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Open mike 18/12/2024

Written By: - Date published: 10:03 am, December 18th, 2024 - 33 comments
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33 comments on “Open mike 18/12/2024 ”

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  1. Adrian 1
    18 December 2024 at 10:24 am

    "Cometh the hour cometh the man , and woman. ". from Stuff this morning, Dr Dave Galler, critical care specialist and partner Judge Emma Aitken gatecrashed a NZ First Christmas party and verbally attacked Winston and Costello and others about how they were doing a shit job of government. Brilliant, he always has been one of my heroes, ( my wife worked with him at Auckland Hospital for a number of years and maintained that he was an incedible doctor). I can understand and share his anger he has been saving lives for decades and far too many of them as a result of cancer and smoking harm.

    They are my pick for New Zealanders of the Year.

    • Incognito 1.1
      18 December 2024 at 10:39 am

      Do you have the link, please?

    • Patricia Bremner 1.3
      18 December 2024 at 11:53 am

      yes 100% Adrian.

    • alwyn 1.4
      18 December 2024 at 12:22 pm

      I find Dr Galler's interpretation of what he said to the Indian employee at the club to be a truly inspired piece of flimflammery.

      He is accused of saying “Since when did we start allowing Indians to enter this club?”

      He excuses himself by saying, in essence, that the person he was speaking to misunderstood what he meant. Thus he claims that what he meant was

      "I understand that one member of your staff felt insulted and hurt by remarks I made which he interpreted as racist". Then he says that what he was really saying was that

      "“I want to be clear about the comments I made, I was commenting on the club's historical policy of excluding many people on grounds of religion (which would have included me), ethnicity and gender.” (Galler is the son of Polish Jewish refugees.)"

      I wonder how long it took for him to come up with this interpretation of his remarks?

      No wonder it took about three weeks before he came out with a statement on the matter. To turn a racist remark into one that implies that he and the Indian employee of the club were both on the same side of the matter and that he was being sadly misunderstood takes enormous skill, and imagination.

      https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360526064/judge-celebrity-doctor-apologise-verbally-attacking-winston-peters-christmas-party?_gl=1*zms68s*_ga*MTY4ODA1NDExNi4xNzMwMzI0NDU5*_ga_P3Q4DDZ07F*MTczNDQ3NjQyMS44OS4wLjE3MzQ0NzY0MjQuNTcuMC4w

      • adam 1.4.1
        18 December 2024 at 4:00 pm

        As always Irony is just to hard for alwyn, poor wee thing.

        • alwyn 1.4.1.1
          18 December 2024 at 5:42 pm

          Are you seriously trying to suggest that Gellar was making an ironical statement?

          That statement was the only thing I was commenting on. Are you really proposing it was "ironical"?

          • Incognito 1.4.1.1.1
            18 December 2024 at 5:56 pm

            I’ve always suspected that you’re a Buffy fan.

            • alwyn 1.4.1.1.1.1
              18 December 2024 at 6:24 pm

              If you mean Buffy Sainte-Marie I would certainly say yes.

              I doubt whether you have ever heard of her though so I can't confirm, without more detail as to exactly which Buffy you do mean, whether I am or not.

      • Incognito 1.4.2
        18 December 2024 at 10:08 pm

        Let’s have a closer look at your biased framing.

        I find Dr Galler's interpretation of what he said […] [my italics]

        Galler knows what he said and why, but you, OTOH, don’t.

        Thus he claims that what he meant was [my italics]

        Your acting as his accuser and interpreter at the same time.

        He is accused of saying […]

        […]

        He excuses himself by saying […] [my italics]

        It has been alleged and Galler explained, rather.

        I wonder how long it took for him to come up with this interpretation of his remarks?

        No wonder it took about three weeks before he came out with a statement on the matter.

        Your bias is on full display in your rhetorical question-answer trick.

        To turn a racist remark into one that implies […] takes enormous skill, and imagination. [my italics]

        It takes exceptional skill and a twisted mind to paint Galler as [a] racist but here we are.

        • adam 1.4.2.1
          19 December 2024 at 12:12 am

          Ah come on incognito you lived through the turning of Corbyn into a racist. Those types will stop at nothing to spread bullshit.

          I mean alwyn lets the whispers in their ears rule them all the time, look at what shit they spins here constantly. Believing lies and twisting truth, it's not a skill – it's self delusion.

          • alwyn 1.4.2.1.1
            19 December 2024 at 5:55 pm

            Ps.

            Alwyn is singular, not plural. He does not indulge in the current peculiar fetish of using plural pronouns like "their" or "they". Try "his" and "he".

            Of course it would be better if you also wrote truthful things about me but I fear that may a bit to much to expect.

        • alwyn 1.4.2.2
          19 December 2024 at 9:50 am

          Bravo! Bravo!

          I congratulate you. I don't remember reading such an imaginative work since the highest points of Timothy Leary's career.

    • Hunter Thompson II 1.5
      18 December 2024 at 2:12 pm

      Odd that a New Zealander of the Year candidate should need to issue a public apology.

      Perhaps Judge Aitken felt she was giving effect to the well-known legal maxim "audi alteram partem" (hear the other side). The only problem is that she was not invited to the function Winston Peters was having.

  2. Adrian 2
    18 December 2024 at 10:38 am

    On another note…where is the NZ Governments response to the Vanuatu earthquake? If Labour and the left were still in power there would be have been an an immediate response of personnel , planes and ships to be on their way. It would not surprise me for a moment if they are they having to wait for Luxon to get out of bed and fly to Whenuapai to be filmed waving them off.

    More outright arseholery from the master of shitfuckery!\

    It does seem as NZers may be among the casualties, my condolences to their families and those of the Vanuatuans who are also suffering.
    It is our responsibility to give as much immediate help as possible.

    • alwyn 2.1
      18 December 2024 at 12:42 pm

      I suggest that you should look at the newspapers before you ask your question.

      In the Herald we have a story, apparently posted at 08.11 am, thus about two and a half hours before your comment, that

      "The New Zealand Defence Force is scrambling resources for the island nation as attempts are made to restore power and repair damage to the water supply which has now run dry, according to the Red Cross.

      Foreign Minister Winston Peters said a Defence Force P8 aircraft is due to fly over the hardest hit areas to assess the damage and a C130 would attempt to land this afternoon carrying rescue teams, supplies and consular people."

      How much faster do you think would have been possible?

    • gsays 2.2
      19 December 2024 at 12:06 pm

      "where is the NZ Governments response to the Vanuatu earthquake?"

      Broken down in Noumea.

      What an apt metaphor for Luxon's government.

  3. Incognito 3
    18 December 2024 at 10:38 am

    How to increase the size of the proletariat in NZ, which is the unwritten goal of CoC: the smallest percentage increase in minimum wage since the 1990s, and making it easier to hire immigrants.

    "We've [NZCTU] calculated that a full-time minimum wage worker will be $235 a year worse off in real terms. This is the second year in a row that we've had a below-inflation increase. In real terms, over the two decisions of Brooke van Velden workers will be $1206 a year worse off."

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/536914/smallest-minimum-wage-increase-since-the-1990s

    She [BusinessNZ chief executive Katherine Rich] said it was not a matter of being free to import cheap labour, as most of the jobs available required some level of skill and experience.

    But she said paying migrants a median wage – which was higher than the wage paid for New Zealanders – was a cost barrier that was not only inflationary, but made businesses uncompetitive.

    "In some cases employers were having to pay over and above local workers to do the same job, which you can imagine creates some friction as well as inflation."

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/536992/accredited-employer-work-visa-changes-welcomed-by-employers

    Rich and CoC have it back to front, of course, suppressing wages and wage growth through a competitive global labour market is exactly what they’re doing. Just watch for the weasel words and the manipulative misleading framing [I’ve resisted temptation to emphasise them to avoid leading the horse to water and forcing it to drink].

    • AB 3.1
      18 December 2024 at 1:18 pm

      It's not like we've never been here before. National have no love of higher wages and a former (now legendary and sanctified) PM apparently said so.

      • Incognito 3.1.1
        18 December 2024 at 2:00 pm

        Yup, and many before John Key since 1894.

        CoC got in on false promises about how they’d manage the cost-of-living crisis for all New Zealanders and it’s necessary to spell out that not only minimum-wage earners but every worker near that line will go backwards in real terms under this CoC – it’s downward pressure (aka sinking lid) on all wages at the lower end.

        Since it’s anathema to CoC ideology to increase benefits more than minimum wage I fully expect another major dirty trick to come out of their hat.

  4. James Simpson 4
    18 December 2024 at 10:48 am

    Retrospective liability for any company that obtains a consent under the Fast-track legislation.

    Interesting move from Te Pati Maori. They are putting everyone on notice that the next government will hold those people to account if they get a consent now. The next government means business with this.

    https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2024/12/17/te-pati-maori-issues-warning-to-future-fast-track-applicants/

    • gsays 4.1
      18 December 2024 at 11:32 am

      Good news.

      The usual reaction to announcements like that of TPM is that big foreign owned extraction companies need assurance and could harm Aotearoa reputation.

      One only needs to point at the Hyundai shipyard and ask "Pardon?"

    • Barfly 4.2
      18 December 2024 at 12:52 pm

      Retrospective or retroactive?

    • Jenny 4.3
      18 December 2024 at 10:58 pm

      This bodes well for the future of our environmental protections under a Labour led, administration that the GP and TPM are part of.

      The business pundits are always saying, 'We need certainty'.

      Great to see TPM giving business some certainty, by announcing now, that if they are part of the next government they will be scrapping the fast track legislation.

      https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/131678615/give-us-certainty-sustainable-business-leaders-plead-after-climate-assessment.

      Give us certainty, sustainable business leaders plead after climate assessment

      Olivia Wannan

      April 06, 2023 •05:00am

      …..with climate policies currently being jettisoned under the Hipkins-led Government, climate-concerned businesses may need to step up their efforts, they have warned.

      ……

      “It seems as if the only businesses speaking out about political change are in favour of not adapting,” she [Dewar] says. “All this chopping and changing that we’ve seen from Labour is infuriating… When things are scrapped or shelved, we all need to make a noise about it.”

  5. SPC 5
    18 December 2024 at 11:07 am

    The government made the fiscal situation more difficult with its policies, and now will go into the 2026 campaign promising to get us back to where we were in 2023.

    This is what going in the wrong direction looks like.

    The Government can’t start repaying its Covid-era debt until its books get back into surplus.

    So it is renewing its debt, all the while issuing new debt for new expenditure.

    Net core Crown debt is expected to rise to 45% of GDP in 2024/25, before peaking at nearly 47% in 2026/27.

    Willis had promised to get debt to GDP tracking south, below the 40% of GDP mark.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/economy/watch-live-govt-books-in-worse-shape-than-expected-ministers-face-question-time-grilling/FGHTVEZIXNF6JMDHWATZ2M3FGY/

    And it has lost competent staff in the public service and in research – reducing the capability to increase economic productivity. Without reference at all to the teachers and medical staff going westward.

  6. SPC 6
    18 December 2024 at 11:22 am

    Talks in Cairo are getting serious.

    Lancet has warned for some time of the post war, famine and disease consequences.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80vdy9ex9xo

  7. adam 7
    18 December 2024 at 3:57 pm

    Who ever thinks the corporations are not in charge is a absolute idiot at this point.

  8. SPC 8
    18 December 2024 at 4:39 pm

    The Government has confirmed how it will provide redress for survivors of torture at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit.

    The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that any of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Unit between 1972 and 1978 "did not have any form of mental illness, yet they were subjected to unmodified electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or paraldehyde injections".

    "These weren’t administered for any medical reason, instead were used for punishment and emotional control through terror."

    The shocking thing is that if they were seen as in need of mental health care they could have received the same "management" "in care". Would it have been treatment or "punishment and emotional control through terror".

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/12/18/redress-plan-for-torture-survivors-at-lake-alice-unit-outlined/

  10. Jenny 10
    18 December 2024 at 11:55 pm

    Domicide + Scholasticide + Ecocide = ?

    The Ecocide of Palestine

    Vanessa Farr 23 October 2024

    …..Mature fruit trees were deliberately uprooted during Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and 2009 and subsequent assaults have prevented their replanting. Meanwhile, the bombing and laying waste of farmlands is part of an overall onslaught against Palestine’s food sovereignty.

    Cumulatively, these forms of deliberate environmental violence are an assault on Palestine’s food systems and agricultural livelihoods. They steadily undermine farmers’ capacity to practise the ancient Ba’li soil and water conservation methods that, until now, supported the production of fresh fruits and vegetables in which Gaza had managed to remain sufficient before the current onslaught.

    This deliberate undermining of Gaza’s food sovereignty, and of the “eco-Sumud” of the Palestinian people (Shqair, 2023: 79), is part of the occupier’s longitudinal efforts to malnourish the population, which has now escalated to famine as a weapon of war. The deliberate starvation of a civilian population constitutes a war crime (Article 49 of the Genocide Convention). Beyond its immediate cruelty, the enforced lack of adequate nutrition will have an enduring impact, with far-reaching and currently immeasurable implications for public health that will be felt for decades to come….