Adams recently asked:

    is the Prime Minister trapped between electoral disaster and the relentless ambitions of her Māori caucus?

    .

    Lord Ashcroft Poll:

    Q: Best way to ensure all New Zealanders are treated fairly is to have:

    1. Laws, institutions & public services that apply to everyone no matter what their background:

    2. Some laws, institutions & public services dedicated to Māori and indigenous people:

    ……………… 1. Everyone % …….. 2. Māori-Indigenous %

    All ……………….. 77 ………………….. 22

    Male ………..…….. 79 ………………….. 20

    Female …………….. 74 ………………….. 24

    Age

    18-24 ……………… 64 …………………. 34

    25-34 …………..….. 71 …………………. 29

    35-44 …………..….. 76 …………………. 23

    45-54 ……………….. 78 …………………. 21

    55-64 ……………….. 83 …………………. 16

    65 + ……………….… 85 …………………. 14

    Party Support

    Māori …………..…… 52 …………………. 48

    Green …………..….. 53 …………………. 46

    Labour ……………… 74 …………………. 25

    NZF ……………..…. 81 …………………. 18

    National ………….…. 86 …………………. 13

    ACT ……………..…. 90 …………………. 10

    Ethnicity

    Māori …………….… 56 …………………. 43

    Mixed Māori ………… 65 …………………. 35

    Pasikika …………….. 69 …………………. 29

    Other Mixed …………. 74 …………………. 24

    Asian …………….… 77 …………………. 22

    White/Euro ……….… 79 …………………. 20

    Other Ethnicity …….… 86 …………………. 13

    • RedLogix 14.1
      17 November 2021 at 12:34 pm

      I think the older you get the more likely you recall the phrase "full and final settlement".

      • lprent 14.1.1
        17 November 2021 at 1:34 pm

        The one from the 1940s? That was when I believe it was first used. For instance this "full settlement" that was arbitrarily imposed Taranaki iwi in the mid-1940s by the self-interested beneficiaries of outright land theft in the Taranaki.

        https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/8/11/162/pdf

        For the 143,870 acres confiscated from Te Whakatohea, which included ‘all the flat and useful ¯ land’, the Commission recommended an annual payment of £300.

        A subsequent petition from the people of Te Whakatohea summed up the tribe’s view of the Crown’s ‘generosity’: ¯ What generous gentlemen those Commissioners were! What magnanimity! What liberality! 143,870 acres of the flat, fertile and alluvial lands in and around the township of Opotiki politically and scientifically filched from the Natives by the early administrators of this country—and the said liberal gentlemen recommended £300! What lavish prodigal generosity . . . It was political robbery from people who were defenceless; it was spoliation of a Native race [61].

        ‘Final Settlement’ of claims relating to the confiscation of Maori land was reached in the ¯ mid-1940s when legislation was enacted giving effect to the recommendations of the Sim Commission. Taranaki Maori received their £5000 annuity and an additional £300 for the ‘loss and destruction’ of ¯ certain ‘goods and chattels’ during the Crown’s invasion of the pacifist settlement of Parihaka [62]. The Crown would later concede that during the invasion of Parihaka in 1881, Crown troops committed a number of rapes, residents were wrongly and indefinitely detained, others were forcibly evicted, their homes and sacred buildings destroyed or desecrated, their heirlooms stolen, and their crops and livestock systematically destroyed [63]. By way of ‘Final Settlement’ for the loss of 1.2 million acres, Waikato-Tainui and Ngati Maniapoto received an annuity of £5000, an additional one-o ¯ ff payment of £5000 and a further £1000 annuity for a duration of 45 years [64]. Having rejected the £300 initially offered, Whakatohea received a one-o ¯ ff payment of £20,000 in final settlement for the confiscation of 143,870 acres [65].

        5. The Waitangi Tribunal and the Contemporary Treaty Settlement Process

        With such paltry compensation, it is hardly surprising that Maori continued to call for the return ¯ of their lands—the centrality of land to Maori identity and social, economic and spiritual wellbeing ¯ cannot be overstated [66]. During the 1960s and 1970s, and in an international context of increasingly vociferous protest against war and imperialism and for, among other things, indigenous rights, women’s rights, and queer rights, Maori were involved in a number of high-profile protest actions aimed at ¯ the return of their ancestral lands [26] (pp 21–24, 25), [67–69]

        Note that "the return of their ancestral lands" means getting a income in perpetuity rather then getting a gratuity that gets eroded by inflation and has final dates. For some reason that wasn’t offered for a act of theft – instead there was this arbitrarily imposed “full settlement”.

        That is why if you look at the best run iwi organisations, they tend to focus on acquiring land and then leasing it as market rentals (where they aren't putting up their own housing).

        There is a reason why Maori, especially the elderly, are so distrustful of "full and final settlements" imposed or extorted from them by people who are using their theft 'rights' to put them over barrel.

        They are also entirely aware that the medical system that works for others seem to leave their population with distressingly low life expectancy, education systems that seem to only prepare their kids for jail, settlers who seem to like spending their time using rivers and waterway like the sewers that they left in Europe in the 19th century, etc.

        They rightfully say that those systems alien to their culture are clearly not working for them – and say that they should be changed so that they do. I have a great deal of sympathy for that point of view.

        I found the Kiwi education system to be a pile of crap myself – more of a daycare for working parents rather than a education system – I managed to educate myself despite its clear deficiencies with the support of my family and a huge stockpile of books from university.

        • RedLogix 14.1.1.1
          17 November 2021 at 1:52 pm

          Your comment implicitly rejects any possibility of the the Treaty process ever being finalised. And that's because as framed it cannot be.

          In one sense the only way to resolve it finally is for everything that happened in NZ after 1840 to be erased – everything removed or destroyed if it could not be – and then given back to the iwi chiefs as found and in a form no longer ‘alien to their culture’. That would return precisely what was taken – full and final.

          The problem is that the modernity and progress that the vile, thieving colonials brought with them – keeps on adding to the value of everything. Settlement one decade will always be 'paltry' the next.

          I concluded back in the 80's that the process was designed by both sides to never achieve finality.

          • Tricledrown 14.1.1.1.1
            17 November 2021 at 8:27 pm

            It's always been paltry the wellington settlement for $170 million plus some land was all the govt could give under the $2 billion overall cap.The land stolen and confiscated was estimated at the time to be worth $17 billion.

            Yet Maori gave some of this land in the paltry settlement back as a National Park. To show how generous they are.You would not get that from those who have profited out of that stolen land.

          • lprent 14.1.1.1.2
            18 November 2021 at 9:10 am

            I concluded back in the 80's that the process was designed by both sides to never achieve finality.

            I would say that you were just impatient and clearly didn't understand the complexity of the task.

            We are talking about claims running back to 1840, and concentrated in the 1860-1890 era. My direct family tree were here for much of that period – the first of whom arrived in the early 1820s and the last in the 1880s.

            I couldn't give you a genealogy running much past 1930 or a land history of property running much past the 40 years. That is despite the best efforts of some of my deceased elders who got interested in things like that in their retirement. I'm someone who is strongly interested in history – just not particularly of DNA breeding patterns or the tales of my ancestors. In this I'm pretty typical of Europeans culture outside of some self-appointed aristocracy who lean on their ancestors achievements rather than their own.

            Maori have a very different culture. They still have a tradition of carrying a verbal history as a iwi, hapu or just a family clan. Sometimes, like all verbal histories that aren't taken down from the living, these are frequently blurred by time and embellishments.

            That Waitangi Treaty was envisaged as a process – at least in part because was going to be bloody difficult dealing with century old claims.

            The problem with finality is the sheer number of land cases where land was confiscated unlawfully or where the laws were made without a legal justification. Each of which has to be documented as evidence and then negotiated. This was always going to take decades. Just doing the historical research when virtually everyone involved in the original deeds was dead was immense.

            It was also what the lazy 'full and final settlement' morons running the processes for the crown back in the 1940s neglected to do at all. So there wasn't even a record from that, let alone from when the expropriations were made. Quite simply the crown didn't hold sufficient records to refute claims and they had to work like crazy digging back into the remaining records to verify or refute claims.

            Maori were never going to get all of their land back – their only prospect of that was to claim back land that the state had grabbed from them and still held, or compensatory assets (typically of less value). The money paid out was generally targeted by iwi towards buying other revenue generating assets.

            A key part of the negotiation was putting place forward agreements so that when certain types of crown held property became available that iwi often got first refusal and an acceptable purchase process. That process is ongoing.

            But as far as I am aware each land settlement that has been achieved has been final, subject to any outstanding claims outside of the agreement. And once the appeals from competing hapu and competing iwi were dealt with.

            In one sense the only way to resolve it finally is for everything that happened in NZ after 1840 to be erased – everything removed or destroyed if it could not be – and then given back to the iwi chiefs as found and in a form no longer ‘alien to their culture’. That would return precisely what was taken – full and final.

            You could also ask for the dead killed by European diseases to arise from the grave too along with the families that they never had. However none of those things were in the Waitangi Tribunal enabling legislation.

            The land claims are slowly coming to an end because new claims were closed off in 2008 and while the remaining historical claims (before September 1992) are large – they are few.

            There are a number of non-assets claims still proceeding related to the principles in the Treaty. The most important of those (in my view) have to do with despoliation of water. Something that I have a great deal of sympathy about because the crown has traditionally screwed this up really badly. We will be spending another century cleaning them up because we have to (and that is the earth sciences and history student in me talking).

            But the other major problem that remains is the 180 years odd violations of the treaty provisions social effects on the Maori population. I usually boil this down to one set of statistics – the percentage of Maori in prisons is obscene and clearly points to the failure of kiwi society and the crown at all levels.

            As at 2018 about 1 in 142 Maori males will spend time in prison in their lifetime compared to 1 in 880 kiwis of euro ancestry. Our male prisons usually hold about 50% or more Maori population at any one time, and about 68% in female prisons.

            Maori are about 15% of our total population. Those prison figure haven't budged much in my lifetime. And they probably won't until Maori feel more comfortable in our common society.

            That is just dead weight on our common society. Clearly the opportunities must be limited to force so many down that unproductive path (even if there wasn't the filtering effect of the justice system – see this Stuff interactive)

            In the tech areas that I have been working in for the last 30 years, I can't recall ever working with any Maori colleagues at all – despite most of those organisations having some pretty diverse hires from both local born and immigration. Somehow I don't think that having 15% of our population effectively excluded from some of the highest paying professional jobs is a good sign.

            The only place that I have ever seen over the last 45 years in my jobs where Maori employment at comparable or better levels was when I was in in the army.

            The regular force enlisted were close to 50% of their intake. The TF intake I was was ridiculously European for a kid coming from Mt Albert Grammar with its diversity of population back in 1977. That spoke to me as being a systematic poverty problem. I suspect that it might be a bit better today

            Until those kinds of inequities subside to an acceptable, the Waitangi Tribunal needs to continue their work – because it is clear that the promises in any version of our founding treaty haven't been fulfilled.

            Plus having a disaffected population who doesn't trust the crown or the state and isn't able to work to their capabilities through lack of opportunities is just unproductive. You only have to look at the Maori vaccination rates to see consequences of that.

            • RedLogix 14.1.1.1.2.1
              18 November 2021 at 9:51 am

              I read that and find myself nodding at most points. You touch on two main themes – the ToW process itself and the obvious alienation of many – but certainly not all – Maori.

              Stepping back I'd argue that we've both made the case, from differing directions, that the idea of the ToW process bringing any kind of finality to the table was always wrong. Both parties were always going to be disappointed because the land itself – important as it is in some ways – was never really the issue.

              The real issue is one that has repeated itself uncountable times over millennia – what happens when one society that has progressed to a wider stage of evolution encounters one that has not. Essentially Maori – like so many similar peoples elsewhere – were a tribal society that were never going to remain unchanged when modernity arrived.

              This doesn't mean that tribal societies have no value, nor lack their own sophistication and history. It says nothing about the stature and mana of the people who lived in that world. But ultimately their tribal social technology had no answer to the nation state the Europeans brought with them.

              This is the very stuff of history – peoples who had adopted broader based social structures and wider moral horizons, displacing those who had yet to. Absent this process we would still be hunter-gatherers, numbering no more than a few 10's of millions across the whole planet. Neither of us would be here to type out this conversation.

              Your second theme on the alienation of some Maori within the wider NZ society is too complex to deal with concisely. I'll confine myself to noting that while the left has been spitting out phrases like 'structural racism' and 'white supremacy' for quite some time now – there is no evidence that any of this effort has reduced the Maori head count in our prisons by so much as one.

              • lprent …
                18 November 2021 at 11:11 am

                I'll confine myself to noting that while the left has been spitting out phrases like 'structural racism' and 'white supremacy' for quite some time now – there is no evidence that any of this effort has reduced the Maori head count in our prisons by so much as one.

                Sure – but that is more of an indictment of the tendency for the hand-wringers of the left to talk without doing anything productive when they don't feel the problem personally. They love talking about problems but recoil from looking for solutions. And they too bloody impatient looking for results. Social changes take many decades, and usually many generations.

                BTW: The conservatives have the opposite problem – they're always looking to stop talking and do stupid actions. Short-term actions that don't solve problems and tend to create even larger ones. Look at any policy driven by Judith Collins in her ministerial career for the definitive exemplars.

                But the problem you're talking about is exactly what the Maori activists that I took time to go and listen to back in the 80s and 90s said would happen. Attempts to do things the European way using crown entities on a Maori population that didn't trust those processes was doomed to fail.

                They have never worked in the past – but fools in politics, ministerial policies, and their departments keep trying to repeat the same failed approaches over and over again. I went back into the history and that is exactly what happened 150 years.

                The argument of the activists was that only way to lift Maori out of the vast hole that those failed policies had created was to get Maori to designed the policies and ideally to largely handle them (there are obvious issues with skill shortages).

                The only system that even looked like that was the attempt to rescue the Maori language from its impending oblivion. Started without state support in 1985, gained that in 1990. It has now been spreading up the education chain as you can see from the latest stats.

                As a person who knows roughly 90 computer languages, I really miss not having had the chance to learn Maori myself. I have absolutely no ear for Maori, and I find I keep needing it more and more as Maori spreads into daily life – especially in the names of government organisations. They all 'sound' the same to me. I have never used the spoken and written Latin, French, and German that I did to varying degrees at school.

                Outside of a few Iwi organisations starting in the later 90s, there weren't any other attempts to follow this singular and as far as I can tell only mature successful strategy example of Maori-led solutions for Maori until the 21st century. These were few even then and now.

                So I'd say – don't be so frigging impatient. These are generational changes not ones that turn on a historical dime.

                But at least as a society we're slowly getting out of the habit of trying to tailor generic solutions for problems that are specific to Maori and other groups.

                I tend to focus on Maori because of the usual Pareto analysis way of solving systematic issues. Identify the biggest problem first (ie like prison populations) and figure out based on the previous failed solutions and odd successful one on what to try next until you find things that keep working – then expand from that.

                Right now the only visible effect is the slow rise of a Maori middle income group, in a large part mostly working on Maori issues or organisations. That works for me – it was what I argued was the only useful path back in the 1980s and 1990s when the Waitangi Tribunal process started making decisions that eventually started to capitalise Iwi corporations. That Maori working for Maori was the only historically viable process.

                This is the very stuff of history – peoples who had adopted broader based social structures and wider moral horizons, displacing those who had yet to. Absent this process we would still be hunter-gatherers, numbering no more than a few 10's of millions across the whole planet. Neither of us would be here to type out this conversation.

                Yes and no. We don't exactly have a human monoculture world wide despite our massively generic similarity compared to any other species apart from cheetahs. I'd argue that historically you can identify the successful cultures by their very lack of a monoculture. They are the bastard mixes of cultures that learn to accommodate differences.

                In NZ, I really noticed this when I left the Ponsonby and Mt Albert environs of the 1970s and went working around the rest of the North and South island cities and towns in the 1980s. They felt class ridden and stagnant to me. Plus the food was terrible.

                • RedLogix …
                  18 November 2021 at 11:34 am

                  I'm short on time to do justice to this conversation but again – mostly in agreement. The nitpick that leapt out at me was this:

                  . I'd argue that historically you can identify the successful cultures by their very lack of a monoculture.

                  Tell that to much of Asia – but still I take the point. However what I had in mind was not so much 'culture' in the sense you are using it here, but 'social technology' in the sense of the staged progression from the small clan based nomadic hunter-gather, the territorial tribalists, the regional based city based empire, the rise of the civilisational empire and toward the modern nation state. The most important distinction at each stage is the scope of their 'moral horizon' – how many people are on the inside vs the outside.

                  This concept is really not the same as culture or ethnicity at all. And while the transition from one stage to the other is always turbulent, in the long run the society that has adopted the broader based social horizon dominates.

        • Descendant Of Smith 14.1.1.2
          17 November 2021 at 1:56 pm

          Particularly galling is the compensation paid to the farmers for losing their free land was more than that paid to the owners whose land it was. They also extended the leases further.

          Apparently Maori don't get the same property rights / compensation that white settlers do. Same as the compensation paid to slave owners for losing their slaves really!

          https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68188083/Taranaki%20Maori%20Dairy%20Industry%20Changes%20etc.pdf

      • Stuart Munro 14.1.2
        18 November 2021 at 11:25 am

        It's really a tool for hopeless debtors to avoid bankruptcy, it would never be a credible option for a government that is not utterly desperate.

    • swordfish 14.2
      17 November 2021 at 12:35 pm

      Sadly, no edit function … so can't tidy up table [no matter how neat & careful you are … it never ends up that way once posted angry]

      • roblogic 14.2.1
        17 November 2021 at 2:34 pm

        @swordfish:
        1. turn off javascript to get the plain comment box
        2. use the <pre> tag to print fixed width text
        3. construct your table like so.. (dunno if the html table tags are supported.. could test it out later)

        | Use a | fixed width | font perhaps? |
| Line1 | ..column2.. | .. column3 .. |
| dunno | if it will  | .. work??? .. |
      • Tricledrown 14.2.2
        17 November 2021 at 8:28 pm

        It's always been paltry the wellington settlement for $170 million plus some land was all the govt could give under the $2 billion overall cap.The land stolen and confiscated was estimated at the time to be worth $17 billion.

        Yet Maori gave some of this land in the paltry settlement back as a National Park. To show how generous they are.You would not get that from those who have profited out of that stolen land.

  15. Sabine 15
    17 November 2021 at 2:17 pm

    There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada.

    The Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley are now completely cut off from the rest of British Columbia and the country by road.

    https://www.kamloopsbcnow.com/watercooler/news/news/Provincial/Vancouver_is_now_completely_cut_off_to_the_rest_of_Canada_by_road/

    ouch.

  16. gsays 16
    17 November 2021 at 2:32 pm

    Great news. Police have announced they have discovered 2 bodies in the Pike River mine.

    Using boreholes and modern detection equipment, they have very clear images of the remains of two of the men.

    Too soon for police to say if prosecutions will follow as the investigation is on-going.

    https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/127014143/live-police-to-announce-remains-of-men-killed-in-pike-river-mine-disaster-found

  17. McFlock 17
    17 November 2021 at 4:52 pm

    So this isn't the first time someone has used their health credentials and then argued that they shouldn't be held responsible because they were doing so "in a personal capacity". a recently-departed Southern DHB board member did something similar.

    Makes me wonder whether "personal capacity" is doing the rounds as an "absolve responsibility free" card, like "I don't recognise your authority" and "sovereign citizen". Seems to have about the same success rate.

    • joe90 17.1
      17 November 2021 at 6:10 pm

      Of course I had to look. Barking. Just short of it's the Joos but "Immortal" Hydra Vulgaris got a mention in the comments.

    • Gezza 17.2
      17 November 2021 at 10:27 pm

      Yep, I expect the same.

      The government (in the "person" of OSH) should teally ibe the first in the dock over the Pike River deaths

      Big day. Need to crash. Nite all

    • Blazer 17.3
      18 November 2021 at 11:28 am

      Its a subtle twist on the many hats defence popularised by a recent P.M.

  18. Foreign waka 18
    17 November 2021 at 8:10 pm

    A sign of things to come? "We care for people on both end of the leach"

    https://youtu.be/cdkvvafeMzk

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