Open mike 19/12/2020

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 19th, 2020 - 58 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

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 …

58 comments on “Open mike 19/12/2020 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. aom 1
    19 December 2020 at 6:27 am

    Oh dear, how sad, another self-entitled entrepreneur (Phil Sprey of Capital C: Concerts) wants the Government to change the rules so he can refill his coffers. It seems he has failed to understand what has made NZ's Covid response successful. Private contractors are not able to be trusted, as Australia has also learned at great cost, and he naively believes that superstars would play by the rules when internationally, they haven't. Sprey also seems to not understand the risks involved with superspreader events.

    If his, is such a great idea, he should demonstrate his commitment by offering to carry the risk by depositing sufficient funds to meet the cost of containing and eliminating any consequent Covid-19 outbreak. The concept of employing the Government services at superstar rates to quarantine the performers and their entourages would not go amiss – but that would affect his bottom line no doubt. Even then, should the country carry the risks associated with his personal business? Meanwhile, instead of grandstanding, Sprey could be putting together packages of NZ talent that has had a hard time financially due to Covid.

    Sympathy for the self-entitled – NEVER!

    • WeTheBleeple 1.1
      19 December 2020 at 8:24 am

      Promoters are already putting NZ packages together and long may that continue. I do not see this as a bad idea except anyone thinking they get a special (isolation) deal because they're celebrities.

      Recall Tom Cruise wouldn't allow people to look him in the eye. WTF kind of human is that. Role model? Joke! Recall the Avatar people tossed their toys and went home because we talked about them being precious. HA. That's precious…

      But when we ignore the fatuous fakes that parade around magazine covers we also have an industry that service concerts. Sound, stage and lighting companies. Security, promoters, printers, food vendors, designers, builders, techies, drivers, machinery operators, ground crew and more.

      Personally I'm not interested in paying big ticket prices for bands I've already seen many times. It'll only work for a while then we're flogging a dead horse. So there's merit to imports, despite the fact I find most celebrities to be self absorbed twats.

    • Treetop 1.2
      19 December 2020 at 9:01 am

      In time concerts will return, it is not as if music cannot be heard or seen digitally or musicians and singers from NZ do a concert.

      Not a priority for me to have overseas musicians do a concert.

      Managing the isolation for cricket had risks.

    • Stunned mullet 1.3
      19 December 2020 at 9:26 am

      How is it different to what has been done for the yachting and cricket ?

    • RedBaronCV 1.4
      19 December 2020 at 9:50 am

      Just a plan to line his pockets and drop the balance of payments a little. There are jobs in the sector but I assume they are event related not permanent and they usually seem to bring a lot of people with them. But since NZ events are usually tacked onto Australian concerts for profit reasons I imagine – I don't see how one or two events here would be financially worth it for the performer.

      But why the need for special quarantine? A lot of performers come from pretty ordinary backgrounds and probably wouldn't worry about a quarantine hotel and it's not as if anyone can get to them there

  3. Stuart Munro 3
    19 December 2020 at 10:22 am

    Yet another damning indictment of the government's failure to take rational action on the speculative property bubble.

    Would-be homeowner heads south to get on property ladder | Stuff.co.nz

    Used to be people moved for well-paying jobs – now that there are none, they have to look for places where the foreign bank rake-off is a bit less instead.

    • Ad 3.1
      19 December 2020 at 11:13 am

      Hasn't this movement been the case for several decades?

      Many here have been calling for more professions to move to the regions, as this example shows.

      • Stuart Munro 3.1.1
        19 December 2020 at 11:28 am

        The irrationality lies in the treatment of unemployment.

        For decades we have been told that inflation is terrible. The policy of the decent society, full employment, was abandoned to control inflation, consigning 5-10% of the constant to lives of misery and deprivation.

        But real estate inflation is different somehow – because corrupt MPs have investment properties presumably. Inflation there is evidently economically wonderful, notwithstanding its effects on the productive economy, and the further emiseration of those impoverished by the structural malice of neoliberalism.

        Since inflation is suddenly ok though, maybe we should return to full employment. If it's good enough for the wanker class, it's good enough for those in want.

  4. Ed 4
    19 December 2020 at 10:52 am

    The more you look at Johnson’s government’s actions in the UK over COVID, the more evidence presents that they are guilty of criminal negligence.

    There is no doubt in my mind that the vague instructions are deliberately opaque, so they can wash their hands of culpability – and blame a lack of individual responsibility.

    Johnson and his motley crew should be up in court.

    [Fixed typo in e-mail address]

  5. Ad 5
    19 December 2020 at 11:11 am

    The Chief Executive of Fish and Game resigns three years into a five year contract.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/300187483/fish–game-boss-resigns-suddenly-amid-internal-tension

    This resignation, together with the active undermining on freshwater quality by farmers elected to Fish and Games's regional councils, is a serious loss to the government's water quality improvement efforts. They’ve just had an important ally knocked out for 2021.

    The previous Minister had sought to generate a governance review of the organisation, which appears to have been conveniently buried.

    https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/fish-and-game-governance-be-reviewed

    While National are apparently quiescent, deep in local and regional councils, and in Fish and Game, conservative activists and Federated Farmers, and the truly recalcitrant rural elites, are strengthening their power bases.

    • Graeme 5.1
      19 December 2020 at 12:43 pm

      Wait for farmers to start joining the Labour Party like they have Fish and Game and asserting their democratic membership opportunities.

      Although most farmers were already members of F & G, they tend to hunt and fish more than the general population, just weren't that active in the representative side until F & G started to get assertive in protecting habitat and upset some less than responsible farmers.

      • Ad 5.1.1
        19 December 2020 at 1:34 pm

        I'll fend them off from our Labour meetings with my …. hmmmm ….. my carefully sharpened HOP card.

        • Phillip ure 5.1.1.1
          19 December 2020 at 1:46 pm

          plunging into one of your more ( ahem..!) verbose..takes on things..

          ..could also do the trick..

      • Robert Guyton 5.1.2
        19 December 2020 at 2:07 pm

        The corollary would be for eco-activists to infiltrate and dominate the Federated Farmers groups around the country.

        BBQ's are mandatory, of course and a great guarded gateway, but some of these latest indistinguishable-from-meat-soy-substitute sausages might get an aspiring vegan into the tent.

        • Macro 5.1.2.1
          19 December 2020 at 2:26 pm

          Completely off-topic Robert – but did you hear James Rebanks on Kim Hill this morning?

          Shepherd James Rebanks tends a flock of Herdwick sheep on a family-owned farm in the Lake District in northern England.

          He learned traditional farming ways from his grandfather; a man with a profound connection with his land.

          An OE in Australia introduced Rebanks to industrial farming practices, which he applied to his own farm in the 1990s.

          After a while he realised that he was in fact damaging the land, soil and local wildlife.

          So he started the laborious process of restoring features like hedgerows, pastures, meadows, and dry stone walls- and hasn't looked back. He's now a self declared 'old fashioned farmer

          Podcast Here

        • Ian 5.1.2.2
          19 December 2020 at 7:33 pm

          Have a shave and wear a swandri and you would be in like Flynn.Untill you opened your mouth.

      • Ian 5.1.3
        19 December 2020 at 7:40 pm

        It,s the same old story. Activists take over an organisation to push their extremist views. F and G look like they are cleaning out the idiots and maybe some sensible dialogue could be the end result.

    • Ian 5.2
      19 December 2020 at 7:28 pm

      Anglers and farmers need to work together.Predatory trout are killing our native fish all over New Zealand.Dairy delivers a quarter of New Zealands income.

  6. Ed 6
    19 December 2020 at 11:17 am

    Johnson’s criminal government needs to be held to account.

    ‘In a desperate scramble to acquire supplies during the first wave of the pandemic – the government handed out contracts worth billions of pounds. Now an investigation has claimed a lot of the cash went to companies with links to the Tory party.’

    This is corruption at an unheard of level.

    These cronies need to face a reckoning.

  7. Grafton Gully 7
    19 December 2020 at 1:22 pm

    Advice from a successful professional soldier at the end of an interview.

    "I never expect anyone to agree with me but what I do say is that what I write or say is quite clear and at least they know with what they are disagreeing. That's the big thing, they must know that"

    He earlier comments on leadership, materialism, China, sea power and the importance of political strategy.



    As I see it, NZ politics is dominated at the moment by parties with essentially similar policies, afraid to say anything that might upset the electorate, which stifles constructive disagreement and debate.

    • Ad 7.1
      19 December 2020 at 1:33 pm

      So you've leapt from an interview from a late 1950s military commander having a long comfortable stroke about command-and-control execution, and somehow made a link to New Zealand that we don't democratically debate policy here.

      As I see it, you are an idiot.

      • Phillip ure 7.1.1
        19 December 2020 at 8:18 pm

        that was tidy..

      • Grafton Gully 7.1.2
        19 December 2020 at 8:26 pm

        The policy options debated between the main parties are too similar. In a healthy democracy the main party in government should have policies that are strongly opposed to policies of the opposition parties, otherwise there is no real choice and people come to believe "there is no alternative". I see a link with the quote because I believe our populist political leaders avoid saying or writing anything that might turn public opinion against them. Pleasing public opinion is not a sound motive for policy to deal with the serious problems arising from inequality in NZ.

        • Phillip ure 7.1.2.1
          19 December 2020 at 8:45 pm

          that makes sense..

          • Grafton Gully 7.1.2.1.1
            19 December 2020 at 9:55 pm

            Political leaders still have to get enough votes to win power. I had hoped that like Lange, Ardern would front a covert revolutionary agenda, but so far no sign of this. Lange succeeded – hence most of today's inequality related suffering. No covert Labour agenda this time it seems. A wasted opportunity given their parliamentary majority.

  8. Ad 8
    19 December 2020 at 1:29 pm

    Great to see the Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta push the knife in deep to all those elected fools on Tauranga Council:

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/bay-of-plenty/123758732/commissioner-for-tauranga-as-councillors-pleas-to-stay-in-charge-prove-futile

    They wrote to her begging to stay on, but her response was politely that they hadn't provided any evidence that they were up to it.

    “I consider a commission to be necessary to deliver the strategic leadership that the council and city needs.”

    With their notorious crap communication in Tauranga city, she stated “I will be sending the commission a strong direction to ensure that the Tauranga community is engaged with and consulted on all significant decisions of the council, as is required in the legislation."

    If anyone lives or has recently visited Tauranga recently, it's actually exploding in growth and there's next to zero coherence to go with it.

    The Tauriko industrial park for example is in the middle of paddocks, pushed out of a three-way motorway intestine like a haemeroid.

    Its public transport system is one of the worst in New Zealand, and barely used. There is no passenger train service despite rail going right through the middle of downtown and connecting Tauranga to the Mount. You can walk down Cameron Street its main commercial street on any night and you will see not a single pedestrian – just a few brave kids on scooters and bikes.

    And its downtown framework is in close-to the same condition it was in when it was launched four years ago.

    https://www.priorityone.co.nz/vdb/document/1610

    For our fifth largest city, it shows simply a comprehensive failure by the Council to keep up with and direct the future of the city.

  9. Macro 9
    19 December 2020 at 2:09 pm

    For those who are of the strongly held opinion that Biden is little more than a slightly kinder version of Trump, I'm posting this link in the hope that they will think again.

    In what is a major first for the US with a long history of oppression of Native Americans the appointment of a Native American woman and the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet Secretary is a major resetting of priorities.

    President-elect Joe Biden's selection of Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., to lead the Department of the Interior — potentially the first Native American to do so and serve as a Cabinet secretary — is being celebrated across Native American groups and viewed as a fresh start for tribal relations with the federal government.

    The Interior Department is "a massive battleship. It's not going to turn on a dime, but this is the signaling of a new chapter," said Crystal Echo Hawk, executive director of IllumiNative, a Native American advocacy group. "This is a deep resetting of the federal government's relationship with Native peoples, one that was built on stolen land and broken promises."

    Biden's pick of Haaland had drawn concern among some Democrats over the threat of losing another seat and narrowing of the party's slim hold in the U.S. House. But she tweeted Thursday that the historic nature of her nomination has come at the right moment.

    "A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior," Haaland, 60, a tribal member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, said. "Growing up in my mother's Pueblo household made me fierce. I'll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land."

    Haaland's supporters say her experience in Congress and personal understanding of Native American issues makes her qualified for an important federal position that involves the conservation and managing of the country's 500 million acres of federal lands and natural resources and includes a broad patchwork of agencies such as the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

    "It is truly a historic and unprecedented day for all Indigenous people," said Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation, the tribe with the largest reservation in the United States.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/native-americans-rep-haaland-s-nomination-interior-secretary-signals-new-n1251727

    • AB 9.1
      19 December 2020 at 6:56 pm

      In policy terms, the racial/cultural identity of the appointees will be much less influential than what the Democratic Party's corporate donors will tolerate.
      The optics however, are excellent.

      • Ad 9.1.1
        19 December 2020 at 8:19 pm

        He hasn't started. Evaluate the results.

        And the optics of precedent-breaking appointments are as important there as they are here.

        • Phillip ure 9.1.1.1
          19 December 2020 at 8:48 pm

          one good thing about biden..is that he knows he will likely only do one term..

          ..so no reason not to go for it..

          ..but then again..it is biden..

          I hope to be surprised..

      • Macro 9.1.2
        19 December 2020 at 10:23 pm

        Perhaps it might pay to read in full the article to which I linked. You would find even AOC is fulsome in her praise for the selection and Ms Haaland has a great wealth of experience and has achieved a good deal already. She is also regarded as a progressive politician in Congress. You damn her with faint praise.

  10. Scud 10
    19 December 2020 at 4:29 pm

    Further to my post a few mths about the NZDF and CC in regards to Bushfires. Well the Cyclone Season has started early for the 2020/221. Abnormal weather conditions down the East of Australia where it’s been raining cats & dogs over the last couple weeks coinciding with King Tides.

    Now Samoa and Fiji being wrack with early season Cyclones and the resulting HADR Taskings that both ADF & NZDF do in the Region during the Cyclone Season. With Fiji still recovering from the March cyclone that hit Fiji and now Covid19.

    It’s going to be really interesting to see if the NZDF can maintain its current commitments IRT to Covid19, its NZG mandated Tasks & it HADR Tasks both within NZ & the Sth Pacific Region during the Cyclone Season concurrently with it too few assets it’s small resource of manpower. What’s going to break first aging/ lack of equipment or the manning of Regular & Reserve Forces or a combination of the 3?

  11. Andre 11
    19 December 2020 at 6:57 pm

    Buwaaaahahahah!

    They've finally settled on what servicemembers of Space Farce will be called … wait for it … Guardians!

    Apparently the highest rank will be "Trash Panda". (ok, ok, I made up that bit)

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/space-force-guardians-twitter-snark_n_5fdd2e35c5b6a7df666476d0

  12. Cricklewood 12
    19 December 2020 at 6:58 pm

    "Elected fools" The key word there is elected… we dont need another Ecan situation, sure they're behaving badly but rather than a commissioner hold a new election and if they get voted in again well that's on the people of Tauranga.

    I really dislike the appoint of unelected officials…

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.