Open mike 25/04/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 25th, 2016 - 108 comments
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108 comments on “Open mike 25/04/2016 ”

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  1. save NZ 1
    25 April 2016 at 8:37 am

    “John Key says the Government is waiting for better data on whether there is a problem with overseas buyers purchasing houses…’

    Usual deflection and semantic weasel words.

    Yep the government collects plenty of migration data, but now trying to blame foreign investors who bizarrely like our tax haven status is all kept secret and no real data collected. Yep what a joke.

    He forgets to mention last year there were 67,000 migrants coming into NZ under the National immigration policy (more than migrants than births across the entire country) and 60% settled in Auckland.

    John Key’s “own “gut instinct” was that Chinese buyers in the Auckland market were New Zealand-based.”

    But not the governments fault obviously… In fact the answer is more immigration inspite of over 15 years of extreme levels of immigration our tradable sectors have gone nowhere.

    http://sciblogs.co.nz/the-dismal-science/2016/04/09/question-steven-joyce/

    Oravida is doing well, not sure about the rest of NZ with this insane experiment.

    Can we get the sock puppets out for Granny, because in spite of at least 5 property articles per day about how Kiwis can’t afford property or how they can, never let the idea of 67,000 new people entering NZ who will need to rent or purchase homes per year coming in, would affect property, or indeed jobs and wages in this country.

    Don’t worry I’m sure our ‘economists’ will tell Kiwis, don’t worry about being tenants in your own country, we can all rent with a WOF and everything will be fine, home owner ship is last decades dream, now just be happy you have a heat pump!

    • Bill 1.1
      25 April 2016 at 10:00 am

      I suspect a lot of properties, if they were being bought with money that otherwise sloshes around in a trust, would be vacant. I don’t live in Auckland, so don’t know if a lot of residential property is owned but empty…that, perhaps being an indication that the property is owned off-shore.

      67 000 people coming into NZ is, as far as market economics are concerned, a good thing. Germany is looking forward to an economic boost (in the medium term?) from the refugees it allowed to settle. All countries that are hooked on economic growth want an influx of skills and labour. So any political party jumping up and down about that is lying to you…dog whistling for your vote.

      Never quite understood the so-called dream of owning a home btw. Secure renting would be just fine, thanks. Oh – and fuck the heat pump. Anyway. I don’t care about houses being unaffordable. I do care that people can’t find a place to call home. And those two things are separate issues.

      • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1
        25 April 2016 at 10:57 am

        All countries that are hooked on economic growth want an influx of skills and labour.

        The only growth that’s going to come from an influx of people is growth in consumed resources. This will show up in increased GDP and slightly higher profits but nothing else will happen as the article linked to shows.

        Oh – and fuck the heat pump.

        The most efficient and sustainable heating available. Yeah, fuck that eh.

        Never quite understood the so-called dream of owning a home btw.

        Seems to be mostly about people being afraid of the government. Fear that the next government will take it away from them because for everyone renting to be viable it needs to be the state/community that does the letting.

        • Bill 1.1.1.1
          25 April 2016 at 11:29 am

          Economic growth is a stupid idea. I think we agree on that one. And I guess we’d also probably agree that it’s coming to an end. I guess what we won’t agree on is a world without borders…absolute freedom for people to move to wherever they wish.

          As for heatpumps that are generally hooked to the grid and don’t work when the temperature outside gets below a certain point and crap out in a power cut, yeah… fuck them.

          My woodburner uses zero fossil (unlike your heat-pump), works during power cuts and also when outside temperatures are zero or less. Oh yeah, and heats the water into the bargain. Did I say it’s also aesthetically much more pleasing than a humming hunk of metal and plastic? Conducive to exercise too…all that chainsawing (battery operated chainsaws now on the market), chopping, stacking and carrying. And all that work tends to heat you up and that can negate the need to heat the room. And I can’t remember ever seeing anyone cook on top of a heat-pump either. Okay. Rant over. Fuck heat-pumps. (Did I say that already?)

          A really late edit because the site played up. BUT. Just read that “On average an ENERGY STAR qualified heat pump costs about $1501 less per year to run than other models”. That $1 500 saving is more than I’d pay for an entire year’s supply of wood if I bought it in…so what’s being saved? Also, depending on the model of heat-pump, my yearly electricity costs would be between 30 and 100% higher than at present…and no (or much less) hot water given a wet-back scenario. (Fuck heat pumps)

          • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.1.1
            25 April 2016 at 11:54 am

            My woodburner uses zero fossil (unlike your heat-pump), works during power cuts and also when outside temperatures are zero or less.

            Although true it’s still unsustainable. Trees simply don’t grow fast enough for everyone to have a fire. And heat-pumps don’t require fossil fuels – only electricity that can be generated sustainably. Heat pumps can also work when temperatures are below zero. Theoretically, heat pumps could work in temperatures all the way down to Absolute Zero. The problem isn’t the temperature but the water in the atmosphere and there are solutions to that.

            Did I say it’s also aesthetically much more pleasing than a humming hunk of metal and plastic?

            That doesn’t make it sustainable. And personally I really couldn’t care less how aesthetically pleasing it is.

            Conducive to exercise too…all that chainsawing (battery operated chainsaws now on the market), chopping, stacking and carrying.

            Not enough time in the day to waste it doing shit like that.

            And all that work tends to heat you up and that can negate the need to heat the room.

            No it really doesn’t – cold rooms are bad for you.

            And I can’t remember ever seeing anyone cook on top of a heat-pump either.

            So?

            • Bill 1.1.1.1.1.1
              25 April 2016 at 12:13 pm

              heh – going through this point by point.

              Point one. Coppicing can provide more than enough firewood if done correctly. Having said that, my situation doesn’t require it.

              Point one a) heatpumps require electricity and it is not all produced from non-fossil.

              Point one b) if everyone had a heat pump, humanity couldn’t build enough non-fossil supply side electricity generation before catastrophic CC hit. (We can’t even lay in that infrastructure in time on present usage)

              Point two. Aesthetics are about aesthetics – end.

              Point three. The type of work required to manage firewood is enjoyable. It’s not ‘wasted’ in any way shape or form.

              Point four. If your feeling the cold, set the fire, put on a jumper or throw a log on the fire. If you’re not feeling the cold, then you’re not feeling the cold. Ambient cold isn’t really bad for you…you can still be warm in ambient cold. Subjecting yourself to damp cold on the other hand, probably is. Rooms that are too hot ain’t flash for anyone’s health either btw – again, especially if accompanied by moisture.

              Point five. If cooking is being done on or in a wood burner then that’s less gas or fossil generated electric being consumed. And (not that I quite understand this) it tastes nicer – that aesthetics thing again. 😉

              Point six is just a reiteration of what I’ve already said about heat pumps…fuck them.

              • Colonial Viper …
                25 April 2016 at 12:30 pm

                Point one. Coppicing can provide more than enough firewood if done correctly. Having said that, my situation doesn’t require it.

                They’d cut down almost all the wood in England by the 18th century. Too many people, too little land. Already smashed the Scottish so no more land to nick.

                Luckily coal came on to the picture big time.

                • Bill …
                  25 April 2016 at 12:56 pm

                  Cutting down isn’t coppicing. Woodlands can be sustained and coppices planted and brought into use quite quickly (a few years if the right trees are chosen)

                  You’re talking of the past, not the present or the future. India was much more densely populated, had access to coal but didn’t use it, and people (unlike today) didn’t live in poverty or live a life that amounted to no more than a constantly worried scramble away from it.

                  Meanwhile, back in Britain, coal fired industry, and could only be mined by driving people down holes in the ground off the back of the enclosures and with the handy back up threat of guns and chains being presented on top of the possible starvation that resulted from the enclosures…and the British exported that nice suite of incentives, and for the same reason (mining), to India and elsewhere.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    25 April 2016 at 1:01 pm

                    Points taken, but not many places in India suffer freezing winters.

                    Also coppicing is useful but the bottom line is that the world is 5x to 10x over its human carrying capacity, and coppicing is not going to be able to bridge that gap.

                    • Bill …
                      25 April 2016 at 1:28 pm

                      North India. Pretty damned fucking cold in the winter…much colder than many populated parts of NZ.

                      And the exchange was about the relative merits of heat-pumps and wood-burners? That was already a sideshow. Population is a kinda sideshow to the sideshow as it were. Anyway…

                      Population is irrelevant to energy use and climate change in the time scale that we have. Over population becomes an issue after we’ve either shot through +2 or (can’t see it) limited warming to around +2…then resource limits and population limits hit. But for now, debates about CC that bring up population are debates that hide our problems and potential solutions behind shoals of red herrings.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      25 April 2016 at 1:41 pm

                      Do you mean that overpopulation is irrelevant now because there is nothing we can do about overpopulation now, or in the next (say) 10 years?

                      Every additional mouth to feed is another consumer of energy and physical resources.

                    • Bill …
                      25 April 2016 at 2:11 pm

                      I mean that in the time we have to deal with CC, that the hundreds of millions, or few billions, of people who currently contribute 5/8ths of fuck all to climate change, will be in no economic position to contribute anything beyond what they already contribute today. The laws of thermo-dynamics are moving faster than the so-called laws of economic growth.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                25 April 2016 at 2:22 pm

                Point one. Coppicing can provide more than enough firewood if done correctly.

                How many coppiced trees per household per year?
                How much land will that cover?
                How many people to maintain it?

                Now multiply that by the number of houses, put it up against what else we need that land and those people for and tell me if it still works?

                Because I’m pretty sure that it won’t.

                Point one a) heatpumps require electricity and it is not all produced from non-fossil.

                But it can be. This is important and, also important, it uses less people to achieve the same result.

                Point one b) if everyone had a heat pump, humanity couldn’t build enough non-fossil supply side electricity generation before catastrophic CC hit.

                Good job not everyone is going to get a heat pump over night. This gives us time to build the renewable energy base up.

                Point three. The type of work required to manage firewood is enjoyable. It’s not ‘wasted’ in any way shape or form.

                No it’s not and yes it is.

                Point five. If cooking is being done on or in a wood burner then that’s less gas or fossil generated electric being consumed.

                Only if we’re still using fossil fuels which, quite simply, we shouldn’t be doing.

                • Bill …
                  25 April 2016 at 2:51 pm

                  Draco. How long do you actually think we have to build entire energy supply networks that don’t run on fossil …ie, to replace all fossil supply?

                  I’m asking because time and again you come out with a ‘we have the technology’ line that doesn’t appear to take any account of time restraints. We, in the west, have until 2030 to be entirely free from fossil. The entire world needs to be free of fossil by 2050.

                  Do you really think we in the west can lay in the huge supply side infrastructures we need in the space of 15 years?

                  It doesn’t matter if we can run ‘everything’ from (say) batteries or from whatever fossil free energy sources if we can’t build the infrastructure fast enough.

                  Unless you know something that no engineer knows in terms of build, then our only option is to drastically reduce our energy use while using the decades required to lay in non-fossil supply. So electric car fleets and what not, while maybe do-able, have no place in any near or mid term future that takes reality into account.

                  btw. Globally, only 20% of our fossil based energy use is for electricity generation. So if 80% of our current fossil use has to be brought over to electric, then grids are going to have to expanded by some factors. And yes, problems notwithstanding, I know that some fossil can be replaced by other energy sources aside from electricity, but still…

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    25 April 2016 at 3:35 pm

                    Do you really think we in the west can lay in the huge supply side infrastructures we need in the space of 15 years?

                    If they decided to do so, yes. The problem is that the big donors to political parties won’t make any profit as it will all be done directly by government.

                    Unless you know something that no engineer knows in terms of build, then our only option is to drastically reduce our energy use while using the decades required to lay in non-fossil supply. So electric car fleets and what not, while maybe do-able, have no place in any near or mid term future that takes reality into account.

                    Considering how much I’ve been saying that cars are uneconomic what makes you think that I think that we should keep the bloody things? Get rid of them ASAP.

                    I know that some fossil can be replaced by other energy sources aside from electricity

                    Electricity isn’t an energy source but means of energy transmission.

                    So if 80% of our current fossil use has to be brought over to electric, then grids are going to have to expanded by some factors.

                    What’s the breakdown of how that’s used? Because IIRC, a lot of that is transport and we can replace the transport mode itself. Ships go to sail, aircraft become an as need only (no more foreign holidays) and cars can be replaced by walking, cycling and public transport (electric) and trucks can also be electric.

                    So, yes, there needs to be n increase in generation and a better grid but there’s no way that we can keep everything exactly as it is now. And, IMO, we shouldn’t even try.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      25 April 2016 at 3:47 pm

                      You keep saying we can do this, we can do that, government can do this, government can do that. But we won’t, and they certainly won’t.

                  • AmaKiwi …
                    25 April 2016 at 8:40 pm

                    “Do you really think we in the west can lay in the huge supply side infrastructures we need in the space of 15 years?”

                    For the last 150 years, countries engaged in total war have transformed their economies in remarkably short times. When there is a collective sense of urgency, amazing transformations happen in months, not decades.

                    • Bill …
                      25 April 2016 at 9:06 pm

                      Countries have sometimes changed the things they were producing in fairly short order. But they haven’t retrofitted and expanded their entire energy system/ infrastructure and simultaneously stopped using the very fuel source that all their production relies upon.

                      To think that can be done across the entire western world – however many countries that amounts to – in the space of 15 years, while dropping to zero energy from fossil at the same time, is magical thinking.

                      Cut fossil related energy use by up to 15% per year as of now as the science demands; that has to be the first order of the day…the ‘war footing’. Begin laying down the infrastructure within that context. When the infrastructure is wholly in place (it’ll take decades) then we can get back to profligate energy use if we want to.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      25 April 2016 at 9:13 pm

                      Simplest and fastest way to dramatically cut back fossil fuel energy use is to crash the real economy.

                      Building major infrastructure is not possible without massive expenditures of fossil fuels however, and such projects tend to cause Keynesian economic booms.

                    • weka …
                      25 April 2016 at 9:29 pm

                      Consider a piece of technology like a bus. Pretty easy to convert to electric right? But if you want to reduce carbon emissions you also have to fuel the conversion without fossil fuels. So if it’s a new bus, that’s not just the power needed to run the bus, it’s the manufacture, which includes mining, which includes the manufacture of the mining equipment etc. Then there is the power supply and building and maintaining that without fossil fuels, so ditto, how are the wind turbines made, where does the metal come from, how is it transported etc.

                      Think cradle to grave.

                      Then consider how the economy will cope with that (Peak oil is a good field to look at because it factors in time and financials as well as fossil fuels).

                      Then political will.

                      It’s all doable on paper. But once you start trying to figure out how it would work in situ, it just looks impossible.

                      Nothing wrong with powering down though, we can still live good lives even if we have to change radically.

                      btw, I agree with your premise that we can achieve a lot when the pressure is on. The innovation that will come out of the powerdown will be impressive. It just won’t be a replacement that supports our current kinds of lives.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      25 April 2016 at 9:59 pm

                      The global aid budget according to that article is roughly the same size as NZ’s GDP. And it has to be spread around all the trouble spots in all the countries around the world.

                      Well, that’s nothing. A small fraction of the monies the 0.1% have hidden away in tax havens.

                    • Bill …
                      25 April 2016 at 10:11 pm

                      @ Weka

                      We don’t necessarily have to fuel the conversion without fossil. As long as overall fossil related emissions are dropping by 15% per annum, the remaining ‘sinking lid’ of possible emissions can be allocated to whatever area we decide should be prioritised.

                    • Pat …
                      25 April 2016 at 10:18 pm

                      that may be true CV…I haven’t checked, but the increased natural disasters and the cascading impacts including the foundation of Insurance in the (particularly advanced) world economy were the focus of my attention….the point is society in the near future will be unrecognizable, not some moderately adjusted status quo with windmills and private electric vehicles…..assuming we are able to get our shit together enough to avoid the worse scenarios

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      26 April 2016 at 12:10 am

                      But if you want to reduce carbon emissions you also have to fuel the conversion without fossil fuels. So if it’s a new bus, that’s not just the power needed to run the bus, it’s the manufacture, which includes mining, which includes the manufacture of the mining equipment etc.

                      @weka
                      Energy Use in Cars 5: Gasoline Cars vs. Electric Cars

                      Summary

                      Therefore, greenhouse gas emissions for a gasoline car are over 40 times higher than for an electric car (in BC). Even if we use the Canadian average of greenhouse gas emissions for electricity generation, gasoline cars still emit over 5 times as much greenhouse gas as electric cars.

                      And mining is done using electric tools so shifting to renewable energy will reduce ghg emissions there as well.

                      Wind turbines don’t actually use a lot of metal. What they use is a lot of plastic and that can be produced from plants – hemp is a good source of the necessary oils.

                      Then political will.

                      Yes. The political will is the problem. How can we get it so that the people govern rather than the rich? Because the people do want the change – it’s the rich that are holding us back as they buy up the politicians to protect their ill-gotten wealth.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 April 2016 at 12:57 am

                      DTB – these low GHG electric cars – don’t these require the high-GHG mining of many tonnes of ores and the large scale fabrication of aluminium and steel? Which also costs massive amounts of GHGs?

                      And mining is done using electric tools so shifting to renewable energy will reduce ghg emissions there as well.

                      What kinds of “electric tools” do you use to shift thousands of tonnes of ore from the bottom of the mine to processing areas kilometres away?

                      Do these electric tools use steel, aluminium or copper parts which require GHGs to extract, form and transport?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 April 2016 at 1:00 am

                      Pat:

                      .the point is society in the near future will be unrecognizable, not some moderately adjusted status quo with windmills and private electric vehicles…..

                      I propose that this new “unrecognisable society” we may find ourselves in will actually – in some ways at least – be very highly recognisable by people who come from third world nations.

            • Colonial Viper 1.1.1.1.1.2
              25 April 2016 at 12:14 pm

              Sorry mate, but human labour is going to become increasingly important again as we run down on surplus energy supplies.

              Not enough time in the day to waste it doing shit like that.

              Who are you going to get to do this work for you while you take it easy?

              • Draco T Bastard …
                25 April 2016 at 2:02 pm

                Sorry mate, but human labour is going to become increasingly important again as we run down on surplus energy supplies.

                You really do need to do some basic science/physics stuff so that you can stop spouting bollocks.

                The end of fossil fuels won’t really be the end of electricity due to the simple fact that electricity can be generated in many ways many of which are actually sustainable. Photovoltaic and wind are both sustainable. Then there’s passive heating which should be the main source of heating for all homes with the heat pump then a small supplementary. Of course, that does require building better houses and apartments.

                Who are you going to get to do this work for you while you take it easy?

                I said I was busy, not taking it easy.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  25 April 2016 at 3:16 pm

                  Photovoltaic and wind are both sustainable.

                  I doubt it. Perhaps with completely alternative logistics and technology trees than those which actually exist today.

                  The end of fossil fuels won’t really be the end of electricity due to the simple fact that electricity

                  Draco, I talked about an end to surplus energy supplies. Why did you think I was talking about an end to electricity?

                  To demonstrate:

                  Baghdad in 2005 still had electricity. For a few hours a day. A few days a week. Not exactly in a surplus energy supply situation though.

                  I said I was busy, not taking it easy.

                  After fossil fuels largely go away, my bet is that you’re going to find that most of the activities you currently keep busy with, are simply not going to be a thing any more.

                  You really do need to do some basic science/physics stuff so that you can stop spouting bollocks.

                  Hmmm. Interesting. Don’t be upset just because I am pointing out that you may be making bad assumptions about the future.

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    25 April 2016 at 3:44 pm

                    I doubt it.

                    Yeah, that would be your complete and total ignorance of science and physics speaking.

                    I talked about an end to surplus energy supplies. Why did you think I was talking about an end to electricity?

                    Everything we do today can be done with electricity and we’re not going to run out of that. Not even going to run out of surplus – if we build up the sustainable energy generation.

                    Baghdad in 2005 still had electricity. For a few hours a day. A few days a week. Not exactly in a surplus energy supply situation though.

                    Because building up infrastructure is the same as being bombed 🙄

                    After fossil fuels largely go away, my bet is that you’re going to find that most of the activities you currently keep busy with, are simply not going to be a thing any more.

                    I’m pretty sure it’ll actually be more in demand.

                    Don’t be upset just because I am pointing out that you may be making bad assumptions about the future.

                    You’re the one who’s getting it all wrong and you’re getting it all wrong because of your ignorance.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      25 April 2016 at 3:53 pm

                      Yeah, that would be your complete and total ignorance of science and physics speaking.

                      This from a guy who claims that electricity isn’t an energy source, but a means of energy transmission.

                      You’re the one who’s getting it all wrong and you’re getting it all wrong because of your ignorance.

                      *Shrug*

                      You should prepare for disappointment about the future as you’ve made a bunch of untenable assumptions and seem to consider your view the one and only truth. And read more John Michael Greer, of the Archdruid Report.

                    • RedLogix …
                      25 April 2016 at 6:00 pm

                      This from a guy who claims that electricity isn’t an energy source, but a means of energy transmission.

                      Well a bit hinges on your exact definition of ‘source’ and ‘transmission’, but on the whole DtB is right in this instance. At least in the context of this discussion.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    25 April 2016 at 8:11 pm

                    Do you think so RL?

                    Then what is diesel if not a source of energy itself – maybe we are now going to start calling diesel a means of transporting energy? After all it is pretty inert stuff and pretty convenient to carry around.

                    I am more than happy to have an esoteric discussion on what this thing called “energy” is, but since the meter on your house measures electricity delivered to your residence in units equivalent to energy i.e. power x time I feel fairly safe describing electricity as energy itself, not a means of transmitting energy. (If electricity were a means of transmitting energy how shall we now consider the power grid – a means of transmitting the means of transmitting energy?).

                    It’s been a long time since I did my papers in instrumentation, control and process automation, but I do not feel like I have lost my grasp on physical science and technology is.

                    Look at DTB’s statement:

                    Then there’s passive heating which should be the main source of heating for all homes with the heat pump then a small supplementary. Of course, that does require building better houses and apartments.

                    Which on the face of it seems fair enough but in the NZ context its utterly incomplete.

                    To make “passive heating” the “main source of heating for all homes” doesn’t just take what he suggests “building better houses and apartments” – it will actually take the top to bottom refitting or tearing down of more than a million existing residences and commercial buildings in NZ over the next 25 years (or however much time we think we have to do this before we are out of fossil fuels).

                    To say that there is no will, money or understanding to do such a thing would be stating the obvious.

                    But could such a thing theoretically be done in order to fall into the general solution space suggested by DTB? Of course. But the chances that it will be done? Its so close to zero that my scientific calculator probably can’t represent it.

                    • Pat …
                      25 April 2016 at 8:34 pm

                      to demonstrate the scale of task consider this….six years ago approximately half of christchurch was badly damaged and required repair/rebuild, replacing like with like, little in the way of developing new systems….with the assistance of a normally functioning world around it ….hows that going?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      25 April 2016 at 8:45 pm

                      DTB, and others, are falling into a trap which the Archdruid described quite well:

                      Understanding what solutions fall within the realms of theoretical or potential possibility (like Labour waking up and expelling its neoliberal contaminants and returning to its democratic socialist roots), while not understanding that the chances of it actually happening are so fucking close to zero, you need to be looking elsewhere for answers or risk still inhabiting a daydream lala land when the whole thing finally comes crashing down on your head.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      25 April 2016 at 11:55 pm

                      Then what is diesel if not a source of energy itself – maybe we are now going to start calling diesel a means of transporting energy? After all it is pretty inert stuff and pretty convenient to carry around.

                      Well, technically, it’s a store of energy.

                      it will actually take the top to bottom refitting or tearing down of more than a million existing residences and commercial buildings in NZ over the next 25 years (or however much time we think we have to do this before we are out of fossil fuels).

                      And this is where you keep going wrong. You think we need fossil fuels to shift to not using fossil fuels when we don’t.

                      If we didn’t have any infrastructure at all with the knowledge we have we could build up a society with most of the mod cons we’ve got today without touching fossil fuels at all.

                      Understanding what solutions fall within the realms of theoretical or potential possibility (like Labour waking up and expelling its neoliberal contaminants and returning to its democratic socialist roots), while not understanding that the chances of it actually happening are so fucking close to zero, you need to be looking elsewhere for answers or risk still inhabiting a daydream lala land when the whole thing finally comes crashing down on your head.

                      Well, that’s one of the differences between you and me. I reach for the possible solutions rather than whinging that it just be done. Does this mean that the solution will be put in place? No but there’s a hell of a lot more chance of it happening than if I just keep my mouth shut. When it does come crashing down on our heads I’ll be there with a solution.

                    • RedLogix …
                      26 April 2016 at 12:19 am

                      @DtB and CV

                      As I said above, it all depends on how you define ‘store’ and ‘transmit’. The actual meanings are quite relative and can change from one context to another, and the time frame you are contemplating. The terms, source, transformation, and sink all depend on the definition of system you have are discussing.

                      But the ultimate source of all energy for life on Earth is the Sun. It’s various stored manifestations such as potential energy stored in the hydrological cycle, or chemical energy stored in living or fossil carbon, or nuclear energy stored in the earth core, or kinetic/heat energy stored in the wind, waves or tide are all derived from the Sun originally.

                      Each of the these stored energy forms can be transformed from one to another according to the Laws of Thermodynamics, the Second Law especially. This is handy because the kinetic energy of the wind blowing over a remote hilltop is not much use for heating your living room.

                      However wind turbine will create an electrical current or flow, that can be efficiently transmitted into your home, and then turned into heat via resistive element, or perhaps a heat pump.

                      While electrical charge (electrical potential energy) can be stored in capacitors, for all practical, everyday purposes it is electricity in the form of a current that we use for shifting large amounts of energy from one place to another.

                      Strictly speaking the energy is not transmitted by electron in the conductors at all, but by the E-M field between them. But that digs a little deeper than is needed to make the point.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 April 2016 at 12:27 am

                      Well, that’s one of the differences between you and me. I reach for the possible solutions rather than whinging that it just be done. Does this mean that the solution will be put in place? No but there’s a hell of a lot more chance of it happening than if I just keep my mouth shut. When it does come crashing down on our heads I’ll be there with a solution.

                      You’ll be there with a caveman drawing of the sun god, beating your chest and calling it a solution, and it will be just as helpful.

                      If we didn’t have any infrastructure at all with the knowledge we have we could build up a society with most of the mod cons we’ve got today without touching fossil fuels at all.

                      Seriously, get your seriously over the top S.F. technofantasy arrogance in check here.

                      For starters, how would you even call a general meeting of the town to explain your proposal?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 April 2016 at 12:41 am

                      Strictly speaking the energy is not transmitted by electron in the conductors at all, but by the E-M field between them. But that digs a little deeper than is needed to make the point.

                      The EM field we can measure is just the observable and quantifiable part of the underlying quantum process from which we access what we call “energy” which we then apply in practical terms to do “work”.

                      However wind turbine will create an electrical current or flow, that can be efficiently transmitted into your home, and then turned into heat via resistive element, or perhaps a heat pump.

                      So we have technology which turns relatively useless diffuse forms of energy into relatively useful forms of concentrated energy (to steal ideas that Greer has discussed before).

                      Cool.

                      Nevertheless, there is little as convenient (or dense) a “store” or “source” of energy than a fossil fuel like high quality coal or diesel.

                    • RedLogix …
                      26 April 2016 at 12:47 am

                      Personally I think technology will survive in it’s more useful forms. Simply because it creates such an undeniable competitive advantage.

                      Consider for instance how the outcome of a medieval battle field would be influenced if one side had the use of two-way mobile field radio. Or had the medical knowledge to defeat dysentery, or access to antibiotics?

                      While I fully expect future generations will value and use our current technologies in ways we can scarcely imagine, I do believe the core knowledge will never be lost. It’s just too useful.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 April 2016 at 1:07 am

                      While I fully expect future generations will value and use our current technologies in ways we can scarcely imagine, I do believe the core knowledge will never be lost. It’s just too useful.

                      I think most of out current technologies are going away in a big way. If we are lucky, I think that highly self-maintainable highly robust 1950s and 1960s style technology will be back in fashion. Mainly because we will hit an era where all the new stuff will eventually break and not be fixable/replaceable with parts from South Korea or Norway from high tech factories which are no longer running let alone accepting foreign orders.

                      As for the core knowledge never being lost because it’s just too useful.

                      Greer has talked a lot about previous dark ages and how a future dark age may be similar and different.

                      Point being, there have been many times in history where the ‘useful knowledge’ of a civilisation disappeared from common circulation. For centuries at a time, if not forever.

                    • RedLogix …
                      26 April 2016 at 1:40 am

                      Greer’s weakness when he talks about technology is that he isn’t one himself. He’s very good on many topics, but he can’t be an expert on them all.

                      What he misses here is that while Dark Ages have caused much prior knowledge to pass from general use, it rarely disappeared altogether. Rather it became localised. And because of this it became vulnerable to damage. The Masters might meet untimely ends, the libraries burn.

                      Digitisation has changed this equation forever, now unlimited and perfect copies of knowledge are essentially so low in cost as to be essentially free, and can be cheaply distributed to all locations. Distributed knowledge is much harder to corrupt.

                      While it is true that the current system depends on a perilously small number of critical technical nexi, this is a result of capitalism not technology. And ultimately this is what a Dark Age is; a political failure not a technical or even resource one.

                      My other comment is that one should not underestimate nor demean the nature of the transformation human society has seen in the past 200 years. Indeed since about the 1840’s human knowledge has exploded more than exponentially. According to one study I saw years back (pre-Internet sorry no linky) the change from about the middle of that decade was more in the nature of a discontinuity than any normal growth law.

                      So while I admire and respect Greer’s expositions on the ancient laws of growth and decline, I do still think he has not fully grasped the entirely new world in which they now operate. The Scientific Method is the single most potent tool humans have ever devised for dealing with the material realms, and in a world competing for declining material resources it’s advantages are only sharpened and enhanced.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 April 2016 at 1:57 am

                      Greer is an expert in fraternal orders, the kind which were fundamental in preserving human knowledge so that it survived the dark ages. So in my view he gets that part of it.

                      As for the digitally distributed information age in a post carbon era with the trappings of the surveillance and security state. That’s a whole discussion in itself. I’m pretty sure every MS system and Android system can be kill switched at will, for instance. Certainly during Occupy the cops were shown to have killed internet and cell phone access at will.

                      New dynamics for a new age.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      26 April 2016 at 2:11 am

                      If we are lucky, I think that highly self-maintainable highly robust 1950s and 1960s style technology will be back in fashion.

                      1950s/60s technology wasn’t even remotely sustainable. It all needed that high density fossil fuel.

                      So, no, we won’t be going back to that.

                      Mainly because we will hit an era where all the new stuff will eventually break and not be fixable/replaceable with parts from South Korea or Norway from high tech factories which are no longer running let alone accepting foreign orders.

                      And what’s going to stop a silicon processing plant and fabrication plant connected to the Hoover Damn, or the Three Gorges Damn or all of the dams on the Clyde? Loss of fossil fuels? They DON’T FUCKEN NEED THEM.

                      Point being, there have been many times in history where the ‘useful knowledge’ of a civilisation disappeared from common circulation.

                      Yep, back when only a few people knew how to read and guarded that ability jealously. Now most people can read and books on basic and advanced knowledge are everywhere. As well as those pesky, highly efficient memory storage devices known as computers and the internet.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 April 2016 at 10:22 am

                      Hey DTB.

                      Sorry to break your nice vision of a high tech comfy future.

                      Don’t get angry at me because I am carrying the message.

                      From what you have been saying, I doubt you’ve ever worked in a very high tech manufacturing environment before, like I have. Instead, all your knowledge of this sphere is from books and the internet.

                      1950s/60s technology wasn’t even remotely sustainable. It all needed that high density fossil fuel.

                      So, no, we won’t be going back to that.

                      Was energy use in NZ per capita – both fossil fuel and electrical – higher or lower than today in NZ?

                      Now I don’t have the stats to hand but I am guessing that it was much much lower.

                      So more sustainable.

                      BTW, DTB electric trams were a big thing in many NZ cities in the 50’s.

                      Now that’s what I am talking about. What are you talking about? Oh yeah driverless Google electric car-type shite. Good luck mate, ain’t happening.

                      No one can afford it, the technology is too complex to maintain and fossil fuel energy requirements too high in a degrading economic and energy environment.

                      How about an original Mini Cooper, how much steel and aluminium did it require to put one of those together compared to a modern model? The answer is – a small fraction. Hence again, far less energy required.

            • McFlock 1.1.1.1.1.3
              25 April 2016 at 3:05 pm

              gotta say, there are heat pumps and then there are heat pumps. Some get bloody expensive to run when the temperature gets down to the single digits, and their efficiency tends to encourage people to heat the whole house rather than one room. The biggest bills I’ve seen for power came from north islanders who came down south and thought heat pumps were cheap to run 24/7.

              So yeah, if you have a modern pump already installed and run it reasonably and aren’t in Ophir or wherever, heat pumps are the boss. Otherwise you’re down to the traditional fire/burner or panel heaters, especially if hoar frost snapping power lines might be an issue.

              • RedLogix …
                25 April 2016 at 6:09 pm

                there are heat pumps and then there are heat pumps.

                Absolutely correct on that point. Look carefully for makes and models that specify in exact detail how well they will perform down to -5degC at least.

                The ones to watch out for are the types that were primarily designed as air conditioners. Their design is optimised for a higher temperature range. It’s neither especially easy nor cheap to build a heat pump that works really well both heating and cooling over the range -10 to 40 deg C.

                Find reliable advice and you get what you pay for.

      • Gangnam Style 1.1.2
        25 April 2016 at 10:59 am

        Gareth Morgan said on telly the other day he owned 3-4 houses & didn’t tenant them out coz he didn’t want anyone messing the carpets. Why work for a living when your house earns more than median wage.

        • Rocco Siffredi 1.1.2.1
          25 April 2016 at 8:41 pm

          And you believed that? A carpet for a typical 3 bed house is $7k, rent for a typical 3 bed in auckland is $26k pa.

          Do you really think Morgan doesn’t collect the $100k every year just because of the carpet?

          • Colonial Viper 1.1.2.1.1
            25 April 2016 at 8:55 pm

            When you are wealthy enough you can run your life to suit yourself. And if a quarter million a year in capital gains without having to deal with pain in the arse tennants is good enough for Morgan, why not.

          • RedLogix 1.1.2.1.2
            26 April 2016 at 12:34 am

            Gareth Morgan is making a 100% correct observation. He most likely has no mortgage nor outgoings beyond rates and insurance on these houses. Tenants would improve the cash flow, but he would only have to pay income tax on that.

            Every new tenant brings an unknown risk with them, well beyond a few manky carpets. And an annual rent of only $26k is less than 3% of the capital value. Why put nearly a nearly $1m asset at risk for that paltry sum? Consider the impact of a P-lab operation.

            Because while the vast majority of tenants are indeed good people … sadly there are enough absolute ratbags out there to make a 3% return just not worthwhile. Better to leave it empty and let stupid government policy do your work for you via capital gains.

            Of course Morgan is only stating a truth few other people have the balls to state out loud.

      • save NZ 1.1.3
        25 April 2016 at 1:33 pm

        Bill, the difference is in Germany the people coming in are Refugees with very little money and keen and grateful to get somewhere safe. In addition Germany is one of the worlds strongest economies and they have a lot of quality housing and the EU to bail them out.

        In NZ, we are a banana republic, our building materials cost 50% more than OZ, we sell 225million of water rights for $500, and selling the golden goose. But hey, according to John Key and the neolibs, don’t worry, someone on NZ wages can easily compete against the Billionaires at auction and the people who just got $200k dowry to invest with. Yep, keep going with that little fantasy about the free market.

        Now Aucklander’s are being displaced, and now displacing Kiwis in the provinces, probably hurting JK in the polls.

        • Bill 1.1.3.1
          25 April 2016 at 3:24 pm

          To be fair, i think the crucial difference is that Germany is staring down the barrel of negative population growth. NZ has a fairly high positive population growth. But still…

          • Sabine 1.1.3.1.1
            25 April 2016 at 7:50 pm

            there are 82 million German, and they have looked at the barrel of negative population growth for a while now, and are still one of the most populated places in Europe. In saying that, Germany is also in the middle of Europe and is not too worried about running out of people, especially because of Europe.

            The taking up of refugees is something that Germany does a. cause they are Germans, and with that particular history of the Germans it is not easy to refuse some but not others, b. it is better for society to not pretend shit is not happening in certain parts of the world – and again i think this is due to the history of the Germans.

            In saying that, there is a good sized part of the population that would stop migrants to Germany full stop or maybe adopt the rules and regulations of Switzerland.

            • save NZ 1.1.3.1.1.1
              25 April 2016 at 8:06 pm

              Germany also has public transport unlike NZ.

              Germany are taking in refugees for humanitarian reasons, not like in NZ government bringing in 10 mill + investors no questions asked (and if you want to be in an offshore trust paying no tax even better) to displace your own people, so that you have some sort of financial social cleansing out of the cities that among other aims, provides you with more votes.

              NZ don’t take refugees in for humanitarian reasons. It is against the neolib agenda to help others.

              We just help create refugees by helping others bomb the crap out of places so they might buy some milk powder (or the farm) at a later date.

              Can’t see Merkel putting local Germans out of their ‘state houses’ to sell to billionaires and having wages so low, that it takes up your entire average wage to buy a house.

          • Colonial Viper 1.1.3.1.2
            25 April 2016 at 8:59 pm

            NZ’s “fairly high positive population growth” is immigration driven. The birthrate in NZ is borderline insufficient to maintain the population by itself.

            Statistics NZ says the country’s total fertility rate – the number of babies a woman will have in her lifetime if current age-specific fertility rates stay the same throughout her life – fell from 2.01 in 2013 to 1.92 last year, the lowest since 2002.

            A fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman is required to maintain the population, allowing for infant mortality…

            Apart from these two blips, New Zealand’s fertility rate has been below replacement level for most of the time since the late 1970s, averaging just 2.03 births per woman over the past 30 years.

            http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11403961

    • Chooky 1.2
      25 April 2016 at 10:02 am

      +100 save NZ…not hard to see where the housing crisis for New Zealanders is coming from

      …”last year there were 67,000 migrants coming into NZ under the National immigration policy (more than migrants than births across the entire country) and 60% settled in Auckland.

      John Key’s “own “gut instinct” was that Chinese buyers in the Auckland market were New Zealand-based.”

    • rod 1.3
      25 April 2016 at 5:20 pm

      Great stuff Save NZ, Keep up your good work.

      + 100

  2. Ffloyd 2
    25 April 2016 at 8:48 am

    He’s waiting for *data* that will validate his *gut instinct* Someone, somewhere, sometime will come up with the RIGHT data.

  3. dv 3
    25 April 2016 at 8:57 am

    John Key says the Government is waiting for better data on whether there is a problem with overseas buyers purchasing houses…’

    How long have the NATs been in power.
    How come they haven’t got the data?

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1
      25 April 2016 at 9:44 am

      How long have the NATs been in power.

      Long enough but Labour should have put something in place to register ownership nationality and place of residence back in the early 2000s really. They probably didn’t see the need due to a booming economy. It’s amazing what happens when the SHTF and people suddenly realise that there are problems that we need to identify and correct (or, in National’s case, try to deny that there’s a problem).

      How come they haven’t got the data?

      They put in place the need for foreign investors to pay tax last year. It’s going to take awhile to collect and collate that data.

      • Muttonbird 3.1.1
        25 April 2016 at 10:01 am

        They began to collect data because Phil Twyford placed enough pressure on them to do so. Phil Twyford risked a lot of political capital in asking for the data. Hopefully young Kiwis will benefit from his bravery.

        This is yet another example of Labour governing from opposition.

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1
          25 April 2016 at 10:29 am

          Yep, agreed. That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t have been done sooner.

      • dv 3.1.2
        25 April 2016 at 10:04 am

        They should have a yrs data now then, which will at least give an indication.

        HA
        SHTF management!!!!

      • Pat 3.1.3
        25 April 2016 at 10:37 am

        “It’s going to take awhile to collect and collate that data.”

        They knew full well the outcome but if you deliberately don’t measure then those stats cannot be used against you….they’ll drag this out as long as possible, then say “well it appears unbridled immigration and open slather on access appear to have created a bubble….who could’ve known?!!!”….might even swing them another term

    • AmaKiwi 3.2
      25 April 2016 at 8:46 pm

      “John Key says the Government is waiting for better data”

      The Nats act on ideology, not data.

  4. save NZ 4
    25 April 2016 at 9:10 am

    From Granny Herald, just replace Grandmother with ‘Social welfare minister’ and “grandparents or either parents’ home ” with food banks to get our modern social welfare system.

    “24yo looking for her third property”

    “Her grandmother taught her how to budget and she had a unique way of deciding what her necessities were.

    “First you work out what it costs for all your needs – a place to live, power and water,” Mrs Verheul said.

    “Notice that I didn’t put food? This is the most variable need we have as people and it always comes into my budget second to savings. Once you have calculated your basic needs, you decide how much you ideally want or need to save.

    Then what ever is left over after that is left for food. Cereal bread and milk doesn’t cost the world, and neither does a can of tuna or a bag of rice.”

    As a student, she got her weekly food bill down to $40.

    “I mentally had to tell myself that food is just fuel for your body, cause of course you get sick of eating the same things over and over.”

    When she wanted a “a decent feed” she would grandparents or either parents’ home for dinner.”

    • Sabine 4.1
      25 April 2016 at 9:48 am

      is property one or two paid for? If not then the headline should be

      “24 year old looking at signing up third mortgage”

      hopes to all that is holy that she never looses her job or falls ill.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.2
      25 April 2016 at 9:58 am

      24 yo trained into being a sociopath by our dysfunctional society.

      • Sabine 4.2.1
        25 April 2016 at 10:28 am

        aside from that it still deserves pointing out that all these ‘property heroes and heroines’ don’t own anything at all. She owns a thousand or two of mortgage payments per week, which she would find hard to finance if she or her hubby would have an issue such as a job loss or an illness.

        I would like to see a follow up interview in four years time, and I would also then like to hear the opinion of the husband.

        It would be interesting to see how that went for them as a couple. I have worked for a girl very much like her a few years ago. The husband lasted 3 years and quit. He eventually felt like his ‘wife’ was his boss and quit. Funny that guy was an electrician.

      • North 4.2.2
        25 April 2016 at 10:32 am

        I remember the backlash when John-Key-Suck-Sheet-Herald went all gaga over the young guy on the way to a rental property empire starting with a $200K parental gift.

        Undeterred the Suck-Sheet’s broken a threshhold in social malice…….”Cereal bread and milk doesn’t cost the world, and neither does a can of tuna or a bag of rice.”

        It’s like “Listen up folks…….beyond that you’re a wastrel !”

        • save NZ 4.2.2.1
          25 April 2016 at 1:42 pm

          @North – forgot to mention – the tuna probably made from slave labour… and tuna fishing is so abhorrent it should be banned.

          But aside from that. What the F is going on. People landed on the moon in 1969, what has happened to society when in the 21st century we have fishing slaves, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11627739, youth who feel they have to give up food to get shelter in NZ and people in the .1% suffering from affluenza and have so much money ,they buy gold shower curtains and live a life of fear someone will try to take their money or be put in jail.

          What a fucked up society we live in!!

          We need radical change in attitude and governments!! World wide!!!

    • Acting up 4.3
      25 April 2016 at 10:30 am

      What a miserable existence!

      • North 4.3.1
        25 April 2016 at 10:36 am

        I pity the hubby-to-be when the pre-nup’s jammed under his nose. It’ll be a bastard !

  5. maui 5
    25 April 2016 at 9:12 am

    Its on the feeds section on the right hand side, but its worth repeating for Anzac Day:
    http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-lest-we-forget

  6. Chooky 6
    25 April 2016 at 10:07 am

    ‘McAfee: If FBI gets backdoor to people’s phones, US society will collapse’

    https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/340570-digital-war-information-fight/

    They said that the war never changes – but what if it does?

    The introduction of digital technologies, the cyberspace of the World Wide Web has introduced new battlefields. Law enforcement, drug trade, political fights and terrorism have gone online. The fight for information and access to the hidden data is raging on, both in the legal sphere, with authorities trying to tighten the grip on the digital flow, and international, with army-like hacker groups searching for the cracks in the cyber defense of nations.

    How far will this fight go? Who has the upper hand?

    And can battles in virtual reality claim real lives? We ask the cyber-expert extraordinaire – John McAfee is on Sophie&Co today.

  7. Chooky 7
    25 April 2016 at 10:19 am

    Fracking under TPPA?

    ‘People should be terrified fracking is spreading’ – Australian MP who set river on fire to RT’

    https://www.rt.com/news/340752-australian-mp-river-fracking/

    “Fracking should be banned as a “global threat” as it causes methane leaks contaminating water in the communities near gas wells, says an Australian MP who literally set a river ablaze to draw attention to the adverse effects of the practice…

  8. b waghorn 8
    25 April 2016 at 11:05 am

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/302268/overworked-farmers-awarded-$20k-by-era
    Excellent , about time more of these “pretty hopeless” employers were named and shamed.

    • Draco T Bastard 8.1
      25 April 2016 at 11:13 am

      The company was ordered to collectively pay Mr Reiher and Ms Morgan $21,907.42 in unpaid wages and compensation and was criticised for repeat offending.

      A business, when found to be breaking the law, needs to be nationalised with the ex-owners continuing to hold the debt and for those owners not to be allowed to own or run a business for a few years.

      Really, time to get as hard on business crime as all the others.

      • North 8.1.1
        25 April 2016 at 9:12 pm

        Hear hear, just like the law already provides for disqualification from holding directorships and engaging stewardship of business entities. Even beyond the usual three year duration of bankruptcy.

  9. greywarshark 9
    25 April 2016 at 12:00 pm

    There’s been comment on housing and share living lately so probably this Radionz piece has been put up but it won’t hurt to repeat it and repeat it….

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/audio/201798190/communal-living-arrangements
    Shared living
    Just about everyone will have had some experience of sharing a house with flatmates. Maybe when you first leave home, at university, or when you get your first job.

    But the changing dynamics of rising rent and property prices, home ownership rates, and a more mobile workforce mean that more people are sharing living spaces, and doing it for longer. So in the US the number of 18 to 35 year olds living as roommates has almost doubled over the past 30 years.
    this is leading to opportunities for people trying to make a business out of offering flexible shared housing.

    Jana Kasperkevic has been taking a closer look at some of the communal living- or co-living- businesses in the market and how they work.

    Co-living examples: Open Door, Common. WeLive
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201798190

    • Bill 9.1
      25 April 2016 at 12:41 pm

      Get together with some people on more or less ‘the same page’ as yourself. Set up a ltd company (not a trust – that’s all a bit stupid). Find a suitable property (old school?). Buy it. (Put a deposit down)

      Have good procedures for acceptance and rejection of tenants. All tenants are also company shareholders during the time they reside in the property. All tenants essentially pay rent to themselves (to the company) and that pays down the mortgage.

      The catch is to create an income stream in situ that means no-one has to engage with the job market.

      Once/if that’s achieved, and people sensibly agree to move beyond the scenario of individual income, then the money they help earn becomes subject to company tax. There is no PAYE (nothing is being earned), also meaning no student loan repayments 🙂

      Then peeps can get back down to exploring the possibilities of community – free from the divisive dynamics that inevitably flow from people competing with one another in order to secure individual incomes.

      Easily and legally do-able in NZ. And yet….

    • Graeme 9.2
      25 April 2016 at 4:48 pm

      Yeah, was listening to that on Saturday. Thought it very similar to what’s been happening in the retirement market, where corporates / public companies have been taking over retirement homes and villages from the previous Ma & Pa operators and then moving the industry off into another level. This is doing the same thing to the boarding houses that used to be around up until the 70s.

      The US examples seem to be reasonably up market, a lot like the current crop of retirement villages. Got to remember that these people are in to turn a profit, hopefully a good one.

      There was something similar built down here last cycle but it went tits up pretty quickly, undercapitalised. Looks like the second mouse might have got the cheese though. There’s also the Chalets in Cromwell, ex MOW single mens camp, that’s still going strong but in private ownership. There’s a very strong market for market for that sort of accomodation around Queenstown from people who have come into the district for work and/or lifestyle. There’s talk of some big rental and co-living developments in the old Gorge Road industrial area and old High School with a proposed high density residential zoning in the new District Plan. A couple of the big employers are taking a lead here, NZSki has taken most or all of the Chalets this winter for skifield staff and are looking at permanent arrangements. Weather they do it themselves or sub it out to a specialist provider to be determined.

      We’ve got a Housing Trust doing social housing on a co or captive ownership model, they are looking at rental models now.

      Someone also mentioned Council involvement, which brought a sharp intake of breath from some of “small government” members of our community.

    • millsy 9.3
      25 April 2016 at 7:30 pm

      Communual living arrangements are all good, but people still need their own space.

      • Colonial Viper 9.3.1
        25 April 2016 at 10:02 pm

        I don’t disagree with you. But just a note that is a luxury concept for billions around the world in places like China, India and Africa.

  10. greywarshark 10
    25 April 2016 at 1:26 pm

    Looking at the latest agricultural invasion outrage – velvet leaf. Got away because tainted seed was apparently deliberately bought from a contaminated area probably because it was cheap enough to make a big profit and still sell it to farmers at a discount with a proviso that it was second grade or somesuch.

    Quote from Robert Guyton:

    Hence the huge, sustained and very expensive efforts to seek and destroy the plants. Not much comment in the media about how the situation arose, why the decision was made to import from an infected area and why the seed was not “clean”.

    It’s a major botch-up by MPI, I reckon and a very expensive one. Our own regional council is redirecting much of its energies away from its core functions into this search and while we are assured that MPI will pay back what we’ve had to spend, Environment Southland is losing valuable time in the fight to protect the waters of Southland from those other threats that have long been identified.

    That last point was my bold. One, this is an expense that someone has to wear, government or local govt, for an unprincipled business deal definitely not an inadvertent one from some idiot that doesn’t know shit from clay. And, secondly, we are stamping out bush fires but not successfully. There are huge problems trying to remediate substantial ongoing problems from last decades botch ups and foul practices. This is additional. We have huge problems looming to deal with known future climate change effects that are happening, and already observable. WTF is the awareness and action in NZ? Do we have to storm government, storm the bastille to get responsible government and action!!@!

    Here is the link to take you back to the original comments.
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-24042016/#comment-1164612
    edited

  11. Penny Bright 11
    25 April 2016 at 1:39 pm

    More historical background on Major General Smedley Butler – seen this?

    //www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/02/wall-streets-failed-1934-coup/
    DECEMBER 2, 2011
    Wall Street’s Failed 1934 Coup
    by MICHAEL DONNELLY

    “In the last few weeks of the committee’s official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country…There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

    – Report of the McCormack-Dickstein Committee

    A Patriot, not the Traitor they wanted

    You know the coup plot they teach all young Americans about in 10th Grade History class? Oh yeah…

    In November 1934, famed double Medal of Honor winner Marine Gen. Smedley Butler gave secret testimony before the McCormack-Dickstein committee – a precursor to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In it, Butler told of a plot headed by a group of wealthy businessmen (The American Liberty League) to establish a fascist dictatorship in the United States, complete with concentration camps for “Jews and other undesirables.”
    …….

    ________

    Penny Bright
    2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.

  12. weka 12
    25 April 2016 at 9:32 pm

    is it just me or is the standard loading very slowly in the past week?

    • Bill 12.1
      25 April 2016 at 9:51 pm

      No, it’s not just you experiencing slow loading.

    • Incognito 12.2
      25 April 2016 at 10:04 pm

      Very slow indeed and OM often appears as an empty page (i.e. nothing else displayed) with a little red flag in the URL.

      • CoroDale 12.2.1
        26 April 2016 at 6:47 am

        Slow loading n broken links usual means comments are on target, so good work team. Govts world-wide are looking like fish-food at the moment. Can media be civilised long enough to allow fair elections? The damage seems too deep – back to regional govt where possible. Fingers crossed that China will run our bankrupt Reserve Bank, with sympathy. Till we’re ready at the ground level, ready to get things back in rhythm, for the people.

    • whispering kate 12.3
      26 April 2016 at 8:16 am

      It isn’t just you Weka, I am also experiencing slow loading. We also had the same problem with our names disappearing from our address area – that has been fixed though.

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  • Balancing External Security and the Economy

    New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    18 hours ago
  • Weekly Climate Wrap: The unravelling of the offsets

    The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    22 hours ago
  • What makes us tick

    This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    23 hours ago
  • Foreshore and seabed 2.0

    In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    1 day ago
  • Gordon Campbell on the Royal Commission report into abuse in care

    Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    1 day ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Friday, July 26

    TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Weekly Roundup 26-July-2024

    Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    1 day ago
  • God what a relief

    1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 day ago
  • Trust In Me

    Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • The Hoon around the week to July 26

    TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Care report released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Friday, July 26

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced $802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Radical law changes needed to build road

    The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    1 day ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #30 2024

    Open access notables Could an extremely cold central European winter such as 1963 happen again despite climate change?, Sippel et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics: Here, we first show based on multiple attribution methods that a winter of similar circulation conditions to 1963 would still lead to an extreme seasonal ...
    Skeptical Science
    2 days ago
  • First they came for the Māori

    Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    2 days ago
  • Join us for the weekly Hoon on YouTube Live

    Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Will the real PM Luxon please stand up?

    Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    2 days ago
  • Will debt reduction trump abuse in care redress?

    Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Care report in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Olywhites and Time Bandits

    About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Why were the 1930s so hot in North America?

    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson Those who’ve trawled social media during heat waves have likely encountered a tidbit frequently used to brush aside human-caused climate change: Many U.S. states and cities had their single hottest temperature on record during the 1930s, setting incredible heat marks ...
    Skeptical Science
    2 days ago
  • Throwback Thursday – Thinking about Expressways

    Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    2 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Thursday, July 25

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • The Possum: Demon or Friend?

    Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    2 days ago
  • Not a story

    Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Thursday, July 25

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry published its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • A tougher line on “proactive release”?

    The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 days ago
  • 'Let's build a motorway costing $100 million per km, before emissions costs'

    TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Lester's Prescription – Positive Bleeding.

    I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago
  • Casey Costello gaslights Labour in the House

    Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone icon on the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    3 days ago
  • Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?

    This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Headline from 2021 The Texas grid, run by ERCOT, has had a rough few years. In 2021, winter storm Uri blacked out much of the state for several days. About a week ago, Hurricane Beryl knocked out ...
    Skeptical Science
    3 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on a textbook case of spending waste by the Luxon government

    Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    3 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Wednesday, July 24

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • LXR Takaanini

    As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    3 days ago
  • Four kilograms of pain

    Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Wednesday, July 24

    TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive: Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Luxon gets caught out

    NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    3 days ago
  • A worrying sign

    Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Are we fine with 47.9% home-ownership by 2048?

    Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloitte report for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Let's Win This

    You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago
  • Waimahara: The Singing Spirit of Water

    There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
    Greater AucklandBy Connor Sharp
    4 days ago
  • A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked

    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
    Skeptical Science
    4 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Tuesday, July 23

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’s Oliver LewisScoop: Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Tuesday, July 23

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announced the Board of Te Whatu Ora- Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • HealthNZ and Luxon at cross purposes over budget blowout

    Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    4 days ago
  • 2500-3000 more healthcare staff expected to be fired, as Shane Reti blames Labour for a budget defic...

    Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    4 days ago
  • Might Kamala Harris be about to get a 'stardust' moment like Jacinda Ardern?

    As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
    PunditBy Tim Watkin
    5 days ago
  • Solutions Interview: Steven Hail on MMT & ecological economics

    TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
    The KakaBy Steven Hail
    5 days ago
  • Reported back

    The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Vandrad the Viking, Christopher Coombes, and Literary Archaeology

    Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell On The Biden Withdrawal

    History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    5 days ago
  • Joe Biden's withdrawal puts the spotlight back on Kamala and the USA's complicated relatio...

    This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    5 days ago
  • Why we have to challenge our national fiscal assumptions

    A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Existential Crisis and Damaged Brains

    What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • A speed limit is not a target, and yet…

    This is a guest post from longtime supporter Mr Plod, whose previous contributions include a proposal that Hamilton become New Zealand’s capital city, and that we should switch which side of the road we drive on. A recent Newsroom article, “Back to school for the Govt’s new speed limit policy“, ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    5 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Monday, July 22

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Monday, July 22

    TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

    A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
    Skeptical Science
    6 days ago
  • I'd like to share what I did this weekend

    This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    6 days ago
  • For the children – Why mere sentiment can be a misleading force in our lives, and lead to unex...

    National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Order image, ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    6 days ago
  • A friend in uncertain times

    Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago
  • The Chaotic World of Male Diet Influencers

    Hi,We’ll get to the horrific world of male diet influencers (AKA Beefy Boys) shortly, but first you will be glad to know that since I sent out the Webworm explaining why the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was not a false flag operation, I’ve heard from a load of people ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • It's Starting To Look A Lot Like… Y2K

    Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • Bernard’s Saturday Soliloquy for the week to July 20

    Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Pharmac Director, Climate Change Commissioner, Health NZ Directors – The latest to quit this m...

    Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    1 week ago
  • Flooding Housing Policy

    The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    1 week ago
  • A Voyage Among the Vandals: Accepted (Again!)

    As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā's Chorus for Friday, July 19

    An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Friday, July 19

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Weekly Roundup 19-July-2024

    Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    1 week ago
  • Weekly Climate Wrap: A market-led plan for failure

    TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Tobacco First

    Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • Trump’s Adopted Son.

    Waiting In The Wings: For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
    Bowalley Road
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Friday, July 19

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSA announced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • The Hoon around the week to July 19

    TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #29 2024

    Open access notables Improving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society: To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
    Skeptical Science
    1 week ago

  • Joint statement from the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand

    Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue.  We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    17 hours ago
  • AG reminds institutions of legal obligations

    Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    20 hours ago
  • More young people learning about digital safety

    Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views.  “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    20 hours ago
  • Speech to the Conference for General Practice 2024

    Tēnā tātou katoa,  Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    22 hours ago
  • Employers and payroll providers ready for tax changes

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