Open mike 24/12/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 24th, 2024 - 28 comments
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28 comments on “Open mike 24/12/2024 ”

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  1. joe90 1
    24 December 2024 at 8:19 am

    I'd like to think the UK electorate wouldn't have a bar of this braying opportunist but then, brexit…

    .

    Nick Cohen

    ‪@nickcohen.bsky.social‬

    Piece from me on how 14 years of Tory rule prepared the ground for a Faragist takeover. So great has been the party's failure that it is now too frightened to explain why traditional conservatism is better for the country than know-nothing charlatanism

    https://nickcohen.substack.com/p/conservative-immigration-betrayals

    https://bsky.app/profile/nickcohen.bsky.social/post/3ldskn4uz722i

    • Morrissey 1.1
      24 December 2024 at 10:24 am

      Nick Cohen?

      no

      "Oh, Nick Cohen’s a maniac. If you’ll notice, he never cites anything. Does he cite anything? That already gives you the answer. Go back and check. He doesn’t cite anything. These are just diatribes, tantrums. I’m not interested in them."

      —Noam Chomsky

      https://www.guernicamag.com/joel_whitney_noam_chomsky_the/

      • Incognito 1.1.1
        24 December 2024 at 7:12 pm

        Most morons who shoot the messenger do so because they dislike the message. In your case we have no way of telling because you don’t address the message at all because the messenger must be shot. Your favourite way of shooting down messengers is an old dig from your archive, in this case from almost 14 years ago, from your preferred supply of personal heroes whom you seem to worship in sicking manner, in this case Chomsky (again).

        I like to remind you of your last Mod note for this behaviour: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19-05-2024/#comment-2000156; there have been other incidences since then but too much arse-wiping causes stinging. Obviously, you’re still a braindead zombie with the intellectual firepower of a jellyfish and causing the same itchy rash.

    • tWig 1.2
      24 December 2024 at 10:31 am

      Isn't the correct term Farangist, rather than Faragist?

      And great god Artichoke, they swallowed Johnson and Truss with almost no blowback in the media.

      Truss, who will be celebrated in the lurid historical fiction of the 22nd century a la Philippa Gregory: the 45-day PM, tragically caught by behind-doors plotting by the court cabal. Victim of a secret romance with Farage.

  2. Matiri 2
    24 December 2024 at 10:09 am

    Anyone else noticed the lack of 'politicians in Christmas pyjamas' photo ops this year? Thank goodness.

  3. tWig 3
    24 December 2024 at 11:13 am

    Just looked at the Social Securities Bill, due for submissions by 10 Jan

    "Proposed changes include:

    • introducing a 26-week expiry for jobseeker support

    This completely undermines NZ's universal-ish support system for the unemployed and for the sick.

    It's some sort of copy-cat for employment insurance in the US : how an NZ government can justify this dismantling of our Welfare State provisions. It will leave thousands of homeless on the streets, working people who cannot find work, and cannot pay their rent. Wow!

  5. Muttonbird 5
    24 December 2024 at 12:17 pm

    Dr Cut-n-paste sounds the alarm bells about Luxton and National (doesn't criticise ACT or NZF of course). He asks:

    National can, therefore, point to significant policy achievements after only a single year in government. So, why aren’t voters happy with them?

    I can answer that; it's because they are shit policy achievements.

    Dr Cut-n-paste, as usual, only quotes conservative sources (or conservative sources labelled progressive), and even they are dumbfounded by how bad this government is.

  6. Muttonbird 6
    24 December 2024 at 12:31 pm

    From the side bar, fake leftie and closet racist, Christopher Trotter joins the tired, old meme that the Greens should stick to their knitting and only advocate on environmental issues, they must follow the science and only Western science.

    The Greens, according to Trotter are forbidden from exploring social issues lest it upset the white supremacist world order.

    http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2024/12/by-any-other-name.html

  7. Subliminal 7
    24 December 2024 at 6:03 pm

    Melanie Nelson has a new post out today detailing the submission by Jane Kelsey against ACTs Regulatory Standards Bill.

    In it she details that for this Bill, the Coalition agreement is not just for a reading, but to pass it.

    This Bill is worse than the Te Tiriti Bill simply because it takes that Bill and makes it a part of this one.

    35. Even if ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill does not become law, this legislation would de facto have the same effect. Te Tiriti would be removed from the list of considerations that inform regulation, including legislation, aside from Treaty settlements. In other words, a significant part of ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill would become operative and constitute new breaches of Tiriti principles that the Waitangi Tribunal has identified.

    It also will codify property rights without attempting to say what these property rights extend to so that any legislation that impacts on the value of these rights can be contested and claims made against these rights. Including environmental and climate change. Think ISDS.

    51. Impairment of property would include measures that impact on its value or profitability, such as:

    • issuing compulsory licenses to ensure access to vaccines in a pandemic, even if permitted under the WTO;

    • new restrictions on tobacco or alcohol sales and marketing, as occurred with the expropriation claims made by tobacco companies in relation to plain packaging tobacco products;

    • introduction of capital gains or wealth taxes;

    • designation of buildings as historic or land as outstanding landscape character;

    • recognising rights of mana whenua over whenua, wai or other taonga to redress Tiriti breaches, including requirements for free, prior and informed consent;

    • climate change measures that impact on profits or the value of carbon credits under the ETS,

    • tightening rules on individual transferrable fisheries quotas, or significantly restricting catch volumes in certain areas;

    • not renewing mining permits for environmental or climate reasons;

    • tightening regulations on construction to following a recurrence of leaky buildings caused by the proposed weakening of regulations;

      52. What principles for “fair compensation” would apply? Would that include lost future profits and interest? Would shareholders and financiers of an investor be able to bring a dispute? What fiscal risks does this create that are not factored in to this proposal, or if they are have been redacted to hide the potential major fiscal

      This is the path to ruin that was started by Roger Douglas and to be completed now by the three stooges for corporate power

    https://melanienelson.substack.com/p/jane-kelsey-submission-on-the-proposed

    • Incognito 7.1
      24 December 2024 at 8:40 pm

      Thank you, that is an excellent submission and an intellectual tour de force.

      I had come across a similar powerful submission from another emeritus professor on Graham Townsend’s blog: https://newptc75.medium.com/nz-regulatory-standards-bill-prof-jonathan-bostons-take-f69476294f97. But as it happens, it’s also available on Melanie Nelson’s substack: https://melanienelson.substack.com/p/regulatory-bill-emeritus-professor. Melanie also has done two recent podcast interviews with Kelsey and Boston.

      Boston submits the following on the proposed

      Liberty-limiting principles

      37. In short, the current version of the principle relating to liberties is fundamentally flawed. It seeks to impose highly restrictive limits on what regulatory measures governments can justify. Any attempt to adhere to such limitations would require a massive rewrite – and indeed the abandonment – of a vast number of existing laws. Presumably, this is precisely what (at least some of) the Bill’s advocates intend. But such an approach has nothing to commend it. No democracy has ever embraced such an approach, nor is one ever likely to do so. Not only is the principle, as formulated, open to serious moral and philosophical objections, but also its full implementation would likely render it impossible to maintain a stable, well-ordered, properly functioning democracy. This is because many of the functions that governments need to undertake to enable the efficient and effective operation of markets and provide essential public services require limitations on individual rights; yet most of these limitations would be deemed unjustifiable.

      Property rights, regulatory takings, and fair compensation

      42.a. […] But given the philosophically questionable and ideologically-motivated nature of several proposed principles, including the takings provision, there is a risk that the proposed guidelines will be employed to help entrench thoroughly dubious dogma.

      However, many the same sound objections have been made before on the three earlier versions of this sad excuse for a ‘good-faith’ Bill, so it’s almost certain that they will be ignored again.

      • Graeme 7.1.1
        24 December 2024 at 9:00 pm

        So Seymore is attempting to outlaw government.

        • Incognito 7.1.1.1
          24 December 2024 at 9:17 pm

          No, Seymour and his ilk are attempting to put governments into a legal straitjacket so that they only can and therefore will govern through the lens of [their] libertarian principles. If he succeeds, he will score a place in History books alongside the likes of Douglas and NZ as the democracy as we know it will cease to exist.

  8. joe90 8
    24 December 2024 at 6:23 pm

    ffs

    @thewomandalorian.bsky.social‬

    today i am thinking about watching “JFK” in the Texas Theatre a few months ago with a @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social and Oliver Stone Q&A. and i’m now desperately wanting to hear his thoughts on Luigi, especially considering they dressed him today exactly like Oswald when Ruby shot him.

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:pbd4u46scyeryciwq6uksj7p/post/3ldycmuxl7s24?

  9. SPC 9
    24 December 2024 at 7:55 pm

    Since New Zealand became a dominion in 1907, 6 people have led their parties to election defeats and then won a later election and become Prime Minister.

    The first was Joseph Ward, but he was a Liberal PM before he lost an election*** as a Liberal leader and later returned to power as head of the United Party.

    The second was George Forbes (lost as a Liberal) won as United leader after Ward.

    The 3rd was Keith Holyoake who was briefly PM*** before the 1957 election (Moore failed to emulate this in 1993 because the Labour Party was divided).

    The 4th was Norman Kirk.

    The 5th was James Bolger.

    The 6th was Helen Clark.

    So the man accused of being at the scene of an arson, because he wants back into the Beehive after losing his keys to the kingdom.

    A man accused of seeking to inflate himself back in the polls, so he can take rides in a new PM VIP transport plane.

    And in his way the best candidate for leading a one term government to defeat since Nash in 1960 (Kirk died before the 1975 election)(Bolger was saved by Labour division in 1993 and by his replacement of Richardson as Finance Minister).