Open mike 23/04/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 23rd, 2021 - 56 comments
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56 comments on “Open mike 23/04/2021 ”

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  1. Morrissey 1
    23 April 2021 at 8:49 am

    He Lives!

    As I was consuming my morning repast, this emerged from my toaster. What can it mean?

    https://markdoran.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/prince-ph-toast.jpg

    • gsays 2.1
      23 April 2021 at 12:48 pm

      Done.

      I can't see any reasonable person agreeing with First Capital. With the council offering to top up the wages, all this Aussie company had to do was honour the conditions.

      Clearly they are not good faith bargaining, more looking to trim the balance sheet so as to sell the business.

  3. Sabine 3
    23 April 2021 at 9:28 am

    A TV series for the Labour Party, specifically Grant Robertson who believes that renters can 'just move to a different rental' when their current one gets to expensive. Tone deaf, out of touch, a one percenter if there ever was one.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/karl-puschmann-tvnzs-renters-is-everything-wrong-with-nz/DN4ALYS5VVT3PRXZAQYTHDAPXI/

    Those thinking of leveraging their house to buy an investment property should watch Renters. Seeing the costs and associated risk of the landlord business may scare you off.

    Everyone else, ignore it. Renters is not entertaining, it stereotypes tenants by highlighting extreme cases and it's so tone-deaf it will make you want to grab your pitchfork and start a revolution.

    Hmmm … ya know what, maybe you should watch it.

    • Treetop 3.1
      23 April 2021 at 11:50 am

      I have watched it a couple times. Some property managers seem to go over to the property when it is too late to help the landlord or the tenant.

      Those who smash up their home have issues and intervention is required.

      • Sabine 3.1.1
        23 April 2021 at 5:37 pm

        as do the ones that think you can rent a burned out property while its being renovated. 🙂

        the whole serious is fucked up lowest common denominator television.

  4. Sabine 4
    23 April 2021 at 9:30 am

    Also file this under 'we don't know how lucky we have been, still are' but rest assured that Government knows that it got elected by luck and luck alone.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-how-a-family-fled-and-returned-to-miq-facility-in-auckland/CBDHTOHBHO3I5YLCA324OIKUCE/

    he Ministry of Health allowed a family to remain in the community for more than two days after escaping managed isolation during last year's first level 3 lockdown.

    The case was never reported publicly and was deemed low risk because they had come from a country without Covid-19.

    But it had some officials in Auckland scrambling, with one person writing to the Ministry of Health to denounce their lack of direction over the incident.

    Auckland Regional Isolation and Quarantine (RIQ) response manager at the time Lee Hazlewood wrote a critical email, obtained under the Official Information Act, that the ministry needed to step up.

    The blunt email was sent to all agencies involved "respectfully for the record" with some of the issues he had identified.

    He said the email was sent in case the breach became a public health issue and said his team contacted the Ministry of Health (MOH) first thing the morning after the breach seeking direction.

    "We discussed several options with MOH during the day, [including] sending a clinical nurse to relay MOH guidance and supervise visit, [and] sending the staff member from the RIQ to relay any guidance from the MOH [National Health Coordination Centre]," the email read.

    "The RIQ received no direction to act at this time or at any other time during the period that [the family] was outside of [managed isolation]."

    His staff were also told conflicting stories around whether the family would return to quarantine or not.

    • Peter 4.1
      23 April 2021 at 11:20 am

      Do you think the family was related to the Michael Woodhouse mystery homeless man in the upmarket Auckland MIQ hotel?

      Maybe the 'luck alone' has to do with the luck that the National mob were dishonest, incompetent and idiotic.

      Remember Michelle Boag releasing confidential information? Was that luck for Labour? Or bad luck for Hamish Walker who took one for the team while Nikki Kaye decided to quietly disappear? And Michael Woodhouse, no way would he have been in the loop of the info leak, parked himself in the background. And the good luck the 'enquiry' was a snow job.

      • Peter ChCh 4.1.1
        23 April 2021 at 12:07 pm

        Peter, how does trotting out the Labour party line about National excuse the fact that this government has been a sick joke from day one?

        Labour is actually the government, and thus they and they alone have the responsibility. National is just the opposition (and Boag not even that).

        Transparency and honesty, I think Ardern promised. Yeah, right.

        • Peter 4.1.1.1
          23 April 2021 at 12:18 pm

          Anyone who wants to call the government a 'sick joke from day one' is quite welcome to do it. To do it on the back of a relative handful of human stuff ups amongst the many millions of actions and interactions around covid and the border is silly.

          Labour is the government and do have responsibility. National is just the opposition because they were thought to be incapable, dishonest and not trustworthy. The half pie enquiry into the Boag affair meant that National was helped to a huge 25.6% in the election and their supporters didn't have to confront the level of scumminess in the midst of the party.

          • Cricklewood 4.1.1.1.1
            23 April 2021 at 12:33 pm

            The sick joke is that House prices, Rents and the number if people in slum hotels are rising at record rates…

            Labour governing for the land owning classes…

          • Sabine 4.1.1.1.2
            23 April 2021 at 2:17 pm

            I don't think they are a sick joke, but then i am well housed, well fed and clothes.

            What i think they are is opportunistic and right now they make it up as they go along, and even then i don't blame them for that either as the Covid Pandemic will be the gift that keeps on giving for a few more years.

            I also don't for a moment believe that we will ever go back to pre Lockdown 4 25th May 2020.

            But what i do believe is that they will not tackle any of the social ills they should tackle.

            Drug policies

            racist drug polices, incrimination of other non violent/criminal behaviour, refusal to treat drug abuse as a health issue rather then a criminal one etc.

            On that, total failure, in fact if Little could he would make the whole shebang worse.

            Housing

            we have currently up and down the country enough people to house a full scale mid size town and this government is going lalalalaala and keeps throwing money at it as if there is no tomorrow.

            Total failure

            Health and the inaction of Labour

            we have new borns with cleft palates put on waiting lists, we have toddlers in need of cardiac surgery on waiting lists and we are currently crowdfunding for beds at Starships ICU

            failure.

            So what we have here is an inability from Labour to try anything other then the tried and trued that has not worked before. We have labour hide behind referendums in which senior Labour Politians did not state an opinion cause 'i don't want to influence the referendum" Well thanks a bunch dear.

            If you ask willy nilly people on the street who boag is – and i actually had to look her up – they will not know. But ask them if they know someone who can't find a rental, or who is on a waiting list, or who is in prison due to racists and outdated criminal laws and chances are they can help you there.

            So its not a sick joke, its just a bunch of worn out people that since helen clark never had to earn a day of living in the private market and who have very little ideas about how they affect the country in day to day live. Out of touch and somewhat callous, and devoid of courage. And now they can't hide behind an opposition bench, they can't hide behind coalition partners they are actually all alone responsible for what they do. So who cares about National, they can do no more then Labour could under John Key. Flap their wings and be impotent.

            We have a joke for that in Germany : The operation was successful but the patient died. That to me is Labour today, and we are the patient.

            • Drowsy M. Kram 4.1.1.1.2.1
              23 April 2021 at 2:44 pm

              We have a joke for that in Germany : The operation was successful but the patient died. That to me is Labour today, and we are the patient.

              Germany (a wealthy country with competent political leadership and excellent health infrastructure) sadly has 973 COVID-19 deaths per million. NZ sadly has 5 deaths per million.

              I hope that this pandemic has peaked, and reckon a 'joke' involving a patient dying might be considered a bit tasteless right now, even in Germany.

              now i am bored with you. bye.

              • Sabine …
                23 April 2021 at 7:57 pm

                Germany is also a country in the middle of europe and nz is an island in a vast empty ocean.

                all those apples and oranges….all fruit.

                • Drowsy M. Kram …
                  23 April 2021 at 8:16 pm

                  Comparisons may be fruitless, and yet there's no place I'd rather be.
                  Funny that.

        • Drowsy M. Kram 4.1.1.2
          23 April 2021 at 12:26 pm

          PCC, thankfully not everyone shares your opinion. Some opposition National party MPs are jokes, taking their queue from Collins' eyebrows (what a 'leader').

          National party MPs are incapable of governing for all NZers – it's simply not in their DNA. Everyone understands that now – National party voters always knew it.

          The Best and Worst Places to Be as Global Vaccinations Take Off
          A lightning-fast vaccination drive has propelled Israel toward the top of Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking, transforming everyday life to put the country alongside New Zealand [#1] and Taiwan as one of the best places to be in the coronavirus era.

          • Peter ChCh 4.1.1.2.1
            23 April 2021 at 1:00 pm

            Drowsy, we agree on one thing at least: some National mps are jokes. And yes, those eyebrows….

            • Sabine 4.1.1.2.1.1
              23 April 2021 at 1:48 pm

              national mps are jokes, and in saying that the same thing could be said about labour during the john key years, they too managed to fail to win an election till they threw J.A at the electorate. So who will be the saviour of National? Maybe it will be tax cuts, opening weed to business and recreational use, and such. And guess what people would vote for that.

              And neither eyebrows nor teeth should ever be cause for a joke.

    • Peter ChCh 4.2
      23 April 2021 at 12:04 pm

      Yes, they government that promised us transparency has been anything but. Our isolation and low population alone saved us.

      I doubt Ashley Bloomfield could even lie straight in bed. So many cover ups and downright lies (remember his and the governments lies about PPE?)

      This Labour administration has been a joke from start to finish. Kiwibuild. Airport light rail. Fast trains to Hamilton and Tauranga. A Minister of Health that hid under the bed in Dunedin (when not out breaking lockdown). The list is endless.

      • Peter 4.2.1
        23 April 2021 at 12:25 pm

        A Minister of Health who hid his under his bed for months while being part of the establishing of an internationally acknowledged success in dealing with the pandemic?

        Of course it wasn't perfect – you weren't involved with your knowledge and expertise. Oh, and people, human beings, were involved in complex and new situations.

        Your tone smacks of sadness at missing the hole in one, the home run that would have put a smile on your face to ram home 'the government is hopeless' narrative.

        Are you sad tens of thousands didn't die to give you some real bullets?

      • ghostwhowalksnz 4.2.2
        23 April 2021 at 12:35 pm

        " Our isolation and low population alone saved us."

        Please , there were 1000s arriving every day at the major airport.

        And low population ? Ask Ireland with around the same population of 5-6 million and 4800 covid deaths.

        Taking the wrong steps in Victoria after an outbreak sourced from a MIQ hotel let to 800 deaths.

        Elimination wasnt the starting strategy but very quickly did become that, while National moved to a sort of minimization- open the borders, bring back the students and other useless ideas. if the National party was in power we would be having a 3rd wave of hundreds of dead as we moved in winter

        • Sabine 4.2.2.1
          23 April 2021 at 12:46 pm

          Ireland, part of england? That Ireland? Or is there an Ireland in the middle of an ocean with nothing other around them then water that you could just close off to the public and be done with? lol lol lol lol

          yeas and orange is a fruit, and an apple is too, and yet they are so different.

          We went into lockdown to prevent our healthcare system from collapsing. Elimination was not what the public was told, we bring in daily cases from overseas, so we have eliminated nothing. We are one infected person away from disaster, considering that our health care system collapsed without Covid, but just due to past and current underfunding by respective governments.

          • ghostwhowalksnz 4.2.2.1.1
            23 April 2021 at 1:38 pm

            Which part of Ireland 5-6 million people.

            I wondered before but now you have a tirade of falsehoods. Its pointless engaging with with a fact less froth

            Im convinced as you get older the more to the right you will move so that by Hoskings age you could be his alter ego

          • Peter 4.2.2.1.2
            23 April 2021 at 2:24 pm

            We are one infected person away from disaster. We are one tremendous South Island earthquake away from disaster. We are one nuclear weapon away from disaster.

            The health care system collapsed without Covid? The system isn't perfect, to say it has collapsed is total and obvious rubbish.

            Fortunately it wasn't allowed to collapse. Go back a year and a bit. Don't close the borders, don't have lockdowns, don't wear masks … How would that have gone with collapsing the health system?

            • Sabine 4.2.2.1.2.1
              23 April 2021 at 3:57 pm

              are you feeling safer today with the health care system of today then you felt a year ago?

              we are one case that gets out away from a major fucking disaster as the current mutations are worse and we would have heard if the government would have build a hospital, trained nurses free of charge, created space for an eventual outbreak and such. We got 100 ventilators since. We are still short on nurses, beds, space, and probably ppe, as i have not heard of the breaking ground to a facility that could produce these for us here in NZ.

      • Anker 4.2.3
        23 April 2021 at 2:09 pm

        Peter. CHCH "Our isolation and low population alone saved us".

        I am sorry Peter this is absolute bullshit. There were many decisions made in crisis mode that saved us. Closing the boarder to China, major lockdown (hard and early) other wise rates of covid would have sky rocketted. Paying the wage subsidy which has ensured many businesses have survived. Setting up in great haste MIQ for returning Kiwis and reviewing every breach and putting things in. place to prevent them, Ordering a review on contact tracing (Dr Verrall, now a member of cabinet ) and getting it up to speed, ramping up laboratory testing. Locking down when necessary and closing our boarders recently to India where rates of Covid are catastrophic. Oh yes and buying a number vaccines with the roll out underway.

        This is why we have had very little covid in our community and very few deaths. Mistakes will occur, because that is life. If you think about your own life over the last week, I imagine you have made some mistakes. i have too. Impossible not too.

        So your claim that isolation and small pop = good covid result is nonsence

      • mac1 4.2.4
        23 April 2021 at 4:16 pm

        Endless? Go on, give us another four or five……

    • ghostwhowalksnz 4.3
      23 April 2021 at 12:40 pm

      It was back in May last year. hardly anyone knew what we know now.

      A single family here or there wasnt going to change much, it was the science driven 4.5 week level 4 lockdown and the measures that followed.

      But you do have your fairytale stories of the big bad wolf coming to get us

      • Sabine 4.3.1
        23 April 2021 at 12:43 pm

        lol

        and guess what you would not know today where it not for someone asking.

        Lucky, we are so lucky, and some are really happy that they are never told just how lucky they are lest they suddenly felt less lucky. lol

  5. Ad 5
    23 April 2021 at 11:54 am

    R.I.P. Kevin McKeown from the Bay City Rollers.

    A weird piece of Scottish pop culture, and a wee breakthrough here.

    Always thought they should match up with The Nolans.

    • Morrissey 5.1
      23 April 2021 at 12:06 pm

      In 1976 the Bay City Rollers played at the Auckland Town Hall. There was a rule against standing on the seats; of course a lot of the girls in the crowd proceeded to stand on the seats, until a goon from Eden Security punched one of them.

      There was, naturally, great anger directed at Eden Security after that.

    • Adrian Thornton 5.2
      23 April 2021 at 5:30 pm

      The Bay City Rollers and The Nolan Sisters?…I never in a million years would have thought of putting those two acts together, but as you have mentioned it I have thought about (briefly) and it sounds not quite right, what makes you think they would have been a good match .

      Just relistened to 'I'm in the mood for Dancing',not too bad, but hasn't really stood the test of time too well..but I probably danced to this at some school Disco back then, so who am I too judge?

  6. Pat 6
    23 April 2021 at 12:46 pm

    I believe the quantity, quality and efficacy of reviews needs to be reviewed

    • Incognito 6.1
      23 April 2021 at 10:34 pm

      Do they provide value for money? Who will review the reviewers?

      • Pat 6.1.1
        23 April 2021 at 10:51 pm

        Why the re re reviewers …..and im sure they can ascertain whether its all been value for money, subject to review of course.

        • Incognito 6.1.1.1
          23 April 2021 at 11:05 pm

          Being a consultant is one of the most lucrative jobs one can get in one’s field. All it takes is knowing the right people, having a glossy business card, a good sales pitch and loads of confidence. One doesn’t have to be particularly good at anything, just use the right jargon and say the things the ‘customer’ wants to hear. Once one is ‘in’, one’s ‘in’ for as long as one likes. That said, there are very few genuinely good ones around, at least, AFAIK, but I’ve met a few duds in my professional life, some real shockers.

  7. Anker 7
    23 April 2021 at 2:09 pm

    Peter. CHCH "Our isolation and low population alone saved us".

    I am sorry Peter this is absolute bullshit. There were many decisions made in crisis mode that saved us. Closing the boarder to China, major lockdown (hard and early) other wise rates of covid would have sky rocketted. Paying the wage subsidy which has ensured many businesses have survived. Setting up in great haste MIQ for returning Kiwis and reviewing every breach and putting things in. place to prevent them, Ordering a review on contact tracing (Dr Verrall, now a member of cabinet ) and getting it up to speed, ramping up laboratory testing. Locking down when necessary and closing our boarders recently to India where rates of Covid are catastrophic. Oh yes and buying a number vaccines with the roll out underway.

    This is why we have had very little covid in our community and very few deaths. Mistakes will occur, because that is life. If you think about your own life over the last week, I imagine you have made some mistakes. i have too. Impossible not too.

    So your claim that isolation and small pop = good covid result is nonsence

    • Sabine 7.1
      23 April 2021 at 3:03 pm

      and last but least….

      all the people that stayed at home, all the people that closed the shops to their businesses knowing full well tht they will not have one to come back too, all the nurses, all the doctors, all the people that donated food, all of us that did all the right things, and the many many sacrifices so many made.

      the best intention of government is worth fuck all when you have say a population like the US has.

      And as i posted before Vietnam with a population of 93 million and surrounded by three countries one of them china had virtually the same number of infected, recovered and death – their dead numbering at 35 while ours stand at 26, and like us all their cases are imported ones.

  9. greywarshark 9
    23 April 2021 at 4:02 pm

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/441093/taranaki-aquifer-contaminated-50-times-more-than-acceptable
    …"They're consistent with a local concentration, a local high-level concentration as opposed to normal land use.
    "Previously, I've seen concentrations as high or higher, but only around facilities or factories that store such pesticides."
    The regional council undertook an aerial search and questioned landowners in an effort to find the source of the contamination, but drew a blank and eventually abandoned its investigation.

    …Barry Prophet hoped the source could be located.
    "It certainly isn't good. They are going to have to find out what, where and why?"
    He had his suspicions. "Probably drums were just thrown away back a few years ago."

    It could help to provide information if a highish monetary reward was offered for information leading to location – 'no names, no pack drill'.

    Back a bit in 2016, this was published. It's timely to look again at the NZsituation.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/306913/land-of-sludge-and-money

    As a matter of interest have a look at the long list various chemicals that might be present in the soil where there has been a factory making chemical/agricultural products:
    https://www.trc.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Environment/Monitoring-Industry/MR2015-DowAgroSciences.pdf (search/find – difenoconazole)

  10. Drowsy M. Kram 10
    23 April 2021 at 5:08 pm

    Week in Review [18 April; 2021]
    To end this complete and utter shambles, National has called for a return of the Epidemic Response Committee to ensure the Government, and its departments, are held to account for their promises, scrutinise their decisions, and help deliver better public policy and action.

    Not only a complete shambles, but an "utter shambles"! Witness the breathtakingly untrustworthy Bishop and Collins parading their feeble grasp on reality for all to see.

    The Best and Worst Places to Be as Global Vaccinations Take Off
    A lightning-fast vaccination drive has propelled Israel toward the top of Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking, transforming everyday life to put the country alongside New Zealand [#1] and Taiwan as one of the best places to be in the coronavirus era.

    • Sabine 10.1
      23 April 2021 at 5:19 pm

      and Vietnam which has our numbers in cases plus 9 people more dead (grand total of 35) then us and is a country that is not an island and has 90+ million people living and working there.

      I know an inconvenient truth for some, but I think they deserve a round of applaus and as far as governments go in times of a pandemic i think they deserve another round of applause cause these guys did well.

      🙂

      • Drowsy M. Kram 10.1.1
        23 April 2021 at 5:41 pm

        I think they deserve a round of applaus and as far as governments go in times of a pandemic i think they deserve another round of applause cause these guys did well.

        Reckon all governments/populations that have done well so far deserve recognition wink

      • Macro 10.1.2
        23 April 2021 at 9:46 pm

        Maybe certain populations in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have developed a some immunity to the virus, if, as is supposed, the transmission from bat to human occurred in that country which is the home of the bat to which the virus is linked. I understand that in the northern part of Vietnam there is frequent interaction between humans and the bats, as the local population enter the caves in which the bats live to collect their guano for fertiliser.

        The data in the figure above indirectly support the hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 group actually originated in mainland Southeast Asia. Indeed, human populations in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam appear to be much less affected by the Covid-19 pandemic than other countries in the region, such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. This suggests that the populations of these four countries may be benefiting from a level of herd immunity to Sarbecoviruses.

        https://scroll.in/article/986077/viruses-similar-to-sars-cov-2-have-been-circulating-for-decades-we-found-one-in-cambodia

        Then again Vietnam have developed over the recent past a response to pandemics very similar to that which our Govt initiated in March last year.

        As of December 31, 2020, Vietnam had reported 1,465 laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 35 deaths.2 This success has been attributed to several key factors, including a well-developed public health system, a decisive central government, and a proactive containment strategy based on comprehensive testing, tracing, and quarantining.

        https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-vietnam

        One of the reasons Vietnam was able to act so quickly and keep the case count so low is that the country experienced a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 and human cases of avian influenza between 2004 and 2010. As a result, Vietnam had both the experience and infrastructure to take appropriate action. Vietnam makes many key containment decisions in a matter of days, which may take weeks for governments in other countries to make. Although Vietnam is a highly centralized country, a number of key decisions were made at the local level, which also contributed to the swift response.

        [image resized]

        • Sabine 10.1.2.1
          24 April 2021 at 1:30 pm

          Unless someone can link to a credible study that shows natural immunity i would say that is a far fetched idea.

          The reason i point to Vietnam as a success rather then us or Taiwan is simply the physical location.

          Like we had it easiest among the many, for us to close the border was no issue as we literally just had to prevent airplanes from landing/same with boats. We don't have to worry about landborders that can be porous and hard to manage and controll.

          I also point to Vietnam as a bigger success story as they actually continued to work as normally as possible inclusive building production facilities for PPE and such, while we here are still crowd funding ICU beds for Starship Hospital.

          I don't consider NZ a success in the 'combat' against Covid, i consider us to be some of the luckiest people to have been physically where we are, and since then we have continued to be lucky. And i hope that we get lucky over and over again, cause we need it .