Open mike 21/04/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 21st, 2021 - 56 comments
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56 comments on “Open mike 21/04/2021 ”

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  1. Jenny How to get there 1
    21 April 2021 at 6:44 am

    Flight hesitancy, is it a thing?

    The cruise industry has been effectively ruined as a perceived incubator for covid-19

    Could the same happen to air travel?

    it might, if there are any more reports like this.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-47-passengers-test-positive-after-overseas-flight/7EGAVKASPTX2XCPBJA5APHOT5I/

    • Incognito 1.1
      21 April 2021 at 8:48 am

      Another one of your false equivalences; air travel =//= cruise industry.

      • Sabine 1.1.1
        21 April 2021 at 9:17 am

        why that comment?

        I think it is fair to speculate on the fate of recreational boat trips or recreational plane trips, both of whom have closed windows in general and air conditioning. And yes, i can see people forgoing both in the future as an option for holiday making if they fear contamination.

        that of course leaves out those that travel for other then pleasure.

        • McFlock 1.1.1.1
          21 April 2021 at 12:57 pm

          Worst case scenario for air travel (short of elimination) is they spend more fuel drawing in fresh air and putting in better filters on the recirculated air, rather than recirculating contaminated air.

          Worst case for cruise ships short of elimination is they have to completely redesign the ventilation, onshore activities, food service, onboard facilities, and passenger monitoring in order to become marginally less infectious.

          Best case for aircraft is they can get away with returning to BAU as soon as regions get vaccinated.

          Best case for cruise ships is they take a few years to recover their PR from their latest infectious disease problems.

          • Gabby 1.1.1.1.1
            21 April 2021 at 1:50 pm

            They'll probably have to do something about the airports as well, you know, queues, baggage handling, seating, all the stuff ppl touch, travel to and from..

            • McFlock 1.1.1.1.1.1
              21 April 2021 at 1:57 pm

              Maybe, but then that's not a problem directly facing the airlines. Whereas the cruise lines handle everything to get their cut.

          • Jenny how to get there 1.1.1.1.2
            21 April 2021 at 11:23 pm

            Worst case for climate change is for aircraft returning to BAU as soon as regions get vaccinated.

            Worst case for climate change is cruise ships take a few years to recover their PR from their latest infectious disease problems.

            Let's hear it for BAU

        • Jenny how to get there 1.1.1.2
          21 April 2021 at 11:09 pm

          '

          "….that of course leaves out those that travel for other than pleasure."

          Sabine

          Wherein lies another tale;

          “This polling shows that after a year of quick and easy virtual meetings, travellers aren’t planning to go back to business as usual.”

          https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2021/04/business-flyers-could-stick-to-video-calls-even-after-covid-19-pandemic-survey-suggests/

          Stranded asset anyone?

          Shssh

      • Jenny how to get there 1.1.2
        22 April 2021 at 4:46 am

        I agree absolutely.
        Air travel and cruise industry are not equivalant.
        One polluting, loss making industry, is being bailed out with hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars, and one is not.

        • Incognito 1.1.2.1
          22 April 2021 at 8:19 am

          You’re already halfway answering your own question @ 1. Amazing what one can achieve when using one’s brain.

      • Jenny how to get there 1.1.3
        22 April 2021 at 5:47 am

        Air travel and cruise industry are not equivalent.
        One burns fossil fuels the other burns pixie dust.

  2. TheNZJerster 2
    21 April 2021 at 7:43 am

    Countering dominant narratives of NZ's far right

    Marc Daalder'

    https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/countering-dominant-narratives-of-nzs-far-right/ar-BB1fRAWO

    Read this article this morning. Interesting.

    Where do you guys think the Counter narative is going right and where is it going wrong?

    [One letter was missing from user name; guess which one]

    • TheNZJester 2.2
      21 April 2021 at 7:56 pm

      I seem to have put an extra letter in my name.

      I guess that is what happens when you are rushing in the morning

      • Incognito 2.2.1
        21 April 2021 at 10:29 pm

        No, you didn’t; it was (partly) my mistake and I was the one who was rushing it 🙁

        FYI, on 15 March, you started using a different user name here, i.e. TheNZJerster instead of NZJester, and another Moderator approved it. That continued for a little while until you changed it to TheNZJester, without the “r”. Moderators are wasting much time running around checking/correcting/approving people who use slightly changed user names, accidentally or willingly; sometimes it is caused by a wayward cursor 🙁

  3. ghostwhowalksnz 3
    21 April 2021 at 7:52 am

    Chauvin verdict reached .

    Wont be announced till 8:30 am our time ( 3:30PM US ET time)

  4. Chris 4
    21 April 2021 at 9:31 am

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/housing-affordability/124861129/car-stolen-emergency-housing-denied-a-woman-faces-sleeping-rough

    MSD is continually tell people they won't be providing emergency housing when the rules say the person's eligible. Again, it took embarrassing media coverage to get MSD to back down, and it's always a "mistake". How many other people are being told the same thing but nothing gets done about it? We all know there's a housing shortage, and that this must put pressure on MSD, but they shouldn’t be trying to hide the demand by refusing people wrongly. They should be welcoming the information about how need isn’t being met so that government and policy makers get to how things aren’t working.

    • Foreign Waka 4.1
      21 April 2021 at 1:00 pm

      Difficult to say why this is. Maybe personal bias? Maybe a directive? Maybe that lady still had some shoes so she must be ok (sarc)? Who knows and I think we never will. Political correctness will make sure of that. Suffice to say that I hope I never will depend on people or organizations like that.

      [please remove “WTB” from the user name field before you next submit a comment, thanks]

      • left for dead 4.1.1
        21 April 2021 at 4:42 pm

        Whoever is writing in bold.. why at this site does the curser go back to a filled in field….?

        • Incognito 4.1.1.1
          21 April 2021 at 6:53 pm

          It’s a known problem, but solvable, apparently. I will leave a comment in the back-end for Lprent.

  5. Forget now 5
    21 April 2021 at 9:52 am

    The link from No Right Turn to The Standard has been broken for a while now. It's probably just a glitch in an address link with a site update or something, but does mean that I (& probably others) are less likely to drop by the site. Just thought I'd mention it, while onsite today in case there's an easy fix.

    • Incognito 5.1
      21 April 2021 at 10:40 pm

      Works for me, in two different browsers on two different computers. However, I noticed it is not secure, but it does open for me. I had a similar problem recently with this site (i.e. TS) and my bookmark didn’t open any longer. I had to put “https:// ” in front of the URL and it was fine again. Lprent was stumped too 🙂 I felt ‘pretty special’ because it seemed that I was the only experiencing that problem with TS …

  6. Sabine 6
    21 April 2021 at 10:41 am

    If the government can spend 400 $ a night on unsafe emergency housing in a slum motel then it should be able to simply pay for a week of rental in a proper house and call it 'government housing'.

    I am so sick of this. It is everywhere in Rotorua. Young kids on unlisenced, unplated dirt bikes hooning and ripping up parks, non of them wearing helmets of course, beggars and babys in gang colors. My shopping fringe is 'blue' where i have my business, and every now and then i just close the door to be safe. Go figure.

    Fights in the open street. Drug handling in the open street. You simply do not want to go to certain parts on main street Fenton or 'downtown' Rotorua for fear of a mugging or worse after 6 pm.

    This is as bad as it was under National with overcrowding and run down camp ground housing of homeless in West Auckland. And sadly Rotorua ain't as big as Auckland, so they can hide is less. God only knows where the Labour doodas are that ran and lost the last election despite their nice Billboards with dear Jacinda ' Lets keep moving'? Moving to where dear Lady? She may hope for a nice 6 figure job at a thinktank somewhere like her Labour Predecessor when she is done Prime Ministering, but the rest of us has to continue to live here.
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/emergency-housing-woman-beaten-unconscious-children-being-put-at-risk/E7BFU4ULMAV2TORDWMC7LRX5BA/

    Distressing revelations about life in emergency housing continue to emerge, including a woman being punched unconscious by another motel resident, putting her in hospital.

    The 49-year-old was left so terrified she refused to go back into any form of shared living.

    Those at the coal face say there's not enough oversight, with families mixed in with gang members, and many places rife with crime and intimidation.

    And there are further warnings about the significant potential for abuse and sexual violence, with one Auckland charity saying women escaping from an abusive home can end up going back after staying in emergency housing, because at least "they know that violence".

    Severe concern too about the plight of children; in some cases taken out of school, cut off from their communities and confined to their motel room by their parents because it's too dangerous to venture outside.

    While short term and quickly accessible motel rooms are required to get people in urgent need somewhere to stay, officials laid out the case last year against continuing their use in such high numbers: emergency housing costs more, it only provides the accommodation and none of the extra services needed to help residents with the likes of budgeting or addiction, and the government is less able to monitor exactly what's going.

    A Rotorua motelier, speaking anonymously for fear of backlash, refuses MSD clients to focus instead on business and tourism clientele.

    "As sad and rude as it may sound," she says, "they're often return guests and we can't allow them to come to accommodation that has drugs, fighting, abuse, and the police there all the time".

    However, other moteliers are "showing signs of greed now because the payments are phenomenally high", she says, with motels initially being being offered $119 per night, per unit but now up to $400 a night.

    Let them find the houses to rent and then pay the fucking rent that would only be about 150 more the week then what these useless eaters in governmetn pay right now for one night.

    Give these people houses rather then what is on offer now. As for those moteliers that don't want to house homeless – like some that i know – almost all couples in their 60s – i don't blame them for not doing it, they are as vulnerable to assault and mayhem as their 'unfortunate' homeless customers. And the police usually shows up when the damage is done.

    Last but least this was not OK under Paula Benefit and John Fucking Key, it is not OK under Carmel "See no evil, hear no evil, pretend its not happening" Sepuloni and the current Dear Leader.

    These are OUR people, OUR children, OUR women, OUR men that get thrown into the meatgrinder to come out more broken then they were when they got thrown in by governments that don’t give a flying fuck. Kinder, gentler, my lovely backside.

    • Cricklewood 6.1
      21 April 2021 at 11:25 am

      Wow, from the same article 4000 children in these slums hotel's 1000 of them for more than a year…

      Wtf is going on, I'll bet in 20 years there'll be a royal commission into abuse in emergency accomodation…

      Lets do this?

      Keep at it Sabine to many Labour fans are turning a blind eye…

      • Sabine 6.1.1
        21 April 2021 at 11:40 am

        IT is not a Labour or National thing, this is really where we can state simply that 'both sides indeed do it'.

        the point that i am trying to make is simply 'pay rents rather then motel rates'.

        My post right now is identical to some that i posted 6 odd years ago under J. K and P.B.

        It is the lazyness in envisaging a different solution to the same problem. ITs not even that we don't have enough houses, it is that people can't pay for them, and the government rather then pay rents outright, spends 400 NZD a night for someone to sleep in a hovel with no access to anything other then a bed, a kettle and a teabag.

        • Cricklewood 6.1.1.1
          21 April 2021 at 12:02 pm

          Agree completely, I just feel that there are more than a few that like to pretend the problem has magically disappeared now their 'team' is in govt…

          When the reality is the situation is worsening dramatically…

    • Chris 6.2
      21 April 2021 at 11:54 am

      The public outrage at the cost of motels forced the government and MSD to intoduce "transistional housing" which is even worse. Slum properties, often run down or former motel units, policed by incompetent and officious community groups who evict people at the drop of a hat, the government making sure rights under the RTA were removed, MSD washes its hands so the person is then forced to reapply for emergency housing and the whole cycle starts again, MSD often wrongly refusing to assist because of how the previous arrangement ended. The whole mess is completely out of control.

      • Sabine 6.2.1
        21 April 2021 at 12:12 pm

        as i said above

        Let them – the people in need of housing – find an appropriate property and have Winz pay for it. That would prevent abuse by landlords of Winz, and Winz / Government would save a tidy a penny for a rainy day by not paying 400 NZD per day.

        The government could stipulate how that could work, i.e. in Germany when i was a student the government would pay up to 450 per month (yes per month) for one person. It did absolutly not matter what property you found, so as long as it was not more expensive as that.

        What we are doing now is going to be so bad for the future, and it is already so bad for Rotorua.

        • Chris 6.2.1.1
          21 April 2021 at 12:27 pm

          Given the cost of the complete fiasco that is emergency and transitional housing the idea is attractive. How do you see the legal relationships and responsibilities operating, ensuring security of tenure etc? Does Kāinga Ora lease the property, which then becomes a state house, which is then rented by the tenant? If so, doesn't that just bring us back to the chronic supply shortage?

          • Sabine 6.2.1.1.1
            21 April 2021 at 2:15 pm

            We don't have a supply shortage, we have an affordability problem.

            Rent is too high. Rent could be measured by square meterage, or by rooms i.e. 150 per room per week for a rental. That would be somewhere around 300 – 45 for the common two bedder/ three bedder and then you could add in say 150 for close schools, public transport, shops etc.

            The government could actually regulate rent. Currently rent is based on mortgage mainly, plus the maintenance of that mortgage, rates, insurance etc, and then maybe the boat, the holiday and the braces for the kids. But rent should only cover the use of the property, not the owner ship. Which is what a mortgage covers.

            Also if the government for example would pay rents for beneficiaries, the market would follow in maybe building for these tenants. Smaller flats, one bed to three/four bedrooms, high density building. Currently we don't do that. We build shitty apartment blocks that fall apart after 6 years with huge co-op costs. Did you know that in Germany people wash down their own stair case 😉 or have a live in Janitor couple (usually rent free plus pay).

            The chronic shortage is because we never regulated the market, and now people – even well to do people – can't afford to either rent or buy, or sell for that matter. Cause no matter how much money you have it won't be enough in the long term. And the last announcement of the governments housing policies reflect that by increasing the amount a first home buyer can spend in order to still get the government subsidy.

      • greywarshark 6.2.2
        21 April 2021 at 12:39 pm

        Gosh Chris that is pure purgatory for those beneficiaries. The disgust is building against Labour, and well founded. They actually have to pull some rabbits out of the hat and not just wave it around with promises. This latest health thing is expensive and time-consuming and could fit in with the polly-watchers theories that Labour was basking in the Covid19 management magic, but that has worn off, and need something else to fill the gap.

        So Health instead of Housing which they don't want to touch from a distance closer than a barge pole, and are leaving it to the professionals who know how to build the modern chook-house painted grey with black roof that is regarded as all modern NZs could wish for. And what about the others? They must be feeling like fringe-dwellers lost in one of those desperately sordid dystopian dark stories that get on to tv.

  7. RedBaronCV 7
    21 April 2021 at 11:22 am

    Handing out pamphlets pretending to be the health department. At the very least I'd have thought issuing a trespass notice immediately might help. Plus who paid for this ??

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/440904/covid-19-wellington-commuters-face-anti-mask-propaganda-on-train

    • Peter 7.1
      21 April 2021 at 7:17 pm

      The sooner Billy Te Kahika and his lunatic supporters disappear off the face of the planet the better.

  8. greywarshark 8
    21 April 2021 at 11:30 am

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/440858/rse-seasonal-migrant-worker-scheme-does-not-benefit-economy-report

    This is an example of looking at one side of a policy's effect. It isn't the most efficient or effective way of handling seasonal work to have people come into the country from Pacific Islands or employ young tourists. But it is really good way to interact with the Pacific Islands people, our neighbours who are small like us and go better when there is a co-operative relationship amongst the Pacific small islands.

    As for visitors and tourists, young people being able to visit and learn about other countries is very important for understanding between nations and about being a citizen in this world. And it keeps us on the map, and we don't get forgotten down here at the bottom of the world. So there are more benefits to NZ than a narrow economic survey can demonstrate.

    Perhaps we allow them into the country under time limitation, and giving preference to the *Woofers scheme (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). This means they are available to work for food and accommodation mainly, and probably have to have a return ticket booked when they come here,

    * Wwoofing – Willing Workers On Organic Farms – is a host system where you exchange hours of work for accommodation and food. … Wwoofing is a well established global host system and New Zealand is one of many participating countries. https://www.backpackingmatt.com/wwoofing-in-new-zealand-tips-and-experiences/

  9. Morrissey 9
    21 April 2021 at 12:04 pm

    Those monsters, enticing teachers with great pay and cheap accommodation

    https://twitter.com/china_takes/status/1384228640083177476

  10. Obtrectator 10
    21 April 2021 at 12:18 pm

    Another lament about declining birth-rates in the UK:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/20/britain-falling-birthrate-covid-pandemic-conservatives-removed-support-for-parents

    I suppose it's personal for Ms Toynbee, who stands to be one of those worst affected by an over-proportion of elderly to young. But if not her (also my) generation, then which? It's got to happen some time; might as well be now.

    • greywarshark 10.1
      21 April 2021 at 12:41 pm

      What? Parents not being regarded as worthy for consideration and assistance from the government?

    • KJT 10.2
      21 April 2021 at 7:32 pm

      "Not enough new workers being born".

      "May have to pay decent wages and look after them".

      Tragedy.