Open mike 24/07/2023
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- Treasury warns deeper recession worsening Budget deficit
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 ...5 hours ago - Weekly Roundup 22-November-2024
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Record Numbers: The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, which began at the tip of the North, and the tail of the South, on 11 November, culminated outside Parliament on Tuesday, 19 November 2024, in one of the largest demonstrations in New Zealand’s political history.ACCORDING TO TE ARA, the Ministry of Culture ...6 hours ago - The Rush To Blame “The Activists”
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 ...7 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 ...9 hours ago - Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
Open access notables Projected increase in the frequency of extremely active Atlantic hurricane seasons, Lopez et al., Science Advances: Future changes to the year-to-year swings between active and inactive North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) seasons have received little attention, yet may have great societal implications in areas prone to hurricane ...18 hours ago - Chicken Kiev
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 ...21 hours ago - The year is 2024 and it’s 1984
This is written in response to the highly significant open letter from a group of economists that was today addressed to Christopher Luxon. The year is 2024, and it’s 1984. The country is reeling from a record Olympic medal gold haul, while the globe grapples with the choice of the ...22 hours ago - The IPCA has failed
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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Unity on the Streets / Unity at the TableAfter the Hīkoi, all three right wing Coalition leaders came together to push the idea that the 42,000 - 50,000 + strong Hikoi was somehow less potent and brave, and more illegitimate than the energy and crowd displayed.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon 20-November: ...1 day ago - Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
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Nicola Willis’ budget cuts are under fire from economists for having no clear rationale and worsening the recession. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, November 21: The news at ...1 day ago
- The end of policing by consent
National has appointed a new police commissioner. And he explicitly rejects policing by consent: Asked if he subscribed to policing by consent, he said he did not. “I don’t talk about policing by consent. I talk about trust and confidence, and it is fundamentally important that the police have ...2 days ago
- The Treaty Principles Bill: A Who’s Who
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- 27% of kids going hungry, up from 21% in a year
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This guest post by Tim Adriaansen, an advocate for accessibility and sustainable transport, originally published on LinkedIn and cross posted here with permission. People prefer cars, right? Probably not. Here’s why. Granted, most people in English-speaking countries use a car to get around. This simple reality underpins our transport ...2 days ago
- Young Maori take over
Neither Wellington nor Parliament has ever seen anything like it before. The Police said there were more than 40,000 but however many there were, yesterday’s Hikoi to Parliament was a monumental event. It was almost three times the Foreshore and Seabed martch of 2004 and many,many times bigger than ...2 days ago
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Like everyone else (everyone who wasn't there, anyway), I've spent the morning watching the hikoi march on Parliament. The pictures are astounding: parliament grounds and the surrounding streets are full, and there are still people backed up along Lambton Quay. The police are estimating 35,000 people, and that's a floor ...3 days ago
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There were urgent moves yesterday at Parliament to try and defuse the tension building up over ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill. The Bill’s author, ACT leader David Seymour, told reporters that he understood the Justice Select Committee met yesterday to discuss how long it should take to consider submissions on the ...3 days ago
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Day One of the Treaty Principles Bill…and everyone got what they wanted, and did what they liked. Heated words were exchanged. Culturally appropriate acts of outrage were performed. David Seymour got to play the victim card. Willie Jackson got kicked out of class. A comically red-faced Mr Speaker bellowed “Order, ...1 week ago
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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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Good morning, and I’m sorry I’ve been away for a couple of days.I’ve been focusing on the Hikoi, and also testing out sentiment on the Treaty Principles Bill. It’s complicated, and the Treaty Principles Bill will be debated in the House today. The Government’s own lawyers have told them the ...1 week ago - Government must vote down ACT Members Bill that would undermine workers’ rights
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The Treaty Principles Bill is set to have its First Reading in the House today, as the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti continues. More than 40 KCs have written to the Prime Minister and Attorney-General outlining their “grave concerns” about the substance of the Treaty Principles Bill, while an academic and ...1 week ago
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National Government’s backward-looking climate policy has seen New Zealand fall seven places on the Climate Change Performance Index to 41 out of 63 countries measured. ...1 day ago
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Today, Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived in Wellington, with thousands gathering to march in unity against the divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...3 days ago
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...1 week ago
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Kua hinga te manawa kairākau o Te Rua Tekau Ma Waru Tiwhatiwha te po! Kakarauru i te po! Ka rapuhia kei hea koe kua riro! Haere e te Ika a Whiro ki o tini hoa kua ngaro atu ki te Pō ...2 weeks ago
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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
- 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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Far out, Kiri Alan isn't even the worst story on stuff this morning…
"Pull her pants down!" They shouted as they dragged a woman across the floor. In India they'd riot about that, we're a sick, sick country.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/300933786/pull-her-pants-down-woman-dragged-from-palmerston-north-anti-cogovernance-meeting
Actually the worst story I’ve read today, is a women who was kidnapped last week is still missing.
But hey, a protester who goes to a meeting to deliberately cause trouble, she gets your sympathy?
Seriously, two guys get gunned down in their workplace, a woman is kidnapped, and most likely murdered! A cabinet minister (of justice for gos sake!)gets drunk drives, crashes, & resists arrest.
And you say the worst story is about some woman attending a closed door meeting, with the intention of causing trouble, who when she is dragged from a meeting has a cry about it.
Seriously your priorities need looking at
Are you really that stupid or just ignorant? Where did I say it was the worst story? Point to it – oh you can't, because you're wrong. Again. Well done. 👏 <pause> 👏 <pause> 👏 <pause> 👏 .
Sorry, I’ve just reread what you said, and have considered it over a coffee.
I stand by my original comment.
Maybe when you gave an example of an even worse story, you could have used something other than a demonstrator who deliberately caused trouble, and was the author or her own misfortune.
Driving while drunk and crashing your car into a stationary vehicle & then resisting arrest is fairly serious, and thats if you’re just an average joe blow. But a cabinet minister!
And one of labour’s policies is to reduce the road toll to zero!
This is not a good look!
At 0:23 the bloke with the kid reaches around and appears to grab a handful.
https://twitter.com/kelvin_morganNZ/status/1682685166190469121/video/1
Another day in caucus. Everyone lines up. This time it’s Kiri Allan’s turn (again) to walk along and stop at where the cut off point is going to be, the drop off point.
Casting a look along the doomed, eyeballing them and saying, “Sorry guys,” is a movie they’ve surely been to enough that the exercise will be pretty pro forma.”
There were always going to be losses from the unprecedented 65 Labour MPs.
Last night Kiri Allen lost the plot, appears to have been drunk in charge of a Ministerial car, crashed into a parked car, been arrested and charged. She and Chris Hipkins agreed that is the end of her Ministerial roles, if not her Parliamentary career.
That is a blow for the PM and a sad end for Kiri. No doubt it will be gleefully reported by factions in the Media. National Act and some in Labour will play politics? We will see if they have any grace.
Kiri is not coping, and should have still been on leave imo. She has paid a very high price.
Some of us are old enough to remember the kid gloves that came out for Todd Muller crashed and burned. Still, there will be an extra skip in Andrea Vance's step this morning.
And Jamie Lee Toss – apparently a hero for having "mental health".
Yes, Todd’s melt down was respectfully treated by many, and he is viewed favourably by some as a male that has actually talked about mental health. Kiri will likely get the slipper put in to her.
If Todd Muller had resisted arrest enough to be detained by the Police overnight, the political result would have been the same.
Unless she was swinging arms belligerent, to be detained overnight she must have refused an officer to accompany her for an evidential test. That is pretty unheard-of in modern NZ political life.
That's just evidence of her even greater mental health battle, she should be treated with even kiddier gloves.
Detained for a time, not actually overnight, but don't let facts bother you.
Yeah well I don’t seem to remember Todd miller, being drunk, drinking & crashing into another car, And. Then. While minister of justice. Resisting arrest!
Not Ever a Good Look.
A friend of mine did something similar, he lost his job, had the book thrown at him. And. No. One. Gave. A. F@&k!
Thats what happens to us working class non professional white guys.
Wow, if only there was someone to represent you 😭😭😭😭😭
<https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/05/election-2023-brian-tamaki-s-umbrella-party-believes-they-could-get-20-percent-of-vote.html
Yeah I get it, you hate the white working class don’t you? So why are you a Labour supporter? Those of us in my side of town expect consequences when we break the law, and have little sympathy for those that do.
Not a Labor supporter actually, thanks for the presumption; but am a supporter of fairness… Remember that concept?
Gone like a brief political comet.
Imagine if we'd had her for PM when Ardern left.
Allen was the person fronting the entire youth crime effort, and she has just ruined it.
Labour is heading for an election day high 20s.
Yes, when she was good, she was very very good…
She basically couldn't cope with the pressure and you have to question how much she was mentored along by Ardern, who seemed to carry a lot of her cabinets emotional baggage. People like to ridicule politicians and their rhino like hides, but it has a lot going for it if you want to survive in politics.
Hipkins has also shown signs of emotional exhaustion over the past five years. The succession of disasters since 2019 has prematurely aged this government.
I was confident the centre left would win narrowly, but this might be the last scandal that finishes them in the public mind.
Ardern couldn't even carry her own baggage.
Underneath Hipkins, the remainder holding this shambles together are Robertson, Woods, Parker, Sepuloni, Jackson and Little.
Well Ad baggage seems to be a problem for you as well. imo
You keep taking just one too many of those morning THC drops
wtaf ?
Don't worry PLA. He has a problem with women imo. He was ultra nasty about Jacinda, Kiri, now me. Really losing the plot. THC for heaven's sake!! What a plonker. He needs it more than I do imo
lol
Hi Patricia. Allgood. And I certainly get that you would be…and are, more than capable of front footing it.
You certainly have a handy Left.
Could do with more of that. : )
I'm interested in who he chooses now. Little would be safe hands. I'd prefer Kieran though – Henare would be reliable too.
Little carries his loads well, and did not cave to the "Angry Andy" rubbish.
Well, for the gleefull judgementalists, Kiri has crashed–literally–and likely burned her political career. But everyone deserves a chance at redemption and hopefully she will get help and bounce back in some area of life in future.
In my experience with people, a cancer episode like Kiri Allan went through can have a major impact on mental health and should not be discounted.
Politics is a numbers game:
Groundswell?? Sludge as political strategy? Who knows what NZF might cook up next, but if the next poll gets them up to the threshold, it's big game on…
At this point James Shaw could strangle a baby Kakapo in front of Parliament and they'd still be good for 8% and a seat.
I know what you mean…also feels true in reverse sometimes. Could resurrect a baby kakapo, bring world peace and walk on water – and get 8.5% and two seats.
Dude, can you just f*uk off for a week with your inane regurgitating of Bradbury's pics poor takes? If people want to read his ramblings they can go to his site themselves.
Honestly, your tedious posts are making this site unreadable.
Your need to pretend that reality isn't happening must be acute this morning, since you didn't even question the accuracy of his report. Try & get a grip, huh?
I don't see why you are so traumatised by the prospect of NZF picking up more floating voters. Is democracy really that unpalatable for you??
[abuse deleted]
[as much as I was tempted to let that through, you’ve already said as much this morning without the level of vitriol.
Interesting name change btw, I assume it’s unintentional, please fix on next comment if you haven’t already – weka]
mod note.
Rrrrreooow!
The idea that turnout at a conference indicates momentum is like claiming that form letters sent to a Select Committee indicate public opinion.
And I am not sure if there is deliberate, or inadvertent, cognitive dissonance here
Or maybe satire, who are these floating voters, those with no moral compass?
who are these floating voters, those with no moral compass?
Good question, which political scientists usually avoid doing research into. Short answer is centrists who like Winston's moderating influence. Such citizens are far from me. How many of them get shifted into Winston's orbit by his pitch for the rightist rabble vote remains to be seen.
I agree with your point re conference turn-out – I know from experience that for members the solidarity benefits weigh against the angst costs when one sees how clueless most other members seem! Then there the opportunity costs re travel & time availability which discriminate against worker members while Winston's crowd are mostly retired.
I just do not see the anti-science quackery (the only credible point was allowing staff who had recovered from infection to continue to work, or ending mandates once a form of virus that got around the vaccine protection turned up) and Hobson pledge as having anything to do with moderating – more a case of going there to get votes.
going there to get votes
Yeah. He could frame it as coalition-building though, eh? How democracy works. Labour does it with its centrist/leftist blend. The simulation of commonality doesn't fool most within but is seen as practical politics.
Hard to tell but Bomber has a long history of undermining the GP /shrug
The conference turnout thing is a nonsense. How many people usually go to GP election campaign launches? How many people watched the livestream? Who has ten MPs in parliament and who doesn't? and so on.
Also, it wasn't a conference, it was the campaign launch. The GP AGM was a couple of weeks ago.
Bomber's an idiot. Either he knows all this and doesn't care, or he's ignorant and doesn't care.
The question of turnout for meetings. Our local MP and Luxon spoke at two meetings in our electorate and nobody turned out save the party faithful.
That does not indicate voter intention. It's too early in the election cycle to say how people will vote on election day/s. It's too early to try and persuade people to vote in a particular way, at twelve weeks out. People wanting massive policy releases should know that.
We should be considering rather how we can get involved in the election cycle- volunteering time and money, and later comes persuasion time once people get closer and engaged in thinking about votes.
So, get involved is my advice, especially in just getting people to make a vote.
They do have moral compasses, they just align with weird magnetic fields that the rest of us don't perceive. But seems moral to them.
That is a great comment.
faulty towers compass… yes I like that!!
https://pirates.fandom.com/wiki/Jack_Sparrow%27s_compass
Oh that brought memories back!! Thanks for the reminder of that gem.
The nitrate bomb appears to be going off. NZ now has some of the highest bowel cancer rates in the world, and water reform has become a culture war issue stoked by big business. It seems rural New Zealanders would rather die of a horrible cancer after drinking contaminated water from cow shit filled waterways than give up control of water.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3n3n/new-zealand-cows-nitrates-climate-change
[comment deleted – you are still in Pre-Mod]
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Mod note
[Simply walking away from a series of (previous) Mod notes is not the way to go and not your prerogative. Take 3 weeks off for wasting moderator time – Incognito.]
Irrespective of the election outcome we are in trouble.
I don’t see how that can be. I’ve heard it said enough that when National/Act get in crime’s going to be fixed, roading is going to be fixed, education’s going to be fixed, hospitals are going to be fixed, not having enough workers in various industries is going to be fixed, immigration’s going to be fixed, Māori are going to be fixed, tax is going to be fixed.
How can that mean we’re in trouble?
You forgot sarc. That was what they promised under Key… have you forgotten?
Ghost chips Ghost houses.. Ghost promises.
A good news climate story – US CO2 emissions per capita are now lower than before the Great War.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&country=~USA
1914 the time of a coal fueled economy and before most had a petrol driven car. Transition to gas and the electric vehicle explains it.
(But above that during the Depression).
That's a great website – yes, a promising trend, although the US (and Australia) still have a way to go – perhaps China will meet them in 'the middle' and muddle through.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&country=USA~CHN~AUS~IND~OWID_WRL
It's a remote possibility that 'civilisation 2100' will be dealing with the fallout from as little as 2.1°C of warming – here's hoping.
I'm not sure that is good news. It might be because of population growth. What matters is the total amount of GHGs being emitted.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-ghg-emissions?tab=chart&country=~USA
How are emissions calculated .If the US is 5% of the worlds population , and consumes 24% of the world's energy , I would say they are a leading co2 polluter
https://public.wsu.edu/~mreed/380American%20Consumption.htm#:~:text=If%20undeveloped%20countries%20consumed%20at,24%25%20of%20the%20world's%20energy.
Manufacturing outsourced to China by American firms is responsible for emissions.Is it fair that China gets blamed for that?
And do we measure our carbon footprint by industrial activities or by what we consume.?
I don't know. It's a mess. Who is responsible for the emissions from flights between countries? Or shipping in international waters? Land use change is excluded in Santuary's link, why?
My position is that we should be focused on transition to regenerative everything, rather than trying out how much pollution we can get away with. Transition to regen drops GHGs, adapts to what is already locked in, and restores biodiversity etc.
In the aftermath of the weekend, Barbie goes out to party and Oppenheimer's "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" the workday week work of "Mission Impossible" getting Labour's poll ratings above those of National continues.
Another too-close-to-call election – this time in Spain – with neither the right nor left blocs having a ruling majority.
The Conservatives have a slight lead- but have failed to fulfil predictions that they would snatch the election.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/23/conservatives-lead-spain-election-as-hung-parliament-looms
The funny thing is the only centre parties they have between the left and right blocks, are the 2 Basque and 2 Catalan parties. The right cannot ally to them and be strong Spanish nationalists.
I suspect there will be weeks of negotiations – where many political parties will find that their bottom lines are not nearly so firm as when they campaigned.
It was only a matter of time.
Paul Barlow
@Ceriphinz
They’re already starting to question the integrity of the process by pushing this kind of content on their platforms. Sowing the seeds of distrust early
https://twitter.com/Ceriphinz/status/1683223365681836034
I asked at the taumarunui voting site a couple elections ago what happen s to the papers over night he said they get kept in his garage!!!
Given that we have early voting and now loopy idiots roaming the street I sincerely hope he was pulling my leg.
Agreed bwaghorn .I used to be a returning officer in a rural voting booth and the boxes that held the votes were rather informally kept in the back of my car overnight
Mind you, it would be impossible to tamper with the votes.They could be destroyed though!
what's the goal there? To lower trust in voting, or to monkey wrench voting, or both?
They're trying to sow doubt about electoral integrity to undermine trust in the legitimacy of the process.
The lower the level of trust in the process, the lower the turn out.
what lisa owen on rnz checkpoint does not understand is that the more she shreiks in glee at kiri allans downfall the more dedent people deplore her indecent gloating
Given Allen's ex-partner, Marnie Dunlop, lost her news position at RNZ in the last 6 months or so, is there perhaps some personal reason for Lisa's glee, or is it gloating?
Mani Dunlop was the best Morning Report host for yonks. So much more interesting that insipid Ingrid, the sports presenter. I wish Mani would come back.
Oops, shouldn't do speculation. I listened to it now, and thought Lisa Owen was quite neutral in the Kiri spot on checkpoint. Apart from leading with the facts, and with Hipkin's words and reshuffle, the rest was mostly reportage on other parties' tactics in making hay from the incident by attacking government solidity.