Open mike 23/02/2021
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The gift that keeps giving: David Seymour has now opened a split in the coalition over the future of National’s promise to build a new medical school. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and ...4 hours ago - Weekly Roundup 22-November-2024
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Activists are such easy scapegoats. The right and center have been conditioned for decades to roll their eyes at all protests. The left are easily aggravated over students leading movements they see as belonging to grownups, who have more important concerns like the economy and whether the trains come on ...6 hours ago - Cutting Through An Inundation of Dipshit Racists
Hi,Watching New Zealand from afar offers a strange perspective. It can be a good thing — distance from Aotearoa helped keep me sane while I reported on abuse at New Zealand’s biggest megachurch over the course of a year. It helps fuel my silly podcast. But it can also be ...6 hours ago - This is bad news
The speech yesterday by Treasury’s Chief Economic Advisor warning that the books are in worse shape than forecasted looks like it’s part of a softening-up process for either more cuts or a longer wait to get back into surplus. The speech was a highly unusual public preview of Treasury’s Half-Yearly ...8 hours ago - Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
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Chatting in the supermarket this morning, I found I needed to lunge for the chicken drumsticks.Coping mechanisms: who hasn’t felt a greater need for them lately?When it all gets too much, I turn to demonstrating handy butchery hacks.It wasn’t that she’d said anything wrong, our friend, not at all. We ...20 hours ago - The year is 2024 and it’s 1984
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Back in 2022, RNZ took an in-depth look at the "Independent" Police Conduct Authority and its handling of killings by police. These are the most serious test of oversight, and you would expect the police's use of lethal force to receive the most severe scrutiny. But despite the police regularly ...1 day ago - Thursday 21 November 2024
The Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti arrived at Parliament on Tuesday – the size is being debated but estimates range from 42,000 to 100,000. The Prime Minister is defending not attending due to some of the organisers being affiliated with Te Pāti Māori. The national gang patch ban came into force ...1 day ago - ‘These budget cuts are counter-productive and make no sense’
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The government's Treaty Principles Bill is up for its first reading today - bought forward in a rush in a desperate effort to avoid the hikoi which is currently marching on Wellington. But the Prime Minister won’t be there for it – he’s literally running away to Peru! But he ...1 week ago
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- Release: Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principle...
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
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Tēnā koutou katoa – it is a pleasure to be here today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the important leadership role you all play in ensuring a quality health system New Zealanders can trust. There is enormous clinical expertise in this room covering a wide range of disciplines. ...2 days ago
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- Youth Parliament 2025 announced
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- Police stats show promising change
After nearly a year in Government, Kiwis have seen significant change across law and order with promising early results shown across some Police statistics, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. “In August 2023, I told New Zealanders that if they had not started to see a change in public safety within ...4 days ago
- Better coordination of anti-scam efforts
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- Minister to consider 7AA select committee report
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- Defence Minister to attend ASEAN meeting
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- Launching the White Ribbon Ride
The Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, Karen Chhour, was on hand to wish riders well at the start of the North Island leg of the White Ribbon Ride in Whakatāne this morning. The ride helps mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, ...5 days ago
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Construction on the next stage of the SH1 Papakura to Drury project will begin early next month, with the contract for works awarded to Fulton Hogan, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. "SH1 Papakura to Drury is a key project that will drive economic growth and productivity, reduce congestion, and enable people ...6 days ago
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question? Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 22 November appeared first on Newsroom. ...8 hours ago
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A Premium article in The Herald today.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/superyacht-supper-huhu-grubs-and-goats-testicles-on-regatta-menu/7CBF46UVNX4A3X6EYCWBRFU464/
“Superyacht supper: Huhu grubs and goat's testicles on regatta menu”
“The vessel is owned by German industrialist and superyacht builder Guido Krass. Bold was built in 2019 by Fremantle superyacht builders SilverYachts, founded by Krass in 2005.”
“While in New Zealand Bold will have repairs and maintenance done, thought to worth millions of dollars.”
Who is kidding who here ? This small ship was built in 2019 and is now thought to need millions of dollars of repair!
Virtually all ocean craft require an annual budget of !0-15% of build cost for maintenance and repairs – salt water does that.
Yes I know , I have sailed half the world,. We used to say BOAT means Bring out another thousand. This boat was built in 2019 , they didn,t say when it was launched , so maybe has been on the water around one year. New boats don,t cost as much as old boats to maintain.
More likely a refit… probably changed his mind on the interior colour scheme
The helipad may need enlarging.
Is the length of the visa dependent on them 'repairing' their boats?
Not usually, they are just visitor visas with the ability to extend a bit if repairs or storm season dictate.
What beverage is recommended with the appetizers?
Squeezed Bambi juice.
I’d go for a sparkling water with a hint of lemon.
Domestos lemon fresh.
For those with any exposure to the roading industry, the recent decision by Refining New Zealand to cease production of bitumen will mean that there's no locally manufactured source for the entire roading network. Yes, our entire NZ roading network.
Not only will that focus the whole of the industry and Waka Kotahi (NZTA) on continuity of supply, it will also focus R&D departments on how to decrease that reliance. Sure hope they've got their own port and shipping slots or this could get exceedingly ugly exceedingly fast.
Queenstown Airport made a good example of this a couple of years ago.
https://www.queenstownairport.co.nz/corporate/news-and-events/news/queenstown-airports-apron-resurfacing-project-wins-sustainability-initiative-of-the-year-award-at-the-new-zealand-airports-awards
Why are we even using bitumen though? Most countries use concrete for reading, which is far better lifespan and grip wise.
Cost, our terrain, not mention seismic activity…
concrete roading doesnt work on our soft ,ever moving ground.
That makes sense. Thanks woodart, ad and Cricklewood!
Concrete, apart from being exceedingly expensive and hopeless for maintaining when you often have to dig it all up for new utilities required for new developments, also has a massive carbon cost – much of that carbon cost from cement production but also in quarrying and in its transport.
Bitumen is going to be a really curly one as we transition away from hydrocarbon fuels. It’s all the shit thats left over from refining the useful stuff. But really handy for surfacing cheap, flexible roads. Even when we’re all running around in electrics we’re going to need roads like we have now. Haven’t seen any alternatives coming through.
The Queenstown airport ‘green’ engineering was more for engineering pragmatism than any environmental concern. The toner cartridges gave plasticity for performance over a wider temperature range and the glass sand is used because Central Otago sands are weathered schist which are very weak and the particle sizes are all wrong for making good concretes and roads. Crushed clean glass has been added to premium concrete and basecourse sand here for a long time.
Even pulverised used tyre crumb (what to do with big piles of dead tyres) hasn't been sued extensively here. After NZTA's Kapiti Expressway surfacing debacle a couple of years back they are pretty conservative when it comes to trying out new surfacing materials.
Still hilarious after all these years. And sad, at the same time
The highlight—“Scum! Russian scum!”—comes at about the 5:50 mark…
I hate to say it, but I think I agree with Judith Collins regarding this Aussie woman that refuses a Covid test.
Judith Collins calls for deportation of Australian woman refusing Covid test | Stuff.co.nz
ditto.
Meh.
As long as she gets charged for the length of her stay, I don't particularly care. Hell, there's even the possibility she actually has a point – that's up to the courts to determine.
If she's just a wingbat who wants to spend other wingbats' money on quarantine and lawyers for a futile gripe, ain't but a thing. If sticking thermometers up animals' butts really has shown her a nuance of informed consent that everyone else has missed, then the court case she's promising can only be a good thing.
who is paying for the court case, us or herself?
She'll be paying for her lawyers, us ours, and the winner might get costs.
As long as she covers her direct costs, it's not a huge deal. The judge and crown lawyers will still be doing legal stuff even without her.
so she squandered scarce resources in quarantine and isolation
now she is squandering our resources in the court that could be used otherwise.
Yeah, right ….no biggie…..and the winner can get costs back? Sounds sensible. Not.
What is it – 1/4000th of capacity for an extra fortnight?
Rather than simply deciding that a court case is a done deal so we don't even need to have one?
Which slope is more slippery, do you think?
yeah, flat fee, apparently. Pity.
Max stay in MIQ without testing is 28 days. Max charge is 14 days. According to midday news on TV 1.
I think she's more of a dingnut than wingbat.
wish collins would make up her mind. normally ,she sides with aus against her own country.
Broken clocks are usually correct twice a day. She has one more time to be correct today.
Simple virtue signalling, and she's desperate for the column inches.
I thought MIQ was to prevent a Covid-19 case from entering the community. There is a process for this which is applied before being able to leave MIQ.
You beat me to it Jimmy.
Dump her on a plane back to Aussie and tell her she's not allowed to come here again.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/judith-collins-wants-australian-woman-refused-covid-19-test-deported
I have sympathy for those needing to stay in MIQ for more than a week if they have to stay longer due to a new infection that requires a longer stay as a precaution, but otherwise they should pay for every day they are there, and if the rules only allow for payment up to 14 days the rules need to be changed. She is now living in Auckland, and presumably spending Australian sourced funds with our shops and possibly for accommodation – why should our government assist her by paying for a return flight? If she is financial difficulties she can contact the Australian embassy. Kneejerk reactions can be wrong; we should expect them from Judith Collins. Certainly in this case she appears to just be looking for something, anything, to criticise, but it is hard when the government set out what would happen if someone declined a test (they are not compulsory after all), and then sticks to that good policy. For those that want to send her back – would you be prepared to pay any of your money to help her? If not, why should our government pay?
When it comes to special treatment as in not following the rules the answer is a no.
She was thinking of the foster children by escorting them back to NZ. There is something going on with the process of returning the foster children. Saying goodbye would not have been easy.
Not liking the decision of following the rules about Covid-19 testing could be about challenging authority for another reason.
I am not aware of any evidence that she did not follow the rules. Not liking the rules is a separate issue – she managed to get publicity, but this article may not be what she was looking for:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/25-02-2021/who-is-lucinda-baulch-the-australian-who-refused-a-covid-test/
Ardern rightly manages to stick to the issues but it's hard not to feel something close to vengence towards these moronic aussies.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/124338604/return-the-favour-nsw-premier-sends-strong-transtasman-border-message-to-jacinda-ardern
I wonder if an airline/transport would carry her?
Will she get more quarantine when she lands back in Australia ?
Who or what is Medsafe working for? I think there should be some sackings from Medsafe.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/436942/maker-of-epilepsy-drug-warned-over-quality-control
After the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned Mylan about violating quality standards – including "missing, deleted and lost data" – New Zealand's medical safety watchdog Medsafe did its own investigation…
Medsafe didn't tell Pharmac about the quality control issues at the plant which manufactures Logem, and in August 2018 Pharmac signed a deal to make Logem the only funded brand of lamotrigine in New Zealand.
The deal meant more than 10,000 people taking lamotrigine had to switch brands, in a move Pharmac made to try to save $30 million over five years.
Today Medsafe takes the stand at an inquest by the Chief Coroner into the deaths of six people, who died after switching from their original brands of lamotrigine to the Logem generic.
Pharmac should have been given all the information to assist in their deliberations as to what was the safe and effective drug at the best price. That's their job, and how can they do it when a fellow agency doesn’t fully communicate with them. A pox on Medsafe!
What’s your point? There were no quality control issues with the product on sale in NZ. As far as Medsafe was concerned, it had done its job, checked, and deemed it safe.
Why did you remove this part from the text you quoted??
I’d call that selective quoting and it raises my suspicion.
Time to legislate out of existence any real or imagined obligation to maximise shareholder value – USD 2500/day power bills
Very sad. It is a good question. What will this landlord do with an extra $100/week?
Intergenerational class divisions are opening ever wider in New Zealand and hardly anyone seems bothered by it.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/renting/124318345/my-wellington-apartment-is-depressing-yet-my-rent-just-went-up-100-a-week
60 days notice is required to increase the rent.
This couple have got their priorities right, run as soon and as fast as you can into your own place.
A $100 rent increase is to steep for a semi cell type apartment.
100 per week, 400 per month. That is not a rent increase that is extortion.
It's why we need rent controls and regulation of landlords and agents. So no-one is caught out by amateur actors in the industry.
I’d call the residential tenancy sector the wild west at the moment. People’s lives are at stake.
I need to look up how much notice the landlord needs to give to sell?
I would question the landlords motive on hiking the rent as much as they have.
Tenant needs to give 4 weeks notice to end the tenancy.
Just to establish yourself in a rental the average person is put in debt or has to save.
How many tenants rely on a credit card/s to be able to afford entering a rental agreement?
Same can be said for a loan from Work and Income to avoid being homeless.
It's 90 days now. Such a rent hike is designed to evict, but without having to evict without cause, which is now illegal.
It’s a product of this timid government’s tinkering with tenancy legislation rather than wholly reforming it.
One issue is there is still no cap on rent hikes, only the frequency, so they can do this. Hence the need for more robust rent control regulation.
Will be interesting to see what happens with the apartment when the tenants leave.
Regulation is required for a rent hike to protect renters.
No we dont need rent controls, thats a fucking bandaid.
What we need is state housing and lots of it, with infrastructure ie busways trains etc etc
After so much neglect and the effective privatization of state housing, The scale needed can only be meet by a govt programme backed with low cost finance.
I hear ya. I did say a day or 2 ago that building state homes worked.
Short term is different to long term.
What would you do in the short term to prevent rent scalping?
Personally, take the very hard road and start sucking the capital out of housing as an investment.
Make no mistake it will be ugly as house prices fall, many will be hurt by negative equity and will need support from govt but what point political capital and a Lab govt if you dont spend it in a meaningful way.
I feel that the left is forgetting that the real divide in society is class… and the current govt is entrenching it…
With RNZ exposing yesterday that the smelter at Bluff had stockpiled 106,000 tonnes of cyanide-laced hazardous waste less than 100 metres from a fast-eroding beach, it's good to see Minister Parker giving them a good slam today.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/environment-minister-slams-uncooperative-tiwai-point-he-reveals-govts-toxic-waste-clean-up-request
The question must surely be, just as they were so weak-assed about the last contamination problem in Mataura, why is Environment Southland so shit at its job?
And the answer as ever is…..follow the money
What's your evidence for that in the case Parker is describing?
Fuck there are a lot of dicks about today…why do you think NZAS buried a shit load of toxic waste in a site that wasnt monitored?
Because their good mates in industry want it that way.
Virginia about to abolish the death penalty
While I hope the remaining states follow, this is huge – Virginia has been one of the mainstays of the death penalty in the USA with the most executions in US history and second post-Furman to Texas. Also some good other progressive wins for the recent Democrat majority in Virginia as noted in the article.
According to Henry Cooke it's been three and a half years since JA mentioned shared equity schemes and/or similar, and he and housing minister Megan Woods are reporting to date there have been just 12 families successfully housed in such a way.
Beyond pathetic.
Megan Woods says it's complicated and goes on to blame low income families themselves for some reason. Not that's it's her fault. Phil Twyford should have owned this but has been found not competent at ministerial level.
If the government doesn't pull finger on housing, and importantly housing for the under $100K/pa families, this term will be their last.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300237672/home-ownership-scheme-announced-in-2019-has-housed-just-12-families
At some stage this govt will be voted out, anything more than 3 terms is a big ask.
I can see, that despite the rhetoric leading up to the first term the landlord renter class divide will have grown far larger/faster than anytime in our history.
The 'soft' Nat voters that switched are getting what they paid for the core Lab voters are getting crumbs but are going to end up worse off in the long term…
My place has 'earned' more than my wife and I's yearly income in the last 12 months.
Its fucked, hell a colleague with a 900k pre approval cant manage to buy in Auckland cause anything without a fishhook that effects his finance goes to auction.
But dont worry Jacinda cares…
I know someone in Wellington, the place cost 29 k in 1978. Bank loan for the mortgage was only 9 k. The place is now worth 1.2 mil.
Per year profit what does that work out as?
How would this look on a graph?
The cost of housing and the profit is making people dizzy. Negative equity if you need to re buy in the same city.
Gladys Berejiklian wants New Zealand to reciprocate the trans-Tasman bubble. She has been very stern with Jacinda Ardern.
Gladys might find more cooperation if Australia stopped exporting their home grown criminals.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/124338604/return-the-favour-nsw-premier-sends-strong-transtasman-border-message-to-jacinda-ardern
https://youtu.be/hlfQVvsNLFk