Open mike 29/01/2020

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, January 29th, 2020 - 35 comments
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35 comments on “Open mike 29/01/2020 ”

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  1. Sacha 1
    29 January 2020 at 9:49 am

    Business cheerleaders show continued poverty of vision by gagging for infrastructure spending to be siphoned into more roads: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12303875

    • Graeme 1.1
      29 January 2020 at 10:10 am

      Love the way Nats are calling for more work on the roads, then grizzling about the disruption when said work takes place.

    • weka 1.2
      29 January 2020 at 10:31 am

      Less green light and more muddy brown one.

      Eyes glazing over at the list of North Island projects.

      • Sacha 1.2.1
        29 January 2020 at 11:48 am

        Nearly two thirds of the projected extra population for the next few decades is in Auckland alone. If funding is less than than proportion it is actually short-changing the north.

        • weka 1.2.1.1
          29 January 2020 at 11:55 am

          This actually looks really different from the South Island, and even more different if we start from the land bases/nature being the ground from which everything else arises.

          Cut the cable and all that 😉

          • weka 1.2.1.1.1
            29 January 2020 at 11:56 am

            besides there were no SI projects in the list at all as far as I could see (I did just scan down though).

  2. Kevin 2
    29 January 2020 at 9:59 am

    They just can't handle the truth.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/119109025/ireland-pm-taunts-small-country-britain-over-looming-brexit-trade-talks

    "David Jones, the former Brexit minister, said: "He is saying that for a domestic audience, because he has an election coming up, but the fact is that Ireland shares far more with Britain than it does with continental Europe. Rather than trying to provoke its most important trading partner, it would do well to work in harmony with it."

    Same old England. Just like a schoolyard bully.

  3. Adrian Thornton 3
    29 January 2020 at 10:08 am

    US Liberal madness over Trump and refusal to own their own many failings at any cost takes it's natural course…ever downward, spiraling further and further to the right as they descend.

    " At the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, chief Democratic prosecutor Adam Schiff has claimed that the US is arming Ukraine "so that we can fight Russia over there so we don’t have to fight Russia here" and called Russia a "wounded, dangerous animal." Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, says that Schiff's rhetoric is "ignorant and debased."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th3PuyqYqQU

    • RedLogix 3.1
      29 January 2020 at 10:39 am

      Sighs yes. In simple terms no-one is asking why the USA was sending arms to the Urkraine in the first place. The whole damn thing was a folly from the outset.

      • Adrian Thornton 3.1.1
        29 January 2020 at 3:10 pm

        Sadly, as far as I know the only person in US MSM who have dug a bit into that is Tucker Carlson FFS, but then we can't really point any fingers at US media from here, take this last week for instance, the NZ public have been informed with all the information that is available on the death of Kobe Bryant, but if those same news sources where your only feed of information, those same NZ citizens will know almost nothing about the protests in France and India…RNZ included.

        Not disseminating information is the same as spreading fake information IMO.

  4. Anne 4
    29 January 2020 at 10:17 am

    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/content/tvnz/onenews/story/2020/01/29/simon-bridges.html

    Yeah its Soimon bleating on about the Coronavirus again.

    He reckons the government is still dragging its feet and there are 50 NZers in Wuhan desperate to get out and the government is way behind on this and all the other countries are working with each other and NZ is doing almost nothing and yes, he knows its complicated but how come Australia, the US and Japan are way ahead of NZ and look… our people at the embassy in Beijing are still on holiday so none of the people can get to talk to anyone blah blah blah………

    Jacinda Ardern answered every one of his bleatings more than satisfactorily at her Press Conference yesterday. He is misconstruing and tell blatant fibs.

    1) The US has an embassy or consulate in Wuhan and is working on getting it's staff out. That is normal international practice. I think Japan has too.

    2) The region is in military lock-down so outside of consulate staff, getting ordinary citizens out is horrendously difficult.

    3) NZ is working with Australia on hopefully a joint mission whereby the citizens of both countries can be brought out by way of a charter flight or the Aussie Defence Force.

    4) The NZ Embassy in Beijing has been staffed from early January working on the crisis but up until today they were not open for people to visit the premises.

    This is the kind of scaremongering and misinformation that I was referring to here the other day. It is going to get a lot worse from now on and the government ignore it at their peril.

    Of course the MSM has a major role to play but, by and large, we know they are not going to play it.

    • Graeme 4.1
      29 January 2020 at 12:55 pm

      Yesterday I got to watch a normally tribal Nat farmer go off on an extended rant over that, starting from simon's total lack of understanding of quarantine procedures and disease control through to inconsistent messaging. Conclusion, he thought simon was a total fuck-wit, not PM material and National had a problem.

      It's had been coming since the JLR thing popped out, but saying the government should go in and pluck 50 people out of a disease hot zone was the straw that broke the stags back.

    • Poission 4.2
      29 January 2020 at 2:27 pm

      3) NZ is working with Australia on hopefully a joint mission whereby the citizens of both countries can be brought out by way of a charter flight or the Aussie Defence Force.

      And they will be interned on christmas island.The irony.

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/government-to-evacuate-australians-from-hubei/11909090

      • Anne 4.2.1
        29 January 2020 at 4:37 pm

        Christmas Island reacts to announcement:

        The repatriation announcement prompted surprise on Christmas Island, where locals said they had not been told of the plans before the announcement.

        Christmas Island Tourism Association chairwoman Lisa Preston said the island was well equipped to deal with an influx of people, but it would be important to ensure strict protocols were in place to protect residents.

        "They will be well looked after here and it will be nice for Christmas Island to play a nice role for a change," she said.

        "It's fair enough to say that people will be quarantined away from the community but you still have staff coming and going from the facility and mingling with the locals.

        "So, I'm hoping there are some really good protocols put in place and that really shouldn't be much of a risk to the community at all."

        Owner of the luxury hotel Swell Lodge, Chris Bray, said he was pleased to see the quarantine facility being put to use.

        "It would be kind of great to actually help Australians at risk instead of it just sitting out there wasting taxpayers' money," he said.

        "It is a surprise of course, but it does make sense. People will just be here for two weeks, give or take."

        Reckon the evacuees will be more than happy with that.

  5. millsy 5
    29 January 2020 at 10:37 am

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=12303052

    The new, albeit acting, retirement commissioner says that raising the pension age to 67 is a bad idea after all, thank goodness.

    Earlier this month, one of field techs at company I worked for died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. He was 63, and would have been able to go on then pension in 18 months. In the last year, on an average night, he would be attending call-outs over an area stretching from Katikati over to Te Kaha on the east cape and even down to Rotorua in some cases. I strongly believe that it was this workload that lead to his death. I would have loved for all those technocrats to turn up at his funeral and try and justify why he should be working until 67 so they can get tax cuts.

  6. Jimmy 6
    29 January 2020 at 11:23 am

    Don't think it was a good idea for this lady to go to Stuff (if indeed it was her that did). Two sides to every story, but I reckon she will now struggle to get another rental property if the comments are anything to go by.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119109756/tenant-landlords-fight-over-windowless-bedrooms-in-christchurch-flat#comments

  7. adam 7
    29 January 2020 at 11:49 am

    Just more bullshit from the corporate democrats – can they get anymore slimy?

    It's the same people who lost to trump, doing their dirty politics all over again.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/480174-sanders-allies-in-new-uproar-over-dnc-convention-appointments

    Mind you Bernie must be doing somthing right, even the far right are worried – so they will be running attack adds against him in Iowa.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/480338-conservative-group-to-run-ads-against-sanders-in-iowa

    • mosa 7.1
      29 January 2020 at 2:14 pm

      Yes this was an interesting take on that very point regarding the DNC.

      Bernie is not under threat from the Republicans….yet but by the very party he is campaigning for too secure the nomination.

  8. mosa 8
    29 January 2020 at 12:09 pm

    Here is one of Bernies latest ad campaigns that is creating a lot of feedback.



    • Adrian Thornton 8.1
      29 January 2020 at 2:15 pm

      Bernie 2020!!

      Turn Labour Left!

      • Andre 8.1.1
        29 January 2020 at 2:16 pm

        Because it worked so well for UK Labour!

        • The Al1en 8.1.1.1
          29 January 2020 at 2:36 pm

          Indeed. But that's an idiotic slogan, turn labour left, that could only ever work out one way – against them. Given labour are polling at 40% and national 40 to 45% where are those extra left votes coming from? Nzfist or the greens? Cause more socialism won’t gain from the blues, the missing voters are a myth who could easily vote green already, maybe grabbing a couple of points off the one coalition partner left of centre and end up on the opposition benches. Dopey logic.

        • adam 8.1.1.2
          29 January 2020 at 4:21 pm

          Love the right wing trolling

  11. You_Fool 11
    29 January 2020 at 3:10 pm

    Four people charged over donations to National Party

    Currently name suppression of the accused, but this could get fun…. maybe the seedy underbelly of the National Party gets exposed?

  12. Muttonbird 12
    29 January 2020 at 3:12 pm

    Four to be charged charged by the SFO in relation to the National Party donations scandal.

    What's the bet none are National MPs or even anyone in the National Party?

    The SFO will have elements within it so reluctant to charge current Nats that the whole operation will have been cleansed of National Party involvement as if the National Party themselves are the victims.

    Bridges will escape and be able to manufacture some distance between himself and those charged. The media will help him on this of course.

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/01/serious-fraud-office-files-criminal-charges-against-four-in-national-party-donation-probe.html

    • roblogic 12.1
      29 January 2020 at 3:33 pm

      However, JLR knows all the Nats dirty tricks, the SFO doesn’t mess around with this stuff

    • Muttonbird 12.2
      29 January 2020 at 3:35 pm

      The Nats say neither Bridges nor the National Party itself have been charged.

      It'll be 4 Chinese blokes or Jami Lee Ross and 3 Chinese blokes.

      Bridges will claim vindication and victim status.

    • Peter 12.3
      29 January 2020 at 3:38 pm

      Wow, it looks like the legendary much maligned, 'junior staffers' are in for a going over!

      Or maybe their second cousins twice removed whom they only met at a family do at Maraetai that time. The random time they turned up only because their mate was dropping off a copy of Hilaire Belloc’s Matilda to someone who lived next door.

    • Stunned Mullet 12.4
      29 January 2020 at 3:45 pm

      Interesting timing.

  13. Andre 13
    29 January 2020 at 3:27 pm

    Genghis Don probably knows that it's now too late to try to win over any of the voters that are part of his rock-solid 53% disapproval rating. So his best electoral strategy is to try to smear his opponent to appear even more unpalatable than he is. Worked with Hillary, so may as well give it another shot. This piece explains why Bernie is the candidate most likely to make that strategy work.

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/trump-bernie-sanders-socialism.html

    Socialism and banning private health insurance are just the beginning of the case against Sanders. He’s promising massive benefits, with no idea how much they’ll cost, in a country where voters broadly oppose tax increases. He says all felons should be allowed to vote “even if they’re in jail.” And he has a history of statements and activism that would help Trump frame him as a crazy radical: promoting revolutionary Marxism, praising communist countries, opposing private charities, demanding the abolition of the CIA, and blaming female hormonal cancers on sexual repression and other “psychosomatic” factors. Democratic candidates haven’t used these old quotes against Sanders. Trump certainly would.