Open mike 20/08/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 20th, 2024 - 25 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 …

25 comments on “Open mike 20/08/2024 ”

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  1. Tony Veitch 1
    20 August 2024 at 6:08 am

    So John Key has twitched the puppet’s strings and Luxury Luxon has finally, unequivocally said the Natz will not support the Treaty Principles Bill beyond first reading!

    Which raises the question – why go through the farce of introducing it in the first place?

    Doesn’t that represent a huge waste of both Parliament’s time, and hard earned taxpayers’ dollars?

    This CoC is a cruel joke in so many many ways!

    • weka 1.1
      20 August 2024 at 12:20 pm

      a couple of potential reasons?

      It was was bargaining power with ACT.

      National have things to gain from the culture war that creates division and friction in society.

  2. SPC 2
    20 August 2024 at 7:18 am

    The Taxpayers Union is proposing legislation requiring media to take political adverts, proposing it as condition for receiving public money (the irony, given they opposed the public funding of privately owned media)

    https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/donate_bill_media?utm_campaign=240814_nzme_ad&utm_medium=email&utm_source=taxpayers

    They also want TVNZ sold off.

    A first world nation has public service radio and television media.

    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2024/08/16/mediawatch-just-as-tdb-predicted-here-come-the-tvnz-paywall/

  4. Muttonbird 4
    20 August 2024 at 12:15 pm

    Does it really matter if the National Party member "forgot to swap back to their personal Facebook page before making the comments"?

    This is just a little sunlight on the values of National Party members regardless of what account they were using.

    "They do not reflect the National Party's views". Yeah, right.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/525644/maori-can-never-be-united-people-national-party-facebook-page-comments-on-koroneihana-livestream

  6. Jimmy 6
    20 August 2024 at 2:52 pm

    Battle lines are drawn. This is one of the things I do not like about MMP. Tana is only in parliament as she was on the Greens list. She was not voted in.

    She should resign.

    MP Darleen Tana vows to fight Green Party’s possible use of waka-jumping law – NZ Herald

    • Barfly 6.1
      20 August 2024 at 3:27 pm

      A first time for everything lol – I agree with you Jimmy!

      She should resign, she won't and I hope she is quickly kicked to the kerb on this.

    • Ad 6.2
      20 August 2024 at 3:41 pm

      MMP feels good but the resulting list MPs are mostly sludge.

      • bwaghorn 6.2.1
        20 August 2024 at 5:30 pm

        A small price to pay for getting a more diverse set of our peers into government, but the greens seriously need to waka jump tana, the greens need to develop a spun if they want the big slice of left 🥧

    • gsays 6.3
      20 August 2024 at 3:44 pm

      "…is a reality that I joined the Green party for the values of the Green party.

      "I lived and I breathed those values working alongside members in the ngāhere in Te Tai Tokerau, in the moana, around Te Moana Nui ō Toi."
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/525672/former-green-mp-darleen-tana-says-they-have-no-intention-of-resigning

      It would be funny (albeit in a very dark vein) if it weren't real.

      There was a knowing breaking of the conditions of a migrant's visa, as well as a confrontation of a former worker at their new place if work.

      The idea that this is in line with Green values shows a profound disconnect and an arrogant display of entitlement.

      Best of luck to Chloe Swarbrick and the leadership of The Greens in lancing this boil.

      • bwaghorn 6.3.1
        20 August 2024 at 5:32 pm

        I've had boils you can pussy foot around and feel sick and in pain for weeks or you can grab the bugger squeeze it till only blood comes out hurts like hell but then it'll heal.

  7. Ad 7
    20 August 2024 at 3:39 pm

    4th year in a row Fonterra is our largest greenhouse gas emitter, according to the Environment Protection Agency.

    2 days ago they were the regenerative agriculture dairy champions of the world.

  8. aj 8
    20 August 2024 at 4:17 pm

    Only a speed read of this, but at a glance it seems Penny's own advisors don't recommend Te Pūkenga being dismembered arm and limb.

    Can this government can think past ideology. Given their addiction to turning back the clock other areas, and at best lip service to making enduring changes for the better, I can't see it happening.

    Otago Polytech to merge with SIT: report

    The government's preferred option for overhauling the nation's polytechnics could result in losses totalling $297m over the next four years – $39m more than the cheapest option.

    The estimate comes from a team of advisers who said in May the government's preference – allowing some polytechs to stand alone and grouping the weakest together – would result in collective losses starting at $96.3m next year and falling to $50.3m by 2028.

    Regardless of their future structure, polytechnics needed significant capital investment for restructuring, property, and IT requirements.

    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/otago-polytech-merge-sit-report

  9. Michael Scott 9
    20 August 2024 at 5:30 pm

    Outstanding young Maori woman on a mission to reduce inequality by creating Maori millionaires.

    She teaches financial literacy and the basics of wealth creation and has 30,000 followers.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018951764/maori-millionaire-financial-literacy-champion-and-changemaker

  10. newsense 10
    20 August 2024 at 11:27 pm

    Good news everybody!

    Clinate change is solved provided we find enough generous wealthy folk with the expertise to restore your red-stickered historic 100 year old Coromandel house. The rest of us, it says here, are fucked.

    https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/caring-auckland-buyer-picks-up-elderly-couples-storm-damaged-home-46063

    • newsense 10.1
      20 August 2024 at 11:33 pm

      Oh wait. It’s also a good way to get a cheap land deal, even if there’ll be drawbacks.

      Last year Bridson sold an uninhabitable house further along on the Thames Coast, in Thorndon Bay, at a $1 reserve auction. The property, which had been damaged by a slip in the same storm, eventually sold for $375,000 in a competitive auction. The owner cleared the damaged house and has parked a caravan on it.

      He said there were more properties in the district that had suffered damage in the storms so he was not expecting more to be listed in ‘as is, where is’ condition.

      Meanwhile a one-bedroom, one-bathroom property at 5 Strange Road in Waiomu is for sale and, according to Bridson, was the “cheapest home on the largest bit of land”. It is for sale for $475,000 after having its price slashed from $510,000 and has an RV of $560,000.

  11. Jenny 11
    21 August 2024 at 5:18 am

    Jenny @6.1

    19 August 2024 at 10:30 am

    ……As the governing body in Gaza, preventing famine among their people must be Hamas most immediate pressing need.

    Hamas may have to 'sacrifice' return to the north for getting the Rafah Crossing reopened.

    Bearded Git @6.1.1

    19 August 2024 at 10:49 am

    The Palestinians should concede nothing…..

    ….All Israeli military equipment and personnel must leave Gaza and the West Bank.

    This includes the departure of all Israelis living in the illegal settlements……

    The maximilist demands of the Palestinian resistance to the occupation will not go away while there are Palestinians still alive, but they are not up for discussion in the current negotiations.These negotiations are for a ceasefire and a hostage exchange. That's it. They are not about the maximialist demands of the Palestinaian resistance movement,
    As Marwan Bishara said, like the war itself, these negotiations, will be decided on the balance of forces of the two sides.

    As I predicted, the illegal Israeli occuption of the border between Egypt and Gaza and the Rafah Crossing which sits on that border, is where the Israelis will have to make concessions if they want to achieve a hostage exchange with Hamas.

    Code named the Philadelphi Corridor, the Israelies have announced a partial staggered withdrawal from the Egyptian border with Gaza
    Hopefully this will allow the Rafa Crossing to be reopened and the aid trucks held up at the border to cross into Gaza, at least during the period of the ceasefire.

    From the Times of Israel

    19 August 2024, 1:51 pm

    In Cairo, Israel said to agree to scaling down IDF presence in Philadelphi Corridor

    By Gianluca Pacchiani

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/in-cairo-israel-said-to-agree-to-scaling-down-idf-presence-in-philadelphi-corridor/

    EU says over 2,000 trucks carrying Gaza aid stuck on Rafah border

    Border crossing remains closed due to Israeli military operations in southern city since May 6

    Yasin Gungor |11.06.2024 – Update : 11.06.2024

    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/eu-says-over-2-000-trucks-carrying-gaza-aid-stuck-on-rafah-border/3246904#

  12. Jenny 12
    21 August 2024 at 11:26 am

    My cautious optimism may have been misplaced. Owen Jones who has a much better handle on these negotiations gives his opinion;

    @5:45 minutes

    ….Hamas rejects the fact that the proposal doesn't include a permanent ceasefire or comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

    @5:52 minutes

    ….Let's just be clear this isn't a ceasefire, this would mean pausing the slaughter for a few weeks, exchanging some hostages and then continuing the mass slaughter until an end point defined by Israel as until Hamas is entirely defeated….

    @6:27 minutes;

    ….it would also not allow the free movement of civilians from Southern Gaza to the north.

    …..it endorses Netanyahu's demand for control of the Netsim corridor so permanently dividing,what is already a tiny strip of land the size of East London with, a pre-war population of 2.23 million into a northern and a southern zone with much of the North depopulated. And the desperate homeless populationconcentrated in a devastated Southern Zone…..

    @6:59 minutes:

    The Proposal would also give Israel control of the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphia Corridor along the Egypt Gaza border as Netanyahu has demanded.

    @7:08 minutes

    Hamas said Netanyahu also reversed previous concessions and set new conditions in the prisoner exchange process.

    @7:13 minutes

    ….permanent total control of a divided Gaza by Israel, as it fights a Forever War…
    …..I cannot believe Hamas is not agreeing to this deal [sarc.]

    @7:22 minutes

    …..the Israeli state is not getting its hostages back alive like this…

    [AI generated transcript lightly edited to aid comprehension]