Open mike 29/04/2019

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 29th, 2019 - 105 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

105 comments on “Open mike 29/04/2019 ”

  1. ScottGN 1

    Looks Iike Pedro Sanchez has won some sort of victory in the Spanish general election.

  2. AB 2

    I get that Simon Bridges is a right winger and therefore tends to be reflexively punitive towards the poor end of town. But the slushies are for the guards not the inmates. He seems to have inverted his own ideology and needs a dog whistling refresher course. Judith could help with that.

    • OnceWasTim 2.1

      And as someone just pointed out on Morning Report, he seems to have forgotten hair straighteners and curved screens as part of the Joyce/Coleman vanity project at the Ministry for Everything

      • McFlock 2.1.1

        limos with heated seats…

        • OnceWasTim 2.1.1.1

          Yep……..and all that's all just the superficial sort of stuff that gets into the media.

          Then there's what I'd call the 'James Casson Effect'. Something that's been allowed to become pervasive in a number of Munstries and Departments, especially over the past decade or so – and it's probably the biggest roadblock (at least so far) to what we've been promised from our current Coalition Government.

          We get what we deserve though at times eh? The signs and the record was there in plain sight for Ministers to see

      • cleangreen 2.1.2

        Once was timsmiley Yes it appears Steven Joyce is not preparing Bridges for 'election material this time.

        We wonder who 'Scheming Steven Joyce has in his sights' this time to take over National now?

  3. Dennis Frank 3

    The CGT debacle flushed out some anti-boomer sentiment from younger journalists, but one is doing a reality check on that bias:

    "Things look a little different once you zoom in a little, where the idea that boomers are exceptionally propertied starts to get a little murkier. According to the Ministry of Social Development, in the 2013 Census, only 60% of those aged 65-69 (boomers, in other words) were owner-occupiers, compared to nearly 52% of those who were aged 40-44. Compare that to the whopping 82% of those aged 65-69 in 2001 – the preceding Silent Generation – who owned their own homes."

    "More discouraging statistics abound when you dig deeper. More than 60% of those aged 65 and over rely on superannuation for all or most of their income, meaning they make at the very most $33,000 a year if they’re married, and $21,000 if they’re living alone. Those over 65 are the most likely age group to have persistent low income, and more likely than other age groups to drop into low income territory. 2013 Census data shows only 8.7% of those aged 65 or over at the time got more than $60,000 a year in income, the largest share (25%) receiving between $15,001 and $20,000." https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/29-04-2019/stop-demonising-the-boomers/

    Won't surprise anyone here, but popular delusions abound when younger generations lack the time and effort to discover what's really going on. Generalisations gain currency instead, feeding generational bias, whereas fact-based class analysis shows that the old triadic class structure has fractured, and the current fractured social structure provides a more realistic form of wealth and income grouping.

    • The Chairman 3.1

      Bernard Hickey has an interesting take on Jacinda dumping the CGT.

      One advantage the baby boomer generation had through the 2000s was it was larger and voted at a higher rate. But those electoral advantages are ending, which makes Ardern's complete capitulation for a decade doubly surprising.

      Voting rates tend to rise a bit as cohorts age, and that will happen as the bulge of millennials goes through the electoral system and become more numerous.

      Put simply, the electoral tailwinds for the 2020, 2023 and 2026 elections are behind any party that appeals to those aged 18-39, and they are the age groups that have been hit hardest by the explosion in housing costs over the last decade. This chart of the demographic layout for the 2026 election shows the contrast with the 2008 chart above: the young will overpower the old in electoral terms.

      Hickey goes on to highlight the volatile political landscape developing:

      The Greens would argue they are the party to reap this whirlwind, but a party of the nativist right could just as easily grab that support with calls for aggressive redistribution of wealth, along with tough migration controls and heavy state investment in housing and public transport.

      Scarily for the Greens, this landscape is tailor-made for a backlash against climate change policies that increase the living costs of the poor.

      The surprisingly strong showing of the Finns Party in last week's Finnish elections gives a hint of how volatile this new landscape could be. It opposed both migration and policies aimed at combating climate change.

      https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/04/18/543088/jacinda-ardern-just-did-a-john-key

      • Dennis Frank 3.1.1

        Agree, all relevant considerations. Shows just how out of touch rightists in Aotearoa have gotten in recent years, too. That pending demographic swing ought to be the primary design criterion in respect of a support party for the Nats.

        • The Chairman 3.1.1.1

          Indeed. Opposed to the likes of Trump in the States who took advantage of both the growing demographic and wealth disparity.

          • Dennis Frank 3.1.1.1.1

            Rightist here operate in a culture of moderation, or even passive pragmatism, whereas those over in Trumpland are vociferous in a culture of bigotry, denial, racism, you name it. So I think designing a new rightist party here is a different kettle of fish. How to be sensible, principled and future-oriented? That's what I'd design for, if I was with them. You can immediately see the problem eh? People saying "You're kidding. That's way less than 5%!"

            • The Chairman 3.1.1.1.1.1

              With Labour's growing failure to deliver coupled with the lefts focus on race and identity, it reminded me of what Steve Bannon said.

              “If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

              Bannon was tapping into an old American tradition. As early as the 1680s, powerful white people were serving up racism to assuage the injuries of class, elevating the status of white indentured servants over that of enslaved black people.

              Some two centuries later, W. E. B. Du Bois observed that poor white people were compensated partly by a “public and psychological wage”—the “wages of whiteness,” as the historian David Roediger memorably put it.

              These wages pit people of different races against one another, averting a coalition based on shared economic interests.

              https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-democrats-white-people-problem/573901/

              • Dennis Frank

                So, Joan C. Williams is a professor and the director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. She does contemporary class analysis (unusual for a law prof):

                "I wrote an essay for the Harvard Business Review in which I explained what I (a white, liberal law professor) thought so many of my white, liberal, highly educated peers were failing to see: that middle-income white people had voted for Trump not so much because they liked him (though many did) or because they were racist (though plenty were) but foremost as an expression of class anger. After the essay went viral, I expanded it into a book, White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America."

                "All told, I’ve spent a good deal of the past two years talking with progressives about the broken relationship between elite white people and the white working class. (I use the term working class to refer to Americans with household incomes between the 30th and 80th percentiles. This group, which has median earnings of about $75,000, is also commonly referred to as the “middle class.”) Democrats presently have a unique opportunity to appeal to the working class, because their base is newly open to a populist message: Income inequality has gotten so bad that people across the political spectrum, college-educated and non-college-educated alike, are feeling a serious pinch. Bernie Sanders got 72 percent of the votes from Democrats under 30 in the 2016 primaries in part by decrying the rigged economy. In the past three decades, education costs have nearly tripled at public universities and doubled at private ones; at the same time, too many people with a college degree are settling for jobs that don’t require one."

                The Pelosi blather stance hasn't contained any signal that the Dems are learning why their voters have been losing enthusiasm for liberal establishment thinking.

                “Why not just wait for the white working class to die off?” asked an audience member at last year’s Berkeley Festival of Ideas. I get this question a lot, and I always reply: “Do you understand now why they voted for Trump? Your attitude is offensive, and Trump is their middle finger.”

                Answer: no. Who would expect a Dem to understand anything? They even make our Labour folk here seem relatively clued up.

                "An important, largely overlooked 2017 study by the Democracy Fund’s Voter Study Group identified five distinct types of Trump voters. Two of them—Staunch Conservatives and Free Marketeers, who together account for more than half of Trump voters—are unlikely to ever go for Democrats in substantial numbers. (Free Marketeers may not like Trump’s trade wars, but many cheer his gutting of regulations.) The other two big blocs, American Preservationists and Anti-elites, each include about a fifth of Trump voters, and believe that the economy is rigged in favor of the wealthiest Americans. (The final bloc, the Disengaged, accounted for 5 percent of Trump voters.)"

                Such sophisticated usage of identity-politics is rare in political analysis. If it were to replace stereotype-driven over-generalisations, there would be a drop in the banality level of blog commentary.

  4. marty mars 4

    It is difficult when someone abuses you for doing nothing. Like abuse for an absence without any context or understanding just based on their own sad lives – still hurtful and hateful though imo.

    After the murders of our Muslim brothers and sisters in Christchurch I put lots of links and articles up to try and create change. A change for the better where hate and supremacy ideas are discarded, where toxic 'whiteness' and toxic 'masculinity' can be put away to allow non-toxic interactions and connections, to allow others into the space normally reserved for non-others. Some have taken that as an attack on them – if they are toxic then yes you need to change, if not then you don't.

    I have been shell shocked by the carnage in Sri Lanka and have really struggled to find a way to talk about it. So much pain.

    This link tells some of the stories from the horror over there.

    One week ago many dozens of children were killed in Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday attacks. Dressed in their finest clothes for one of the most important church services of the year, this was the first generation in decades to grow up free of violence. Their stories – and the struggle for the surviving children to comprehend the carnage – take the island down a devastatingly familiar path.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48048856

    I'm sending love to the synagogue victims too – and to all victims of hate murders.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/28/san-diego-synagogue-shooting-rabbi-wounded

    • RedLogix 4.1

      A change for the better where hate and supremacy ideas are discarded, where toxic 'whiteness' and toxic 'masculinity' can be put away to allow non-toxic interactions and connections, to allow others into the space normally reserved for non-others. Some have taken that as an attack on them

      Absolutely there is no question that Anglo-Europeans have dominated the past 200 years of world history. There is nothing new about this, at all points in our history there always was at least one dominant empire or culture that led the way for a time.

      But since the end of WW2 something entirely new has been going on. For most of human history empires endured for centuries or even millenia, but this is no longer true. The American's barely managed 50 years, the Chinese I predict will struggle to match even that … the age of empire is over. It's dying before our eyes. This 'white supremacy' trope you're so obsessed with is already a zombie, the British Empire is long gone, the Americans are like the road runner off the edge of the cliff waiting for gravity to take hold.

      There are already more middle class Indians and Chinese than there are white people altogether. Almost 4 billion people have escaped absolute poverty and entered a basic middle class life. Another 4 billion will follow in the next few decades. Twenty years ago places like Panama were desperately undeveloped, now I have on my cellphone pictures taken in a small town supermarket indistinguishable from anything in New Zealand. The world is changing at incredible speed everywhere.

      The scientific revolution began with just a relative handful of intellectual giants. People like Newton, Leibniz and Kepler were systemically developing extraordinary ideas at a time when their next door neighbours had barely gotten over burning witches at the stake. For 200 years progress was slow and sporadic, but then from around the middle of the 1800's everything changed. There was a literal explosion of technologies and engineering, resulting in the transformation of human life. The human revolution may have started within a small cultural and elitist confine, but was rapidly extended everywhere.

      Now the revolution is global and there is no going back to our old ways. Every nation, every culture has arrived at this unique point in our evolution along their own path. It was often a dark, brutal and tragic journey, but we made it. We are all the children of thousands of generations of men and women who overcame impossible odds to gift to us this moment in time.

      Because this is the moment in our story when we cease being children and take up our adult burdens. We are now responsible for our future as a species, and we must now repay our unfathomable debt to the planet who nurtured us thus far. This is the moment when open our inner eyes and seek out the hidden gems in each one of us, when the transcendent connections become visible. This is when we join together as one human race in all of our glorious diversity. There is nothing 9 billion humans cannot achieve.

      But this vision will crumble to bitter ashes if we cannot take the first step, we must first learn to trust each other again. Trustworthiness is the foundation of all things, without we will be lost.

      • marty mars 4.1.1

        Just pretend words from you – oh great gatekeeper of the status quo – self centred feathering of your own toxic nest – yucky

        • RedLogix 4.1.1.1

          I expressed myself clearly and sincerely in an attempt to repair the chasm between us. I hoped you might have risen to that.

          • marty mars 4.1.1.1.1

            "You just didn't care. You don't give a shit about the victims of these massacres, they were nothing to you if they couldn't be used to energise your anger and resentment."

            That is what you said to me yesterday. If you think your insincere, toady comments are going to get me to 'repair' with a sack of shit like you white bollox you are sadly mistaken. I can't stand 'white' supremacists mainly because they are so dim.

            • One Two 4.1.1.1.1.1

              a sack if shit like you white bollox…

              And yet you shout rascist at any opportunity while also sending messages of support …out the other side of your face ..

              You understand the negative feedback loop your conflicting messages create…right?

              • marty mars

                there is no conflict – bit like when I call you weeze and pooze one two – a play on words if you will, an attempt at wit, biting and direct for sure, to make sure the point is received.

                You seem really confused and desperate for friends – maybe stick to what you know – umm lol sorry lol – real world stuff is not your strong point

                • One Two

                  That you don't recognize the conflict your comments so emphatically portray, is unsurprising…it is why you can flip flop between outright abuse in one comment, then in another seek to signal your humility in offering condolence…

                  You flat out called others racist on a regular basis…

                  How are your comments not deeply confused, conflicted…and rank hypocrisy?

                  • marty mars

                    flip flop is an interesting one – you may struggle with this but here we go – people can hold ideas in their head that sometimes appear to conflict – this is called dialectical thinking – here's some very basic information for you to learn about this – and I've added the link to an interesting question – see if you can work out why it's relevant one two.

                    "Dialectical thinking is thinking that approaches insight by reconciling opposites. For example, international peace is a good thing, but nations must protect the interests of citizens — those statements can come into conflict, especially for people who believe in both. The reconciliation may be that nations must cease to be in one world, or it may be that peace is unattainable, or that citizens’ paramount interest is that their nation not go to war, or several other possible statements that allow both statements to be true."

                    https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-dialectical-thinking-and-critical-thinking

                    • One Two

                      All at an elementary level…you clearly have misunderstood…which is another indicator why you apparently can't recognize your own behaviours…

                      It's not posaible to reconcile your own behaviour if you don't recognize that a pattern exists…

                      Jekyll and Hyde is more where you're at, mm…

                    • marty mars

                      No that isn't why it is relevant to you one two – try again.

                • Gabby

                  Shitwit mardymardy. Never bite shit.

              • The Al1en

                He wouldn't – MM can spell racist properly wink

              • greywarshark

                Why did you join in 1-2. You really are a space-filler here, and a contentious one that I don't look to for authentic comment. Have you another home?

                And The Alien loves to get a kick in. A bit of argy bargy gets you all excited apparently.

                • The Al1en

                  And The Alien loves to get a kick in. A bit of argy bargy gets you all excited apparently.

                  Coming from you, Ghandi one minute, Dr Evil Mini Me the next, that's more than a little hypocritical, but at least I'm consistent. If I want to stab someone in the back, I always aim for the face so they see it coming. devil

                  Anyway, lesson learned, 12 is spelling ‘racist’ correctly now.

                  • Incognito

                    You know you’ve made it when you get on some wet blanket’s top five list.

                    At times, I feel so close and then my hopes get dashed, in such a cold unthinking way …

                • cleangreen

                  greywarsshark.

                  well said 1000%

                  I couldnt have said it better except others besides The Alien are roaming around here trying to tick off us all with their 'kicks'. like;

                  James.

                  Ad

                  Gosman.

                  Psyco milt.

                  ect'.

                  • Incognito

                    I feel left out! How disappointing!

                    • The Al1en

                      You know you've made it when you get on some wet blanket's top five list. 🙄

                    • greywarshark

                      Is coming here just a way to fill your time in The Alien? A personal mental fitness test that you undertake cutting and thrusting at other commenters and their opinions. Just an empty exercise which you consider is thinking about politics.

                      I am here because I can see that politics and the world is unravelling and most of what we have been doing and thinking over the past century has been wrong, as it has led to this present which finds us not ready to think our way to a reasonable future, but to acknowledge what is the actual present.

                      So amuse yourself child-mind, you have noticed how I cast around for different approaches to life and going-forward which could be helpful. We have to be adaptive, in finding a broad path to follow that all who are serious about living a better way that is practical and sustainable.

      • Dennis Frank 4.1.2

        Belief in white supremacy is an unusually banal form of conservatism. Multiculturalism made it irrelevant, globalisation left it behind, so anyone still clinging to that belief is delusional at best, sociopathic at worst.

        I recently read a book about cultural elites in America. Only some are white, making a strong case that skin colour is incidental to success (regardless of birth advantage). In The Triple Package: What Really Determines Success (2014), Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld identify three components which, in combination, create remarkable success for groups. Implications for political collaboration are obvious!

        A superiority complex is the first. Not, as usually understood, in a person, but shared as a key feature of the identity of the group: a "deeply internalised belief".

        The second seems almost contradictory: insecurity. It provides a powerful incentive for group motivation. It "runs deep in every one of America's most successful groups".

        The third is impulse control (traditionally part of self-discipline). It's "the ability to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task."

        They document this theory effectively in respect of various groups using social science stats. Also, there are 78 pages of notes prior to the index! "Every one of the premises underlying the theory of the triple package is supported by a well-substantiated and relatively uncontraversial body of empirical evidence." They cite various studies to prove that point.

        From the intro: "One of the two authors has written for almost twenty years about successful ethnic minorities all over the world" – that's Amy Chua. "The other has written extensively on how the desire to live in the present has come increasingly to dominate modern Western culture, particularly in America, undermining the country's ability to live for the future." So that's why the US leads the way of climate-change denial.

        • Stuart Munro. 4.1.2.1

          Globalisation has horrors all its own. The nation state is the unit of political accountability – globalism is a way for feckless politicians to betray their constituents. This is a lot of the reason behind Brexit – high migration into the UK (fully a quarter of the per capita migration into NZ) under EU rules actually causing poorer outcomes for UK citizens.

          So where is the accountability for these lousy outcomes? Corporatized governments love to gift cheap migrant labour to corporates in hopes of largess – how are we to contain their sociopathy?

          • RedLogix 4.1.2.1.1

            globalism is a way for feckless politicians to betray their constituents.

            All forms of governance has it horrors, from the family unit upward. Our present forms of globalisation are manifestly inadequate, but that is only reason to improve them rather than discard them.

            It took Europe centuries of bloody strife to get from dozens of tiny duchies and warlord fiefdoms to the nation state entities we have today. You'd better hope we get to a democratically accountable form of world federation much quicker than that.

            • Stuart Munro. 4.1.2.1.1.1

              What saddens me is that we are facing real problems – a backlog of environmental issues that have been left to fester while our self-styled representatives have sold off our dreams to chase the bright elusive butterfly of free market monetarism.

              They can't even fess up to having made a total bollocks of everything they've touched, but they're relying on a unified response to these crisies, as if they have some right to our support, these wankers who've sold us out at every opportunity and have been consistently too arrogant to listen when we've tried to help them mitigate their most egregious errors.

            • greywarshark 4.1.2.1.1.2

              Perhaps time for a name change to Resigned Logix, I'm tired of hearing about how the world changes over aeons, the get used to it approach.

              • RedLogix

                I'm tired of hearing about how the world changes over aeons, the get used to it approach.

                Maybe it was where I wrote above "The world is changing at incredible speed everywhere."

                Was that it?

                • Foreign Waka

                  Hi RL

                  It is always interesting to read your comments. My take is that nature will take its course. Everything dies before something new comes. We are the Dinosaur's of our millennium and with the current pollution and obvious unwillingness to do something about this, it will not matter what race or skin color or what the exchange rate of the day is. The damage is so much bigger than all of this. The technology to do some serious work exists but ideology, envy, greed etc is not having it. I doubt we have any time left for philosophy 101, let alone for some old fashion political discussion about the pro and cons of human endeavour. The younger generation senses the urgency but unfortunately, with those very old men running large nations, I fear chances are very very slim to get out of this one.

                  • RedLogix

                    I fear chances are very very slim to get out of this one.

                    Objectively, from a purely materialistic perspective I can only agree with you. You make a case for despair that is hard to argue with.

                    Some people here persistently misread me, imagining that I argue for nothing but the status quo. Quite the opposite is true; I point to the extraordinary transformation in the material aspects of human life this past 200 years as evidence that radical change is not only possible, but that we are living in it right now.

                    And that while Western civilisation may have been dominant it this process to date, this is nothing like the apex or end point of the narrative. The next phase is nothing less than the transformation of the human heart across the entire planet; everyone knows this.

                    As a simple matter of personal faith I choose to believe in the unlimited potential of not only each single one of us, but in the as yet unsuspected, untapped potential when we learn how to spiritually connect collectively.

                    I'm not talking of the trivial case where like-minded people make easy company with each other, but what happens when people who don't like each other, who clash horribly and contend bitterly not only find ways to trust each other, but are able to put into action that deep mystery in Matthew 5:44 "Love thine enemy". Then we will work what would look like miracles.

                    This is the pivotal point in our human evolution. A dear friend once said to me that religious history to date was primarily about the development of the sanctified individual, but now we had to consider what the sanctified society might look like. We have only the dimmest of ideas, no more than any random person living in 1820 might grasp the nature of our lives in 2020.

                    I choose optimism and irrational defiance of the odds because it is the only moral option available to me. All other paths lead to death.

                    • Foreign Waka

                      RL, I really admire you for your stance. It wont be our call though, China and India polluting the planet at a rate that is/will be irreversible.

                      We need to look no further than NZ: at the rubbish loads being thrown into the landscape, drink water being used to bath cows, or sucked out of the ground at a rate that will most likely salinate the water table

                      Yes, we should fight "the dying of the light" just to make sure that any ever so slight sliver of a chance is taken up to get things turned around.

                      Thank you for holding the torch.

                    • greywarshark

                      Thanks for droppin in Foreign Waka, and I follow your reasoning closely. This time you are truly prescient.

                  • Drowsy M. Kram

                    "I fear chances are very very slim to get out of this one."

                    That's how I see it too. The enormous increases in material wealth, comfort, convenience and security, and the enormous global population increase, have brought us collectively to a precipice.

                    What needs to be done is obvious – we must back up. Wealthy nations need to accept significantly lower standards of living (and spread (gift) their wealth globally), and nations still in the grip of crippling population growth need to find practical and moral ways to curb reproduction rates (a global one child policy might do the trick, if it could be maintained for a couple of generations – this might also precipitate localised collapses, but it would be worth the risk IMHO).

                    Neither of these changes will happen on the scale and at the pace needed to avoid toppling over the edge of our precipice – that's if they happen at all!

                    An alternative response involves continuing on the same path, further ramping up the pace of change and propelling ourselves skywards in the somewhat magical hope that humankind will evolve 'wings' before the 'splat'.

                    Don't want to be a pessimist – I prefer optimism. But we risk outsmarting ourselves if we try to negotiate with gravity.

                    • Dennis Frank

                      I'm with RL re faith in our future but have a problem with "we". I acknowledge holism is best, but I see humanity currently like a waka in which the conservative paddlers are trying to take us one way, and the progressive paddlers are pulling us another way.

                      You could break it down to past-oriented vs future-oriented. Thinking we will get a consensus on trajectory seems currently unrealistic. Best case scenario is more paddlers will switch to heading for the future.

                      Innate human nature predisposes most folk to conceive the future in terms of the past – we recycle attitudes & values we are attached to. For the first time ever we collectively must engage a traumatic global process, but aversion to accepting the necessity runs deep.

                      Things will have to get worse to shift those addicted to complacency, conformity, denial, business as usual etc. Ultimately, though, collective resolution must prevail over despair. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, as the old saying goes. Determination will get us there, regardless how much damage gets done in the process.

                      As regards the thinking of the paddlers, neither left nor right will prevail. Both/and logic will. Agreement on whatever works, forged under increasing pressure, becomes the only way to survive.

        • sumsuch 4.1.2.2

          Infrequent visitor here, but I appreciate your deep trawling for truth.

      • Awww C-mon 4.1.3

        Really interesting post Redlogix, (gee it’s got me posting and not just reading here!)

        A lot in there that I hadn’t thought of but makes sense, really like the point about the age of empires being over.

        Certainly lessons from the past but your right, the future will be different to what we think.

  5. Dennis Frank 5

    RNZ: "The New Zealand Herald yesterday reported that National leader Simon Bridges was expected to deliver a strong message to his caucus tomorrow that the only path to power was through discipline and unity." https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/387990/simon-bridges-responds-to-national-leadership-and-unity-rumours

    "However, Mr Bridges told Morning Report he never said that and the comments he made were in reference to a regional conference he attended in Hamilton."

    "I've come from a regional conference in Hamilton, they delivered a really clear message to me in our conservation". If you read the tea-leaves here, he seems to be sending the signal that conservation is just as viable a path to power as discipline & unity. Not many National Party members realise that the Bluegreens are more than a pet poodle, so he's positioning them as a pathway to power ever so subtly… 😎

  6. Morrissey 6

    The Grauniad, AKA Pravda, AKA Völkischer Beobachter is not merely a dull newspaper, it's a propaganda vehicle, “Assange’s principal media tormentor" and a "collaborator with the secret state."

    Part 1 of 3

    The night of Assange’s arrest, BBC Newsnight presenter Katie Razzell began in standard ‘impartial’ manner in describing his status: “Out of his hiding place and under arrest”.

    ‘Hiding place’ is BBC newspeak for ‘political asylum’. The implication was that Julian Assange had hidden in an attempt to evade justice. This was fake news, repeated on the airwaves and across the BBC website.

    One of the most notorious examples of Assange-related fake news was the front-page accusation in the Guardian last November that Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaigns manager, had met Assange in the embassy three times. No shred of evidence has ever been produced for this claim, which WikiLeaks and Manafort have both vehemently denied, and the story has been widely regarded as fake from virtually the hour of its publication. Luke Harding, the lead journalist on the story, and his editors Paul Johnson and Katharine Viner, have never apologised or retracted the story; nor have they responded to the many challenges about it. As we have previously noted, the Guardian has a disreputable record in publishing nasty, abusive and derogatory pieces about Assange.

    A Guardian editorial on the eve of Assange’s expulsion at least stated that Assange should not be extradited to the US: “[He] has shone a light on things that should never have been hidden”. However, John Pilger was scathing of the paper he called “Assange’s principal media tormentor [and] a collaborator with the secret state”, noting that its editorial had “scaled new weasel heights”. He continued: “The Guardian has exploited the work of Assange and WikiLeaks in what its previous editor called ‘the greatest scoop of the last 30 years’. The paper creamed off WikiLeaks’ revelations and claimed the accolades and riches that came with them.

    “With not a penny going to Julian Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The book’s authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, turned on their source, abused him and disclosed the secret password Assange had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing leaked US embassy cables.”.

    The editorial misled its readers on why Assange had sought refuge: “When he first entered the Ecuadorian embassy he was trying to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape and molestation. That was wrong”.

    As we saw above, this is a grotesque twisting of the facts. Indeed, the Guardian editorial was steeped in sophistry: “the Assange case is a morally tangled web. He believes in publishing things that should not always be published – this has long been a difficult divide between the Guardian and him”.

    Pilger demolished the Guardian’s obfuscation: “These ‘things’ are the truth about the homicidal way America conducts its colonial wars, the lies of the British Foreign Office in its denial of rights to vulnerable people, such as the Chagos Islanders, the exposé of Hillary Clinton as a backer and beneficiary of jihadism in the Middle East, the detailed description of American ambassadors of how the governments in Syria and Venezuela might be overthrown, and much more. It is all available on the WikiLeaks site.”

    http://coldtype.net/Assets19/pdf/ColdType183.May2019.pdf?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_trials_of_julian_assange_coldtype_special_issue_is_now_on_line&utm_term=2019-04-27

    “I have made a small donation to The Guardian because it’s worth it.”

    —-greywarshark, 28 April 2019

    https://thestandard.org.nz/the-herald-paywall/#comment-1611633

    • Rosemary McDonald 6.1

      She's a hard road working out which news outlet one can trust.

      I have it on fairly good authority that The Guardian is the place to go to find out what the establishment wants you, as a 'leftie', to think.

      After groping around in the convoluted cess-pit that is the Jackie Walker persecution and the commentary from the Guardian on the issue…https://witchhuntfilm.org/

      Somewhat surprised that Kim Hill passed up the opportunity to put Guardian journalist Freedland on a hot griddle.

      https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018692568/jonathan-freedland-the-man-without-shame-has-tremendous-power

      • Morrissey 6.1.1

        Somewhat surprised that Kim Hill passed up the opportunity to put Guardian journalist Freedland on a hot griddle.

        I was not at all surprised. She has a history of remaining silent as Grauniad hacks lie to her face. Did you hear her allow the notorious and discredited Luke Harding to chunter on uninterrupted last year?

        She has a long and dishonorable record of allowing U.S. government functionaries to smear and ridicule Julian Assange…..

        https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-hatchet-man-speaks-alex-gibney.html

      • cleangreen 6.1.2

        Rosemary,

        "trust nothing you hear or see.".

        Only trust your own powerful 'women's premonition.'.

      • sumsuch 6.1.3

        I remember when Freedland was the American correspondent on Kim's Nine to Noon. His book when he got back to Britain was about the virtues of the American political system his country could gain from. Nup.

        • Rosemary McDonald 6.1.3.1

          His book when he got back to Britain was about the virtues of the American political system…

          A pamphlet then?

          Or perhaps a simple flyer?

      • sumsuch 6.1.4

        I got angry listening to the Politics section of RNZ Nine to Noon today when it was revealed the supposed Left spokesman had worked for/ believed in the Rogernomics govt. The guy who tried to tell us the Labour Party preferred Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders. Why don't you put a pillow over my face and stifle me. Mike Williams being cute about that revolutionary govt before him, though he obviously provided all the details about the Left's objection to Rogernomics for Paul Holmes's intelligent column on the matter. Says EVERYTHING about Labour.

        And Trotter who could talk to point being forced out of the main media. Says a lot about RNZ also under Richard his-communist-father-a-much-better-man-than-him.

    • Ant 6.2

      Medialens has consistently, convincingly and exhaustively exposed The Guardian journalists over the past ten years.

  7. marty mars 7

    Good one.

    Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has stamped out any hope Brian Tamaki may have held of winning government funding to deliver his Man Up programme in prisons…

    … Tamaki has repeatedly criticised the Government for not funding him to deliver his programme in New Zealand prisons, despite never making a formal application as part of the Corrections tender process.

    Davis said there was no verified, independent research showing the programme has achieved success, and lashed out at Tamaki, calling his claims duplicitous.

    He said that, despite what Tamaki claims, Man Up has never been shut out of prisons, and has never followed the proper application process.

    “If they’re going to lie about the small stuff, how am I going to trust them with the big stuff?”

    Tamaki refused to comment.

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/04/29/555537/brian-tamakis-man-up-programme-has-no-future-in-prisons-while-kelvin-davis-is-in-charge#

  8. Morrissey 8

    Israel destroyed the Notre Dame of Gaza – but there was only silence from the West

    by TONY GREENSTEIN, 28 April 2019

    Since 2009 53 mosques and churches have been vandalised or set fire to in Israel. As is normally the case with attacks on non-Jews, the Israeli Police have not exerted themselves. Only 9 indictments to date have been filed by the police.

    What makes this worse is that there are sections of Israeli society who openly justify the destruction of churches and mosques on religious grounds.

    https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2019/04/should-we-set-fire-to-churches-mosques.html

  9. cleangreen 9

    Yesterday we sent this report to media.

    Government needs “National NZ Port Strategy”
    Sunday, 28 April 2019, 1:10 pm
    Press Release: Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
    Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre press release- 28- April 2019.
    “Government needs “National NZ Port Strategy” so Ports work together not fighting over freight”
    A new “National NZ Port Strategy” is needed here in NZ for export of freight.
    Today on News hub’s ‘The nation’ show there was a ‘Port discussion’ that was enlightening to us.
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2019/04/exclusive-no-point-investing-in-northport-without-building-rail-link-working-group.html
    After watching the panel discussion about the mess our NZ Port issues are about, we now see clearly that the current Government needs a new “National NZ Port Strategy Plan” for NZ Ports to be actively working together instead of fighting over freight, as the current model of ‘independent’ scrapping over freight is damaging both the regions and the loss of residential wellbeing in regions who undercut other Ports to get freight income from capturing ‘lower cost freight’ through their Port because those Ports are now operating at a loss and now forced to sell part of their Port as Napier Port is attempting to do now.
    Napier Port are leaving us with a legacy of a residential environmental disaster in their ‘wake.’
    History of CEAC meetings with two of our central Port executives; – At both Napier and Gisborne ports.
    2016:
    Our Committee was invited to the Napier Port boardroom in November 2016 to discuss the massive truck noise and pollution affecting all Napier residents living near the ‘truck network roads’ to and from Napier port, and we sought funding for mitigation for smooth quiet road surfacing and noise barriers and Napier Port said they had no money then.

    At that meeting we were sadly advised that sending logs out of NZ was virtually not viable for them, as the Port staff advised us ‘they could not compete with Wellington Port’ who were actually sending their logs out at such a low cost that Napier Port could not afford to compete for freight at those charges.
    2011:
    In 2011 we brokered a meeting with the Gisborne ‘Eastland Port’ Executives as we were asking them to use rail to move logs to their Port for export rather than using trucks.
    The executives also confirmed to us at the meeting that the cost to send each log out of NZ was so low that they made very little money on shipping logs.
    So it is now painfully clear now that we need to send a clear message to Government that the whole transportation of our export freight from our NZ Ports is in need of a reset policy.
    One that now can offer all forms of ‘land transport’ using rail and road options to make freight costs lower so freight is viable to ship from NZ while giving all Ports adequate funding to offer residential citizens adequate mitigation to lower the transportation effects of road truck freight noise and pollution adversely affecting all those living near busy export road networks to their local port facilities.
    Shane Jones, as Regional Development Minister, was also shown on a video clip saying he will be setting up an election policy to change the way the ports in NZ operate “independently” as he said it is not acceptable and needs to change”.
    We welcome Shane Jones’ position on this change.
    So we seek the labour caucus acceptance to a real Port policy change away from the current conflicting manner that all ports are currently undercutting the charges of freight at the expense of residents and Ports not having any capital to offer residents any mitigation.
    All HB/Gisborne residents living near Port bound trucks are now facing a legacy of a residential environmental disaster in their ‘wake’

    • cleangreen 9.1

      http://www.scoop.co.nz/?from=top-banner-purotu-1

      Business
      National weekly rent edges closer to $500
      Monday, 29 April 2019, 9:13 am
      Press Release: Trademe
      New Zealand’s national median weekly hit $495 in March after climbing 5.3 per cent on last year, as every region in the country experienced an annual increase in rent, according to the latest Trade Me Rental Price Index.
      Trade Me’s Head of Rentals Aaron Clancy said the country’s rental market was looking very healthy and this was the first time in five months that every region in the country experienced a year-on-year increase. “There’s a high demand for rentals across the country with a significant 28 per cent increase in the number of enquiries compared to March 2018.

  10. The Chairman 10

    Labour wants to impose control over the NZ media

    https://twitter.com/avancenz/status/1120933475484176384

    • Kat 10.1

      No it is not govt policy, Andrea Vance is just stirring, she know's it isn't, and you know it isn't. Hooten of course believes his own spin. Next week Labour will be accused of being flat earthers if a govt MP says they can see for miles and miles.

      • The Chairman 10.1.1

        It may not be Government policy just yet, but it seems it is something the Government is considering.

    • Gabby 10.2

      The media should face the same consequences for lying and inciting violence as MPs do.

  11. The Chairman 11

    How Russia wants to control the internet

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKn4CcmNRXM

    • Morrissey 11.1

      Have you Russiagate Truthers heard of the Five Eyes? The NSA?

    • cleangreen 11.2

      https://www.rt.com/op-ed/456667-internet-uk-control-vpn/

      It’s not easy being a government in the age of the internet and pretending to have power over something that is essentially beyond control, but that doesn’t stop them trying.
      The British government is ignoring its previous online mishaps and outlined tough new measures to police the internet, which is all well and good, but all it’s going to do is make Britain a global center for Virtual Private Networks (VPN).

      A White Paper last week detailed how the UK wants to bring in a “code of practice” for social networks and internet firms, giving it the power to be able to fine them if they breach it and perhaps even block offending sites.

      • The Chairman 11.2.1

        Freedom of speech confined within the "code of practice". The global influence of China?

        • cleangreen 11.2.1.1

          Yes Chairman

          I would not be at all surprised there.

          However I did glace at a program on BBC today about Google power over us and the guy explaining the power of Google takes every letter we place on Google into a large search engine to send to millions to attach their interest of selling to you their items.

          The google system uses algorithms to identify what we look at all the time.

          Scary eh?

          Bet China are using this system all the time too.

          • The Chairman 11.2.1.1.1

            Yes, cleangreen. Big Brother is growing and becoming more technologically advanced.

          • RedLogix 11.2.1.1.2

            Ecuador shows how technology built for China’s political system is now being applied — and sometimes abused — by other governments. Today, 18 countries — including Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and Germany — are using Chinese-made intelligent monitoring systems, and 36 have received training in topics like “public opinion guidance,” which is typically a euphemism for censorship, according to an October report from Freedom House, a pro-democracy research group.

            With China’s surveillance know-how and equipment now flowing to the world, critics warn that it could help underpin a future of tech-driven authoritarianism, potentially leading to a loss of privacy on an industrial scale. Often described as public security systems, the technologies have darker potential uses as tools of political repression.

            “They’re selling this as the future of governance; the future will be all about controlling the masses through technology,” Adrian Shahbaz, research director at Freedom House, said of China’s new tech exports.

            https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/technology/ecuador-surveillance-cameras-police-government.html

            A week back I thought I was being darkly funny when I suggested outsourcing NZ’s control of the internet to the Chinese.

          • RedLogix 11.2.1.1.3

            The google system uses algorithms to identify what we look at all the time.

            Why I use Brave.

  12. A 12

    Hell I'd vote for him! If nothing else he has balls. Aussie candidate shares social media post claiming world run by Jewish shapeshifting lizards.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/federal-election-2019-live-on-the-campaign-trail-on-monday-april-29/live-coverage/4c4e7062bfa29b1ca6994ad40a344028

    And after David Icke was banned from Australia too

    • SPC 12.1

      Of all of the David Icke alternative media view of the world order, he decides to believe the one about Jews being the ones who are descended from "the reptilians" …

      Lovetosee the proponents of this cite evidence in Jewish DNA (warning what Jewish DNA, do not have either common Y chromosome or maternal ancestry).

  13. WeTheBleeple 13

    WiFi causing the rising infertility? Short term exposure causes declines in sperm motility and raises their death rates.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12226105

    When it comes to the largest companies in the world like those selling cellphones, it is wise to ignore all PR and go to the science. I expect this study will lead to 'debate' rather than change. But there it is.

    I can't find the study referred to in the article (Kumiko Nakata is a bona fide fertility researcher). But there's others.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4074720/

    And again

    "Cell phone radiation may negatively affect sperm quality in men by decreasing the semen volume, sperm concentration, sperm count, motility, and viability, thus impairing male fertility."

    http://www.journal-ina.com/article.asp?issn=2394-2916;year=2018;volume=5;issue=1;spage=1;epage=5;aulast=El-Hamd

  14. The Chairman 14

    The Green Party says there's no contradiction in campaigning for donation transparency while calling for contributions to match an unnamed donor.

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/387843/secret-green-party-donor-to-match-contributions-up-to-25k

  15. Some Eco Maori Music for the minute

    https://youtu.be/hlfQVvsNLFk

    I see some producers are still trying to set Eco Maori up puppets

  16. Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.

    https://youtu.be/GKSRyLdjsPA

    Some people are trying to blame me for their actions

  17. Eco Maori worrys about OUR Kaumatua not finding the time to pass there great knowledge of speaking on the Pae Pae and other great Maori culture knowledge on to Te Mokopuna we must never let this knowledge go as that is what some peoples goals to make Maori look so bad that te Mokopuna don't want to have anything to do with OUR GREAT CULTURE .Maori have to do what ever it takes to keep OUR CULTURE Pumping. We must look after our kaumatua and there knowledge there is HEAPS that has already been misplaced or losted if we try hard enough we will find it Kia kaha Whanau.

    But historical traumas related to colonisation, cultural and language suppression through assimilation policies along with a move from rural to urban areas, which broke ties with iwi and hapū, had all directly impacted on the length and quality of Māori lives.

    "Everything around them was in turmoil," he said.

    The flow on effects ares still being felt as well, Edwards said, with some Māori lacking in confidence or ability to fulfil cultural expectations placed on them as they got older, including taking on speaking roles at the marae

    But historical traumas related to colonisation, cultural and language suppression through assimilation policies along with a move from rural to urban areas, which broke ties with iwi and hapū, had all directly impacted on the length and

    The flow on effects ares still being felt as well, Edwards said, with some Māori lacking in confidence or ability to fulfil cultural expectations placed on them as they got older, including taking on speaking roles at the marae.

    Another sobering statistic is the gap between Māori and non-Māori life expectancy, which is about seven years. Life expectancy for Māori females was 77.1 years, when compared to non-Māori females at 83.9 years.

    Māori male life expectancy sat at 73 years, with non-Māori men at 80.3 years.

    "And I ask, is that a just society, is that a society we can be proud of

    Ka kite ano links below P.S I am talking to my WHANAU about this issue of our GREAT kite aronui

    https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/103759887/tide-turning-regarding-mori-experiences-of-ageing-academic

    Some people still under estimate Eco Maori just blind with HATE.

    https://youtu.be/xkVMdwPkEyg

  18. Some Eco Maori Music for the minute . 

    https://youtu.be/Us-TVg40ExM

  19. Kia ora Newshub.

    I know why simon didn't get rolled I have hinted at that.

    Methanthamean is causing heaps of damage to OUR society why is methamphetamine higher in places with high tangata whenua populations its a big problem in Te tairawhiti as well a North land both with 45 % Maori populations.? ? ? ? ??

    We must be vigilant on our boarder security as if we get a bad disease that will cost many billions lost income to NZ.

    Its sad all the WARS being waged around the world at the minute I have said that it's the tamariki that suffer the most from WAR fools don't GET IT.

    I have come to the conclusion that intelligent people under estimate there mahi + the carbon barons money influenceing society that climate change is a hoaxes that has lead to the under estimate of glaciers melt and other facts about climate change .

    The beluga whale is a awesome creature we are there Guardians .

    Condolences to the people of Mozambican I did not realise that it was the same country hit six weeks ago by a hurricane OUR African cousin are feeling the brunt of human caused climate change Kia kaha people .

    That's good that soft plastic recycling in Auckland has resumed its sad that the rest of the country could not be included but is all about being cost effective.

    Condolences to John the African American directors Whanau I like his movies I have seen quite a few of them . Ka kite ano P.S had a bit of pressure to deal with lately like water of a ducks back

  20. Gregory you are barking up the wrong tree who can afford those expensive driving lessons you are taking about another point us how much driving do you actually do on NZ Roads not much at all I say it will be a plane ride on most of your journeys Deflecting the road toll road problems from the people WHOM are responsible for it.

  21. Kia ora The AM Show

    Insurance premiums rising it will be a luxury for the wealthy cause by global warming and climate change can you see how the common people are going to suffer this is just one phenomenon .

    I have a food allergy if I see kai moana I eat it I just found out why my children did not eat fish when they were younger long story it use to piss me off heaps of fish and only I eat it . the epiepen Pharmac issue I hope Pharmac can come up with a viable solution to the problem. Maybe get someone to come up with a better cheaper design to admit the drugs many ways to solve a problem.

    Children living at home till 25 because its to expensive to live in Aotearoa . That's the side effects of having a banker run the country for nine years setting the system up to serve the wealthy it displaces Alot of others and causes a big mess I see this all around the world . ?

    We should never stop learning new things when we don't we end up stuck in the PAST like some neanderthal.

    I agree with Chris people need to make sure there houseing is safe from the effects of climate change Yea plastic is a big problem for all of Papatuanukue. And I seen it with my own eyes building on land filled in with sand a tsunami or earth quake will make a big mess of these houses . It's cool having a well known person taking about plastic waste issues the Papatuanukue has.

    Ka kite ano P.S – – – – –

  22. Ka pai to Hangi Masters NZ in Auckland Rewi to much we need to keep OUR culture pumping and Kai is a big part of our culture Kia kaha .

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