Open mike 25/04/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 25th, 2021 - 43 comments
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43 comments on “Open mike 25/04/2021 ”

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  1. KSaysHi 1
    25 April 2021 at 7:30 am

    Good news with a ruling in favor of the bus drivers, declaring the lockout illegal.

    I couldn't do their job. Too much abuse, too much sitting. I think it's a higher risk of injury (from members of the public) than most people believe. Had the lockout been upheld I think they would have had trouble filling the roles leaving Wellington in disarray. Plenty of opportunities with better pay in Australia.

    • Johnr 1.1
      25 April 2021 at 9:50 am

      Plus one here Ksays.

      It would be interesting to know what the bus companies real end game is. Other than being nasty b……ds I cant see what they hoped to achieve

      • KSaysHi 1.1.1
        25 April 2021 at 5:43 pm

        It did seem like a pointless show of power. Someone stressed and overreacting in the background.

  2. Anker 2
    25 April 2021 at 10:17 am
    • Thrilled about the court’s decision
  3. Byd0nz 3
    25 April 2021 at 11:53 am

    ANZAC BAG PIPES IN AOTEAROA

    I hear the Bag Pipes calling,
    Sending shivers along my spine,
    The tunes,are from my culture,
    Yet, this land is not mine.
    So why, are they used in ceremony here,
    Is it to represent the Imperialists part,
    The same English Imperialism,
    That tore out my Ancestors heart.
    Is it not a slight on us both,
    Natives of Aotearoa and Scotland,
    Who's people were used as fodder,
    In wars on anothers land.
    That Imperialism still exists,
    Still lord's it over us all,
    The chains of the five eyes,
    Demands us dance to their call.

    • Forget now 3.1
      25 April 2021 at 7:37 pm

      That third stanza needs some work there Bydonz. "Whose" rather than "who's" for a start. Also linking; "and Scotland" to "another's land", feels jarringly off balance – unless that's what you were going for.

      Otherwise I like where you are going with it. My personal experience of bagpipes today was the NZ anthem. The final cadence being made dissonant by the drones. Irish pipes are sweeter though less overpowering.

  4. Peter 4
    25 April 2021 at 11:53 am

    Ah, courts' decisions.

    "There have been three court orders demanding Bhumika Kohli pays up, but despite mounting penalties, she has refused to even negotiate a discounted settlement."

    If the victims in this case/these cases suggested they were going to going round and have 'meaningful discussions' with the implicated mongrels, the cops would be there in full force to stop them.

    How a cleaning boss has dodged a $120,000 wages bill for three years

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124704427/cant-pay-or-wont-pay-how-a-cleaning-boss-has-dodged-a-120000-wages-bill-for-three-years

    • RosieLee 4.1
      25 April 2021 at 12:43 pm

      Cancel their citizenship and deport them.

      • Treetop 4.1.1
        25 April 2021 at 2:48 pm

        Before they are deported, do to them what they did to their employees. Cold and calculated and both have had the opportunity to pay the workers wages owed and compensation.

        • Incognito 4.1.1.1
          25 April 2021 at 4:11 pm

          The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

          Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist

        • AB 4.1.1.2
          25 April 2021 at 10:44 pm

          As this unpleasant business seems like a nasty and predictable downstream effect of the growth in our private tertiary education sector – the person we should be going after is the architect of that industry: Steven Joyce

          • Treetop 4.1.1.2.1
            26 April 2021 at 9:16 am

            Had Covid not have occurred, more in private tertiary education could have been exploited. Restructuring is required for the future.

    • Jester 4.2
      25 April 2021 at 3:27 pm

      Unbelievable. I wonder if it was money owed to the IRD it would have been collected by now. They should have a debt collector visit them.

  5. greywarshark 5
    25 April 2021 at 12:03 pm

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018792909/morris-pearl-the-patriotic-millionaires-movement

    Morris Pearl is chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of hundreds of high-net-worth people who want millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

    Patriotic Millionaires calls for a living wage for US workers and believes that inequality is bad for society and bad for business.

    Someone called Morris Pearl. I have noted that surname as being connected with good intentions – what a nice name to have. Don't know about the group's name – 'Patriotic' attitudes seem to accompany unpleasant behaviour often.

    • Gabby 5.1
      25 April 2021 at 12:39 pm

      Good to see the reclamation of an abused adjective.

      • Morrissey 5.1.1
        25 April 2021 at 4:12 pm

        This bloke Morris Pearl abuses the term as much as anyone else does. He’s no moral leader; I lost count of the number of times he said there was "nothing wrong" with people being extremely rich.

        "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." —Samuel Johnson, 7 April 1775

        • greywarshark 5.1.1.1
          25 April 2021 at 7:12 pm

          Moaning Minnie Morrissey – Accept your good things where you find them. If he likes being rich we can't stop him. But if he likes the idea of giving more back through taxes etc. we won't stop him will we. That would be cutting off your nose to spite your face, an unpleasant image.

          Try finding something to praise each day. Be a little Pollyanna!

          The Pollyanna principle (also called Pollyannaism or positivity bias) is the tendency for people to remember pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle

          • Morrissey 5.1.1.1.1
            26 April 2021 at 11:33 am

            Yes, he's certainly an improvement on millionaires like Donald Trump. Unlike Trump, he's a good speaker who can string a few coherent sentences together.

            • greywarshark 5.1.1.1.1.1
              26 April 2021 at 12:06 pm

              I like the sentences that say – wealthy people can pay their taxes and invest in businesses that provide jobs for a sustainable future. That's what I like. Make it so!!

            • Adrian Thornton 5.1.1.1.1.2
              26 April 2021 at 12:36 pm

              I know this is going to controversial, but for a short while, during about the middle of Trumps presidency, I watched a few of his speeches from beginning to end, and I have to admit he was actually pretty funny sometimes and there was something else at play that doesn’t get mentioned often, I don’t think he ever used a script..so there was something really spontaneous about him that I think is completely absent from any other politician in the US, and I guess if you were at all swayed by him, that must have been extremely appealing.

    • greywarshark 5.2
      25 April 2021 at 4:10 pm

      I liked this bit from the Radionz item on Morris Pearl above.

      He said the wealthy have much more influence over government than the less well off, in part because US politicians, for example, are required to raise huge amounts of money for their own and their party's campaigns.

      "They [politicians] spend so much time with the rich people they think they're the only people they have to care about."

      Pearl said that is why his group supports laws seeking to change the system of political funding. In New York, where he lives, if a person collects a donation of $100 it can be matched eight-fold by a campaign finance organisation, if they're interested in running for mayor or other local body positions. This has opened up political races to anybody instead of just the relatives of rich people.

    • KSaysHi 5.3
      25 April 2021 at 5:24 pm

      Hard to believe that name is not an anagram for something else. Sounds like a good man.

  6. Treetop 6
    25 April 2021 at 2:42 pm

    I have just looked at the daily mail Australia. Two articles, in India 3 – 4 to a bed sharing oxygen, crematoriums melting due to over capacity, people suffocating, pregnant women dying, young babies sick with Covid. There is no escape from Covid – 19 in India until it peaks. The other article is about the army in China and the Wuhan lab looking for viruses in animals.

    Did not link as my links usually fail.

    • Incognito 6.1
      25 April 2021 at 3:08 pm

      How come your links usually fail?

      Copy the link address (also known as URL, which usually starts with “https:// “ and paste it in your comment. That’s all you need to know and do unless you want get more ‘fancy’ with links.

      • Treetop 6.1.1
        25 April 2021 at 6:00 pm

        They fail because I make an error doing long hand.

        • Incognito 6.1.1.1
          25 April 2021 at 6:06 pm

          With your cursor, highlight the whole link address (i.e. URL), copy (Ctrl+C), paste (Ctrl+V) in the text/comment editor. Done.

          Highlighting might work by clicking once on the URL although I think sometimes you may have to double-click.

          • Treetop 6.1.1.1.1
            25 April 2021 at 6:14 pm

            Thank you for trying to help me do links.

            • Incognito 6.1.1.1.1.1
              25 April 2021 at 6:17 pm

              You’re welcome. We all benefit from you learning how to link 😉

              If my suggestions don’t work or make no sense, perhaps you could ask somebody whom you trust to show you how to do it.

    • KSaysHi 6.2
      25 April 2021 at 5:33 pm

      Anyone else find this outbreak a bit suss given the ongoing conflict with C'na? They were doing really well handing out Vit D etc + Ivermectin packs, and suddenly it spikes massively out of control. It's had nearly a year in India so I guess it's possible the reporting was massively out.

  7. greywarshark 7
    25 April 2021 at 4:16 pm

    Good news. Let's have some real talks honouring the principles of good faith bargaining.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/441186/bus-travel-disruption-over-for-wellington-passengers

    Bus commuters in Wellington should see their routes running a normal schedule today, after the Employment Court ordered an end to the bus driver lockout.

  8. Stuart Munro 8
    25 April 2021 at 5:37 pm

    I think it's surprising how many of our unaddressed issues stem from this rightwing veto.

    Everyone should have housing as of right – but somehow mass immigration, running downing housing NZ, and no organized building were allowed to happen. Couldn't be helped – the dodgy accounting was needed by Treasury for some reason.

    We couldn't have boots on the ground pest control – cost too much, in spite of the need for more jobs. So aerial topdressing of poisons and collateral kills it is.

    Kind of need to turn this stuff on its head – government should be working to make things better, not to preserve the entitlements of a sociopathic minority.

    [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.]

  9. KSaysHi 9
    25 April 2021 at 5:41 pm

    Is Susan Edmunds about to be inundated with email from outraged PI's and their associations? Hopefully they have moved on to more productive persuits like building houses and brushing up on the RPA rather than shouting their outrage and threats of rental retaliation via the media.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300284756/landlords-missed-a-chance-to-change-nzs-mind

    Others suggested they were having their human rights infringed upon and a petition was launched to overturn the changes. One said renters needed to stop talking about the place they lived being “their house”. “If they want their own house they need to go and get their own.”

    Many leapt to threatening to put up their rents immediately, even though the full impact of the deductibility change won’t be felt for four years.

    To react so violently to changes during a period when the unaffordability of New Zealand houses is causing serious distress to many families shows a lack of self-awareness, at best.

    Indeed.

    • Treetop 9.1
      25 April 2021 at 7:33 pm

      Landlords are not entitled to take the extention of the bright line test and not being able to claim tax on interest from bank loans out on a tenant. The changes have not yet been fazed in.

      Are landlords getting it that tenants cannot afford unrealistic rent increases?

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