Open mike 21/12/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 21st, 2012 - 78 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 link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

78 comments on “Open mike 21/12/2012 ”

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  1. just saying 1
    21 December 2012 at 7:08 am

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10855446

    Frontpage of today’s Herald: ‘Record Queues For Christmas Food’.

    … More than 100 people were lined up on Hobson St and round a corner into a neighbouring lot yesterday, some since 5am, to receive charity – Christmas food parcels and donated gifts for children.

    The majority did not want to appear in the newspaper. “Maybe if I had won something or it was something lucky,” a woman said.

    Ms Robertson said the mission’s clients were struggling with unemployment and entitlement cuts. “They’re losing options.”

    And the continuing recession was adding people to the queue as those on low incomes fell into the same poverty cycle as beneficiaries.

    “As an agency we really try to get people off benefits and employed – make life better than it’s been,” Ms Robertson said. “But right now we’re just alleviating poverty, because there’s no place to go.”…

    emboldening mine

  2. Morrissey 2
    21 December 2012 at 7:09 am

    Sacha Baron Cohen: a buffoonish ideologue, at Israel’s service
    by STEVEN SALAITA The Electronic Intifada 25 May 2012
    http://electronicintifada.net/content/sacha-baron-cohen-buffoonish-ideologue-israels-service/11333

    Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest film The Dictator has led to the praise typical of movie reviewers for corporate publications. Baron Cohen, according to most of these reviewers, is something of a maverick: an iconoclastic outsider, an unorthodox entertainer, an erstwhile rebel, a genius provocateur. None of these superlatives is accurate.

    What is Baron Cohen, then? Lots of descriptors work: a gifted role-player, an excellent self-promoter, a potty-mouthed prankster, a religious zealot, a white male who uses his privileges of race and gender to exploit people who cannot access those privileges.

    There is one descriptor that is too infrequently applied to him: Zionist shill. Plenty of writers have noted Baron Cohen’s ardent Zionism, but few have suggested that his Zionism should cast him in a negative light (“Before ‘The Dictator’ and ‘Borat’, friends recall, Sacha Baron Cohen was a very nerdy, very funny, Israel-oriented guy,” The Times of Israel, 11 May 2012). Even fewer have examined how that Zionism visibly influences his thematic choices and public role-playing.

    His commitment to Zionism is troublesome for numerous reasons: it supports the historical and current dispossession of Palestinians, situates him as an advocate of militaristic state power, calls into question his ethical commitments, and places him in Hollywood’s safest political space, that of fealty to Israel, a space in which the title of maverick loses all significant meaning.

    It isn’t difficult to find evidence of Baron Cohen’s politics in his invented characters. While there are obvious iterations of Zionism in the dictator, Shabazz Aladeen, tomfoolery on behalf of Israel is also evident in earlier characters Brüno and Borat. Through both characters, Baron Cohen engaged in questionable behavior, what can accurately be called outright exploitation.

    With Borat, for example, Baron Cohen named an actual country, Kazakhstan, when the concept behind that movie could have accomplished the same comic purpose with a made-up nation. Even with a made-up nation, however, Borat’s appearance as a stupid, swarthy, sexist Muslim conflated the Third World with pre-modern sensibilities, a feat that could be accomplished only through an unspoken juxtaposition of whiteness and modernity.

    Read more…..
    http://electronicintifada.net/content/sacha-baron-cohen-buffoonish-ideologue-israels-service/11333

    • Te Reo Putake 2.1
      21 December 2012 at 7:43 am

      Sad, Morrisey. You attack Populuxe for not backing up his assertions, then go into epic fail mode yourself when accusing Sacha Baron Cohen of support for mass murder. Buck up your ideas fella.

      Mozza’s comment yesterday:

      “That guy’s not funny. He’s even unfunnier when you look at his actual (not “satirical” or “ironic”) support for the mass murder perpetrated by his favorite real-life regime.”

      Proof supplied by Mozza so far:

      er, nothing.

      • ad 2.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 8:12 am

        Agreed. Bad debating form.

        • Morrissey 2.1.1.1
          21 December 2012 at 8:14 am

          Are you feeling all right, “ad”? You appear to be out of your depth. What on earth are you talking about?

      • Morrissey 2.1.2
        21 December 2012 at 8:13 am

        If you defiantly assert your support for a state that is engaging in mass murder, and heaping ridicule on the victims, you are ergo supporting mass murder.

        Read the article, my friend. You say it’s not proof that Baron Cohen is a militant supporter of Israel? You obviously have not read it. Please do so as soon as you can.

        Then you can read more, of course, or you can keep pretending that this vile buffoon does not have a nasty agenda.

        I will keep you posted over the next few days—but I should not really need to.

        However, horse, water, and all that.

        • Te Reo Putake 2.1.2.1
          21 December 2012 at 8:16 am

          So no evidence at all? You’ve been looking for 24 hours and have found … nothing. Why don’t you just apologise for your hyperbole and move on? It’d be the mature thing to do.

          • Morrissey 2.1.2.1.1
            21 December 2012 at 8:38 am

            Oh, I see your tactic, you’re just going to continue your defiance, and steadfastly refuse to look into the telescope.

            You keep doing that if you want, Te Reo, but people who have an earnest desire to learn something will read that article, as well as the ones I will post up over the next few days.

            • Te Reo Putake 2.1.2.1.1.1
              21 December 2012 at 8:49 am

              I read the article, but so what? I asked you to back up your lie about Baron Cohen and you have failed miserably. Facts, man. Give us some facts!

              • Morrissey …
                21 December 2012 at 9:08 am

                I read the article,

                Did you really?

                …but so what?

                I don’t think you did read it!

                • Te Reo Putake …
                  21 December 2012 at 10:21 am

                  Yeah, you’re still a-flailing and a-failing Mozza. Really disapointed that you could spend a couple days moaning about Populuxe not providing proof of an assertation, then failing so spectacularly when you are asked to do the same. Your credibility obviously doesn’t mean much to you.

                  • Lanthanide …
                    21 December 2012 at 12:18 pm

                    Hence why I generally just skip Morrissey’s comments.

                    • Morrissey …
                      21 December 2012 at 1:39 pm

                      Hence why I generally just skip Morrissey’s comments.

                      I don’t believe for a moment that you skip my comments.

                      I can, however, understand why you want to have a go at me. I recall you making a huge song and dance over a transcript I did last year of a particularly incompetent Hekia Parata interview, where most of what she said was “ummm, ahhh, errrrr, aaaaaahhhhhmmmm”. Hilariously, at one point she even used the immortal phrase “a variety of various variables”. Ms. Parata was apparently trying to play the role of a Minister of the Crown, but anybody who tuned in late would have thought she was a particularly dim, uneducated talkback caller.

                      Your stated “objection” was that my transcript, which I did from memory five minutes after the broadcast, was not one hundred percent verbatim. Your real objection was that she was trying to defend a corrupt and destructive government “policy” that you, for some unconvincing reason, support. For those who enjoy seeing a second-rate mind o’er-taxed, here’s that remarkable Parata performance again, followed by Lanthanide’s complaint, and a pettifogging performance by our friend Te Reo Putake, then operating under his English moniker…

                      http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30082011/#comment-369467

                    • Te Reo Putake …
                      21 December 2012 at 2:20 pm

                      Thanks for reminding me, Moz, I would have thought you would have learned from that spanking, but apparently not. Still, you at least got one thing correct:

                      “All right, Voice of Reason, I must concede that, strictly speaking, you are right.”

                    • McFliper …
                      21 December 2012 at 2:26 pm

                      Chillax, M, and take a look out the window.
                      Go for a walk in a park.
                      We all need to be reminded to do that, on occasion.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      21 December 2012 at 3:22 pm

                      “I don’t believe for a moment that you skip my comments.”

                      LOL! Get over yourself!

                  • muzza …
                    21 December 2012 at 2:16 pm

                    SBC is an actor supported by Hollywood which is used to sell *stories*, it also does a pretty good job at bullying governments, or lets say using their tools inside of governments to give them favours, a la Warners, John Key.

                    Selling stories, read branwashing the simple minded while they are incapable of defending the limited thoughts they do have, then become shaped into what the programming arm woops I mean Hollywood, want you to relate to.

                    Of course SBC is being used, just like almost any named politician, *official*, actor and so on, you could name….

                    Edit Lanthanide, were you being ironic when saying you skip over others posts, jog along!

                    • Morrissey …
                      21 December 2012 at 6:13 pm

                      Te Reo, you’ll note that I stressed you were correct, “strictly speaking”, as in, yes, I posted Ms. Parata’s cretinous utterances from memory, rather than from a tape recording. You yourself had to admit I got it right, however—even if I missed out several lines of “ummmmm”, “ahhhhhh” and “aaahhhhhhhhm” from this floundering embarrassment who enjoys the full support of the Prime Minister.

                      Thanks for the advice, McFliper. I WILL take that walk!

                      Lanthanide, thanks for reading me so attentively. I appreciate and enjoy your comments, even when we disagree occasionally.

  3. mickysavage 3
    21 December 2012 at 7:17 am

    So …

    How is everyone’s end of the world day going?

  4. ColonialPete 4
    21 December 2012 at 7:48 am

    Turns out National’s policies triggered a double-dip recession in 2010

    • bad12 4.1
      21 December 2012 at 9:38 am

      It’s really way worse than that, strip the ‘growth’ currently occurring in Christchurch out of the figures and we have a 2 step economy which allows the Slippery National Government to claim an annual 2% growth for the total economy,

      The ‘reality’ is that ‘the rest’ of the economy shrank over the year by 2%, it then becomes easy to see why there are lines of people lining up around the block in Auckland looking to receive Christmas charity,

      The effects of the high New Zealand dollar can be said to have had a large negative effect upon the overall New Zealand economy with the rest of the -2% GDP ‘growth’ being ‘owned’ by the idiot from Dipton who has been running deliberate depressive economics,

      I have been watching as the figures unfold and have had cause to think, ( i know, dangerous), that the village idiot from down Dipton way has been deliberately depressing the overall economy so as to have the Christchurch re-build occur while keeping inflation within the Reserve Bank’s inflation target band,

      I take issue with the fact that the Christchurch rebuild is being classed in the GDP figures as ‘growth’ at all, ‘growth’ it obviously isn’t as that rebuild is in terms of bean counting the recovery of a loss of ‘growth’ that has previously occurred in the economy,

      From a ‘human’ point of view, (as opposed to dry bean counting), if the village idiot is in fact ‘proved’ to have been deliberately suppressing economic activity in the wider New Zealand economy so as that ‘re-build’ does not breach the inflation target band i am getting the rope out of the shed and over the holidays will begin the tedious task of fashioning a noose,

      There’s one hell of a load of human misery inherent in a 2% slide in over-all GDP and to think this may be occurring for no other reason than to make the village idiot from Dipton look good makes the blood boil….

      • aerobubble 4.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 12:24 pm

        Don’t forget we now need to take growth out of the economy to restock EQC coffers…
        …then there is all the restrengthening and rebuilding poor design systemic to buildings,
        public and private, up and down the country.

        Its like kiwi kids are not taught the for-want-of-a-horse-the-battle-was-lost. Since the
        higher up the totem poll a person gets, the more disinclined they are to admit error and
        resign, the mor likely they build CTV building, or Pike River Mines, or roads in the
        wrong place (or of the wrong design for peak oil, or not invest in flat straight low energy
        rail lines), or think leaky homes are cool looking, or that climate change impacts never
        happen even if we weren’t globally forcing the biosphere with huge forces (from tarmac to
        digging up prehistoric carbon and burning it).

        If you build a road, don’t get pathetic and make the pedestrians walk around flower beds
        to cross doubling their time through the intersection, the list goes on on poor social
        design in NZ. For want of a nail, the horse shoe was not ?clod?, for want of the horse
        the king could not lead the army, for want of a king the battle was lost, for want of
        victory the kingdom was lost, all for one nail.

  5. KhandallaViper 5
    21 December 2012 at 8:13 am

    “I’m fairly happy with how things have gone in the past year”.

    That is from John Key on RNZ just now.

    And he has every reason to feel that way. The polls have National in the same positions as at the elections of 2008 and 2011. Labour are back at the same position they had when they lost in 2008 and where they were for most of the time under Phil Goff.
    Key should feel satisfied, despite multiple screw-ups by his very second rate team.

    http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2012/4847/

    Key is getting this result because Labour has not changed it’s strategy in that time. If you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same result.
    The galling frustration of being a Labour supporter at this time is watching the leadership repeat the same strategy that failed us under Phil.

    • ad 5.1
      21 December 2012 at 8:39 am

      So I guess Labour will do the same thing with the same people and the same leader, and woo-hoo, get the same result as last time.

      May nobody say we are grateful for 33%.

      • Another Viper 5.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 9:13 am

        The strategy of trying to get high personal ratings for the Leader (Goff/Shearer) involved suppressing the better front bench people. That has proven to be a failed failed failed failed strategy for the past four years.
        Had they allowed each spokesperson space to perform we would have been stronger on a wider front. A wider connection between the Caucus and the Public would emerge. Much of the membership’s unease about the current “kitchen cabinet” would not have arisen. And the feckless macho demotion of Cunliffe would not have happened.
        And we woukd be at 40%+ .

    • NoseViper (The Nose knows) 5.2
      21 December 2012 at 9:49 am

      The political comment on radionz was that Key is seen as blokey, cheery sort and he’s advancing that image as when yesterday he was on some radio program doing something that appeals to the pub crowd, dancing and singing maybe. Meanwhile back in parliament, they are enjoying a ‘well-earned’ holiday, and government has to bump and grind its way through its problems. Gather round everybody, smile, cheeeese!

  6. mickysavage 6
    21 December 2012 at 8:18 am

    Fucknuckle of the week award must go to Gerry Brownlee.

    The Court of Appeal has just upheld a previous High Court decision that he acted unlawfully in changing urban boundaries using his CERA powers. The Court said it was invalid because he failed to consider whether or not he should use other more democratic powers to achieve the same end. Details are at http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/8104262/Court-rules-Brownlees-actions-unlawful.

    Radio NZ has just reported (no link yet) that Brownlee had criticised the Court by saying that in his affidavit he did say that he had considered using the alternative powers. He said that the Court should have contacted him before making the decision to clarify matters and darkly that he was considering his legal options.

    What a doofus. He really thinks that he lives or ought to live in a banana republic.

    • veutoviper 6.1
      21 December 2012 at 9:38 am

      Morning MS.

      I also heard that Radio NZ report – and was dumbfounded by Brownlee’s comment as reported and bolded in your comment in terms of court process. Power really has gone to Brownlee’s head – not unsurprisingly.

      • aerobubble 6.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 12:31 pm

        Its weird. Surely Brownlee must check himself. His flies are done up, right. So why wouldn’t he dot the power grab when he makes it. Pure doofus.

  7. King Kong 7
    21 December 2012 at 9:34 am

    Right, thats enough from you lot for the year.

    Don’t spend all your dole money over the christmas break at once.

  8. NoseViper (The Nose knows) 8
    21 December 2012 at 9:57 am

    King Kong
    Apropos the line about gorillas reading Nietzsche but not understanding it – here is a link to some of his best quotes which you can imbibe over Christmas and spew out next year.
    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/friedrich_nietzsche.html

    “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Yourself, Lonely, Struggle
    Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Back, Long, Enough
    Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

  9. The Al1en 9
    21 December 2012 at 10:22 am

    On Red Alert, in CC Two minutes silence thread – Your comment is awaiting moderation
    It didn’t make it 😆

    “For the record, I don’t want my personal details released”

    Maybe tomorrow I’ll upload the song I wrote and sent to CC when months ago, she censored me for the first time.

    But for now, third song from my album Human (R)evolution @ http://www.al1en.org

    First contact – I come in peace.

    Stationary orbit locked over southern seas.
    Launching probe. HLM, you’re all go on green.
    Commence your scan for intelligent life forms.
    Logic machine Al1, do you read? Tell me, what do you see?

    Do you see anything? Or anyone?
    Make sure they receive on all frequencies?

    Breaking from orbit, lighting the upper skies.
    Extend your search. HLM, Keep that eye on the prize.
    Continue with plan to find intelligent life forms.
    Logic machine Al1, do you read? If you please. Broadcast for me.

    If you hear anything, anyone.
    We’re making first contact. I come in peace. Is there anyone home?
    First you have to believe, I come in peace. I’m here to save the world.
    Confirm you receive. M class planet diseased.

    ‘Cause you’ve got it so wrong, and before too long, you’ll fade away to dust.
    And you need to hold on and be very strong to make the change you must.

    Descending through climate over the Northern Isle.
    Remember they’re hurt HLM, you’ll get quite a surprise.
    Implement logic for inferior life forms.
    Logic machine Al1, do you read? Good luck, friend. Now bring them to me.

    If you love anything, or anyone.
    I’m making first contact. I come in peace. Please just pick up the phone.
    I’m not here to deceive. I come in peace. We can save the world.
    Please, confirm you receive. Confirm you receive.

    ‘Cause you’ve got it so wrong, and before too long, we’ll fade away to dust.
    And you need to hold on and be very strong to make the change you must.
    And you must. You are us.

  10. Draco T Bastard 10
    21 December 2012 at 11:01 am

    Just in case you were having difficulty in deciding what’s for lunch.

    • Rogue Trooper 10.1
      21 December 2012 at 2:14 pm

      I been eating a lot of sandwiches these past two weeks D. ; luncheon and chippies are my favourite on my budget along with a lot of avocado or salmon on Burgen toast, but then, thats our egalitarian society for ya 🙂
      (I read that patronage, and punctuality, of Ak rail services are down D. reminds me of Alice and the Conductor; is your memory as good as mine 🙂 )
      still, what does not kill ya certainly makes ya stronger (and comparitively famous literary wise in H.B)

      see ya see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya (just a wee Jokerman)

      meanwhile, night slowly closes in.

  11. Penny Bright 11
    21 December 2012 at 11:04 am

    TODAY – FRIDAY 21 DECEMBER 2012 – FINAL DAY FOR SUBMISSIONS ON LOCAL ELECTORAL AMENDMENT BILL!!!

    Help to stop the dodgy John Banks electoral debacle ever happening again.

    http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/MakeSub/3/d/a/50SCJE_SCF_00DBHOH_BILL11821_1-Local-Electoral-Amendment-Bill-No-2.htm

    Penny Bright
    ‘anti-corruption campaigner’

    http://www.dodgyjohnhasgone.com

  12. marsman 12
    21 December 2012 at 1:39 pm

    Today on RNZ mid-day news. Report by Treasury that states Charter Schools would be worse and more expensive than public schools AND a similar report from the Ministry of Education.

    • Morrissey 12.1
      21 December 2012 at 1:52 pm

      So this disgraceful regime is more ideologically extreme than Treasury. In any country that took politics seriously, John Banks would be serving time in prison now; instead he is given free rein to slash and rip at our education system.

      • marsman 12.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 2:40 pm

        Parata was working on the Charter School Scam with Rodger Douglas and Heather Roy in NActs first term of office, now she’s trying to ram the scam through. I agree with you re Banks.

        • dan1 12.1.1.1
          21 December 2012 at 5:22 pm

          How was it that teacher salaries were paid for15-20 years without major hassle, and then the NACT party changed to Novopay. Why the need for change you might ask!
          Did I get it right that John Banks sold his shares in the company just before the change was implemented? Conflict of interest?

        • Morrissey 12.1.1.2
          21 December 2012 at 6:07 pm

          She worked for David Lange, too, where she no doubt picked up a lot of his contempt for teachers.

          • NoseViper (The Nose knows) 12.1.1.2.1
            21 December 2012 at 11:05 pm

            Morrissey
            David Lange ushered in Tomorrows Schools didn’t he? Not a complete success. What did he do that showed he didn’t like teachers?

  13. Morrissey 13
    21 December 2012 at 2:02 pm

    Reasons no one should trust the Grauniad
    Reason No. 94: The Grauniad fears and resents dissenters

    Bradley Manning was declared the Guardian‘s ‘person of the year’ in 2012. He beat Pussy Riot to win this accolade. The Guardian then published a tiny article to celebrate the fact, while carefully including the following ‘sour grapes’ comment:

    ‘The Guardian‘s 2012 person of the year vote has concluded and the winner, after some rather fishy voting patterns that belied earlier reader comments on the poll, is Bradley Manning, the US whistleblower on trial for leaking state secrets.’

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/dec/10/bradley-manning-guardian-person-of-the-year-2012

    No further article was commissioned in memory of Manning, and nothing was said about his torture and incarceration by the Obama administration. The editorial staff had obviously decided to throw the most muted celebration imaginable.

    Contrast Manning’s poor editorial treatment with a recent piece of stenography on Pussy Riot by Dorian Lynskey:

    ‘Pussy Riot were the Band of 2012’ [title appears on front page of the Guardian]

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/20/pussy-riot-activists-not-pin-ups

    It seems the US State Department were not happy with the final results of the original poll, hence the need for this trashy piece of churnalism. On the positive side: most of the comments are against the article and most of the commentators seems to understand the pernicious agenda of the editorial staff. All of which is rather refreshing – don’t you think?

    First published by zemblan in Media Lens.

    • muzza 13.1
      21 December 2012 at 2:25 pm

      Actually Morrissey, for mine I happen to think that the Bradley Manning, as well as the Julian Assange stories are just that, stories.

      I don’t actually believe that there is anything behind them, and they are effectively *staged*!

      Total control – Thats the MSM!

      • Morrissey 13.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 7:12 pm

        Unfortunately, muzza, the persecution of Assange and Manning is all too real. As is the cooperative attitude of the “liberal” media like the Grauniad and the British State Broadcasting Corporation.

        • muzza 13.1.1.1
          22 December 2012 at 10:05 am

          Hi Morrissey, and can you confirm how you would know the stories to be genuine?

          The way I see it that the bigger the resources available, the easier it is to create big lies. Actors, script writers, directors, producers etc, the wonders of *Hollywood*

          Indicated when you write about the BBC, Guardian etc, and your post today (sat) on the festival protest, you believe that Hollyood is a type of Zionist propagana machine, which it clearly is, I agree.
          Following on from this, to me anyway makes it all very easy that due to resources, all of them, (take a look at how the occupy/arab uprisings, got front footed and taken over, re-directed/snuffed out etc). How does that happen, well its called creating the debate, and when resources are so plentiful and professionally employed, then not only can events be front footed, they can be created, played out and killed off with ease, while giving the illusion of *revolution* , or what ever it might be referred as. By the time the technology has been used against these *uprisings*, there is little likelihood that any genuine situation/movement that might have existed, will see the light of day!

  14. Rosie 14
    21 December 2012 at 2:32 pm

    From the company that brought you Unnecessary and Unoriginal Placename Sign That Pisses Off Locals
    http://static.stuff.co.nz/1343346440/323/7362323.jpg

    comes another Genuis!! moment in the form of Taking Business Offshore In A Time Of Recession and Unemployment.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/the-wellingtonian/8102573/2-8m-fire-engine-deal-goes-offshore

    What is wrong with Wellington International Airport LTD? Do they get the WTF award of the day or what?

    “Airport fire service manager Daniel Debono confirmed that the appliances had been ordered last month from the Austrian manufacturer but declined to answer questions on the contract or tender process, citing commercial sensitivity…………”
    The article goes on to quote Martin Simpson of Fraser Engineering in Lower Hutt who said “Their price had been lower than 2.8 million ( the price the contract has reportedly gone for), their tender had fully complied with the specifications and also included the first five years of maintenance”
    So do you cite ‘commercial sensitivity’ when you know your decision is daft and that you have shafted NZ workers and businesses and know at some level that it is wrong but you don’t have the guts to face up to it?

    • muzza 14.1
      21 December 2012 at 2:44 pm

      Hi Rosie, one would needless have to pick the way through the complex mesh of relationships, but there will be a clear reason why the foreign firm was selected, and it will have nothing to do with process or proceedure, and everything to do with influence!

      Shame, this is really just another shame, hidden behind *commercial sensitivty*

      • Rosie 14.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 3:10 pm

        Hi Muzza:-)

        “one would needless have to pick the way through the complex mesh of relationships…………” Indeed……..
        Infratil owns over 66% in Wgtn airport, the council own the rest.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infratil

        Infratil also own airports in the UK and previously owned 90% of one in Germany. The “fingers in pies” scenario possibly comes into play and my guess its to do with Infratil’s influence rather than the Wgtn City Council. One things for sure, they don’t have any morals or any intention to repair their damaged reputation they have in Wgtn.

        • muzza 14.1.1.1
          21 December 2012 at 4:59 pm

          Yeah as soon as I saw the Infratil link, that was about where the effort to unravel the relationships ended, and will be the reason why the production went off-shore…

          The real reasons are that the owners of the companies behind the Infratils of the world, have big foundations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, among others,and while the real puppet masters will be domiciled elsewhere, they are loyal to their own patch, NZ is nothing to them but another island to have control over, to be milked

          So you’re right to say the Council will have had nothing to do with it.

          Anyways Rosie, have a good one, and be well.

    • bad12 14.2
      21 December 2012 at 5:09 pm

      It may be a high hope but we can only hope that Labour’s new ‘hands on’ approach to the economy will signal to all and sundry that IF it can be done here at the same or lower cost than elsewhere then HERE is where it’s done,

      Infratril should in the new year perhaps seek a new company name, SCUM seems appropriate…

  15. Te Reo Putake 15
    21 December 2012 at 3:22 pm

    Kids! Thinking of doing drugs this Xmas? Just say NO! :

    “Mr Key also rated the Government’s handling of a number of issues, giving Pike River 9, the Bain case 8, Dotcom 5, and their handling of the economy 7.”

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10855506

    • bad12 15.1
      21 December 2012 at 4:33 pm

      Did someone slip Slippery some truth drug or something, what the Slippery little shyster is saying is that He and His Government have FAILED on most of the big issues of the year,

      This Governments legacy will be seen as nothing but a puke stain across the fabric of New Zealand society….

    • rosy viper 15.2
      21 December 2012 at 8:46 pm

      Stay away from whatever he’s on…

      Among those to receive his highest performance ratings were ministers Tariana Turia, 8, and Peter Dunne, 8.

      Is these MPs were in the private sector eh’d be giving them all and of year bonuses then.

  16. bad12 16
    21 December 2012 at 4:45 pm

    Just listened to an ‘interesting’ discussion on RadioNZ National’s Afternoon with Jim Moron, where one of His commenter’s blames ‘lifestyle’ choices for the hundreds of people lined up at the Auckland City Mission hoping for Christmas charity,

    I beg to differ, it is not lifestyle choices, it is in fact LIFE, those who earn a decent salary make as many wrong choices in life as does the average beneficiary, it is a natural part of being human and we all at times make wrong choices,

    The difference??? those getting a decent living wage when they make a wrong choice usually have the discretionary income to gloss over their previous mistakes,(some even have enough coin coming in to allow them that mistake over and over),

    Those living upon benefits have no such luxury, a mistake made by a beneficiary may lead to weeks, months and even years of negative repercussions simply because the benefit system is carefully costed as the bare minimum requirement of the individual or family….

    • Morrissey 16.1
      21 December 2012 at 6:05 pm

      That commentator was one JORDAN WILLIAMS, one of the nastiest and most ideologically rigid of the new wave of rightists in this country.

      Did you note that Jim Mora did not once challenge anything that Williams said?

      • bad12 16.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 6:35 pm

        Aha, i have recently decided to switch off the afternoon offering from RadioNZ National,(nine to noon is also frequently suffering the same fate),

        I only listened this afternoon as the topics were advertised befor-hand, the Auckland City Missioner put that egg firmly in His place except for the fact that His preconceived notions about beneficiaries and others lining up round the block for a charity Christmas made Him deaf to what She had to say…

  17. RedLogix 17
    21 December 2012 at 5:16 pm

    I do realise that teacher’s pay is reasonably complex … but there is nothing new or difficult about pay systems. They’ve been around for decades and it’s impossible in this day and age to be getting it this wrong.

    But is there anyone else listening to the endless litany of absurd errors thrown up by the Novapay debacle beginning to think that this might be a deliberate attempt to ‘break the education system’?

    • muzza 17.1
      21 December 2012 at 5:45 pm

      RL – Upstairs for thinking…

      Anytime a cock-up is seemingly so bad , to do with what is a well known set of processes/systems, by a company with a “reasonable” track record, and it breaks the way it allegedly has, then its deliberate.

      You can’t accidentally make this many errors

      Apply the same to the ACC leaks, deliberate attempt to break down ACC.

      Many other examples I’m sure, so fire away!

    • bad12 17.2
      21 December 2012 at 6:01 pm

      Aha, here too, havn’t wanted to comment on what seems best described as ‘Hekia’s revenge’ befor as other than ‘the sense’ of the absurd continuous teachers pay ‘f**k-up’ there’s no evidence of it being deliberate,

      It’s not just teachers that are effected, the no-pay debacle effects the schools as well as payments come straight out of the individual schools budgets…

  18. Neoleftie 18
    21 December 2012 at 5:41 pm

    Light rain fall.
    End of hillside workshops.
    People gathered in memorial.
    MPs in the three, union flags a flutter,
    I stood silently and grim.
    Old dear friends deepest red greeted.
    Last three stood and chatted, not leaving till the end.
    Now another bastion lost.
    Time to take a stand.
    Will it be feb or in 2014.
    Take a stand united together strong, divide we beg.

  19. Morrissey 19
    21 December 2012 at 5:42 pm

    Jordan Williams tries, and mostly fails, to run amok on the Panel
    The Panel, National Radio, Friday 21 December 2012

    Panelists: Jim Mora, Bernard Hickey, Jordan Williams

    There are any number of nasty, unsympathetic and smug right-wing commentators infesting public discourse in this country. One of the nastiest is Jordan Williams. People like him thrive when they are allowed to state their extreme views without being called to explain or defend them. Jordan Williams got away with it at the start of the programme, but was then called out by a fellow Panelist (Bernard Hickey) and a guest. As usual, Jim Mora did nothing, other than an embarrassing, wandery rant at halftime about the Mayan calendar….

    After what seemed an eternity of petty and dull opening pleasantries, host Jim Mora brought up the first topic for discussion: the steep increase in poverty in Auckland, as advised by aid and welfare agencies. Jordan Williams immediately poured scorn on the idea that there was any poverty in this country. Mora said that the idea there was no poverty was the Rodney Hide position. Williams snorted and said, “That’s not what Rodney says.”

    But it is “what Rodney says”, and both Mora and Hickey knew that. However, neither of them uttered a word of contradiction to that barefaced lie. Williams then went on to spend the next ten minutes scoffing at the Auckland City Mission’s Diane Robertson. Outrageously, he claimed that the stingy welfare payments to the poor are “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

    This time, Hickey did not stay silent.

    “Our taxes being used to pay welfare for the poor is ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’?” he said, slowly, mockingly, in tones of rising exasperation.

    Williams, defiant, refused to modify or explain his statement. Sadly, Mora did not insist on his responding to Hickey’s challenge. He was allowed to carry on with his assault on Diane Robertson.

    Later in the programme, Williams had a go at feminist campaigner Denise Ritchie, who is in the news today for her condemnation of the crude and sexist regime run by the CEO of Air New Zealand, Rob Fyfe. When she told Williams of the extreme and brutal hate comments directed at women following a series of demeaning advertisements, and of the harassment faced by female employees on Air New Zealand flights, he was forced to back down.

    It’s a pity more people don’t take on smug right-wing bullies like this in similar fashion to Denise Ritchie.

    • RedLogix 19.1
      21 December 2012 at 6:47 pm

      Yes I was listening to Jordan myself.

      At one point when he made an insinuation “that poverty may be about not enough income or lifestyle choices … but he didn’t know which” .. I said to my partner right there and then “I’d ban someone from the The Standard” for that kind of behaviour.

      It was perfectly clear he was dog-whistling what he really believed, but was too gutless to own it.

      • Morrissey 19.1.1
        21 December 2012 at 7:08 pm

        It’s just a pity that Mora lacked the presence of mind to call him to account. The contrast with his carping, nit-picking, skeptical attitude toward liberal or left wing commentators is telling.

  20. Herodotus (CV Supporter) 20
    21 December 2012 at 7:06 pm

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10855577
    Chief executive of Australian company Talent2 John Rawlinson said there was no reason for staff to go unpaid because they could get cash advances from their individual schools who would be reimbursed..
    We as a family who has just experienced no pay yesterday – I should ring: Talent2? No, MOE ? No The school. And who is the innocent party in this group and they are the one to fix the issue. So our local headmaster has to spend their Christmas eve fixing my problem ? And as most schools have spent their budgets that these payments are to made out of. And on TV1 news an MOE official made the statement that in her opinion it will take 26 pay cycles (1 year) for confidence in the system to be established.
    Rawlinson is correct in one aspect “there was no reason for staff to go unpaid” Shouldn’t that be a given and isn’t that what his company is paid to deliver?

    • Napkins 20.1
      21 December 2012 at 7:18 pm

      I bet Talent2 isn’t going short paid this holiday season.

    • Tazireviper 20.2
      21 December 2012 at 9:36 pm

      I work in schools and was at one today and found Admin staff (who are supposed to be on holiday) at work trying to fix Payroll problems, asked how it was going I was told that Novopay was not accepting phone calls now and problems had to be emailed in, no response today so they will have to come in on Christmas eve to check, if no response back again the day after boxing day and on and on it ******* goes WTF