Open mike 17/12/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 17th, 2023 - 31 comments
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31 comments on “Open mike 17/12/2023 ”

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  1. Heather Grimwood 1
    17 December 2023 at 8:33 am

    It's beyond belief that Simeon Brown has instructed all councils to stop construction of walking and cycling tracks, even to extent of preventing proposed work in Thames Street, Oamaru, intended to to provide safe biking to school for children and enable decent access over kerbs for pedestrians and wheelchairs. It would seem obvious that his ministry is not conforming to the government's protestations about caring for all New Zealanders.

    [Please change your email address in your next comment, thanks – Incognito]

    • Incognito 1.1
      17 December 2023 at 9:31 am

      Mod note

    • Stephen D 1.2
      17 December 2023 at 9:38 am

      What we have to remember is that their definition of “all New Zealanders” is very narrow. Only those that vote right, drive gas guzzling SUVs and refuse to acknowledge anything Māori.

      • Anne 1.2.1
        17 December 2023 at 10:36 am

        Your comment Stephen D fits in perfectly with David Slack's latest offering "Because its not too late" – second down in the ST side-feed. He is witty and funny, but this is one of his serious contributions – a must read.

      • Heather Grimwood 1.2.2
        17 December 2023 at 4:35 pm

        To Stephen D at 1.2 : I was writing from a cynical point of view, believe me! We can just hope multitudes can see through what's happening.

        [Please change your email address in your next comment, thanks – Incognito]

    • mikesh 1.3
      17 December 2023 at 3:40 pm

      It should to be be pointed out to Simeon Brown that cyclists have as much right to the use of the roads as motorists, and that that implies a right to be able to ride in safety; hence the provision of cycle lanes. A right is something that even public opinion cannot turn aside. It should be in the Bill of Rights.

      • Mike the Lefty 1.3.1
        17 December 2023 at 9:05 pm

        I noticed that in Facebook photo ops of Simeon Brown he is almost never seen without a car, usually a ute.

        The guy is a petrol head pure and simple.

        His main aim in life is to stick it to the greenies and restore the internal combustion motor car to its rightful place as the God that New Zealanders worship.

        Up themselves photo smirk artists seem to abound in this coalition government.

        It is not a good look for New Zealanders internationally that they elect a bunch of overgrown juveniles whose idea of government is to treat New Zealand as one big play yard and rearrange the play equipment however it suits them.

  2. outofbed 2
    17 December 2023 at 10:35 am

    Still reform of matrimonial property act, homesexual reform bill, and votes for women, to go. probably a few more I left out slavery ( they have already made a start on that)

  3. Pat 3
    17 December 2023 at 11:21 am

    "If you think about the last time we had a massive correction in the size of government, that was actually in the early 1990s when Ruth Richardson ran her mother of all budgets as she called it. The sort of decline in government consumption that we're talking about now is of a similar magnitude. Back then it had a very, very big impact on both the unemployment rate and economic activity generally. The broader environment was quite different so it would be remiss to suggest it would be exactly the same impact, but it will be meaningful," Toplis says.

    https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/125717/bnz-head-research-stephen-toplis-nz-economy-bouncing-along-bottom-and-what-expect

    History dosnt repeat itself, but it often rhymes ?

    • roblogic 3.1
      17 December 2023 at 10:22 pm

      "Correction" is a helpful euphemism for wholesale destruction and murderous austerity that will "correct" the NZ death rate* back in line with the crappiest pseudo democracies in the world

      *I mean, the excess mortality rate by age, in which Ardern’s Labour saved tens of thousands despite Covid

  4. SPC 4
    17 December 2023 at 12:06 pm

    Kaihohe, no dentist, only a service to pull teeth out for those with a CSC.

    Given the well known impact of dental health on general health …another case of a market based system (dentists where people can afford to pay) placing costs onto public health.

    An interesting footnote, local W and I paying for denture services from a local service (without qualification) to save money (nearest service much more expensive and some distance away).

    On the court case, one wonders what the comparison as per performance with the qualified service – customer feedback – was.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/301025035/tooth-fairy-sentencing-in-kaikohe-puts-spotlight-on-lack-of-dental-services

  5. joe90 5
    17 December 2023 at 12:42 pm

    How to solve a housing crisis.

    Hawaii Gov. Josh Green on Friday said he wants 3,000 condos and homes that are normally rented to Maui tourists converted to long-term housing for displaced wildfire survivors who are now living in hotels.

    Green said he’s prepared to use the “hammer” of post-fire emergency orders to make sure owners of short-term vacation rentals extend them to long-term units if enough spaces aren’t converted voluntarily by mid-January.

    https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-maui-wildfire-vacation-rentals-housing-4ee2b107956140ec6fba32bd22094934

  6. adam 6
    17 December 2023 at 1:47 pm

    So another lie gets exposed. The IDF is insane, and believes it's own bullshit propaganda.

  7. Stephen D 7
    17 December 2023 at 4:12 pm

    Who is Centrist.co.nz?

  8. roblogic 8
    17 December 2023 at 5:49 pm

    Xitter💩 user @MrHilariousKiwi exposes right wing troll army responding to something @RealLucyLawless posted.

    Taking their cues from Cambridge Analytica no doubt. Nats are basically unelectable and need dirty tricks to win

    The old vanishing tweet trick eh? Who? How? Why?Here’s the (2nd attempt) screen grab of my screen grabs today of the #RWTroll network members who came out in waves to trash @RealLucyLawless tweet about the cigarette law change#nzpol pic.twitter.com/H9IWftKaQL— Mr. Kiwi (@MrHilariouskiwi) December 17, 2023

  9. SPC 9
    17 December 2023 at 5:52 pm

    LGWM has been dissolved and full government funding of the Basin Reserve plan and a second tunnel (original plan 4 lanes, two for public transport).

    The council is left to fund its inner city plan Golden Mile project by itself.

    It will note that the LGWM plan included the existing tunnel being used for walking and cycling only.

    It leaves funding for light rail, or rapid bus transit, to the council to finance or a future government partner. This includes both the routes to the airport or to Island Bay.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/301028320/lets-get-wellington-moving-grinds-to-a-halt

    • SPC 9.1
      17 December 2023 at 7:19 pm

      So from a plan for two lanes for cars to 4 lanes for cars.

      The existing tunnel into the city and the two lanes of the new tunnel leaving the city. Buses using these lanes, or the Hataitai tunnel (one lane) at peak times.

  10. joe90 10
    17 December 2023 at 8:47 pm

    There's nothing subtle about their fascism.

    .

    Donald Trump spoke at Whittemore Center Arena on the campus of University of New Hampshire in Durham on Saturday. He slammed his opponents, taking swipes at Republican presidential primary nominees NIkki Haley and Chris Christie — whom Trump, not a poster child of fitness himself, called “a fat pig.”

    […]

    The former president also echoed the words of Adolf Hitler during his anti-immigrant ranting at the rally. “When they let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country — when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” he said of immigrants coming into the United States.

    […]

    Trump evoking Hitler rhetoric comes days after he declared that he’ll act as a “dictator” should he be reelected, but only for “Day One.” As Rolling Stone reported this week, Trump also plans to send vast numbers of U.S. troops — potentially “hundreds of thousands” — to close the southern border and help build a network of immigrant detention camps should he serve a second term.

    In October, Trump made similar Hitler-esque comments, as The Washington Post reports: “It is a very sad thing for our country,” Trump said. “It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have.” In Mein Kampf, there are several passages where Hitler used the words “poison” and “blood” when attacking those he claimed to threaten the purity of the Aryan race, per The New York Times.

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-evokes-hitler-poison-blood-new-hampshire-rally-1234931357/ ( https://archive.li/YJ73t )

    Turning Point USA — the far-right, Christian nationalist group run by Charlie Kirk — is kicking off its annual AmericaFest in Phoenix on Saturday. TPUSA bills AmericaFest as a bash for “like-minded” conservatives to celebrate “the greatest country in the world, America.”

    But in addition to patriotism, many of the gala’s headliners appear to be of like mind about something much darker: a distrust, distaste, or outright hatred of Jewish people. The celebration comes on the heels of Kirk himself having been called out by prominent conservatives for creating “an anti-Semite problem” for the right.

    AmericaFest will be kicked off Saturday night by Roseanne Barr — the far-right comedian, who this past summer not only voiced Holocaust denial, but made a call for violence against the Jewish people. “Nobody died in the Holocaust,” Barr said on a June podcast with Theo Von. “That’s the truth.” Barr followed that lie with an even more shocking statement: “It should happen. Six million Jews should die right now, ‘cause they cause all the problems in the world.”

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/turning-point-usa-americafest-infested-antisemitism-1234930583/ ( https://archive.li/yJM4d )

    • roblogic 10.1
      18 December 2023 at 8:04 am

      All the wealth and power of the USA has gone into the bloated military and the 1%, meanwhile states are booting people off MedicAid

      America's petty and greedy elites and billionaires are the problem, not "the Joooooos!"