Open mike 22/06/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 22nd, 2021 - 57 comments
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57 comments on “Open mike 22/06/2021 ”

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  1. Ad 1
    22 June 2021 at 10:43 am

    So, the Swedish government has just collapsed, and with it come the very high prospect of fresh elections.

    This probably needs is own post, but when Sweden does get fresh elections, we are very likely to see the social democratic party take a hiding.

    Sweden was one of the pioneers of a very socialised state with heavy taxes and a very strong social network of services from cradle to the grave (for those old enough to remember the 1970s, ABBA paid between 56 and 85% tax to the Swedish government on their huge earnings).

    I've been pointing out for a while now that New Zealand is very much a global outlier as a social democratic government – even in our mild form.

    Across Europe the social democratic cause has collapsed in Austria, Germany, increasingly Britain, and now it's just had a pretty big reversal in Sweden.

    Of those that remain other than New Zealand, Denmark, Finland and Spain are still going OK. Denmark's version got back with a strong anti-immigration theme which has continued. The social democratic movement has declined at the same time as the welfare state has been challenged by mass immigration.

    We might have expected after the revival of state interventionism across the world last year that there would be fresh purpose to parties that saw the good in the strongly redistributive state. Maybe that's still to come.

    Meantime, even the Scandinavian model has taken yet another hit.

    Other than the outliers, the social democratic effort is now at its lowest point.

    • Foreign Waka 1.1
      22 June 2021 at 2:15 pm

      Some of the reasons for the political discontent are not discussed, not accepted and politically incorrect. But people will and do react.

      All the mentioned countries had an influx, and still have of large numbers of refugees and additionally of economic immigrants on the coat tail of the refugees who are getting state support in form of housing, cash and vouchers, special grants etc. Often higher than any beneficiary in the very same country.

      This has basically drained the countries dry of funds for those who have paid into the scheme – the citizen and taxpayers of the respective country. One needs to remember that the tax is divided into Social welfare components, be it health, unemployment or retirement and other. Hence the astronomical "tax take". In other words taxpayers contribute from their wages to their cost in form of taxation rather then privatised insurance individually. In contrast NZ has a general taxation system and I think only ACC and Kiwi saver are the exceptions. ACC is compulsory but Kiwi saver is not.

      The Social Democratic systems across Europe are very similar in terms of taxation. Under above circumstance, there are experiences where one own family's welfare is curtailed i.e. elderly have not enough to survive, and being ask to contribute more. This will spell disaster. This is the reason why Europe is moving to conservative politics or even further right. Some seriously consider similar regimes like Erdogan has established. When the own citizenry is being made to suffer the call is always for a strong politicians. This is dangerous and should not be underestimated.

      Lets watch this to learn from a highly social minded people what an assumption that nothing ever has consequences and everybody is a philanthropist can do.

      • Ad 1.1.1
        22 June 2021 at 4:35 pm

        If unwanted and untrammeled immigration were the primary cause for the decline of such social democratic movements, rather than a late contributing factor, we would have seen a whole bunch more political instability than we've had.

        Rather what it tells me is that some states were far more brittle than they appeared from the outside, and substantially made brittle both institutionally and in their voters because the GFC and the EU austerity responses had made their societies so weak.

        Immigration is part of the answer in Scandinavia – it has seriously disrupted a previously homogenous society. But that doesn't work in Australia, New Zealand or Singapore, where they have had controlled waves of immigration that have not really tested the strength of the welfare state to deliver.

        There's a fair few reasons for the collapse of social democrat movements.

        • Foreign waka 1.1.1.1
          22 June 2021 at 7:10 pm

          Ad – Australia, New Zealand and Singapore never had to support fully from the word go millions of refugees, EU 1400 per person per month = NZ $ 2800 per person per month plus child care, plus accommodation – meaning actual housing not hotels, healthcare etc. There are actual cases where the taxpayer is getting not enough to live on despite having paid into the social fund for 45 years. All the rhetoric of we care etc. goes out the window. Its human nature and applies to everybody, no exceptions. The Brussels Brigade is demanding more and more to the detriment of sovereign countries in the misled belief that EU can function like the USA. In a nutshell, the people of EU have had enough and even the most placid starting to get not just stroppy but outright agro. Believe me, my family lives there.

          • coreyjhumm 1.1.1.1.1
            22 June 2021 at 10:34 pm

            Absolutely, that's why the danish social Democratic party was anti immigration and anti refugee… and it won …working class people in Europe don't like what's happened since the migrant crisis. They just don't. I'm not saying it's right or wrong I find it fascinating that it's clearly an issue for working class voters and most modern social Democratic parties just ignore it. Nz labour could hardly be called a massively pro immigration party heading into 2017 either.

            In fact if you'll recall the nz labour party was highly criticized locally and overseas for wanting to lower immigration and foreign ownership, they even had a list of Chinese sounding names!! these policies may not have registered with the pollsters but they certainly did at the local pubs, and I've always found working class pubs to be far more insync with the public mood than academics, ideologues and media.

            Germanys social Democratic party is dead not just because it supported the Tory govt but also cos it supported the huge amounts of migrants, Uk labour is associated with a whole list of things but one thing people don't like to talk about is working class Brits associate it's last term of govt with mass immigration and freedom of movement.

            Same with the us democrats. Open borders sanctuary cities etc etc etc

            If you asked most working class kiwis they'd not only like to stop all immigration for a couple years but they'd like to stop kiwis from coming home.

            It's weird the modern left worships MJS and the first three labour governments but never likes to talk about those governments extremely racist immigration policies which were all about protecting local labour markers …. this was left wing policy which is why Winston peters appeals to a lot of socially conservative labour voters

            People are stressing out about their housing situations, their kids housing situations and if there is a massive collapse in the nz housing market or economy nz is absolutely bripe for a populist anti immigration party ( I hope it never happens, I'm an internationalist, not a globalist I like multiculturalism)

            Social democratic parties have mostly not ever been able to come to grips with the effects that globalism of capital and labour have had on their domestic working class and it's crippled their parties, NZ labour particularly if you look at the fourth and fifth labour govts is incredibly lucky to have survived and not gone the way of the Greek, icelandic or Netherlands labour parties.

            Nz hasn't, yet, had the kinds of refugee crisis that Europe had (we will when climate change really hits) Europe had ten million refugees in a couple years, a couple years after the gfc, they have more terrorist incidents than you can shake a stick at and have genuine hard right populists who are able to seriously manipulate the working class into thinking this is the fault of the left not right wing wars and economics and with the neoliberal eu wanting more and more sovereignty…. It might actually play well for parties like UK labour to fully become eurosceptic parties…

            Maybe not…

            One does have to wonder what would have happened had labour been a pro brexit party after the referendum and accepted the results but promised a better deal not a referendum on a deal.

      • greywarshark 1.1.2
        22 June 2021 at 4:51 pm

        Good points Foreign Waka. And going further – why are there so many refugees – wars being declared by resource-hungry big powers often, usually? The strong countries driven by their elites are willing to crucify the people in foreign and their own countries. The neolib economic system was meant to open up the world to predator interests. We see the results.

        Going into space. The wet dream of men with too much in their hands, money, opportunity, single-minded drive, competition with peers, and the admiration of the gullible. And tech robotics, and profit driven use of them, also again men's love of complex machinery, novelty.

        And in the future, more areas being led to famine as is the case apparently right now in Tigray, Ethiopia. Gwyn Dyer did one of his informative columns on them. It has happened before, but that is not enough for the callous blood lust of some Ethiopians.

        Women in future, as the understanding of what a woman is, and more homosexuals choose not to cross-gender, and the state and men find having babies and looking after them just a burden to them and the planet, I foresee that women will become a sub-group. Certainly rights only obtained after much effort are being wiped, and mothers are to be manipulated.

        In China, it was a one child policy and girls were not part of the mainstay of the social fabric, so were unwelcome.

        In Peru – Keiko Fujimori’s supporters have also been urging her to resume the forced sterilisation of the rural poor that was initiated by her father Alberto, during the 1990s. The official health figures in Peru show that 270,000 women and 22,000 men were sterilised

        In USA – It's different. Women, individually want the right of choice about abortion and sterilisation, not have fertility enforced on them, but; the US Catholic Bishops Conference passed a remit a few days ago calling for the drawing up of a statement on the Eucharist intended to eventually deny Biden access to Communion, because of his support for abortion rights.,,

        As Vox News noted, US politicians who support the death penalty have never been similarly threatened by the US Bishops for flouting the Church’s clear opposition to executions. This opposition was re-stated by Pope Francis in an encyclical called Fratelli Tutti last October.. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2106/S00067/on-the-lancets-stance-against-the-olympic-games-and-on-the-us-culture-battles-over-abortion.htm

        • greywarshark 1.1.2.1
          22 June 2021 at 5:15 pm

          Sorry I couldn't get access to the Gwynne Dyer piece on Ethiopia despite lots of looking – I saw it in the Christchurch Press just this morning.

    • McFlock 1.2
      22 June 2021 at 5:09 pm

      If the only government one can form is to sit on the fence between the left and the right, sooner or later they'll try to pull you apart like a wishbone.

      The nationalists called the vote, the ex-communists withdrew their support. Is that a slip to the right, or is it both extremes flexing their muscles?

  2. Stephen D 2
    22 June 2021 at 11:43 am

    Chris Penk in the news twice in one week. Once with his remark about wanting to be leader one day. Made on Newshub Nation. And today using the f word in tweet about Winston.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/winston-peters-called-national-party-sex-maniacs-judith-collins-responds-to-barb/LASZHB4UVDTGRUIYR2RILG4FPA/

    More jostling for position for Deputy Leader behind Luxon?

    • I Feel Love 2.1
      22 June 2021 at 11:52 am

      And ha! They've since "cancelled" the tweet.

      • Pete 2.1.1
        22 June 2021 at 12:38 pm

        In a political sense Penk shows he's is an out of touch jerk. It's all right to be a smart arse out the back with the boys and girls over a beer but if he's that stupid as to not realise the naivety of his tweet he's in the wrong business.

        Well, maybe the right business if National wants to stay where it is in the public's eyes.

        (Any chance David Seymour will pop up his head and criticise the evident "cancel culture"?)

    • Sacha 2.2
      22 June 2021 at 12:43 pm

      Peters didn't traverse the party's review into what went wrong last year in his speech, but said there was a growing sentiment among the public that the Government needed NZ First.

      "We were pilloried for being the handbrake, but since the last election hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are coming to understand why we were essential and now why we are missed."

      Winston First is polling at about 1%.

  3. Historian Pete 3
    22 June 2021 at 11:50 am

    Canadian Politician Derek Sloan and 3 medical professionals-who say they represent hundreds of their colleagues -said last week in a press conference the Canadian Government is suppressing information about the harmful effects of lockdown, vaccine risks in children, and the efficacy of certain covid treatments.

    The College of physicians and surgeons of Ontario CPSO issued a dire statement late April threatening doctors who spoke out about what they witnessed in their local hospitals and communities. "The purpose of CPSO is to protect the public" said Sloane '' ,not stifle legitimate scientific enquiry or dissent by professional Doctors" He says his office was flooded with calls from doctors, nurses, and other scientific experts who said they have been threatened and blocked from sharing their stories.

    'I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it " Voltaire !!!

    [Hysterical Pete, you’re now in Pre-Moderation until you can provide a comment that does not sound like it’s coming from a full-blown conspiracy nutbar and contains a decent link – Incognito]

    • Sacha 3.1
      22 June 2021 at 11:52 am

      Please provide a link when you quote an article like that.

      • Andre 3.1.1
        22 June 2021 at 12:31 pm

        Just in case anyone really wonders, I googled the quote, and got 5 pages of results, every single one of which comes from a well-known lying disinformation rabid anti-vax site.

        • Sacha 3.1.1.1
          22 June 2021 at 12:37 pm

          Glad I'm not a moderator..

          • Andre 3.1.1.1.1
            22 June 2021 at 12:41 pm

            Me too. Not because I'd be banning people, but with the safety of being a mod I'd be saying a lot more of what I really want to say. Which would make other mods uncomfortable.

            • greywarshark 3.1.1.1.1.1
              22 June 2021 at 2:52 pm

              Thanks for looking it up Andre so we can confirm our strong suspicions and keep the facts as we know them clean and understandable. It's hard to find your way through the fog of dark suspicions otherwise; and people can be so certain about them. All they need is to find one hole in something accepted and the deluge follows. We have to keep our finger on the hole in the dyke like the Dutch story!

    • I Feel Love 3.2
      22 June 2021 at 11:53 am

      "they've been blocked from telling their stories" yet somehow continue to tell their stories.

    • joe90 3.3
      22 June 2021 at 1:06 pm

      Voltaire !!!

      Evelyn Beatrice Hall!!!…but you're an historian, right?
      /

      https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/

    • Incognito 3.4
      22 June 2021 at 1:15 pm

      See my Moderation note @ 11:50 am.

  4. Poission 4
    22 June 2021 at 11:55 am

    The fat libels,the problematic issue of heresy.

    These attacks were by and large not pursued through normal channels of scientific discussion. Her research became the target of an aggressive campaign that included insults, errors, misinformation, social media posts, behind-the-scenes gossip and maneuvers, and complaints to her employer. The goal appeared to be to undermine and discredit her work. The controversy was something deliberately manufactured, and the attacks primarily consisted of repeated assertions of preconceived opinions. She learned first-hand the antagonism that could be provoked by inconvenient scientific findings.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033062021000670

  5. Sacha 5
    22 June 2021 at 12:01 pm

    ACC reports to its Minister about its problematic relationship with certain population groups: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/445178/acc-biased-against-women-maori-and-pasifika-agency-s-own-analysis-shows

    The inequities are laid out in a series of briefings, obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act, from ACC to its Minister Carmel Sepuloni, after the corporation analysed claims data between June 2015 and July 2020.

    Green Party ACC spokesperson Jan Logie, who has campaigned for successive governments to address inequalities in the scheme, said the biases were inevitable because the Accident Compensation Act, developed in the 1970s, "just hadn't kept up" with changes in society.

    "It was developed at a time where mostly it was men going out to work, and doing particular types of work," she said. As a result, there was a "very strong bias" in favour of working men, she said.

    "At the moment, women, Māori and Pasifika are bearing the burden of that failure."

    • Foreign waka 5.1
      22 June 2021 at 7:49 pm

      You could say this for ALL social services as even a women earning will become a "handbag" to her partner/husband as soon as it comes to applying for all sorts of support. It almost feels like the 60's, we are launching rockets and yet women are still treated like extension of males. Moon landing rockabilly, we haven't moved at all.

    • Treetop 5.2
      22 June 2021 at 9:35 pm

      An inequality not mentioned is that when a person dies from an injury and they do not have an executor the next of kin is unable to access the person's ACC file. This is distressing when the information on the injury form differs to what the surgeon wrote in the patients surgery notes.

      Everyone else which I have contacted with the authorisation from the next of kin has given me the dead person's file.

      ACC told me that even if I gave them the surgeons notes that ACC could be taken to court were they to give me the file as the person's privacy would be breached. The Privacy Commissioner's Office told me that they do not advocate for a dead man.

      My response was a dead man has no rights and ACC cannot make a correct decision when the true extent of the injury was not stated on the injury form.

      • solkta 5.2.1
        22 June 2021 at 10:17 pm

        The Courts allowing the Peter Ellis appeal to proceed after his death is an example of a dead man having rights.

        • Treetop 5.2.1.1
          23 June 2021 at 8:46 am

          Ellis did the appeal when he was alive. It was heard after he died.

          The point I am making is that I cannot advocate for a dead man unless I can have discussions with ACC as they do not have the full information.

          The full injury needs to be argued that it is not a normal consequence of the treatment.

          The coroner, HDC and the DHB have all mislead each other. ACC misleads itself.

      • Sacha 5.2.2
        23 June 2021 at 9:20 am

        Not really an inequality but distressing to experience all the same.

  6. bwaghorn 6
    22 June 2021 at 12:13 pm

    https://i.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300338373/government-needs-to-make-uteturn

    A uteload of reasons why townies need their utes!

    • mac1 6.1
      22 June 2021 at 5:16 pm

      Totally reasonable arguments raised by a part-time landlording corporate lawyer with a preference for biking downhill fuelled by discounted Martinborough pinot noir and erecting election hoardings. I hope that encourages Standardistas to read bwaghorn's worthy recommendation (hint- you need to get past the opening paragraphs' rather well-disguised 'chinaman').

  7. Reality 7
    22 June 2021 at 12:35 pm

    What, an another unsavoury National MP? Chris Penk joining the ranks now. Do they train them at an unfit for public office school? Always plenty of candidates.

  8. Descendant Of Smith 8
    22 June 2021 at 12:44 pm

    As if built in deliberate obsolescence wasn't enough.

    Online giant Amazon is destroying millions of items of unsold stock every year, products that are often new and unused, ITV News can reveal.

    Footage gathered by ITV News shows waste on an astonishing level.

    And this is from just one of 24 fulfilment centres they currently operate in the UK.

    https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/amazon-destroying-millions-of-items-of-unsold-stock-in-one-of-its-uk-warehouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds

    • greywarshark 8.1
      22 June 2021 at 2:44 pm

      To maintain the atmosphere of superiority and high pricing I remember that a NZ company I think Lands for Bags destroyed new bags at the end of a season. Putting them out at sale prices would detract from their desirability and allure. That attitude makes sense when dealing with the high-end of society and fashion. The price put on bags with top-end designers names is pure BS on sale to air-heads.

      Do you think this link fits:

    • joe90 8.2
      22 June 2021 at 2:58 pm

      In the yards of nearly every dealer in the country you'll find brand new small appliances binned minus their leads.

      • greywarshark 8.2.1
        22 June 2021 at 3:01 pm

        How do you know that joe90? I haven't seen that reported.

        • joe90 8.2.1.1
          22 June 2021 at 3:11 pm

          My scavenging, bin diver extraordinaire mate routinely drags all manner of small appliances home, we're talking dozens here, and in an attempt to rewire them, tasks me to find tools to deal with the proprietary fasteners used. I only manage to find the occasional screw bit so most end up back where they came from, the bin.

          • Andre 8.2.1.1.1
            22 June 2021 at 3:31 pm

            Are they genuinely brand-new, or maybe warranty returns that didn't work when the customer first plugged it in?

            I've yet to need to get into something and haven't been able to using just a fairly basic set of security screw driver bits. I'd be awfully curious which brands feel the need to make it harder than that to get in.

            • joe90 8.2.1.1.1.1
              22 June 2021 at 3:53 pm

              Unsold brand spankers from big box outlets. And the jaycar is one of several kits and yet he's still routinely defeated by slightly mis-matched drives designed to strip/single use destruction and odd-ball centre pin security fasteners.

              • Macro …
                22 June 2021 at 5:12 pm

                defeated by slightly mis-matched drives designed to strip/single use destruction and odd-ball centre pin security fasteners.

                Yeah I know what you mean!

                Mind you this is no modern idiosyncrasy. I had a '29 model A Ford way back. One saturday driving back home over the wainui hill she started running on 3 cylinders. So Back home. Just before Uni final exams. Had to take the head off to see what was wrong. One collapsed 3rd piston! Not a bit – left all in the sump! Thank goodness for splash lubrication. So then the task was to remove the con rod and find a replacement piston. Henry Ford wasn't having any after parts shinnanigans going on and all the bolts nuts and threads were weird sizing – especially the threads which were very fine. So fine that the nuts was now welded onto the con rod bolts. After wrecking two of my dads special sockets I asked a friend who was an AA mechanic – "How do you get those nuts off?" "With a chisel!"

  9. joe90 9
    22 June 2021 at 2:41 pm

    They've won. Freedom of the press is done in Hong Kong.

    https://twitter.com/lokmantsui/status/1406979448411365378

    we also hope that even though this platform no longer will be around, that hong kong journalists will continue to hold ground, and pursue the truth. last but not least, thanks to the anchors, editors, and other colleagues behind the scene …

    for accepting a mission impossible, a mission in response to today's society. thanks again to all of you for your support. to the people of hong kong, stay strong. may we meet down the road. bye bye."

    Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper and website could shut down this weekend if authorities do not agree to the board’s request to unfreeze its assets, after the arrest of its senior editors and executives last week.

    According to various local reports on Monday afternoon, an internal memo said Next Digital, Apple Daily’s parent company, would seek restored access to its accounts so it can pay staff, but that if this did not happen by Friday it would make a decision to stop publication of the pro-democracy title.

    The potential end of the 26-year-old paper comes after a police operation in which officers raided the homes of five executives, including Apple Daily’s editor-in-chief, Ryan Law, and arrested them under the national security law, before raiding the newsroom with an unprecedented warrant allowing the seizure of journalistic materials.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/21/hong-kong-apple-daily-newspaper-crisis-talks-avert-shutdown-advisor-says

    • Brigid 9.1
      22 June 2021 at 9:38 pm

      "The department for safeguarding the national security of the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) arrested the editor-in-chief and four directors on suspicion of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.

      This was the second time Apply Daily, founded and owned by Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who bears multiple charges including conspiracy to collude with foreign countries or forces to endanger national security, has been raided since the national security law for Hong Kong came into force on June 30, 2020.

      Senior Superintendent of Hong Kong police Steve Li Kwai-wah told reporters after the arrests that strong evidence showed that dozens of questionable articles published by Apple Daily since 2019 played a very crucial part in the conspiracy which provided the ammunition for foreign countries and institutions or organizations to impose sanctions on China and the Hong Kong region.

      Police raided the offices of Apple Daily following a search warrant, in accordance with Article 43 of the national security law for Hong Kong, which stipulates that when handling cases concerning offence endangering national security, the department for safeguarding national security of the Hong Kong police may take measures such as a search of premises, vehicles, vessels, aircraft and other relevant places and electronic devices that may contain evidence of an offense. "

      https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1226466.shtml

  10. greywarshark 10
    22 June 2021 at 3:07 pm

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/445193/mercury-nz-plans-to-buy-trustpower-s-retail-business-for-441m

    This would reduce competition wouldn't it? If we can't have one SOE? operating our small nation's electricity, which would be the practical way to go – with some way of monitoring for price and effectiveness – then it is likely to be worse if there are just a few players, I would think?

    Could someone who knows about such things give a valid opinion? Has Mercury got a good record?

    • gsays 10.1
      22 June 2021 at 4:55 pm

      "Has Mercury got a good record?"

      Bohemian Rhapsody isn't bad.

      • greywarshark 10.1.1
        22 June 2021 at 5:17 pm

        Hah. Without a song and a dance what are we? Thank you for the music, for giving it to me.

  11. Byd0nz 11
    22 June 2021 at 3:09 pm

    On situation in HK.
    Put it down to the American and western covert actions, trying to pierce the soft underbelly of China. It was never going to work, unless this is what the west wanted, trying to increase revolt by the people of HK, who in the most part did not support the bullshit umbrella actions of the hegemonic US.

    • joe90 11.1
      22 June 2021 at 3:19 pm

      And fuck the people of Hong Kong and the one country, two systems promise of self-determination, right?

      • Byd0nz 11.1.1
        22 June 2021 at 3:37 pm

        No. Fuck the interference of the hegemonic US.

        They cause the reactions by the interfered Countries all over the World. America is only truly free to the elite classes, so fuck your crocodile tears.

  12. Jimmy 12
    22 June 2021 at 4:03 pm

    What is wrong with these judges. Harsher sentences need to be handed out, not a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket. This is a repeat offender.

    Elderly conned of life savings for P and pokie money by serial scammer | Stuff.co.nz

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