Open mike 20/12/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 20th, 2023 - 32 comments
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32 comments on “Open mike 20/12/2023 ”

  1. Tom Day 1

    The latest Roy Morgan has National with more votes than Labour the Greens and the other party combined. Thoughts.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

  2. Gosman 2

    Looks like all the "missteps" the government has made has actually solidified their support among the wider public.

    https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/roy-morgan-nz-election-november-2023

    • Robert Guyton 2.1

      Yeah, coz they're getting things done!

      Or rather, undone.

      It's action stations for the NACTFirst Government and they're knocking things down all over the park like the All Blacks do! Up the Wahs!

      We New Zealanders love that sort of stuff.

    • Anne 2.2

      Dimwit Gosman.

      The coalition Govt. deal was signed 24th November. Roy Morgan wasted their time conducting a poll in November. Course it was going to reveal no real changes. We were in no mans land for six weeks – nothing happened.

      One month later… different story. Those who fell for the NAct lines are wondering what they have done. More fool them.

  3. Pat 3

    Roblogic posted a link yesterday that should be required viewing for the Labour Party (and all voters) as they review why they were so badly defeated at the last election and use as the basis of any attempt to refresh the party…..if they cannot grasp and sell the message so succinctly expressed in the linked discussion then they are in the wrong job.

    • roblogic 3.1

      Cheers Pat. It's a great talk with Gary Stephenson of @garyseconomics. Here's a snippet from his website:

      Real wages are falling downwards or stagnating and house prices are spiralling upwards, and economists have no idea why.

      While trading interest rates in financial markets I developed a theory that enabled me to become Citibank’s most profitable trader globally in 2011.

      The theory explains why interest rates have stayed low for 11 years longer than expected.

      It also explains why real wages have fallen and houses have become less affordable, and why these trends will continue indefinitely until we take action.

      This theory has been, and continues to be very profitable for predicting global markets. I could make money from it, and you can make money from it, but it will be impossible for us to increase wages or improve housing affordability unless this theory becomes widely understood, so I have chosen to try and go public with the theory.

      This theory is simply, too much wealth inequality, and all the pernicious effects downstream of it.

  4. Hunter Thompson II 4

    The volcano has erupted in Iceland; thankfully no lives lost so far (BBC website has photographs).

    A reminder that we humans are just another species on the planet, wholly subject to the whim of Nature.

    • mac1 4.1

      Yes, HT2, human tenure here is tenuous. The planet survived for billions of years without us, and will continue so, until Sol goes nova……

    • Chess Player 4.2

      Which is why we should be putting the environment first, and not worry so much about the Left vs Right debate constantly – maybe one day this country will grow up, but probably not in my lifetime, sadly.

  5. adam 5

    So the Saudi Kingdom is actually scum, oh wait they are dear leaders best friend.

    Caught out lying again, and trying to kill us all.

    Go figure.

  6. joe90 6

    A curriculum overseen by the NZ Initiative and a mob that doesn’t include any Māori educators.

    /

    @RichardHills_

    Chair of the education advisory group rewriting the NZ curriculum has already written his plans for education as part of the NZ Initiative here are some of the ideas. The forward is written by Elizabeth Rata who’s also on the advisory committee. PDF here: https://nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-me

    https://twitter.com/RichardHills_/status/1737191637590380601

    https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/first-steps-100-day-plan-education-removing-distractions-and-teaching-basics-brilliantly

    • KJT 6.1

      Back to the 1890's!

      • Francesca 6.1.1

        Finland's education system works.They have hugely successful outcomes, with a philosophy thats the polar opposite of the NZ Initiative's , (which is stubbornly dumb!!)

        Why aren't we looking to Finland's strategies?

        . “We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. “We are not much interested in PISA. It’s not what we are about.”

        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/

    • Francesca 6.2

      Should be foreword , not forward

      At any rate it's all very fucking depressing.

      I feel so sorry for the kids

    • Incognito 6.3

      A Ministerial Advisory Group with at least two individuals who are intellectually and ideologically compromised. Hopefully, some of the other members are of high enough calibre to balance their strong bias.

    • Morrissey 6.4

      "The forward is written by Elizabeth Rata who’s also on the advisory committee."

      Elizabeth Rata? If she's involved, it's guaranteed to be a disaster. She had one true fan, though: poor old Gordon MacLauchlan (R.I.P.) forlornly championed her ten years ago on one of his less impressive outings on RNZ's light chat show….

      https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-07062013/#comment-644796

  7. Robert Guyton 7

    The Speaker apologises to Chris Hipkins at opening of Question Time.

    • bwaghorn 7.1

      Your such a tease??

      • Robert Guyton 7.1.1

        During yesterday's Question Time, Luxon brought up the issue of his wife's ownership of the Tesla. Brownlee chastised Hipkins for bringing family members of an MP into the debate. He didn't. The next day, Brownlee apologised. I respected that.

  8. Sanctuary 8

    This piece is on the media is thought provoking:

    https://www.honest-broker.com/p/in-2024-the-tension-between-macroculture

    This bit I found very interesting:

    "…I never get asked a single question about Substack from mainstream media people (although they are always asking me to contribute). They obviously believe that they have nothing to learn from the microculture.

    And it’s not just my personal experience. Look at the hirings:

    • CNN needs a new boss so it hires someone from The New York Times.
    • The Wall Street Journal needs a new editor-in-chief, so it hires somebody from The Sunday Times.
    • Gannett needs a new editor-in-chief, so it hires somebody from NPR.
    • News Corp needs a new boss, so it hires the owner’s son.
    • Disney needs a new CEO, so it just hires the old CEO for another stint.

    This is sheer idiocy. It’s Einstein’s definition of insanity.

    At this juncture in history, you must fill openings in stagnant old media by hiring people who understand the rapidly growing new media. The data is clear on this—if you want to grow, you need to learn from podcasts, YouTube channels, Substack, Bandcamp, Patreon, and all the other success stories.

    But it’s not happening. The macroculture is frozen. It has forgotten how to maneuver. It definitely has forgotten how to learn…"

    You get much the same in the NZ MSM – it’s a closed shop. A merry-go-round of failure where Tova goes from TV3 to a new radio show to TVNZ and nothing improves, ratings keep falling; Where RNZ gets it’s new news boss from the the failing TV3, and wonders why id audience decline continues. Where MSM journalists frequent share beds with senior media executives and political operatives and there is a revolving door between lobbying firms, right wing think tanks, PR, political spin, and the legacy media organisations.

    A closed shop of dead thinking befitting an increasingly zombie media..

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