Open Mike 21/03/2017

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 21st, 2017 - 16 comments
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16 comments on “Open Mike 21/03/2017 ”

  1. Ad 1

    Lovely long form interview here comparing Trump and Putin, from two journalists I admire:

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/masha-gessen-the-full-transcript-214927

  2. ianmac 2

    Must be a mistake?
    “The Newshub Reid-Research poll has English on 25 per cent as preferred Prime Minister – well below the 37 per cent Key was on when he left office.”

    Probably a mis-print. Should read 35%. Maybe!
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11822343

    • Muttonbird 2.1

      That has to be concerning for National and their already worried followers.

      Double dipper is no smile and wave and perhaps voters remember Bill trying to rip of the taxpayer by claiming an accommodation allowance when he shouldn’t have, or maybe they remember him paying out the SCF shareholders in the dead of the night with taxpayer money. Perhaps they simply don’t trust him after changing his mind on so many issues.

      Whatever the reason that is a huge drop in approval. Expect Bill to make even more blunders as the pressure mounts.

    • The decrypter 2.2

      No 45%. not 25%

  3. ropata 3

    Another National housing shambles: tenancy managemt of 2800 ex-state houses for sale only a year after sale to TRC. https://t.co/llvwNupU8z— Phil Twyford (@PhilTwyford) March 20, 2017

    The story on RNZ: Social housing project on the market after just a year
    Australian community housing providers are eyeing up one of New Zealand’s largest social housing projects, which is on the market just a year after it was set up.

  4. ropata 4

    How bad do you have to be at business to lose money under a government devoted to handing out sweet deals to you? pic.twitter.com/l1TDBi2MeJ— Francis McRae (@FrankMcRae) March 20, 2017

    Article on Stuff: Fletcher Buildings expects earnings could be up to $150m less than forecast

    Interesting comments from “Will” and others…

    As a quantity surveyor this comes as no surprise to me.

    Fletcher construction like other major main contractors created cancer with in the construction industry which has led to price increases & value decreases.

    The main contractor traditionally took the risk managed it& directly sub contracted out the work. Now the Main contractors bring in supper sub-contractors that then subcontract out their work. Essential it’s just margin on margins on margins with no value added. Dissolving Fletcher’s would be like breaking up telecom and removing the monopoly which would make both materials and contractors far more competitive. As long as fetchers has such large control there is no free market in NZ construction industry. Greed by the corporates screwing over the little guys.

    • aerobubble 4.1

      Getting into debt is bad news for shareholders, but hiring sub-cons with debt to pay, should alarm shareholders. Givenany are paying off huge mortgages, either as buyers, or renting to them, the question has to be posed, whats keeping housing values rising. Coz they keep telling us ot aint foeriegn buyers.

    • Herodotus 4.2

      No one has commented that our largest and “best” construction coy cannot make money on a few large high profile construction projects. With the downward adjustment of profit by $100-$150m implies that these contracts were under priced in their tender by 10-15%, so we could expect that any future large construction projects will be tendered well above todays rates. Looks like our next govt will face large increases in any major new infrastructure builds.
      This under tender is supported by the cases that many apartment developments have been cancelled due to rising costs and banks reluctance to fund such projects.
      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11770947

  5. AsleepWhileWalking 5

    There is a link to this on the blog roll but I’m putting here again because it is an accurate record of the situation in our communities today. Systems are working against people so they can’t obtain help and instead of stopping a downward spiral it accelerates their demise.

    https://blog.greens.org.nz/2017/03/21/glue-holds-society-together-starts-failing/

  6. Dan 6

    I have had enough of “fake news”. How about “fake President”?

  7. Anne 7

    Bryce Edwards’ latest political round up which focuses on Nicky Hager’s latest book. A good read why we wait out the final two hours:

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11822543

    Plus an amusing Spin-Off prediction piece about what the subject matter might be.

    My prediction: Police malpractices and the state of surveillance in NZ.

    Some claim it could be about media malpractices and goodness… it could be right.

  8. Or we could go through another 8 years of a used car salesman who was completely useless and now looks as if he’s tied up in the Afghanistan SAS killings which HE as PM authorized then shut up about…

    No wonder Mr ‘ GET SOME GUTS’ has now pissed off from being the PM and is hooking himself up with a Japanese billionaire philanthropist in order to further the spin.

    But keep on with your narrative- pretty soon nobody’s going to fall for it any longer…
    ————————————–
    John Key resigns :
    —————————————

    According to Winston Peters , – it has to do with ‘ administration and accountability issues’ , which will be coming out in the following ‘ weeks and months ‘.

    ———————————————————-

    With this mentioned in The Standard…

    Key’s 4th term – something doesn’t add up
    Written By: NATWATCH – Date published: 6:49 am, December 6th, 2016 – 144 comments
    Categories: john key, kremlinology – Tags: 4th term, rumour, rumours, The Daily Blog

    ‘Bradbury is running rumours with talk of a “damning book”. If it is true (as unlikely as that seems) then despite Key’s resignation there will be further damage to National.’

    [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.]

    • james 9.1

      You know that Key isnt standing this election right?

      Anyway – you’re well off topic – so cya.

  9. Morrissey 10

    My letter to Bryan “Doormat” Crump after his latest failure
    RNZ National, Tuesday 21 March 2017, 8:12 p.m.

    Another disgraceful joke of an interview by Bryan Crump this evening. A “military historian” called Damien Fenton spoke for 25 minutes about the Palestine-Sinai campaign in the Great War. He forgot, however, to mention something rather important. I sent the following letter to the sleepy host immediately the interview finished…

    Why no mention of the Surafend massacre by Damien Fenton?

    Dear Bryan,

    Your military historian Damien Fenton for some reason neglected to mention the cowardly and brutal massacre perpetrated by the Anzac Mounted Rifles, who in December 1918 rounded up more than one hundred boys and men in the Palestinian village of Surafend, then methodically clubbed them to death…..
    http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/index.blog?topic_id=1115959

    That Damien Fenton chose to ignore this shameful episode, and that you did not see fit to bring it up, is especially ironic in light of ths afternoon’s revelation of another massacre of civilians in Afghanistan.

    Yours in concern at the standard of research and scholarship at RNZ,

    Morrissey Breen
    Northcote Point

  10. JC 11

    Yes. NZ Police Harangued his daughter! While he was Out…. And Talked with Westpac

    [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.]

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