Open mike 30/03/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 30th, 2024 - 32 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


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 …

32 comments on “Open mike 30/03/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Sanctuary 1
    30 March 2024 at 7:19 am

    If you still think NZ is an equal society where we all judged by the same criteria in the public square, let me disabuse you of that right now:

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/exclusive-interviews-family-of-kiwi-brothers-in-thai-prison-i-want-my-son-to-have-his-daddy-again/UHKOUTWABFDO5NE3XG3ARRSPP4/

    As far as I am aware, the Herald has never run a sympathetic front page piece on the anguish of a Maori mum at her son – a loving father – languishing in prison after a ram raid.

    Oh to be rich and have the ear of NZME.

    • Traveller 1.1
      30 March 2024 at 1:35 pm

      My reaction, after reading the allegations against the men, was to think that maybe the family would be better keeping a low profile, rather than hunting sympathy through the media.

      • Jilly Bee 1.1.1
        30 March 2024 at 5:00 pm

        Nek minit – someone will start up a 'Give a Little' fund for their legal expenses etc. As far as I'm concerned they can enjoy whatever the legal system in Phuket throws at them.
        I still can’t get my head around the fact that they were there ‘on holiday’ without their families – the mind boggles.

    • Kokako 1.2
      31 March 2024 at 4:18 am

      That is an incredibly one-eyed and paid for piece of "journalism". What a lax and corruptible media we seem to have.

  2. Stephen D 2
    30 March 2024 at 9:07 am

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350204033/great-business-employee-divide-doesnt-exist-across-tasman

    ”However, New Plymouth restaurateur Dicky Chatta said he would be “screwed” if all his employees had overtime rates, night rates and weekend rates.

    Chatta, who employed about 60 people across his six hospitality businesses, said although the rates might have a positive impact on employees, it would have a negative impact on revenues.

    “Weekend is the key, the majority of the business is on the weekend, for sure.

    “And night-time is a prominent part of the business [too],” he said.”

    Chatta said he would have to consider a 50% surcharge in the weekend if he had to pay such costs, as he would not be able to afford it.”

    What would be interesting to know is why would his business model not work in NZ, where it does in Aussie?

    • Cricklewood 2.1
      30 March 2024 at 11:57 am

      Likely down to high building costs ie the lease and a much lower sales volume with a smaller population.

    • Cricklewood 2.2
      30 March 2024 at 12:10 pm

      Its actually pretty hard to overstate how badly we've fucked ourselves by having real estate capital gains as our main wealth generator / investment vehicle. Property investorsdo well but the banks are the real winners.

      • Obtrectator 2.2.1
        30 March 2024 at 12:39 pm

        I don't see how real estate capital gains generate wealth. They're just a mechanism for redistributing it.

        • Cricklewood 2.2.1.1
          30 March 2024 at 3:01 pm

          I guess it depends how ypu look at it… it's more than redistribution and the capital gains create equity which in turn allows a bank to create more money via debt. Then by allowing people to access more debt to buy more housing ie increasing demand and the amount people are able to pay to pay for property.

          Eitherway through lack of regulation we've let the big banks completely fuck the property market so they can make ever increasing profiits.

          • Stephen D 2.2.1.1.1
            30 March 2024 at 4:12 pm

            Most commercial real estate owners are in for rental income, rather than capital gain.

            • Cricklewood 2.2.1.1.1.1
              30 March 2024 at 7:49 pm

              Return on investment is what they are looking for… they run a much longer term view and the big players like Wyborn Capital, Freidlanders or Winston seldom sell property but they still seek the capital gain to so they can leverage into more properties.

              You'll also note they send alot of money the rights way politically speaking.

  3. Joe90 3
    30 March 2024 at 9:15 am

    It's 1939 again.

    Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has delivered a blunt warning that Europe has entered a "pre-war era" and if Ukraine is defeated by Russia, nobody in Europe will be able to feel safe.

    […]

    I know it sounds devastating, especially to people of the younger generation, but we have to mentally get used to the arrival of a new era. The pre-war era," he warned.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68692195

    • mikesh 3.1
      30 March 2024 at 10:31 am

      Poland, sharing a border with Russia, may be justified in feeling unsafe, though I doubt it. Anyway I can't see Russia wanting to go to war with any country west of the Black Sea; just the opposite.

      • Belladonna 3.1.1
        31 March 2024 at 6:41 pm

        Given the open threats made by senior Russian politicians – Poland has every justification for feeling unsafe.

        (Reuters) – A top ally of President Vladimir Putin warned Poland on Thursday that the NATO member state was now considered a "dangerous enemy" by Russia and could end up losing its statehood if it continued on its current course.

        Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, made the comments in an 8,000-word article on Russian-Polish relations, saying Moscow now had a "dangerous enemy" in Poland.

        https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-ally-warns-enemy-poland-you-risk-losing-your-statehood-2023-11-02/

    • weston 3.2
      30 March 2024 at 11:12 am

      Its 1939 again !!!!!!! LOL isnt it always 1939 with you joe ??

  5. Tabletennis 5
    30 March 2024 at 2:41 pm

    SPC: A news article reminding us of an election policy issue of 2023.

    Sounds very promising: except when you know what Jan Tinetti definition of women is, it includes males who say they are one.

    from your link (17 September 2023)
    “Under a Labour Government we’ve seen significant improvements in women’s earnings. We’ve grown women’s average weekly wage by 34.3% – 6.4% more than men’s wages and outpacing inflation at 23.1%.

    Since companies do not have to distinguish between women and male transgenders, the NZ Stats on pay equity might be close to reality and perhaps not at all. We simply do not know

    • Ed1 5.1
      30 March 2024 at 3:31 pm

      With 0.8% of the population identifying as transgender or non-binary, I doubt that statistics of women's earnings and pay equity are significantly affected.

      • Tabletennis 5.1.1
        30 March 2024 at 4:55 pm

        @ ED1 – the fact is you wouldn't know, that is the point I'm making.

        The fact is with the younger age group coming through into the workforce, and an increase in male transgender and 'non-binary' among that age group,
        the figures become an average that can be very skewed with reality.

        Eg. Mr Lal now a research assistant in Labour, on good wages I suggest, is but one example. He will declare himself one day non-binary and on another day a male transgender (i.e 'transgenderwomen'), etc.

        The whole idea behind transgenderism is the put society organisation, as we know it into an unmeasurable vacuum, such that male or female are treated as if they are the same and progress or decline is no longer measurable between the two.
        The term male and female will be replaced by 'gender identity' as self declared by the individual.

        • SPC 5.1.1.1
          30 March 2024 at 5:05 pm

          Or worse someone will conflate a story about a health policy only impacting on those born women with something else.

          • weka 5.1.1.1.1
            30 March 2024 at 7:08 pm

            I would agree with this, except for the trans identified males claiming they get periods.

        • Visubversa 5.1.1.2
          30 March 2024 at 5:41 pm

          You don't need many highly paid blokes who decide to bring their fetish to work in order to skew the figures.

          I bet Pips/Pippa Bunce does not get a pay cut on "Pippa Days" – and I bet Rachael Levine, Eddie Izzard etc still enjoy the same benefits as any other person with the benefit of 40 odd years of male pay rates and privilege.

        • Ed1 5.1.1.3
          30 March 2024 at 10:11 pm

          My point was that a very small percentage of the population are transgender. Average wages will generally be calculated based on employed people and exclude the unemployed – a movement in unemployed is likely to be more significant than the movement in transgender people. If you think statistics will be affected by increased numbers of transgender people, do tell us how . . .

  7. Mike the Lefty 7
    30 March 2024 at 3:19 pm

    How did businesses manage in the 70s when most people got double time for Sundays? Somehow most of them managed to scrape through but in the neo lib 90s whilst nearly everyone lost their penal rates and extras a lot of business., especially manufacturing, folded.

    Something not quite right here.

    • bwaghorn 7.1
      30 March 2024 at 4:49 pm

      Nothing happened on Sunday in the 70s, not that that's a bad thing,

      And not excuse a boss who's business isn't profitable enough to pay its staff properly.

  8. Phillip ure 8
    30 March 2024 at 5:23 pm

    Product-breakdown/health- alert:

    Nice biscuits:

    I used to eat these..by the packet..and I hadn't for awhile..

    I bought a packet..ate half of them…felt shit afterwards..

    So I looked at the fine print…each serving has seven grams of sugar..a quarter of an ounce of sugar..

    This startled me…and more startle was due because each serving..is just two biscuits..(!)

    A quarter of an ounce of sugar..in two biscuits..

    And the headline figure is that a packet of nice biscuits contains two and a half ounces of sugar..

    ..and that is a lot of sugar…no wonder I felt crap…

    This story is repeated time and time again in supermarkets..

    And it only underlines the case for legislating for maximum amounts of sugar allowed in food/drinks…

    It is the only effective way to tackle our obesity problems..

    The manufacturers are unscrupulous…

    ..and they certainly won't do this voluntarily..

  9. joe90 9
    30 March 2024 at 7:12 pm

    And we wonder why…

    /

    The Danish health minister should “get on a plane and visit” some of the thousands of women thought to be living with the consequences of being forcibly fitted with the contraceptive coil as children, Greenland’s gender equality minister has said.

    In an attempt to reduce the population of the former Danish colony, at least 4,500 women and girls are believed to have undergone the medical procedure, usually without their consent or knowledge, at the hands of Danish doctors between 1966 and 1970 alone.

    The total number of those affected by the procedures, thought to have continued for decades, is understood to be far higher. Victims and their lawyers say generations of Inuit women were left traumatised and suffering reproductive complications, including infertility, as a result of the Danish state’s policy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/29/danish-health-minister-women-greenland-contraceptive-coil