Open mike 24/02/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 24th, 2012 - 51 comments
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51 comments on “Open mike 24/02/2012 ”

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  1. tc 1
    24 February 2012 at 7:27 am

    I see the Maori division of the NACT have now done a ‘deal’ on private owners of SOEs not being bound by treaty obligations and just listened to Pita the bread saying how being at the table gets their views across.

    The hypocrisy knows no bounds with this mob, if you’re opposed you don’t allow any devaluation of your people’s rights but not Pita and the sell out crew. I see a provision that acknowledges there’s a treaty thingy and that’s about it no binding or adherence to it.

  2. mickysavage 2
    24 February 2012 at 7:27 am

    Radio NZ is reporting that a compromise on the Power Company share sell off treaty provision has been reached between the Maori Party and the Government.

    Blinglish has apparently said that there will be a clause reflecting the concept of the existing treaty clause in the State Owned Enterprises Act.
    But he says it will only bind the Crown, and not the 49% of private investors. 

    The current clause says:

    “Nothing in this Act shall permit the Crown to act in a manner that is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”

    Essentially what it does is require adherence to the Treaty by the Crown.  

    It is hard to imagine how it could be watered down without the treaty itself being breached.

    And if Government promises are true then why shouldn’t the entity continue to recognize the treaty.  After all it will still be majority owned by the Crown won’t it?

    I smell a back track by the Maori Party.

     

    • tc 2.1
      24 February 2012 at 7:33 am

      Not so much a back track but a return to their traditional position of selling out after electioneering on slogans they had no intention of following through on……you know like no frontline cuts, no GST rise etc etc……sleep with dogs geez this scratching seems to be getting worse.

    • Te Reo Putake 2.2
      24 February 2012 at 7:40 am

      Well, that’s the end of the Maori party as a political force. But it’s not all bad. Ok, the treaty will be left out of the sale process, but the good news is that Sharples and Turia’s pensions have been suitably acknowledged.

      • Lanthanide 2.2.1
        24 February 2012 at 9:12 am

        Probably 1 seat in 2014 and then potentially zilch after that. Depends on mana’s performance I guess.

        • Te Reo Putake 2.2.1.1
          24 February 2012 at 9:48 am

          And Labour’s, Lanth. I suspect they will be targetting the return of all the maori seats in the next election, though I have a sneaking suspicion they may not campaign too hard in Te Tai Tokerau if Hone proves to be someone they can work with over this term. And vice versa, of course.

          • insider 2.2.1.1.1
            24 February 2012 at 11:54 am

            I’m not sure that coming to an accomodation with Hone would be appealing to the swing voters Labour needs to attract back. He could be electoral poison.

      • Chris Oden 2.2.2
        24 February 2012 at 10:57 am

        Acshully I would call the Maori party at the moment a political farce.

  3. james 111 3
    24 February 2012 at 8:14 am

    Really interesting listening to Chris Carr from the Trucking Companies this morning lauding ther productitvity of Tauranga, Very scathing of the union at POA for affecting the viability of so many people for their own self interest. Basically said the only way it will change is if the Union isnt a part of POA. He stated that the shipping companies have told POA that their lack of productivity is costing the shipping companies $40 million a year. To many smoko breaks for the boys. I can certainly see why POA and Len Brown want this mess cleaned up with much more productivity coming out of the unionised work force.2% return is not enough for all the rate payers of Auckland

    • KJT 3.1
      24 February 2012 at 10:50 am

      Where does it say that NZ ports should be addressing the profitability of overseas shipping companies.

      Mearsk and others are making good profits running to Australia despite higher port costs and lower freight rates than they charge New Zealand.

      You are saying we should gift a further 40 million to offshore companies.

      If it was a local company, a good argument for a discount. But POAL do not give volume discounts to the local companies.

      Not to mention. If, unlike Farrer, you add the costs of contract labour onto Tauranga’s costs.
      Typical RWNJ statistics..

      AUCKLAND COSTS LESS PER CONTAINER.

    • Puddleglum 3.2
      24 February 2012 at 12:07 pm

      I heard someone (Daniel Silver?) from the ‘importers council’ on Radio New Zealand National this morning being interviewed along with Helen Kelly.

      She wiped the floor with him. She had all the facts (quoting various official reports). All he had was unsupported ideology and a self-assured tone.

      Oh, and something about Auckland being less productive than “other ports in New Zealand” (plural) which quickly turned out to be ‘Tauranga’ (singular).

      http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-20120224-0809-call_for_council_govt_to_intervene_in_auckland_port_dispute-048.mp3 

  4. mickysavage 4
    24 February 2012 at 8:19 am

    James and Gossie are on CT patrol today.

    Did you know James that Tauranga spent last year $59.2m on employees and Auckland $51.9m the year before?

    And the boyos got a productivity bonus paid to them recently?

    And there have been three deaths on Tauranga Port in the past couple of years and none in Auckland for many years?  

    • muzza 4.1
      24 February 2012 at 9:13 am

      James cant read Micky, and if he could he would also know that Mainfreight are behind MUNZ action…

  5. james 111 5
    24 February 2012 at 8:30 am

    Micky just very interesting to hear another perspective who has 3000 trucks ,and all the retailers they supply affected.

    Not much love lost for the union from the truckies. Obviously believes the Union needs to go from the Wharf for it to be competitive. You can probably watch it on a lter news broadcast or on NZOOM

    • vto 5.1
      24 February 2012 at 9:01 am

      How is it the union’s fault james111? What they are doing is well within longtime law. Perhaps the truckies should take their beef up with some other party. Or learn to operate their businesses within the known bounds of business.

  7. Jackal 7
    24 February 2012 at 9:06 am

    Bill English – Asshole of the Week

    National need to explain why they’re still promoting falsehoods about the potential returns from MOM asset sales, why they’ve dramatically devalued the current dividends and how they’ve managed to borrow $50 billion with practically nothing to show for it?

  8. Uturn 8
    24 February 2012 at 9:10 am

    I’ve just discovered the editing/ABC toolbar. Is it new? Good work, Admin! When it allows me to edit a selection, am I changing words in the overall database or just as a one-off in my post?

    Here’s another suggestion to add to the no doubt long list of not very practical things:

    Instead of warning trolls on the first offence, why not have the system filter 98% of their comment out and add three dots. So when certain contributors insist on filling threads with circular arguments, unaware or not of their own contradictions and silliness, all we get is …

    “You cannot have half the population supporting lazy bludging…”

    “MUNZ are deliberately…”

    and the less they write, the funnier it gets.

    Fuc…

    Bast…

    H…

    It would subject them to the same head banging frustration other people get reading their contributions and also provide islands of humour in the more serious topics.

    • prism 8.1
      24 February 2012 at 11:12 am

      @ Uturn –
      A good idea, funny too. After reading the RWNJ stuff it gets to head-banging time here. The evolving human mind must be able to change something inside, that’s why we come to the blog, to discuss how this is best done, not to be clobbered by the clever kids who have found what arguments get them the most pats on the head from the sect family inhabiting their Truman suburb.

    • Ianupnorth 8.2
      24 February 2012 at 1:14 pm

      Like that idea – can we start with Gossy and James111 please. BTW whatever happened to Pete George, is he on a ban? Strangely missing his nonsense!

  9. mickysavage 9
    24 February 2012 at 9:19 am

    Lynn is there something wrong with this page?  My comment at 4 has been obliterated and I think I may have done something funny with the html …

  10. phillip ure.. 10
    24 February 2012 at 9:48 am

    http://whoar.co.nz/2012/the-american-myth-ed-i-dont-often-say-must-watch-video-but-this-is-one-time-i-will/

    “..Nightmare and insanity are akin: mysterious and involuntary states that skew and distort objective reality.

    One wakens from nightmare; from insanity there is no awakening.

    Whether Americans live in the one state or the other is the paramount question of this era.

    For two hundred years Americans have been indoctrinated with a mythology created, imposed and sustained by a manipulating cabal: –

    – the financial elite that built its absolute control on the muscle and blood, good will, ignorance and credulity, of its citizenry.

    America began with the invasion of a populated continent and the genocide of its native people.

    Once solidly established – it grafted enslavement of another race onto that base.

    With those two pillars of state firmly in place it declared itself an independent nation in a document that nobly proclaimed the equality of all mankind.

    In that act of monumental hypocrisy America’s myth had its beginning..”

    (is 22 mins long…)

    phil-at-whoar.

  11. ianmac 11
    24 February 2012 at 10:58 am

    Have tried Firefox and Safari on my Mac but both have frozen on Open Mike.
    Strange layout on this page.

  12. prism 12
    24 February 2012 at 11:01 am

    I went to Nemo-the-fish site here – with the heading of 34 hours to make input to Oz submissions on a marine park. But time is now down to few hours 12 now – It is easy to put in a submission, there is set wording in reasonable language and its worth being involved from here if only to ensure that when we visit Oz there are beautiful things in the oceans to look at. The submission site is in real time, your name will come up in seconds, and within seconds be joined by others from all over the world. A good flash crowd in action.

  13. Te Reo Putake 13
    24 February 2012 at 11:12 am

    The four crooks running Lombard Finance have been found guilty of lying to investors. Presumably Senior Nat John Key will immediately begin the process of stripping Senior Nat Doug Graham of his knighthood.

    • Rob 13.1
      24 February 2012 at 11:30 am

      Yep, good job.

      In future reveiw the boom & the violent bust period that this failure is part of will become very recognised & studied. Currently the pain is being localised to the investors directly impacted, but the the true opportunity cost of not having a wealthy private funding base to invest in local industry and initaitives will beome more apparent.

      A big legacy of the Labour Govt years will be the ‘asleep at the wheel nature’ they took to the finance investment era and the years of pain it will cause. This is Labours ‘leaky building’ syndrome.

    • the pink postman 13.2
      24 February 2012 at 3:28 pm

      Just shows what a lot of codwallop the so called Knighthoods are.
      The only reason Kdey reintroduced this crap was to please his toffee nosed friends. And of course to get one just before he pisses off to Hawaii.

  14. Morrissey 14
    24 February 2012 at 12:04 pm

    Helen Kelly spanks Daniel Silva live on air
    National Radio, 8:10 a.m.

    Veterans of the Usenet group nz.general may recall the name of DANIEL SILVA. His contributions were brief, and usually uninteresting, but he always proved to be a reliable third or fourth person into the fray whenever someone like Redbaiter or Sue Bilstein or Wee Willie Wonka wrote something attacking Māori or green activists or unions, and supporting things like the Bainimarama coup in Fiji or the use of cluster munitions against civilian populations—hardly a surprise, as Silva is from Portugal, and was a supporter of the fascist Salazar regime, which was overthrown in 1974.

    Silva’s inability to argue his case coherently possibly stems from the fact that English is not his native tongue, but probably it has more to do with his deep-seated arrogance and complacency. He is the
    Secretary of the Importers’ Institute, and he is clearly not accustomed to being challenged and contradicted, as he was by CTU president Helen Kelly when he unwisely tried to argue with her on
    National Radio this morning. Here are a few highlights (although poor old Daniel Silva might not call them highlights)….

    SIMON MERCEP: What are you going to do with the workers? Sack them?

    DANIEL SILVA: Yes.

    HELEN KELLY: Ha! What a cheerful character he is! This is just ruthless behavior by the Ports of Auckland. They want to reduce workers to the lowest pay, casualized, and precarious. The workers have offered to make significant concessions and changes.

    SILVA: The Port of Auckland is the most inefficient in the country.

    KELLY: That’s not true.

    SILVA: Yes it is true.

    KELLY: The government’s own Productivity Commissioner found that the Ports of Auckland is the most efficient in the country. This person is on his own saying the Ports of Auckland are inefficient. ….
    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
    Just as in his nz.general days, Silva proved capable of nothing other than angry, practically incoherent bluster. He must have been fuming in dumb, black rage as Helen Kelly got in the last word so eloquently.

    • lprent 14.1
      24 February 2012 at 12:11 pm

      Oh god, that blowhard! I remember him.. I guess it is true. In some people thinking merely makes the mind ruts deeper.

    • ianmac 14.2
      24 February 2012 at 3:07 pm

      Noted how Silva’s voice became shrill as unaccustomed as he is to dissent….

      • Morrissey 14.2.1
        24 February 2012 at 5:00 pm

        Actually, he lapsed into a gloomy silence for most of the interview. Helen Kelly knew her facts and he did not, and he realized the audience would know that too.

        It’s noteworthy that Helen Kelly was present when the hopelessly flustered Alisdire Thompson degenerated into a ludicrous rant against women last year. She’s much too smart for these old fellows that are not used to rigorously debating a point.

        The pity of it is that there are far too few instances of people standing up to bullies like Thompson and Silva. A few moments stand out, however: in 2010, Sue Bradford confronted John Barnett and Paul Holmes on the piss-poor Q&A, and on Jim Mora’s National Radio programme, I’ve heard Gordon Campbell challenge aggressive and ill-informed comments by Graham Bell and Richard Griffin. Both Bell and Griffin backed down from their extreme statements immediately, with Griffin going to the most pathetic lengths to ingratiate himself.

  15. Ianupnorth 15
    24 February 2012 at 4:04 pm

    What do right wing governments have in common? Well they seem to encourage their citizen to migrate – Kiwi’s to Australia and Brit’s to anywhere bar the UK!
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/23/net-migration-britain-record-levels

  16. William Joyce 16
    24 February 2012 at 5:21 pm

    National have been trumpeting Air New Zealand as working example of the mixed ownership model. Well, now we find out that Air NZ is about to to jettison jobs.
    Privatising of our assets in the MOM means that “our” SOEs are going to be under even more pressure to adhere to that most iniquitous maxim that drives the capitalist world….
    The sole responsibility of the organisation/CEO is to maximise profits for the share holder.
    If the profit is not high enough to satisfy shareholders then we will see NZdrs losing their jobs because other NZdrs (and the foreigners who buy the on sold shares) want, not just a modest return, but a maximised return on their investments.

  17. Campbell Larsen 17
    24 February 2012 at 6:40 pm

    Attribution error or the deliberate misappropriation of the supposedly independent voice of the Fourth Estate?

    In today’s Herald ostensibly by Audrey Young: (last two paragraphs)

    “Most nights on television we see the consequences of countries in Europe … borrowing too much. We don’t want that for New Zealand.”

    The Government was spending and borrowing more than it could afford into the future. So it made sense to reorganise the Government’s assets and redeploy capital to priority areas without having to borrow more.

    …and the same paragraph again in the ODT this time author unknown:

    “Our political opponents need to honestly explain to New Zealanders why it would be better to borrow this $5 to $ 7 billion from overseas lenders at a time when the world is awash with debt and consequent risks.”

    The Government was spending and borrowing more than it could afford into the future. So it made sense to reorganise its assets and redeploy capital to priority areas without having to borrow more.

    The omission of quotation marks to indicate source and bias is unacceptable.
    The MSM is waging a propaganda war against the people of New Zealand – they must be held to account.

  18. Morrissey 18
    24 February 2012 at 10:44 pm

    Open Letter to our friend “grumpy”

    Dear grumpy,

    You’ve recently embarrassed yourself by revealing how little you know about the situation in Palestine. I’m sure I’m not the only person to have expressed concern at your almost total lack of knowledge. You need to educate yourself, pronto.

    Here’s a start for you. Please don’t try to say you can’t spare two minutes and ten seconds….

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdRvabDdVBY&feature=g-all-a&list=PL0BD6DC838984A813&context=G2133216FAAAAAAAAAAA

    There are four books recommended there. You need to read at least ONE of them before you comment on Palestine again.

    Best wishes,

    Morrissey

  19. Dave Kennedy 19
    25 February 2012 at 12:38 am

    We are having substantial change being forced on a system that clearly doesn’t need it!

    http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/more-mixed-messages-for-education.html